My new golden rule:

Whenever I think of a new business/website idea, sleep on it for two full days and then revisit. If it still makes sense, then consider executing.

Ahh, the gift that keeps on giving. I've been drinking Caribou/Starbucks off and on for the last couple of years. I'm definitely an amatuer when it comes to coffee and tea. Santa ended up bringing me a great product for one or two people to use that makes trying numerous flavors a breeze. Plus, I'll probably save $500 a year by brewing my own drink.

KEURIG B30 MINI BREWER (Jet Black)
The machine itself is compact and an attractive addition to your desk or kitchen. To make a cup of coffee, put your coffee mug in the drop zone of the machine. Simply select a flavored "K-Cup" coffee filter, press the large button on top of the machine and place the "K-Cup" in the filter slot. Then, push down the silver lever in front. The machine punctures a hole in the filter and the back water compartment opens. Pour 8oz of water in the back, close the hatch and hit the blue brew button.  In less than 3 minutes, you have a perfect flavored cup of coffee. Cool thing, is that there are literally hundreds of "K-Cups" you can purchase and choose from. I've been hitting the French Vanilla lately.

The taste, speed and quality of the machine are all really good. My only complaint is that the front area where the coffee cup stands, has a rather small diameter. You have to use a small coffee cup, rather than the big oversized one you are probably used to.

It will be fun trying out different flavors this machine has to offer.  Highly recommended.

Through some naming conflicts, I lost my Linq to Sql data model's class file.


Data.dbml
Data.dbml.layout
Data.designer.cs   <-- MISSING


With about 20 tables and 50+ stored procedures in the methods pane, it would be a nightmare to manually create a new dbml file. I luckily stumbled upon a LIFE SAVER...

In the Visual Studio solution explorer, right click on your .dbml file and select "Run Custom Tool" and BAM..... it generates a fresh cs file for you.

I know as a fact that promos for the new Rammstein album were mailed out as full blown digi-packs to the press. And sure enough, it was leaked in Finland.

Original source: http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20091207.html

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here, but I've been using the iPhone for 6 months now and here are my reactions so far:

• I like (not love) the interface. It's pretty intuitive overall, but being someone who prides myself on usability and interface design, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to customize the programs list. This is something that's so simple to do on many other devices, but has been puzzling me for months. Even for the customizations that are there, they're very limited on what you can do. C'mon Apple, you can do better.
• Holy dropped calls!!! I used to have Verizon, and Sprint before that. In the past three weeks with my iPhone, I've easily have had more dropped calls than my entire prior experience with Sprint and Verizon combined (20 vs 1 or 2). I had one 40-minute conversation that was dropped three times in the process. And it's not like I'm in a dead zone either ...
• AT&T customer support. There seems to be a LOT of talk about their support, and even though the support staff seems friendly, they don't seem too terribly good at getting things done or answering my questions. For example, I signed up with a coupon code to receive a discount on every bill. Since July, I have not received one statement that honored that coupon code. Each bill, it seems, I have to contact support to get this fixed, and them I'm assured it won't happen again ... until my next bill comes around ...
• iPhone apps. Love em. Enough said.

I'm left wondering if my phone's issues are related to AT&T or the iPhone? AT&T, when contacted about all the dropped calls told me it was a bug in the iPhone. I'm not so sure about that though ... So, with that said, I'm stuck here with 1.5 years left on my 2 year contract. If I leave early, I'm sure there's a hefty fee (although, according to this article, it sounds like a breach of contract on their end to me). If I stay, I know I'm going to continue getting crappy phone service. To be honest, going back to Verizon with the Droid is looking very inviting to me right now ...

I just realized today that I have quite a few applications I use to stay connected to feeds of data and tools I use to share my own data throughout the day. Here is what I use:


DIGITAL MUSIC: I purchase all of my MP3 music from Amazon.com using their downloader application to instantly transfer music into the Windows Media Player library.

MUSIC LISTENING/TRACKING: I have a Last.fm plugin for Windows Media Player that pumps all of my listening habits to my Last.fm profile, which I can then share using Last.fm widgets in signatures on other sites.

TWITTER: I manage my Twitter account with thwirl.

RSS FEEDS: All rss feeds are managed with FeedReader3.

WEBSITE TRACKING: The Haulix website is monitored with Xigla Live Support.

EMAIL: Email is managed with Outlook 2007.


What do you use?

If you want to see how many times a URL shortened by Bit.ly was clicked, copy/paste the URL into a browser address bar and insert a plus sign (+) at the end.


http://bit.ly/59eYA3+

Original source: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2053-meetings-the-practical-alternative-to-work-via-ariel

Don't you think robot-crawlers, that in the past, have been programmed to look for strings that contain an "@" symbol, for harvesting email addresses for spamming purposes, have been re-programmed to include:

"me [at] mysite.com"
"me @ mysite.com"
"me@TAKEOUTmysite.com"


I can't believe people still use these techniques to avoid spam.

Great article written by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler on Forbes.com.

I have introverted tendencies and my business partner leans in that direction too. It's refreshing to read an article like this, when in society, it seems that introverts get looked down upon like they are weird or are lacking in something.

Jennifer says in her article,

"They think first, talk later. Introverted leaders think before they speak. Even in casual conversations, they consider others' comments carefully, and they stop and reflect before responding. One executive tells me that he sits back and listens to his leadership team's ideas and proposals, often using silence to allow even more thoughts to bubble up. Learning by listening, not talking, is a trait that introverts consistently demonstrate."