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  • 1 min read

Love/Hate Gmail

I've been using Gmail like forever now and have converted many friends and family members to using it. It's great and it's ridiculously cheap. Coupled with a good ad-suppressor plug-in for Safari (Mac) it works well for me. I do access it, almost always, via the desktop Mail app on Mac OSX, so I don't experience it's UI all the time.

But the Gmail UI is quite bizarre, with multiple different ways to do similar things, weird drop down menus and weird functionality in places. So it's a little annoying, but, it does scale, it is cheap, and it is up almost all the time.

I only briefly considered the idea of moving from Gmail to something else when reading this article, but within seconds knew I would stay with Gmail. So all I got out of reading the article is an idea for a lousy blog post 🙂

Switching from Gmail to FastMail / Max Masnick:

I switched from Gmail to FastMail a few months ago and I've been meaning to write a post about how I did it. I saw a tweet about ads in Gmail that look like normal email this morning and thought, "Ads that look like email??? This is the last straw. I want to help people get out."

  • 1 min read

GPS Free car tracking

Very clever!

An Automated GPS-Free Location System For Cars | IdeaFeed | Big Think:

It works through the use of two simple cameras, which collect video data that is then compared to an OpenStreetMap area map. Through a process of elimination that takes place within an average of 20 seconds of driving, the system is able to figure out exactly where the car is. During tests conducted in Germany, it located cars to within 3 meters of their actual positions.

  • 1 min read

[GEEKY] Social login buttons considered harmful

You probably don't know what a social login button is so forgive this bit of geekyness. I am sure you've seen them: "login with facebook or twitter?" If an app or a site wants to "save you the trouble" of registering a username and password, they may "make your life easier" by allowing you to register using your facebook or twitter password. Conventional wisdom in the world of apps has been that this is a user requirement, and plus beneficial to the business as well. Here's an interesting article that refutes that belief, at least in certain significant scenarios.

Social Login Buttons Aren't Worth It | MailChimp Email Marketing Blog:

I was, um, not super happy to get that email. I presented my data, and made the case for keeping the buttons, but Ben wasn't moved. Even though the social login buttons were bound for the grave, I did a little extra analytics footwork to see just how many people were clicking the social login buttons. I was shocked to see that just 3.4% of the people that visited the login page actually used Facebook or Twitter to log in. So what caused the huge drop in login failures then?

Yea

  • 1 min read

Is a startup for you?

I always thought that startups are over glamorized. They are not for everyone. On the other hand, some people also over stress about the 'risk' of joining a startup, which I don't by either. Check out: Alex Payne -- Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup:

Maybe a startup is the best way to meet a goal, and maybe it isn't. If the goal of the young man described above is to run a business - any business! - then perhaps a startup is indeed his best path forward. For others, though, I often wonder if they're fitting their goals into the format of a startup because it's an approach that's lauded, admired, and easily understood (if not easily accomplished).

  • 1 min read

Learn to make something

This bit of advice rings very true to me. Read the whole article, but here's a tasty bit.

@andrewchen: New essays for 06/03/2013:

1) Learn to make something. Anything. First and foremost, I think it's important to learn to make something. Anything. It could be an app, blog, table, YouTube channel, video tutorial, or anything else. Then study the people who have become successful enough to support themselves in this craft, and study them, copy them, stalk them, and meet them.

  • 1 min read

Politics and the soul

An interesting post from my pal Peter Miller about how we all view the world through our own biases and it's hard to disentangle those from what might feel like clear eyed reasoning. (See Peter, I summarized your article in one sentence 🙂

Politics and the Soul | ZeitgeistSurfer:

Every thoughtful conservative believes that liberals see the world through a distorting lens whose inner structure has been formed by their desire for a better, fairer, more just, more equal, more peaceful, less polluted world. (Or perhaps it's not that at all, but simply envy and the lust for revenge on those who have won life's lottery.) Most conservatives believe that liberals do not fundamentally understand human nature. "Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made" as Kant said. As we accumulate experience we encounter a nearly infinite variety of human types. Yet they all share a common core of instinct, rough desire, nobility and/or savagery.

  • 1 min read

Teach ’em GIT

I don't agree that it's a "major problem for computer science" - by a long shot. But still it is odd that often Computer Science students are not exposed to 'modern' source control management systems or version management systems, or maybe even "any" SCM at all.

Version Control and Higher Education -- What I Learned Building… -- Medium:

We are not doing students any favors by ignoring software like Git at the university level. It's a major problem for computer science, information technology and design students to not--at the very least--be exposed to some form of version control or source code management during their tenure at school.