Month: August 2006

Being an almost true pacifist, I don’t support that many wars. The war on Caps Lock key though is one that I am easily joining.

How am I going to explain to my kids why some of the most valuable keyboard real estate is squatted by a large, useless key that above all you must not press!

Caps Lock is indeed one of the most useless keys on the keyboard. TYPING IN ALL CAPS LOCK IS A REALLY REALLY BAD TONE. It’s hard to read – you see, lowercase letters have different hight (“t” and “d” are high, “p” and “j” are low), which makes it much easier on your eyes to read, while in uppercase all letters have the same hight.

For those times when you need to type in an uppercase letter – say someone’s name, or at the beginning of the sentence – you can use Shift key.

Homework for you guys: study your keyboard carefully, and report which other keys you don’t use at all, or you so rarely that you won’t mind not having a dedicated keyboard position for it.

Slashdot has an ineresting discussion titled “Kids with Cell Phones, How Young is Too Young?“.

CNet is reporting that the average age of a child receiving their first cell phone is continuing to drop. A report carried out last year showed that the average age of a child’s first cell phone was just eight years old and is expected to drop closer to 5 years of age this year.

For me personally, this not a huge question by any matter. I love technology and connectivity. Maxim already, it has age of one and a half, loves technology. Mobiles are getting cheaper every day. And I’ll buy him one as soon as he’ll learn how to use one.

And my reasons don’t include “I want to know where he is at any moment in time”. Of course, I want to know. But that’s not a good reason. Not for me, at least. Instead, I want him to grow up with technology. I want him to learn how to use it properly. And I want him to learn how to utilize it properly.

Mobiles can be used for voice calls. They can do SMS. Most of them can access email and web already. There are organizers, mp3 players, and (crappy) digital cameras embedded in practically every mobile phone these days. Mobiles can store large address books. They can beep reminders. They can provide gaming entertainment. And that’s just for starters. And I have no idea of what is coming in the next few years.

I surely don’t want my son to miss all that. Quite the opposite…

P.S.: Here is a related single image comic from Moderately Confused.

Rules on How to Email a Blogger:

A lot of bloggers email each other with the hope that they will encourage the other blogger to write about what they are writing about. Others are seeking mentors, helpful support along the blogging path.

Go and read that post. And all those that are linked from it. Seriously.

If I had to re-list the rules, I’d put in these ones:

1. Who are you? Before I talk to you, I want to know who you are (a company, a salesperson, an individual, my relative, etc), where from you got my contact information (one of my websites or a web search or someone recommended me, etc), and what is that exactly do you want from me (an answer, a link somewhere, a post in my blog, opinion, nothing, etc). If most of this information is missing in your first email to me, I’ll probably put it in the darkest corner of my inbox, until later (read: until never). If you told me most but not everything, I’ll probably ask my questions before going any further. So, just to save us both time and effort, tell me everything up front.
2. Persistance. If you sent me an email and waiting for a reply, and don’t get it in a reasonable period of time (from a couple of days to less than a week), then send me another one. I could have missed your original message. SPAM filter could have eaten it. I could have deleted it while drunk or sleep-deprived. I could have put it in the “Later” bin. Just send me a reminder. You can foward the original message with a “did you get this?” or something like that. I’ll catch up. I promise.

Oh well, I already feel like re-writing the already written. Go check those suggestions out. They’re worth it.

Some excellent thoughts on anonymity (everywhere, but particularly in the blogosphere).

Here is my definition of anonymity: you may not leave your real name and still that would not be anonymity. Anonymity is when you leave no handles for others to recognize you or get back to you.

Seems somewhat related to my recent post “Give me a name“.