Tuesday, May 27, 2008

UPS Online Tools

I've been messing with the UPS Online Tools - tools that software developers could use to write applications that take advantage of UPS data such as shipment costs, tracking, and address verification. I say could, because UPS makes it so difficult to do anything you practically have to sign over a kidney. I thought it was funny that UPS has trademarked the color brown.

Brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown! Neener neener. Brown!

(03:18) lancer: Note:
UPS, the UPS Shield trademark, the UPS Ready mark, the UPS OnLine® Tools mark and the Color Brown are trademarks of United Parcel Service of America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(03:20) jamesn: UPS HitCreek is their developer integration program. Is that trademarked?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Audible doesn't have Watership Down

A short conversation with James:

(03:07) lancer: hmm...audible doesn't have watership down
(03:07) lancer: or anything from that author
(03:07) jamesn: Do they have "Fucking Travesty, the Book"?
(03:08) jamesn: Or "Why we should not be in business?" By A. Audible Jackass?

Monday, May 19, 2008

South Mountains State Park

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of going on a camping trip with some friends.  Destination:  South Mountains State Park.  It was a blast.  My favorite part actually turned out to be what I was afraid of. 

We left on Friday after work, which meant we would arrive at the campsite late.  After taking our sweet time getting there (even driving around searching for the Russel Stover outlet on the way) we made it about 10 minutes before the gates to the park closed (whoops, that was close)!  Then we discovered that all the car camping places were already taken, and we'd have to hike out to a campsite.  Ouch!  That's exactly what I was afraid of!  We had no backpacks, and it was dark and we only had one headlamp!  We ended up strapping whatever we could fit on our backs and biking in the dark to the campsite about 2 miles away.  Once we got there it was awesome, until we realized that we forgot to bring something to make fire with!  :)  Fortunately there was one other group not too far away and they gave us some fire.

Blake showed us how to make "boy scout burgers" - a ton of hamburger meat and onion and spices smashed down inside aluminum foil and thrown directly in the fire.  Those were great.  The next night we made s'mores as well, which I hadn't done since I was a little kid in the boy scouts.

We went mountain biking and hiking all over.  The biking was amazing - it was incredibly difficult going uphill (I did a lot of walking and pushing my bike uphill!) and it was incredible SCARY going downhill!  A couple of times I thought for sure I was going to go flying over my handle bars and tumbling down a mountain side!  The highlight of the hiking was High Shoals Falls.  It was at the top of t his 80 foot waterfall that I realized my brand new phone was designed by a moron.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Google Calendar Sync

I've been using Google Calendar Sync for 2-3 months now, and I absolutely love it.  In the past I always kept my calendar in Outlook at work, and sometimes it was a pain to check that from home.  Now items in my Outlook calendar are automatically synced with my Google calendar (and vice versa).  I haven't come across a single bug or annoyance.

I like how Google Calendar is very smart about new entries.  If I create a new entry like "7pm, dinner at Angus Barn", Google automatically recognizes the time and location of that entry.  Suggestion for Google:  do the same thing with "Tom's birthday" (as well as anniversary, annual, etc).  Automatically mark that as an event that repeats yearly.

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Monday, May 05, 2008

Crap UI Design

I think one of my unique personality traits is that I tackle big problems with relative composure, but I often over-react to small problems or annoyances.

Lately, an issue that has been annoying me more and more (and has been pointed out to me that I get a little too upset about) is crappy software UI on household devices. Whether it be my dvd player, my cable box, or my cell phone - there appear to be a bunch of idiots designing the UI and capabilities of the software that runs on these devices.

So...because of this, and because two blogs is just not enough, I have decided to turn this non-constructive complaining into something more (debatably) useful: UI Follies. The first two posts are specific to my new Motorola i880 cell phone. But I plan to talk about more than just cell phones, and more than just handheld devices and entertainment center components. I also won't limit myself to software, though that will no doubt be the bulk.