I noticed the other day that the default share icon for a Mac connecting to a networked PC looks a little like the good ole Blue Screen of Death. Accident? This is a screenshot of the Get Info box for the shared server.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Technology

I noticed a new feature from Evite recently. The image below shows the new feature allowing a user to specify a personalized URL for the invitation. They really missed the boat here. A unique URL is meant to make things easy or recognizable to your invited guests (e.g., evite.com/andys30thbday). This still has a 20! character string of gobbledygook preceding whatever nice text you put in, so what exactly is the point? I think URL’s would only end up being longer this way, leading to broken links in emails when copied. Geesh.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Social Media, Technology, Web

When Apple first launched its .Mac service in 2002, I signed up for a free trial with username “aswindler.” As one of the first to try out a lot of services and Web sites online, I typically get my moniker of choice, as in this case. I never really used the account as .Mac was always about one feature short of being greatly useful to me.

Fast-forward to 2008, when I feel like I could actually get some benefit out of the switch to MobileMe. My friend who works at an Apple store informed me that if I buy the .Mac service before the switch, I could have both a mac.com and me.com email address. One can never have too many email addresses, right?

So when I went home to sign up for it, the Web site told me that aswindler was already taken. I was bummed but just used andyswindler, which is my typical alternate. Then I got to thinking that perhaps they actually stored my old account, even though I never used it. After a chat with an Apple rep, I discovered that this was certainly the case. Apple had saved my account after all these years and I was able to consolidate them into one.

Moral of the story, sign up early if you want your user name to be consistent? Why does it matter? It’s easier to remember your login and it will be easier for social media services in the future to tie together all your contributions.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Technology, Web

So we’ve had zooming for awhile, but it’s always required some funky key combination. This may have been in the system for awhile, but I just discovered it and thought it was useful enough to share.

Try this: Hold control and move the scroll wheel on your mouse. A nice, easy way to see hard-to-read stuff.

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Andy Swindler Categories: General, Technology

Nothing profound, just hilarious.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Fun