Last week I went to a training provided by my company about Project Management. One of the best parts about the training was the instructor. He told some very amusing anecdotes about projects he had worked on in the past and where they went right and went wrong.
One of the stories he told was about a project a major technology company (but not my employer) did for the Mexican federal government in the late '80s or early '90s. The major technology company was hired to provide a computer system to completely overhaul the federal voting records and make all the records digital. This involved a lot of data entry at the central offices in Mexico City and registration of voters in regional centers. This was an important contract for the major technology company because it represented one of the first developing countries to have digital voting records and a successful completion of the project could mean many future contracts with other governments.
The first problem encountered was with the computers used for data entry in Mexico City. The major technology company started getting reports of high failure rates and very slow progress in migrating the data. The problem was how the employees in this area were hired. The Government was responsible for hiring these employees and rather than hire a temp. agency to hire workers skilled in data entry, the government sent people to the busy subway stops and hired people as they were exiting the subway. This meant that most of the people hired had little or no computer skills and little or no knowledge on how to treat computers. When technicians for the major technology company showed up to perform service at the office they found computers with food (tortas de tamale mostly) and drink spilled all over the computers. Generally the computers were treated badly and the progress was slow because most of the data entry was done by employees who typed using the good ol' hunt 'n' peck method.
The second problem had to do with high failure rates for the servers at some of the regional centers. The government was responsible for leasing the buildings for these regional centers, but had failed to check the condition of the roofs at many of these centers. When the rainy season started many of the servers at these centers started to get dripped on by leaks in the roofs. Workers at theses centers either didn't understand or didn't care that this was bad for the computers.
By this point news of the problems with the elections system started making its way into the press. Most of the articles didn't talk about the cause of the problems, but simply blamed the major technology company for "delays" in the deployment of the system. Eventually news of the problems made its way to the executive management of the company. Finally, the CEO of the company made a decision. No matter what the cost, even if it meant a loss on this project, the major technology company would fix the problems and complete the project on schedule. This meant hiring a temp. agency to hire qualified replacement workers for the data entry. This meant repairing and sealing the roofs at the regional center. This meant a lot of many spent by the technology company on non-technology solutions. The project did get completed, but at a significant loss to the company.
What did this teach us about Project Management? Well, for one, make sure that the contract spells out the responsibility of both parties and make sure both parties understand these responsibilities.
I wrote my first post for "The Apple Blog" today entitled Will Apple use the “Media Download” Patent?.
Could Apple start receiving a portion of every music download from every online music store, even Microsoft’s new Zune Marketplace?
I have heard many times that texting is much more popular with folks outside the US than it is with most Americans. I have seen some proof of that since I moved to Mexico, but today I have been given the definative proof.
The man sitting in the next stall over in the bathroom was texting . . .
while using the toilet.
What is wrong with these two stories from the online editions of two different newspapers? Is it that both site "experts" and yet give completely contrary advice? Or is it that one praises MySpace, while the other says that it is akin to an "Internet's red-light district"? Who are parents to believe?
At least somebody is "thinking of the children". In reality both articles are kinda correct. Yes, there are people out there who want to do awful things to teens, and yes they are going to look for teens online. This does not mean that you should ban you kids from MySpace or the Internet. Yes, MySpace is a great place for kids to interact and meet people. This does not meany you should you let them totally run rampant and never worry about what they are doing online.
One of my former co-workers used to say that one of the problems with how people view behavior in new technology is that people always try to blame the technology for the behavior. So if there are creeps online stalking teens the focus is always on the "online" part and not the behavior.
Or it could all just be a stupid discussion that only old, out-of-touch people have while the youth of the world reinvent their world with the internet. The hell with it, just watch this video.
Don Rumsfeld earlier today made comments on how the Pentagon and the U.S. government in general needed to use new methods of working with the media to get its message out. This would mean using e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and blogs. Now it is not that I disagree with Rumsfeld about this, but I just feel like it would carry a lot more weight if it, you know, came from someone who actually had e-mail.
Apparently the Secretary of Defense doesn't use e-mail. Now maybe it is just 'cause I'm a ignorant young'en, but how does a head of a major organization get by without e-mail. And where does he get off lecturing others on how they should use better technology to fight the "war on terror".
Also, not that Rumsfeld can do anything about this, but how about the Administration do something about the broken patent system so that companies like Research In Motion don't have to deal with ridiculous patent problem and can keep their systems running.
I've been working on some changes around my domain. First, I created an honest to god real front page at HawkTailDesign.com instead of the pretty lame index listing that I have had there for the last few years.
In doing this I eliminated easy direct links to our photo galleries, so I created Hawk's Eye to store all my galleries. Not all my gallleries are listed there yet, but they will be over time.
Finally, I wasn't totally happy with posting my photos using BetterHTMLExport from iPhoto, so I looked for a better way of creating and managing galleries. Luckily for me, just a few months ago, Douglas Bower (of Stopdesign) released some excellent templates to turn a Movable Type 3 blog into a great photo gallery. I've only added one of my galleries to the new system right now, but I am interested in feedback. Below are the links to my Peru gallery in both the new and old style.
Old Peru Gallery
New Peru Gallery
I've been thinking a lot lately about the changing nature of electronic communications. The main reason I've been thinking about this is my little sister. She is 8 years old and recently got a cellphone. Almost immediately she started texting her friends. I get the occasional text from her as well.
Then yesterday there was a study linked on Slashdot from the Pew Internet & American Life Project about the use of the Internet by teenagers. One of the most interesting conclusions of this study is that teenagers view e-mail as a way to communicate with adults, institutions and as a formal communication tool. When they want to talk with their peers or in an informal basis they use instant messaging. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but it is another reality that adults and institutions will have to adjust for. Companies who want to communicate with teenagers should start to offer instant messaging.
Finally, I just got done reading a story at NY Times about a woman's experience with an accelerated dating life cycle that she feels was caused by phone texting.
So is this the future of communications with the increasingly tech savvy and instantly connected young adult population? What are the consequences of this way of communicating? Should the the older (and by older I mean anyone over 25-years-old) communicators adapt to this way of communicating? This may be a false choice. "Should" may be irrelevant, if we don't adapt then we may just be left behind. The better question might be how fast can we adapt or what happens to those who fail to adapt quickly enough.
Yesterday I talked about downloading Netscape 8 and promised to tell you what I thought. I also complained about Netscapes stupid "Outdated" browser message. Well this morning from slashdot comes the story that Netscape released a patch to Netscape 8 so that it had the same security as Firefox 1.04 (the same browser they called outdated yesterday).
I used Netscape for a while yesterday and came away with the conclusion that it is a crappy browser. Netscape has taken the basic Firefox browser and added a bunch of crap to it. This includes being able to use the Internet Explorer display engine (god knows why). The interface is cluttered and crappy. Overall the browser has all of the problems of previous versions of Netscape and very few of the benefits of Firefox. It also use twice the memory of Firefox (both when active and hidden). [Time to buy an insult thesaurus; I used the words crap or crappy three times in that paragraph]
I admit that I haven't kept up on Netscape news much lately, but it appears that Netscape has removed Composer from its browser package. I used to not care about Composer, but it happens to work well with WebCT. I hope that they decide to bring it back, but I don't hold out a lot of hope.
I'm a sucker for new versions of Netscape. It brings back the days of downloading Netscape betas in my dorm room every few days during my freshman year of college. Those were the heady days when the Internet was young and the possibilities seemed endless.
So today when I heard that Netscape (or AOL, or TimeWarner or whoever) had released Netscape 8.0 I rushed over to the Netscape site to download the browser. And what image was I greeted with?
Now, I understand that Netscape probably has to work pretty hard to get people to want to download their browser, but I have to say, calling Firefox 1.04 (which I just updated a few days ago) outdated is pretty silly. Again, this is all marketing crap, but it is the worst kind of marketing crap. These fake error messages that are used in pop-up ads are intended to confuse users and make them think that something is actually wrong with their computer. This is the kind of tactics that malware companies use to get unsuspecting user to download their crappy spyware. It is pretty sad that Netscape feels like it has to trick people into downloading their browser in the same way.
Of course, I'm only moments away from installing it. I'll let you know what I think.
When I heard earlier this week that Willamette Week had won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting with it's story about the 30 year secret of Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a 14 year-old girl I was very happy to hear that they got the credit for breaking this story. This is probably the most important story reported in the 10 years that I have payed attention to Oregon politics.
Since my initial reaction I have noticed a few other things that make this an important award, not just for Willamette Week, but for Oregon media and the internet.
The first is that I feel like this award is not just a recognition of great investigative reporting by Nigel Jaquiss, but also a recognition of the missed opportunity for everyone who new about this story, but did nothing. Of course this really points a finger at the Oregonian who had hints about this story for years, but never did an exhaustive investigation. This is the second major sex scandal that the Oregonian has missed and been scooped on, the first being Senator Bob Packwood's pattern of sexual harassment (a story which was broken by the Washington Post).
A second important aspect is the fact that this story was first broken by Willamette Week on their website. I'm not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was the first Pulitzer awarded for a story which was broken on the internet. Willamette Week chose to publish the first parts of this story on their website when it became clear that if they waited for their normal weekly press time they would be beaten to the punch by both the Oregonian and the Portland Tribune. For the entire narrative of the events surrounding the release of the story on the internet, read "The Background" from the award winning Willamette Week article. Also, the original posting from the Willamette Week website is available. Perhaps in the near future an online publication will be awarded a major Pulitzer award.
Finally, I think it is important to discuss the Portland Mercury's Managing Editor Phil Busse's letter to the administrator of the Pulitzer Prize. (via the Portland Communique) In his letter Phil Busse gives two reasons he was concerned by the nomination of Willamette Week for the Pulitzer. First, he feels that the story "was not uncovered in the traditional, hard-digging investigative sense of the word." This is simply not true. While the investigation did move quickly (starting in Feb. 2004 and ending in May 2004) Jaquiss did a lot of digging and investigation of the allegations. Jaquiss may have been tipped-off about the story, but that is how many great investigative stories (including Watergate) get started. Second, he says that the story was well known and makes a connection between a founder of Willamette Week (who is no longer associated with the paper) and Neil Goldschmidt. The fact that the story was well know in political circles and not reported is part of what makes the story so important. The fact that a founder of Willamette Week had a connection to Goldschmidt is not relevant to the Pulitzer award. Also, Busse misrepresents the events leading to the publication of this story. He states " . . . both the Tribune and the Oregonian broke the story days before Willamette Week's story hit the street." In reality Willamette Week published parts of this story to their website a day before the Tribune and Oregonian. Busse knows that the reason that Willamette Week published their story in their paper nearly a week later has more to do with publishing schedules (or at least he should since he also works at a weekly paper). All in all, Busse's letter comes across as sad and embarrassing. Had I know that Busse was capable of such tactics I would have not supported him in his bid for Mayor.
Today was Steve Job's Keynote at MacWorld SF and as widely predicted he announced a new, small, cheap Mac called the Mac mini. At $499 it is the cheapest Mac ever and at 6.5x6.5x2 it is probably the smallest. Contrary to some of the rumors before MacWorld, the Mac mini is not a media center computer out of the box. It has the iLife suite, but it can't act like a DVR out of the box.
What is interesting about the Mac mini is how close it is to a Media Center computer. Add a DVD burner (which is an option) and a TV tuner and it is a Media Center. Add a Bluetooth adapter and a wireless keyboard and mouse, and you are ready to go. Elgato Systems makes the EyeTV 200DVR add-on for the Mac for $279. The Mac mini properly equipped will only cost $947 for a total cost of just under $1200. That is a very affordable computer, especially compared to a similar Windows Media Center equipped computer from HP for just about $1100.
So maybe Apple is getting close to having it's own media center-ish computer, or maybe they will continue to just let you do it yourself.
Webcomics are getting larger and larger and now they are starting to crossover into traditional media. Mac Hall and many other comics are offering their comics in a printed collection. Penny Arcade has held a fan convention. Many comic creators now make a living off of their webcomic.
Now Player vs. Player (PVP) is offering it's comic to any newspaper who wants to publish it for free. The idea is to drive more people to the website to generate more ad revenue. This is pretty smart idea that really turns the print comic publishing world's strategies on their head. My guess is that a comic like Dilbert publishes in print for hefty syndication fees and has a website mainly to drive people to the print version and to gain some online ad revenue.
Predictably, PVPs syndication idea and the general rise in prominence of web comics has some of the traditional comic artists a bit defensive. Take this Non Sequitur. Now I like this comic, but I think it is pretty clear that the artist (Wiley) just doesn't get it.
First, some of these webcomics are doing very well for themselves (as pointed out by Penny Arcade's Gabe). Second, there is no real reason that the next "Great American Novel" won't be posted to a personal website in PDF format so that people can print it out. It wouldn't even surprise me if the next "Great American Novel" was released on the web under the Creative Commons license. The web is changing people's views of publishing and there is nothing about printed content that makes it inherently better than web content. The sooner traditional content creators understand this, the sooner they will prosper in a digital environment.
Also, just because I believe that the current copyright laws aren't working doesn't mean I'm a communist, regardless of what Bill Gates says.
I made the above graphic after seeing the top story at Cnet's News.com was "Fur flies over first pooch". So let me get this straight, this was the most important technology story that they could come up with? What the hell! I mean, forget just for a moment that there are U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians dying everyday and that millions face death in the Darfur region of Sudan. Let's just look at more important technology stories. How about the fact that an independent study of Florida's e-voting machines show that they likely favored President Bush with couple hundred thousand extra votes? How about the story that the Congress is likely to pass a bill continuing the moratorium on Internet taxes? What about Microsoft's Steve Ballmer warning Asian governments that they better not use Linux or they'll get sued?
How is a story about the fight to webcast the president's stupid dog's stupid Christmas video more important? It's a f*cking dog in f*cking Christmas video, for Christs sake! How the hell is this "High Impact"?
I am not linking to the story and I'm not linking to News.com. They can suck me!
Speaking of the "Uncanny Valley", I came across this review of "The Polar Express" in which the reviewer gives the movie a pretty bad rating based on a poorly written story and the creepiness of the characters.
"This season's biggest holiday extravaganza, 'The Polar Express,' should be subtitled "The Night of the Living Dead." The characters are that frightening."
When I went to see "The Incredibles" this weekend I saw the trailer for "The Polar Express" and I had a similar feeling about the characters. There skin looked plasticy and their eyes and mouthes looked lifeless.
On the other hand, the characters in "The Incredibles" were very unrealistic, but totally convincing as humans. You didn't care that they weren't photo realistic, you just accept them as humans and enjoy the movie.
Update: Here is a similiar post on another weblog. [via kottke]
My domain (and therefore blog and e-mail) was unavailable from Sept. 3rd to Sept. 7th because I forgot to renew the domain. Woops!
A couple of days ago the folks at SixApart announced the release of the newest version of their amazing content management system (AKA blog maker) Moveable Type. A lot of furry exploded through the blog world about this version (3.0 Developer Edition) because of a new license model and price structure. This was especially noticeable in the Trackbacks to a posting on SixApart founder Mena Trott's weblog.
My first reaction to all of the negativity was that it was pretty silly, but I was waiting to hear from someone I felt I could trust on the subject. Who better to trust than the maker of the most useful (and likely most used) MT plugin, MT-Blacklist. Well the creator, Jay Allen put up an excellent post today entitled "The Collective Deep Breath". This post bring the sanity back to the discussion and urges people who are happy with MT 2.6x to stick with it for the time being. He also argues that blog authors shouldn't get there panties in a bunch about this version because it is not for them. As the name implies it is a developers release. Early adopter's have always paid a extra price for doing so (whether in crashes or cash) and MT 3.0 early adopters are no different.
I also agree that if this is purely bitterness on blog authors part about having to pay for the software they should suck it up. The price is low (and for many that means free) and the product is great. I imagine that many of those bitter about price have at least one Microsoft product installed on there computer. If you want to complain about the price of software (especially versus quality) I suggest you march to Redmond, WA.
So will I be upgrading to MT 3.0 Developers Edition? No thank you, I will wait for the next regular release.
Update::Mena put up a new post at the Six Log that should be read by everyone who cares about this issue. Also, Brad Choate has another sane post about MT 3.0 DE. And in case you suspect that the only sane posts come from people who agree with me here is one from Jason Kotte that I don't completely agree with that has this incrediblly sane ending:
"In the meantime, I've got options. My copy of MT (v2.63, for which I donated $45) isn't any less flexible or powerful than it was yesterday. It works just fine for my current needs, it will continue to work well into the foreseeable future, and I remain a satified customer of Six Apart."
I added a new panorama to my gallery if you are interested. It is from my recent trip to Cannon Beach, OR for my step-brother's wedding. When I post the gallery from his wedding I might talk more about the event.
A while back Andy posted about his panoramas and it inspired me to start shooting and stitching my own. So if you are interested head over to my panorama gallery and checkout my first four. The first three are from my spring break trip to Arizona and the last one was from my recent trip to Napa.
I used my Cannon A70 Digital Camera to shoot them all and then stitched them using Photoshop 8's built in PhotoMerge utility. It seems to do the job pretty well.
Last month I asked for advice on iPod cases. I got some great suggestions, but the cases didn't really meet my expectations. Today while randomly visiting the Timbuk2 website I noticed that they had a new case for iPods. I have a nice Timbuk2 bag and have been wanting a better place in it to put my iPod, so I think this is the one. Has anyone bought one of these? If I buy it, expect a review here.
The case that came with my iPod finally lost it's belt clip. So now I am in the market for a new case. It would be great if it was pretty small, had a decent belt-clip and maybe even an arm band. Anybody have any recomendations?
Update: Alan informs me that he picked it up before the Portland Communique. Woops, my bad.
There has been a lot of talk in the Portland blog community lately about decentralized neighborhood bloging. I think it all started with Sam Churchill's article on Daily Wireless. Then Portland Communique wrote about the issue. Then Alan over at Bluehole wrote a quick entry about it (which was the first to get my attention).
At first I didn't think I would have a lot to say about this issue. I think there are some great ideas being discussed and I agree with pretty much everything that is being said. After reading through a few of the articles I ended up at the Personal Telco Project page. This is one of my favorite community projects. These guys are solving that last mile problem and doing it on the cheap. Then I stumbled on a page about localized content and this particular sentence:
“many nodes have local wikis, which can be used as a means of community interaction”
Bingo. The light bulb went on over my head and I saw something. Not just decentralized neighborhood bloging, but WIRLESS decentralized neighborhood bloging. Now I am not the first to think of this, I am sure, but this just hit me like a ton of bricks. Why not have city funded, free wireless access in every neighborhood in the city. Run a wiki or a blog or some kind of decentralized neighborhood content creation thing on those access points, editable only by people attached to that access point. Allow anyone to view the content generated.
The reason I am sure that I am not the first to think of this is because the same Sam Churchill that wrote the article on the Daily Wireless, wrote up an extremely compelling proposal for a University Park Wireless community network.
The first question that I think needs to be answered is how we get wireless cable computers into the hands of those who can’t afford them. I think the answer, in part, lies in the hands of groups like Free Geek. Free Geek will give you a free Linux based PC in exchange for 24 hours of volunteer service. Now imagine equipping these computers with a cheap wireless card. Now you have a super cheap wireless access computer.
I think it is important that the City of Portland think outside the box when they start working on community web pages. It is not enough to think of neighborhood information access as simply an issue of centralized content creation. You must work to involve the community in the creation of the content and you must seek out interesting ways to distribute the content to the community.
So I am quickly filling up the 2 30GB harddrives in my computer and trying to figure out weather I should buy a new harddrive to get more room or just put the money toward a new computer fund. I don't have capacity for a 3rd internal drive in my computer, which would be the cheepest way to expand. I could buy a large internal drive and move one of my 2 discs on to it. I could also buy an external Firewire drive that could go with my future laptop. Any suggestions?
At work we are having a meeting to discuss our department's strategic plan. All well and good. This is important stuff that will affect my entire work place in very significant ways. So why in the hell did someone choose to use the worst font ever for the document? I'm, of course, talking about Comic Sans. This font is a designer's worst nightmare and a foe to all readers.
Just so you know why I hate comic sans here is the Ban Comic Sans website.
And a note from the creator of Comic Sans about why it was created.
Comic Sans is to fonts as PowerPoint is to presentations.
There is a lot of buzz today about Sony's new "running" huminoid robot the QRIO. I first read about it on Slashdot and I thought, sounds pretty cool. Just a bit a go I was at the BBC news page and I watched a video of it. The thing didn't really run in the traditional sense but did seem to technically have both feet leave the ground.
I decided to go to the Sony website and read a bit more about it. The website looks cool, but the text has a really creapy feeling about it. Take this part for example:
As the world becomes progressively more complex, we thought how wonderful it would be to have a navigator that gently changes with the times.
Now on the face, that sounds nice, but when you read a bit more in to this statment, it can seem a bit weird. Do we really need a robot companion to make us feel more at ease with a complex world.
An entertainment robot that lives with you, makes life fun, makes you happy.
Oh, I see, the robot makes you happy. This makes you forget the problems of a complex world. Phew.
QRIO is eager to be friends with people.
Thank god, I thought he might be one of those evil robots from the Matrix or Terminator.
Maybe I am reading a bit to much into this. Maybe the strange feeling I get is because the script was translated from Japanese to English. For now I will be happy to keep these robots at arms distance.
So a guy just brought in a new 17" Apple Powerbook G4 into the library and asked me for help setting it up on the wireless network. I know that when Apple announced this computer, people said it was big, and I believed them, but now that I have been lucky enough to see one in person I have to say that it is really, really, really HUGE! I, of course, want one, but at nearly $3,300 I won't be able to afford one unless I win the lottery or get a job that pays really well.
All of this gets me thinking about consumerism. I often deride our consumeristic society and the way that we are driven to buy, buy, buy! I try my best to limit my own spending and try to buy local and/or generic when ever possible. Then I see a 17" Powerbook, I get weak at the knees, and start to pull out my credit card. Do I just have a soft spot for technology or am I fatally infected by the consumer disease?
It looks like the Oregon State House of Representatives is considering a bill which would require the state to consider open source software first when looking for new software. This is an interesting idea. I have seem similiar efforts that required governments to use open source software and I didn't agree with those. Requiring the use of a certain software liscence, no matter how good, is a bad idea. However, this bill only requires the state to evaluate the open source software, and in my book, that is a good idea. The bill is available online.
TriMet updated their website in the last couple of days. I saw it today, and noticed that they hadn't fixed a problem I had told them about a while ago. Then I noticed a few more knitpicks. So I wrote a critique.
Noah's TriMet Website Critique
Well, the IconFactory has announced the official rules for this years Pixelpalooza contest! If you are not familiar with Pixelpalooza, it is a annual contest for icon designers run by the some of the best in the business. I created an entry last year, which you can download(Mac, Windows). The biggest change in the rules is a change in the categories. Over the last few years the folks at the IconFactory have changed the categories a couple of times to reflect the change in the Mac OS and how it handles icons. The categories this year are OSX, Classic and Candybar. The first two are pretty self explanitory, but the last one isn't. Iconfactory recently came out with a little piece of software (with help from the folks at Panic) called Candybar. This little piece of software allows you to change all of the system icons in OS X very easily. So basically, the Candybar category is for system replacement icons. This is good, mainly because Pixelpalooza used to have a very popular category called System Replacement, which had to be ended for legal reasons (I believe). More about the history of Pixlepalooza can be found here.
I have been thinking about my entry to this years contest, and I think I have a pretty good idea. That idea will remain secret until I am finished with my entry and it has been submitted. I also think that I might release my entry under the terms of the Creative Commons license.
Wow, the guys at Panic have created these really cool t-shirts. I particularly like the Jaguar and 1982 shirts. To bad I'm not going to MWSF. Maybe those nice Panic folks will have mercy on us that don't get to go and offer them up for a small fee.
So I saw a posting about this website called Nation States on Meta Filter. The ideas is that you get to start up your own little nation, and then decide on important (and not so important issues). How you decide on these issues will determine how you are looked upon by the rest of the world. So I have started my own nation: San Onofre (the name is an homage to the Kim Stanley Robinson book The Wild Shore) Right now the server for Nation States is really slow, but hopefully it will get a little better.
So I have been looking into getting a new home theater system because I am getting a little tired of the piece of crap Magnavox reciever/tape deck that I have right now. It seems like the Home Theater in a Box systems are a great value and I have been looking at the Sony HT-DW840 and HT-DW740 are pretty nice. Does anybody out there have a recomendation of a nice system?
So I got Megan a iRobot Roomba for Christmas. So we got the chance to actually try him out this weekend. Now notice, right off the bat I have personified him. The Roomba is definately not an "it", and for some reason it feels like a "he". The way that he moves around and cleans make him so animate that you can't help personifiying him. I am not sure exactely why the Roomba is a he, but I guess it is probably because floor cleaning used to be my job (this is only a guess).
So the big question I get from everybody that I talk to about the Roomba is, does it work? Well, yes indead it does work. In our apartment we have mostly hardwood floors with linoleum in the kitchen and tile in the bathroom. On all of these surfaces he does a great job picking up all the dust, hair and dirt that I can see. He has a little trouble in very tight corners. I don't know how he works on carpet first hand, but iRobot claims he can be used on any carpet that isn't deep-pile or shag. Am I happy with Mr. Roomba? Yes. Do I have some concerns? Yes. Read below my list of things I like/don't like so much:
Things I like about Roomba
-He cleans the floors, so I don't have to
-He doesn't need much supervision
-He makes the apartment look great
Things I don't like so much about Roomba
-He is a bit noisy (hard to have a conversation or watch TV in the same room)
-Now I get to help with dishes more often :)
-He takes about 45 minutes to clean a medium sized room
-He can't quite reach all the corners
I will continue to post my Roomba stories as I collect them.
Thanks to Sharma for telling me about the Time Magazine 2002 Best Inventions website. This gives me the theme for my like/not like list for the day:
Time 2002 Best Inventions I like:
-Hy-Wire Car: This is the best concept car I have seen. Ever. It doesn't just take the car in a evolutionary step forward, but changes the way we think about cars. I hope this is how cars look in 10-20 yrs.
-Date Rape Drug Spotter: I think it is really sad that it has become so bad at bars that this product is neccessary, but if it makes women safer from the jackass with ketamine, then all the better.
-Roomba Vacuum: I admit that this is probably a bit of a over kill, but since cleaning the floors is my chore, I have to like this.
-AeroGel: The lightest solid on earth. Wow.
-Here are some others I like.
Time 2002 Best Invention I don't like so much:
-Dog Translator: What a load of crap and a total waste of money. We all know the dogs are just saying "Hey!".
-Tooth Phone: Ok, I know that cell phones are getting small, but this just creeps me out.
-SputMik: It is a cute microphone. Too cute. I just can't imagine this being passed around a city council meeting.
-Tomato Vaccine: One small step for pharms, one giant leap towards Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!
God bless K10K. Here is a Lorem Ipsum Generator.
A good icon creation tutorial.
"Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product
by default".
- David Duncan
I don't know who this David Duncan guy is, but damn, that is a funny quote.
OK, so I finally got Xbox Live hooked-up yesterday, and so far I am not sure I like it. I played some Moto GP at first. It is a fun motorcycle racing game. It is tough to master, but I definately felt myself getting better. Well, the people playing were generally pretty cool. The game has good intigration of the Xbox Live system. In the game lobby it displays a icon next to the people with headphones and the icon lights up when they are talking. In the actual race you only hear the three people nearest to you, so the chatter isn't overwhelming. On the other side of the scale is Mech Assault. It is a fun Arcade Mech game, but I am definately not used to the Mech idea. The biggest problem is the fact that after you play a live game you don't go back to a lobby, but get kicked back to the first live screen. This means you have to find another game everytime. You can hear eveybody on your team during the game so it is a bit chatty, but not to bad. In the lobby you can't tell who is talking, so people tend to act pretty stupid. I played about 2 minutes of the Whacked demo (a CRAZY game show thingy) which seems to inspire people to yell into their mikes and boast about "Being the best" and such. Really lame.
Things Iike:
-Moto GP demo
-Mech Assault (on the whole)
-Short work week
-Turkey
Things I don't like so much:
-Some people on Xbox Live
-Shooting your own team mates in Mech Assault because you forget which color you are (Dohhhhhh!)
-Having to decide between Mech Assault and Metal Gear: Solid 2 Substance.
Dzones - a host a friend told me about! (this is more of a note to remind me to check it out again later than a real recomendation or anything).
Check this out! Best Flash Clock Ever!
Well, I got my iPod yesterday. Woo Hooo! I really love this little guy. It has all of my music on it (1918 songs!) and all my contacts and addressbook stuff, and I still have a few hundred Mb to spare. I really can't recomend this enough. The headphones sound great, and the little wired remote is nice as well. I shipped off the extra iPod (see my last entry) yesterday so I should have relatively full bank account in a couple of days.
Things I like right now:
-My iPod
-listening to music on the bus
-Not being as sick as I was yesterday
Thing I don't like so much:
-Not being able to listen to my iPod at work
-Still being sick (for like 2 weeks now)
-Missing a day of work
I am the dumbest person on the face of the earth. I am not sure why I would relate a story that confirms this on the internet, where anyone could (but probably won't) read it, but what the hay. So I go to the Apple Store Online yesterday to order my iPod. This is, of course, a good thing. So I pick out my 10 Gb iPod and a headphone jack splitter (so I can share the joy) and I go to the checkout page. I dutifly fill out my credit card info. I then quickly lookover my order and press checkout. Then I look at the resulting page. There is my order for TWO iPods and a spliter. So I do the worlds biggest double take and then realize that I must have still had a iPod in my shopping cart when I went and picked out my iPod. So I call Apple and talk to a really nice guy who explains that the chances that I will be able to remove 1 iPod from my order are slim to none. He tells me to call back today. I do so and talk to a very nice lady who tells me the same thing, but that she will try to cancel the extra iPod. If she can't, she tells me, I will just have to send one of the iPods back. Well, here's hoping for just 1 iPod.
Things I like right now:
-My iPod
-Apple's customer service
-my last blog entry (empty entries, hah, I crack myself up)
Things I don't like so much:
-My tendancy to skip over important details like, oh say, the total price for the most expensive ecommerce order I have ever done
-Extra iPods
-Not being able to blame someone else for my own stupidity
Ok, so I have been thinking about this T-Mobile Sidekick. I like it, I want it, but I just can't justify it. I have never owned a cellphone, and I really don't think I could justify it. Also, if I buy it, then I will have to put off buying this.
Anyway, back to our regular programing:
Things I like right now:
-Reading
-My Apartment
-Having dinner parties
Things I don't like so much:
-People who blame video games for real problems
-Waking up the morning after dinner parties
-Corporate Logos Everywhere!!!!
