More than Numbers

Flipped the couch around.

We decided that our living room was set up completely in reverse. Two years ago we decided this is the way it should be solely because of the placement of the cable jack. But today we decided to go for it. To not be lazy and make much better use of our space.

We bought a longer coaxial cable and ran it to the other side of the room (neatly). We flipped around our stereo system, our couch, various other tables, and so forth. Wow, what a difference. Much better feng shui (couch faces the door, and not vice versa). A great view out of the window from the couch. Better light in the room. Less glare on the TV. Less cable clutter. More usable floor space. Closer seating to the fireplace. The list goes on. Totally worth the time and effort to move things around. A quick change in your living space also has the added benefit of making everything feel refreshed and new again. Additionally, it gave us good reason to clean the floor in those hard to reach areas.

Google surprise.

Google had an amazing run in the market today after a positive surprise earnings yesterday. The stock rebounded nearly $90 to close at $539.41. This after a pretty depressing 4-month decline. While analysts predicted profit of $4.52/share, Google had profit of $4.84.

Frankly, I love when stock analysts are wrong as it provides excellent buying opportunities for the non-analysts. Predicting the future is almost impossible. Look at weathermen for example-- same thing!

But that's nothing new. What I really love about these earnings is how comScore was involved. Just 2 months ago, comScore reported that Google had very slow growth in paid clicks. You might remember this announcement when Google sank to a 52-week low for the first time. Ever. In any case, it turns out that comScore was completely wrong, and in fact Google saw 42% YoY growth. I'm glad investors seemed to remember this and incidently their share price tanked. In result, comScore has since tried to issue press releases with various reasons for the "miscommunication." Oh, please.

stocks, google, comscore

Our iPhones saved us money.

It's pretty awesome, really. I used to have a blackberry, and before that some clunky HTC device. The same with my wife. When we switched to iPhones, our monthly at&t bill dropped over $20. If there wasn't reason enough to switch to an iPhone. You know a great deal when it blows what you used to have out of the water and is actually cheaper. That's over $240 per year in mobile service fees.

6.6% market share. So far.

The other day Gartner released some estimates around PC market share for FY08Q1 in both the US and WW markets. It was awesome to see Apple in 4th place with an estimated 6.6% share of the market in the US. It was even more awesome to see Apple having the greatest YoY growth rate at 32.5%. Definitely some positive momentum there.

I was not surprised by the two companies with the largest share: Dell and HP. But Acer being in third place really did surprise me. I don't think I know anybody with an Acer-branded machine, nor have I even seen one in years. I know Acer is huge in Asia, but in the US? Granted they do own some additional brands: eMachines, Gateway, and Packard Bell. But still. Gartner reported Acer to have a -18.3% YoY growth rate and a current market share of 9.1% in the US.

Elephant basketball.

Just your average Thai elephant shooting a basket. I first caught wind of this on the Anderson Cooper podcast.

Cool

NetNewsWire rocks.

I generally read a lot of feeds. I probably currently subscribe to about 120 (thankfully not all of which are updated daily). For the longest time, I was using bloglines as my reader of choice. When Google updated it's Reader product, I quickly migrated my OPML feed over there. I liked Google's similar interface to Gmail, and the community sharing feature was kind of cool too. Still, I yearned for more.

I had heard countless people talk about NetNewsWire to me but until the other day I really had not tried it. I thought I really wanted a web-based reader (I know NetNewsWire works seamlessly with Newsgator.com). As soon as I imported my subscriptions, I was hooked. The interface is very similar to Mail in OS X, even with Smart Lists. There's also a built-in browser, integration with apps like iCal, iPhoto, Growl, Address Book, and so forth. Add to that .Mac syncing and an iPhone app that blows Google Reader out of the water.

Yes, I'm totally a fan. And best of all, NetNewsWire is now free.

I felt like I was in high school.

High School Musical
Originally uploaded by jonnaro

Charm scored us some awesome orchestra seats to the opening night of High School Musical playing at the Orpheum. I seem to always like a lot of things the kids like, so she thought I'd enjoy it. And enjoy it, I did.

We ended up going to a lot of shows, but I can't remember ever leaving so happy. The Disney magic was definitely in the air. I won't hide the fact that I really enjoyed it. It's only playing for 12 days, so if you can get some tickets, I'd check it out!

Habitat for Humanity.

I've always wanted to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. Having been somewhat raised around construction sites, I've always been fascinated by building. This past weekend, a group of people from work were organizing a volunteer day so Charm and I jumped at the opportunity to participate.

The project was in Redwood city- a 7-unit townhouse complex. One building's structure was erect while the other one was still in the foundation-building process. Charm and I each joined different crews. She got to cut and lay ribar on the garage floor in one of the buildings. I worked out in the sun working on the formwork for the foundation.

At the end of the day we were both extremely exhausted and dirty, but it was definitely worth it. It was so satisfying spending the day for such a worthwhile cause, getting quite a workout, and learning a whole lot about construction. I think the next time a volunteer opportunity comes around for Habitat, we'll be quick to jump on it again.

Community, Volunteer

Safeway provides an inconsistent experience.

Closed
Originally uploaded by jonnaro

Interesting thing walking into a Safeway tonight. It was about 9:00 at night. I approached the customer service desk where about 5 employees were just standing around. I had a winning lottery ticket I wanted to cash (nothing big, just for another ticket). After getting to the desk, I was told that customer service was closed. Uh, what?

I thought Safeway was open 24 hours. But customer service isn't? What about everyone who has a schedule which prevents them from shopping at Safeway during the day? Unfortunately, it looks like they'll never be able to use Customer Service.

Safeway doesn't seem to understand that all customers, no matter what time of the day they enter the store, deserve an equal experience.

Time Capsule.

Tonight, I set up a Time Capsule for my parents. I use the term "set up" with a grain of salt though as the process was completely simple and seamless. Having setting up my share of routers in the past, I was pre-conditioned to setting aside a good chunk of time to get all the computers running smoothly. This was entirely unnecessary though as I was completely blown away at how easy it was to set up. All the Macs immediately found the Time Capsule. Time Machine started chugging away at backing up the Macs. And of course the 802.11n is noticeably much faster and stronger in all corners inside and outside of the house in comparison to the old Linksys 802.11g router.

It always blows me away at how simple Apple makes things that used to be so complex. Simplicity really is better.

Customer Experience