Entering retirement 6/26/2007
This particular blog is being moved and retired. It will now live at old.richarddcrowley.org but will otherwise remain the same.
My new blog will take over this domain and feed URL, so you don’t really need to change a thing.
The Microsoft ribbon and the new apple.com 6/20/2007
Disclosure: I am a Mac fanboy.
In the wake of the WWDC, the new apple.com got very little attention. Most reviews and opinions about the new site have been focused on the new horizontal navigation. I am not sure whether I am the first person to say this, but I like the idea of horizontal navigation. However, this implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
First of all, the scrolling mechanism is foreign to users. It is visually dissimilar to other scroll bars that users are accustomed to seeing. It is also sitting behind text — text never appears on top of a scroll bar anywhere else in my memory. But the idea of providing a space-efficient way to browse all of Apple’s growing stable of products is appealing enough to warrant a second look.
The result will be more direct access to Apple’s products, which can’t help but increase sales.
Score: Apple, 458963578256; Microsoft, 1.
I am Californian 6/18/2007
Friday I moved to San Francisco. It wasn’t quite the decisive move I was hoping for, as I am still couch surfing for a couple more days, but after much ado, I am on my way to having an apartment on Wednesday.
Friday my parents and I got up at 5:00am only to discover that the first leg of my flight had been cancelled, leaving me no way to catch the second leg from Atlanta to San Francisco. However, we found out that if we drove to Cincinnati, I would actually get to San Francisco an hour earlier than anticipated. Glorious. Done and done.
It wasn’t quite life-and-death to get out here early Friday, but I wanted to catch the five appointments I had made with landlords — a couple of them were very promising. From 2:00pm to 6:00pm I made a nice clockwise loop around the city in my Dodge Caliber rental and discovered the awesomeness of the Marina district, completed by the awesomeness of 2090 Green Street.
I visited my remaining appointments but spent most of my energy the rest of the afternoon working on securing this apartment. It turns out that it was already in the process of being rented, but one a floor higher and a bit bigger was coming onto the market and had not been shown to anyone thus far. Jackpot. So pending disaster showing up in my credit report or fax machines failing me (again), I will be living at 2090 Green Street, #47, San Francisco, CA 94123 starting Wednesday. As a bonus, I get newly refinished floors, new counters and a new refrigerator.
With that big decision out of the way, it was time to party. I will only give a brief itinerary, since parties aren’t usually the subject of this blog. Friday night was pizza, beer and jazz on Fillmore. Saturday afternoon was spent exploring Golden Gate Park and Haight Street. Saturday night I went to the end of the North Beach festival, a house party where I was a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend and was welcomed anyway, and a bar where we had connections with the bartender. Sunday afternoon got me lost in Golden Gate park but then to a free concert. Sunday night found me grilling with some other Yahoos close to Fillmore. I love this city.
Flickr international 6/12/2007
Congratulations to the Flickr team for launching in seven new languages today. I know it was quite an effort, and from what I have seen it seems to have been well worth it all.
Alas, I still speak only English, so nothing is new and exciting for me.