-
Automation slowing things down
On Sunday, I went to SeaWorld with my family to celebrate my niece's 5th birthday. My wife had mentioned SeaWorld's entrance system as she has a pass and takes our son pretty often. It wasn't until I went and saw the system that I understood how messed up it is. The line to get in wasn't all that long, but took far too long to get through. The problem is that SeaWorld uses an optical scanner to scan in the pass and then a fingerprint to verify that it is your pass.
-
My first week with the Palm Pre
I've had a long history with smartphones dating back to 1997 when I worked on the Qualcomm pDQ, the first Palm OS based smartphone. Later down the line, I used a Samsung i330, Palm Tungsten W, Treo 180, VisorPhone, Treo 300, BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry 8300 (something like that), BlackBerry 8830, Treo 755p, Treo 700W, iPhone, iPhone 3G, and now a Palm Pre. For me, the Treo 180 was a huge step forward in phones despite the black and white screen and cheap construction. When I started using an iPhone almost 2 years ago, I was blown away with how well it worked, but couldn't make it my main phone that I carried with me all the time. It simply was too big to fit in my pocket and was on a network with mediocre voice and data service. My opinion of the iPhone hasn't changed much since then; it runs an amazing operating system and can do amazing things, but it isn't the phone for me. In addition to the network issues, I wasn't a big fan of the on-screen keyboard.
-
Reluctantly Upgraded
After a few years of delaying upgrading Quicken 2005 to Quicken 2007, I finally had to do it. I've been using Quicken since 1991 and have skipped a number of updates because I didn't need the new features which probably didn't help Intuit's on and off again relationship with the Macintosh (my father used to upgrade Quicken every year on Windows whether he needed it or not; I suspect this is the thinking of many Windows users).
-
Forecasting the weather in San Diego
Last night, we were watching the news and the weather forecaster said that there was going to be drizzle today. I thought I was going to have to bring a rain coat as I knew I was going to be walking a bit today. I completely forgot about it when I left the house and was quite happy that I did. It was a beautiful day in San Diego! If you want to forecast the weather in San Diego, just say that tomorrow will be like today. Not very scientific, but more accurate than the computer models.