American Idol 4
Posted on March 31, 2005
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Yeah, yeah…now I’m blogging the important stuff. I have a new page to finish today and I’m just not in the mood to do it immediately.
So as not to bore those that couldn’t care less, the rest in the extended entry…
Read more
Shipping estimates
Posted on March 31, 2005
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
As far as the online stores are concerned, a lot of comparisons are made between the way [Apple](http://www.applestore.com) and [Dell](http://www.dell.com) handle online orders. Most are intentional because Apple said in the beginning that they considered Dell the leader in this area and wanted to do it better.
Here’s an area that Apple needs to learn from Dell once and for all: shipping estimates. When you order something from Apple, the estimated ship date is “if the world is a perfect place, and nothing goes wrong, when you’ll get your stuff.” When you order something from Dell, the estimated ship date is “if there is a nuclear disaster two miles away from where this machine is being built and everyone working on the product gets malaria, when you’ll get your stuff.”
Most of the time, Apple’s reality-based “it takes two days to get this in stock so it will ship in two days” estimation is fine. But when a product is new and hot it’s a bit of a joke. Anyone who has purchased an Apple product that was announced less than 2 months prior knows what I’m talking about. They might as well add “in your wildest dreams” after the date on the order page.
I ordered my Dell laptop on Saturday, March 26th. Since I changed my order a few times, it didn’t show as “InProduction” until Monday when the dust settled. When I placed the order, the estimated ship date was on or before 4/8/05 which didn’t surprise me since the laptop was introduced less than a month ago. Same thing happened when I ordered my Axim last summer when it was new. I was hopeful that it would ship earlier than 4/8, but I wouldn’t have been annoyed if it shipped on that date.
This morning, on a whim, I logged into my Dell account and the laptop shipped! Looks like I should have it on Monday, a full week “early” (got free 2 day shipping when I ordered). So now Dell’s looking pretty good in my eyes, when I know the reality is that they knew all along that it would ship within 4 days of the order.
Everything happens for a reason
Posted on March 31, 2005
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Everything happens for a reason, even if you don’t know what the reason is when it happens.
That’s been a bit of a personal mantra for me. I really believe it. It got me through my father’s death, Laini’s issues and the last year of financial uncertainty. I’ve managed to do some good things in my life that have come out of the worst. I do believe that there’s a little voice inside that guides our lives on the “right” path, we just have to know when and how to listen to it. I know that in 5 years I’m going to look back and realize that Eric losing his job which forced us to move to New Jersey was the best thing that ever happened to us, even if it’s a little hard to see right now.
I was reminded of this yesterday. Eric and I are going to a black tie wedding this weekend. I still needed a dress. My mother works for [Macy's](http://www.macys.com) so yesterday she came over so we could shop together and perhaps I could get her 20% discount. I rarely need a formal dress, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. We went to the local Macy’s and I found a dress that I loved. It’s a sleeveless long black dress with a white beaded bodice that comes down at a point that looks great on me. But the dress I tried on was a size 8 which was a bit too big on me. It would have been okay, except the skirt was about 1“ too long and was on the floor. Not a lot of time left for alterations. No size 6 in the store. It was $179, which would have been around $150 after my mother’s discount. A little pricey, but I was willing. We had the cashier check to see if there was another Macy’s within driving distance that had the dress in stock. The closest store that had the dress was in White Plains, NY which is about 35 minutes away.
Mom and I had lunch and debated all of our options. We tried Lord & Taylor which had a terrible selection of evening dresses. We debated buying the 8 and having it altered as a rush and finally decided to go to the White Plains store. With altering, the dress would have cost over $200. Too much.
This is where destiny intervened. Not only did the White Plains store have the dress in my size and it fits nicely, but it was marked ”Clearance: $99“!!! My mother still gets her 20% discount on top of that. The dress rang up at $179. Turns out, a new sales person had mismarked all the dresses in that style as clearance when they weren’t. But because the clearance sticker was on my dress and it was obvious that I didn’t put it there, I got the $99 price. If the Stamford store had my size 6, I would have never saved the $80. Kismet!
New CSS/XHTML books!
Posted on March 28, 2005
Filed Under Design | Leave a Comment
Must. Resist. Must. Not. Spend. Money.
But it’s so hard not to hit that “pre-order” button. These upcoming books look really good!
There’s [Bulletproof Web Design](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321346939/momathomedesi-20) by Dan Cederholm of [SimpleBits](http://www.simplebits.com) fame. I love his [Web Standards Solutions](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590593812/momathomedesi-20) book. And then there’s [Professional CSS](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764588338/momathomedesi-20) whose author listing (Christopher Schmitt, Mark Trammell, Ethan Marcotte, Dunstan Orchard, Todd Dominey) looks like many a blogroll. You know you read too much of these things when you can look at a name and immediately pull up the design of their site in your mind.
[CSS Hacks & Filters](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764579851/momathomedesi-20) by Joseph Lowery, from the description, looks to be a good companion to [Designing with Web Standards](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735712018/momathomedesi-20) and [Eric Meyer on CSS](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/073571245X/momathomedesi-20). You’ve been sold on the theory. “Tables for layout baaaaaaaaaad. Style sheets and semantic markup gooooooood.” Now *how* the heck do you do it and how do you figure out what went wrong when you fire up Internet Explorer 6 and all your copy is all on top of itself?
Speak of Eric Meyer, he’s got a new one coming too. [CSS Hands-on-Training](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321293916/momathomedesi-20) - No description but if it’s anything like his other books it will be at bible-like status in no time.
Creative Suite CS 2 coming soon!
Posted on March 28, 2005
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Apparently, this morning [Adobe](http://www.adobe.com) goofed and “announced” Photoshop CS 2 a week early. Didn’t [Steve](http://www.apple.com) call it “premature specification?” Anyway, they caught the goof and pulled the release from their site, but [Steve's Digicams](http://steves-digicams.com/diginews.html#jump) grabbed a copy and posted it. Coincidence that Adobe is hosting an [“ideas conference”](http://adobe.ideasconf.com/) on April 4? Probably not.
>SAN JOSE, Calif. — April 4, 2005 — Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Adobe Photoshop CS2, a major upgrade to the professional industry standard for digital image editing and creation. Available as a stand-alone software application or as a key component of **Adobe Creative Suite 2,** also announced today (see separate press release), Photoshop CS2 software brings a new level of power, precision and control to the digital photography experience and to the overall creative process.
**Emphasis mine.** As much as I’m interested in new bells & whistles in Photoshop, I really want to see what’s new in InDesign and Illustrator. I’m hoping that someone else caught their press releases before they were taken down, but I haven’t found it yet.
From the Photoshop information, I’ll have to wait and see before I get excited. I don’t use RAW files, so that part didn’t interest me. This is the only part that got my attention:
>Photoshop CS2 integrates a new set of intuitive tools, including an enhanced Spot Healing Brush, for handling common photographic problems such as blemishes, red-eye, noise, blurring and lens distortion.
Doubtful that I will upgrade Photoshop on its own. If the improvements in InDesign and Illustrator are worth it, I’ll upgrade the suite. We’ll see. I’ll also be paying careful attention to features that are offered only on one platform or the other. Unless there’s a significant difference (such as in Acrobat where many features are “Windows Only”) I’m 99% certain that I’ll be keeping my Adobe license on the Mac because that’s where all my fonts are. Once again, can I whine that a license that allows for a desktop and laptop installation requires both to be on the same platform? What difference does it really make if it’s just me and I’m not using both at the same time? Why is a G5 and a PowerBook okay but a PC desktop and PowerBook isn’t? Until someone can give me a plausible reason beyond “because they said so” you’ll be hearing this from me a bit…get used to it. 
Speak of which, knowing that I only have a couple of more weeks with my Dell desktop before the laptop arrives, I downloaded the demo version of [Dreamweaver MX 2004](http://www.macromedia.com/products/dreamweaver) for Windows. My PC desktop is a Celeron processor and Dreamweaver runs just as smooth on it as it does on my dual 2 Ghz G5. If anything, it’s a better experience because of the improved interface.
