Just to add my opinion to the mix, the new write panel on this version of the software frankly bites. Putting the categories widget in such an inconvenient location is a major usability flaw. I’ve upgraded this blog to 2.5 but I probably won’t upgrade any others until this layout problem is fixed.
First, a hint for the operating system developers. The battery meter should always accurately reflect the status of the battery. There is no reason why it should be off. You can poll the battery every minute with minimal CPU load. There shouldn’t be a situation like I had this weekend where my Treo’s battery read half power then died overnight (I wasn’t running anything on it).
Next, if you develop a mobile application, there are two things that you should always show: (1) the RF signal strength meter and (2) the time. The first should be obvious. If my data transfer is hung and poor RF coverage is why, let me figure that out from the meter rather than having to infer it. The second is because I gave up carrying a watch 10 years ago - my cell phone is my watch. If the phone does not have a separate screen for a clock, you should always show the clock on the mail screen. This way, I don’t have to navigate a few screens away and back when I want to know the time.
Finally, use indications of progress. Due to the inherently unreliable nature of wireless networks, my data transfer might slow down or stop altogether. When this happens I don’t want the phone to show me a blank screen for a minute while it is trying to recover. Tell me something intelligent, such as “retrying” or show a progress bar and some indication of liveness. Otherwise I might think that the phone has hung and decide to reboot it.
Continuing my putting all of my law school outlines in the public domain, here is property.
Just a few small, modest, humble, and hopefully reasonable wishes…
…less than five typos…
…no references to obscure 500 year old statutes that were abolished 200 years ago…
…questions with fully punctuated sentences…
…multiple choice with four different answers…
…no cities called City, towns called Town or cold places called Cold.
“Guess what? Dad’s going to take us to the Serious Tower in Chicago!”
“What’s the Serious Tower?”
“Um, it’s a big serious tower.”
“Oh!”
When you’ve been exercising regularly for a long time anything, no matter how minor, that prevents you from enjoying a full-bore workout become a major annoyance.
For the last few weeks I’ve had a nagging pain in the arch of my right foot. Ironically, it doesn’t hurt much when I run, though I’ve reduced my running as a consequence. However it seems that the situation is exacerbated by going up and down stairs. It doesn’t feel right to take the elevators all day and then run a couple of miles, then take the elevator again. So far I’ve also tried changing shoes and walking a little more flatfooted to take some pressure off my arch. However, I’m becoming convinced that stair climbing is the culprit, which is going to make life around the house interesting this summer.
I’ve also had some numbness and tingling in my left arm and shoulder. I’m fairly certain that this is due to a pinched nerve in my back, brought on by lugging around a briefcase full of heavy law school books, a laptop and accessories. Despite the briefcase being of the wheelie type, you still need to carry it through revolving doors, up and down stairs and on to and off of trains. With any luck, I’ll be carrying much less around this summer, and might switch over the a backpack anyway.
Yesterday when doing reverse curls at the gym I got hit with a sudden sharp pain in my right wrist. I almost dropped the barbell. The worst of it went away quickly and I finished my workout though I favored my wrist throughout. The top of my wrist is still sore to the touch today, and I hope this is not going to require a multi-month recovery period like when I injured my left wrist.
While this report may only be a partial confirmation of a rumor that has been floating for week, if the deal goes through it may be another nail in the coffin of Qualcomm-era CDMA. With Verizon Wireless moving to LTE and CDMA carriers around the world such as Vivo and China Unicom moving or threatening to move to GSM-based technologies, CDMA’s days may be numbered.
But does it really matter either to Qualcomm or the industry in general? We’ve long needed a worldwide standard for cellular wireless and GSM-based technologies have adapted some of the better features of CDMA into UMTS. 4G wireless such as WIMAX foregos CDMA altogether for OFDM.
Not to mention that Qualcomm’s patent and licensing activities are moving in the direction of 4G as well.
Hard to say, but at this point my money is the world moving towards LTE with a few islands of WIMAX for data.
Finals season is upon us.
Yesterday was the last day of class. I have the Property final in one week and the Contracts final one week after that. My outlines for both classes are essentially done though both need tweaking.
I spent today working on a practice exam for Property with limited success. It is taking me longer to answer the questions than I’d like and I’m having to plug holes in my outline. But that is to be expected, I suppose.
I’m finding myself less motivated by the whole “learning” aspect this time around and just wishing it was over with.
Part of that feeling, I’m sure, is to do with how challenging this semester was. It wasn’t too bright of me to take the patent bar in the middle of the second semester, in between the appellate brief and oral argument assignments. Not to mention the business trip during Spring Break which kept me from getting too much down time.
I recently came across two excellent quotes along the lines of issues I’ve been mulling over. An abundance of content can create a scarcity of time. (Think online music.) Religion is not the root of all evil but the people who traffic in it sure can be. (Apply that to everyday life.)
My first thought when running across this, the ability to text someone a scent, is what fun the adult entertainment industry would have with it.
Begone from my head evil, impure thoughts!
I blame this post on finals week, sleep deprivation, unrest in the Middle East and on anything and anyone other than myself.