Articles

John Siracusa has a Hypercritical post about Annoyance-Driven Development in which he discusses why users are still subjected to seemingly trivial annoyances, and points out that simply addressing those minor issues can reap benefits for your business. This may sound comically selfish, but true innovation comes from embracing this sentiment, not fighting it. For companies looking to get the best bang for their buck out of technology, this is the way forward. Find out what’s annoying the people you want to sell to. Question the assumptions of your business. Give people what they want and they will beat a path to your door. ...

I read eighteen books in 2011 and twenty-five in 2012. This is a good increase year over year, but I want a much higher total in 2013. I am shooting for fifty-two books by the end of the year. For a slow reader like myself, that is quite a challenge, but I believe that of I stick to reading one fiction and one non-fiction book simultaneously and aim for approximately 50 pages per book per day, then based on average book length, I should be able to come close to the goal, especially if I supplement with audio books. So far, this plan is working as I have read eighteen books as of March 1st, which matches my total for the entire 2011 year. I am still testing a couple of layouts and ideas, but I should be adding a reading list area to the site at some point this year so I can log what I’ve completed and post reviews when the mood strikes me. ...

As I relax and watch re-runs of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on Netflix while entertaining my seven month old son, I can’t help but wonder at how spoiled we are by all of these modern conveniences—pre-made plastic toys, televisions, Internet access, streaming video, central heat, dishwashers, and disposable diapers, to name a handful. First world problems abound, but I wonder how many of these “problems” are caused by our attachment to modern conveniences. Simplifying life will often reduce the number of perceived problems if not reduce the real problems. After all, is a broken dishwasher a problem or a reason to remove it and add some extra drawers, or perhaps it is the impetus needed to remodel the kitchen and learn cabinet-making? That may be a stretch, but you see what I mean. ...

As a systems administrator, I frequently like to tinker with operating systems, software, configurations, firmware, hardware, and anything else that might make me more proficient in using technology to make life easier. In the past, I would use any home computing device at hand to test out a new upgrade or to beta test an application or even to load up the latest pre-release operating system, all in the name of bleeding edge features and getting the most out of technology. These days, I separate my computing devices at home into production and development categories. While this may sound like overkill, it is not and for good reason. New technology frequently crashes, fails, or behaves in a manner most unexpected, and it will do this at the most inconvenient time possible. ...

As March Madness and the month of betting pools roll along in the background of my life, I once more find myself engrossed in the Tournament of Books hosted by The Morning News. This year, the first book I read was The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Partly because it was a shorter length and would allow me to get a jump start on reading as many of the books as I possibly can before the tournament final, but also because it came so highly regarded by the first round review and subsequent win in the tournament. The beauty of the novel is that it is succinct in the way that only a story recounted from memory can be, and Barnes captures this style with the addition of the occasional tangent about how we remember scattered throughout the story when our narrator, Tony, feels so compelled to comment on the topic out of the need for excuses or a search for resolution. However, Barnes saved the best for last. That is to say, the ending of the novel surprises you and proceeds to worm into your mind for days following as you ponder everything that has happened. ...

A kind fellow, Joshua Goodwin, has informed me that my link-post items did not include a permalink back to my site when viewed in an RSS reader. The titles of the link-post items will continue to link to the external sites referenced; however, I have added a permalink to the end of link-post items in the RSS feed so you can now click the infinity glyph (∞), and it will link you back to the post on Indigo Spot. ...

I do. Back in August of 2009, I wrote about my Zumba experiment in which I decided to try my hand (and feet) at Zumba. My wife began teaching Zumba in September of 2009. I decided to attend all of her classes and have since grown quite fond of Zumba for a variety of reasons. First of all, the experiment was a success. I am now licensed to teach Zumba, AquaZumba, and ZumbAtomic. My wife and I teach a few classes per week together. On the odd occasion, I take the lead myself, but it’s more fun when we’re both dancing. ...

Dave Pell, of Davenetics, Tweetage Wasteland, and The Skeptical Hypochondriac, offers a delightful service for Kindle owners called Delivereads. The service is simple. Subscribe to Delivereads with your Kindle e-mail, and every week or so, Dave will send you a neatly formatted digest of interesting articles that he finds on the web. The content is curated, the articles are high quality, and the digest is clean and easy to navigate. If you own a Kindle, you should subscribe to Delivereads. ...

If you don’t already have a backup solution in place for your home computers, then it is time to rectify that problem. I went for some time without a proper backup solution and was nearly bitten by data loss, but I lucked out and was able to recover the data. From that point on, I backed up to an external drive weekly. However, on-site external backups are not enough. If that external drive were to fail coincidentally with a computer hard drive failure, I would lose all of my data. While the odds of that are small, the odds that a home catastrophe could destroy both are pretty good. So, an off-site backup solution was needed. I started using Mozy for my home computer cloud backup solution. ...

There are some cats who are affectionate, some who are aloof, some who play fetch, and some who don’t goof, but you, dear Hayden, loved. You entertained us with your feats of skill when you would attempt to catch the nemesis that was your tail. A lap was never empty for long when you entered room. You snuggled up with me for weekend afternoon naps when Lesa was out and about, but you would always run to meet her when she arrived home. She loved that. ...