past

One of the nice things about being on a trip is that it gets you out of your normal habits and gives you more free time for things you don't prioritize at home like reading.

Nikki and I both just finished off The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. It was a surprisingly good book - quite a fast read but still thought provoking. I was amazed at how often I agreed with her parents (if you haven't read the book, the central premise is that the parents are crazy). The major conclusion we both drew was, of course, that people can survive from some pretty horrible situations. Some fun sub-ideas were that American mainstream is so crazy that even some nutty individualists are right a lot of the time. And we both agreed that Jeanette Walls writing was stunning. It really puts you into the mind of a child at the age she was in the biography and makes you think of the world with wide-eyed-wonder.

It's definitely highly recommended by both of us. Thanks to Mom Kneser for the gift! We passed it on to our friend Eliana which would probably make Jeanette's mom happy by not just throwing it out ;)

I went on a month long backpacking trip when I was 16 with an organization called NOLS. It was good fun and I learned quite a bit

My trip leader was Laura Ordway and she had this great phrase:

Boje the sequence

When you "boje the sequence" you messed up. You did something in the wrong order, or didn't do a step, and it has effects on other steps in a process. I'm not sure whether part of the definition includes that it's friendly, or if that was just Laura's way, but it's something you can say to a friend who has messed up and it has an undertone of "It's OK, I'll help make it right". I looked around and didn't see that on the internet, so I thought I'd include the knowledge here in case anyone else needs a good phrase like this.

Yay WRW61394!

According to their blog, Google Reader now searches. Brilliant idea!

Note that I had this idea almost a year ago (my post on searching google reader). More great tips are available for a variety of companies on the old freedbacking link. Ideas like improvements for Google Documents for example.

Note to my readers: give this a shot yourself and be sure to use the freedbacking tag as suggested by Chris Pirillo.

So, it turns out that Adobe offering a productivity software is a total rumor, but in discussing it at lunch we came up with some great ideas...

If Adobe Made Productivity Software

• It would cost $2500 and you'd have to upgrade every 2 years, but don't worry, your kid brother can get you an education copy for $250
• It would take 3 minutes to boot up, but have a beautiful interface
• Interoperability with Flash/PhotoShop/Illustrator would be great, but the files (minimum size of 300MB) would be a proprietary format that would be unreadable by other software.
• Versions for Intel Mac wouldn't be available until two years after the general availability even though Intel Mac is the number-one target consumer

slightly more risque content after the "jump"

I wanted a sleeve for my Dell Inspiron E1705 (which is basically the same machine as the Inspiron 9300/9400) but couldn't find many good reviews online. Some said it would fit in XYZ sleeve and others would say it wouldn't fit in the same sleeve. So, I traveled to a few local computer supply shops and found several things. First, OfficeMax/OfficeDepot suck for laptop sleeves. They have lots of briefcases.

CompUSA (which I generally hate because of their return policy) at least had a decent selection of briefcases, sleeves, and psuedo sleeve-briefcases. I already have lots of bags - I didn't want yet another briefcase or even a briefcase-sleeve combo. I just want a sleeve that will protect my machine inside of whatever crazy bag I may slide it. I tried out the inCase 17" neoprene sleeve which was in the Apple section of the store because it's "for the MacBookPro". In fact, it works great for the Dell Inspiron 17" series machines even though the Inspirons are much fatter than the MacBookPro. I don't usually zip it up because it seems unnecessary and is a bit of a pain. I have to pull the neoprene pretty tight to get the zipper to close so I just don't bother unless I really want to secure it (e.g. sticking the laptop in check-through luggage).

So, I showed my mom the RainSkirt photos I took and she hated them. Not hated them, but hated the fact that they were untouched. I like things in their "natural state" and generally don't touch up my photos, but now that I see her work I might be swayed.

comparing these two photos of Nikki in her skirt on that lone rainy day this spring:

the photoshopped RainSkirt photo

the original RainSkirt photo

I just can't complain with those results.

And yes, my mom is much better at photoshop than I am. And yes, you can get your RainSkirt at their website.

I had heard weeks ago from chatting with Mike Hostetler that he was working on a code repository for jQuery plugins which got me quite excited. Historically getting specific versions of jQuery plugins has been a little difficult. Now there's a great jQuery Plugin Repository that replaces the Wiki. The recent jQuery Blog post discusses the new system:

The new repository comes with a few features that are sure to help users to find what they’re looking for and determine which plugins will best suit their needs. There’s the (jQuery-based) ratings widget to let you know how highly others value each plugin. The ratings are viewable by all, and you can rate them yourself by simply registering on the site with a user name and email address. You’ll also have easier access to change logs, demos, and documentation, as well as bug reporting and feature requests.

Of course the site has tell-tale signs that it's running Drupal and other signs show that it's running the well regarded project module to manage the releases, issues, feature requests, and module listings.

Congrats to Mike and the jQuery web team on an important job well done and congrats to Drupal and Derek Wright (dww) for being selected as the platform behind yet another plugin repository. Now, if we can only see about getting those fivestar ratings available on the Drupal.org module download page ;)