February 26, 2003

My court of justice

Malcom De Chazal said "The family is a court of justice which never shuts down for night or day."

My court seems to have found my blog.

Hello family.

Posted by ross at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Software might get better

Barry Parr over at MediaSavvy and I did some back and forth on application utility/useability v. aesthetic. This piece on Blogging with Radio and eVectors by the good folks over at Macromedia highlights how progress is being made slowly but surely on solving these and similar problems for application users.

This is an area that I've been bitching about for a while now. Looking back, I could have been far more productive with my complaints, but live and learn. For those of you that haven't been following the story, I was locked in a life and death content management struggle with Radio Userland for the longest time. I think the final score was something like Radio - 992, Me - 1...

On a slightly related note, someone remarked to me yesterday that Radio was the least stable tool in their arsenal, but that its utility was so high that they were having a hard time dropping it for other tools. There are things that Radio is doing that other tools just aren't doing.

As an aside, I really believe that this is because Weiner and the gang view their tool as a web services manager and the other tool providers view their applications as content management system. It would be interesting to get their first-hand views on this.

Anyways, back to Radio's pro's and con's... The experience that this user has had with Radio brings a classic paradox into relief. A paradox that we have been suffering under for far too long - just good enough to ship is what sells at retail.

I really wish that a more customer-centric development practice had taken root.

Posted by ross at 12:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Pat self on back. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Last week I mentioned that I had written a piece on new gTLDs for The Farm. CircleID has also picked up A Sustainable Framework For The Deployment Of New gTLDs. I've had a number of positive comments on the document so far. Part II will run shortly.
Posted by ross at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I'm a...

Dave says "I'm a programmer!" Congratulations sir - being able to say conclusively that you are no longer a smoker is, I think, the definition of being a non-smoker. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting close. Its been 24 weeks since I first started quitting. Since my last cigarette I've gained 10 "life/time" days back. "Life" is the amount of time that I've gained back based on the fact that I'm no longer killing myself with smoking and "time" is the amount of time that I've gained back by not wasting time smoking.

Now I just need to figure out how to get back the other two years of my life that the 6.23 miles of cigarettes I smoked set me back. I should have just smoked the $52,000 it cost me.

Kids - don't start smoking, save for a Porsche instead. The Porsche might end up killing you faster, but at least you'll die with nice pink lungs.

One of these days, I know that I'm gonna be able to say "I'm a...". I'll let you know, but in the meantime, I'm still a smoker trying to better his lot and live long enough to see some grandchildren.

Posted by ross at 09:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack