Had an interesting situation at work recently that required a bit of hackery to make sure that everyone on the research team was on the same page. Since 95% of the actual work (everything but documentation) occurs through a central Usermin-powered portal, I had the idea to build a “nag” screen that I could periodically make users acknowledge before they’d be allowed into the system. Ideally, the system is used infrequently, only when policy changes are done that require everyone to know the new policy immediately. The system is pretty simple:

1. User Logs In, and if updates are present, they are shown the update page.

2. User reads the update, and enters a “codeword” on the update page. This is so the updates can be securely… Continue reading

So I am at the MVP Summit, in a room with a bunch of interesting people, and sadly I can’t give you any updates on the content (Other than to say Jack Cook is talking about suits right now, and no, suit isn’t a slang word for anything). But here are a few things I can talk about:

• It’s great to see everyone as usual
• Don Sorcinelli can apparently morph into a laptop bag. Be careful when he does this.
• The move to Bellevue is a nice change in terms of location, eventhough we aren’t able to bum around downtown Seattle.
• The reception last night (The “Welcome Reception”) was horribly executed. The room was way too small, the food kept running out, and there was

Got an interesting phone call this morning from a company that sells Voice over IP (VOIP) hardware and accessories on a Business to Business basis. They had my name in their customer database and were quite confused as the company name I had listed was simply “Jonathan Westfall”. The conversation went something like this:

Sales Rep: Hi, this is X from Y, and I was wondering if your previous voice over IP hardware purchases were for yourself or a company

Me: Uh… OK

SR: Yes, I know it’s an odd question, but you’re in our database and your company is just listed as “Jonathan Westfall”, and we were wondering if you had purchased the equipment for a company.

Me (realizing the purchases they are referring to): Oh yea… I think… Continue reading

So how do you give yourself this present of less e-mail? You Unsubscribe to legitimate commercial e-mail! And this is the best time of the year to do it. Why? Well because everyone you have any sort of relationship is trying to sell you something this time of year. So you’ll have plenty of opportunities to take the 2 seconds per e-mail item to open it, scroll to the bottom, and hit “unsubscribe” or “manage my e-mail preferences”.

Now I’m sure some people think “Yea… they’ll just send me more!”. While this was true of illegitimate SPAM e-mail in the past, legit companies (the ones who are likely to make it to your inbox) should honor an unsubscribe request. I’ve been designating 2-3 weeks a year “unsubscribe” weeks where… Continue reading

Hey, here’s a nice gem I found this morning. On a few servers of mine I keep files for each domain under one central tree (e.g., /web/domain1.com , /web/domain2.com, etc..). Most of these files are static HTML (just for quick domains or inside jokes), and whenever I need to edit them I fire up notepad or an HTML editor, download the page. Update it. Then upload it back. A lot of work! So last week I started exploring ways to manage multiple domains off of one CMS. However this was a bit complex when really all I needed was an online file manager that could edit things in a WYSIWYG editor.

Today I found File Thingie, which offers… Continue reading

The following was written for my lab group at work, however it strikes me as something everyone may benefit from. Mail Merge is an awesome tool, and this makes it much more useful when a group shares an incoming e-mail address that replies should be directed to (e.g., sales@ or info@ etc.. instead of the individual who sent the mail). I’ve had to sanitize some of the screenshots to remove private information, however it shouldn’t detract from the overall message!

You’ll need:

• A copy of a mailing list, in either excel format or CSV.
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Outlook or Entourage
• An SMTP username & Password to send out through SMTP Servers that require encryption.

First-Time Setup

You’ll do these steps once per computer you… Continue reading

After much gnashing of teeth and cries of angst, I was able to move a Google Site to a Google Apps Installation. In the end, it was actually really simple…

The first approach was to use the Google-Sites-Liberation tool, published recently on Google code, which looked very promising. However I soon found 2 issues with our particular domain (This one and this one) which unfortunately prevented me from using the tool. I also didn’t have much time to devote to debugging it. Desperate, I pieced together the following method through a few inferences and forum posts. It’s pretty simple: Copy the site from your account to your apps account!

You’ll need to be an “owner” of the site you’re trying to migrate to do this, and… Continue reading

Lifehacker recently published an article detailing a few ways to help remember the things you actually care about, as opposed to those you don’t but remember anyway (such as the MVP of the 1996 All-star game). One of the little gems that was tucked in the article was the application fbCal which integrates your Facebook Birthdays and events with the calendar of your choosing. I have this now set up on my Google Calendar and am extremely happy as it’s A) always up to date and B) putting information where I’ll actually look for it, not where I don’t look (e.g., a sidebar on facebook.com)

To get it set up, all you need to do is install the fbCal application to your facebook account and allow it offline… Continue reading

I often talk with people who spend just as much time as me (or more) surfing various blogs and sites to keep up on news in a broad array of areas. One complaint is usually that people miss material, or material is posted so rapidly that they feel overwhelmed. A solution to this is to use an RSS reader, a favorite is Google Reader, to read your news. When I mention this, I often hear  “No, that’s too much work” – quite a funny statement since once it’s set up, the RSS reader will actually save hours and hours of time wasted surfing to pages and refreshing them.

And it isn’t even a lot of work in the first place – you can be up and running with Google Reader… Continue reading

Android is an interesting platform for a number of reasons, one of which is it’s openness to developer and debugging tools, and the fact that it runs a modified form of Linux as an operating system. If you’re like me and quite fond of jumping around from ROM to ROM on your Android devices, a quick and easy way to backup your program files (and even settings) is quite desirable. Here’s my solution, hopefully it will help you. I know there are easier ways, but for a diehard geek who has the setup ready, this is the fastest way.

First step: Install Android Debug Bridge (adb)

adb is a tool found in the Android SDK, which you can download here. Once you unzip the SDK, add the directory to… Continue reading