Quick little poll - I’m looking to ditch Sprint and was thinking about going with either a Sidekick or Blackberry phone from T-Mobile. But I figured I’d abuse my readership and see if anyone had any thoughts, recommendations or warnings about T-Mobile, the devices and/or any other solutions. Anybody have anything to share?

Update (2/7/05): Well, by reading more reviews and this editorial, I might stick with Sprint and spring for a Treo 650. Although, there seems to be some question about my account right now, so hopefully a Sprint rep will give me some news soon that will make the decision a little easier…

The French Connection (1971)

VW is going after a yet-unidentified ad duo over a really tasteless spoof ad. The ad is supposed to be circulating on the ‘net, but I’m not really inclined to look for it.

Does anybody use the Calendar feature on blogs (your own, the ones you visit, whatever)? I know there’s been a trend to remove them (which means, yes, I’m thinking of tossing mine too), but just wondering if anybody really does use them.

Well, it’s been about a day since working out that last big kink - it looks like this design is humming along quite well. I do want to thank everyone for the compliments on the design - it certainly made all the aggravation on figuring out what I wanted worth it!

Also, I did want to point out one little nugget that people might be passing over. I mentioned earlier that when working on the mini-blog (”Random Bits”), I was able to repurpose some code while leveraging off of a tutorial I found on the WordPress support forums (see the Colophon for details). Basically, both the mini-blog and the items that I’m reading & watching (”Eyes On…”, to the left) are actually driven by WordPress as regular posts. I used Kitten’s “Show Categories” plugin to hide the particular post categories from the main section, yet show them in their appropriate areas. This ultimately means that both the “Eyes On” and “Random Bits” are other places for discussion (hence the numbers in parentheses following each item, indicating comments). This would also explain why there’s the “Eyes On… Archive” in the (static) category drop-down menu - as I add things to either of these sections, I’ll switch their category so they appear within the archive-category. Of course, I need to make a mental note to add a “Random Bits Archive” to that category list…

Apparantly there are reports that SBC is trying to buy AT&T. As a former SBC & AT&T customer, I have to admit I hope it doesn’t happen.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

OK, found the first (major) problem: the archives can’t be found. I’ll look into it and let you know when I’ve beaten it into submission.

Update 1/26/05 @ 11:30am: OK, it looks like the commenting problem Sean found was related to the archives problem… I accidentally deleted the .htaccess file when rolling everything over. It’s fixed now. And in the meantime, it seems as though one PHP issue that I was hitting my head against has resolved itself, with another (slightly less important, really) popping up. Ah, web design whack-a-mole…

Interesting view on “Windows Bigotry” at Linux Insider.

OK, after a klutzy changeover (apologies if you were accessing the site while it happened), I have finally completed the LTFP procedure (thanks again Michael for contributing a new acronym to the vernacular that so succinctly describes my state of mind for the last few weeks months!). I’m a little low on confetti and ticker-tape, so please excuse the absence of a parade. If you prefer the old, standard-install WP template, sorry. Not going back.

The Matrix: Revolutions (2003)

Web Design in a Nutshell

So Audible.com has signed an agreement to provide the NFL playoffs for those who wish to purchase them on the iTunes Music Store (and play them on their iPods). Granted, I’m not a sports person (least of all football), but I’m failing to see the reason why somebody would do this. But, I suppose there are people out there who are so into sports that they might like to have an archive of games. Then again, wouldn’t preference be given to a video archive?

All the same, as I was trying to figure this one out with a football-fan friend of mine, he did raise the point that it costs everyone involved practically nothing to do and there must be someone out there who will buy it (although I would imagine the licensing fees are pretty ridiculous).

While I still need to do my MWSF follow-up, I did want to point out something that had me rather puzzled on the busride after going to the show. I was randomly people-watching and noticed a woman reading the San Francisco Examiner.

Now I know that you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, I didn’t think anybody read the Examiner anymore either!”, but that’s not what was really puzzling me (although it kinda does); On the back page, there was a full-page ad from some flooring store. There was a URL for the store featured pretty prominently under the name of the store name, but the footer of the ad read:

Shop anytime @ home for FREE! [Store Phone Number]

While mixing the usage of the “@” symbol in the context of shopping at home with the store’s phone number is odd, I’m rather baffled at the connotation of that statement; does the “brick & mortar” side of the business really charge you money in order to shop there?

The only time of year for which I always take some time off is here: MacWorld San Francisco Expo. While I’ll spare the superlative superlatives bouncing around the media right now about Apple’s latest, I will say that from what I’ve seen, they’re all very cool. It should be very interesting, to say the very least, to see what kind of reception the Mac mini will get. I hazard to guess that it will even boost the sales of the eMac (since Apple doesn’t have a low-cost monitor anymore, why not just add another $200 to your purchase and get a complete all-in-one solution, if you don’t already have a monitor to use?).

While I’m encouraged by the massive crowd waiting to do same day registration this morning (the second day of the Expo), I have to admit some concern at the continued slide of MacWorld’s popularity. Don’t get me wrong, there are so many people it’s virtually impossible to move on the floor - it’s just that the number of exhibitors have continued to shrink (for the first time since I’ve been going, arguably the first time ever, MacWorld has only occupied the South Hall of the Moscone Center - the North Hall is just barely being used as a dining area). That said, I do have to admit encouragement at some of the companies I didn’t even expect to see here like Clarion (showing their new iPod-compatible car stereo solutions) and Novell (Groupware for OS X and such).