• Mailbox is a terrible idea

    After waiting in line behind 119,000 people, my Mailbox account was activated. Waiting for those 119,000 people gave me some time to really think about the app, however. It gave me the time to realize that the app is not a good idea for anyone. Let me explain.

    The main feature of Mailbox is the ability to get to Fake Inbox Zero by "snoozing" your emails. This is also it's very worst feature.

    Suppose you are Mr. Super Important Email Man, and you get a cool 500 emails per day. Fake Inbox Zero sounds great, doesn't it?

    Math Time

    I'm going to be generous here, and assume that you can reasonably handle 70% of your email1 to start off. At the end of Day One, you will have 150 emails left in your inbox. Snooze time! You (not so) wisely snooze those 150 emails until tomorrow, so you can enjoy Fake Inbox Zero for a moment.

    Day Two

    Since you're Super Important, another 500 emails are delivered to you. The 150 snoozed emails from Day One are also back, bringing your total to an unhealthy 650 emails. We already determined that processing 350 emails is about where you top out. That means you'll process 350 emails on Day Two, but you'll have to snooze 300 emails.

    Day Three

    500 emails. 300 from yesterday's snooze-binge. That's 800 total, 350 processed, and a whopping 450 snoozed.

    Fast forward to Day 21

    Your inbox explodes from the weight of the 3,500 emails delivered to it. You look at it, think about the fruitlessness of processing a measly 10% of your email, and go play golf.

    Your golf game will improve if you use Mailbox in this way. Your ability to handle your email will suffer drastically, and that's exactly the opposite of what you're trying to do here. The last thing you need is more email.

    What if I don't get very much email at all?

    Why in the world would you need Mailbox if you get six emails a day? Handle it and quit crying about it.

    Server issues

    Mailbox is already a very bad idea before you even consider the server issues. Mailbox only works with Gmail. Gmail is historically very reliable, but it does go down. With Mailbox, you're reliant not only on Gmail's servers, but Mailbox's server as well. If Mailbox goes down, so does your use of the Mailbox app. All your cool snoozing and procrastinating goes out the window. You can still use Mail.app or the web view, of course... but using Mailbox introducing another way for your email to break.

    So. Bad idea. Procrastination. More ways for your mail to break. Mailbox is free, but it's a terrible idea. Pass.


    1. If you get 500 emails per day, you can't. But just go with me. 

    2013-02-24


  • Email

    You aren't as important as you think you are. No one can usefully deal with 500 emails per day. Not even you, Mr. Super Important Whoever-you-are. You can hate email with a white-hot fury and stress yourself to an early grave, or you can get over yourself.

    You are not that important.

    Those 500 emails you get every day don't all need or even deserve a personal, thoughtful response. You do not have that much going on in your life. You are not in charge of that many things. You are not that important.

    Are you getting it yet?

    Learn to hit the archive1 button very quickly. You should know within 5 seconds whether an email actually deserves action on your part. 500 emails per day times 5 seconds each means you should be able to burn through your inbox in 41 minutes at most. 5 seconds per email isn't enough, you say? You're doing it wrong. Skim faster.

    Forty-one minutes per day for the most hardcore of email users. You, even you, Mr. Super Important Person, can spare forty-one measly minutes.

    If you spend literally 2 3 or 4 hours per day handling email, you're doing it absolutely wrong. You have some sort of inflated sense of how important you are. Getting over that is the key to handling email in a reasonable amount of time.

    But I'm different

    No you're not.


    1. "Y" in the Gmail web view. 

    2. literally, as in actually. 

    2013-02-15


  • Free

    IFTTT is one of those fascinating web services that I really want to use. It lets you automatic all sorts of stuff online, from watching specific RSS feeds for specific items and then emailing you, to watching your Twitter stream stream for updates and sending them to Google Plus1.

    Well, that second part isn't exactly true anymore. This is from a recent email from IFTTT:

    In recent weeks, Twitter announced policy changes that will affect how applications and users like yourself can interact with Twitter's data. As a result of these changes, on September 27th we will be removing all Twitter Triggers, disabling your ability to push tweets to places like email, Evernote and Facebook. All Personal and Shared Recipes using a Twitter Trigger will also be removed. Recipes using Twitter Actions and your ability to post new tweets via IFTTT will continue to work just fine.

    So basically, you can still send things to Twitter, just not pull them out. That's not surprising coming from the New Twitter, but it's unfortunate. There have been quite a few methods of automagically archiving tweets using IFTTT in recent weeks/ months. Those methods are now officially dead.

    Free stinks.

    Relying on free tools to do anything important just plain stinks. At any time, the free service could shut down due to lack of funds. At any time, the free service could change the rules, like Twitter did. What are you going to do, request a refund?

    When you build workflows around free services, you're setting yourself up to fail. You're trading present convenience for future hassle. At some point in the future, things are likely to change, and you'll have to change with them. You may get advance notice, or you may not.

    Things like IFTTT, Twitter, and Gmail are great in many ways. But, with the exception of Gmail2, you can't give any of these services money. No, seriously. Try to pay Twitter. They won't take your money. They have no real reason to care what you think, other than they would prefer you not leave for That Other Place. They know you probably won't, though, so I doubt they lose sleep over you.

    For anything that matters to you, look for a paid solution. That's not a guarantee of anything. But it is a step in the right direction.


    1. Haha. 

    2. Google Apps is a paid upgrade. 

    2012-10-12


  • Kindle Paperwhite

    For years, I've argued against the need for a Kindle. I could read books on my Treo years ago. Now I read them on my iPhone or iPad. I also get distracted by shiny things when I'm reading on my iOS devices.

    Besides being drastically lighter, the Kindle offers no distractions. You can read on a Kindle, and that's it.

    The last thing holding me back lately has been the lack of a lit screen. Much of my reading is done in bed at night, where a dark Kindle screen is useless. That problem goes away with the Kindle Paperwhite.

    At $119, it's almost an impulse purchase. It'll sync with my current collection of Kindle books1 and let me read until my eyes bleed. No distractions. No worrying about preserving the battery.2 Just reading.


    1. I use the Kindle app on iOS. 

    2. Admittedly not really a problem with the iPad. 

    2012-09-08


  • Apple isn't stupid

    I don't know why I continue to read ridiculous rumors like this. There's a new rumor circling the tubes that goes something like this:

    ZOMG Apple is AFRAID of the Ultrabooks.
    They're going to introduce a $799 MacBook Air.

    Right. Just like Apple was afraid of the netbooks. That's why they released a $299 netbook, after all.

    What's that? That never actually happened? Oh.

    Well maybe it's like the time Apple was afraid of the 4.5+ inch Android phones, and released a super-sized iPhone to compete.

    Hold on, you're saying that never happened either?

    Let me spell this game out for you. Read this slowly.

    The folks in charge of Apple are pretty smart. When you're dominating a segment, you don't copy the competition. The competition is getting destroyed. They are losing. You don't copy the guy who is losing.

    2012-05-07


  • Retina iPad and Plain Text

    Everyone has had their say about the Retina iPad. 1 I won't bore you with an overview of a device I don't even have. But I am really, really excited about it. Sure, you may be looking forward to super high resolution photos. That's great, of course. But it doesn't matter to me. The real killer feature is good old fashioned plain text.

    Just like the iPhone 4's Retina Display gave new life to mobile text, so will the iPad's Retina Display. Text looks fine on the iPad 2, of course. But it will be absolutely sublime on the new iPad. Websites built mainly out of simple, plain text will look better than ever.

    I design all my sites to focus on the text, so this is a big deal for me. I have a feeling that large text will be particular drool-worthy on that magnificent screen. I think I've made my feelings on large text pretty clear by this point. If I haven't, it's the greatest thing ever.

    So the latest and greatest iPad will give new life to boring, old plain text. I can get on board with that.


    1. Yes, I know that's not what it's called. But you know which one I'm talking about. 

    2012-03-15


  • Poor Products

    Today I want to talk about poor products, poor customer support, and great people. I’m going to use a company that I’m very familiar with, but I’m not going to name at this time. That’ll prevent me from getting as specific as I’d like, but bear with me.

    The product in question is a very complex web application. It is necessarily complex, at least on the back end. The scope of the application is huge (again, necessary,) and it has to do a metric ton of different things. These are pretty much non-negotiable in this space.

    What’s the big deal, then? Complex applications are, well, complex by their very nature, right? Yes. And no. See, this application takes its complexity and smacks you in the face with it. Hard. Over and over, until your cheek is bleeding.

    Bugs exist throughout the application. Worse, they persist for far longer than is reasonable. Days, weeks, even months pass without major bugs being resolved. Bug reports get bounced up and down the support chain. Level 1 will fail to understand the scope of the problem, so they’ll bump it to level two. Level two will confirm the problem, and bump it to level three for a resolution. Level three will declare that there is, in fact, no problem, and send it back down the chain. Rinse and repeat, while the customer still has a broken product.

    When Support Doesn’t Understand

    Complex applications tend to have complex bugs. Fixing complex bugs requires not only intelligent support personnel, but extremely well-trained and knowledgable support personnel. Not rocket science. However, when support repeatedly fails to grasp the scope of a bug, it’s very, very easy to get frustrated. When support tells you that A+B=F, when you know for a fact that A+B=C… it’s easy to lose your cool.

    The Good People

    Where do the good people come in? I though you’d never ask. Even this company, with its pile of issues ranging from an overly complex application riddled with bugs to a generally unhelpful support team, has some bright spots. Namely, a small handful of extremely bright people who care. Regular employees who actually, truly care are not exactly common. And they’re a fantastic asset to any company. But, and this is so important:

    Good people can never overcome a bad product.

    Read that again. No matter how good your people are, they can never overcome a bad product.

    Unless these people are actively fixing the bad product. Then they have a chance. But rarely do such people talk to real live customers. Certainly not in the case of our mystery web application. My interactions with these bright spots are always positive, but with the same outcome: the product is still broken. Until that stops being the case, I can no longer be a customer.

    Get your product right first. If you can’t do that, nothing else matters.

    2011-12-18


  • The Siri Stigma

    While walking through a parking lot yesterday, I held my phone in front of me and talked to the robot who lives inside. I asked her to remind me to do something when I got home, though I can't remember what. She obliged, of course — it's her job.

    The phone, of course, is an iPhone 4S. The robot is Siri.

    To someone who just heard the conversation, it probably didn't seem too terribly strange. But based on a few strange looks directed my way, people thought I was nuts. Who is this wacko, they must have though, talking to his phone?

    Let's call this the Siri Stigma. If you talk to your cell phone in a public place, people will question your sanity. At the very least, people will think you're weird. Not "guy who drinks his coffee with his pinkie in the air" weird, but rather "guy who slaps himself the face while crying out for voices to stop" weird.

    It will get better

    If you manage to use Siri in public and not get institutionalized, congratulations. Things will get better for you over time. Do you remember when people who talked on their cell phone in public were outcasts? How about when people first started texting and walking? Freaks.

    Well, at least they were freaks. Now they're normal. Now they're you

    2011-12-09


  • Defaults

    By default, both Windows and Android annoy the shit out of you. That is their default, out of the box state. When you buy a Windows computer, there are many things you must do to make it serviceable. When you buy an Android powered phone, you must go through a similar process1.

    This is the wrong way to create happy users.

    My first experience of using my shiny new, probably expensive device should not be one of uninstalling crapware. It should not involve discovering task managers so my phone doesn’t freeze or run out of battery in a few hours. Instead I should be able to do what I want.

    Apple has more loyal customers because from the very first time you take your new gadget out of the box, it doesn’t annoy the shit out of you. Revolutionary, isn’t it?


    1. No, I haven’t used every Android phone in existence. Yes, I’m sure your beloved flavor of the day phone does not suffer from such a horrible problem. Better? 

    2011-10-24


  • Thoughts on Markdown

    Markdown is not new. It's nearly seven years old at this point, which makes it about one hundred and fifty Internet Years old. AOL was probably still relevant when Markdown was first created, which tells you something.1

    I've resisted even trying Markdown until the past week or so. It wasn't difficult or complicated, of course. By its very nature, Markdown is designed to be simple. Simple to use, simple to read, simple to edit. So, after much unnecessary procrastination, I have been writing almost exclusively in Markdown for a week now. Specifically, I'm using the MultiMarkdown variant.2

    Learning to Edit

    I've always hated editing. My writing process consists of random fragments of thought, followed by a short burst of putting things in some semblance of order, and then hitting publish. I hate editing. Or, I used to hate editing. Writing in Markdown keeps my work much cleaner and easier to read, which means it's infinitely easier to edit. I won't suddenly start churning out masterpieces of written word, but I am learning to edit. That's a start.

    Footnotes FTW

    Footnotes are something that I've wanted to add to this site for ages. Due to sheer laziness, I've never gotten around to setting them up. Sure, there are plugins that handle footnotes with ease… but I install the fewest plugins that I can reasonably get away with. Less plugins means a faster loading site.3 As much as I like footnotes, you don't come here just to read them, do you?

    New workflows will be created

    For now, I'm writing in nvALT, which has a neat MultiMarkdown preview window. I can write until my fingers bleed, and then hit CMD+CTRL+P to see what my drivel looks like after conversion to HTML. If I'm satisfied, I can click View Source, press CMD+A, CMD+C, hop over to a WordPress window, press CMD+V to paste the contents into the editor.

    So while the actual writing and editing is very simple, the process of getting the HTML to my site is not quite perfect. I'm sure there's a great way to automate this process… perhaps I’ll finally need to look into Keyboard Maestro.4


    1. We old-timers used to dial in to AOL to access the internet. We had to tie up a phone line to get online. We had phone lines in our house. Dammit I’m old. 

    2. One of my tasks at work is creating email newsletters. Since email clients are generally awful, I have to use tables in the designs. MultiMarkdown has the ability to create tables pretty easily, compared to writing out the HTML. 

    3. The extreme absence of clutter and crap on this site helps, too. 

    4. Supposedly the be-all and end-all of awesome Mac utilities for super nerds. 

    2011-08-05


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