Ubuntu usabilty is going downhill

I have a serious usability issue with the MI at a corporate installation.

When a new instant message is received with the chat window closed, we have to navigate a menu to interact with it. Click-Navigate-click. Before, we simply double-clicked the flashing icon and the window appeared. This might not seem like much to many of you, but they have to deal with 100-150 email/IM interactions a day. This is a major PITA.

I've deployed Lucid on about 6 desktops with individuals all expressing the same problem. I've delayed the roll-out on the additional machines until I could determine the suitability for deployment for the rest of the organization.

The general perception is that NotifyOSD is taunting them with the message without an immediate solution. This isn't a fair characterization, but it persists. People are a little frustrated. I'm going to have to pull the MI at this location if I'm going to continue to deploy Lucid.

They've been running lucid since beta1. That's about two months. With the current rate of interactivity, if they haven't learned it by now, they aren't going to.

Is this a corner case? I'll leave it for you to decide.

Celebrity Muses

After the Quail Hollow golf tournament was over and Tiger failed to qualify, I started wondering about the reasons for his failure. Most of sport writers assumed that it was the recent public revelations of his infidelity and the distractions associated with it.

However, what if the issue is a little deeper. One could argue that as a professional athlete, Tiger knew exactly what he needed to be at the best in the his game. And perhaps the quenching of his libido with a harem of trashy chicks might have had medicial purposes. Medical science has established the people will subconsciously self-medicate. Perhaps these dalliances are necessary to perform at his level?

Another related example is that of Aaron Sorkin, the writer for "The West Wing", "Sport Night" and few other well known TV shows and films. He had a rather public arrest at an airport with marijuana, mushrooms and other assorted mind altering substances. At first, he stated that he used them for the creative process. But then the PC police cracked down and he "admitted" he had a problem. Went through rehab and everything. Hasn't written a descent script since.

In the PC world, Tiger was probably just a skirt chaser. But in the UW world, maybe not...