Loss of Focus

At Byte Slaves we get annoyed by the little problems that bother other computer users, too. Lately for me it's been with my new Toshiba Satellite laptop running Vista Home Premium. It seems it's always losing its focus.

In the computer world, focus means the window in which the cursor is active. Typically that's the one you're working in. But often times the focus will change when an urgent message pops uo. Or, as I'm finding, when a not-so-urgent message pops up. For me it happens mostly when I'm in email. I've got a program that syncs my Outlook calendar with my Google calendar. Every time it runs succesfully it changes the focus.

I'm a touch typist, so I'm not always looking at the screen. I type pretty quickly, too. So when the focus shifts I'm suddenly typing NOTHING. And I hear "ding ding ding" every time I hit a key. That really chaps my hide. Especially when I'm in a hurry.

The bottom line is that I don't care if a program has run successfully. Whether it's my sync program, my email program or my anti virus. These are NOT urgent messages. They certainly should not pop to the front of whatever I'm doing and make me click OK

If you have programs that are doing this, please take a moment to visit the company's support or customer service page and let them know you don't appreciate these little messages. If they get enough feedback maybe they'll make a change.