Author Archives: Devin Reams

About Devin Reams

My name is Devin Reams and I founded this site to provide a useful news and review resource for Colorado skiers and snowboarders (and mountain enthusiasts). I've been skiing since I was a little kid (we moved out here when I was five years old) and I plan to ski for years beyond that. Although cosnow is not my full-time job it is my full-time winter hobby. I've been an "Epic Local" passholder since 2006 (when it was called a "Colorado Pass" or "Five Mountain Pass"). My favorite resorts are Beaver Creek and Breckenridge.

List of potential new Apple products

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If the rumors are true, Apple may be planning a new product launch to coincide with the 10th anniversary of their retail stores. The stores have been wildly successful and much of Apple’s growth may likely be attributed to them. So what can Apple release that would get bodies into the malls? What haven’t they done already? Here’s all I can come up with:

* Digital alarm clock
* Flip phone
* Electric toothbrush
* Blu-ray player
* Video Game console
* Plasma TV
* E Ink reader
* Electric shaver
* Microwave
* [Vacuum](http://www.dyson.com/)
* Fridge
* Hybrid vehicle
* [Digital wristwatch](http://www.rolex.com/)
* 3D glasses
* Vinyl record player

That’s the exhaustive list of items I’ve been able to compile. Who’s ready to start some bets?

Be upfront about project timelines

Unless I hear otherwise…

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Most people are drowning in email at work. Often times you’re asked to provide one of a few responses: positive confirmation (I received this, read it, understand it all, and explicitly approve), negative confirmation (I will tell you my thoughts and describe what is wrong with this), or a passive confirmation (if I don’t respond, consider everything good to go!). The trick to managing people that receive a high-volume of email is to stop sending lengthy letters looking for a confirmation, waiting days and days and days. Sometimes, in order to keep things moving or get things done without asking permission (with folks you trust, and who trust you), simply ask for a passive confirmation: “Hey John, here is the final set of comps for the landing page. Everything we discussed yesterday is shown here including the new form style and the green button. Unless I hear otherwise, we’ll go ahead and implement this on Friday.” No more response email clutter, no debate, just delete. If you did this right, you won’t get a response. Otherwise, you’ve severely done a misdoing and you’ll hear from those folks “too busy to respond” nearly immediately. ;)

My favorite gadget: JAMBOX

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I’ve been using the JAMBOX from Jambone since January and it’s become one of my favorite gadgets that I didn’t know I needed until I started using it.

What is JAMBOX

The JAMBOX is a portable bluetooth speaker that is about the size of a 20oz soda bottle. You can pair it with a handful of devices including phones, laptops, iPads, etc. The sound quality is tremendous. It’s no Bose but it’s leaps and bounds better than the built in speakers on the aforementioned devices. You can charge it through a wall adapter or a USB cable and holds a charge for weeks. I typically use it for 10 minutes every morning and an hour on the weekend and only recharge it once a month. It comes in multiple colors but black is the only acceptable color, in my opinion.

Why and when do I use it?

I love music, podcasts, and NPR programming (mostly the news). JAMBOX allows me to have this in a variety of scenarios I usually wouldn’t, or where headphones aren’t appropriate.

Getting ready in the bathroom: after a shower in the morning I like to put on the morning news from NPR while I get ready for the day. I just grab my iPhone and pull up the NPR app. It sounds much better than the iPhone speakers and I can even hear it in the next room.
Trips to the mountains in the car: we don’t have an auxiliary input in our car so our choices are listening the radio (not always available in the mountains) and CDs (we never remember to make new ones). This allows us to listen to anything: podcasts, new music, streaming music, even TV shows or movies.
Conference calls at home: it’s pretty awkward for two people to crowd around a cell phone and yell into it when having a conversation with someone on the line. This has a great microphone and excellent sound quality for a true conference call solution.
Watching laptop in bed: we have a laptop that runs Hulu and other movies at the other end of the room hooked up to a monitor but the sound from the laptop isn’t loud enough. By simply pairing the laptop with JAMBOX we can have the speaker rest on the headboard behind us and watch in comfort.

All in all, it has become a very handy music solution. This summer I expect we will use it outdoors on our new patio for entertaining and lounging.

What about Sonos?

We have two Sonos systems which are great but the JAMBOX can be taken anywhere and isn’t tied down to a pair of speakers. Plus, I can use literally any audio source on my iPhone or iPad (which have Bluetooth) which the Sonos does not.

All in all, this is one of the best audio devices to have and would recommend it to anyone.

Link

The PlayStation Network is now shut down indefinitely following a security breach. I have no problem with that fact I can’t access supplementary online multiplayer gaming. But, I can’t wrap my head around why PSN has its tentacles in every downloadable application I’ve installed. Hulu, which has its own very nice authentication system, cannot be accessed now (ever again?) because I must pass my credentials through PSN. Why is this PSN layer mandatory and in front of an application that has nothing to do with PlayStation’s network? I haven’t tried but I assume the same is true for MLB.tv ~~and the Netflix app~~. I’m calling it: the Apple TV is much better positioned to foster the app economy and will capture the lion’s share of the “box connected to TV” market (video, games, movies) by popularizing a much better ecosystem in the 6-8 months PlayStation spends rebuilding PSN.

Link

Gmail has added a feature that returns you to the previous screen *immediately* upon pressing send. This means no more waiting until that message is *actually* sent and I love this. The idea is simple and is certainly pervasive in desktop applications: have your interface respond as if the action the user has taken has fully completed, no matter what else needs to happen behind the scenes. By adding the “Background Send” feature to Labs, the user has a faster experience and any delay is pushed out from the interface (which would potentially prevent further user interaction). Speaking from experience, this newly perceived fraction-of-a-second can be the difference between the “feel” that a web application is usable and on-par with a native application experience.

The power of Time Machine, Dropbox, and Subversion

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I’ve been testing a certain unreleased [operating system](http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/) for the past month or two and I’ve been largely pleased. That was until I ran into a nasty little bug (which has been documented to happen on Snow Leopard, too). It goes like this:

* Type on your keyboard
* Observe as a Kernal panic wipe your screen
* Reboot

A nasty little bugger, no doubt. But here’s the rub: you no longer have any login accounts.

Let me say that again because it’s important: once you reboot, you are prompted to log in to *nothing*. Not a single user account is available to select. You can type in any combination of username and password, but don’t bother, they won’t work.

The neat thing is, I could usually just grab my OS reinstall disk and do some sort of reset trick to tell the OS to create a new administrator account. But the neat part of being on the bleeding edge is… this one happens to crash when you try that.

### “No problem” says Time Machine

I plug my computer into two [Time Machine](http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/time-machine.html) drives almost every day. One at work and one at home.

With a quick reboot and “Restore from Time Machine”, within three hours my entire computer had been brought back to the exact state it was in on a Friday morning and I was back in business (e.g.: I could log in again).

### “I’ve already got this” says Dropbox

Once I log in, [Dropbox](http://db.tt/SwXMrCf)[^1] is already busily computing how many files I have on my machine and which ones are different than what they have on their servers. It was a lot, but within an hour everything had been re-downloaded and my documents, music, and photos were all back to exactly the way there were moments before the dreaded key combination occurred.

### “Just a few more things” says Subversion

Luckily it was a Saturday evening and I wasn’t working on anything of much importance (remember kids, commit early, commit often). So, with a quick “[svn up](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/re28.html)” on my work file directories I had all the code and documents back on my drive from Friday. I’m sure a few local changes I made are missing, but nothing of much significance. I’m a manager, not a maker.

—

And with those three simple tools: local incremental backups, storage in the cloud, and a version control system I went from utter catastrophe to right-as-rain in an afternoon. If I had my Super Duper drive it would’ve been even faster.

Bad things don’t have to happen to data. This stuff really is that easy…

[^1]: Sign up for Dropbox with [this link](http://db.tt/SwXMrCf) and we will *both* get some extra megabytes!

Lame ways to close an email

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Over the past few years I’ve been surprised by the ways people chose to close an email. I’m not sure if everyone is aware how a few simple words can completely destroy whatever content proceeded it.

Some stress out about the *right* way to close an email, especially in business settings. Do I say “Best” or is that corny? What about “Cheers” if I’m not from England? How about I just state my name? That may be too informal and abrupt…

It seems though, the wrong people may be worrying about this.

Fair warning: those that *aren’t* thinking about this and choose to use any of the following may be ignored for a few days:

Please advise.

What? You likely just sent a long, ranty email with paragraphs explaining some troubles you just had. Likely no where in there was “this is how I tried to solve this on my own.” And so you’ve now made it my responsibly to sift through half of the equation (the problem) and advise you? Is it because you said please you’re so entitled? Okay, you may be a customer who pays me big bucks to do this, but this seems far too abrupt and impolite.

How about: “I tried X and my result was Y based on my understanding: Z. Is the right approach?”

Thoughts?

No? This is the kind of abrupt conclusion that typically follows a roundabout email that is far too long to digest and easily respond to. Instead of simple points that can be individually addressed (interleaved is the only way to respond to email) I now have a single prompt to give my thoughts to all of that? Which items do you want my thoughts on? Maybe I’ll write back with a long form email in the same fashion you gave and you can sort through my solicited “thoughts.” There’s certainly *no* way that will result in a lot of back and forth, misunderstandings, and missed points.

How about: “I’ve decided that X is the best product because of Y and Z, can you think of any reason not to go with it?”

I await your response.

Fan-frickin-tastic. I hope you’re sitting by your computer hitting refresh until you see my beloved response. This typically makes the conclusion of your email sound passive aggressive just like saying “I expect you to” makes you sound more entitled and demanding than I’m sure you intended. By an email addressed to me, I’m aware of the fact you are expecting a response; this is why we typically send emails, especially with question marks in them. But, now you’ve made me grumpy because I’m picturing you standing there tapping your foot with your arms crossed.

How about: “I look forward to hearing from you. Have a nice day.”

These are some of my favorites. If you’re really looking to communicate frustration or annoy someone on the receiving end, be sure to borrow these. Or just write passive aggressive blog posts to blow off that steam.

Thoughts? Are there others that should be listed here? Please advise. I await your responses…

WWDC 2011 already sold out, papers might report

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I’m betting “Apple’s WWDC 2011 Announced Yesterday But Sold Out As We Went to Press” is not likely to be a headline found in my local news’ Business & Technology section this morning.

Not only will the story have already have come and gone, the dead tree newspaper will likely not even bother mentioning anything. The New York Times hasn’t posted anything about it. I can’t find anything in the Washington Post about it, either. Luckily nobody is relying on any of these outlets for announcements like this (as 10 hours after the fact is already far too late). This is not a newspapers-are-dead diatribe, it’s just that this is the kind of story that I find interesting and relevant. I would pay someone to deliver this story to me in a concise and timely manner.

Certainly, there are much more important things going on in the world lately. I do appreciate what these mainstream news organizations are doing instead: they are reporting from (and sometimes captured) behind enemy lines, sharing both important and mundane events through photography, and much more.

Here’s a graph I made to try and understand some of the common sources of news I encounter:

I’m not quite sure what to make of all this. But, I realize that timing is just one of many factors in the evolution of journalism: I heard about the WWDC announcement while checking twitter before getting out of bed this morning (long before I even received the announcement email from Apple). Though, I’ve waited until now to read in-depth stories on nuclear reactors and the Japan earthquakes. This, of course, is despite my ability to have watched, in real-time, a tsunami wave land on the east coast. I don’t know where to go to strike a good balance