ATMs

[rant] Why the heck do I have to tell the ATM that I speak English. Why isn't it embedded on the card. If for some reason that damn thing lacks the space to hold my language preference, then at least my bank ATMs should be able to remember it. [/rant]

I am seeing these ads on tv about Bank of America and their cool ATMs. I can't wait for that kind of stuff. Those seem like they would make life easier. I would sure make me feel safer and secure when conducting deposits. I hate the way it works now.

Windows Calculator

Why is the Windows Calculator display so small. I can't find any options either to make the number area bigger.

A Windows Dashboard

[rant]

Why is it such a pain to see what is going on in a windows box? I am trying to develop a decently sized application, but there are so many different silos of application information that it is hard to keep a handle on them all. I know that the MMC tried to fix this, and even though it is a huge improvement, IT managers and developers still need a lot more. I think that MSFT can make this happen. MSFT needs to take what they are doing with the Win2k3 "Manage your server" dashboard and add more functionality. Like the ability to develop a plugin that shows bandwidth usage. Or a plugin that shows your websites and their traffic health displayed on a graph. A plugin that shows you SQL server and whats going on in there. Something that will let you see a group of servers and monitor their health.

I do not place the entire responsiblity on MSFT to develop this, but I believe they should develop the framework that lets us implement these things. .Net is a huge step forward and everything should be accessible through .Net. Can't wait for Longhorn!

Here are the list of things I have to do to manage my application.

• Manage
  • SQL Server
    • Security Settings
  • IIS
    • Websites
    • Web Services
    • Security Settings
  • MSMQ
    • Queues
    • Security Settings
  • Event Logs
    • Watch for new info
    • Filter out crap messages
    • Security Settings
  • Services
    • Who is running
    • Who should/should not be running
    • Security Settings
  • Performance Counters
    • Where is the congestion
  • GAC
    • What is in there
    • What hasn't been used (ie what needs to be removed)
    • Security Settings
  • Registry
    • Setup and view event logs
    • EntLib management
    • Security Settings

I do all of this, rather I try to do all of this on three machines and I know that this is a tiny installation of servers but as a one man operation it is a lot to do. I think that the VS.Net did a great job of going in the right direction. But lets kick it up a notch. Pain points:

• It is still a cryptic game to see what is running on my box. More information on Processes running in task manager (Filepath?) a right click for as much info as possible.
• A Performance tab that lay people can understand. Commit Charge? PF(Page File) Usage? There are no explanations for any of these things and what they mean. Why not a health graph that points out the bad areas and links to MSFT.com for answers?
• Networking: Be able to actually see the traffic, as in what apps are sending data? and how much?
• An ability to group services together
• An ability to mark services/apps as trusted or not. visually.
• An ability to hide / group services so I can focus on problem services
• A better log viewer (Outlook?) how cool would it be to have an app like outlook for machine maintenance?

[/rant]

Hopefully Longhorn will solve some of these problems.

[Edit 06.10.2005] More like this. [Edit 06.11.2005] or this