31 Jan 2005
Why Apple Makes a One Button Mouse

Interesting thoughts ... I can vouch for the fact that few users actually right click anything, and also for the fact that calls to tech support get incredibly annoying with the "right-click or left-click" question. But I really like the scroll wheel, and the Apple mouse for BigMac is in the drawer, replaced by a <gasp> M$ mouse...

There is a short article at Gear Live that tries to explain why Apple still sticks with a one-button mouse. It points out the fact that although it is perfectly possible to use a two-button mouse on a Mac for 7 years now, developers are forced to rethink their design approach and can't flood the right-click menu. No article of this kind would be complete without mentioning that users get confused with two buttons.

(link) [Slashdot: ]

00:00 /Technology | 1 comment | permanent link

Beer saves life

Proof positive for the old adage that you don't really buy beer, you just rent it!

Hot on the heels of the tremendous news that beer can help fight cancer, we are delighted to report that a Slovak man trapped in his car by an avalanche urinated his way to freedom after working his way through 60 half-litre bottles of beer.

(link) [The Register]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

A Very Busy Weekend

Sometimes a title says it all: this was indeed a busy weekend. Yesterday we purchased a stock trailer: we'd been looking for one for several weeks, and finally found a used one that was the right size and, more importantly, the right price. I'll post a pic as soon as we get the thing here: we have to have some work done on the big pickup before we can pick it up. That'll be next weekend.

Looking back over recent entries, I realized that I've not said anything about the boom in business we've been experiencing. I ran a small ad in the Lebanon Reporter for our eggs and chickens, and offered free home delivery in Boone County. That was a month ago: I had to beg the paper to stop the ad after two weeks because we had so many calls I couldn't keep up with demand. We've added to our laying flock and now have about 40 hens running loose in our paddocks, and another 25 down at a friends house in Ladoga. We're selling about 20 dozen a week - and that's all my ladies can lay in the dead of winter.

There have been a bunch of other changes around here as well, and a project that has been bubbling on the back burner for a while is about to come to the fore: I can't say anything about it just yet, but it'll show up in these pages soon enough.

Perhaps the most telling change is that I'm starting to turn down contract programming jobs. I'd rather concentrate on the farm, which is our long term goal. High tech is just too unstable, and probably will remain so. Farming has it's frustrations, too, but they're easier to cope with, as most of them involve things over which I have some degree of control. Software ... well, everybody wants Windoze stuff, and I'm just so sick of writing to that bastardized platform that I could go hurl somewhere. So, screw it. The customers I currently have are in until they get out, but I'll seek no new business writing code.

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

U.S. students say press freedoms go too far

Now this is cause for real fear for the future. With trends like these in high schools, I've gotta wonder if the Republic can survive.

USATODAY.com - One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link