Today I finally got my external hard disk. Thanks to the support of Timo the decision on the what was easy, the decision on where to buy was pretty much settled when none of the tech stores had what I wanted and even if they had kind of what I wanted it was a lot more expensive than Amazon, and the when was decided when I simply couldn’t wait any longer. So there it is, a Western Digital 2.5″ MyPassport, even smaller than I expected, which is a good thing, because I wanted something I can just throw into my bag without worrying about how much weight it adds to what’s already in there anyway.

I currently have it plugged it into the MacBook and use it for TimeMachine backups. Not sure if that’s the best idea, and I’m already prepared to revisit that idea some time soon, but it’s a good way to start trying it out and seeing how it goes before I clean up the massive hard drive I have to use as a backup drive.

I have loads of pet peeves ready and available for about every aspect of life, but here are two recent ones that concern the internet:

„Under construction“ sites. Stop it. If there’s nothing on there why do you have to put up a link there in the first place? Why do you make me click on stuff that just leads nowhere? It’s amazingly frustrating to browse a site when every third link just sends me to a page with nothing but a nice and polite apology telling me that you intend to fill this with content somewhen in the future. Seriously. Stop it. If it’s something very standard, okay. If it’s just one page, still okay. But what’s wrong with disabling or just not showing the link as long as it doesn’t lead anywhere and telling me right away that there are plans to add something there, just not yet?

Feeds without full text. Okay, fine. You want me to actually visit your page, so you just give me an excerpt in your feed and count on me to be intrigued enough to follow the white rabbit link and visit the site. I have news for you: Not really working. At least not for me. Sometimes, yes, but I’m pretty sure that I would read more of your blog posts if you would just give me the full text in the feed. In the end, you might not care so much about me. Totally fine with me.
But still… Your blog? Might actually really like it. Your feed? Hate it.

I like to bake on weekends. Actually, I like to bake in general, but I like to make it a weekend ritual. The truth is that it’s one of those hobbies I tend to feel bad about, because I like to bake cakes more than I like to eat cake. Or rather, a whole cake for a two person household when neither one of these two persons has a significantly sweet tooth seems like a bit of waste sometimes. Which is a) why I grab every opportunity which gives me a justifiable reason to bake and b) why my co-workers often have the pleasure of free cake in the kitchen.

However, this is what bakeday looked like today:

That’s the bakeress herself in full kitchen gear. I need an apron, because I am one of these people who absent-mindedly clean their hands using their clothes rather than the kitchen towels and because it has a neato pocket for the iPod (see below).

As I said. The iPod needs a home and this is where it often goes when I’m cooking or baking.

Cake in the oven. What you can’t see here is the delicious smell of chocolate and coffee coming out of the oven.

Cake out of the oven and drenched with sweet cream.

And while we’re at it, here’s some photos proving that I really do like to match my kitchen equipment with my MacBook.

Do that:

… to avoid this:

Since I am now using widgets to put together my sidebar I ran into the problem of adding a bit more customized content to the sidebar. However, I managed to add my latest tweet from twitter plus a cute photo experiment to the sidebar by using the Test widget.

Now I was wondering whether I am recklessly misusing the Text widget or if it is actually intended and frequently used for any kind of customized content that you want to add to your sidebar (if you’re using widgets, because otherwise you can just customize your sidebar any way you want).

The nice thing about that widget is that it just lets you enter basically any input into the text box, be it HTML or JavaScript and it will work. Plus, you can add more than one text widget to the sidebar, so you are totally flexible as to where to display what.

I just noticed that once again, I’d be a good candidate for www.lmgtfy.com here. So let me google that for… well… me.

I also have to get used to that new keyboard. I finally got rid of that old keyboard and (still kind of beloved) trackball that nobody but me could use properly (the mouse, not the keyboard). Feels strange, but I guess I’ll get used to it. (By the way, I didn’t go out and buy the new equipment. This is a household where you need a cable for something and you look into the cable drawer because if you’re lucky there’s the one you need amongst the fifty other cables. So sometimes we do have new wireless keyboards just collecting dust on the shelves.)

Today I got a new Amazon parcel, containing new books. So now I finally can call a copy of Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug my own. And here’s the question: Why did it take me so, so long to buy this book? Admittedly I’m only a few pages in, but I have a really good feeling about that book.

Here’s two things I love about it and one thing that bugs me a bit:
The first thing to love – and that’s actually something that I thought about before I read it – is that Krug tries to apply usability criteria to the book itself and is very upfront about that. Yes, the book is short, that’s because he wants you to be able to actually read the whole of it. And yes, there have been some changes to the seconds edition, up to the point where a few chapters were actually condensed and the original chapters moved to the web, because Krug had the brilliant idea to usability test his book and actually acted on the results. Awesome. I dig the fact that he applied web usability rules to an actual book.

When I said that there were two things that I loved and one thing that bugs me I should have said: One thing that I love and one thing that I both kind of love and at the same time annoys me.
Simply put: It all sounds so easy and obvious and it makes you feel a bit like someone is just presenting the only really reasonable answer there possibly could be. This goes up the point where you feel like you’re spending time listening to someone tell you a lot of things you already knew. I’m not sure, but did I already know so much about usability, am I a natural at this way of thinking or is it just something that the instant you hear it it goes into your brain, finds a nice comfy spot and acts like it was there all the time, because it’s just so obvious? Which is it?
There are just a lot of moment where I remember talking about it or jotting down notes with almost the same content and that irritates the hell out of me.

However, one of the premises of usability is that a lot of it is common sense and I think it’s just the usual dilemma of pointing out the obvious because nobody else has done it yet and running the risk of appearing like someone who just says what everybody else already knew.

Still I’m excited to what else is coming and once again I’d like to say that so far it’s been a fun and enjoyable book to read and unless I’ll stick with The Little Book by Selden Edwards, this will probably be my bedtime reading for tonight.

Maybe it’s not even that great, but I like to think that it is, because this…

… is what I sometimes see when looking out the window at work. Cute, huh? Tell me, it is great.

A couple of month ago I got an email from an old friend who was just about to move to Mosambique to live there for the next three years. To keep in touch with her friends she set up a web page (good idea). Apparently she was unhappy with the blog providers and instead decided to get out her old HTML toolkit and build a site all by herself (not such a good idea). There she provides some travel information, a photo gallery, a diary and whatnot.

I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago, why not going with a blog in a situation like this is really the wrong way. I’m not saying anything against getting yourself all involved with plain old HTML. I have nothing at all against HTML. In fact, everybody who’s actively trying to figure this out while doing something completely unrelated for a living, I get all proud and protective. However there are actually two things I realized and would like to point out.

First, blog software today is ridiculously flexible. I dig WordPress and am reluctant to move somewhere else (although there are other providers tempting me constantly) because I know how it works and because of that I know that it lets me do nearly everything with the layout. Actually, since the redesign I cut back a bit on individuality and use a lot more standard features now. Just as good. They work, I can still tweak everything with CSS and that’s enough for me.

I’m just guessing that other blog software is equally flexible, if you dare to jump in and spend some time to figure out how it works. And even if it has some limitations, it’s usually good enough to apply your own styles and pictures and you just need to go to CSS Zen Garden to remind yourself of the awesome power of CSS (and leave there ashamed because your site is never ever going to look that good).

But that’s not my main point. My main point has three capital letters: RSS. These days I don’t go to a page to see if there are any updates. I subscribe to the feed and unless the site tells me that there has been an update I assume there’s been no news and I just let it be. And here’s the most important thing: I like that and I really, really don’t want to go back. The days of remembering and actively going to a site and checking for updates are over. Long over.

In general I’d say that if your online diary or whatever you might call it – because it’s no blog, baby – doesn’t provide a decent RSS feed, don’t expect me to care for it. The only reason why I do return to Kathrin’s site is because I personally care for someone I’ve known for nearly twenty years now. I’d still like it better if there was some RSS to help me out there.

On another note, I’ve been nagging about the fact that a series of screencasts recorded at work was sometimes referred to as video podcast. When asked about why I though it wasn’t a podcast I had to think about it for a minute, but then it hit me. No RSS there, either. If I can’t subscribe to it and get updates automatically, it’s no podcast. I even checked that and it turns out that the basic difference between a webcast and podcast (according to our wise buddy Wikipedia) is whether there’s some sort of syndication or not.

(By the way, I wasn’t nagging about the fact that it wasn’t a podcast, I was just nagging because it was referred to as one. Sometimes you don’t really need syndication. On the other site, it doesn’t hurt and it sure as hell comes in handy at times.)

I finally selected some books from the shelves to get rid of and make room for new ones. We still have free shelves, but until someone gets a ladder to move stuff up there, that doesn’t help me one bit. It’s pretty hard for me to get rid of books. I won’t throw any away, but even the process of selecting those that I plan to give away can be hard.

The three questions I ask myself are these:
1) Did I like the book? (If the answer is no, then why would I want to keep it?)
2) Is it likely that I will read the book again? (If the answer is no, continue with question 3.)
3) Is it likely that I will lend the books to someone? (Because sometimes, I might not really think that I want to read a book, but I might have reasons to lend it to others and that could be reason enough to keep it. For now.)

Now I have this pile of books that didn’t pass the three questions. The next problem of course is what to do with them. I won’t throw any of them away, even the ones I didn’t particularly like. They’re in good condition and there’s plenty of things to do with them that don’t involve trash bins or bonfires.

I gave up on BookCrossing a while ago, because I never got any feedback on the books I released and all the ones that I caught (two in total) were crap. I get that you don’t usually get rid of your favorite books, but still. Most of the books in my pile aren’t bad. Some of them are more like one-time just-for-fun reads, probably exactly what you’d want to read on your next vacation at the beach.

I have released books in the wild without using BookCrossing by just leaving them on park benches and similar public locations. They probably ended up in the trash, but at least I tried. However, that felt a bit unsatisfying, so I’m not considering that for the current pile of books.

So, here’s the two step plan, I have put to action halfway already and have yet to decide on the second step. (Meaning that I’m totally procrastinating now, but at least I’m blogging about it. I mean… right?)

1) Write a mail at work and tell your co-workers about the books you want to get rid of. Don’t expect too much, though – on the other side, I was able to give away three out of ten books, so the feedback probably wasn’t that bad after all.
2a) Give what’s left to your local Oxfam shop or a similar charity.
2b) Give what’s left to your local library.

I’m kind of torn. The guys at Oxfam seem very likable the last two times I brought stuff there. Very uncomplicated, too. I drop off my stuff, they take it, they smile and say thank you and I leave. Plus, good cause and for someone who’s usually bad at charity stuff the perfect opportunity a nice way to feel like doing something.
On the other side, giving them to the library would probably be a nice thing, too. The main difference here is that giving it to Oxfam would mean that a single person would buy it and that that would be it. And given the fact that I hated how badly equipped the library in Leverkusen was with English books it would be a nice way to improve that for other people – and probably more than one person at that.

So I don’t know. If you have any ideas, tell me. Right now I’m leaning towards library. But nothing’s been decided. And considering how good I am at procrastinating, it’s probably stay undecided for a while.

This made me laugh until I cried at work. Some people there looked seriously concerned, until they watched it. You’ve probably already seen it, but just in case, you haven’t, now you have to. No excuses.

Plus, here’s the direct link to the video on The Onion’s website.