It’s clippy for vi… Really pretty funny.
Monthly Archive for February, 2007
I’ve been a fan of Tom Waits music for years, but I haven’t seen any of the movies he’s been in. Here’s a clip from a Jim Jarmusch film he was in called Coffee & Cigarettes. It’s funny, in a painful sort of way. I think we’ve all had an awkward visit like this at some point in our lives…
Don’t want to pay for an Office 2007 upgrade when you don’t even need all the new features? Maybe you’ll be interested in a enterprise version of Google’s Apps…
BusinessWeek reports:
After months of dancing around with Web versions of e-mail, group calendars, and the like, Google Inc. (GOOG ) is finally about to take a big leap onto Microsoft’s turf. Since last August, the search leader has offered a test version of an online office productivity software suite, called Google Apps for Your Domain, that lets companies offload e-mail systems to Google while keeping their own e-mail addresses. Soon, it’s expected to add word-processing and spreadsheet services to the suite, which includes an online calendar, chat service, and Web page builder. In coming weeks, Google Apps will turn into a real business as Google begins charging corporations a subscription fee amounting to a few dollars per person per month. “We’re dying to use something like this,” says Brandeau [SVP of Technology, Disney/Pixar]. He’s “on the cusp” of signing a contract with Google.
(emphasis added)
Link: Google Steps Into Microsoft’s Office
Via Slashdot
I saw SlimTimer awhile ago when my wife was using it in her Graphic Design department. Just today I decided I wanted to track how much time I spent on my various tasks. I wanted to do this for various reasons. Partly just to better understand how I spend my time at work, and also so I have something to tell my boss when he asks what I’ve been doing all day. ;-)
SlimTimer is a seriously great little piece of software.
- The UI is, frankly, as close to perfect as I can imagine for a tool like this. Once you read the four or five bullet points that make up the “How to use” page, the learning curve is practically non-existent. You just use it, and it just works.
- It’s built with Ruby on Rails! That doesn’t mean anything to the user, who probably doesn’t care what it’s built on, but I thought that was cool.
- It’s totally free. (!)
- You can run reports on how you spend your time, and these are pretty configurable, too. You can even export them to CSV if you like, so you can show your manager how busy you’ve been. ;)
This is a great tool. If you work near enough to computers to keep a tool like this up-to-date, and if you’re interested in knowing exactly how much time you spend on which tasks, I highly recommend it.
This page has a great summary of Current style in web design, saying:
This is where I try to sum up the current state-of-the-art in graphic design for web pages, and identify the distinctive features that make a web page look fresh, appealing and easy to use.
I like his picks, and the features he highlights. The examples make this page (mine, I mean) look pretty sad… perhaps I’ll have to give the theme a tastefully minimal update.
This is not a new article, but I thought the author makes a good point. Since this is increasingly a hot-button topic, and since also charges of being “ignorant” (or worse) are increasingly aimed at anyone who dares to differ with the Worst Case Scenario, I thought it was relevant:
Global warming has become the obsession of our time. From governments and campaigners meeting for the climate summit in Buenos Aires right now we hear the incessant admonition: making global warming our first priority is the moral test of our age.
Yet they are wrong. Global warming is real and caused by CO2. The trouble is that the climate models show we can do very little about the warming. Even if everyone (including the United States) did Kyoto and stuck to it throughout the century, the change would be almost immeasurable, postponing warming by just six years in 2100.
Likewise, the economic models tell us that the cost is substantial. The cost of Kyoto compliance is at least $150 billion a year. For comparison, the UN estimates that half that amount could permanently solve the most pressing humanitarian problems in the world: it could buy clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education to every single person in the world.
– Bjorn Lomborg, associate professor in political science at the University of Aarhus, and author of Global Crises, Global Solutions and The Skeptical Environmentalist.
I don’t think you can make a stronger case than that; forget Kyoto. If you want to spend a hundred billion dollars, I’d rather see it go to combat AIDS, world hunger, etc, as well. I’m just saying.
Link: Save the world, ignore global warming | St Opinion | Opinion | Telegraph
This response to a friend’s blog post went longer than planned, and I thought it might be worth reposting (and expanding, since I’m apparently incapable of leaving well enough alone), just for the heck of it.
Andy had asked:
So, Phil, what do you think makes Linux (or Mac OS) the superior OS compared to XP or Vista? I am curious, and slightly interested in tinkering again with Linux myself. Here’s your chance to convince me! ;)
I responded:
While part of me would like to say unequivocally that “Linux is the better OS”, that’s not actually what I’m saying. The answer to “which OS is better” is always going to be dependent on the answers to
- Who needs to use it?
and
- What will they need to do with it?
Continue reading ‘On Linux, Mac OS X, and Vista’
I have a simple (very simple) prototype of a bare bone request tracker up at wfrt.ideasperminute.com/submit.
I already have a list of features which I want to add, but I’m interested in what readers would say. If you’re going to suggest features/functionality, please restrict suggestions to real functionality, not presentation.
I realize that it looks insufferably plain. UI suggestions are welcome, but UI is not quite the same thing as presentation… that is, if you think the “New Item” link should be at the top of the page (not a bad idea) or should be worded differently, that’s a good suggestion. If you just want to say you think I should add more colors, you’re free to say that, but that’s not the sort of thing I’m looking for, yet.
I’m giving semi-serious consideration to making this a finished product, but that remains to be seen. I would need to find alternate Rails hosting (it is currently on MediaTemple’s grid-server, with which I am not very impressed.
Very cool, very complete tutorial on Making a Casebound Book.
There was a time I would have been trying this out tomorrow. Right now, not sure I have the time; very interesting to see how it works, though. The user interface is very intuitive, also; this is how frames should be used, if ever.
I recently read How To Get Hired, a short, pragmatic article about getting into the programming field by someone who has done plenty of hiring.
I thought it had a lot of good points, and it got me to thinking: perhaps it’s time to get involved with an open source project.
Continue reading ‘Looking for a project’
