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May 31, 2006
Bug Report: travel with Kiehl's products
For the last 20 years of my life, I washed my face with regular body soap whenever I was in the shower. I was also plagued by oily skin (still am). Three years ago, a friend showed me the wonders of Kiehl's products. I eventually found a face cleanser that became a life saver. I always thought it was dumb that I could be 30 years old and still get a zit, but that basically doesn't happen any more. For the first time in my life, I have clear clean skin (that gets oily after a few hours, but still).
The problem is even though the small 4oz bottle has a cap that gives a satisfying "snap" when you close it, I can't keep the thing closed and sealed when I fly.
It started a couple years ago, when I flew across the country and the bottle exploded in my toiletries bag. After that, I started flying with it in a ziplock bag, and every flight afterwards has ended with some leakage of blue goo. I tried stowing my toiletries separate in an overhead bin. I've tried it deep within checked luggage. Always, the same result.
I've bought several bottles of the stuff and every time I fly, I still get the leak in the cap. It surprises me that this has continued for a couple years because I figure the kind of people that pay a lot for cleansers would typically be people that fly a lot and they'd solve this.
Suggestions for a fix: I think it's time to rethink the friction-held cap. Perhaps a screw top, perhaps one of those caps with the tube that folds over to make a definite seal? Maybe make a travel-only cap for flying? Or I guess I could continue with the ziplock bags and maybe use tape, but it seems like something easy Kiehl's could fix.
update: Kiehl's customer service got back to me with a nice note suggesting that due to cabin pressure, the caps they use now will tend to open up a bit and suggest putting tape over them when you travel (duh, I didn't think to try that). A friend suggested the same tape remedy and noted if they moved to a more reliable cap it would likely be harder to flip open with a single finger, as they work now. I guess I'll start taping up the bottles when I travel now, but it was great to hear I wasn't alone in this.
Posted by 02:08 PM | Comments (9)
Bug Report: Gawker Media's photo galleries
I'm going to try something new here, doing little posts called "bug reports". I guess I could submit this to This Is Broken, but there's sort of a negative connotation with that because everyone just piles on in the comments and I just want to help people out by clearly laying out bugs I've found so they can improve their product and I can enjoy a better experience.
Today I'm mentioning the photo gallery hack that Gawker sites like Lifehacker and Jalopnik use because I see them everyday and have learned to avoid them because I don't think they really work all that well. There are two main problems here:
1. RSS readers like reblog display escaped php in the entry. Perhaps it's just my web-based reader but I don't get anything useful from something like this (screenshot of a lifehacker post with a gallery):
2. Using the galleries themselves is cumbersome. With OSX/Firefox, when I click on an image, a few moments later, the blog entry reloads, and I have to manually scroll down to see the image. Clicking on Next properly jumps back down, but requires another page load, which can be slow. At times I've given up after 1 or 2 photos because the reloads are taking 10-20 seconds.
Here is a video of that in action
I have the feeling that the gallery works the way it does to encourage more pageviews, for advertising purposes, but it results in a poor experience for users. I tend to not even look at galleries and instead follow whatever links are in the entries to see photos somewhere else.
Suggestions for a solution: The easiest thing would just be using MT's built in image popup links. Or you could dump them into a Flickr set. Best solution would be an in-page dhtml widget that could show the first photo and cycle through them all without requiring any page loads at all, so visitors could quickly and painlessly view an entire gallery in seconds without losing their place or forced to wait for server responses.
Posted by 01:43 PM | Comments (2)
May 30, 2006
links for 2006-05-30
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how to hack your own image into the startup routine on Honda navigation systems
Posted by 01:07 AM
May 27, 2006
links for 2006-05-27
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handy step-by-step to getting your nokia and sony bluetooth phones talking to your mac and being used as a wireless modem
Posted by 01:06 AM
May 25, 2006
Behind the Video: Star Wars MacBook
I made a video for a dozen friends to laugh at my geekiness, and so far it's gotten as high as #3 most popular video and over 100,000 views on YouTube. I thought I'd recap some details and things I've learned from the process.
- I first saw MacSaber on Sunday morning, on MetaFilter. It was the only place I saw it at first, and I immediately thought of all the cool things you could do with the motion sensor, the most obvious being using a light saber simulator to do a parody of the star wars kid.
- On most blogs, even with a somewhat technically minded and art-appreciating audience, the first reaction for most people was about dropped laptops and hard drives destroyed by motion sensor toy apps like MacSaber. Some people can't see innovation when it's right in front of their faces. The SmackBook is the first in a long list of innovative uses of the SMS.
- I placed an order for a MacBook the day it came out, so it could replace my three year old 12" powerbook, and it shipped early, arriving Monday afternoon of this week. I unpacked it around 3pm, got it up and running and at 4pm loaded up MacSaber and did a few attempts at the joke.
- I filmed it with the iSight in my G5 iMac, using iMovie '06. It was super easy to do a take, review it, and do another one.
- It took about ten tries before I got enough movement and a funny moment worth keeping (a slight slip, and the stare at the end).
- After I uploaded it to YouTube, it took about 45 minutes to get approved. In the past it's taken 5 minutes so they're either swamped and doing it by hand still, or maybe having "star wars" in the title is a red flag that requires review just in case I uploaded a copy of the movie or something.
- I sent the URL to about a dozen friends (mostly bloggers) on IM. One of them was Andy Baio. Kottke and Cory Doctorow both read my feed, and linked it. Hitting the trifecta of kottke.org, waxy.org, and boingboing.net pretty much puts you on the internet meme fast track.
- YouTube comments are virtually useless. After the first ten or so from people that read my blog and got the joke of it all, the rest that followed were all variations on "this sucks" "what the hell?" and "I hope he drops it HAHAHA lolz"
- If I had a dollar for every "lol" in a comment on YouTube, I could retire.
- After I hit the popular page (about 12 hours later), 90% of the new comments were links to another video. It was basically comment spam, where users hit every popular video and say "hey! come look at my movie here!" I deleted about 40 of them so far. I just got an actual comment spam to a cafepress store, so I'm now turning them off.
- Some strange offshore video production company asked for redistribution rights. I wouldn't be surprised if YouTube is in talks with a TV Network. It'd be pretty easy to make America's Funniest Home Videos every week by just broadcasting the most popular page.
- It probably helps that the movie was only 12 seconds long -- it was very little "work" to watch it so I think it spread thanks to that.
- Since I don't have ads showing on comment pages here, I made no revenue off this. I suspect it could have been worth a couple hundred bucks considering the entry with the video got tens of thousands of views.
- YouTube is a little bit of a walled garden -- it could do a better job of promoting users and their own websites, or letting you write HTML descriptions like on Flickr. I noticed lots of videos embed a URL in order to get people to read more about something. I didn't really get traffic from YouTube to this server, other blogs did a better job.
- I wonder if Apple sold any MacBooks from people watching it and wanting to try it at home.
- The Weblogs Inc. folks linked to it on Engadget and TUAW. One entry called me "youtube user mathowie" and Engadget didn't even mention me by name (and they used to link to PVRblog all the time). Bonus boo-hoo points to Engadget for suggesting Apple copied the Nintendo Wii controller (even though Apple released laptops with motion sensors in them last year). Do some research people, you're pro bloggers, yo!
Posted by 09:44 AM | Comments (5)
links for 2006-05-25
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Sweet, the entire US TV lineup of WorldCup games
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heh.
Posted by 01:06 AM
May 24, 2006
links for 2006-05-24
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great step-by-step intro ajax tutorials
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Microsoft Research's project similar to the iPod/Nike thing announced today.
Posted by 01:06 AM
May 23, 2006
links for 2006-05-23
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Awesome looking simple training log web app. I wanted to build this years ago, glad others are stepping up and providing these kinds of services.
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Sweeeet. God I hope my standard Comcast lineup shows at least a daily game.
Posted by 01:08 AM
May 22, 2006
macbook man
Over the weekend, a new app called macsaber came out. The moment I realized that geeks everywhere would be swinging their new laptops around, my first thought was how stupid that must look and how that could easily become another Star Wars Kid parody.
My new macbook showed up today and I downloaded macsaber. The rest is internet history:
I went for accuracy, combing my hair down, putting on tight khakis and a striped tight shirt, and following his first set of movements.
Posted by 06:26 PM | Comments (29)
May 21, 2006
links for 2006-05-21
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weird text hack for the ipod
Posted by 01:06 AM
May 20, 2006
Amazon's new Search Inside preview, and an idea for Amazon
(Amazon's new Search Inside preview, originally uploaded by mathowie)I haven't heard that Amazon updated the "Search Inside" feature with a whizbang new page browsing interface until I stumbled upon it last night. It's very easy to use, quicker than the old method, and honestly it's the first thing that comes close to standing in a store and leafing through a book.
Like the old book preview, it lets you browse through about 20 pages before blocking you, but this book in the screenshot had so many good garden ideas, I bought it from Amazon.
So here's my idea for Amazon: copy something from the book of O'reilly. They have these services called Rough Cuts and Safari which help them sell books online. The cool thing that O'reilly does is once you purchase say, the Flickr Hacks book, they give you instant online access to the full text as a PDF.
Now, I'm not saying Amazon should give away PDF copies of everything I buy (though that does sound cool, I imagine the publishers would go apeshit over it), but you've got this great reader interface now and the full content of the entire book. After I purchase the book and it's on the way to my door, how about lifting the 20 page limit on viewing?
Why not offer full online access to purchased books immediately after purchase (provided customers agree they can't cancel the book order after viewing the content)? I know this book will get here on Tuesday, but it'd be cool if I could leaf through the whole thing and look at the rest of the pictures (what I normally do in a store -- I buy and take it home to read the full text).
update: D'oh: They already have this (sadly, not many books are eligible -- thanks Jason)
Posted by 10:30 AM | Comments (1)
links for 2006-05-20
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omg, I'm so doing this.
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"oh merlin, you got the peyote boost at jamba juice, didn't you?" best line ever, followup is 2nd best line ever.
Posted by 01:07 AM
May 19, 2006
Backhoe
(Backhoe, originally uploaded by Plaid Ninja)
awesome.
Posted by 09:01 PM
links for 2006-05-19
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I see a lot of sophomoric photos online, but this is actually really funny.
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ebay selling tips from someone that worked for DropIt.
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Awesome Firefox themes for OSX. I'm all about the Uno.
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Great success story of an ebook. $175k is an insane amount of money for any tech book, but it's a good read and I highly recommend it.
Posted by 01:06 AM
May 17, 2006
Let's begin the healing
Dear Phone Companies,
I see you've violated the privacy policies I signed onto your service with, by giving away data about all my calls placed, who they were placed to, and how long I talked. The third party you gave them to in this instance was the US Government, who did it in an "ends justify the means so we can break the law if we have to" way. I understand your hands were tied and you had to give up the goods. But we can make this right.
I live in a state where one area code covers a great deal of the residents, but I'm required to dial ten digits to local numbers, add a 1 for long distance. The funny thing is, even if it's the same area code, I as a consumer have no idea if I should add a one, but your helpful service blocks my calls and tells me when to redial, with or without a 1. On top of that, if someone with a different area code lives nearby, I might not have to dial a 1, even though I always do on different area codes. It's really a mysterious system to us end users.
Lemme change gears for a second; in the last decade I've enjoyed using a cellphone that is smart enough to add a 1 or take it away as it sees fit. I just dial ten numbers and whether it's across the street or across the country, the call goes through. It's amazingly handy.
So here is how you can get in my good graces again: you're the phone company and you know when I need to dial a 1 or not, because you tell me to. But here's the thing -- and I know it might sound crazy -- why don't you automatically resubmit the number with the appropriate change instead of making me key it all in again?
That's the deal. Handle dialed phone numbers with the same technology a cellphone in 1995 had, and I'll overlook your end of the breach-of-privacy deal. I'll take my issues with that violation to the government.
Posted by 03:01 PM
May 16, 2006
Paying for camouflage
Apple rules. If you take a look at the new MacBook order page, you'll notice a black ibook/macbook will run you $150* over a white one with identical specs.
Apple is charging people if they want a laptop that looks like a windows PC.
* The black one is $200 more, but for $50 you can upgrade the middle-tier white one to a 80Gb hard drive, hence, the $150 price difference for two totally identical macbooks.
Posted by 08:14 AM
May 13, 2006
links for 2006-05-13
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Playstation3 vs. Nintendo Wii: the audience decides this morning (hint: gamers like new ideas and the Wii definitely has a ton)
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todo: buy this car set the moment it goes on sale. Satan smoking a cigar on the side of a toy!
Posted by 01:08 AM
May 12, 2006
links for 2006-05-12
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awesome complete history of the lowrider and its roots in chicano culture
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"n + lampshade pet collar = funny" It's true. I just got mine today and this is the bestest shirt ever.
Posted by 01:10 AM
May 11, 2006
links for 2006-05-11
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Spellbound broke in Firefox 1.5/OSX last fall and now it finally works again
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this is my new desktop background.
Posted by 01:09 AM
May 10, 2006
links for 2006-05-10
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awesome little video. scatter!
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WIRED: Cowboy Ninja Bear TIRED: Rock Paper Scissors
Posted by 01:08 AM
May 09, 2006
Things learned from playing tetris ds for the past week
(6610, originally uploaded by mathowie)- I usually play for about 30 min before bed (11pm, Pacific), and almost everyone I play seems to be from japan (or they love kanji names).
- I win more if I play during the daytime. Perhaps I'm taking on homeschooled kids? People that out-rank me are easily beaten.
- Soon after I started playing wifi tetris, I started getting really protective of my ranking. I would jump into games with better ranked players and leave if I lost the first one. I noticed now that my ranking is going up, the opposite keeps happening to me -- people drop after they lose one.
- I have beaten only a couple >7000 ranked people, most mop the floor with me in a minute or so. I beat one player so easily that I wonder if a friend was playing on their ds or something.
- I got really pissed when some 7500 ranked superstar used my own playing against me. I would work frantically while they would wait until I scored a tetris or two, then they would use the neatly added blocks to score against me. Tetris should introduce more random patterns when adding blocks to other players to avoid this. The person was unbeatable for me.
- Somehow, someway, I played against the same person twice in quick succession. I won a game and they left, then we both searched for new opponents and ended up in a rematch. Nintendo should prevent that.
- It usually takes a minute to find an opponent in head-to-head tetris. Getting a 4-way game takes 2-3 minutes, so I rarely play that style. It seems like it should be faster to find other people ready to play given the hundreds of thousands of copies of the game floating around.
- I suck at the 4-way tetris, probably because of all the lucky bonus items. I guess it's like mario kart, where not necessarily the best driver wins, but the one with the most luck that doesn't get hit by special items.
- I don't understand all the warnings on ds wifi games that say once you're online the game rating might change. Given there is no chat and no interaction of any kind, tetris doesn't change whether you play against computer AI or a real person.
- Nintendo really has to revamp the whole adding friends thing. It's a chore that every game I have gives me a different ID, and all my friends have different IDs and then we have to line everything up over AIM and then sometimes we still can't find each other. Like Anil says, they did everything they could to prevent older creeps from stalking young players, but for adults, all these protections get in the way of simply playing a game online against your real life friends.
Posted by 01:13 PM | Comments (9)
links for 2006-05-09
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e3 rss feed bukkake
Posted by 01:09 AM
May 08, 2006
links for 2006-05-08
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Good for t-shirts
Posted by 01:07 AM
May 07, 2006
That's not American
I bought a you-bake-it-at-home apple pie today and the instructions said to bake at 375 for 1 and 1/2 hours then for optimum flavor, let cool for 4 to 6 hours.
hours.
four to six hours? Who in their right mind lets a perfectly good warm apple pie get cold before they try a slice?
Posted by 08:29 PM
For the songwriters
random thought while listening to music: the words "acetylene" and "unsettling" sound so similar that you probably shouldn't write love songs about welders.
Posted by 08:26 PM
May 05, 2006
links for 2006-05-05
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Oh come on, you know it's funny.
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Handy.
Posted by 01:08 AM
May 04, 2006
links for 2006-05-04
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lovely slashdot redo for their design contest
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Jeez, bluesecurity sends their DDOS attack to typepad and livejournal. Crazy.
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Sweet. Can't wait for Opera for the DS to come out.
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Everyone knows reality has a liberal bent. Wear this with pride.
Posted by 01:08 AM
May 03, 2006
SPOILER ALERT
So if you didn't see Lost tonight, you shouldn't read this post.
Ok, still here? Great. So a few characters get killed off at the end, but I have to wonder... the first two to die happened to be played by actors that both happened to be busted for drunk driving recently.
Coincidence? Or a nice way to remove the people that brought negative attention to the show?
Posted by 10:28 PM
May 02, 2006
links for 2006-05-02
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Weird. Jesse James marries Sandra Bullock then opens a fast food burger joint next door, but it's good beef and they have solar panels on the roof and eco-friendly packaging. Odd mix of cultures.
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Great to see so many people in so many towns marching peacefully and together -- wanting the same thing my great grandparents did: to be Americans
Posted by 01:08 AM
May 01, 2006
links for 2006-05-01
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In search of the perfect boot bench for a mudroom, in sketchup
Posted by 01:09 AM