06/29/08

NIDA: My loyal readers (hi Dad!) may know by now that there is much in life that is not awesome, that, in fact, makes us want to shove a rusty spoon through the our temples and scoop out our brains. And then lick the spoon for good measure. And to those people, places, or things, we give the Rusty Spoon Award.

The latest Rusty Spoon was a tight race between two highly rated competitors. A clear victor emerged this morning, victorious, when I couldn't remember the other one I wanted to blog about. Ahh, the glories of waking up at 6:15 on a Sunday morning for no apparent reason. So who or what tiptoed past the other not-so-awesome nominees (including but not limited to: switching e-mail servers without backing up your mail; changing toner cartridges and not shaking it around before taking off the protective covering; and people who know that you should back up your e-mail and shake the cartridge but still watch you do it before saying, "Oh, yeah....")? Firefox 3 and its so-called "awesome bar".

While I appreciate the faster rendering and reduced use of system resources, I find the "awesome bar" extremely annoying. It doesn't seem to be integral to the overall functionality of the software and it doesn't enhance my user experience. "But it searches your bookmarks!" I'm told. The thing is, I already know what I've bookmarked. That's why I've bookmarked it - because I want to visit that site again and don't want to type in the address. If I'm typing in an address in the Smart Location Bar, then I'm probably looking up a site I haven't bookmarked and hence don't want to search my bookmarks for. But maybe that's just me. Maybe there are indiscriminate bookmarkers out there who need an "awesome bar" to scroll through their bookmarks. But me? I don't want options. I want what I'm looking for, without having to do much thinking. If you can broaden the depth of my search, great. However, if you muddy my search by giving me crap I don't want or need, we have problems. Significant rusty problems.

The most annoying thing about the "awesome bar" (hmm, do I take the easy joke and refer to if from now on as the "not-awesome bar"? mmmmmm...no) is mainly that I can't find a way to disable it. The hacks I found online mention a slight tweak in about:config that no longer seems relevant. Maybe I just don't like change. Or maybe I just don't like change I see no need for and cannot disable. For this "awesome bar" to actually be awesome for me, I'd have to change my web search (or typing) habits. And frankly, I'm the human here so why shouldn't the software adapt to my habits? Particularly, my habit of not wanting to be annoyed whenever I enter a URL. Didn't John Connor try to warn us about the dire consequences of this?

So suck you, Mozilla, for this free software that I generally use on a daily basis to find what I need without kowtowing to the Microsoft overlords.

06/25/08

NIDA: Did you know that I can post pictures and videos on this blog? Hmmmm....Ok, it turns out that I cannot, in fact, post pictures and videos to this blog. Humph. I can assure you that it would have been awesome. Oswald Montecristo awesome. To the max.

If you've ever wondered why I throw around the term "awesome to the max," you have a lot of time on your hands. You may also be unfamiliar with the awesomeness (to the max) that is Futurama. I wasn't into the show back when it originally aired, but I got the first season DVD set a few years back and used to watch it with a roommate. I actually got a lot of DVDs that year because we couldn't get TV reception in the house and we were too poor for cable. (If you're still with me and wondering where I'm going with this, a) so am I and b) you still have a lot of time on your hands.) So my roommate and I used to watch Futurama together, and his favorite episode was the one where the '80s corporate guy takes over Planet Express and teaches Fry the intricacies of execu-speak, like "grow the brand," "shift some paradigms," and "revolutionize outside the box." Hahaha...it's funny because...I just used those phrases the other day...erm.

Anyways, the latest Futurama DVD is out. Get it while it's awesome.

06/23/08

NIDA: The Stop. Look. Listen. blog on Lancaster Online is the latest in a long history of newspaper love for the international design unit. Slow but surely we are conquering the interwebs!