Adding Understanding

Certainly software mashups are more prevalent but it seems like cool hardware mashups get less coverage than they should.

A not-for-profit organization I work for is soliciting used laptops for our program educating today's youth about citizenship, leadership and their responsibility to stand up for the rights they have as Americans. The idea brought up some concerns that we discussed. Many of these are discussed on TechSoup's Donated Computers for Nonprofits page.  In the article they recommend looking at their list of recycled hardware.

I need a solution for re-writing the from fields of inbound emails. There are a few correspondents in the various areas of life who insist on not putting their full names in their email clients. In the cases where I've talked to people this is often in the mistaken belief that it will help keep them from getting spam. In reality it makes spam filters much more suspicious of the email and ultimately only makes it harder on the ultimate recipients.

Apple Mail does a decent job when you're looking at the individual message. As long as the user's real name is in the address book it shows their real name even if they've supplied something else. But in the list views there's a bigger problem. It is not much fun to try and figure out which of the 3 Mikes sent an email in a list where it would have been much easier if they'd had the courtesy to include their full name. Along the way perhaps there will be more education about not looking like spam. And then again maybe I'll get mail more than the once-weekly trip to the spam filters.

Reading the RSS feeds tonight an item about wooden iPod cases jumped out at me. Just an hour earlier on the way home from dinner I found my mind wandering to the cool Signature Suit leather cases for Mac Book's and wondering how long it would take to come up with a similar product from a nice brown saddle leather. The Signature Suit cases look great, but I want one that looks like just an old, natural, leather book.