Changing cogs on a bicycle can be a chore if you don’t have the proper tools, so when I read that Pedro’s was introducing the Vise Whip, I knew this tool would be worth trying. The normal way to remove the cogs is to use a chain whip. You wrap the chain part of the [...]
This year’s Google April Fools’ Day joke was Gmail Tap, a Morse code interface to Gmail on mobile phones. The funniest thing about this joke is that it’s actually a feature I have wanted on cell phones. Ever since I started receiving SMS texts, I’ve been annoyed with the poor text-entry interfaces on moble phones. [...]
One of annoyances of using the web is that many webmasters (or at least their managers) think that forcing a browser to open a new window is a good idea. As I’ve said a number of times, creating a website that automatically opens a new window is almost always a Bad Idea. To eliminate this [...]
For some mysterious reason, some people make external links from their website open in a new window. This is a user unfriendly feature that good websites stopped using over ten years ago. But some clueless people still think forcing a new window is a good idea. I believe they think it is a way to [...]
A couple months ago I wrote about the four phase traffic signals I saw in Sweden and Denmark. These are better than the three phase lights we use in the United States. The improved lights help smooth the flow of traffic, improve safety, and save gas. Today I saw a post about a fancier version. [...]
Apple’s MagSafe power supply connector is one of the rare inventions that I wish I had thought of. Once you see one, it is an obvious solution to a common problem. It is much more convenient than standard power connectors, and has the advantage of easily breaking away if someone trips over your power cord. [...]
I was able to spend some time in Sweden and Denmark a while ago. Other than the fun of traveling, the trip was to look at the differences between Scandinavian countries and the United States. One of the first differences I noticed is that they use four phase traffic lights instead of the three phase [...]
One of the many modern ‘conveniences’ that actually take more time than they save is voicemail. Answering machines and voicemail are occasionally useful, but more often than not, someone just leaves a rambling message with details they end up repeating when you call them back. Fortunately, Caller ID has mostly eliminated the need for voicemail: [...]
In an unsurprising move, GM announced that they are killing Pontiac. I think it is amazing that Pontiac has survived this long. They produced very few good cars since the end of the muscle car era. For the past several decades, they have been known for poor designs that are ugly and hard to work [...]
I just watched a couple episodes of Season Three of Rocky and Bullwinkle on DVD. This is a great show, but the DVD collection is an example of something that has been bugging me for years. I’m sick of the silly animated menus on movies. They were moderately interesting the first four times ten years [...]