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Hell on wheel
Today I went back to the cycling class that I haven't been to since I started training in January. There was a different instructor today who seemed to have a thing for pain. The 1 hour workout made me felt like I haven't exercised in a year, but then I remembered I ran a marathon last week!
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The price to pay for being honest
I'm in the process of selling my old PowerBook and in browsing the ads of others trying to sell the same or similar machine, I see people saying "lots of software" or "loaded". However, none of them say that the original CDs/DVDs are included which means software piracy. I had one person look at my machine yesterday and he was disappointed that it didn't have Tiger on it or anything but the stock software. As a developer, I have access to OS versions and use them on my machines as all my machines are used for testing and development which means that I don't buy OS releases (the rest of my family does buy new OS versions, of course). Tiger is no exception; since I didn't buy it, I re-installed the OS that shipped with the PowerBook. There is no Photoshop, Office, or any other software that people are selling with their machines.
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I'd only buy the software if...
This is a common line I read all the time in reference to software products I see on the web; most recently with Parallels. I'm not sure if consumers really understand that software developers aren't catering to one person (in most cases). I fell into this trap with my NotifyMail program where I implemented every feature request that came in. This was counter productive for a number of reasons. Mostly, the people that wanted the features had already bought it and it wasn't going to get them to buy more and the more obscure features I added, the harder it was to maintain and document. In the case of Parallels, people seem to say that if XYZ USB device doesn't work, they're not going to buy it. While USB support is important, the product does so much else that it is easy to justify the $40 (pre-order price). These people that are buying Parallels have easily spent $1500 on a system and are complaining about a $40 product that doesn't do everything. While I like to see lots of my pet features in products, it won't prevent me from buying the software. I purchase a few products a month and send in features requests on occasion. There will always be features that I want that aren't in a product, but it doesn't mean that everyone else wants the same feature.
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Is it time to retire WirelessModem?
Four years ago, I wrote a program called WirelessModem which let me use my Treo 180 as a modem for my PowerBook. This was, in my opinion, needed as the Treo replaced my Motorola StarTac and while I didn't use it often, I could use my StarTac as a modem (it wasn't pretty with a USB to serial adapter and a bunch of cable). Over the years, I've tried to keep WirelessModem working with the newer Treos, but have had mixed success (USB is more voodoo than it is programming and each device seems to have a mind of its own). Some people still seem to get it to work, but many can't and I don't have the time or motivation to touch it. I stopped using a Treo a few years back for a number of factors (they've improved tremendously, but I still don't want to have the option of getting my email all the time...it's too tempting and increases stress).