Facebook: Where you have 10+ checkboxes, please give me a check/uncheck all!

I went to turn off email notifications for Facebook and discovered that I had to uncheck 55 boxes for default Facebook stuff. There was no check/uncheck all type button, which would have been really handy. Please, UI designers: if you have more than 10 checkboxes in a stack for the same sort of setting, use a check/uncheck all button!

Checking out Muvee

I have been drafted to create a video out of video and photos from my sister's wedding. I think it will be a fun project, but will probably require more gunpower than Microsoft Movie Maker. So I have been trying out Muvee Reveal. The trial works nicely though it is severely limited. I was able to throw together a quick DVD in about 5 minutes.

It's discounted at the moment, only $60, so I went ahead and bought it. It's much less powerful than more expensive software, but you get what you pay for... and I'm not made of money!

The joys of refactoring

Refactoring is a joy. We all have code that is sitting around that was thrown together in a hurry to begin with, and has become ever more crufty with time. And then you revisit it and suddenly the way to bring order to the chaos becomes clear... Sometimes time is all it takes.

Aweful default behavior: Firefox's downloads list focusing after download

When you download a file with Firefox, the default behavior is that when the download is complete (possibly a second or so later), the "Downloads" window displays. That's probably rational if you chose to save the file. But if you chose to open the file, it is really very disruptive behavior. Because just before that Downloads window displays, usually the application which handles that file type has displayed first. The effect is that you flash to the file you want and then DOH!, there you are looking at the Firefox Downloads window. Very irritating. Luckily it can be disabled trivially (http://www.technixupdate.com/firefox-tip-how-to-close-the-annoying-download-window-automatically/), but it seems like occasionally it reverts because I've faced this problem several times and always forget for a while that I can fix it...

Week of Bing: Bust

I had intended to post once a day about Bing or post regarding interesting searches, but I haven't had the time.  I did use Bing for the past 7 days however.  It is not terrible, but I often found myself going over to Google because I couldn't find what I was after.  Especially yesterday when I was searching for guitar tabs.  Anyway, I also don't have any time right now so I'll have to leave it at that...

G is for Giving Bing a fair shake: Week of Bing

Well, now that the Bing preview is available, it's time to see what it's really all about.  So far, I don't have any insights not found elsewhere, but it's not half bad.  

I am going to switch search providers for a week and see if I can get my brain to think Bing instead of Google.

It is interesting that the layout is so very similar to Google's, even down to color choices.  Can you tell which screenshot of a search for my hometown, "Forks, WA", is Google and which is Bing?

The first one is Google. The biggest giveaway are the promote/remove buttons on Google's.  I did take the liberty of cutting out the Google Map result that was first on the list, which would have been a dead-er giveaway.  It is interesting that Bing does not include a map result automatically, but not necessarily wrong.  And clicking on the "Map" tab on the Bing page gets me a map, which might be a more straightforward behavior...

Anyway, this should be interesting.  If you have a blog and want to try Bing for a week and blog about Week of Bing, please comment below with your blog URL.

Google Wave - Logo thoughts

I am as excited as everyone else about Wave.  I wonder though why they went with a Google-y logo (rainbow colors) on thier API page if they want this to be open and have other ISVs implement Wave protocol?  It's a really cool logo, but I think they should have went with something non-Google, as they did with Android.

I can't wait to get my hands on this API though... as soon as school is out I'm looking into it.