Coding Horror

I've been traveling a bit more lately, which reminded me to update my list of recommended laptop travel accessories.

Although I was happy with the Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse, the snap-in power off switch never worked very well for me. As a result, it got switched on a few times in my laptop bag, leaving me with a dead mouse when I needed it. So I needed a new notebook mouse. I switched to the Logitech V500:

It's got a neat pop-up panel on the bottom which serves three functions:

1. it's a power switch
2. it provides a larger, angled profile for comfort
3. it serves as a secure storage compartment for the wireless USB receiver

The solid-state scrolling surface (instead of a wheel) takes a little getting used to, but it works well, and there's a satisfying audible click that plays as you "scroll." It takes up less space than any of the Microsoft notebook mice, too.

If you've ever been trapped at a crowded airport with all the power outlets occupied by opportunistic travellers, you'll wish you had brought a mini power strip with you. The Monster Cable Outlets to Go mini power strip looks like it will fit the bill nicely:

Too bad it's not available yet. If you can't wait, most hardware stores carry the good old three-port power outlet expander:

I also occasionally need to network multiple PCs on the road. Given the prices of today's routers, there's absolutely no reason to carry something that's merely a switch or hub. Consider the Linksys WRT54GC compact wireless router, which I picked up on eBay for under $40 shipped:

The newer Wireless-G Travel Router is even smaller, and it plugs directly into the wall, obviating the need for any external power brick.

However, it only has one client ethernet port, so it's not suitable as a wired switch. That's kind of a bummer.

I still recommend (and use) my external USB wireless antenna, and a retractable cable kit. Oh yeah, and the portable laptop stand can be a lifesaver, too.

What are your essential laptop travel kit items?

Brendan Kidwell noted something interesting about the comments on Trackpoint versus Touchpad:

You know, I just realized that there is a lot of LOVE and HATE going on, and it doesn't seem to be very unified.

Software development is basically a religion. It's not surprising that software developers are predisposed to these kinds of religious arguments. Pick your poison:

• Linux vs. Windows
• Mac vs. PC
• C# vs. VB.Net
• Ruby vs. Python
• Static typing vs. Dynamic typing
• Spaces vs. Tabs

I am reminded of Robert Mitchum's character in the movie The Night of the Hunter, a preacher with the words "love" and "hate" tattooed on his left and right hands:

Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love.

Heavily partisan discussion-- lovers on one side, haters on another-- isn't conducive to civilized discourse. Jon Stewart's now-legendary appearance on Crossfire was a textbook indictment of this style of debate. It's not debate at all; it's pure theater. Entertainment. Professional wrestling, if you will.

This is a common problem with online reviews at Amazon and other sites. The people most strongly motivated to post reviews are those who either:

1. had such a good experience with the product that they can't stop talking about how great it is.
2. had such a bad experience with the product that they dedicate the next few days of their life to warning everyone they can away from it.

Either way, you're getting a distorted opinion based on the select few who had a strong enough negative or positive reaction to spur them into action. It may be fun to read, in a partisan sort of way, but it's difficult to distill the vitriol into something you can base a reasonable opinion on. What about the vast, silent audience who liked it despite its flaws?

That said, a certain amount of controversy is desirable. If nobody cares enough about what you're doing to tell you that they loved it or that they hated it, it's probably not interesting enough to be good, either. As Kathy Sierra points out, you should strive for a little controversy:

If you're out there creating something on the edge, someone's going to hate it. Probably a lot of someones. One thing we noticed from our Amazon reviews was that we get mainly five-stars and one-stars, but not much in the middle. They either love it a lot or they hate it with a passion. Whenever I start to feel bad about a scathing review, I remind myself that Don Norman said, "If someone doesn't really hate your product, it's mediocre." And mediocre is where you SO do not want to go.

Ever since we started this crazy scheme (18 months ago with the release of the the first book in the series), we've been thinking that the extremeness of our reviews was a good thing, and now someone's confirmed it. A NYTimes article looks at a professor who analyzed Amazon book rankings for, among other things, a book's "controversiality index". From the article:

"But the most telling variable is the one star rating. Professor Gronas found that books high on what he called the "controversiality index" are given almost as many one-star as five-star ratings, creating a horseshoe-shaped curve. As it turns out, these books also tend to have high sales."

The last reaction you want to anything you've done is a resounding "Meh." Go out of your way to create something that will inspire people to love it. Unfortunately, that means a few people will probably hate it, too. The love/hate dichotomy has value. But it's also important to maintain perspective. It's all too easy to fall into the trap of framing your discussions in that old timey religious love/hate dynamic.

Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools list just selected a book from my recommended reading list. And it's one of my favorites, too. It's that perennial evergreen of project management, Peopleware:

Hard-won wisdom fills this small book: How to create a team, place, or company that is productive. First published 20 years ago, and updated once since then, copies of it have quietly served as a guru for many start ups and successful projects in Silicon Valley. Neither academic nor faddish, two veteran consultant authors offer real intelligence. This book has totally informed how I do projects. I learned about the myth of overtime, the need for closure and ceremonies, how teams jell, and why everyone should and can have a window. I first read it decades ago and re-read it every time I embark on anything involving more than one person and several years of my life. Unlike a lot of management lore, it is aim at the project level (where I want to be) rather than the large organization. The message in the book touts productivity, without ever mentioning the dreary idea of time management. It's more about optimizing people, and thus the title, Peopleware.

As if I needed another reason to love Cool Tools. If you don't have a copy of Peopleware yet, what are you waiting for?

When it comes to pointing devices on laptops, there are two schools of thought. There's the touchpad..

.. and there's the trackpoint, which was popularized by IBM thinkpads:

I recently switched to a work-provided Thinkpad T40 as my primary laptop, and it has both trackpoint and touchpad-- great for an apples-to-apples comparison.

I'm a touchpad man, myself. This entire post, including the image editing, was performed with the touchpad. At no point was I frustrated or rate-limited by the touchpad. I've had such good results with touchpads lately that I find myself forgetting to use the external USB mouse I regularly carry in my laptop bag. There is no stronger praise for any alternative input device.

The touchpad wins, for me, because it's such a simple input method -- yet it supports some complex, subtle nuances that are surprisingly intuitive:

1. click, double-click, and right-click by tapping the pad. In case you were wondering, on the Mac, a right click is a two-finger tap.
2. scroll horizontally or vertically by dragging your finger along the edges of the pad.
3. press harder to drag items further.
4. slide faster to move faster.

A lot of the touchpad's functionality is dependent on the software drivers. And Synaptics has done an incredible job, year after year, of harnessing the touchpad functionality in useful, usable ways. The first thing I do when I get a new laptop is make sure I have the latest Synaptics drivers. In fact, the Synaptics drivers are the only OEM input drivers I ever install.

I noticed that the trackpoint has improved over the years as well. For one thing, I can now press the trackpoint to click. But scrolling is out of the question, of course. And the trackpoint's motion is a lot smoother compared to the old models I remember, which makes it less fiddly. On the new T60's at work, it's so smooth it almost feels like a slider. Still, it speaks volumes that even IBM/Lenovo offers both input methods by default on their laptops. If the trackpoint is such a great input device, why would anyone need a trackpad? But choice is good, I suppose. And the trackpoint is a clear winner if space is at a premium.

If you're looking for an empirical way to prove the superiority of one input method over the other, good luck. This Fitt's law backgrounder, and the related Java test applet, will at least give you some actual data points to support your position.

Before we get too worked up on this topic, I suspect the most common pointing device for most laptop users is an external USB mouse. Which renders the whole touchpad vs. trackpoint debate moot.

Still, the fact that I can use any kind of alternative input device and not feel compelled to immediately plug in an external mouse is pretty amazing to me.

One of the key ingredients for Web 2.0 success is pervasive high speed internet access. The latest Pew internet report, which tracks broadband growth, was just released:

At the end of March 2006, 42% of Americans had high-speed at home, up from 30% in March 2005, or a 40% increase. And 48 million Americans -- mostly those with high-speed at home -- have posted content to the internet.

In total, 84 million Americans now have high speed internet connections at home.

At the height of the last dot-com bubble in mid-2000, less than five percent of Americans had access to a high speed internet connection at home. But by the end of 2006, that figure will reach nearly fifty percent.

It's hard to imagine what investors and analysts were thinking back in 2000 with those wildly optimistic dot-com growth curves, because using the internet with a modem truly sucks. It's painful. When 95 percent of users are stuck with a crappy dial-up experience, it's unrealistic to expect widespread adoption of services offered via the internet.

I recently sold my 1997-vintage US Robotics Courier analog modems on eBay, after hanging on to them for years "just in case". I haven't used a dialup connection in at least five years.

As good as the 2006 numbers are, according to Lawrence Lessig, the United States still lags the world in broadband adoption-- at least through 2004:

With broadband adoption at an all-time high in the United States, can we finally assume that all users will have high-speed internet connections-- and by association, an enjoyable, responsive, non-painful way to use the internet? Or do web developers still need to accommodate dial-up users?