raoli.com

While I appreciate the effort on Flickr’s part, I’m don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say I really don’t know how to greet people in Icelandic

• MT Action Streams => PHP
  Port of the Action Streams MovableType plugin to Wordpress
  (tags: weblogging movabletype wordpress php)

• Macworld | Set up a free CalDAV server
  This has been on my to-do-list for a while. Walkthrough should come in handy.
  (tags: opensource osx caldav calendar)

Brian Dolan:

“Icon Mobile helped us with the icons and other parts of the UI, but Sprint took a more aggressive role than we ever have in designing this device,” Owens said. “It’s the most aggressive push into UI I’ve seen by a carrier, and I spent 18 years at AT&T.” Sprint conceded that the iPhone exposed a weakness in the market: user interface, so the carrier decided it needed to build a UI consistent with the iPhone experience, while creating a device that leverages the capability of Sprint’s Rev. A network. [Emphasis added]

You know, I thought one of the reasons for the iPhone’s success was that AT&T stayed the hell out of Apple’s way and had almost no impact on the UI development.

Wow, what a way to start the season. The Red Sox won took the opener in come-from-behind style, getting a game tying 9th inning home run from Brandon Moss. Moss had a huge game, going 2-5, driving in a pair, and getting his first career home run off A’s closer Huston Street. Manny Ramirez was the other offensive star of the game, going 2-5 and driving in 4 runs on a pair of doubles.

After a rough start to the game, Daisuke Matsuzaka settled down to pitch 5 innings, setting down the final 7 hitters in order. Hideki Okajima get into the game as well, pitching a scoreless 9th and getting the win after the Sox took the lead in the 10th. Jonathan Papelbon struggled a bit in the 10th, giving up a run on 3 hits and a walk. He was bailed out when Emil Brown tried to take third after doubling. Instead, he was cut down on a nice 9-4-3-5-6-3 play by the Sox (yes, I had to rewind the TiVo to get all of that).

Oh yeah, 2004 hero Keith Foulke made his return to major league baseball during today’s game, pitching a scoreless 8th inning and striking out Manny.

And with that, the 2008 major league baseball season has begun.

At this absurdly early hour, it’s time for yet another baseball season. With last weeks’ minor bump in the road averted, the Red Sox and the A’s are kicking off the the season with a two game set at the Tokyo Dome in Japan.

Frankly, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet and the brain isn’t functioning, so I’ll let the starting lineup for the 2008 Boston Red Sox do most of the talking.

Dustin Pedroia 2B
Kevin Youkilis 1B
David Ortiz DH
Manny Ramirez LF
Mike Lowell 3B
Brandon Moss RF
Jason Varitek C
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Julio Lugo SS

Daisuke Matsuzaka P

After last fall’s heroics, it might seem odd to see Ellsbury at the bottom of the lineup. It sounds like Terry Francona is going to give Ellsbury the opportunity to earn his way to the top of the lineup, just as he did last year with Pedroia. Until that happens, I have to say I like the idea of the two speedsters (Ellsbury and Lugo) running in front of two big OBP guys. This could give the Sox a little more freedom to run without worrying about opening a base for teams can pitch around Ortiz and Ramirez.

The A’s lineup has also been posted.

Update: …and J.D. Drew’s back acts up in the pre-game, so he’s replaced by Moss. Not the most auspicious of beginnings.

• Better Photography Tips | NSLog();
  (tags: photography tips)

After commenting on Jeff Carlson’s quality customer support experience with Apple, I had my own comment-worthy experience today, this time with Douwe Egberts / Sara Lee.

As a slightly early birthday present, my folks got me the Senseo Gift Pack. I like drinking coffee in the morning, but hate the process of making coffee. Let’s be honest, I am not a morning person… particularly before I’ve had my caffeine hit (so you can see why making coffee is somewhat of a chicken-and-egg issue).

The gift pack is supposed to include 2 packages of coffee pods. However, one of the packages was missing from my kit. When I called customer support, I had the choice between talking to somebody about Senseo issues or about coffee pod issues. I chose Senseo issues, since I was calling about a kit. It took maybe 30 seconds to explain my issue, where I was told I actually wanted to speak to the Douwe Egberts / Sara Lee folks, as they were responsible for that portion of the package. The CS rep transferred me over, where I explained my issue once more. The Sara Lee rep immediately apologized and offered my a coupon for a free package of pods, no questions asked.

The total experience took less than 5 minutes, maybe a minute of which involved hold time. Whereas some companies would make me jump through hoops to ascertain whether or not I was truthful, Sara Lee gave their representative the ability to set things right in short order. Giving me a coupon for the free pods has minimal cost to them and is an easy way to build goodwill among customers (ie, things like this posting). Plus, with the coupon, I have the freedom to choose the type of coffee I want instead of taking whatever type they threw into the box.

Again, in a perfect world, quality customer service experiences would be the norm. As the real world seems to have beaten down my expectations, though, I am often pleasantly surprised when things turn out this quick and painless.

Update: …and but a day later, Tom provides something of a counter-example.

• KSExtensibleManagedObject | Mike Abdullah
  If I’m reading this correctly, this is the code associated with the Cocoa-dev email I linked to last week.
  (tags: osx mac coredata programming cocoa)

• The Simple Dollar » 25 Questions to Think About Before Your Next Job Interview
  (tags: interview job tips cite:michael_mccracken)