Matt's Blog

I think most geeks get a ton of email. I’ve been rather selective in what lists I join (and what mail I just auto-delete at the server level), so I only get perhaps a couple hundred emails a day now. For various ridiculous reasons, searching a mailbox is hard. Most of my mail clients will [...]

There are a lot of things in politics that I believe but don’t feel too strongly about. But one thing that makes absolutely no sense to me is trying to ban gay marriage. North Carolina has become the latest state to put forth a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. So first of all, the concept [...]

On Aeolus Conductor, we’re using Rails 3. Although I’ve been using Rails for years, some part of Rails 3—namely, Bundler—are still relatively new to me. The problem I ran into is that we have a :development, :test group defined, but it’s being installed in all environments. This is as described, but inconvenient when you’re trying [...]

Dear Microsoft, I’ll admit that, as a Mac user who develops software for Linux at an open-source shop, I’m not exactly predisposed to being your biggest fan. But I think you’re mostly okay. You’re like Scott Brown — I wouldn’t vote for you, but I’m surprisingly okay with you. There’s just one little thing… Outlook [...]

Some people can’t sleep because they’re excited or anxious about the next day. Other people can’t sleep because they’re sad or glad or guilty or proud, or because the birds outside are addicted to methamphetamines and never quit chirping. But here’s why I can’t sleep tonight: What do you think would be involved in getting [...]

As those of you who read my blog, follow me on Twitter, or are my friend on Facebook surely know, I’m feuding with Verizon FiOS. They randomly decided to start charging me more money, and have been impossible to get ahold of, and absolutely indifferent when I finally got someone on the phone. Really, I [...]

I jump between a Mac at home and Linux (GNOME) at work, but there are two features (unknown to far too many people!) on both platforms that I can’t live without: The ability to “zoom out” all my windows and display smaller versions of them so I can rapidly jump around. On the Mac, this [...]

I’ve been a loyal FiOS customer for about a year and a half. I pay $69.99 a month for a 25/15 Mbps pipe. Aside from one absolutely miserable experience trying to speak to someone in billing who was able to update the expiration date on my credit card (it took four people, one of whom [...]

Dear software developers: When your software “does the right thing” with intelligent defaults and a little cleverness to make my life easier, that’s awesome. Job well done! Smart software makes the world a better place. But there are some applications that let their smarts go to their head, and they become cocky. They force me [...]

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