Focus + Context

I’ve previously written about Trader Joe’s transparency in egg labeling terms (they have a poster with definitions right by the eggs), so I was pleased to find a post on BoingBoing about a New York times article which attempts to “unscramble” (their joke, I can’t claim that one) the various claims made on egg cartons. [...]

I find the notification dialog used by Firefox 3 to be rather unsettling.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with it; it’s just a rectangle that comes out from underneath my task bar to tell me something important, like how Firefox has found an update, or some document has finished downloading.
But the speed at which this thing comes [...]

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now, and I have yet to receive either a response from Poppy (name changed!) to my last email, or the gift certificates that he promised to send.  I sent this email a week or so ago, and still …. nothing.
Hi Poppy -
I look forward to receiving the gift [...]

Kudos to trader Joe’s for posting this up in the dairy section of their store  (photo taken at the Trader Joe’s on Ontario St. in Chicago):

I’ve written before about the need for access to information about environmental impact and sustainability at the point of purchase, and this is a great example of a company that [...]

I came across this pretty interesting set up in the building of my doctor’s office. Here’s a photo of the elevator doors in the lobby of the ninth floor:
 
Notice that there are no up and down buttons, which, in my experience, are always located halfway-up the door, about a foot or two to the side. [...]

I’ve had the chance to spend some time fiddling with the new Kinoma Play Mobile Media Browser, and I’m pretty blown away. This product delivers on the promise of being a mobile media powerhouse to the maximum extent that any device with a 2.5″ screen clunking along on a 2.5G network can deliver a “powerful” [...]

Can software make you laugh?
Yes! But for several different reasons. 
Sometimes I laugh at software because of how ridiculous it makes it to perform even the most trivial of tasks. There’s an HR portal we have at work, and I always say that if I sat down for a week, with a library stocked full of every HCI [...]

So I received a [very prompt!] message today from a regional manager at Cosi in response to my earlier request for clarification about bagel prices:
 
Re: About our menu
Dear Mr. Greenblatt,
I apologize for the confusion and inconsistency you are experiencing regarding the price or our square bagels or squagels.  I have researched the pricing and believe [...]

Do you enjoy making your friends feel badly about themselves by explaining to them in very complicated terms how, for example, their choice of tic-tac flavor can have severe environmental impacts on bird migration patterns? Also, do you like saving the earth? Then this is the site for you!
Treewala is a project by an organization [...]

I’m a pretty frequent customer of the Cosi in my building, and most mornings on the way in to work, I pick up a buttered bagel with coffee, and the price is consistently inconsistent. As I’m pretty sure bagel prices do not fluctuate with the price of a barrel of gas, I’m at a loss [...]