Author: lux

New Gadget Alert

New to me, that is. I recently adopted an iPod Touch from a friend who had upgraded to a Pre and didn’t want the Touch anymore. It came with me on my recent trip to NYC and I had a chance to put it through its paces pretty thoroughly along the way.

I like it quite a bit — for games, web browsing, and of course music. Battery life is decent (a cross-country flight didn’t even drain half the charge) and the screen is lovely. But I am still glad that I didn’t get an iPhone. The iPod’s virtual keyboard does not even come close to being as good as a real keyboard and I’d go nuts trying to manage my email with it.

I do feel a bit silly carrying an iPod Touch as well as a Blackberry. I think it’s the size. I’ve had an iPod Nano for ages, so I shouldn’t feel different about the Touch, but it is bigger than a Nano and that seems to matter. Even so, it’s not a showstopping issue.

I really hate the lack of a decent web browser on the Blackberry but its superb email handling still makes it the winning smartphone for my needs. Unless an AT&T Palm Pre comes out and utterly blows me away, looks like I’ll be staying a two-gadget gal for the foreseeable future.

Summer Break is Over

Wilson Cove

I spent most of the holiday week back East, including a great Independence Day out on Long Island Sound on the family sailboat. This is where the boat is moored.

A great time was had by all, although sadly no pix from onboard. Sailboat racing and expensive cameras don’t mix, so the Nikon stayed onshore.

This is Not a Post about Michael Jackson

But it is about music.

One thing that technology has done to music is the decline of shared musical spaces. Years ago, it was habit for me to bring a boom box and a pile of tapes or CDs to the office & play music every day. Music was a shared experience — coworkers would bring in and trade CDs, vote some stuff on or off the playlist, even make office mix tapes. It wasn’t a paradise — especially when your co-workers had very different musical tastes — but it was more social.

Now, each of us sits at our desks plugged into our own private music streams. Nobody has to argue about whether or not [Band X] is good work music, or negotiate a preferred volume level — but also we’re more isolated from each other.

On the whole I’m not sure it’s a step in the right direction.

Surprise and Delight

“Surprise and Delight” was one of the mantras we got trained on at Starbucks. The way Starbucks sees the concept, it was about doing what you needed to in order to exceed customer expectations — remaking drinks to make sure customers were happy, handing out samples, etc. When it’s done right, it’s a great way of building customer loyalty.

Someone over at wine.woot must have been paying attention, because today I checked my mailbox and found an envelope containing a bumper sticker and a little card that invited me to send them a photo of the bumper sticker in use to get even more “cool stuff”.

I’m at best a casual wine.woot customer. I’ve only bought from them twice. So I was definitely surprised to find a gift from wine.woot in my mail. And you know what? It worked. I certainly would have bought from them again, but I’m definitely going to be more diligent about checking the site regularly for their latest offering. I’ll probably put the sticker up somewhere; maybe on my car, maybe even on my laptop. And I’m blogging about the whole thing to boot.

Multiply that out by all the other customers woot sent this to, and for the price of a run of bumper stickers and some postage, that’s pretty good marketing. And good for customer loyalty too.

Bravo, wine.woot. Well played.

Who Would Jesus Shoot?

Dr. George Tiller was murdered this morning as he walked into his church to attend regular weekly services.

Killed at a church, of all places. How could his murderer miss the irony in that action? Did he think that it was somehow fitting? Or was it simply a place where he could more easily get close enough to Tiller to kill him?

Whatever you think of Dr Tiller’s work, he was a brave man who stood up for his principals in the face of decades of threats and violence. Reasonable people can disagree about abortion. But there’s simply no justification at all for killing someone that you disagree with.

He didn’t deserve this.

UPDATE: If you’re so inclined, I’d suggest making a donation to Medical Students for Choice in Dr Tiller’s memory.