January 2006 Archives

Google can try to whitewash its decision to offer a censored version of Google to the Chinese, but it's not going to fly. It's just too naked of a capitulation. Comparing the results for a search on Tiananmen on Google and Google China puts the matter in stark relief (via Diana Hsieh).

The other search engines are yielding to the Chinese to get some of those billions of ad clicks that would result, but so what? If Google is truly about delivering information to the world, how does helping the Chinese government to retain power and pretend it's a legitimate, democratic regime further that mission? It's possible to take a principled stand for something and still make money. The other thing you get from such an action is respect.

In Google's case, everyone was waiting for them to misstep on the "don't be evil" pledge. Perhaps they thought they'd get it over with and future evil would be met with jaded cynicism rather than righteous indignation. Whatever the reason, I think Google's really exercised poor judgement. I'll still use them but I won't be so vociferous in my admiration any longer.

I hate memes. There are so many out there that I have passed over, but since I'm in the new digs I may as well do the four things thing.

Four Jobs I've Had

• McDonald's Swing manager
• Desert Schools Federal Credit Union teller, loan officer, trainer, web developer
• Go Daddy web developer
• Sorry, no #4. That's my entire job history since 16.

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

• Singin' in the Rain: I'm a sucker for Gene Kelly, what can I say? His dancing is divine and expressive.
• That Thing You Do!: great movie about a one-hit wonder.
• Dumb and Dumber: time was I would have said Ace Ventura, but I've moved on.
• TIE: Greedy and So I Married an Axe Murderer: smart, hilarious diamonds in the rough. If you haven't seen these two, you should.

Four Places I've Lived

• Phoenix, AZ: birth to 10
• Scottsdale, AZ: 10 to 18
• Phoenix, AZ: 18 to 21
• Phoenix, AZ: 21 to present

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch

• Wonderfalls: love isn't nearly strong enough of a word.
• Seinfeld: it's kind of like a comfort food.
• Greg the Bunny: you've got to love a series that treats puppets as "fabricated Americans."
• TIE: Law and Order and Poirot: I called them a tie because I love a great detective story.

Four Places I've Been on Vacation

• San Francisco, CA
• San Diego, CA
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Los Angeles, CA

Four of My Favorite Dishes

• Chinese Noodle Casserole
• Shepherd's Pie
• Tortilla Dogs
• Cheese Crisp

Four Web Sites I Visit Daily

• Bloglines: 278 feeds
• Slashdot
• Netflix
• Mac Rumors

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now

• Nowhere.
• I'm really quite happy where I'm at.

We found out yesterday that we've added another developer to the Quick Blog. Additions like this always fill me with trepidation because they have great potential to change team dynamics and generally you have no idea how this new person will integrate with the team. And when you bring in an unknown from the outside, you never really know if your interview impressions are an accurate assessment of the person. It doesn't help that I've been once bitten.

Luckily, we added a developer from within Go Daddy. From my understanding, he's been here awhile and came over when Go Daddy acquired his company, InnerPrise, which incidentally I think is a spectacular name for a search engine product. He's been working on an extended WHOIS system that's been shuffled off to our Iowa offices, so he's looking for a new start. I met him briefly today and he seemed like a nice enough guy.

The coolest part of his addition is that he's going to help us get the InnerPrise IP integrated with the blog. So our whole search functionality might be halfway decent instead of the cobbling together I did to get it done for 1.0. Long before he joined the team, I had dreamt of doing just such a thing with his product so this is quite fortuitous.

[UPDATE (3/1/2006): He's got his own Quick Blog called, appropriately enough, Greg's Blog.]

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

Google's response to the Justice Department's request for search data is exactly what a company that pledges to do no evil would do. I hope this convinces the naysayers that Google really means what it says. Yahoo, AOL, and MSN all folded like origami, agreeing to cooperate without so much as a peep.

This behavior is unsurprising from the Bush Administration, which has been on a tear lately to protect the American people from themselves—especially American children. And, of course, the response from the Democrats in Congress—those who cherish our privacy so—is to force search engines to permanently destroy the data on a regular basis. Sadly, Google's defense is that the subpoena is "overreaching"—not exactly a spirited or principled one.

[UPDATE (1/25/2006): Oh, forget it.]

The newest version of Quick Blog is out. We deployed it yesterday afternoon and it's got loads of new features including unlimited blogs and multiple authors. It's version 1.1 (though we forgot to increment the version within the app itself, d'oh!) and I couldn't be prouder of it.

You may have noticed a particularly ugly exception message on my blog yesterday. Unfortunately, something went wrong in deployment and so everyone's blog was displaying that lovely message. Even more unfortunately, that "something" that went wrong was my fault. I thought I would have more time to fix some bad data that had gotten into the statistics, but I didn't. And so I worked furiously for two hours to make it right.

If you were affected by it, I sincerely apologize. It won't happen again because I'm going to make an extra effort to think through the possibilities in the future. I wasn't careless; I just didn't see something that was foreseeable. I'm told that I will be lashed at the next company picnic along with any other Go Daddy-o's that caused outages. I'm pretty sure my boss was kidding.

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

It's not often that I find a movie that is irredeemable. Normally, I can eke out some pleasure or positive out of just about any movie. Strangely, I've encountered two utterly worthless movies in one week: Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I'll spare you a review of the former—mostly because writing a review of one boring movie is enough.

I was truly looking forward to watching this movie because everyone that's told me about it has been positively effusive in describing its hilarity. And I loves the funny. I watched the movie to the end, hoping minute by minute that I would at last encounter something beyond raunchy, over-the-top drivel and being disappointed each time. I don't mind raunchy and over-the-top so long as it's not drivel. The 40-Year-Old Virgin, however, was not well-executed, completely unsubtle, and rarely clever.

The story—and it's really a one-trick pony—is about a guy named Andy who has not had sex at the ripe old age of 40. Some of his co-workers take it upon themselves to end his dry patch. Hilarity ensues. Or, rather, hilarity was supposed to ensue.

At every opportunity, the movie took the vulgar route—the road sadly more travelled. It could have been a touching and funny look at the kind of guy that lives his whole life wanting but never knowing the touch of a woman. Instead, it revels in all the nerd and awkward geek stereotypes it can think of.

I hated this movie.

Johanna Rothman has an intriguing idea for a screening question: ask for a paragraph detailing the candidate's most significant accomplishment in the cover letter.

In my experience, this would have immediately eliminated nearly every bad candidate I ever interviewed . Instead, we had to ask the question in the interview and find out how unqualified the applicant was. It was painful to find out how little people had accomplished to generate the barely-adequate resume they supplied. It also would have established some excitement around a candidate who answered the question well and led to follow-up questions at the actual interview.

• Scottsdale, AZ *
• Mesa, AZ *
• Apache Junction, AZ *
• Surprise, AZ *
• Tempe, AZ *
• Queen Creek, AZ *
• Peoria, AZ *
• Glendale, AZ *

The cities with an asterisk are ones that I visited multiple times on non-consecutive occasions.

New blogger Guy Kawasaki doesn't fail to deliver. His entry deriding mission statements in favor of mantras is spot on. Here at Go Daddy, I've seen neither officially stated anywhere. I'm sure we have a mission statement somewhere because otherwise we wouldn't be a real corporation, but I think a corporate mantra is really a Guy invention.

Without further ado, here's my quick brainstorm of mantras for Go Daddy (if you can think of any better, leave a comment):

• Wal-Mart of software (this is a co-worker's)
• Good software cheap
• We roll our own
• Value-packed domains
• One-stop Web shop

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

My iBook G4—affectionately called Whitey—gave up the ghost last week and refused to boot. I hooked it up to another computer and put it in target mode to move over as much of my data as I could. A quick jaunt through Disk First Aid revealed that there were some disk errors and it was able to repair one or two of them. I took it in to Re-Mac, the local authorized Apple reseller, for a little TLC and diagnostic.

Today they called my wife and told her that they could swap out the hard drive for the low, low price of $300. Hmm, probably worth it, I thought. I called the guy back and he had discovered, in the intervening time, that the logic board was malfunctioning. He put in a brand new hard drive and it still wouldn't boot. Luckily, Apple has a flat-rate service where you pay $485 and they'll swap out any bad parts for brand new ones.

Now anyone that knows me knows that I spurn the notion of fate. At most, fate is a set of random coincidences in which the mind discerns a pattern that doesn't exist causally. Well, seeing as how the annual Macworld keynote is tomorrow and the iBook is expected to be refreshed, I'd say that this series of events is quite a fortunate set of randomness. Here's hoping.

[UPDATE: Darn. Darn. Darn.]

Scott Berkun, he of inestimable software project management wisdom, offered up an idea that I think is absolutely wonderful: personal holidays. As of the time of this writing, he hasn't listed all of the ones he came up with but they were along the lines of "funny hat day" and "do something you've never done" day. Such things would certainly break up the monotony that ordinarily pervades adult life.

I'm going to have to think about possible holidays a bit more, but I think it would work even better for family (or couple) holidays where a whole family could participate. I'll update this entry with my brainstormed ideas once I do it.

[UPDATE (1/18/2006): January 18th will forever be January Fools Day. Thanks, Chris!]

I love Dilbert and I always have. I am continually amazed at how well Scott Adams depicts office culture despite being so long removed from it. Perhaps his experiences at Pacific Bell were timeless or jam-packed, but it seems like he would start missing marks after 16 years of doing the strip.

I discovered his personal blog, Dilbert Blog, soon after he started writing it and I regard it as the funniest reading available on the Web. His observations are astute and astounding. Just today, for example, I read his entry on "The Future of Shirts" and came across this thought:

I can no longer count on other people to alert me to the fact I’m wearing a backward shirt. Not since I became invisible. And by invisible, I mean I’m an adult male over the age of 35. Beyond that age, no one has any reason to look at you. People are neither aroused nor curious about my existence. I’m pretty much just taking up space.

These are a few of my favorite entries:

• Mysteries of the Universe: wherein he ponders why female real estate agents have such big hair
• Adopting: wherein he considers adopting an embryo and naming it Amy
• You Look Fabulous: wherein he relates the secret of fashion
• Intelligence is Overrated: wherein he offers an alternate view of God
• It's the Thought That Counts: wherein he analyzes gift giving
• How to Dance: wherein he relates the secret of dancing
• Humor Formula: wherein he divulges the secret to his success
• Best and Worst Jobs: wherein he waxes eloquently about being the third-highest ranking member in Al Qaeda
• Thieves Everywhere: wherein he just cracks wise
• Bluffing Literacy: wherein he devises strategies for staying illiterate
• Peeping in My Window: wherein he reveals the degradation of his modesty
• Mongolia: wherein he ruminates on a presidential visit to Mongolia
• Getting Away with Murder: wherein he opines on an escaped murderer
• I Love Technology: wherein he complains about travelling
• Bad Thoughts: wherein he concocts the perfect crime