I was making some updates to one of the other websites I help out with over the weekend and wanted to set have an RSS Feed icon in the address bar when users land on the page. That way the user can click on it and add a live bookmark to their toolbar (for example, in FireFox). I didn’t know how to go about doing this. Now I do. Here’s how.

First, you need an RSS/XML feed. That’s a whole other topic. If you want to learn how to easily display an RSS feed on your website, I’d suggest checking out this article.

So once you have a feed (or have the URL of the feed you want to point to) then its just a matter of adding some simple HTML to your web page that will cause the browser to display the RSS icon in the address bar. Simply add the following inside your tag:

That’s it. Pretty easy, eh? Wanna see it in action? Check out www.netcot.com/core/inside.html for a demo.

(This trick doesn’t do jack in IE.)

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I think I stumbled upon the best widget ever. If you have a Mac and you’re going to Disney (-world, -land, -landparis, -landtokoyo, -Hong Kong…) then you need this: Disney Trip Countdown (Mac OSX Widget)

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One of the biggest disagreements my wife and I have is over what to do with the security tags that seem (or seam) to be working their way into the clothing we buy. The debate: cut them off and set them free, or keep them on and keep them close.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out just about anything from Old Navy, Gap, Ann Taylor and many other retailers that use these things. They’re little tags (usually a very flat square or a long rectangle) that are actually stitched into the fabric. They’re used either for security and/or inventory purposes.

You might even be wearing something with them on it right now! (Note: if you’re in a public place, you might not want to check until you get home … your call)

Personally, I choose to cut them off. They’re not part of the designer’s intent for the clothing. They affect the balance of the clothes. They’re less aerodynamic. But mostly, they poke you! And because they’re usually in the lower-left seam (under your arm, straight down to the bottom of the shirt), they’re in a perfect spot to really be anoying.

My wife, on the other hand, feels that they should stay. They are part of the overall outfit that she purchased and it should stay intact. So she just “deals” with them. Besides, over time (read: several washings) they either get softer, change shape and become more anoying, or break through the fabric (in some cases) and then you have a little piece of plastic stabbing you as if to say “Hey, remember me? That’s right, when you bought me, I was the thing keeping someone from stealing this fancy shirt to which I am affixed. … You’re welcome.”

As you can imagine, its caused quite the debate. And any time my wife and I have a “debate” I always do the same things:
1. Use “I feel” statements
2. Ask an objective 3rd party
3. Give up. Possibly blog about it.

Step 1:
“Honey, I FEEL like I’m being stabbed by a Keebler Elf each time I wear this shirt if I don’t take off the tag … and I FEEL that we should make it a practice to remove these things prior to their first use.”

Step 2:
I consulted with two friends (one dude, one chicka). After looking at me like I was crazy (I’ve gotten used to that) I got a reaction like I was bringing something to their attention that just didn’t register on the “things in my life that are important” scale for them. (Sidebar: a few days later, I got an email from one of them saying that the irony was that she was wearing something that still had the tag on it while we were talking about it and didn’t know.)

Step 3:
Done.

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If
you’re like me, you find yourself wondering how in the world some
people “deal” with the rediculous amount of documents that exist in
their in-box!

I like to keep my in-box nice-n-clean. I think everyone else should
too, but I don’t have a good reason why. Until now! And the
justification I was looking for came in the form of everyone’s favorite
term: performance improvement!

I came across this article from IBM: Best practices for large Lotus Notes mail files (IBM.com, 10.11.2005) which is really written to give Administrators some idea of how to better control the cost of hardware that results from ever-growing mail files demanding more disk and processor resources.

There was one part of this (very long) article that screamed out to me. Check out Fig. 5 (below) which shows the response time end users experience based on the number of documents in their in-box. The results of the report stated:
“Keeping the Inbox at 1000 or fewer documents resulted in dramatically faster response times to end users…”

And there we have it! Proof that users should keep their in-box clean. “Who has 1000+ in-boxes,” you say? You’d be surprised!

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If you have a TiVo (or any other PVR/DVR) you’ve probably already gone through what I like to call “4 Stages of TiVo-Life integration.” Let me explain…


4 Stages of TiVo-Life Integration


Stage 1: Pause/Rewind/Fast-forward EVERYTHING!
In this stage, the patient finds themselves so addicted to the pause, rewind and fast-forward (including skip/jump/replay functionality) that they want those features to be available everywhere.

Common signs of this stage include patients using sounds like “da-doop, da-doop, da-doop” around you in a progressively higher pitched way to denote that they want you to go faster with the story you are telling them, or in a progressively lower pitched tone to go back.

Patients in this stage reporting wanting this functionality on the radio, phone conversations, meetings and any other type of verbal communication. A desire to have Pause/RW/FF functionality on their spouse is highly common.


Stage 2: Don’t know / Don’t care what time (and sometimes date/day) stuff is on
The following conversation is common to persons who suffer from Stage 2 TiVo-life integration.

Person A: “… that sounds like a great show, what time is it on?”
Stage 2′er: “I don’t have a clue. It just appears on my TiVo … like … Wednesday-ish? Maybe?”

Patients in this stage begin to show signs of decreased awareness of scheduled events, such as meetings or dinner. They wonder why they have to do things in an order someone else chose, and why the must occur at a specific time.

Stage 2 patients are frequently found without calendars and occasionally without watches. They are often late for any scheduled event but don’t realize it.


Stage 3: How did I live w/o this?!
Stage 3 of TiVo-life integration comes on rapidly and without any warning. Patients in this stage report feelings of enlightenment, reflection and overall pensiveness that is brought about by the realization that at one point in their life, they did not have a TiVo.

This realization causes the patient to have frequent impulses to express to others their feelings of wonderment about having TiVo in their lives. Often, persons around the patient feel peer pressure, a sense of feeling inadequate and having tech-envy.

In some studies, this stage was so strong that it caused the patient to volunteer time with the elderly as an opportunity to swap out the VCR they just learned how to program for a TiVo which confuses and frightens most older people.

Stage 3 is often a brief stage and considered an early warning sign of Stage 4.


Stage 4: Addiction
In this stage, the patient turns to excessive TiVo behavior. Signs include:

• Recording shows they have no intention to watch.
• Turning off recommendations to free up disk space (presumably for the items above).
• Acquiring additional TiVo units.
• Using the term “TiVo” to refer to all DVR’s… even though most aren’t TiVo.
• Wanting to take TiVo content with them… everywhere.
• A “need” to brag to friends about how many tuners they have in their home.

Learning hacks and mods to TiVo (such as 30-second skip) simply to have additional TiVo functionality which produces the same “high” they felt when they first started using TiVo.

In some extreme cases, Stage 4 produced a compulsive behavior resulting in the patient having a desire to build their own TiVo-like unit from scratch using computer components. In nearly all cases, the patient was not able to complete their “do-it-yourself” project or quickly went back to their original DVR.



If you, or someone you love, exhibits signs of TiVo-Life integration, you should seek the help of a trained physician immediately… or buy one yourself and at least go through it with them.

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