This might be the biggest reason I love working from home.
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License
Andrewski.net by Andrew Conkling is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tree Style Tabs
May 18, 2009 – 12:48
Federico Mena Quintero - May 2009 Activity Log
Tabs show up hierachically, on the side by default
An interesting—if not fully integrated—extension. Too many options, messes with the default tab order (when closing tabs, etc.) but organized and uncluttered, even with twice as many tabs open.
It's not too often I've seen a Firefox extension that really changes the way I (can) operate.
Least frustrating system
April 30, 2009 – 16:22
I don’t consider myself blindly brand-loyal to the Mac.
I know, right? Co-founder of a indie Mac software company?
I find Mac OS X to be the least frustrating of the currently available options, but the buck certainly doesn’t stop there. We have miles and miles to go in terms of making computing better. I want my socks blown off, and I don’t care whether it’s Apple, Microsoft, Google, or the open source movement that does it, as long as someone does.
I hope that making it Someone Else's Problem will work out for you. If you put your faith in Apple/Microsoft/Google, or even in the open source movement, you can expect what you get. Since at least I can participate in the open source movement, if it doesn't blow off socks, I can say that's my fault.
Merlin Mann on Priorities
April 28, 2009 – 08:35
Mud Rooms, Red Letters, and Real Priorities | 43 Folders
Making something a BIG RED TOP TOP BIG HIGHEST #1 PRIORITY changes nothing but text styling. If it were really important, it’d already be done. Period. Think about it.
Example. When my daughter falls down and screams, I don’t ask her to wait while I grab a list to determine which of seven notional levels of “priority” I should assign to her need for instantaneous care and affection. Everything stops, and she gets taken care of. Conversely — and this is really the important part — everything else in the universe can wait.
Day One Buddhism.
Because, once you see what’s really there — once you know about an idea or a thing or a person or whatever that you’d reject 10,000 other things to protect and nurture — you’ve found your priority. And, consequently, you’ve discovered a bunch of other things that aren’t allowed to be priorities any more. Even in spirit.
After reading David Allen's book, the whole idea of prioritizing tasks makes little sense to me. I love the way Merlin Mann puts it; effective, memorable writing that sticks with me better than Allen's.
St. Donatus on Good Friday
April 24, 2009 – 09:20
Mark and Deanna looking at St. Donatus
Not the best picture, but this is where we're getting married. It's a nice view, and it will be even nicer by July!
A new phone: Terrible timing?
April 3, 2009 – 16:35
So my AT&T contract is up this month and I'm considering all my options for my next PDA. My BlackBerry has been slowly dying on me, and I've not been happy with it.
Android
It's probably no surprise that I'm a big fan of Android—it is produced by Google—so ideally I'd get an Android device next.
However, I'm not terribly inclined to switch to T-Mobile; their network is smaller and not as robust in all locations. And the G1 leaves a lot to be desired, so I'd rather wait for the next iteration. But how long will that be? Hard to say, though they may have a new, awesome device soon, so it may be worth waiting.
I had also mentioned that AT&T would likely be producing Android devices, but that dynamic seems to have changed somewhat: I suppose because of their ties with Apple and the iPhone, they're not keen to produce any competing devices currently. And I can understand that, though it's unfortunate.
It does seem like I'd be joining an active community though. 
iPhone
An iPhone would be a solid choice, and I certainly think the devices deserves (most of) the acclaim it's been getting, but I'm not switching from one proprietary mobile device to another. Even if it is Apple. I'm also not impressed with the inability to run background applications, and while jailbreaking the phone would open up a lot of extra functionality, I'm not inclined to do that. I don't want to support Apple by buying their device if I don't actually support how they design their software.
Other?
So my two choices feel like this: Get an iPhone (and possibly jailbreak it) or switch to T-Mobile if/when they release a second (slicker-than-G1) device.
Are there other choices? Which do you think I should do?
Mexico’s drug war
April 1, 2009 – 15:33
Mexico's drug war - The Big Picture - Boston.com
In December of 2006, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels, reversing earlier government passiveness. Since then, the government has made some gains, but at a heavy price - gun battles, assassinations, kidnappings, fights between rival cartels, and reprisals have resulted in over 9,500 deaths since December 2006 - over 5,300 killed last year alone. President Barack Obama recently announced extra agents were being deployed to the border and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Mexico today to pursue a broad diplomatic agenda - overshadowed now by spiraling drug violence and fears of greater cross-border spillover. Officials on both sides of the border are committed to stopping the violence, and stemming the flow of drugs heading north and guns and cash heading south.
I know it may sound naïve, but I have to wonder if a lot of the residual violence would be quelled if marijuana were made legal. I know drugs aren't the only reason for border control, but I also wonder if the border situation would be different too. I believe enough in the power of the free market that it could regulate the—shall we say—more colorful characters in the industry.
Or maybe I've just been watching too much Weeds. Seriously, that show is funny, but I'm left after watching season 4 with a vague uneasiness. I think it got to me, that there are actually people out there whose lives become wholly consumed by the drug profession.
Users Don’t Like Change
March 21, 2009 – 09:37
Facebook's Users Don't Like Change - ReadWriteWeb
Users don't like change, and as a product becomes more popular, users will grow ever more resistant to change.
The entire article (about Facebook's contentious changes to their News Feed) distills to that one sentence. It's not a Facebook thing, it's a people thing.
Really, I grow tired of all this resistance to change. While I've been there too—it's easy to get habituated—it's annoying to hear. Microsoft Office 2007, Firefox 3, Safari 4, BlackBerry, iPhone, etc. etc.
It would seem that if people had their way, interfaces would become static (at some unspecified point) and remain there. Rather than fixing quirks, users would simply habituate to them. And there would be little room for innovation.
I understand that designers/engineers don't always get things right, but especially with computers, there is a lot of change from year to year, and that's a good thing. An inclination to embrace change would go a long way to enjoying the dynamic world of technology.
Verizon Is Up to It Again
March 20, 2009 – 11:48
Verizon Customers - Just Say No! - ReadWriteWeb
David Weinberger, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and the more recent Everything is Miscellaneous received a letter today from Verizon. A "legalistic pamphlet" that informed him he has 45 days to opt out of 'agreeing' to let Verizon share his personal information.
Weinberger, unlike the majority of us who rarely read the associated paraphernalia that arrives with bills and the like, noticed that Verizon's modus operandi was to share Customer Proprietary Network Information - the data created as a result of your relationship with Verizon Wireless - unless you ask them to stop.
Yet another egregious misstep on Verizon's part. This is the kind of thing that will keep me from willingly using them.
Davis closes with what I've said to people all along:
For a company that prides itself on operating the nation's most reliable and largest wireless voice and data network [...] it clearly still has a way to go.