Dislikes: Most blogs, flame-wars in forums and email lists, stupid people, tiny touch screens, NZ mobile pricing, fuel prices, the necessity for breakfast and its inverse proportionality to the amount of time available to have it before work, customers, shop assistants, people who say "Actually..." more than they say LOL, reduced product sizes for the same price - because it's now "concentrated."

Likes: Social media that is well crafted. Be it webcomics like XKCD, Facebook memes that are clever, LOLCats, a good book, a good book that I wrote, file sharing - the information wants to be free! Music that doesn't use auto-tune, friending people on facebook that you actually know and like but haven't seen in years and having a damn good catch up.

OMG, CLIPPING, YES. That was actually the main reason I upgraded my surround sound system. Our HTIB was good and all, but I think one of our speakers got damaged when we turned it up, and you could hear slight distortion from it when the volume was too loud (which wasn't evident in any of the other speakers). When I bought some new floor-standing speakers (Wharfedale Diamond 9.5s, they were cheap and a GREAT deal!), I was hesitant to plug them into our HTIB receiver I decided to buy the remaining speakers in the set (so as to match timbre, etc) and purchased a far more powerful receiver. Combined, I've got bigger speakers and I've never heard an ounce of distortion since, no matter how high I turn up the volume... even louder than when we had the HTIB. So happy!

Sure, now I'm more likely to face the opposite problem - I reckon if I crank my receiver up to absolute full volume it'll blow the speakers out entirely... but the noise level is unbearable even at the halfway mark, so that'll never happen. :)

Another one I havta tick is that dislike about writing a long post and accidentally changing the page. I usually write big posts and have had that sort of thing happen a couple of times: I've sinced learned to keep a Notepad window floating about at all times and start typing whatever I need in there; I'll copy and paste it into IE when all is good to go. Sometimes I'm particularly paranoid and save before posting too!... just in case my machine locks up when I post (it has actually happened once before, I wouldn't normally do it otherwise ;))

Admittedly I'm guilty of using lol at the end of sentences when I text for no real reason... but that's about the only time I'm guilty of that crime. D:<

I can't think of any likes or dislikes for myself at the moment... perhaps later. :)

Ah, the technophobes, I know them well. Luckily the ones I deal with regularly are well aware of their shortcomings - they listen intently when you tell them how to do a new thing, are more than willing to try it themselves & I've got them well trained to give specifics when something does go wrong!

My major dislike is that because I'm somewhat techno-savvy, people assume I'm some sort of guru. Telling me to do something I've never heard of with the vaguest of instructions (if I'm lucky), asking for solutions to problems I have no way of diagnosing, wanting to chat about the intricacies of network management or something.

I love the feeling of touching base with someone via social networking, but the flip side of that is then being in almost constant contact with someone you only want to catch up with every few years.

My current Facebook gripe is people counting down to big events - weddings, holidays, baby due dates. Every day, a new status: "147 days to Raro!" "2 weeks to the big day!" etc. Mark the big moments, sure, but every day updating the countdown? That'll just get you hidden for the number of days you just mentioned!

@Mazzykins #2 "copy and paste it into IE when all is good to go."

There's your problem. Stop using IE and you will be amazed at how many problems you solve.

@paul: Pshaw, Internet Exploder's not that bad... really.... ;)

@ Paul & Mazzykins

What about when you try to use Google Chrome or even Firefox to ease the pain from the fact that your work revolves around Internet Explorer... and then realising the coding is so bad in the databases you use that they're incompatiable.

Google Chrome gets rejected and booted out of the database. Firefox squishes everything into a small, compact corner and sobs.

I didn't realise it was possible to be so bad that only IE can view it. :|

I am afraid that your analogy with traffic lights is a little out of date. I remember the days when green lights were indeed quite commonplace, but in the last few years they have become something truly memorable and a cause for wild celebration.

How hard can it be to program their microprocessors to assist the traffic flow and not to bring to a complete halt every single vehicle that arrives, at every hour of the day or night?

My list of likes would have to include driving through Geneva last year, stopping at perhaps one traffic light in ten. And instantly the last vehicle crossed my path at those rare red lights, the light turned green for me. How hard could it be to make our lights work for us, not against us? (Geneva has a population of around 200,000, so is by no means a mega-city.)

My pet moan would be waiting at a red light in a queue of traffic for a lone pedestrian to stroll across the intersection, walk up the road to the bus stop, sit down, pull out, open and start reading the newspaper - before the lights changed green for traffic again. I swear he was halfway through the cryptic crossword before we moved.(Junction of Boundary and New Windsor Rds)

With you on the keyboard shortcuts. But where there aren't sortcuts I like my trackball - and dislike that trackballs are on the way to extinction. Much easier on the arm/wrist than a mouse...