Grailbox Blog

OnStar and Usability

Originally posted 2004-08-23 10:34:33 Here in the US, OnStar is running a radio ad trumpeting the power of their flagship service. This system allows motorists to press a button inside their vehicles while they...

Apple Mistake: Turning off Wi-Fi

Originally posted 2010-07-06 08:06:58 Everytime my 16 year-old son sees the screen of my iPhone 3GS, he mocks me as if I were carrying a dog turd. He claims that the jagged pixelation tears...

LessConf 3010 Day Two

Originally posted 2010-05-23 20:35:21 The folks at Storenvy cooked us breakfast: pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, and bacon pancakes. Lots of buzz about the bacon pancakes. My love for Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddles drew...

LessConf 3010 Day One

Originally posted 2010-05-22 08:39:08 I first met Steve Bristol in 2007 at the inaugural RubyJax meeting. I walked into the meeting expecting a typical tech gathering of strangers: people sitting as far away from...

Big To-Do in the Land of To Do

Originally posted 2010-05-16 07:41:50 I love software updates, and both my iPhone and my iPad offer me plenty. I’ve downloaded enough apps, both free and purchased, that I can count on available updates a...

No Fluff Just Stuff Tampa — Day Three

Originally posted 2010-04-19 15:44:08 I started the day plopping down for breakfast at the same table with Nate Schutta and chatting him up about various technology questions and issues. I then went to his...

No Fluff Just Stuff Tampa — Day Two

Originally posted 2010-04-18 06:41:23 As Moore’s Law gets repealed and multicore processors demand that we actually learn to write good, safe, non-buggy multi-threaded code (Note: if the business people where you work understand the...

No Fluff Just Stuff Tampa — Day One

Originally posted 2010-04-16 20:57:05 No Fluff Just Stuff began in Tampa today. This is my second NFJS conference — my first was in 2008. Five of us from work drove down from Jacksonville, all...

The Best Code I Ever Wrote

Originally posted 2010-04-09 16:37:48 On Christmas 1981, our parents gave my brother and me our first computer: an Atari 400. I was in 7th grade and my brother was in 8th. My parents really...