Leap

I’m trying to decide whether I like Leap or not. On the one hand, the Finder has been overdue for a major overhaul for years. On the other, it may not be major enough.

A lot of what Leap tries to do has been in the back of my mind for quite a while. I keep [...]

Opportunistic much…?

Maybe someone can explain why AscenderFonts is selling this Microsoft ClearType Font Collection for $299. Because, you see, anyone that buys a copy of Microsoft Office Home Edition 2008 is going to get them as part of the bundle… for $149. (Granted, Ascender’s package provides a five user license and Office Home only gives you [...]

iPhones in Iceland?

How do I get an iPhone that works (natively, not using roaming) in Iceland? I’ve visited the Iceland Apple Store but the site is woefully out of date and offers no information about iPhones. And yet, there are a scattering of references across the ‘net that make passing reference to using iPhones in and [...]

Wind power

This is just a gorgeous wind-power solution. With our bills sometimes hitting close to $500 a month here in Southern California, we should all be running out to buy one or two of these.

Twitterpated

This is why I don’t like Twitter or, for that matter, most of the social networking fads going on right now (I said most, not all).

WordPress 2.5 and Gregarious

Updating to WordPress 2.5 went easily, except that my gregarious plugin stopped working. A shame, as I liked that one quite a bit and it appears the author doesn’t have time to maintain it.
Anyhow, for those of you that relied on gregarious to provide your digg links, here’s a quick fix: Edit your theme and [...]

Finding strategic learning funds

Training Industry Times recently published some rather disappointing statistics: Over 92% of surveyed business have experienced pressure to reduce their training budget in 2007. Worse, 56% reported that the pressure to reduce or altogether cut training costs were “significant.”
Is this attitude regarding education part-and-parcel of the declining attitude toward education in the United States? More [...]

AppleTV… one year later

About a year ago, Brent Schlender wrote off the AppleTV in Fortune magazine. So where do we stand today? Bottom line, just about any analysis about AppleTV or any other “set top box” is premature. This is a market that is just beginning to open up—about the only thing I think we can count on [...]

Being agnostic (about technology)

I really do try to keep my bias in check. I use Linux, OS/X and Windows frequently. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that my personal laptop is a MacBook Pro, and I do love it. I generally feel that the Unix-core operating system is much better for my research [...]

Coffee index

I’ve long believed that a cup of coffee provides a good cost of living index. It’s a ubiquitous product, almost a staple, highly available, and a commodity. (The McDonald’s theory is flawed, because they maintain their U.S.-derived pricing in many third world countries—for example, in La Paz Bolivia a burger is unreasonably expensive).
Anyhow, the interesting [...]

Whiteboard-space to wall-space (WBS/WS) ratio

Patrick Wilson Welsh has a great little rant on this really incomprehensible trend. I think the root of the problem is that too many companies still think of software development as an industrial, assembly line process and too few have really embraced the idea that it’s a creative effort. That might be why it’s called [...]

Recommended reading

If you want to learn about Scrum there are two books I recommend. Well, more than recommend: These are, in my mind, the definitive works on the subject. They’re both an easy read and if, like me, you get engrossed you’ll probably mark them up extensively and finish the set in a weekend.
Agile Software [...]