KPAO by Dave Cortright

The $3.62 solution for a hands-free iPhone

I live in California, and starting tomorrow (July 1), drivers must use a hands-free device for all cell phone calls. Now I know the iPhone comes with a set of headphones with a built-in microphone, so technically there's a free solution. But that doesn't make for a very good story. It turns out the iPhone ear buds simply do not stay in my ear. So for better or worse, I needed to find a different way to go hands-free.

About a month ago I ordered the new Jawbone when it first came out, thinking that would be my solution. It was $140. Yow. But it had great reviews about the performance, especially in noisy situations. And I really didn't like it. I just feel weird wearing a headset on my ear like that. Besides, it turns out I use my iPhone a lot to listen to podcasts and music. So I already have earphones. I just need a microphone to go with my existing headphones (Nike Earhooks).

Turns out these exist; they are short extension cords with an inline microphone. Both Monster Cable and Griffin make one, and they cost about $10-15. As I was looking around a bit more, I found no-name versions for $5-10. Then I found Cross Mark.

They are a wholesaler in China, who will sell you electronic gadgets and accessories at pretty amazing wholesale prices. You can get a cheap knock-off iPod for $23.16, or an LED light bulb for $3.17. Or, an inline iPhone microphone for $2.79. With shipping and handling (from China!), it cost $3.62. And if I wanted to buy 50 of them, it'd cost only $1.80 each. Gotta love the disintermediation power of the web.

So who wants to go in for an order of 50+ LED light bulbs?

Best dog bed: Orvis ToughChew

I must be a Yuppie. I spent $100 on a dog bed. But you know what? It's worth it.

It wasn't really a problem with dog #1. She's a good dog. A great dog, actually, compared to dog #2. He's a little hellion. He loves to chew on stuff when he's bored. Anything will do. His own foot. Used tissues out of the garbage. A new pair of shoes out of the shoe drawer under the bed. And yes, even the bed he happens to be lying upon.

He went through the existing beds in a hurry. He has a proclivity for chewing on the zippers, and like most dogs, he absolutely loves pulling the stuffing out. That makes it pretty hard to keep the bed together for very long.

So it turns into a simple matter of long-term economic investment. I can continue to buy these "chewable" beds at $25 a piece, replacing them every few weeks or so when they become too discombobulated to even allow for singular reference, or I can invest in something sturdier.

These beds live up to their promise. The little bugger hasn't got a hole in one yet, and it's not for lack of trying. I even inherited an old ToughChew from a family member and when that one wore out, took it into a local Orvis and got a free replacement.

So great beds that will last a lifetime, and if they don't Orvis will replace them for free. It's a bit pricey, but it's the last dog bed you'll ever buy.

Get a ToughChew Dog Bed from Orvis

Best Email Hosting

(Since Dave gets to have his own blog offering wisdom on the best products, I'll just have to post my usual drivel here.)

I have been a customer of the email hosting provider FastMail for years. At first I used their $15 / lifetime account as a dedicated backup account. I have generally liked managing my own email server, and applied the skills gained in doing that to my day job. Spam was even fun -- watching the endless cat and mouse game of measures and counter-measures has been both amusing and instructive.

For a variety of reasons I recently decided to stop playing the game and move our email service from my own zachary.com host to FastMail. Like gmail and the others, they offer a nice web interface, huge amounts of storage, great spam filtering and so on. I signed up for a custom-designed, multi-user, hosted domain family account.

Unlike gmail they are not free. So why pay? First, it's not that much. Second, email is their core business -- all of their focus is on providing a feature rich, reliable, speedy email service. If Google needs a bit more engineering attention on their Adsense product, I'm sure that they wouldn't hesitate to pull resources from their other "products."

Finally, Google knows enough about me -- they don't need to have my entire email archive on their servers too. I think spreading my digital footprint around rather than keeping it all in one place seems like a good thing.

Things or experiences

There are two ways one can spend time and money: acquiring things or acquiring experiences.

We all need some base level of things to survive: food, shelter, clothing... basically the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. But once you have the basics met, what do you do with the rest of your time and money?

I used to be all about acquiring things. One of the first things I did when I got a full-time job was to buy a $2000 music synthesizer (a Kurzweil K250) I had always coveted. Some go to Europe with the money from their summer work. I bought a Sony HiFi VCR and a new Mac 660av (you can make phone calls from it!).

But this gets old after a while, and at some point you just don't need another thing to clutter up your life. I used to walk through REI and could pick out 10 things I coveted. Now I have those 10 things and another 30 more. There's really not much else I need from an outdoor equipment standpoint.

So I'm now trying to err on the side of spending time and money on experiences. Travel, outings, restaurants, events, classes, etc. Or get things that can be experiences, like 12 different chocolate bars for a chocolate tasting party.

I'm the first to admit I'm no Zen master, and I still like stuff. But I try to be more mindful about it. I don't acquire nearly the volume of stuff I did in my youth, and I do believe its a better lifestyle. So next time you're thinking about what to do with your time or money, choose an experience.

Best sport sandals: Chaco Z1

A good pair of sandals are an essential travel accessory. I've made the mistake of not having sandals with me on some trips and regretted it. (But really, who expects it to be 90°+ in England's Lake District, even in the summer?) The qualities Ilook for in a sandal are comfort, ruggedness, low profile (for easy packing), and a conservative look. The last one may seem strange, but I prefer not to stand out with gaudy designs and colors, especially in urban environments abroad.

I've owned several pairs of both Tevas and Nike Air sandals. They are both fine sandals, but the Chacos have several advantages. the binding is actually a single strap that is cleverly woven through the sole of the sandal. This means there is only one buckle to adjust (easy!), and it automatically equalizes the pressure, meaning no hot spots. Since there is no velcro or padding on the straps, the sandals flatten together and are really easy to pack. And they come in a basic black, which as well all know, goes with anything.

Get Chaco Z1 sandals from Amazon

The 3 most influential computer technologies

I was talking to my co-blogger David Creemer the other day about how I thought the single most valuable piece of technology created in the era of the personal computer was the clipboard. Copy and Paste is the an essential staple of countless workflows, and it's by far one of the most consistent and reliable ways to share data across applications.

But then sharing this with some friends at work, we talked about the more recent past. What technologies have changed your life in the past 10 or so years? Broadband is number one for me. I've been blessed in that I've gone to school and worked at places with high-speed, always on connections. But until about 8 years ago, I relied on dial-up at home. It used to be faster to drive into work and copy large files down to my computer there than to attempt to download them over my dial-up connection.

And the second big game-changer in the last 10 years is wireless. This coupled with a laptop computer and always-on high-spped broadband has fundamentally changed the way I interact with the computer. Using the computer used to be a batch process: turn it on, boot it up, connect to the internet, do some tasks, shut it down. Now it's always available, always on. Looking up some info, checking email, or IMing a friend is as easy to do as picking up the laptop from the coffee table in front of me. (or more likely, just looking down onto my lap, as it's there most of the time now).

Basically what happened was the cost of internet connectivity has dropped to practically nothing. And when I say cost, I mean several things: monetary of course, but also time, convenience, accessibility, speed, reliablity... really any metric you can measure.

So what's next? Well, I think the desktop -» laptop transition that has happened over the past 10 years will repeat in a laptop -» mobile transition over the next 10. I have seen the future, and it is something that looks a lot like the iPhone. Now it's not just freedom of connectivity at home or work. It's practically anywhere I am. And that's a powerful thing.

Diamonds as a commodity

Five years ago, Wired reported on the state of the art in the diamond fabrication business. Now the Smithsonian is running an updated version of the story in the June 2008 edition of their magazine (and here on the web).

What I love most about this story is that these diamond manufacturing businesses are finally taking the artificially-inflated value out of the industry. This quote from the article is most telling:

When Linares [CEO of artificial diamond company Apollo Diamond] was at a diamond conference a few years ago, he says, a man he declines to describe slipped behind him as he was walking out of a hotel meeting room and said someone from a natural diamond company just might put a bullet in his head.

Wow, there is some big business at play here, no doubt.

But right now diamonds are mostly a luxury item. Sure, the occasional bit of diamond dust is used for cutting tools and other industrial means, but the artificial value created by the luxury industry puts it out of the reach of many applications. Not only will artificial diamonds open up these applications for the first time, it will also help put an end to African violence.

Blood diamonds won't fund military efforts anymore once the bottom drops out on the diamond market, and that's a good thing. I only wish scientists would work on a way to artificially create rhino horn, elephant tusk, and yes even tiger penis. Flood the market with artificial clones indistinguishable from the original, and it eliminates the biggest reason to kill these endangered animals.

Best grocery store: Trader Joe's

There aren't many grocery stores out there that have a dedicated fan base, but such is the appeal of Trader Joe's. I shop there because they have simple, healthy, high-quality products at great prices.

Actually, their prices are outstanding. Most of you have heard of "two buck Chuck" -- the $2 wine that is surprisingly reasonable for its price. That exemplifies Trader Joe's standard operating procedure. They have few recognizable brands in the store, and none of the highly-marketed national brands, instead relying on the overarching brand of the store. And judging from the fact that I'm writing this, it clearly works.

I've already pointed out some of the great products they carry —Cranberry Harvest juice and Earth Balance margarine. Others include their linguine, frozen roasted vegetable pizza, and staples like olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Really there is no downside to trying something at TJ's, since they have a very generous return policy. You can actually take half-eaten items back for a refund if you don't like it (and yes, I've done this). This is a company that truly understands great customer service.

The biggest downside is their lack of selection for fresh fruit and vegetables. However, they have a modest selection. And coupled with a weekly visit to a local farmers market or a local community farm subscription, you can get by doing nearly all of your shopping here.

Find a Trader Joe’s Near You

Stupid anchor tag hack

So I am by no means an HTML/CSS expert. In fact I'm more of a hack. But that's what agile development is all about: getting something that works sufficiently well now with minimal time invested. And that's what this hack is all about.

I often want to display a link on a web page, but I want to execute some Javascript when the link is clicked rather than navigating to a new page. Browsers don't like it if an <a> anchor link doesn't have something in the href property; they show their displeasure by ignoring the <a> tag altogether and rendering the contents as plain text.

I started off using "#" as the href value, since that keeps the browser on the same page. However, # is a reference to the top of the page, so if the user has scrolled down at all, it will scroll the page back up to the top.

So I started using "#/" as the href. Since there is no anchor on my pages defined as "/", this won't change the scroll position of the page. And since the href value gets added to the end of the URL, the #/ doesn't look too much out of place. Here is an example.

If anyone has suggestions on how to get the anchor to show up as a link, execute a javascript, not change the page or scroll position, and not change the URL in the address bar, I'd love to hear it. Leave a comment!

The AKC position on spay/neuter: legislation bad

Now that AB 1634 is effectively dead, I thought I'd mosey on over to the AKC (American Kennel Club) site to see what information they provide to the public on spay/neuter.

A text search of the home page shows the only reference to spay/neuter is an alert about the final hearing for AB 1634. So I did a site search for spay neuter. All the results point to pages talking about spay/neuter legislation, with the top link going to their "action center" page.

OK fine. I'll dig through their pages manually. I go to their Guide to Breeding, including the page on Sending Your Pups to Their New Homes; no mention of spay/neuter on these pages. I went to their Responsible Breeding page and their Puppy Tips page: nothing. I went to the Dog Owners page, with its section on Responsible Dog Ownership, and there it is in item 84 out of 101: Spay or Neuter. I also found a section on it by digging down through Health/Overview/Healthy Dog section.

So there you have it. For the 99.99% of people who casually visit the AKC site, or even dig around at a high level, their perception of the AKC's stance is spay/neuter legislation is bad. And unfortunately, human psychology will tend to generalize that to spay/neuter is bad.

The AKC is sending the absolute wrong message to its site's visitors regarding spay and neuter. I encourage them to fix their design and flip the focus. Bury the legislative alerts info and promote the message to spay and neuter your dog.