Category: Dashboard Widgets

DoubleShot Coffee’s Single-Click Order Dashboard Widget

Yesterday, I came across the DoubleShot Coffee Order Widget.

DoubleShot Coffee, the same Tulsa, OK folks on the receiving end of a trademark infringement claim by Starbucks, just made one giant leap for ecommerce.

Simplicity and Persistence.

After setting up credit card information on the widget’s backside, select one of their 18 coffees from the front and click ‘Order’.

Need more? Do it again.

Best of all, I don’t need to remember their url, bookmark their site, or remember anything. When I want coffee – I hit F12.

That’s how you build highly-passionate and caffeinated customers.

Thanks Brian.

Apple’s Weather Dashboard Widget Won’t Go Below 28F?

As you might have heard, we finally got winter here in the upper Midwest. Not the Christmas-fluffy-white-snow-perfect-for-skiing-and-hot-cocoa-winter, the death-to-all-who-venture-out-of-doors winter.

Both weather.com and accuweather.com say it’s a brisk -2°F (one degree lower since my last post).

Strangely, Apple’s Weather Dashboard Widget tells me it’s a tropical 28°F and snowing. It’s way too cold to snow and hasn’t been 28 for days. Something’s not right.

I should have found Daring Fireball’s Weather Widget Location Validation post earlier. Looks like I’ve been getting Minneapolis, North Carolina’s forecast for months now.

I’m glad someone’s getting a fluffy-white-snow winter.

New Years Productivity Tip – Removing On-Screen Distraction

While getting a few things done this holiday season I paid special attention to what was keeping me from staying focused, on-task. To kick this year off right, I’ve made some dramatic changes to my OS X desktop.

From the menu bar, I’ve removed applications that change just enough to distract me. Including:

In addition, I’ve removed all the applications from my dock and ‘turned automatic hiding on’.

All of these small changes make the PowerBook a quieter place to work.

Update 6 Jan 2006: Sam asked for a screenshot of the menu bar

Pandora.com – The Good and the Annoying

Apologies for no Tuesday Triple Play this week. Perhaps a review of Pandora.com will make up for it.

On a tip from Steve Borsch – I started a couple Pandora stations using two of my favorite bands as starting points (Too Much Joy Station, Transplants Station).

On the plus side
I’ve got nearly a solid work day of listening behind each and all the recommendations have very much been in the same vein as the originating artist. Even some other songs from other artists in my library have popped up.

Without Pandora, I wouldn’t have found Lucky Boys Confusion. So, a win for Pandora.

I’ve been using the jrc’s Pandora Dashboard Widget – which is more convenient and persistent than a browser window for me.

I’m only rating the songs (thumbs up/thumbs down) if I feel strongly one way or another – and just letting ‘OK’ songs run unrated. Hopefully that’s a feature and not a bug.

Giving a song the thumbs down stops it from playing and automatically jumps to the next song. Nice.

On the downside
Everything about Pandora is in Flash. Everything – from handling account info, to emailing the station links, to controlling volume, and rating tracks. Annoying.

Especially annoying because a double-click is needed within the Dashboard widget to trigger anything.

I’d like an easy way to see all the songs played in a station since it’s conception and how I rated them. Bonus points for providing it as an RSS feed. I’ve only seen what I’ve rated, and I now don’t remember where I found it. Yes, I’m talking Attention.

A station’s URL should be obvious. I shouldn’t need to email it to myself to add it to a weblog post.

Thats all for now.

UPDATE 31 Dec 2005
Hearing the same song twice in the same listening session is annoying. This is the problem I’ve had with broadcast radio for years and with my iTunes/iPod pre-podcasting. Sure, I have playlists set up to play and repeat. I’m controlling that. When I’m listening to Pandora, I want to continually discover new music. If I want something repeated, I’ll hit replay it myself. Conceiveably, Pandora has access to all the music in the world. Unfortunately, after 10 days, it sounds like I’ve hit the limits of their catalog.