the bofe blog

I hate it when people redesign a site and it floods my RSS reader with your old posts. I’ve already read them. Enough already.

If you haven’t looked at White Whine you’re missing out. Very funny “white people” or first world complaints.

My white whine:

I’m pretty upset about TheDarkTower.net’s Wiki being down. I really wanted to look around after finishing the series.

P.S., Lee… I read after he told me not to. I couldn’t help it!

The IE team gets a lot of flack from web developers because of questionable implementation with regards to existing specifications… but this just pisses me off.

Exactly what the fuck are these boxes? This is in the bottom right hand corner of your browser if you have your status bar turned on.

Mystery Meat Navigation anyone?

Here’s a full screenshot of my browser, I’ve colored in the boxes to show you where they are.

Let’s get to the bottom of this…

From left to right:

1. No fucking clue. Right clicking doesn’t produce a context menu, single clicking doesn’t produce anything. No Tooltip on hover.
2. Pop Up Blocker – I got to this by a single click (left or right).
3. Manage Add-Ons – I got to this by a double click.
4. No fucking clue. See the first item.
5. “This type of document does not have a security certificate” – that one took a double click too.
6. Automatic Phishing Filter – this was a menu brought up by a single left click or right click.

In the spirit of Anil Dash’s Unsolicited Testimonials, I present my Mint.com Unsolicited testimonial.

The thing with unsolicited testimonials is that nobody asked me to write about Mint. I’m just a passionate user of their service. I’ve been using Mint since November.

FACT: I am more in control of my finances with Mint.com

Mobile Alerts – my favorite

click for full size

Mint sends me a weekly text message and e-mail with my balances. They also notify me of low balances, or when a paycheck has been deposited. This keeps me much more informed of potential screw ups on my part like overdrafts / bad returned checks.

Mint Saves Me Time

click for full size

Before using Mint, I kept an excel spreadsheet with most of my recurring expenses like rent/cellphone/electricity/etc. just to give me some kind of idea of what was going on – I didn’t invest the effort into getting down to the nitty gritty on things like gas, groceries, restaurants, gifts, or entertainment. Now my transactions are entered in automatically, and most of the time categorized correctly.

What Mint Isn’t

• Mint didn’t get me a raise
• Mint isn’t perfect – it’s still a young product
• Mint can’t move money
• Mint does not handle trips to Walmart well. It’s difficult to put spending at Walmart into one category.

On Security

Mint has some reading material concerning security. I’ve checked a lot of it out. Yodlee, the company that Mint partners with is audited by several federal offices. It’s safe. Mint has an aggressive privacy/security policy that is also worth reading.

There’s a lot of talk about shared hosting and Rails being a ghetto.

Links:

• Rails is a Ghetto
• Shared Hosting is a Ghetto
• Shared Hosting is not a Ghetto
• How Ruby on Rails Could Be Much Better

So if shared hosting is a ghetto, does the recent major dreamhost screwup equate to a car jacking?

In the spirit of being a huge dork… I measured the ROI of moving back to Murray. Excluding Gas costs, which have yet to be calculated… the result:

$688/month gained in income/savings.

Back up your data.

Two drives failing in a RAID 5 array can happen. You’re not invincible.

Test your backups.

This post brought to you by me working until 2AM and mild frustration – but an interesting learning experience overall.

It’s healthy to take a look back at things – to gain some perspective on where life was and where it’s going. So around the end of every year I do a yearly review post. The previous years:

• 2003
• 2004
• 2005
• 2006

2007 was a reality check. A lot of it was due to a car accident that I was involved in during September. It wasn’t a very eventful year compared to 2006, but I definitely feel that life is heading in the right direction. 2007 has definitely been transitional – the first full year being out in the Real World.

• A year ago I got two days off for Christmas at my job working for the City of Owensboro, KY. This year, with Murray State University, I’m off for a week and a half.
• A year ago I had never even seen a car accident. Now I’ve been in two and seen one more to top those.
• A year ago I didn’t really budget or invest. For the last month or so I’ve been rocking Mint.com pretty hard. I’ll post on that sometime soon.
• A year ago I was hungover. I stayed up until about 5AM driving friends around that like to party as their designated driver this year.
• A year ago I had never used subversion or Python. BibleShark changed that.
• A year ago I felt a lot more reflective doing these posts. Maybe it’s because that year was so crazy.
• A year ago I made websites for a living. I’m glad to say that’s no longer the case. Eff you IE6.
• A year ago I had to be back in Owensboro after coming to Murray to celebrate the new year. No more two hour drive. =)
• A year ago I had never read The Dark Tower. Now I’m obsessing over the series and starting Book VII.
• A year ago I used a desktop computer at home. Now I primarily use a work laptop VNC’d into my Desktop.
• A year ago I was paying WAY too much for car insurance. Now I’m using progressive, not insured for driving in KC, and saving a ton of money.
• A year ago I had a DVR. There are times I still want it… but I definitely do not need the extra bill.