Dear Windows Update,

Thank you for automatically installing those urgent updates to fix those new critical vulnerabilities in your own code. I heartily appreciate it.

However, once you have completed downloading and installing those updates, I implore you, please… ask me once if I want to restart now or later.

Let me repeat that:

Ask me once.

If I say “Restart Later”, please respect my wishes, treat me like an adult, and remember what I just told you. Stop asking me if I want to restart every 5 minutes. I will restart my computer when I am done what I am doing.

Sometimes, that will be in a few minutes. Sometimes, that will be a in a few hours. It’s my computer. I’ll restart when I’m good and ready. No sooner.

So… Get. Off. My. Back.

Sincerely,
Me

P.S. Here’s a fun solution — why not give me three options?:

• “Restart Now”
• “I’ll Restart It Myself Later.”
• “I’m In The Middle Of Something But I’ve Lost All Short-Term Memory So Please Remind Me Periodically That My Computer Needs To Be Restarted And Could You Also Remind Me To Bathe And Clothe Myself Regularly That Would Be Lovely.”

Thoughts?

Likehacker had two articles today that just knocked me on my butt.

• Lifehacker: “Knock down repetitive e-mail with Thunderbird’s QuickText”

This one tickles me to no end. If you are a user of Mozilla’s open-source email client Thunderbird (and if you aren’t, you should be), and if you find yourself having to use templated responses for any length of time, the QuickText extension is the way to go. In Lifehacker’s mucho thorough rundown on the tool, they describe it like this:

Is there an echo in your sent e-mail box? Do you deal with lots of messages that ask the same questions or require the same type of information in response? The QuickText Thunderbird extension saves collections of reusable text snippets that help you whip up personalized replies to repetitive e-mail messages with a few keystrokes.

Unlike other text saver utilities, QuickText is specific to e-mail because it recognizes variables that reference message details - like the recipient’s first or last name, the subject line or attachment file names. QuickText replaces these variables with the right info for speedy yet personalized responses. Easily reply to Lucy Wood’s message with a “Dear Ms. Wood” or Robin Cullen’s e-mail with “Hi Robin” using one keyword or click, no name-typing required.

Great for customer service reps, web site authors with e-mail contact forms, or any cube warrior who has to make sure there’s a cover sheet on her TPS report, Thunderbird’s QuickText reduces the daily tedious time-sink of processing repetitive e-mail. Live in your inbox less and get to the Send button faster. Streamline your e-mail inbox process by putting standard response text ready to go at your fingertips.

I love it!

• Lifehacker: “Compare and merge text with WinMerge”

Unix people will tell you to just use diff, but if you find yourself working in the Windows world a lot, any day where you find a program that compares two files and shows you where they are identical and where they differ is — and does it as prettily WinMerge does — is a special day.

Dare I say… a day to eat cookies?…

Thank you Lifehacker. Thank you for these tools. And thank you for giving me an excuse to eat cookies.

• MBoffin.com: “Full Site Screenshots in Firefox”

Oh, this is cool. This Firefox extension, ScreenGrab let’s you take a screen grab of an entire webpage, including everything that you need to scroll off the page to see.

I was about to upload the screen grab of this page, but it’s really freaking big.

Besides, you’re here anyways. You’re seeing it right now. Do you really need to be on this page and then upload a picture… of this page?

I didn’t think so.

But it’s still cool.