Rands What day is it?

No Mo Vay-Kay

Hi. I’m back.

I’ve got a delightful stalking column brewing, but in the meantime, a small rant.

WHY THE FUCK do both Windows XP and Mac OS X not have the ability to include the date in their utilities which display time? I’m constantly wondering what the hell day it is and neither OSes, out of the box, give you the option to display the date.

How in the world could such a simple, easy feature be ignored by BOTH major operating system vendors? What am I missing? What tactical advantage is there to NOT knowing the date.

(Yes, there are third party apps up the wazoo which do this)

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21 Responses

  1. JayBees 22 years ago

    It’s actually just twice the normal height in XP to show the date, day, and time.

  2. Irk 22 years ago

    In MacOSX, hold down the mouse button on the time; you can see the date there, or you can reconfigure it to show the day of the week.

  3. Gigantic Throbber 22 years ago

    Actually, XP can. The trick is that you have to make the task bar at the bottom higher than the single line it defaults to. I believe if you make it three times the normal height, it not only tells the date, but the day of the week as well. I think they had to get rid of it in OSX to make room for more flashy, spastic icons.

  4. JayBees 22 years ago

    Yeah, it sucks to take up another line, but I’m running at 1280×1024, so it’s not too big of a deal. The trick is to take all those icons off the damned desktop and throw them in your toolbar. It’s easier access, gives you an excuse to take up that extra line, and it’s uh…easier access. Windows+D is for suckers. I really only use my desktop for documents I use a lot rather than programs. YMMV.

  5. rands 22 years ago

    I didn’t know that expanding the toolbar vertically in XP would do the trick, that is cool. Problem is I don’t want to sacrifice another LINE of valuable screen real estate to do so.

    As of OSX, I was unaware there was a configuration to do so — I’d given it a cursory look, but WILL LOOK AGAIN.

    THANKS GANG.

  6. yojauta 22 years ago

    Similar to the OSX trick, in XP you don’t have to sacrifice screen space — you can hover over the time and it will show a tooltip with the complete date.

  7. h0h0magic 22 years ago

    type “cal” dood.

  8. Stonewall Jackson 22 years ago

    Hey JayBees, I’m running 1600×1200, so SUCK MY COCK.

    Also as long as we’re on the subject, how do I do it in Windows 2000?

    Other than hover and wait for a motherfucking tooltip?

  9. yojauta 22 years ago

    A tooltip pops up after less than a second… are you seriously that impatient?

  10. Stonewall Jackson 22 years ago

    This information needn’t be stuck in it’s own corner – it needn’t be on the uppermost visual layer, as it is on the start bar or whatever you faggots call it (my school made my buy a PC…my motherfucking art school). You could have it on the desktop pretty easily.

    Actually, that’s a handy dandy way to do it mister rands: take your existing wallpaper and design a webpage in HTML that fills up the whole screen and displays the date in the manner you see fit (using your existing wallpaper as the background image). Then make your desktop that webpage.

    DESIGN IN ACTION

  11. InsomniaticSmurf 22 years ago

    I know Rands hinted at this, but is it really that hard too just download one of those nifty little programs like TClock? Ehh, I just didn’t see the point of so much angst when it is so easily remedied…

    Hi, I’m Stephen by tha way…

  12. rands 22 years ago

    I’m with Stonewall.

    It is unacceptable to not have the date sitting there on my screen.

    So, yes, I am that impatient and, yes, I move that fast.

  13. dprk 22 years ago

    Mine (XP SP1) shows only the day of the week at twice the normal height.

    Anyone know how to change this? It’s been pissing me off.

  14. Tim Moore 22 years ago

    Anyone that is using any version of Windows, I highly recommend going to http://www.dqsd.net/ and getting Dave’s Quick Search Deskbar. It was originally designed to be a little google search box that shows up in your taskbar, but there are actually dozens of very useful things that it does. For one thing, it shows a clock when you’re not typing in it, and it can show the full day of the week, date, and time (or not, depending on how big you make it) so you can disable the normal Windows taskbar clock. And if you right-click it, it pops up a full calendar-widget-thing. And you can also use it as a mini-command line of sorts. Really, just get it and play around with it and you’ll be happier for it.

  15. InsomniaticSmurf 22 years ago

    This is a very interesting topic after it’s been rolling around in my head for a little bit. Could 2 or 3 extra options prove disasterous? Isn’t the goal for any OS to be stable, productive, and usable (the clock pertaining to the prior two)?

    Checking out the clock options available on WinME, all I can do is disable it and set it. Maybe they just skipped that area of the OS? So simple, yet oddly unavailable.

  16. rands 22 years ago

    Ok, so there are third party tools which do this job, but both of the above (last time I checked… two months) did not use the new chrome Fisher Price toy look of WinXp.

    Both tools rock and I’ve used both extensively, but TClockEx is no longer supported (dumb, open source it, dude) and DQSD needed all sorts of tweaks to make it not look garish and clunky.

    Again, why is such a simple thing not sitting IN YOUR FACE on the desktop.

  17. JayBees 22 years ago

    In the same spirit of time-saving user interface sweetness, if you use sites with HTTP-GET a lot (who the hell doesn’t?), then install http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/webaccess/ie5wa.exe

    After you restart your computer, turn on the Links toolbar (yeah, the red-headed stepchild of toolbars) in IE, and click the “Quick Search” button that the installer put there. Then, in the window that pops up, enter “gg” in the Shortcut field, change Search to “Custom URL” and enter http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%s for the URL. Click OK and then Save.

    Now, to search Google for “BIG GAY DICK” type “gg big gay dick” in the address bar (without the quotes).

    You can add whatever search engines or whatever that you want, as long as they use HTTP-GET (e.g., I have e2 as a shortcut for everything2.com and dic as a shortcut for dictionary.com).

  18. Annoying Linux Guy 22 years ago

    Linux has all this shit built in, out of the bizox. DOWN WITH MICROSUCK WINBLOWS!!!

  19. dhalgren 22 years ago

    T RANDS:

    On OS X, there is the Date and Time menubar clock that can show the day of the week.

    But there’s also an application called ‘Clock’ in the /Applications folder. Launch it and set prefs for ‘Digital’ mode. You’ll get a big fat calendar staring you right in the fat fucking face, and you can put it anywhere you want and make it as transparent as you like (or not at all.)

    It won’t tell you what year it is, so for those really extended porn-viewing sessions that catapult you back and forth in the space-time continuum, you’ll want to go to a third-party app.

    Hope this helps.

  20. rands 22 years ago

    WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP TELL ME THERE ARE THIRD PARTY OF BUILT IN APPS WHEN I CLEARLY SAID (TWICE) THAT I WANT THE OS TO BE ABLE TO FULFILL MY EVERY REQUEST.

    CHRIST NUTS.

  21. dhalgren 22 years ago

    Because I wanted a cheap excuse to talk about jerking myself back and forth in the space-time continuum, spurtling cosmic spooge like little spermy stars all over your right ascension.

    Perhaps this indicates, mister rands, that you are derelicting your duties to your audience, and should instead regale us with more stories of cheap strippers and puddles of liquor-smelling vomit?

    (OBAFGKM)