Back in episode 4 I proclaimed my love for the Melitta Mill & Brew. Even then I knew this day would come. The little plastic hook holding the grinder lid down snapped and fell into the grinder basin. Without this hook, the grinder doesn’t grind and the water doesn’t get near the grinds. Basically, this […]
Yesterday, Jen asked if I needed anything at the mall. I had already placed my order for Tiger at Amazon, so I was good. I decided to join her anyway, and stop by the other electronics big boxes scouring for a USB- or Firewire- powered 3.5″ hard drive enclosure. No luck on that yet, but […]
Day 13 – Putting the Pieces together Alright, we’re back to Ruby. My apologies for slowing down, and with only 8 days to go. Let’s jump right into day 13. On the outset, Slagell explains the notion of Ruby being a ‘glue language’, like Perl. A language coordinating multiple programs or processes. Historically, AppleScript has […]
Back in the pre-OS X days, I used DragThing religiously to keep applications, websites, and documents at my finger tips. That mentality migrated with me to OS X – put everything in the Dock, keep it handy. Today, I shed it. Inspired partially by my preparation for the Tiger upgrade and partially by my proficiency […]
I want a new phone. The menu interface on my SonyEricsson T610 is annoying and frustrating. Part of it is T-Mobile (a text message for each voice message isn’t necessary), part of it is SonyEricsson (a 12-step process for writing an SMS?), and part of it is me (highly critical behavior strategist & interaction designer). […]
Last weekend, Jen and I received BBC’s Coupling Season 1 off the Netflix. The debut episode showed promise yet fell flat on us. While I plugged away on some programming, Jen watched the remaining 4 episodes. Then we watched them again. Good stuff. They should have made the debut episode a hidden track, it didn’t […]
A conversation with Minneapolis urban planners Sam Newberg, from Joe Urban, and Jay on how making a place distinct takes a hundred years. This conversation was recorded at Keegan’s Irish Pub in Minneapolis with two Radio Shack lapel mics going into an iPod running Podzilla. Listen to the Long Term Commitment of Placemaking [12 min] […]
Yesterday, I attempted to create a 24 page comic in 24 hours. Here is what I learned from my first attempt. Have the story finished. I knew how the story started, that got me 6 pages along. Half way into page 7, I was stuck. Seven characters moving, a handful of relationships established, and nowhere […]
“INSERT CD FIRST”, screamed the sticker on the back of the Linksys wrt54g router. A decade with Macintoshes has taught me the suggestions are normally for Windows machines. The router was persistent – and the sticker was blocking the power port – so, I thought I’d humor it. I was right. The CD shipping was […]
A couple weeks ago, I was having a tough time focusing. The culprit turned out to be a little red dot in my NetNewWire dock icon – the unread post count. I’ve unchecked that count in the preferences and my ability to focus has increased (Manton Reece did the same). First, biologically, our peripheral vision […]