u l t r a m o o k i e

My wife loves coupons, so we have a subscription to the Sunday edition of the San Jose Mercury News.  A little over a week ago, we got a little insert that was advertising the “e-Edition” of the paper.  “It’s every page of the Mercury news in digital form,” the insert proclaimed.  The promotional rates were [...]

My wife loves coupons, so we have a subscription to the Sunday edition of the San Jose Mercury News.  A little over a week ago, we got a little insert that was advertising the “e-Edition” of the paper.  “It’s every page of the Mercury news in digital form,” the insert proclaimed.  The promotional rates were $14 for one year and $25 for two years  (use this link to get the promotional prices, which apparently will end August 31, 2008).  At that price, subscribing wasn’t painful — even if to try it out.

I signed up for a two-year subscription last Monday and it took seven business days (or, nine internet days) to get my subscription activated!  Huh?  If a dead tree media company wants to show that it is technologically progressive, the sign-up process should be a hell of a lot faster (ie. using carrier pigeons to shuffle around new subscription orders is not a good thing).  I got my account confirmation yesterday, it let me know that starting this morning (5:30am sharp), I would be able to access the site and today’s paper.

I read the newspaper this morning and the experience itself was not half bad.

• The online reader is decent, though the UI is not very well thought out.  Flipping through the paper was easy and fast, thank goodness.
• The graphics are sharp enough and the text is very readable in the graphical mode.  The viewer panel, when in the graphical mode, allows for dragging the page around for easier reading.
• There is a dedicated text mode where the text is laid out in standard text format.
• All advertisements are included in the digital version — which, for me is a benefit as I can browse the Fry’s ads with ease.
• There is the ability to download a full copy of the paper in PDF format, which is nice.  The PDF copy of the paper is fully searchable and you can copy text from it.  There is no DRM on the PDF version and you can download either the full edition or just selected pages.  This makes for a good way to “clip” things from the digital edition.

There are some issues with the site though.

• It is a digital copy, so why is accessing/searching for anything past 30 days not allowed?  Digital subscribers should have access to the full San Jose Mercury News archive (or whatever has been digitized).
• The main login page resizes the browser window for no apparent reason.
• There are no account management tools whatsoever.  I cannot find out how long I have left on my subscription  I cannot cancel the autopay (which is turned on by default)  I cannot update the email address associated with the account (I found a way of doing it this morning, but I can’t seem to find the link again).  There is no way to change your password.  Lose your password?  You have to send email to an email address or call a 1-800 to recover it.  What kind of high-tech solution is this?
• When reading articles in the text mode, one is still forced to “page jump” (thank goodness they at least hotlinked the page jump).  In text mode, the whole article should be shown without a page jump.  In graphical mode, the page jump is not hotlinked in the image, you have to “flip” to the page yourself.
• The downloaded PDFs have no index.  So, if you are trying to find a page in the Business section, you have to go flipping around to get to it.
• There is no way of getting rid of the full-page preview panel on the left-hand side so that you can have a wider reading area on the right-hand side.
• Can someone tell me what the difference is between the five different editions?

I don’t know if the digital edition is worth the full asking price: For a year subscription they are asking $60 and for a two-year subscription they are asking $100.  That is half the price of the print edition, but this is a digital edition, it should really be a lot less expensive.  For the promotional price, the digital subscription serves as a good supplement to Yahoo! News.  Lets see how I feel about the digital edition after my two-year subscription runs dry.  Maybe by then, I will like it enough to resubscribe at full price.  Maybe not.

Recently, my wife and I decided to put all the phones connected to the landline into “no ring” mode.  We turned on the answering machine and am filtering calls.  We were so tired of getting political calls and other miscellaneous calls — some asshole has or keeps using our number for filing things and we [...]

Recently, my wife and I decided to put all the phones connected to the landline into “no ring” mode.  We turned on the answering machine and am filtering calls.  We were so tired of getting political calls and other miscellaneous calls — some asshole has or keeps using our number for filing things and we get all of the calls from the debt collection agencies.

Everyone whom is important to us has our respective mobile phone numbers, so we have told them to just call us on our mobiles.  It’s better that way.  Do we still need our landline?  Yea, for faxing and for the satellite receiver.  Plus, that phone number is the one we use on forms and stuff.

Do you have a landline?  Why or why not?

Yahoo! Buzz is now open to all publishers from large to small to niche.  It is really easy to add Buzz to your site, the details are here.  I’ve just added Buzz buttons to my site and it didn’t take long (most of the time was trying to figure out the_loop in WordPress).
I like Buzz [...]

Yahoo! Buzz is now open to all publishers from large to small to niche.  It is really easy to add Buzz to your site, the details are here.  I’ve just added Buzz buttons to my site and it didn’t take long (most of the time was trying to figure out the_loop in WordPress).

I like Buzz because, well, I’m a Yahoo! employee.  But, it is also a good service when compared with Digg because the audience is more balanced — less Google/Apple fanboys, less tech and more news.  Though, there is more “OMG Lindsay Lohan kissed her girlfriend!” type gossip than on Digg.  In general, Buzz is more balanced.

Oh, and Buzz is growing leaps and bounds quicker than Digg — which means more traffic for publishers.  Anyways, if you’re a publisher, give Yahoo! Buzz a try.

Here’s the super secret iPhone 2.0 strategy.  I got it from Steve* himself.
Promise all sorts of new features before iPhone 2.0 software is available.  Fanboys go wild.
Rush iPhone 2.0 software out the door, when it is really not ready — it’s buggy as hell, crashes, and is slow.  People have to reboot their iPhones every [...]

Here’s the super secret iPhone 2.0 strategy.  I got it from Steve* himself.

Promise all sorts of new features before iPhone 2.0 software is available.  Fanboys go wild.

Rush iPhone 2.0 software out the door, when it is really not ready — it’s buggy as hell, crashes, and is slow.  People have to reboot their iPhones every day to keep it running — hey, just like Windows.  Fanboys rejoice as they have new software.  Fanboys go out and defend this shitty software because…well, they are Apple fanboys and Steve Jobs is their diety…and they must defend their diety.

Every few weeks bump the revision number of the software, but really don’t fix anything.  In the release notes, be as vague as possible — say something like, “Bug Fixes”.  Fanboys install, get the placebo effect, and go wild.  Fanboys cheer and are happy that Apple “fixed” something — when secretly, all Apple did was bump the VERSION_NUMBER constant in one of the header files and recompile the whole thing.

Meanwhile, try as hard as possible to fix the iPhone 2.0 software and get what would have been the real release out the door — you know, like any respectable software developer would:  Release a tested and fixed software sans any major bugs.

Thanks Apple for your backasswards way of releasing the iPhone 2.0 software.  I really wish I had stuck with 1.1.4 and waited things out.  Apple you’re becoming more and more like Microsoft.  With the iPhone 2.0 software, I kept thinking to myself:  “Crap, I should have waited for Service Pack 1 before I upgraded.“  Ironic, huh?

*Steve “Mookie” Kong, that is.

We are proud to announce the birth of our newest family member! Caitlin Madison Kong arrived today weighing in at 7 pounds 2 ounces! She is a tall one at 20 inches long. And she looks just like her big brother!

We are proud to announce the birth of our newest family member! Caitlin Madison Kong arrived today weighing in at 7 pounds 2 ounces! She is a tall one at 20 inches long. And she looks just like her big brother!

Tomorrow is the big day!  Princess Mookina is scheduled to arrive!  For a live feed, keep watch on mind of mookie or my Twitter feed.  Friends and family on Flickr should be able to see pictures soon after the birth!  Yay!

Tomorrow is the big day!  Princess Mookina is scheduled to arrive!  For a live feed, keep watch on mind of mookie or my Twitter feed.  Friends and family on Flickr should be able to see pictures soon after the birth!  Yay!

This will probably slip through the news since there’s this consistent Viagra driven love for Apple.  But, for those of you interested (from the Wall Street Journal):
Apple raised hackles in computer-privacy and security circles when an independent engineer discovered code inside the iPhone that suggested iPhones routinely check an Apple Web site that could, in [...]

This will probably slip through the news since there’s this consistent Viagra driven love for Apple.  But, for those of you interested (from the Wall Street Journal):

Apple raised hackles in computer-privacy and security circles when an independent engineer discovered code inside the iPhone that suggested iPhones routinely check an Apple Web site that could, in theory trigger the removal of the undesirable software from the devices.

Mr. Jobs confirmed such a capability exists, but argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program — one that stole users’ personal data, for example — to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store.

I guess Uncle Steve is really trying to tell people that All Your Ifones Belong To Him.