I wonder why gmail Contacts feature is so slow.

It used to be fast. But then some gmail programmer did a "fancy version" with ajaxy stuff (oh so 2008) and yet, as is the case with most software, this "fancy stuff" actually deteriorated the software performance (and thus usability).

Given how obsessed Google is with performance monitoring, it makes me wonder what about the gmail team lets that bad programmer get away with such a crappy rewrite?

I would not be surprised if there were something dysfunctional about the gmail engineering team which allowed that programmer to get away with this. Perhaps the Contacts coder has a Big Title (/arrogance) and is left alone by a weak manager.

Wdyt?¶4:42 AM

iomega sucks. I bought an iomega nas drive. The CD did not work on Mac. Fine. So I haul out a Windows PC. Then the install does not install the "discovery tool" to find the device on my LAN. Each time I launch the install tool, it tells me my iomega software is out of date, even though I click to install it each time. Of course the install *requires* that you register with them. And, check out this crazy font they are using for their legal agreement -- unreal!¶2:23 PM

There's another scary article about cancer and cell phones.

Staying in denial for a moment about cell phones vs. drunk driving, I'm going to immediately start using my wired (not silly bluetooth) mobile earphones when DWT, and, I'm going to move my charger from bedside to the other side of the room.

Here is the full list of recommendations from Dr. Ronald Heberman's advisory:

1. Do not allow children to use a cell phone, except for emergencies. The developing organs of a fetus or child are the most likely to be sensitive to any possible effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields.

2. While communicating using your cell phone, try to keep the cell phone away from the body as much as possible. The amplitude of the electromagnetic field is one fourth the strength at a distance of two inches and fifty times lower at three feet. Whenever possible, use the speaker-phone mode or a wireless Bluetooth headset, which has less than 1/100th of the electromagnetic emission of a normal cell phone. Use of a hands-free ear piece attachment may also reduce exposures.

3. Avoid using your cell phone in places, like a bus, where you can passively expose others to your phone's electromagnetic fields.

4. Avoid carrying your cell phone on your body at all times. Do not keep it near your body at night such as under the pillow or on a bedside table, particularly if pregnant. You can also put it on "flight" or "off-line" mode, which stops electromagnetic emissions.

5. If you must carry your cell phone on you, make sure that the keypad is positioned toward your body and the back is positioned toward the outside so that the transmitted electromagnetic fields move away from your rather than through you.

6. Only use your cell phone to establish contact or for conversations lasting a few minutes, as the biological effects are directly related to the duration of exposure. For longer conversations, use a land line with a corded phone, not a cordless phone, which uses electromagnetic emitting technology similar to that of cell phones.

7. Switch sides regularly while communicating on your cell phone to spread out your exposure. Before putting your cell phone to the ear, wait until your correspondent has picked up. This limits the power of the electromagnetic field emitted near your ear and the duration of your exposure.

8. Avoid using your cell phone when the signal is weak or when moving at high speed, such as in a car or train, as this automatically increases power to a maximum as the phone repeatedly attempts to connect to a new relay antenna.

9. When possible, communicate via text messaging rather than making a call, limiting the duration of exposure and the proximity to the body.

10. Choose a device with the lowest SAR possible (SAR = Specific Absorption Rate, which is a measure of the strength of the magnetic field absorbed by the body). SAR ratings of contemporary phones by different manufacturers are available by searching for sar ratings cell phones on the internet.¶8:16 AM

iHate iPhone, v2

Well, the iPhone v2 lasted three days before I returned it, for these reasons:

No cell connection in my house or on my way to work, even though I always had great connection with my AT&T blackberry. (I'm told that the 3G iPhone coverage is not that great in many areas.)

The battery lasts less than a day. (I'm told that 3G consumes batteries.)

I could not tell which part of the phone was the top vs bottom each time I picked it up.

The keyboard sucks. It really, really does. (Most Apple lovers will first say they learned to type almost as fast on the iPhone as their prior qwerty phone, until you challenge them to a typing contest, at which point they say "well, you really shouldn't type that much on a phone anyway, because we enlightened Apple lovers learn to smell the roses (when we're not playing games on our iPhones)".

The iPhone kept crashing. Really.

Many common operations were significantly slower on iPhone than on Blackberry. For example, when I want to lookup a contact on the Blackberry, I pickup my Blackberry, roll-click Contacts and start typing the first letter(s) of the contacts name. On the iPhone, I pick it up, press the home button, wait for it to light up, then I see it put me back to the last application I was using, which is usually not the one I use now. So then I hit the Home button again. Then I go down to Contacts. But then I notice that the iPhone doesn't have a search function, instead, it thinks you need only use its clever drag-scroll (sometimes with initial right column click to letter index), which works fine when you have a couple hundred contacts, but not when you are a business user with a couple thousand contacts.

I could go on, and on, but you get the point. The iPhone is a toy. It is not for someone who treats mobile productivity (phone, email, contacts, calendar) seriously.

Maybe I will try again with the iPhone v3 in a year. But for now, I have only one question -- will it blend?

¶11:24 PM

I just got the new iPhone.

I had previously purchased the v1 iPhone when it came out, but I returned it after a week. Not due to its shitty keyboard, but due to:

1) the lack of asynchronous email. (Fixed in v2.)

2) the lack of Exchange integration. (Fixed in v2.)

3) the lack of "autotext" macros. I have hundreds of these on my Blackberry.

4) to "delete" an email took more than 10 milliseconds. I get several hundred emails a day; the Blackberry simply requires "click delete key" to have a message _instantly_ disappear and then show the next message. The stupid animation on the iPhone was incredibly annoying.

But the reasons I'm now trying the new iPhone are:

1) it has a browser which works. (Damn you Blackberry for going this long without a real browser.)

2) it has a nice third party developer platform, and a simple way to find and buy new applications. (The first app I downloaded was iBeer.)

3) it is 3G

4) my Blackberry broke yesterday :)

Also, I think the new iPhone might save my life. Given that it's email will still suck compared to the Blackberry, I probably won't Drive While Texting anymore.

Now I have to go find a yoga class to teach me how to slow down my life so I don't need to email from my phone anymore. (I currently plan not to email from my iPhone that much, given how crappy the keyboard is vs the Blackberry.) Or, maybe all the iPhone applications will be enough to amuse me when I have some minutes to spare and would otherwise be doing email.

We'll see. Stay tuna.¶2:38 PM

How is it possible that gmail does not accurately diagnose whether emails claiming to be from paypal are authentic or not?

I just got a legitimate email from Paypal and it was put into my gmail spam folder.

Any email claiming to be from paypal but which is not really from paypal (easily identifiable by google based on a registered email server mechanism) should be deleted, not even put into my spam folder.

If gmail can't authenticate emails from paypal, god help them in trying to determine if other emails are legit or not.

There is so much spam these days that the number of false positives is increasing, and the spam folders are getting so large that it is not possible for me to review my spam folder anymore. Unfortunately, this means that we can no longer rely on legitimate email as being sent. So if I do not reply to your email to me, try calling me on the phone. :)¶10:16 AM

codesnap is a new website to allow code buyers to quickly find coders to build small projects. A posting costs you just $5, and then completion of typical project will be $100 or so. Your posting will be seen by hundreds of coders, who will then complete your job usually within a few days. Buyers, this is also a good recruiting tool -- to meet coders and to quickly evaluate them via your small project.¶7:16 AM

When will there be a service to have someone post tons of fake reviews and high ratings of your item on amazon?

I'm looking to buy a futon. Of course I looked on amazon, even though that sounds like a weird place to buy furniture. But amazon seems to sell *everything* these days.

I was surprised that amazon had 512 futon mattress search results.

I was even more surprised that one of these 512 futon mattresses had 24 reviews.

Most of the reviews seemed to be bland, as if one person in India had to type them all in.

What do you think?¶7:00 AM