Category Archives: Opinion

Better Email Please

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The Internet’s oldest software application, the email client, could be better.

I find Google Gmail the best for my own workflow, but it is ripe with complexity and user experience issues.

Well over an five hour ago I emptied from trash a huge amount of email. Since then I couldn’t log back in till just now:
gmail-temporary-error-5033.png

Text copy:

Temporary Error (500)

We’re sorry, but your Gmail account is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest trying again in a few minutes.

If the issue persists, please visit the Gmail Help Center »

Try Again Sign Out

This happens to a lesser extend every time I delete a large number of emails. I understand Google doesn’t like deleting things — they want to to organize the world’s information — but every time it leaves me upset.

Space and search are Gmail’s killerest feature, so it shouldn’t be unexpected that people would use it as a temporary data store of huge amounts of information.. Here I am trying to make excuses for them. It’s unacceptable that any action can take your email down for hours.

I recently tried Thunderbird 3– I really want to love it — but felt like I was in configuration hell. It would have taken days to get it as usable as Gmail already is for me.

A lot of colleagues and friends get a lot of milage from Apple Mail, but Mark Pilgrim’s “Juggling Oranges” rings in my ears. The articles describes Mark walking away from Mac for an completely open source stack, “Mail.app 2.0 helpfully auto-converted all my wonderful mbox files into Apple’s shitty undocumented format. ”

Why is individual emails still the focus on email? Instead of bigger picture collaboration with people?

Anyone dreaming of the fabled open source Mac mail client Letters.app? Synovel Spicebird looks intriguing.

Victoria Police Excessive Tasering

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While doing some reading about alleged Victoria Police Officer Sgt. Chris Bowser excessive use of force. I came across Norman Farrell’s blog Northern Insights. One of his articles “Multiple offenders” includes (emphasis mine):

“Another interesting element of [Solicitor General Kash Heed audit] report discusses use of force after the killing of Robert Dziekanski by four RCMP members. The audit indicates that Taser use by the Victoria police service declined 85% after policy changes in the aftermath of the YVR death. Interestingly, records show no increase in reports of officer injury. We had known about usage creep in recent years as more stun guns came into service but a drop of this magnitude indicates that previous use was excessive and, given officer injury stats, unnecessary.”

That is really unsettling, and incredibly sad that a person had to die to get sensible protocols.

Being Part of It

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Being allowed to make it my own, to make it “better”, to collaborate, to be human, is what makes me passionate about open source and free culture.

This bug was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Probably not many people had ever run into it. But after hours of puzzling over those broken image tags, it felt darned good to find it, and — more importantly — squash it. And after the release of WordPress 3.0, nobody will have to scratch their heads over it again. Yay me!
Dougal Campbell, “Bug Chasing“, March 7th, 2010

Great Artists Still Steal

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Young great artists still steal.
Old great artists litigate?

I missed the news about the Apple-HTC Patent Lawsuit (Google Android) until tonight when I found out about it on Mark Jaquith’s blog.

I’m happy that these cards of Apple are finally on the table. I think Apple’s Multi-touch related patents have been hanging over the heads of other hardware and software developers.

I don’t think I’ve ever found myself agreeing with John Gruber more:

“No doubt some of you are nodding your heads and see this as justification for Apple’s suit. But life isn’t fair. Great ideas make the world better. Apple can rightly expect to benefit greatly from the ideas embodied by the iPhone, but they can’t expect to reap all of the benefits from those ideas.

That’s the nature of implementing insanely great ideas. The bar has been raised, and, yes, Apple did most of the lifting. That’s how it goes.”

John Gruber, “Daring Fireball: This Apple-HTC Patent Thing“, Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Right now people are in their venting phase. What comes next?

Is there an effective protest against the Apple-HTC patent lawsuit? Particularly something that Apple customers should do?

I can’t see enough people caring, particularly on the eve of the iPad.

May 5th quotes from the comments:

Ian wrote “I think Apple customers should use one finger at a time in protest.”

Mark wrote “Apple has to operate in the system as it exists.”

Terry — how can I just choose one of his tasty insights — wrote “I do think that holders of software patents should be forced to do some sort of licensing because of the chilling effect they’re having on innovation.”

Spoon? Where do you put your bottom arm?

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Illustration of Spooning (couple sleeping on their side, front to back)

Christoph Niemann's illustration of spooning

I don’t remember who gave me the link to Christoph Niemann’s brilliant illustrations in “Good Night and Tough Luck”, but often at night this image comes to mind.

It expresses so well my nightly ritual of trying to find a mutually comfortable place for my bottom arm.

My old standard was trying to weave it under her pillow above her head. The trouble with that move was the cold wall my wrist invariably is up against.

The challenges are currently heightened by my wife being pregnant.  The slightest variation to her pillow position affects her comfort.

Most recently I’ve been straight arming it at my side, but my arm tends to fall asleep, accelerating my turning over to actually fall asleep.

Where do you put the arm under you?

No More Crunches For Me

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While there are lots of ways to injure a back, the sit-up is an easily preventable one. According to his research, a crunch or traditional sit-up generates at least 3,350 newtons (the equivalent of 340 kg) of compressive force on the spine. The U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health states that anything above 3,300 newtons is unsafe.

So McGill suggests replacing sit-ups with exercises to strengthen the core while not bending the spine: bridges, planks, leg extensions, bird dogs, and “stir the pot.” The bird dog, for instance, simply involves getting on all fours and, while keeping the core muscles tight, extending the opposite arm and leg, then switching limbs. “Stir the pot” is a more complex movement: moving shoulders in a small circle while in a prone push-up position with forearms balanced on an exercise ball.

Patricia Treble, The man who wants to kill crunches, Macleans.ca, Jan 19th, 2010

American Thanksgiving Comes Late

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“For most of its 122-year history, the government trust fund program that pays American Indians royalties for use of their land has been a tragic mess, plagued by bureaucratic mismanagement and accusations of flat-out theft.

…

The proposed settlement, which has to be approved by Congress and the court, would send an initial $1,000 payment to all beneficiaries. A distribution model would be developed to award the remaining $1.4 billion royalty award, Cobell says.

In addition, another $2 billion would be used by the government to buy, in trust for the tribes, parcels of what are called “fractionalized” land interests — parcels that have been divided and redivided among tribal heirs over the past century or so. The voluntary buy-back program, says lawyer Harper, would allow tribes to piece together larger parcels that could be used more productively — and under tribal control.”

Liz Halloran, “After A History Of Mistrust, $3.4B For Indians“, NPR

Three’s Company

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“Yourself, plus two others. With only two, each person needs to be aware of all the details in case the other person needs to take a break / gets run over by a bus / whatever. With three, the load is spread a bit more easily.”

Boris Mann, thoughts on Passion and Frustration, October 5th, 2009

Three lemurs eating by Tambako the Jaguar. CC by-nd. Flickr Hosted.

"Three lemurs eating" by Tambako the Jaguar. CC by-nd. Flickr Hosted.

From starting a company with Boris and Co’s Bootup Labs to being the area experts for your company, you want three of you.

3 is a magic number.

I’ve always just gone with having one backup, but reflecting on it now, I should have two backups in each area.

At first it seems like an incredible amount of redundancy, but someone’s own focuses and work doesn’t go away when they have to fill in for you. You need two backups, two people who can step in to carry your load — each carrying some of your load.

This extends beyond backing you up. This creates a mesh of collaboration,. Having different collaborators (back ups) in different areas leaves no weak links.

Disagreeing about something with your backup? With three there is always a moderator / negotiator / tie breaker.

My Flossing Mantra: Stop the Colonization!

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Caterina Fake Flickr Photo with caption including Floss, people! So Appropriate.

Flickr Photo: Flickr Founder Caterina Fake. The photo's caption on Flickr includes "Floss, people!" So Appropriate for this.

Of course, everyone should floss every day. But it can be hard, right?

Recent studies are finding connections between the health of your mouth and other parts of your body, including your heart.

The medical community suspects a lot of disease starts in your mouth. Flossing is the most important activity to maintain a healthy mouth.

I have sensitive gums, so if I don’t floss every day, my gums quickly get inflamed and bleed when I then floss.

I consider myself pretty good about flossing, but in the last six months I became even more consistent by eliminated an opportunity to negotiate with myself and put off flossing till the next day.

At my last visit my dental hygienist explained that by flossing every day you stop the bacteria from colonizing. For some reason that speaks to me a lot better than “stop plague build up”. The former seems like enemies on my teeth while the later just some clean up I can post-pone if I have to. If I don’t floss today, then the enemy will have already done damage and will have fortified their position.

My flossing mantra has become “Stop the Colonization!”

I’ve also played with “Destroy the colony!” Both phrases appeal to enjoyment of 4x computer strategy games.

Do you have a flossing mantra or other health mantras?

PS. HowStuffWorks has some good flossing instructions if you want to work on your technique. Technique, technique, technique!

Tagged.com Spam? Phishing? Nice Guys? My Personal Story

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Today, the story broke about the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo suing Tagged.com . This situation has a personal element.

Brad Stone‘s New York Time (NYT) article today “New York Attorney General Sues Tagged.com” begins:

“Turns out our recent article on the spammy social network Tagged.com …”

Rafat Ali‘s paidcontent.org article today “Social Net Tagged Getting Tagged…Er…Sued By NY AG” begins:

“High time someone asked harder questions: Tagged …”

Laura Northrup‘s The Consumerist article today “NY Attorney General Unfriends Tagged.com, Files Lawsuit“:

“… social networking contact-spamming site Tagged.com. …”

As you can see by how those stories start, there is a lot of bad will for Tagged.com. Some weeks ago I was researching this very topic, but did not find the recent Alina Tugend NYT “Typing In an E-Mail Address, and Giving Up Your Friends’ as Well” article about Tagged.com nor did I find Tagged CEO Greg Tseng response on their blog. In my web searches these were buried by years of complaints about Tagged.com phishing and spamming.

I guess, I should go back to the beginning. June 6th, I receive a Tagged.com invite from a dear older family friend,

“[redacted] sent you photos on Tagged Want to see the photos? Please respond or [redacted] may think you said no :( “

Clicking the link did not take me to photos, but instead to a registration form. The registration did not allow proceeding without providing my login to Gmail, and every person in my address book was selected by default to invite before proceeding. ((Another email account, that I don’t use publicly also received the email invite, and since then — coincidentally I hope — has now received it’s first spam email.))

Oh no! I immediately let the family friend know that they signed up for what seemed to be a phishing and spam site and that it was important to change her passwords. The friend was really upset and explained that she received the invite from a professional friend of hers, and was worried for everyone else that might have received it from her.

I didn’t think of it much again until some weeks later, when she described still being bothered by it, how embarrassing it was, and that she didn’t feel confident using the web any more. She had removed all her photos from Flickr. So, I decided to take another look at Tagged.com and that takes us to all the complaints I described finding above.

I checked the Tagged.com’s site, and was surprised to find the board of directors included Reid Hoffman, Founder & CEO of LinkedIn, and two members of the Mayfield Fund: Raj Kapoor and Allen Morgan. All people I deeply respect.

I scratched my head and tried to look at the situation from different angles. I discovered that Tagged.com has rave reviews from a young audience. That the pushy, in your face Tagged.com experience works for this young audience. I guessed that Tagged.com might be tacky enjoyable like MySpace is to many young people.

So, I decided to reach out to CEO Greg Tseng through a mutual connection on LinkedIn. The email took about a week to get to him, and July 7th I received a thoughtful and apologetic response.

The timing of the lawsuit seems really unfortunately for Tagged.com as it seems like they were already in the process of cleaning up their act. I fear that there is a lot of circumstantial evidence against them, and any lawsuit won’t go well.

Update: Read my next article “Gmail’s Opportunity to Help Protect Against Tagged.com Mistake, Spam, and Phishing“. I think it’s at least as interesting part of the story.