So the CEO of Google is on the board of directors at Apple Inc. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/29/apple-snuggle…). That’s pretty interesting, but somehow I doubt it will amount to much. Google partnered *officially* with Sun and what came out of that? So Google Toolbars appear in Sun installs… no big deal. While being on the board of directors might push Apple a little, I am pretty sure this won’t amount to much more than a Google Toolbar bundling on Macs, if that. Apple viscously defends its brand image and I don’t think they’d let a third party come in and muck it up, even if it’s Google.
Month: August 2006
Why Stress?
I was reading an article about project management tips (http://www.projectmanagementsource.com/2006/08/les…) and one of the bullet points talk about stress:
55. One key element in dealing with stress is taking control. A feeling of helplessness increases stress. So take some action that reflects that you do retain some amount of control over the situation – even if that little control is only over your reaction to the stressor.
While this statement is very true to me, I think it misses another point.
Helplessness causes stress for those who can’t accept it. Sort of like how a student might feel stress after believing they failed a final. However, I think that is a closed-minded way of generalizing this problem. The test is done and there’s nothing more you can do; thus, why stress? I tend to see helplessness as it truly is: something that no longer merits my attention.
Don’t get me wrong: I am very proactive before the point of failure, but once it happens, it’s happened and there’s no point in spending further negative energies thinking about it.
For example, let’s say your company is downsizing. You could be fired tomorrow. Like that fat guy in Office Space, you could get all stressed out and scared. Most smarter people might try to mitigate the risk by proactively working harder or kissing ass. But let’s say you’ve already done all that. Now what? This is where people start stressing out.
I treat scary situations like that as a has-happened situation. There’s nothing worth stressing out over once you’ve done everything you can do. In that situation, I’d continue business as usual. I would figure if I am needed, I won’t be fired either way. And I wouldn’t want to work for a company that keeps people around just because they kiss ass.
As another example, two weekends ago, I flew to Chicago. Somehow, the airport placed my luggage on the wrong flight. I filled in a report and they told me it would be arriving at my hotel within the next 12 hours. Of course, 12 hours later, nothing arrived. I bought some essentials in a local store and pretty much ignored the fact my baggage was mysteriously gone. My co-workers were all perplexed why I wasn’t calling the airline, but my reply was, “If it’s coming, it’s coming. If it’s lost, it’s lost. Calling won’t change that so why stress?” And then another 24 hours later, the bags arrived. Would I have eventually called? Yes, just to make sure they had the right address, but other than that, no.
If I’m truly helpless, I recognize that fact, and move on. Don’t get me wrong: it doesn’t mean I won’t try to improve my situation if I see a chance. My point is that stress is a self imposed reaction.
Windows Live Writer
So Microsoft recently released a new product called Windows Live Writer. It is a blog authoring tool. When I first heard about it, I assumed it would be a gimmicky piece of crap. However, I’ve played with it a little and am thoroughly impressed. It is stable, intuitive, has spell check, does photo editing, and supports a wide variety of blogs. Most importantly, I no longer have to worry about WordPress eating my posts since this program saves drafts on my hard drive. =) Anyway, I recommend it to all you bloggers out there.
JavaScript Tip: Writing Dynamic Content
What is the difference between the write function and the innerHTML property? There is a huge difference. What happens to any JavaScript you import using these methods? It’s more complicated than you think.
The write() function (as in, document.write), writes text to the “document.” When an HTML page loads, what’s actually happening is a “document” is opened, some content is written to it, and then it is closed. This “document” is the main HTML window that you end up seeing. When a document is opened and written to, everything inside it is cleared out. Let me restate that: if you try to use document.write() after the HTML page has finished loading, you will destroy everything on the page, including the JavaScript tags, all the HTML, and pretty much everything you would see if you hit “view source.” Granted, if you did look at the source, you’d still see the original HTML that was loaded since the “view source” command shows you the originally loaded content, not the result of any JavaScript changes.
Word Press SUCKS
Word Press has truncated or otherwise destroyed more than one of my posts on this blog. I am going to look into switching to a better engine. If you have suggestions, please post them. I wrote a very long entry yesterday about technical writing, and I came back today to realize it had killed half my posts during one of my edits. That’s insanely stupid.
Update: I have no plans on re-posting the truncated article. Over half of it was lost and I am too frustrated to convince myself to write the same thing a THIRD TIME. From here on out, I’m posting to this blog using a third party tool.
New Job and Punching Monkeys
I am starting at a new job in a week as Lead Developer. This has kept me busy because I have been slaving away trying to wrap up all my responsibilities at my current job.
On a separate and completely unrelated note, today I saw another variation to those once-popular punch a monkey type of ads. I always humor the programmers of the ad by repeatedly clicking on the ad without actually hitting the target. I’ll try my very darn best to shoot between the targets, miss the baby, and just plain suck at punching.
I’m looking at your ad. I’m clicking — perhaps not where you intended, but I’m clicking. I’m looking at your moving monkey baby thing. I’ve glossed over the ad text. I’m still clicking. And yet nothing happens to move me from viewing the ad to viewing the product. Eventually, I get tired of amusing myself and stop clicking, returning to whatever I was doing.
To me, this is a failure on the advertiser’s part. They’ve gotten my attention and my willingness to interact with the ad, but they’ve failed to communicate why I am interested in the product and convert my interest into action that results in a sale. It seems to me that a failure to use the product in the interactive ad, or the lack of mind-share presence of the product, is a fundamental failure by the advertisers to leverage the limited attention granted to them from a web surfer.
There’s a small chance I’ll want to visit your site, but if I don’t understand what it is I’m punching a monkey for, if punching the monkey becomes the focus of my interaction, I certainly won’t be *actually* interested in visiting your site.
And this is why I love clicking between the action areas on those interactive ads. There’s many solutions around what I do, but it amazes me that the ad hasn’t evolved in the years since it first became popular. Addressing this is how Google became king.