Category Archives: This or That

Logitech’s Paranoid Protectionism

Logitech is pathetic. I had to reformat a drive, and just needed a Macintosh mouse driver to download. Could I find it anywhere on their website? Nope. Tried searching, tried their tedious help menus. I tell you, they closely guard their mouse drivers. Don’t want just anyone walking in off the cyberstreet and downloading a driver. You open that door, and pretty soon, everybody and their neighbor will be downloading drivers. It’ll be anarchy.

After searching in vain for way too long, I sent a message to customer support. “You sure make it difficult to find a stupid mouse driver. Why is that? I’ve wasted far too much time trying to find a stinkin’ driver for a mouse. This should not take a rocket scientist.” Yes, I had excellent people skills.

BUT, it wasn’t that easy. No no no. I had to copy down the serial number and some other number from the mouse. THEN, before it could be sent, I had to create an account, complete with my email address and other info. Logitech obviously considers it a matter of company security to protect their drivers. I guess they only have so many of them online. If I download one, then that’s one less driver they have available. At least, that’s how their tiny minds view it.

So the automatic reply from Support returned said they received my request and will respond within 24 hours. The other option would be to just make their drivers available where idiots like me could find them.

I used to prefer Logitech mice. But I’ve had lots of trouble with Logitech mice lately, and this doesn’t help my attitude. Fortunately, Microsoft–it pains me to say this–makes some great mice, and I can easily find anything I need from them online. Yes, I’m talking about the hated Microsoft, the Mordor of software companies. I’ve just said something good about Microsoft. This really hurts. And I blame Logitech.

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Topless Meetings? I Say Yes.

Last Friday I spoke for an hour about church communications to a class at the Huntington University Graduate School. Ray Seilhamer, the prof, invites me to do that about every two years.

A couple students had laptops open, and paid only partial attention to me. I doubt they were taking notes. Checking email? Surfing? Working on Sunday’s sermon? Is that what professors contend with in every class? Probably.

Merlin Mann, on the 43Folders.com blog, mentions the growing trend in business to hold “topless” meetings. Topless as in “laptop-less.” No laptops, Blackberrys, iPhones, or other personal devices allowed. The result is more eye contact, people connecting with each other rather than with their computer screens.

In a previous post, Mann gave “9 Tips for Running More Productive Meetings.” One was this:

No electronic grazing. Period. Laptops closed. Phones off. Blackberries left back in the cube. You’re either at the meeting or you’re not at the meeting, and few things are more distracting or disruptive than the guy who has to check his email every five minutes. Schedule breaks for people to fiddle with their toys, but fearlessly enforce a no grazing rule once the meeting’s back in session. Emergency call to take or make? They have to leave the room. No exceptions. If you’re too busy to be at the meeting everyone else has made firewalled time for, just leave.

I say “Bravo!” I rarely take my laptop to meetings anymore. Haven’t for years. If you’re going to be in a meeting, I contend, then be there.

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Tactics Vs. Goals

From Seth Godin’s blog: “Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.”

We hear people, and churches, say, “We already tried that before, and it didn’t work.” Are they referring to the goal, or the tactics for accomplishing that goal? If the goal remains worthy, just try different tactics to accomplish it. But don’t say, “We tried to accomplish that goal, and it didn’t work.”

That kid who beat me in the table tennis tournament on Saturday–if I played him again, I would definitely need different tactics.

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Light Vs. Dark Office Space

Do you prefer working in light, or dark? A company called Rackspace has two sections to its corporate office: a lights-on section, and an all-dark section. People have different preferences, and in progressive high-tech startup companies, they can actually cater to it.

I like working in the dark. Just me and the computer screen. You don’t see anything else. You can really focus, without distractions (or glare). I’ve occasionally worked in darkness, though it’s been a while. It somehow just doesn’t seem right. But now, Rackspace has legitimized the concept.

I wonder how my coworkers would feel if, tomorrow, I didn’t turn my lights on. Just worked in the dark. I’m designing a website. That would really help me focus totally on my work. I’m afraid my coworkers might consider it a bit weird, even creepy. But…should I care?

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Dream-Killing Debts

One more note from Mark Cuban’s post about destiny, which I referred to Monday. He wrote:

The greatest obstacle to destiny is debt, both personal and financial. The more people you are obligated to, the harder it is to focus on yourself and figure things out….Financial debt is the ultimate dream killer. Your first house, car, whatever stuff you might want to buy are going to be the primary reasons you stop looking for what makes you the happiest.

A lotta truth there. I hear a lot about bright young people who feel called to missionary service, but college debts keep them tied to the States until they can pay down those debts. Meanwhile, their commitment to missions dissipates. Sad, sad.

Churches run into dream-killing debt issues with overly-ambitious building programs. The demands of debt create a constant distraction from the church’s mission. Way too much time at board meetings focuses on money issues.

But Cuban also mentions “personal” debts to “people you are obligated to.” Sometimes missionaries return from the field to care for an ailing parent; I can’t fault that. In a book I wrote about our missionary work in Honduras, I learned about an incredible missionary named Betty Brown who did just that.

But sometimes, the reason is that a parent isn’t on board with your missionary call, or can’t stand being separated, or whatever. They put up a fuss, and the missionary feels compelled to return (or not go in the first place). What would I do in such situations? Well, I don’t have to worry about that, because my parents would be thrilled if Pam and I became missionaries.

At any rate, Cuban’s words about personal and financial debts being dream-killers are well noted.

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One of Those Pictures

Observed: a 40-ish man standing outside the YMCA, dressed in his warm-up outfit, either concluding or waiting to start his workout. Smoking.

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This and That

  • Yesterday one of Pam’s tax clients brought her flowers. She said, “Today is the anniversary of my husband’s death seven years ago. On this day I always buy myself flowers, and I thought I’d get some for you, too.” Neat.
  • I’m working feverishly on designing a new website. Incorporating a lot of social-media type of features. This stuff always energizes me.
  • I kinda feel sorry for Hillary. She was the hands-down nominee, but got upended by a freak of nature, a historic phenomenon that happens rarely–the Obama express. She’s got the experience, the mastery of details, the connections, the money…but along comes this irresistible force.
  • Karl Rove is pure evil. There are many evidences of it, the most recent being this situation involving the former Alabama governor who now sits in jail for seven years. Destroying people is a game for him. Without conscience.
  • Just finished Marketing to the Social Web. A really good treatment of the Web 2.0 world.
  • I love “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. They get all the stars, and more, that Don Imus once got in that same time slot. But without the crudeness.
  • I’ve not been following college basketball this year. I’ll watch the tournament–of course!!–but I’m not gonna bother doing brackets.

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Internet Usage in China vs. the US

The number of internet users in the US and China is now equal. But they don’t use the internet the same way, according to an interesting study.

  • 78% of Chinese internet users visit social-networking sites, compared to 54% in the US.
  • 54% of the Chinese play online game “frequently or constantly,” compared to 27% in the US.
  • 56% of Chinese spend at least ten hours a month in a virtual world (like Second Life), compared to a mere 6% in the US.
  • Three times as many Chinese download or watch films online frequently.
  • Chinese are five times more likely to use online dating service (only 3% in the US).
  • 40% of Chinese internet users own a smartphone, that can do email and surf the web. Only 6% of US internet users own a smartphone.

The demographics–age breakdown, number of men vs. women–were the same. But very different populations. China’s huge population and fast development means they’ll very soon–maybe even now–have the world’s largest base of internet users.

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Scenes from Our Really Big Bowl Party

Seventeen people, all rooting for the Giants, attended our party on Sunday night. I took some photos, but only got some of the people. Anyway, here’s some of what I snapped.

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Two photos of pretty much the same people.

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Here’s Connor. It’s been two months since he and his parents moved from our home into an apartment, after a year at our house. He’s changed so much. Two months, at that age (he’s now 16 months old) make a big difference.

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Here’s Carolyn with Connor and Dennis, who was born in mid-December. Dennis doesn’t seem very happy at the moment.

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The Self-Superiority of the Macintosh Minority

Mike Dennis pointed me to an article about the mindset of Mac buyers, which is perhaps the only minority group WASPs like Mike and I can claim to be part of. According to Mindset Media, a group I know nothing about, people who are “highly open-minded” are 60% more likely to buy a Mac. In addition, “These purchasers are also more liberal, less modest, and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large.”

More liberal? Less modest? I don’t know about that. But being a Mac user since 1988, and therefore obviously equipped with enormous foresight, I have no problem attesting to my own superiority.

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