NSLog();

Must note URL for later: http://www.young-technologies.com/Utilities/PackageTracking/. I tried it just now with a golf shirt I bought, and it worked wonderfully in PulpFiction.

JDD and I were talking, and I was moaning about Safari's incredibly slow "pizza cursor" times. They've been happening lately whenever I'd click a text field, a popup menu, and other such "form" items. It's been quite ridiculous, really - a 2-3 second wait whenever I'd move around. It'd delay actions when I did click buttons, it hogged time when trying to switch tabs, and all manner of things.

The answer, it turns out, is rather simple.

Question: When did you reach "Blog Awareness"?

My Answer: Slashdot carries the news that "Blog Reading up 58% in U.S." Slashdotters are quick to report on the far more telling quote: "Despite the explosive growth, more than 60% of online Americans have still never heard of blogs, the survey found."

I first became aware of blogs in 2001. Of course, I knew of personal "diary" sites before that, and "home pages" years before that, but I'm not sure I knew that they would be called "blogs" until 2001. I wasn't aware of RSS and syndicated content until a few months after that.

Your mission today is to find one person who is not aware of blogs and syndication and introduce them to it. If the person you choose to indoctrinate is a Mac user, then of course we recommend showing them PulpFiction. Just tell them to download it and take the survey before they buy, wink wink. If it's a PC user, well, I'm not sure what the best one over there is. Perhaps FeedDemon.

I shall do two better and indoctrinate three people to syndicated content and blogs today.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Remember kiddies: when you're up past 5am, and you get up at 9am, you're not likely to have received too many emails in between.

I was up late last night working on the Lake View website. As I've mentioned, it's currently available here, and I'm playing with the account now on Dreamhost thanks to Judi. Funny thing is that they let you put your CGI files anywhere you'd like - quite unusual.

I spent about three or four hours trying to solve a box model problem on the site. That's difficult when you don't have a Windows computer to look at. The site's still off by five pixels in IE/Mac, but I'm not sure I care about that browser a whole lot. 🙂 Works in IE/Win 6, Safari, FireFox, OmniWeb. iCab screws it up of course, but I'm fairly certain that the next release will do it.

Today, when trying to find the kid's bib, I found an Uncrustable in Carey's backpack. Basically, it's a sandwich in a bag. No crust - and filled with peanut butter and jelly.

I must say, I wish I had about 10 right now. I'd eat them all. I love that there's enough peanut butter to keep the jelly from soaking up the bread.

Of course, it's 4:30am and I'm still awake, so, what do I know? I'm putting this in the "Technology" category, though, I know that!

I'm going to start calling utterly crappy interfaces "Winderfaces." I've munged the words "Windows" and "Interfaces." You pronounce the word with a short "i," not a long "i." As in "windows" and "interface." Since nearly all bad interfaces find their home on Windows, it seems a natural fit.

Microsoft is coming out with some anti-spyware software, and a few screenshots leaked. What strikes me about the screenshots isn't the feature set or even the need for anti-spyware software (it's a given on a PC), but the completely horrid display of UI design this app manages to squeeze into a few screenshots of rather small size.

Look at those pictures and see how quickly you can determine the answers to these questions:

• What constitutes a "button"?
• What can you click on, and what will the result of that click be?
• Has the mix of underlined text (à la "the Web") and buttons really worked? Particularly when some clickable text isn't underlined at all (see "Take Me To")?
• Why doesn't the currently selected "pref pane" look any different than the others?
• What in the hell do Windows UI developers continue to smoke? Does it too come from India?

Windows sucks big, huge, donkey balls. Or should I say cow balls, what with Longhorn on the distant "longhornizon."

OK, one too many bad word munges. Sorry.

This may be the best evidence yet of an upcoming "iWork."

Update: According to filings at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the "iWork" name is currently registered by Apple, with the previous registrant being IGG Software--hinting that Apple acquired (paid for) the rights to the mark. The change was made in August 2004.

iCan't iWait! I've been longing for a replacement to AppleWorks for quite some time. I use AppleWorks for 98% of my document needs, and if the app can export to and from Microsoft Word pretty seamlessly (at least as well as Keynote <-> PowerPoint), then I may be able to use "Pages" for my book project instead of Word.

But beyond that, my lips are sealed. I've got lots of friends inside Apple (and many more former co-workers that I don't consider more than acquaintances), but I haven't bothered to ask them about iWork. Nor will I… I'm just going to hope to be surprised.

Screw the headless iMac. I don't want it, if it exists. I still want a display (15" would be fine) with a pen-sensitive screen and a USB port for a keyboard/mouse. I want the computer to run Mac OS X, but only so far as to boot into Remote Desktop.

Then, without syncing files or preferences, I can wander about my house or apartment on my wireless network doing work "on" my G5.

I'd pay $1499 for that. Maybe even $1999 (but that's stretching it). A touch-sensitive 15" screen from Apple with a built-in USB port, wireless networking, and nothing but Remote Desktop. Build in a little CompactFlash slot for settings and some smaller files (though CF cards are pretty big these days) and you can copy files from one computer to another, or from one of these iTablets to another (user).

Question: Which Omni Group products do you own?

My Answer: OmniGraffle Pro and, uhhh, OmniOutliner 2.x. I had a student license to OmniWeb 3 or 4, but OW5 hasn't impressed me in the least. I may pick up a copy of OOPro for the collaborative project on which I'm working.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

The Buffalo Bills failed to beat the JV Steelers today in a game that meant everything to the Bills and little, if anything, to the Steelers. The Steelers rushed for over 150 yards and held the Bills to less than 100 even though many of the Steelers hadn't seen playing time since the pre-season.

Roethlisberger, Bettis, Burress, Haggans, Townsend, and more didn't even play. Tommy Maddox - once a solid NFL QB - showed why he's nicknamed "The Human Glacier" or "The Steeler Statue" today, giving up lame sacks by failing to outrun 350-lb linemen and by coughing up two INTs and missing a wide-open Randle El in the end zone, among other things.

I figured the Bills would win this game, given the "nothing to gain" position in which the Steelers found themselves. Needless to say, after losing today, the Bills showed why they don't belong in the playoffs. The Steelers now have the week off and will face San Diego (or their opponent) in thirteen or fourteen days.

Question: What is your favorite dessert?

My Answer: I'm not much of a dessert guy. More of a late night snack guy (ice cream). If I do eat dessert, a nice moist chocolate cake, cheesecake, gobs (you don't know what these are, don't worry), and cherry pie top my list.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

A few months ago my dad bought a cheapo PC to watch some videos he couldn't watch on a Mac (some super-secret WMP encoded files or something) and to use some CDs encoded with HTML that only Windows IE could decipher.

Recently, I've acquired Business Plan Pro and installed it, and I bought a $15 ethernet card and installed it. Works great, though it took about two hours to get the PC set up and installed. I quickly downloaded any of the Windows "critical updates" (btw, finding Windows Update took four to five minutes alone), then downloaded and installed FireFox. I instructed dad not to use Outlook or Internet Explorer and showed him how to launch and use FireFox. We'll see how long that lasts…

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 725); »

Two golf balls, both hit with a 3W from the same tee. One was a low cut, the other a high draw. This is where they finished up, 240 yards from the tee and 165 from the middle of the green, on the 10th hole at Lake View Country Club.

Yes sir, I played golf today. Nothing like ringing in the new year with a crappy camera phone and a round of golf.

Question: What is your fondest memory of 2004?

My Answer: Seeing Carey again for the first time ranks right up there (the actual memory is quite private, so I'll leave it at that). It's hard to believe I've known her (again) since April.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

After watching a bunch of the tsunami videos, a few thoughts occur to me.

• The wave was not nearly as tall as I thought it'd be. I mean, Hawaii and Australia get waves like this for surf competitions, don't they? It looked to be 15 feet tall or so. The pictures I had in my head had 100-foot tall waves.
• It's amazing how many people were just walking around on the beach going "look at that big one coming in."
• Every video almost looked like it was shot in the same location. Pristine little beaches, palm trees, nice little restaurants and hotels.
• Why are they all in Windows Media Player? 😛

Some people are feeling the crunch in terms of bandwidth and now need donations of their own. I didn't see the video from this guy, but I kicked $50 to him and $200 to the Red Cross today.