Posts from — August 2005

Everyone knows how much I love my iPod. The problem was I couldn’t listen to it in the car. It didn’t come with a cassette tape player to plug in the usual adapter and wireless devices that transmit an FM signal gave me extremely poor reception - until now.

Yesterday I decided to try another one, the Griffin RoadTrip. The unit plugs into the cigarette lighter and powers your iPod while transmitting to a range of frequencies. I tuned into an all static “station”, turned on the RoadTrip to the same station, attached my iPod and FINALLY heard great music blasting through my car’s speakers. Plus my iPod charges while in the RoadTrip cradle.

Now that iTunes handles Podcasts, I will finally be able to keep up with the stream of shows to which I’ve subscribed. One of my favorites, from Leo Laporte (and the old Screen Savers gang) lasts about an hour a week and it was difficult finding time to listen in. Now during the downtime I have in the car to and from work, I’ll be able to stay up-to-date.

In related news, I’m still loving my Etymotic 6i Isolator headphones I use with my iPod. The sound quality is amazing with rich bass tones. They fit securely in my ear and are perfect for the gym. I can totally block out all noise and go into my own little world of great music. If you are looking for a replacement set of headphones, these are and excellent choice.

Next up: Marware Sportsuit Convertible case for my iPod. The various configurations make it perfect for the gym, work and wherever. The $39 price is a bit steep but I really like the design.

I paid more than I have ever paid for gas this morning, $2.79. It’s so bad I think Pam and I will start carpooling to work every day. Her new office is on the way for me and our schedules are the same. I’m sure she’ll appreciate not having to drive in the morning and a passenger will be nice for a change.

People with recreational vehicles must be hurting now too. I heard it takes hundreds of dollars to fill the tank for a weekend’s worth of fun. I’m not sure how people can afford to use them very often.

The car companies better get in gear and start developing more high mileage cars. The Toyota Prius is a great start and the skyrocketing sales of this vehicle shows the interest by people to drive gas-saving cars.

And finally the President should put his foot down, get our troops out of Iraq and be concerned with the U.S. and it’s problems like this gas crisis.

Like everyone else, I get a huge amount of email. Many of these messages have signature files at the bottom. Most of the time they are simple one or two line paragraphs that include the person’s name and phone number.

Every once in a while I’ll get one with a famous quote or clever saying. These are nice but some senders feel the need to add paragraphs of information including their email address (I know what it is because you just sent me an email), fax number, home address, names of their children and a bunch of useless data.

In the early days of email, signature files (and .plan files) in the Unix environment were unique and fun. Now they are becoming increasingly annoying.

Some emailers with too much time on their hands, create these elaborate signature files with animated GIF files that couldn’t be more irritating. I’m sure these people think they’re being clever but these signature files are about as tacky as pink flamingo or roaming gnome lawn ornaments.

Have you seen the ones with the name in a tacky neon green 72pt script font that’s barely legible but nonetheless extremely gaudy? How about the ones where an image is pasted into the signature box and stretched out of proportion making it blurry and illigible.

My philosophy for email: keep it short and simple. Don’t waste bandwith on stupid signature files that take up more disk space than the message itself. And get to the point with your message too, I won’t sift through a bunch of dribble just to get to your one line of useful information. You’ll be wasting your time emailing me such crap as I won’t read it.

And please no animated GIF’s of hopping bunnies in your SIG file.

For some good examples of annoying signature files, visit The Gallery of Annoying Email Signatures.