Is push email really useful?

The holy grail of email seems to be push email where you instantly get your new email as it arrives. For years which my NotifyMail program, I basically had this as well on my desktop, but not on mobile devices. With IMAP idle, NotifyMail is obsolete for the desktop, but push email still seems the rage on handheld devices as everyone wants to be like RIM with the BlackBerry. I didn't think much of this until last week when I saw someone say that the iPhone can't be an enterprise device because it doesn't have push email and you can only have it check email automatically every 15 minutes. To that, I respond, so what? Is email all that important that I have to get messages instantly? Of course not, if something is all that important, people can get me with SMS, IM, or can you believe it, the phone. Why does everyone think that push email (and for that matter constant connectivity) is the only way to work? I think that this causes too much stress and is not needed.

I'm sure people will argue with me that they must be in touch all the time and have to get email anywhere and everywhere, but I'd prefer not to have my life run by a little box.

Bluetooth in VMWare Fusion

Yesterday I wanted to update the firmware in my Parrot EasyDrive Bluetooth carkit. Seems simple enough to do it using VMWare Fusion. I started up Fusion, chose the option to connect the "Bluetooth USB device" and found that Windows didn't have the driver. Crap, I remember having to do something with BootCamp to get the drivers, but I couldn't recall. Now that BootCamp wasn't a download (it is part of Leopard), I started poking around at the BootCamp Assistant and got no where. I searched online and couldn't find an answer. Finally, I found a reference to inserting the Leopard DVD while in Windows. I tried this and when I did, the BootCamp driver installer came up and installed my drivers. Perfect; why couldn't VMWare say something about this on their website?

Oh that brings me to something else, on the Mac, AutoPlaying of a data CD/DVD has been disabled for years, but it seems that Windows still has this on by default (I run Windows XP). Has Microsoft not learned from all the viruses and malware available for Windows? Are they taking that ease of use over security? While I understand there are tradeoffs, I think this is a poor one to make.

TV without violence?

My wife and I realized awhile ago that most of the shows we were watching/recording on TiVo had to do with crime/murder such as CSI: Miami, NCIS, Without a Trace, etc. While the shows are quite engaging, they are violent. I wasn't sleeping well and my wife suggested that our TV viewing habits could be the cause. So, we decided to change our makeup of shows to shows without violence. Unfortunately we picked a real crappy time to do this because of the writer's strike. We've started watching "chick" shows are there simply aren't that many comedies and other good shows on TV. While the "chick" shows (i.e. Grey's Anatomy aren't my cup of tea, I am sleeping much better. We've thrown a few of the crime shows into the mix, although not as often, and I'm still sleeping well.

I'm not sure why we were so attracted to violent shows, but our choice of shows is changing which is a good thing because as our son grows up (and we determine how much TV he'll be allowed to watch), we don't want him watching violent shows.

Indie Software Developers

For years, I've seen references to "indie" (independent) software developers, but never considered myself one. I've never had to rely on sales of my own software as I've been an independent contractor without my own products (that brought in any significant amount of income) for almost five years. However, this past year, ReceiptWallet has started to change that; I'm not about to give up my day job, but in an exchange with another developer today, he referred to both of us as "indie" developers. I guess I am an independent developer.