Steven’s Notebook

This certainly isn’t anything close to the weather that’s been seen this winter by my friends and family in the Maryland & Washington D.C., but it’s more than we’re used to here in the Atlanta area.

 

There’s another “thing” making the rounds.

15 Favorite Books: “Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

Here’s my list:

• The Shack – William P. Young
• The Gunslinger (and the rest of the Dark Tower series) – Stephen King
• Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
• Time and Again – Jack Finney
• Love Is The Killer App – Tim Sanders
• The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga – Edward Rutherfurd
• The Noticer: Sometimes, all a person needs is a little perspective. – Andy Andrews
• The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity – David Allen
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
• First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living – Richard Bode
• The Junk-Drawers Corner-Store Front-Porch Blues – John Powers
• Without Remorse – Tom Clancy
• The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century – Thomas L. Friedman
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig

Other books I’ve read over the last few years are listed here.

Application development, especially User Interface, is very much about “the little things.” The things that make life easier for users. Here’s a simple example, one that bugs me almost every time I use a browser.

There are probably URLs that you type often and, for whatever reason, you don’t bother to make into bookmarks or favorites. Maybe you’re just a keyboard person, and Control-L type-type-type is easier for you. Maybe you’ve got them memorized and there are too many to fit nicely in your tool bar. Whatever.

So you alt-Tab to your Firefox window, click in the address bar (or use the Control-L keyboard shortcut) and start typing a URL. If the letters you type are part of an address you’ve used before, it shows you a list.

This is all well and good, and Internet Explorer does something similar. It’s fine. You type, you mouse or cursor down, you go on with your day.

Until you use Chrome.

Control-L, type type type, and…

(There really was also a menu, Chrome just didn’t leave it down for my my screen-capture software to grab in the image.)

Hey, check that out – the URL that matches my typing and that I use the most is already in my address bar. I don’t have to cursor- or mouse-down to it, I can just drop my right pinkie on the Enter key and zoom, away we go. Imagine that. Control-L, face[enter] and I’m on my way to Facebook. Control-L, netf[enter] and I’m looking at my Netflix queue. No more hunting through a drop-down list unless I’m looking for something different than usual.

It’s not a big deal but as with most conveniences, once you’ve gotten used to it everything else is just a little more frustrating.

So – what’s frustrating your users/customers, what’s your competitor is making easier for them?

Almost two years ago I wrote about and published photos of Lake Lanier, at that point somewhere around 15 feet below it’s normal level.

Here’s the good news today:

The younger of our two sons is now also off to college, and my wife & I had an opportunity to visit with him on campus of Auburn University this past weekend. We also used TicketCity to get a couple of seats for the football game, and boy are we glad we did! We’ve been to many High School football games over the past years, and we’ve both attended games at other, smaller, colleges. This was, though, our first SEC Football game, and it was quite an experience.

When I first moved to the south back in 1992 I mentioned to my manager that I had seen cars with flags on them, something I’d never seen before. They’re available all across the country now, but back then this was something brand new for me. “You’ve got to understand,” she replied, “in the south everything revolves around Jesus and college football – and on Saturday, Jesus is number two.” She was joking — or at least I thought she was — but for many it really does seem to be the case.

The entire campus was filled with tailgating fans — cooking on portable grills, partying under brightly-colored tents, playing touch football in any open area they could find. I expected to see college students, but was surprised by the number of families; every age range was represented, from the youngest toddlers through oldest alumni.

Our seats were excellent, down near the field, and we enjoyed watching the mascot as he entertained the crowd and took time to greet every youngster he could. We also got to meet “Mr. Penny,” an Auburn super-fan who’s energy was unstoppable. Though rain fell throughout the evening, the fans were energetic and the game was great.

If you have an opportunity to get some tickets to a big-University football game, especially an SEC game, jump at it. I’m told that gameday is similar at the University of Georgia (and other schools), we’re looking forward to a game there in a couple of weeks.

Seventy years. 70 Years!

Wow, the movie we all know and love and reference in many ways – The Wizard of Oz was released seventy years ago.

There is of course an 70th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition of the DVD available for purchase – this is almost a “must have” for any video library.

If you don’t want to go that route, you can also rent it from Netflix of course, and Netflix is offering this special… Even if you’re not a Netflix customer, you can instantly watch The Wizard of Oz streaming from Netflix for free at www.netflix.com/wizardofoz on Saturday, October 3rd, starting at 9:00 a.m. ET for 24 hours.

Time to get back on that yellow brick road.