I used to write a lot of native Windows corporate software in the 90's and 2000's and my standard login window was a floating draggable oval. Nothing else was oddly shaped but I did get a lot of comments on the oval login windows. It was a bit about being unique, marking my "style", and just because I could. I will add though in the 90's it did make me nuts when entire applications were wildly shaped and you had to figure out how to use them.

Editing this to add: I really miss that level of coding and working with Win32. I get that the world has moved on and HTML or some runtime flavour of it has taken over but I too lament the los of true control I once had. I hate that my stack can be broken because some runtime was updated out of my control or the crazy load times of simple projects. I know many today would say it was messy and problematic (and it could be) but it's definitely a lost art form.

Also the 3 pane GIMP experience.

I think that's just how early Mac Photoshop worked. So they copied that and didn't update it for decades.

If you're pulling 2TB of data you should be ordering it on a drive from them and saving yourself the hassle.

I restored a 2 TB drive via the net no problem from them some years back, although I didn't use the client, but downloaded one massive ZIP file from the web interface.

Well, "no problem" is an overstatement. Once you need a restore, you learn that their promise of end-to-end encryption is actually a lie. (As in, you have to break the end-to-end encryption to restore since everything has to be decrypted on their servers.)

I've backed up and restored ~14-15TB[0] with their B2 product. IIRC sync each way took three or four days, not really that bad. I used rclone, though, not any official client. And that's B2, not their "unlimited" backup service.

[0] My home file server, migrating a four-disk mirrored-pairs ZFS array to RAID5 including replacing the smaller pair of disks with ones matching the larger pair, so the old ZFS filesystem had to be totally destroyed in the process and I needed somewhere to put the data for the like 15 minutes the logical disk wouldn't exist in any form. The alternative would have been to build an entire new four-disk array, doubling the disk cost of the project and requiring some kind of second host-machine. This approach saved me $400 or more, probably wouldn't have attempted it otherwise, cost would have been too high. Ended up costing somewhere in the tens of dollars as I recall.

Why? They were promised web access. They should be able to use web access. Does the marketing say "web access for restores until 1TB" or similar?

I was hired in the early 90's by a collection of franchises for a home care company. The privately owned head office self-developed and distributed required monthly updates to the only software franchises were permitted to run their business. The monthly updates (floppies) reset the license for another month at each location. After years of problems, poor support, and in a couple cases offices getting shut down because head office just "didn't like them anymore", they banded together to sue the owners (one of which developed the software). I did IT work for a couple of the offices and was already familiar with maintaining the software / systems. They hired me to bypass the licensing code which was a lot of fun to figure out. In the end I wrote a DOS based license generator each office had that could update their software by just getting a code over the phone for the upcoming month (or any date for 365 days). A few years later once the lawsuit settled and the company broke apart we issued a patch for the software to remove the license check completely. I should fire up DOSBox sometime so I can play with that old software again.

Let it be a choice, with the mandate that if you opt out and later contract it there will be no state funded assistance down the road. Your choice shouldn't be a burden on the system.

But that choice endangers others too. Some people can’t get vaccinated.

And being a choice often means you have to pay yourself to get it because it isn’t covered by health insurance.

So bad for poor people again

I loved Dilbert and I really believe that you often have to separate art from artist if you want to enjoy many things. He put a very unique perspective on corporate and tech environments that made me laugh. Sad to see a human pass but also sadder that later he expressed some disappointing opinions that diminished his contributions.

First thing I do on any Windows machine is uninstall OneDrive anywhere possible. It's caused me enough grief that I just avoid it entirely at this point.

We were on the same page. I also built something similar for a Conveyor company here in Canada in the early 90's. We parameterized all their tech drawings (or at least the initial versions) from their component libraries. Was a great project. Not sure how long they used it, they eventually acquired the resources to support it internally (I was an independent AutoLISP contractor). Good times back then. I haven't done AutoLISP in years now but great to see it's still around.

Ha, so I wasn't alone! Conveyors are a perfect fit - standardized components, parametric variations. The pattern was obvious once you saw it. Good to know it worked for you too.

I have a folder in my server where I archive the last several versions (usually 3-5) of all software I install. It would have helped in this situation but the main reason I started doing it >25 years ago is in case companies disappeared.

Perhaps I say at all the wrong (right?) hotels but... I stay in close to two dozen North American hotels a year and I haven't noticed this trend? Many have pocket doors but I can't think of a hotel in recent memory that was missing it completely. I usually partially close them so it's not as cold getting out of a shower so I hope I would have taken note if it wasn't there.

It's been a while since I've stayed in one but separation in Yotels seemed to be pretty much missing. Can't think of other chains in particular.

I rode in one of these in Phoenix in June, loved the experience! Had to go to a pharmacy so purposely picked one a half hour across the city so I could just watch the car perform. Felt like the future (though it did glitch once). Made a sudden turn off the road into a parking lot, did a lap of the outside of the parking lot, and exited back onto the same road to continue on. Must have thought something was blocking the road and made a detour around it? Other than that it seemed pretty flawless.