You're here for the fic; all of it is also on my personal site.
I have — sigh — three different instant messaging programs sitting in my system tray.
In the process of booting my computer, as I start other programs and try to use them, two of these fuckers steal input focus as part of their own startup. At least one of them does it more than once.
There has got to be a better way.
stealing input focus is one of those features where Raymond Chen asks app developers to imagine "what would happen if two programs did this"
that's his way of saying it's not a good idea
alas, it turns out the practical answer is that every program competes to be the one doing it the most times
