Also, I can't use my external monitor without running this script:

xrandr --newmode "1680x1050_60.00"  147.14  1680 1784 1968 2256  1050 1051 1054 1087  -HSync +Vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA 1680x1050_60.00
xrandr --output VGA --mode 1680x1050_60.00

Pretty annoying. The Display configuration in Ubuntu (System -> Preferences -> Display) also doesn't list my external monitor's native resolution, even when I boot up my laptop with the external screen attached and set as the main display (by pressing the 'Switch to external monitor' button-thingamajiggy on my laptop). Probably a BIOS issue, but it would be nice if it would simply let me add a new mode by entering a resolution.

Hopefully 2010 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. 2009 sure ain't.

/etc/transmission-daemon# cat settings.json | grep rpc-
 "rpc-authentication-required": 0,
 "rpc-enabled": 1,
 "rpc-password": "",
 "rpc-port": 9091,
 "rpc-username": "",
 "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,192.168.1.*",
 "rpc-whitelist-enabled": 1,
/etc/transmission-daemon# /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start
* Starting bittorrent daemon transmission-daemon                [ OK ]

Yet still:

I've tried everything to turn authentication off, yet it still appears. Extremely annoying.

Also, if Transmission is already running, and you modify the configuration file, it will be overridden when Transmission is stopped. What the hell? Transmission should just watch the configuration file and reload it when it changes on disk. That way you can edit the configuration both on disk and in the user interface.

Anyway, this one day I was doing some work, and I was expecting an important email. So I switch over to Evolution in order to retrieve it. I hit F9… nothing. "What the…? Whatever, I'll just click the Send/Receive button."

Evolution Send/Recieve disabled

To my surprise, the Send/Receive button was disabled. Initially I thought it was because I had some modal dialog box open or something. No such luck. "Maybe", I thought "the send/receive operation failed somehow and now hangs". So I closed Evolution and restarted it. Same thing: Send/Receive button still disabled. This was getting annoying; I really needed that email. I tried closing Evolution again and this time checked the process list to see if Evolution was leaving behind some child process for the Send/Receive function. Nothing.

"Fuck it, I'll reboot my machine, I don't have time for this". Man, I gotta tell ya, it felt like the good old windows days all over again! Rebooting to fix a problem — pathetic. The machine comes back up, I start Evolution, and STILL the button is disabled!

Finally I give up trying to figure it out on my own, and decide to Google for the answer: Google: evolution+send+receive+greyed+out. It even turned up as a "Google Suggests" suggestion in the drop-down.

Results 1 - 10 of about 115,000 for evolution send receive greyed out.

Hundred and fifteen-thousand results. Guess I'm not the only one having this problem.
Can you guess what the problem was? Here's a little hint:

What a useful feature!

Really Evolution? Really?? I'm working in Offline mode?!

Here's a tip. If you're gonna add a useless feature to your software that does absolutely NOTHING (and it really does nothing) other than annoy users, at least:

• make sure you show the user a message that (s)he's now working in offline mode.
• tell the user what the consequences of working offline are.
• test it before shipping it (My wireless connection had already come back online hours before).
• kill yourself.

Offline mode has to be, without a doubt, the most useless annoying feature I've ever seen in a program. There is no need for it at all. It does nothing, except for annoying me.

Update: Cris spotted something in the File menu in the picture above: the 'Download Messages for Offline Usage' isn't greyed out. How am I gonna download a message for offline usage if I'm not even online? Plus, all these messages are already offline, since I've only got Local storage mail accounts (I retrieve my email with fetchmail, after which I have to hit the Send/Receive to fetch the mail from /var/spool/mail/fboender). Consistancy motherfucker, do you speak it?

Pretty annoying, right?
The first time it was actually kind of cute, but after about once I started to look for a way to turn it off.

Guess what? There is none!

I don't know if this happened upstream or downstream, but come on guys… do you really think terminal users want this?

My gradually growing, active dislike for Ubuntu is turning into hate.

Update
Smart-ass solution for a dumb-ass problem:

I already hated gconf, but at least it can fix this shit.

Top-right of screen, no Pidgin running.

Notice the power button. A nice, clear, understandable button, right? Click it, do stuff like shutting down your computer or put it too sleep. Then I start Pidgin, and it changes to this:

BOOM! Power button gone, replaced with inane undescriptive icon.

What the hell is that, where did my Power icon go? And what's that undescriptive green icon doing there instead? No-one knows what mystery icon does! It turns out Pidgin feels the need to replace the Power icon with some shitty useless menu that doesn't do anything the other Pidgin icon (the one with the green… thingy and the chat-balloon) doesn't already do:

Useless menu does the same as other Pidgin icon.

Nice work Pidgin! I really needed two menu's for changing my Messenger's status! Stupid.

I hate software.