Do you sign your credit card?

So continuing my theme of things that bother me, let me ask this question. But first the drawn out setup...

I went to the post office to mail a package to my in-law. The post office worker in question I've dealt with in the past is just a pain to be a pain.

She puts the package on the scale, I pick a shipping option, and I hand her my American Express card. She hands it back and says she can't take it 'cause I need to sign it.

Now, things to note here are:
1) my picture is on the card
2) she would take the card if I signed it then and there

Which leads me to ask, do I really need to sign this thing? What's the point? What does that prove beyond my picture for identity? Any what would signing it in front of her have really have accomplished?

So confused by what has just transpired, I hand over my Visa card (which is signed), and she runs the transaction.

The gee-wiz of the story? I didn't have to sign for the purchase.

Zoinks!

We Are Fat

It is official.

I went to the Dr. today for my annual meeting with my Allergist. I've been getting shots for seasonal allergies but they recently expanded onto another floor of their building. So new everything: exam tables, chairs, etc.

While I'm waiting for the Dr. to come in, I'm checking out the new digs. Then I see it. A new scale in the corner. So I go weigh myself. While I'm standing there, I'm thinking something doesn't seem right. Then it hits me. This scale goes to 500 lbs. As memory serves, most Dr. scales I've seen in the past have gone to 250, maybe 300 lbs. But 500 lbs? Have people become cargo?

Wow. We are fat.

Another useful Mac App

There's been a flurry of articles about sleep / hibernate with Leopard. Using something like, sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0.


This dynamic automation tool is even cooler.

OJ + mouse button

I spilled orange juice on my desk this morning, and some got into the mouse button of my macbook (old white one). I didn't notice until tonight when I tried to press it and it didn't go anywhere. I seem to have loosened it up a bit to where it is functional, but it is nowhere close to 100%.

Anyone have any cleaning secrets?

Other options:

• external mouse
• new macbook
• become more adept at quicksilver and start using vimperator again

Enlightenment

I'm not sure what made me think of it, but I was just wondering "What ever happened to the Enlightenment window manager?" I remember spending many hours building countless libraries to try to get it to work...

Sure enough, it's still kicking and it looks like DR17 is coming out soon. (DR16 came out in 2000).

http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=index&l=en

It seems as if Rasterman's focus is trying to get Enlightenment on mobile phones:

http://www.rasterman.com/index.php?page=News

Hmmm.

I Love This Headline

New MacBook Pro 2008 Mock-up Lights My Credit Card On Fire

The Internet in Your Pocket?

I was traveling yesterday so I tried to sign up for the iPhone Tech Talk on my iPhone yesterday and I couldn't log in.  If I purposefully typed in a bad password it would tell me but with the right credentials it would just drop me back to the login screen.

Maybe somebody who did register can ask the Uber-Genius' how they managed to make their site not work for iPhone's Safari.  It'd be nice if I could have used another browser, but oh wait, that's not allowed...

Meet me halfway

Not that inane, but I suppose it is if you build an entire business around it.  The site, www.meetways.com let's you find a halfway meeting point.  It needs to have other ways of calculating halfway, such as by car, by public transit, on foot, yadda, yadda.  It also needs to support having more than 2 people.  So that a group of people can meet in a fairly central location.

It also should have some kind of integration with a invite service, so that it chooses a location based on who's going to attend.  Hmm, now I think I have a business that's not inane.

Why giving Mac Users Shell Access is Like Letting AOL Users on the Internet

From TUAW: Terminal Tips: Play Tetris in Terminal

Nuclear Disarmament

I think we should just start unilaterally getting rid of them. What better example of leadership would there be than that?

What's the downside?

Am I missing something?

The existence of our 10,000 warheads obviously doesn't deter Al Queda from anything. They would probably like nothing better than for us to use a "tactical" weapon. I can't imagine a scenario where we would actually drop them on anybody else. We've already proven that we have the most effective military on the planet.

Obama and McCain seem to generally agree on this topic but Obama only addresses the issue page 8 of his defense fact sheet PDF. McCain talks about it on his website but both camps maintain that we will maintain an effect nuclear deterence.

Wireless mouse recommendations?

Anyone have a wireless mouse recommendation? Mac-compatible. I got the wireless keyboard + "Mighty Mouse" with my new 'puter, and the mouse sucks. Well, it's good for everything except clicking.

Doogie Howser gone evil?

Its not Chitty Chitty, but this really appeals to me.

Behold Dr Horrible!

I was trying to remember if this was the first piece of internet video that made me smile. I couldn't think of any others.

Roger quit his day job...

Funny Signature

There are only 10 kinds of people:
-Those who understand binary
-Those who don't

Wine

It's a good thing they named the project "wine" as it took 15 years to get to 1.0:

http://www.winehq.org/

Drucker's Law?

I was reading a book that referred to the notion that to get people to switch to something new it has to be 10 times better. The book specifically referred to this as Drucker's Law and went on to discuss how Christensen's Disruptive Innovation is probably a simpler way to innovate since you don't have to figure out how to make something 10 times better, but rather come up with a way to change people's expectations.

Problem is, 20 minutes of Googling and I can't find any reference to Drucker's Law as defined in this way. I did see that Guy Kawasaki maybe has mentioned this 10x theory, but he didn't really take credit for it nor did he cite somebody else for originating the notion.

Without some kind of analysis of startups and failure it would be difficult to verify this idea of 10x. It does sound pretty good, but seems to fail the sniff test for fictional empircal numbers (those that don't end in 0 or 5 so that a random number you throw out feels less like what it is. ie, We estimated it would take 472 hours to build the UI in Java and 17 hours to build it in Rails.)

I suppose I'm fixated on this notion because maybe it explains why many startups fail. I mean if VCs could just ask, is this 10x better than the last thing, it'd be pretty easy to just say no.

The book BTW is, George Gilder's, The Silicon Eye.

I've officially turned into a Mac User

Was on a windows box. Selected 3 files from the desktop and hit Backspace. Nothing happened.

Why?

Why when I buy a CFL does it come in a dangerous to open plastic container that does not appear to even be recyclable? The cardboard insert tells me that it is "better for the environment" but I just don't know when you throw in all the packaging. Is there a class action I can join somewhere for people who have been disfigured by the stupidly sharp plastic packaging that seems to be wrapped around everything these days. It seems like CFL packaging is a step back from the old-school incandescent light bulb packaging of yesteryear.

Compact discs ditched the excessive packaging years ago. Why can't others follow suit? At least if a manufacturer is going to wrap their packages in layers of plastic crap they could try to make it look pretty (like Apple).

IM client with different statuses based on group?

This might not be possible with the protocols in question, but is there an IM client that would allow me to have different statuses for different groups?

For example:

1) friends: available and willing to talk
2) brother-in-law: busy
3) client #1: not logged in
4) client #2: busy

I made the mistake of giving a client my personal IM information and now I can't use IM because every time I log in, they start chatting with me...There's some stuff in gmail chat where I can block certain people, but I'd like to be able to toggle it. Preferably for AIM.

Link Friday

This is awesome:

starcade.tv

Random Vista / XP Stuff to Remember

I've spent much too much time being a Windows admin lately. Things to remember that don't seem obvious.

• If you dual boot between Vista and XP, every time you boot into XP it deletes all your system restore points.
• Look at this page when you need to help a friend with some IT issue. The conversation usually starts like, "Everytime I get on the internet a bunch of windows keep opening up..."
  

IDE Survey

• IntelliJ - BMW
• Eclipse -General Motors
• Netbeans - Hyundai (maybe VW) - someday a Volvo?
  
• VI - Fixed Gear
  
• VIM - Lance Armstrong's bike
• GVIM - a recumbent bike

My use:

• Netbeans 80%
• Eclipse 10%
• GVIM 10%

Obsolete Computer Disposal

I have a bunch of these things sitting in my house. They gather dust in the den.

Here's what I've thought of,

1. Let them continue to gather dust. Even when they are off, they still seem to gather dust pretty well. At my dad's house there's still a PCjr sitting in the garage. Maybe the Microsoft 128K sidecar with original mouse will have collectors value?
2. Turn the old laptop (200Mhz) into a digital picture frame. I spent about 6 hours getting an OS (Damn Small Linux) installed on it. Wireless (802.11b) too! Then I used it for 30 minutes before my wife asked me why.
3. Ebay - the whole posting and shipping seems like a lot of work.
   
4. Craigslist - I'm not sure I want all these people in my house.
5. Recycle - Since these computers actually work, seems like a waste.
   
6. Donate the whole lot to FreeGeekChicago and take the lazy way out. Maybe it's sassy if I donate some time along with the hardware?

What do you guys do?

My vs. Your

Michael recently made one of his pet peeves known to me. He prefers a web app to say "My Settings" as opposed to "Your Settings". I never really thought about it before, but I think I prefer "Your Settings". I'm guessing this is a perception issue, perhaps due to a difference between desktop and server-hosted apps.

On a web app, I think I feel like the server is talking to me: "Here are your settings that we are storing on our servers for you." With a desktop app, perhaps I'd feel more ownership over the data and I would expect the button to say "My Settings".

Or maybe because I am writing the software, I'm thinking as a service provider when I write "Your Settings" in a link.

Anyone else? Is there a Strunk & White for user interfaces that provides a rule?