The FuzzyBlog!
Marketing 101. Consulting 101. PHP Consulting. Random geeky stuff. I Blog Therefore I Am.

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

Ok. It's Politically Incorrect But Funny as Heck 1:37:30 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Why PC Users Have Problems with Macs With Nat and Jeremy commenting on why their OS X based Macs aren't perfect, I thought I'd throw someone's proverbial .02 into the ring.  I took a friend looking to get a new notebook to MicroCenter in Cambridge yesterday night and their comments were interesting.  Here was a long time PC person who actually used to even work in the Macintosh software market (anyone remember White Pine software?).  Anyway, their comments were two fold: Keyboard is less than optimal (aka "stinks"), specifically: Lack of key travel -- there is a real difference on PC keyboards and Mac keyboards with the amount of "depression".  Mac laptop keyboards just don't feel the same. Key Layout.  Similar to my issues here -- the whole Control / Apple thingie key. Hands Sliding Off the Keys.  This was a new one to me.  Their comment was that it felt like their hands would "slide off the keys".  This may bee from the extreme flatness of the keyboard, the "slickness" of the keys or the lack of depression. Font Size Viewing in Apple Works.  This one was interesting to me since I'm used to small text but their comment was that a) they don't want to repurchase MS Word b) they don't have anyone to pirate Word from c) they needed the equivalent of Word's Zoom feature which makes the text within documents larger without changing the print font size.  I indicated that the machine might have it but that I wasn't sure.  Given that the keyboard was the real show stopper here, the font size thing, even if addressed would have prevented the purchase.  It's very, very interesting to me that all of the issues being listed by Jeremy, Nat and myself are what would generally be considered "little issues".  No one seems to be saying "Can't do it because software package X isn't available".  It's more on the order of "I like it but it's annoying".  My issues (not my friends) are things like keyboard, changes to the standard unix directory structure (Bastich!  Why oh why did they capitalize directory names?  Why????), ALT+TAB application switching and other little oddities. 6:21:00 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Who's Related to Tim O'Reilly: From NameBase.org Very cool: http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nbb6.cgi/31549?_OREILLY_TIM_ And, no, it's not his family.  The display isn't very good and its hard to read but it's cool as all smack. 6:06:27 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Da Book! Da Book!  It's Coming! I just talked to Nat Torkington, the BlogBook editor, and it's about 3 weeks away!  Very cool.  Here's even the Amazon listing. My apologies to Mr. Rourke.  Too many episodes of Fantasy Island when I was just an impressionable lad. 4:05:40 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Cool!  Ashanda's PHP and HTML is Getting Better and Better Doing as much online as I do, you run into all kinds of interesting, random people.  Someone I helped with a bunch of PHP stuff about 3 or 4 months ago popped up back into my "IMLife" last night with a few questions.  I didn't have an answer but pointed her in the right direction.  Now I just ran across her site out of curiousity and I see that her HTML and PHP is much, much better.  How cool.  Now I can say "I knew her when".  http://www.ashanda.com/ (it's a website selling online, self published books of her own writings) 3:00:48 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Quiet Desperation A friend, who is out of work and has been for some time, was more than a bit down last night and suffering from the "Why Me" syndrome last night.  So I pointed out that "Everyone is having a pretty hard time right now and it's not them -- a huge amount is the economy".  We went thru mutual friends and of about 20, perhaps 3 were doing well -- and the rest were just getting by.  I then quoted Thoreau's Quiet Desperation line from Walden Pond.  Actually I tried to quote it and then said to myself "Dude!  Just do a google."  Here it is: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. From: http://eserver.org/thoreau/walden1a.html I had forgotten the "games and amusements" postscript.  But most of all, the "it is a characteristic of wisdom to not do desperate things."  Very cool.  Thanks Google! 2:55:02 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This