Author Archives: admin

Windows Live Mail Beta test

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I have just had my Hotmail account upgraded to the beta version of Live Mail. I haven’t tried it in Firefox yet, only Internet Explorer. I have played around with it a bit so here is a list features that I have come across so far that you don’t get with Hotmail:

  • Search
  • Autocomplete feature for the To field using email addresses from your contact list
  • To delete a message you can simply drag it into the Deleted Items folder
  • Separate message view pane. When you click on a message header it gets displayed in a separate pane on the right.
  • Sent emails are now automatically copied to the Sent folder. Previously you had to check a box if you wanted a copy of the email saved.

It looks a lot better too. Search is the big thing that is now available but that’s hardly innovative is it. I do like the fact that I can opt out of the beta program and have my account reverted back to how it was. Overall my initial reaction is one of disappointment. It’s better than Hotmail but I was expecting more.

Update: I have just tried it in Firefox and it doesn’t work properly although they do display a message telling me this when I login. I can still read and send email so it’s not too bad.

Design revamp #2

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So the design changes are well underway, well, sort of! Nothing fancy, just a few changes here and there. I have started to categorize things, although you may have noticed that I still have quite a few (previous) posts to reclassify. Funny how “Uncategorized” is actually a category in WordPress!

I decided to get rid of the calendar for now and you can also browse through the archives if you desire to do so. I have a few more changes to make, I just haven’t got around to it yet including upgrading to WordPress 2.0.

I have decided to save the best until last: the new header graphic. Thanks to Alasdair Mangham of The Vault for creating it. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be but it looks really good, which is the important bit.

Anyway, let me know if you have any ideas about how to make things look or work better.

Full screen mode for Safari

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Here’s a useful tip for making Safari take up the whole of the screen. I found it in a comment somebody had posted on this article about Saft, a plugin that adds a lot of funky features to Safari.

Add the following Javascript in the URL field at the top of the browser and then bookmark it:

javascript:self.moveTo(0,0); self.resizeTo(screen.availWidth, screen.availHeight);

Add the bookmark to the bookmark bar, click on it and voila …. Safari occupies the whole of the screen. Opera has a better full screen mode, it even covers the menu bar at the top of the screen, but until Apple add such a mode to Safari this will have to do.

Here is snapshot of my toolbar:

As I mentioned previously there is a plugin available called Saft that adds, among other things, a full screen mode to Safari. According to the authors of Saft it was used for check-in at Macworld San Francisco in 2005. Kind of makes you wonder why Apple doesn’t just clone the functionality, or buy Saft, and add it to Safari!

Overzealous lover?

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Here’s an interesting fact from a book I am reading, Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Questions: the British Army used to put bromide in the soldiers’ tea as a means of curbing their sexual appetite. Apparently, bromide salts were widely used as sedatives in the 19th century too.

In a reference to using bromides to reduce libido the comic Spike Milligan once wrote: ‘I don’t think the bromide had any lasting effect, the only way to stop a British soldier feeling randy is to load bromide into a 300lb shell and fire it at him from the waist down.’

Bikram yoga

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I had my first Bikram yoga class last night. It’s yoga, Jim, but not as we know it! It consists of performing a series of 26 postures. Each posture is done twice. The difference between Bikram and other types of yoga is that the room is heated. Think yoga in a desert! OK, I’m exaggerating, it’s not that hot, but it’s hot enough to make you sweat profusely. I enjoyed it but I feel a bit sore this morning.

The other difference between Bikram and other types of yoga is that people tend to wear not very much. It was quite liberating doing a yoga class in just a pair of shorts 🙂

I’m going to continue doing it for a couple weeks and see how it goes. I imagine I will get bored of it after a while because you repeat the same set of postures during every class. Variety is the spice of life after all!

Windows Not Live

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I signed up for the Windows Live Mail beta a while ago but heard nothing further about it until last night when I received this email:

Thanks so much for your interest in Windows Liveâ„¢ Mail beta

This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but we have a bug that won’t allow us to make the Windows Live Mail beta available to you at this time. We know it stinks but, if we set you up with this beta, there is a risk that you might lose some of the best stuff that comes with your MSN® Hotmail® Plus account. We are working hard to get this bug resolved and once it is, we will send you a mail and move you to the beta.

Best regards,
The Windows Live Mail beta team

It must be one hell of a bug if Microsoft has delayed launching Live Mail. After all, bugs in their software haven’t stopped them from releasing software in the past (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Design revamp

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One of my goals for this week is to improve the design aspects of this blog. I’m bored of how it looks. The plan is to make it look a bit more interesting and to follow the guidelines laid out in Jakob Nielsen’s article The Top Ten Design Mistakes.

I don’t have the time, or the inclination, to do my own design because 1) I’m not an artist and therefore graphically incompetent 2) Learning how the templates/styling works in WordPress seems too time consuming for what I want to do. As I am not a designer (although there are times like these when I wish I was) I am going to have to rely on finding a theme that somebody in the WordPress community has created and donated to the public. I had a look a few months ago but didn’t really find anything that suited my tastes; I’m a bit of a minimalist when it comes to design. It would be nice if WordPress had some sort of tool that would allow me to modify an existing design without having to hack the templates and CSS; some sort of drag-and-drop interface perhaps.

Anyway, look for changes during the week and let me know what you think.

Don’t compromise on your name

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I’m currently reading The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. In Chapter 2 there is a section devoted to how you should choose a name for your business. I found some of his points particularly interesting given that I have tried to come up with a name for my business in the past and failed miserably. Here are some of the more interesting points:

  • Have a first initial that is early in the alphabet His reasoning behind this is that some day your organization’s name will appear in an alphabetical list. He also recommends avoiding names that begin with X or Z because they are difficult to spell out after hearing them.
  • Pick a name with verb potential Examples given here include people “xerox” documents instead of photocopying them and, more recently, people “google” for something instead of searching for it. I also came up with my own examples. People often use the term “hoover” to mean vacuum; Hoover is the brand. Kleenex is another good example; again, it’s the brand name and not a hankerchief.
  • Sound logical The name of the business should “match” what you do. He cites the names of some Pokemon characters as good examples of this; Geodude and Lickitung, for example. I can see what he means by this. I know what Pokemon are and I don’t watch it but I could probably take a good guess at what each character does based on its name.