Blogs

Jul
9
2010

But that's my job!!

While running errands today I stopped in the credit union to do a little business and see who I could talk to about the problematic iPad website. It's a simple problem really, the iPad is redirected to the mobile website. As you'll see if you visit the mobile site it is pretty spartan. More problematically there is no way to opt-out of using the mobile site.

So I try to explain the problem and I'm treated to an explanation of how the browser on the iPad works. "You see, the iPad looks to the server just like an iPhone so it's not possible to tell," goes the explanation. Of course it's complete balderdash. I explain that I spend my days working on some relatively large websites and know a thing or two and in fact it is possible to differentiate the two.

Of course it's not necessary to take my word for it. Apple has published a technote on this very topic.

Jun
20
2010

Benefits from the OS X 10.6.4 update

Apple Mail ApplicationMurphy's law and it's corollaries dictate that not only will things that can go wrong will go wrong, but they will do so at the least possible convenient time. Thus it was that at the end of April as I was getting ready to transition to a few months of full-time travel Apple's Mail app decided to head south. The main symptom was an incredible use of memory. I could launch Mail and a short time later not only would all 8GB of RAM in my machine be swallowed up but it would be using 20GB more on disk for swap space. All and all a totally unusable situation.

Since I now spend precious little time at home I just switched to using MailPlane and called it good. MailPlane uses the native Google Mail interface which has a major advantage in the form of the Send and Archive button. With the flood of hundreds to thousands of emails a day in my inbox this is a powerful tool. However it lacks other processing rules like the priceless Mail Act-On.

A brief deviation here while I rant for a second about how inexplicable it is Google has never come up with the concept of rules applied once email has arrived. In most cases I need to see the message in my inbox and make decisions about it and then I want to process it. Mail Act-On does this beautifully and even uses Apple Mail's rules to full advantage to simplify having the same keystrokes affect multiple accounts and take the right action on an account-by-account basis. But this Google Mail gripe aside back to the story.

Jun
18
2010

Public Key

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Apr
7
2010

A tip on applying for jobs

One of the things I do on an ongoing basis is help maintain the job applicant system at the office. A couple of trends continue to amaze me. First of all if you're submitting a file giving it the name "resume.doc" is a sure-fire way to make sure your resume will get lost, messed up and never make it to where it needs to be. A second great way to cause problems is to put special characters in the file name. Calling it "Joe's Resume.doc" or "resume/web-2010.pdf" won't help you win friends either.

So here is a simple idea. Keep the name of your files descriptive and use only letters, numbers, dashes and underscores in the file name. The newspaper says there are a few folks out there looking for jobs these days. You don't want to miss out on the interview just because the folks trying to read your resume can't find it amongst the piles of submissions.

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