it's the little things

sometimes, working with technology, it's possible to get sorta numb to new innovations and new features and new bells and whistles. one thing that I saw years ago, however, sticks with me as a great little idea.

ibm's thinkpad laptops have a little light built into the top of the screen's frame that shines down onto the keyboard. you turn it on via one of the "Fn" keys, and it isn't very bright - but bright enough to perfectly see what you're typing on, even in a pitch dark room.

I dig crap like that.

people are strange

the people I work with and help on a daily basis are smart people. they create killer advertising for huge clients, manage those clients, and just generally kick ass.

which is why it shocks me to find that some of them have a tough time running a DVD player. it's not that they can't do it - they can - it's that they either:

1. don't want to take a minute to figure out the controls, or...
2. they would just rather call someone and have it done for them

i'm perfectly happy to help people who genuinely don't know how to use technology, and I like to think i'm good at teaching without being condescending. but damn if those calls don't drive me crazy.

tech support

as another part of my job, I answer a tech support help phone line. i've done this before in previous jobs, and i've become very good at listening to people vent anger about their problems. so I know what it's like to be on both ends.

that said, i've had nothing but f'ing tech support hell from a company that i'll call hextel, to protect the guilty. what makes it even worse is that everyone i've talked to there is quite friendly and they seem to try to be helpful, but are of such little use as to be incredibly frustrating. half the time when I call and my question merits a bump up to the next tier of tech support, my call is dropped. I have to call back and start over from scratch with another very friendly but hapless tool.

frustrating.

widgets.

oooooo... finally got osx tiger installed on my work 'box, and found a widget called "dashblog" that lets me post to the blog right outta the dashboard. kickass.

it's the little things in life that make me happy.

i'm such a sap

so I work with tv commercials as part of my job on a regular basis. most of them are pretty innocuous, a few of them kinda suck, and every so often, I see one that's just kickass.

yesterday, we got a reel of clips that were done by tbwa chiat/day for the int'l olympic committee back in 1999, and one called "courage" actually brought a lil' tear to my eye. pretty damn cool. I wish I could post it, but i'd probably get in trouble.

not often that 45 seconds of video has that kind of effect on me.