This is what happens when your technical editor refuses to put his picture on the cover. You end up with an embarrassingly large one of yourself.


Who the heck is going to buy it now?

I recently upgraded my version of Trillian to the newest 3.x release. Trillian is my IM client of choice, it lets me connect to MSN, ICQ, YIM & AIM. It looks pretty sexy, but I wanted the skin I was using before, I was used to the way it looked, and had passed the learning hump to figure out what all those tiny little connection icons mean. Given the choice I would rather speak to someone over YIM than AIM because AIM seems to have a weird bug where it tells me that my contact is typing, even when they arenÂ’t. This is relevant as I have several contacts that are on both. Anyways, when I went to go find my skin I ran into a whole slew of problems

Problems:

1. I couldnÂ’t find out where to download the skins anywhere on there freaking website. There is a downloads button at the top, and clicking on it brings you to the download page for the client. I didnÂ’t expect the top navigation bar to change, so I didnÂ’t even look there. Usually those things are static, so I donÂ’t feel that was an entirely idiotic mistake on my part.

2. When you actually get to the Skins download page, they offer a few different ways to view the available

skins, including multiple sort options, this is good. None of those sort options is ‘Alphabetical’ this is bad. I know the name of the skin I want, I have absolutely no idea if it is featured, recently updated, or frequently used. All of those options are useless to me.

3. Gave up looking for my skin and decided to download a few random ones to see if they looked similar. The search result page does not include thumbnail sized screen shots, one must click on a small magnifying glass to see a screen shot, each screen shot is generated by the artist, so they all display different things (many deliberately hiding the things I want to see, as they do not want to share there contact lists with the outside world). All this adds up to make quick direct comparison impossible.

4. After downloading and installing several skins I was informed that all of them were out of date and probably wouldnÂ’t work with my client.

Lessons Learned:

1. Use a static navigation bar along the top, and preferably everywhere else. Users are used to having options expand down when they click on something, as such expanding left navigation bar items is usually okay.

2. Always allow people to sort alphabetically, preferably both ways (A-Z, Z-A). While youÂ’re at it, give them a search option.

3. If relevant always show the user screen shots with search results (for something like skins this is imperative, as how it looks is the only qualification). Screen shots should be identical apart from the skin itself, that is, each screen shot should show the client in exactly the same state, just skinned differently.

4. When presenting users with skins/plugins/whatever that may or may not work with their client depending on what version they are using, ask them what version they are using. A simple drop down to list only skins compatible with my client would have been great. More complex situations (partial compatibility, etc) would likely require creation and maintenance of a compatibility matrix on the server side. With rules like skins created for version X may be compatible with version Y and plugins created for version X are compatible with version Y. Then display that to the user in a friendly manner (green check marks and yellow question marks).

Hey All


As you should know by know, IÂ’m writing a book, I need a decent listing of API offerings out there today. IÂ’ve already got Google, Amazon, eBay, FedEx, National Weather Service. Know any more?

Well, a good friend (thanks BigWilly!) answered my subtle query from a couple weeks ago as to the name (and link) of a directory syncing utility that I saw after surfing off Slashdot. It's called pathsync, it's from Cockos, and simply put, it's perfect. In the past I have played around with quite a few similar utilities, by and large they all sucked. Huge memory overhead, 64 buttons and 23 drop downs, trial period limitations, confusing popups, you get the picture. Basically way too much going on for a simple task (make them the same), and want it to ‘just work' (which is apparently the mentality Apple wants for all it's products). Pick the directories, analyze, then if all is well hit Go, and you're off to the races. If you need to sync some directories (I'm doing it across machines with Windows shares btw) go get it, tell them Paul sent you (they won't care, but hey, why not?).


It's interesting that Cockos managed to live up to Apple's 'It just works' mentality in this case better than Apple did. The first (actually second) thing I did once I got it installed was to sync my iTunes folders between my laptop and my PC. When I got home with my shiny new iPod (thanks jed!) I just sorta figured that it would be the means with which I would enjoy music on the go, and with which my laptop and PC could live in musical harmony. It turns out that isn't the case, even though you need to basically introduce your iPod and iTunes install to each other, and even though you can only log into your iTunes store account from a couple computers at once, and even though they're only four feet away from each other, iTunes will not use the iPod as a method to keep my music collection in sync. So, if I buy an album on iTunes on my PC, and it gets copied to my iPod, it will still never end up on my laptop. iTunes never copies music off the device onto your hard drive, you have to do it in some other manner. Many (if not most) people I know use 2 computers on a daily basis (often one at home and one at the office), and having that multi-computer sync feature would be a great boon to them (and technologically trivial to accomplish), but Apple left it out. They probably claim that it is an anti-piracy feature, but if both computers are logged into the same iTunes store account I don't see the problem.

Okay, first to reply to a comment to the last post, my PC:

1x AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.21GHZ), stock heatsink & fan

2x 512MB Kingston Value Ram

1x CD drive (Never, and I do mean Never, used)

1x CD Burner, used rarely, all my music is in iTunes, games play off HD

1x HD 48GB

1x Codegen Case link (2x Side fans)

1x ANTEC TRUEPOWER 430W ATX12V PS/2 SIZE 2 FANS LOW NOISE

1x Standard 8MM fan


The standard 8mm fan was installed a couple months ago, originally I had it at the back under the power supply, using the standard rule of thumb # fans in = # fans out. I just moved it today to the front of the case, in an attempt to suck more cold air into the case. I feared that since my case is in a cramped space, the hot air coming from the back of the case was getting sucked back into the machine via the side fans, and as such, sucking more cold air in would be the best plan.


A couple days ago, when the Arctic Silver arrived, along with the new power supply (the aforementioned PS replaced the stock one at that time) I saw a decent decrease in temperature for the CPU, and could usually play games for an extended period without problems. However depending on external environmental conditions it could still reheat (this is a drastic difference from the 2-4 minutes I used to be able to play). Idle temperatures were doing a bit better as well.


In a continuing effort to get more gaming without pulling the case out of the desk, I moved the fan from the back to the front today, it hasnÂ’t been long enough yet for me to get a decent feel for how well this new setup will perform. Initial observations are positive.

I've been having a cooling issue with my PC for a while now, originally it was only a problem when my computer was in my desk (it is one of those corner workstation models, with the elevated compartment for the tower) and I was playing a game. To work around this I started pulling the case out of the desk and onto the floor, and pointing a desk fan at it while gaming. The issue however seems to be steadily worsening, I have had heat issues while typing in MS Word, with iTunes playing in the background.


The fact that the issue is worsening, rather than staying constant, and that the temperature inside the case isnÂ’t that bad have led me to wonder if perhaps it has something to do with how well my heat sink is conducting heat. You see, when I originally put it all together (using the thermal compound that came with the heat sink) I was rather nervous having to push so hard to get the heat sink to come down over the CPU, so I tried many times, and ended up getting a co-worker to do it.


To that end I've ordered some Arctic Silver thermal compound (which seems to be either regarded as the best, or at the least very good) and will try sticking that on there and see what happens. A user on the ncix forums commented that when they applied this to their CPU they saw a reduction in temperature of 15C. My expectations aren't quite that high, but it would be nice to keep it in the 50s while gaming (rather than spiking to 70 which is what happens now).


While I was there I also picked up a new power supply, advertised to be quite quiet, which would be a welcome change from the current jet turbine I've got going. It's built in fan is also temperature controlled, which should be just what the Dr. ordered.



Can anyone recommend a decent free program that will plot CPU usage, CPU temp and Case temp over time? I would like to generate some decent metrics during this whole thing.