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Google Voice Turns 1 But Still Needs Fixing

http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-voice-turns-1.html

We wanted to thank you for letting us know what you think, and we hope you like the improvements we’ve made since then.

Many users have voiced their complaint about certain missing call screening features. In particular, I’m referring to the following:

  1. Once a call screening name has been recorded, there is no way to delete it or force it to be re-recorded. So if you friend calls you and hears the prompt to record his name and he says “What the F***?” as his name, that is what you will hear every time that person calls you. This is especially not good if you have little ones that might answer the phone.
  2. The proposed solution to that problem is not a solution at all. Add that person to your contacts and their name will be “read” instead. This is much more of a hack than a fix, and from what I’ve read it doesn’t even always work.
  3. Suppose the person is calling via a business that has a phone system that gives every outbound call the same caller id? For example, say my boss calls me from work and records his name. Now any time anyone calls me from that company, I will hear my bosses name even though it could be any number of people calling me.

It seems like a terrible oversight that users can not manage the recordings. Also, it should be configurable to force a recording every time for certain numbers (which would solve the 3rd problem listed above).

In my opinion, Google Voice still has a long way to go, and it’s disappointing that it has been live for a year with not even a word of fixing these issues.

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Tasha Bit Me, and That Really Hurts

As I learned last night, it is never a good idea to try hand feeding a pill to a dog when that dog is still chewing on food.

As I stuck my left hand in her mouth (to hold it open while I popped the pill in with my right hand), I had my thumb too far back near the molars. As she continued chewing her food, she punctured right through the middle of my thumb’s fingernail with one of her pointy premolars. Blood instantly started flowing out of the hole, and the pain was intense. I washed it with antibacterial soap, and ran it under cold water for several minutes. Eventually the blood stopped flowing and I could see the small, purplish splotch in the center of my nail surrounding the crack. I put some antibiotic ointment on the wound and wrapped a bandaid around it.

A small amount of blood continues to make its way out of the hole in my nail today. I’m not sure yet whether that nail is going to fall off or not. A dull, throbbing pain continues, but it’s bearable. My impatience cost me, but I’ve learned my lesson. It was my fault, but I won’t make that mistake again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE4FJL2IDEs

Posted in General.

Internet Explorer 6: You Had a Good Run… Now Please Die

A recent look at some analytics showed that 66.82% of visitors to the NH Academie of Dance website were using Internet Explorer (IE). Of those users, 26.04% were using IE 6, which was 17.4% of the total visits. You people still using IE 6 (and you know who you are), it’s time to upgrade! Several Web Applications are dropping support for IE 6, and I’d like nothing better than drop support for it as well. So please… I’m begging you… help us put IE 6 to rest, and upgrade to a better browsing experience.

Posted in General, Web Development.

Comparing JavaScript Frameworks

While reading the YUI 3 forum, I came upon some links which perform some tests using multiple libraries. I found them very useful and will probably use them as a reference from time to time:
http://yuilibrary.com/~msweeney/yui-tests/taskspeed/
http://yuilibrary.com/~msweeney/yui-tests/slickspeed/

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