Halloween is to practice being scared

Now that Halloween is over, and the ghosts and goblins and trick or treaters and (most importantly) my daughter have gone to bed, I thought I’d reflect a bit on Halloween and when it means to me as a parent. My daughter is four, and she’s never been fond of scares, so this time of year any time we go out shopping, we’re braving a potential minefield. Stores seem to love putting motion activated spiders and skeletons up on candy aisles and endcaps.

Published at November 1, 2010 ·  3 min read

Standing desk DIY Episode 3: It was too hard AND it was too soft, but now it's just right.

Two more days of Standing Desk, with a level keyboard, and I love it, but I have two problems. The first is, my feet hurt, especially my heels. The second is that I have a tendency to rest my hands on the keyboard shelf when I not typing, causing it to flex, and I’m afraid I’m going to warp or break it. So today, I’m fixing both problems. The first is easy, although not cheap.

Published at October 22, 2010 ·  3 min read

Standing Desk DIY Episode 2: Customizing the keyboard stand

I wrote a couple of days ago about my DIY desk. I’ve been quite happy with it so far, with one exception: The keyboard “drawer”. It wasn’t quite table enough. It would bounce just a little bit when I typed, which was annoying. Even worse, though, the lap desk I was using wasn’t completely flat, and so the keyboard was tilted slightly which made it very difficult to hit the right keys.

Published at October 20, 2010 ·  2 min read

Standing Desk DIY: Cubicle Edition

Lately, I’ve read several articles on standing desks and especially on the health risks of the modern office. I wanted to try it out, especially since I pulled a muscle in my back a few month ago and, now that I’m all recovered, I don’t want it to happen again. The biggest problem with that for me, is that I spend a lot of time programming in a cubicle farm. I hadn’t seen a configuration yet that seemed like it would work well with cubes, but I think I finally managed to work one out.

Published at October 18, 2010 ·  4 min read

Do not buy a new Tivo. Just trust me. You'll regret it. We do.

TiVo has completely lost their way. I love TiVo. Or have. I got my first one in 1999. It has started having issues (locks up every couple of days and has to be power cycled). That sucks, but the thing is 11 years old. So, for my wife’s birthday last month, I bought my wife a new TiVo Premiere XL. I thought it would be a good idea. Wow, I was wrong.

Published at October 13, 2010 ·  3 min read

We have a Winner! (so far) - the Battle of the iPad Styli

A long, long time ago, I bought the first US Robotics Pilot 5000. Using Graffiti, I could actually take notes for the first time in a meeting that I wouldn’t have to type in later (although I did have to correct missed letters periodically). I used PalmOS and a Stylus to take notes up through my Kyocera 7135, which I loved. But when it died, I couldn’t bring myself to get another phone with that outdated OS, so I made the jump to Windows Mobile with a Verizon xv6600 in 2004 or so.

Published at September 26, 2010 ·  2 min read

How LaunchBar and 1Password Reduce Annoying Redundnacy

Not by preference, but recently I’ve had to spend some time fighting with SQL Server, and that lowest common denominator piece of IT software, the Wizard. You’ve probably had to deal with some stupid thing like this, too. It’s irritating and annoying, but it’s often the easiest way to figure out how to get something to work. Through the Wizard there are a bunch of different options, and you can iterate through them relatively easily, and then test to see if you got the right combination, and then script or document or whatever so you can reproduce your setup.

Published at September 23, 2010 ·  3 min read

What Makes for an Uncivilized iPhone Game - One Gamer’s Opinion

With the imminent release of Civilization V, I thought I would wax nostalgic about one of my favorite games ever, and why it’s unlikely to ever be that fun again. When I got my iPhone (3G), I loved it, and one of the things I loved about it was the ability to play games on it. There were a few games I enjoyed, but I really longed for the inevitable influx of classic games ported to the new platform.

Published at September 21, 2010 ·  3 min read