Month: November 2006

The last few weeks have been a roller coaster of family emotions and get-togethers – from the passing of Grandma Hannah to Cooper’s first birthday. Add to that, all the family photos and stories and trees (back to 1751) my dad sent down. So, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about yesterday, and those places and times that don’t exist anymore.

Then, while doing tech support with my dad via Skype this morning, I caught this in my feedreader:

“She doesn’t know about blogs, bittorrent, streaming video, social media, or any of the stuff of which I write, nor does she care. She smiles when I tell her what I do, but the smile is more a courtesy than anything else, and that’s okay.” – Terry Heaton

Choked me up.

Yes, this is the explanation behind both the Unincorporated and Wrong Side of the Family mini-series over at the First Crack Podcast.

One of the reasons I’ve always been skeptical, cynical, and generally a wet-blanket on browser-only software is unreliable networks. Everywhere I go – there isn’t a network connection.

So, any browser-only information I might need (email, documents, photos, etc) are completely inaccessible on my fully wifi-enable, ethernet-ready laptop.

“I’ve got draft posts on Google Docs — and I can’t access them! So here I am opening up MS Word.” – Scott Karp

I see two trends:

1. Cheaper laptops and more powerful pocket-computer devices
2. Wireless internet access available in more places

Of the two, I see the former moving much, much faster than the latter.

While there are huge strengths in developing browser-only software – namely:

1. Considerably lower development and support costs than platform-specific desktop apps
2. Ease of pushing out bug-fixes and updates

– not having the information I want because the network is down or unavailable is unacceptable. For those keeping track, yes, I’ve talked about this before

I left a meeting this afternoon and as I walked through unfamiliar parking garage nothing looked familiar. The number 722 directing the way. After the first lap and not seeing 700s, I realized I didn’t understand how the different levels were laid out. I got back in the elevator and picked a different level. Found spot 722 right away.

Empty. No car.

Huh.

Guess it wasn’t 722. Keep walking, it must be close.

I walked between 3 different levels for 20 minutes, and ran into someone else with the same, ‘where did I park’ look on their face.

Sounded like we parked in the same section – some elusive section now disconnected from our current position. After a couple more increasingly frustrated laps, I worked my way towards the exit.

Found the car half a section from the exit.

Wow, it wasn’t this hard getting into the building.

I pull the sole $5 bill out of my wallet and head to the cashier.

$4/hour and $1 for each 30 minutes after.

“$6 please”, they request.

Nice. Real nice.

Reminder to Self: When I park at the airport, I take a picture of the parking spot and any distinct landmarks with my camera phone. Do the same for shorter parks as well.

“So, not surprisingly, [China] seeks to resurrect old oil-field deals it had with Saddam in Iraq.

Did I not say this would happen? Our blood, their oil. When I was in Beijing in 2004, I told everyone I met with that China should have 50k peacekeepers in Iraq, because in the end, it would mostly be their oil.” – Thomas P.M. Barnett