Switching to Chrome for a Week
June 20th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I’ve been using my sweet Firefox for years. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. But with Google’s Chrome supporting extensions and coming out of beta for Mac, it was time to try the competition. Plus, maybe it’s my computer(s) showing their age, but Firefox was just sometimes like an old man who couldn’t get out of bed!
I demand a lot from my web browser, with so many applications being online these days, not to mention I do web development so I live in my browser. The following is a review of and posted with Google Chrome after trying it as my sole* web browser for a week. It was tested mostly on Mac OS X, but I did some work on my XP machines as well.
*Almost, I opened Firefox to deal with unsupported stuff.
Sitting with the Artist
May 27th, 2010 at 11:40 am
This past Saturday my friend Anthony and I went to see Marina Abramović’s exhibit, The Artist is Present, at the MoMA. I had read about it, but really had little information on what to expect. I recommend you visit the exhibit site or read this op-ed first for some basic background. What follows is my review in four parts:
- Logistics and tips for visiting
- Review of the work as an observer
- Experience of participating
- Aftermath
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Recession Holiday Shopping
November 21st, 2009 at 6:47 pm
The economy is a popular topic now, and has been for about a year now - ever since that financial crisis thing. Local news stations, magazines, and blogs cash in on it (as with any current event) by offering related content, and here I am jumping on the bandwagon. I’d like to combine this with another popular topic, holiday shopping! Just to get a few things out of the way, “didn’t we just have Halloween? Already the stores are pushing Christmas!” and also “Black Friday, OMG, stampede at Walmart.”
All the clichés being said, I have been brainstorming some ways to make this a less expensive gift-giving season and would like to share my ideas.
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Halloween 2009
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Wow, Halloween 2009. I ambitiously decided to make my costume – SANDy the Tokidoki cactus girl.
I knew that meant less people would recognize what I was, but thought it would be worth it! Here’s a bit about my process, pictures of the final product, and a bit about our night at the NYC Village Halloween parade.
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What is up with Tokidoki?
August 9th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I am a big fan of Tokidoki. When people see me wearing the shirts, carrying the purses, or playing with the toys, they’re always amused. The question I probably get the most, though, is “why is it/he/she wearing a cactus?”
So I present to you, Simone Legno’s (Tokidoki creator) text from the back of my Carina toy‘s box:
The cactus is a dign of protection. Kids are naive and vulnerable and need protection. A monster into a cactus suit would not have made sense in my vision of things. SANDy and her friends zip themselves into cactus suits because they think the world is a cold and scary place, and they need some armor to face it. The cactus is a conserver of water, and water means life. The Cactus Friends for me are the representation of life and pure like water.
I love that it’s kind of Engrish-y (he is a native Italian) – it makes it all the sweeter!
Email Migration Saga and Solutions
August 5th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Email: We take it for granted until the day it threatens to leave us. Anyone who has ever lost messages, or even just experienced a temporary power or internet outage knows this. Unfortunately, due to a few factors, I am also all too familiar.
This is a narrative tale of woe and triumph, but also contains advice for those who may be experiencing the nightmare of importing messages to Entourage from Apple’s Mail (and possibly other email clients, particularly those who use mbox files for storing messages). So read on!
The problem with to do lists
July 11th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Anyone who knows me knows what a fan of to do lists I am. Whether handwritten, typed, or in some sort of electronic task manager, or even just on a sloppy post-it, it’s all good. I’ve run into this problem lately where I’m very productive, and hence want to be able to cross things off the list. However, my list contains all these high level items like “Client X’s website.” So even if I finish 90% of the site (wow), I still can’t cross off this item. I’ve thought of two solutions to this:
- Divide to do list into manageable, cross-off-able, subtasks.
- Stop letting to do list manage my life.
Heh, heh, we’ll see. Do to do lists rule your life? How do you handle this conundrum? Am I just OCD?
Word count plugin
February 12th, 2009 at 12:11 am
I realized that when I actually sit down and write in this blog I tend to write a really lot. Even though I’ve never considered myself a writer. In spite of going to a college which focuses heavily on writing. Also, I used very poor grammar in those first few sentences.
In response to my own fascination about writing such long entries I installed the Post Word Count plugin. Now you’ll see a word count near the bottom of each of the individual post pages.
Ecommerce Webcessibility
February 10th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Everyone seems to have a very strong opinion (partly because these battles are hashed out on the Internet, breeding ground for flamewars) about how to go about building the “best” websites. There are still table-advocates, semantic-markup cheerleaders, CSS gurus, W3C fans and cynics, and those who comply with section 508 grudgingly – the whole spectrum. I’ve taken the approach that table-less, W3C valid, and accessible websites are the best way to go, and have worked at educating others to that effect too. Today I’d like to focus on accessibility, particularly for e-commerce.
Taking care of our students: advising, retention, mentoring
February 1st, 2009 at 11:59 pm
As I’m sure many (most? all?) colleges are right now, my employer and alma mater has been talking a lot about the “current economic crisis” and how it will impact the institution. Before all this drama hit we were also in the midst of a college-wide strategic planning process started by our still relatively new President. Well, these discussions have had many interesting and sometimes frustrating facets, but at one of these meetings the issue of retention came up. That is, once we admit the students, how do we make sure they’re happy enough to stay here?
The meeting attendees threw out ideas: Do we have tutoring for struggling students? What warning signs does the Dean of Studies office pick up and how do they act on them? How does general campus morale (including mood of the staff who interact with students) make an impact? What is the role of the adviser?
It is the last of these questions that sort of struck me. At this institution, we have a strong tradition of close relationships between adviser and advisee. As I’ve talked to students, both when I was one and since then, I noticed that they convey a range of very different relationships between themselves and their advisers.