As previously mentioned (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2009/04/simple-html-editor.html), I've been revising my work setup lately, and one of the things I've dove is eliminate the box of my office inbox.
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I receive documents and packages of various sizes and weights, so a basic tray doesn't work for me. I tried wire baskets, but they felt cumbersome. Thus, to accomodate all sizes, I decided to ditch containers entirely in favor of a designated "in" area.
Not only does this eliminate concerns over accommodation, but I have open space when there are no "in" items. In addition, the novelty of being boxless has made people more aware of where to put "in" items, and I'm more apt to attend to new items quickly when they're out in the open as opposed to being sequestered in a container.
As posted earlier in a Ramble (http://sumocats.blogspot.com/2009/04/now-my-pen-is-really-broken.html), my Wacom eraser pen (http://www.alltp.com/shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=225&idaffiliate=14) broke... in half. Normally, one would think that would at least impair the performance of such a delicate piece of technology. Yet, here I am penning this blog entry with my broken pen, held together with transparent tape. Pen tip obviously works fine, pressure sensitivity included. The eraser needed some positioning, but it erases. And the side button, held on by another piece of tape, still offers right-click functionality. Sure, none of the circuits and what not were damaged, but I still think full functionality in a digital pen broken in two is pretty cool. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
As I stated previously (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2009/01/ballmer-wimps-out-in-first-challenge.html), I find it incredibly distasteful when highly profitable companies lay off workers into weak job markets, further weakening the economy. Thus, I was quite upset to read that Apple laid off 1,600 (http://i.gizmodo.com/5225825/apple-removes-baby-shaking-app-1600-employees-from-app-store-actual-stores)retail workers (http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/apple-lays-off-1600-geniuses--594321), despite booming profits and a claim by coo Tim Cook that they would "invest [their] way through this downturn." (http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090122/tc_afp/usitinternetcompanyearningsapple) For a moment, I feared my rage would take over, but then I read through to the original report on CNET (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10226486-37.html) and discovered a lot of people don't knew what "Full-time Equivalent" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-time_equivalent) means.
Basically, FTE in this case means working 40 hours in a week. Two guys working 20 hours each is one FTE. One guy working 60 hours is 1.75 FTE, assuming 1.5 overtime. Thus, a report that Apple's retail workforce was cut by 1,600 FTE, roughly 10%, compared to the previous quarter does not mean 1,600 full-time workers lost their jobs.
Furthermore, the cut in FTE is between their first and second fiscal quarters, and Apple's Q1 ends two days after Christmas (http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/apple-iphone-jobs-markets-equity-cx_mlm_0121markets36.html). In other words, Apple cut 10% FTE from their retail stores after the holiday sales season ended. You know what other retailers cut FTE after the holidays? All of them! Every year! Between saying good-bye to seasonal staff and no longer needing regulars to work overtime, a drop in FTE is practically unavoidable, and a drop of only 10% could be explained by cutting overtime alone (time and a half, remember?)
Regardless, 1,600 full-time equivalent workers is not actually 1,600 full-time workers. While CNET did use the correct terminology in their report, their headline and photo tagline are misleadingly inaccurate. They also fail to recognize the holiday season as a factor, if not the factor, for the drop. In my opinion, that's lazy reporting on their end. As for the idiots who picked up the story without bothering to understand the content, I am reminded of the wisdom of old Obi-wan Kenobi, "Who's the more foolish: the fool or the fool who follows him?" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/quotes) And no, that does not refer to "foolish" in the Motley (http://www.fool.com/) sense.
Tech bloggers, you need to either stop reporting on the business aspects of tech companies, or look up terms you don't understand. Maybe you haven't heard, but there's a great service that helps you look up stuff called "Google." (http://www.google.com/) Try it some time. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Been on a bit of a revision tear at work lately, reconfiguring my desk surface, instituting a new filing system (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2009/04/filing-without-sorting.html), and now whipping up a simple html editor (http://www.markandtanya.us/scribbles/editor.html) for my boss.
Just needed a way to add simple format tags and hyperlinks. Used the text editing code from Build 52 and modified it a bit, so it's limited to Internet Explorer.
Anyway, I have it posted in case anyone's interested. Probably update it with tags for different colors soon. That would make it useful for me too. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Observant readers may have noticed that while I am a farmer's market-shopping, Prius-driving, paper-reducing, rainwater-collecting, green energy-endorsing vegetarian, I don't celebrate Earth Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day). I've nothing against it. I just take the "Earth Day, Every Day" philosophy to the logical conclusion that we need no single special day to think about the planet on which we live.
Ah, but the universe had other designs in mind. For while I can disregard an arbitrarily designated occasion, I cannot ignore that today is Homer (http://picasaweb.google.com/sumocat666/Homer02?feat=directlink)'s birthday. (I can try but my wife won't let me.) Henceforth, in recognition of the day Homer was squeezed into the world, making it a better place, April 22 will be known as Homer Day (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/search/label/Homer%20Day) on Sumocat's Scribbles. Have a good one! [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
As if having the first Hawaii-born President (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Barack_Obama) wasn't wonderful enough, now the nation has it's first Chief Technology Officer (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Weekly-Address-President-Obama-Discusses-Efforts-to-Reform-Spending-Government-Waste-Names-Chief-Performance-Officer-and-Chief-Technology-Officer/), and it's Aneesh Chopra (http://www.technology.virginia.gov/OfficeInfo/chopraBio.cfm), Secretary of Technology of my current home of Virginia. Chopra has a background in health care, so I suspect he will be the point man on the President's initiative to digitize medical records. This also bodes well for those of us who rely on advanced medical technology for our livelihoods (if not our lives). For more info, check out the O'Reilly Radar's (http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/aneesh-chopra-great-federal-cto.html) rich write-up on Chopra's accomplishments. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Closing out year three of my fifty year fish boycott (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/search/label/fish%20boycott) and not without temptation, coincidentally involving my mother yet again.
At the Maine Avenue Fish Market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Avenue_Fish_Market), I fought off the urge to bite into a lobster with a meal of faux eel and squid. I admit it was tough, but I stuck it out. Only 47 more years to go. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Among the many challenges I face at work is the mind-numbing task of filing. Fortunately, I don't have a vast variety of documents to monitor, just two types in fact, which made it quite easy to eliminate the time-consuming monotony of sorting with good tracking and a Bates numbering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_numbering) system.
25ยข breakdown: I take a batch of filing, print Bates numbers on them, scan the batch to a PDF, enter the document info in a spreadsheet, then add the physical and digital documents to the end of the previous filing. That's it. No sorting in folders except for adding more files.
The spreadsheet lists the document ID and has links to the PDFs. Each new entry gets added under a new Bates number, which is basically an arbitrary ID, in numeric order. That is the only order used for organizing, so there's no sorting of new files; just slap them on the end.
The key is the tracking list. You want to find a file, you don't search the files; you search the spreadsheet. And as an added bonus, I OCR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition) the PDFs, so they're mostly searchable too. Requires a little data entry time, but filing time, putting documents in the right folders, is cut to nearly nothing, and any file can be found in seconds. Now that's my kind of filing. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
With patriots across the nation joining together (http://www.alternet.org/story/132440/the_hilarious_hypocrisy_of_the_gop%27s_so-called_%27tea_bag_revolution%27/) in teabagging (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagging) parties to protest, um, losing the election, I guess, let us not forget the other, less-known heroes and acts that made our nation great. Real patriots like:
Red Williams, a musician whose brass instrument was tossed into the salty harbor by angry redcoats. After a day of searching, he found his instrument and, despite the later corrosion, he blasted calls to arms during the Revolutionary War, lips pressed against that rusty trombone (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rusty+trombone).
And what of wealthy Nathan Daniel who shut down his exotic jewelry store, unable to make sales during The Great Depression? Rather than squirrel away his inventory, he handed it out to his neighbors, giving each lady on his street a pearl necklace (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pearl%20necklace).
Descendant of one of Christopher Columbus' seamen, Juan Sanchez was a top aide to Teddy Roosevelt during the Spanish-American war, translating intercepted communications and earning the scorn of his ancestral countrymen, culminating in a nickname meant to be derogatory but which he wore with pride, Dirty Sanchez (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dirty%20Sanchez).
Yes, patriot, as you dip your tea bags in those hot, steamy mugs, reflect fondly on that first tea party protesting lower tariffs on imported goods at the expense of smugglers (seriously, the Tea Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act) lowered the price of tea), but forget not those others whose example you follow [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
A couple weeks back, I was driving to work, skipping through songs on my iPhone, lamenting my inability to listen to more than one song during the brief jaunt between my wife's office and mine. I considered creating a playlist of similar song clips for a medley, but then I thought, to paraphrase Apple's marketing, there ought to be an app for that.
With the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 release, developers will be able to tap the iPhone's iPod for audio playback, so how about an app that can play random clips of songs from a given album or playlist? Clips will be anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, woven together with a little crossfade, all user-determined, of course.
A really adventurous developer could even get a little Genius-generated play listing going and maybe offer links to similar songs on iTunes and scoop a small commission in the process. I don't know all the ins and outs, but I know Pandora gets a cut when they sell songs.
Anyway, I initially tossed the idea to friend of the blog Mike V., but apparently he has a job to do or something, so I'm tossing it out to anyone. If you use it, do me a favor and send me a copy. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
