Category: Uncategorized

I just chatted with T-Mobile about the Nexus One phone. Here’s the conversation…

You have been connected to _Kristi J.

_Kristi J: Hi Eric, welcome to T-Mobile live Chat. I’m _Kristi and I will be happy to assist you. Please give me a moment to review your question.

_Kristi J: I can definitely understand your interest in this new device. I’d be more than happy to get further information about that for you today.

Eric Burke: ok

_Kristi J: You can only order the phone through the www.Google.com/phone website.

_Kristi J: The phone is being sold exclusively by Google, and cannot be ordered through T-Mobile.

Eric Burke: but it says I’m not eligible for the $179 price. why is that?

_Kristi J: The requirements of getting a discount on the phone are set by Google alone, not T-Mobile.

Eric Burke: do you know the date when my two year contract expires?

_Kristi J: One of the requirements to get the discounted price is that you are on a single line Even More plan for $79.99/ month.

_Kristi J: While I am looking into this information, may I ask why you are inquiring about your contract end date?

Eric Burke: so I can get a better phone. I’d be happy to stay with T-mobile if I could upgrade, but it sounds like I’m trapped with my now obsolete G1 phone.

_Kristi J: The G1 is not an obsolete phone, and is still being sold by T-Mobile.

Eric Burke: but it’s running Android 1.6, and as far as I know, won’t receive future updates to Android 2.1

_Kristi J: I regret that your account does not seem to meet the requirements set by Google to get the discounted pricing on the phone at this time, Eric.

Eric Burke: what’s my end date, and what is the penalty if I break the 2yr contract?

_Kristi J: Your contract on the line ending in **** ends on 11/14/2010, and you would have a Termination Fee of $200.00 if the line is cancelled at this time.

Eric Burke: $200 total, or per phone?

_Kristi J: That would be $200.00 per line.

Eric Burke: ok, thanks for the info. that’s all I need to know

_Kristi J: I’m glad I was able to answer those questions for you today. Thank you for contacting T-Mobile Chat, Eric. Have a great day!

Posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 10:50 am in Uncategorized.

I liked this comment on Nathan Myhrvold’s Evil Genius:

Someone (I am sure it has been done already) should file for and patent the business model they are using. Then sue them, or sell said patent to a patent troll / litigation farm.

Now I feel the urge to read Annals of Innovation: In the Air by Malcolm Gladwell.

Posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 11:16 pm in Uncategorized.

Good design is more than skin deep. Scratches and dents add character to well-made furniture. Scratching veneered particle board reveals glued up sawdust. If you need cheap ass furniture for your dorm room, well…

Posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 7:55 pm in Uncategorized.

Suppose we have three entirely separate programming teams. Each team creates a separate web application using GWT. Each app (A, B, C) has its own Subversion repository, and follows its own release schedule. Version 1.2 of App A might be released in June, while Version 2.4 of App B is released in August. They are completely independent.

From a usability perspective, however, we don’t want to send people to three separate web sites to run each of these applications. Instead, we want one master “shell” application that has a row of three tabs along the top edge. (or some other GUI layout, the specifics are irrelevant). Clicking a tab reveals one of these apps.

Thus, we’d actually have four applications: The “shell” app, and apps A, B, and C.

What is the best way to accomplish this with GWT? As a relative GWT beginner, I don’t even know what to search for. I’d like the shell app to be relatively generic and independent, so we can plug in new apps over time.

Posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 11:42 am in Uncategorized.

Over on Twittch, I use the AddThis service. They provide analytics showing which pages were shared, and to where:

That’s just the chart — they provide actual numbers, as well.

The Problem

I dislike the fact that the AddThis buttons are so tiny, and they are all lumped together in a single dropdown. People have to click once to show the available buttons, and a second time to share the link.

I plan to replace AddThis with a row of larger buttons, and will focus on the most critical sites: DZone (not supported by AddThis), FaceBook, Digg, and Twitter.

My theory is that more people will click and share my comics if the buttons are more prominent. But I’ll lose the analytics, so I won’t really have a way to directly measure success.

Is there a way I can use large, custom icons, while retaining click counts for each icon?

Posted on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm in Uncategorized.