Category: Thoughts

Neil Poulton is a Jackass

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

I recently bought a 1TB Lacie Hard Drive that was “designed” by Neil Poulton. I imagine that the design session went something like this:

Lacie: “Neil, we need you to design a hard drive for us”
Neil: “Excellent! I’ve got a brilliant idea!”
Lacie: “Tell us!”
Neil: “Well, I will tell you but you have to put my name all over the box, and not put anyone else’s name on it. Especially the people that are actually going to work late nights and weekends to do the engineering required to make this piece of commodity hardware fit into my stunningly brilliant design”
Lacie: “Sold!”
Neil: “OK, here it is, picture in your mind a shiny black rectangle”
Lacie: “I love where this is going!”
Neil: “Now picture in your mind a blue light”
Lacie: “Ooooh, sexy”
Neil: “Excellent, I’ll send over the invoice”
Lacie: “…”

Vista: Day 600

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

So, I had meant to do this sooner, but here’s the follow-up to my 1-day update after 18 months of using Vista.

  • I haven’t downgraded to XP, nor felt any need to. On the flip side I’m still running XP at home, and haven’t felt the need to upgrade.
  • It hasn’t crashed. Nope, not once.
  • The one vista feature I’ve grown to use is the “Start Search” box, which is basically a slower/simpler version of Quicksilver, but provides most of the functionality you need (i.e. finding programs and files you don’t use all day).

Well, that’s about it.

Oh, the Macbook I gave to Phil when I got the PC? He used it for a while, but after too many problems with it, he eventually had to go and buy a replacement (his 4th Macbook in 2 years).

So THAT’s What a Debate Is

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

This is a politics-free blog, but this needs to be said. I’ve watched most of the debates since the laughable Clinton/Dole ones, through the confusing Bush/Gore ones, and through the pitiful Bush/Kerry ones, and that was the first real presidential debate I’ve ever seen. Two smart guys going at it (after a bit of prodding by Jim Awesomepants Lehrer), minimal bald-faced-lies, presenting real differences of beliefs and leadership. Maybe this whole democracy thing actually works…

Missing Java Annotations

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

@SelfExplanatory – I’d love to be able to turn on JavaDoc warnings in Eclipse, but I can’t. Why? Because 90% + of the code is self explanatory. Do I really need to see that getName() “Returns the name”, or that setName(String name) has the utter audacity to “Set the name”? No, I don’t. Put a @SelfExplanatory and JavaDoc can create these braindead comments without cluttering up my code, while Eclipse can reserve its warnings for the more interesting methods.

@NotNull – Other languages may have solved or avoided this problem, but I’d like to be able to dictate that a variable can be set to anything except null, and also that a method will never return null. It would just save so many headaches (of the onerous Runtime variety, no less), as well as lots of “if (foo == null)”…

The ulterior purpose of this post is to test the upgrade to WordPress 2.6.

Gordon Ramsay & The White Barn Inn

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

I’ve lately been fortunate enough to eat at two amazing restaurants. The first was Gordon Ramsay at the London in New York City, the second was The White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport, ME.

Ramsay’s was quite simply the finest meal and dining experience I’ve ever had. Reeny is a big fan of his show, and I’ve watched it here and there, so I had some confidence he knew what he was talking about and that he had very high standards (important since he is not actually the chef there). The food was astonishingly good, from the artichoke soup to the Black Cod to the Kobe short rib, everything was A+. The highlight was either the soup or the scallop, both were so good it’s impossible to pick. The service was perfect too, we never felt like we were waiting nor did we feel rushed. If you’re even in NYC, make sure you visit this place, assuming you can make reservations two months ahead…

The White Barn Inn, a recommendation of Dina, was also memorable. While not quite as good as Ramsay, it’s easily the best place I’ve been to in New England. I opted for the lamb, Reeny for the beef, and both dishes were great as well as the other courses. The atmosphere is cozy, the service was very good, highly recommended when you’re down east.

Register My Login to Join Your Account

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

One of the details that can be tough to keep track of with a large or fast-moving website is language consistency. Of course, to be consistent, you need to decide what to use. I did an audit of the most popular English-language sites (as determined by Alexa and Compete), to see how three key phrases were being used. These were:

Login/Log In/Sign in – The action of authorizing your account.
My/Your – My Movies, Your Account, etc.
Join/Sign Up/Register/Create – Creating a new account.

Here is the raw data, see below for some analysis.

adultfriendfinder.com login my join
aim.com sign in my join/get
amazon.com sign in your start
aol.com sign in my sign up
bankofamerica.com sign in your* enroll
blogger.com sign in my create
craigslist.com login N/A sign up
deviantart.com login N/A become/join
ebay.com sign in my register
facebook.com login my sign up
flickr.com sign in your create
fotolog.com log in/login my join
friendster.com log in my sign up
go.com (espn) sign in my register
google.com sign in my create
hi5.com log in my join
imageshack.us login my signup
imdb.com login my register
live.com sign in my sign up
mininova.com login my register
msn.com sign in my sign up
myspace.com login my sign up
neopets.com login my sign up
photobucket.com log in my join
pogo.com sign in my register
rapidshare.com login my join
store.apple.com login* N/A create/set up
veoh.com log in my register
walmart.com sign in my create
wikipedia.org log in create
wordpress.com login my sign up
yahoo.com sign in my sign up
youporn.com login my register*
youtube.com log in my sign up

* Inconsistent

“My” is the clear winner over “Your”, with 27 mys, 3 yours, and 2 that avoid using possessive pronouns.

“Login” takes the edge over “Sign In”, 20-14. “Sign In”, however, seems to be more popular with the biggest of the big sites, like Yahoo, Microsoft’s sites, and Google. I’d say this is a tossup, and I have a feeling that in a few years signup with come to dominate. Of those using login, 13 use “login”, and 7 use “log in”, with the space.

There’s a plurality of choices for sign up, with “sign up” being used on 12 sites. 7 used join, 7 used register, 6 used create (an account), 1 used start, and 1 used enroll. This is not an independent choice, however, as “sign up” is often seen where “log in” is used, and sites that use “sign in” use something like “register”. AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo use “sign in/sign up”. I suspect that some people think using such similar phrases would be confusing, and I agree, despite the appeal of the general consistency.

My preference is to use “my, “log in”, and “sign up”. “Join” seems ambiguous, “register” seems bureaucratic and expensive, while “create an account” just feels a little dorky.

Dishonorable Mention: The Apple Store, supposed paragon of usability and attention to detail, is the worst offender on this list in terms of mixing and matching the terms, often on the same page. They also fail miserably on one major point, there’s no logout button!