Nathan's Occasional Blog

I guess Dell is tired of the bad press around all of their exploding batteries.  Good call guys, good call.  Of course, one could argue that you shouldn’t have waited for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to make you do it…

Link to Dell to recall 4.1M laptop batteries – Yahoo! News

As I mentioned last night, Windows Live Writer is a sweet little application.  There are some great screenshots of the tool in action here and here, and one feature that really caught my eye was the ability to put in categories and other details in a pane at the bottom of the page, and select categories in the upper-right portion of the window (above the sidebar).  I don’t see that, and I’m guessing that’s because I’m using Blogger.

I’ve seen a lot out there about WordPress.  I’ve tried MSN Spaces.  Then there’s Movable Type, TypePad, etc.  I’d like something flexible, free, and a package I can continue using my own domain name for.  It seems maybe I’m outgrowing Blogger?

What do you guys think?  Any recommendations?  There are a lot of great themes for WordPress so I’m leaning that direction.  Just stumbled across a comparison table of features for the major players … will have to dive in.

OH – check the comments from my post last night and you’ll see Joe Cheng replied to my post this morning.  SWEET!  Glad to be in the feedback loop Joe.  I linked to his blog and noticed he and his wife dig the Nikon DSLR cameras.  Alicea and I are thinking about getting a DSLR too.  I love the online community!  Subscribed!

Joe I’ve got another bit of feedback for you:  Why can’t I select text in the title space of the blog with my mouse?  This is in the Web Layout view.  I have to use the shift key and arrows.  Seems like a bug to me.  It works, btw, in Normal view.  I’d also like to CTRL+ENTER to post just like I can in Outlook (to send).

Brilliant post by Sean Alexander today about how FRIGGING INSANE some packaging is these days for what we buy on retail store shelves.  I can’t tell you how many sliced fingers I’ve had/seen because of stupid hard plastic packaging that is darn near impossible to open.

I was just talking about it with one of my coworkers and we both agree that when someone starts this class action suit we’re totally onboard.  Here that Kristin?  🙂

I think action #1 isn’t half bad either.  If the retailers want this packaging as a deterrent to theft then they should remove it upon lawful purchase. 

My buddy Bryce said to that, “I like having the store personnel remove the packaging for me.  Unfortunately the minimum wage slaves will have little.”

My counter is this … but if we all get their minimum wage hours chewed up removing stupid packaging, someone will take notice when the scanned items per hour plummets.  THINK BIG!

Link to Addicted to Digital Media – Packaging Hell – Time to Rise Up!

Wow – a company that understands the new medium of marketing.  Very cool to see. My bet is that they’re going to get a lot of good feedback from their target market.  I have a feeling we’re seeing one of the first commercial uses of Second Life as applied to the real world … a collaboration between a company and its clients to create the ideal product

Starwood Hotels & Resorts is launching its new Aloft Hotel in the virtual land of Second Life in September, months before the chain of hotels opens in real life.

Source: Images: First hotel for ‘Second Life’ | CNET News.com