.Mac, cheaper

It's that time again, when your .Mac subscription is about to come due, but you hate paying Apple's full price of $99.95. Here are some better prices:

Start at Amazon's .Mac page. They won't tell you what their current price is, but I will: $80.99 + no tax + no shipping.

From Amazon, you can also buy it at J&R Music World for $77.88 + no tax (outside NY) + $5.70 shipping, for $83.58 total.

There's also currently someone on Amazon named bargain_plus who's selling it for $75 + $3.49 shipping, for $78.49 total. Given that he only has 1 rating I'd be a little nervous, but if you're going for the absolutely lowest price, he's it.

If you found a lower price anywhere else, let me know in the comments.

A new type of Nagware

I haven't posted much recently about how much I like widgets, but I do.

Shorter Cory Doctorow

I've been wanting to do a post with this title for a bit (see here and here for why). Basically, it comes down to:

1. Bad things might happen.
2. If those bad things do happen, even worse things could then happen.
3. Because of 1 & 2, we should PANIC! NOW! and SCREAM AND RUN IN CIRCLES! AND MAKE SILLY THREATS!

But just like yesterday, Chuq does a better job of summing it up:

Cory is the reason why, despite strongly supporting EFF's causes, I won't give EFF a penny, because Cory is a public representative of theirs, and is constantly proving to me that he (in their name) is not an activist for these causes, but an extremist — and EFF supports his view of this.

Somebody ought to start a campaign: How much would you donate to EFF if they fired Cory? If enough $$ was pledged, maybe they'd do it. Although personally, I'm also holding out for them to stop lying in their press releases.

Why don't these people get the crap beaten out of them?

Whenever I see news stories about the odious Fred Phelps and his cronies, who get off on picketing in the most offensive fashion possible, usually at a funeral, I marvel that the mourners don't simply snap and take the Phelps-ites out. Phelps' Group Protests At Soldier's Funeral. I'm all for free speech and stuff, but actions have consequences, and old Fred hasn't had enough of the consequences, in my view.

Another women in tech post

One of the most fascinating things about ADHOC that I hadn't seen at other conferences was the number of talks about employment: for instance, there was a session entitled, "Getting a Job at Apple and Other Software Companies." Another was Working@Google.

It was the latter of the two where I just had to put my foot down (y'all were waiting for that, weren't you?). They had a guy there whose title was "Technical Recruiter." He talked a lot about how cool it was to work at Google, and all the benefits, etc. And he looked straight at me (I was sitting near the front) and made a point about how they were trying to hire more women. So I raised my hand and said, "If you want more women, try describing the company in a way that doesn't make it sound like it's hell on earth."

You see, he'd been doing the whole "We make it so you never ever have to leave here" schtick that's so popular in tech. It was similar to what Shelley described recently as:

the very nature of the interviews filter, and I'm not talking about based on quality. If I were going to define an interview guaranteed to appeal to young, competitive guys, within a year or three after leaving college, well, I wouldn't change a thing.

This wasn't an interview, this was just a description of the company, but it worked out to the same thing: what appeals to guys right out of school drives people like me in the opposite direction. Quickly.

You can't use the same sales pitch everywhere and expect it to have the same effect on everyone. Okay, you say, this was a tech conference, and he was using the usual tech evangelist hoohah that works at these places. Except when I called him on it, he looked like he'd been hit with a two-by-four. I'll swear that nobody had ever mentioned to him that his spiel wasn't tempting to everyone. And given that, of course they aren't hiring more women!

And this isn't just about Google; that was just the most current in-my-face example of this. Chuq has another, wherein he says:

I think the reason women are running from IT is simple: the environment in many IT organizations is increasingly hostile to "having a real life"… Women are a lot less willing to accept those kind of sacrifices for their job, so they're more willing to bail and look for alternatives than stick and gut it out and screw up their non-work life…

Yup, that's about it.

Alert THIS, buster

Matt pointed me towards Female Alert System 1.5 (Joke application which predicts your wife/girlfriend's mood), saying:

I don't think anyone needs a program to predict Dori's mood when she sees this:

Based on a post on the Tilted Forum Project. Given a female's last period date and menstrual cycle length this program will give you an alert level similar to the Terror Alert Level given by the US Department of Homeland Security. Text is taken verbatum from willravel's post.

Dori will not tolerate "verbatum." Yeesh.

Oh, that ain't the only thing about this I won't tolerate…

TypePad: not for beginners

I've often thought that the world of software would be a better place if companies hired me to show them what problems a novice can have when trying to use their apps. Today's example: TypePad.

Does the following make any sense to you?

1. Go into Design > Change Layout. Notice that it says, "Mixed Media layouts have been optimized for the display of a combination of media types and are ideal if you share a lot of photos, video, and audio in addition to text." Great. I want a layout with a whole lot of photos, so I'll pick one of these.
2. Next step: upload a bunch of photos. Done.
3. Next, try to add photos to the photo area of the new weblog. End up at TypePad Photo Albums - Tips, where it says, ""Displaying Albums on Your Weblog: Note: This feature is not available if you are using a Mixed Media Template. Instead, you can use a TypeList to display your photo albums on these templates."
4. Reading the help about TypeLists, I can't find anything about adding photos or albums. The only choices are People, Links, Reading, and Music.

Time for Six Apart to go back to the usability labs, imo.

Cast the Barretts!

We aren't reality TV watchers, but I'd make an exception for this: Cameron and Damien Barrett want to be on The Amazing Race and have set up the Blogger Twins Web site and blog to help make their case.

We wish them luck! If you're a casting director for the show, or know someone who is (or know someone who knows someone, etc.), go check out their site.

Not the only one writing about Healdsburg

I get asked why I blog about Healdsburg so much. Does anyone ask that when it's the NY Times doing it? From today's issue: Not Far From Napa, and Closing In:

Well into the 1980's, Healdsburg was a dusty little country town known to the old-timers as a welcome relief from the countrified gloss of the Napa Valley. It is still a country town, but less so: it is almost as popular on the wine circuit as the Napa Valley towns of Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga and the town of Sonoma itself, back down the road to San Francisco.

The article's worth checking out, as is the slideshow.

Life is good

From our local paper a couple of weeks ago:

I hear that the new WiFi network is up and working in downtown Healdsburg. If you have a laptop computer and are set up for wireless Internet, you can go hang out in the Plaza and surf the web.

And being able to make this post means that, yes, the free Wi-Fi here is flowing very nicely. I'm currently sitting in the lovely Healdsburg Plaza, where it's a beautiful day, with clear skies and about 88 degrees at 5 pm. There's supposed to be swing music from 6-8 pm, and the farmer's market is going on now till 6. The only downside: the 'net access is web-only. I can't send or receive email, and I can't get on iChat with people and show them what a lovely day it is here. But what I've got right now is sweet.

Scoble: Three women who inspire me

Robert Scoble wrote a post on Three women who inspire me. Here's a short bit:

Dori Smith. She is one of the world's top authorities on JavaScript. She thinks she's invisible, but she's not. She's the one who told me to blog. A decision that made my life very rich. I'm permanently in her debt. Just goes to show you that if a woman tells you to do something you better listen to her (that belief helps me in my marriage quite a bit too).

Robert, thank you very much for including me on your list. I'm truly honored to have been included.

And now, just so no one thinks that I've been replaced by look-alike zombie, I have to mention the two things you got wrong:

• I didn't tell you to blog. As I recall it, I'm the one who first mentioned blogs to you, but I've never been one to claim that everyone should blog. IIRC, Dave was the first to tell you that you should have a blog of your own.
  
  
• Regarding invisibility: well, let's see… Top authority on JavaScript. Blogger since 1999. Female. Publisher and Listmom for Wise-Women (an online community and network dedicated to supporting women web designers, developers, and programmers). But do I get asked to talk at BlogHer? Do I get asked to participate in sites like Misbehaving? The way I look at it, there are two choices: I'm invisible, or I'm visible and I'm purposely being ignored. By saying I'm invisible, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. True? False? I dunno.

But back to what matters: Robert, thanks, and I deeply appreciate being included in company like Deborah and Molly.