I came across a great tip regarding Outlook related to speed. I have found my Outlook 2003 gets slower and slower over time - to the point where it’s basically unusable. Slipstick has some pointers on what could be causing the problem.

And no, it can’t possibly be all of the plugins and utilities I’m using.

My left eye started twitching yesterday morning, and has continued almost unabated for about 30 hours. Of course I finally Googled “eye twitch”, and I was stunned to learn that eye twitches “usually stop within a week“. I was hoping for a matter of hours!

Update (April 8th): I originally posted this 9 days ago, and the twitch hasn’t gone away. I’m getting sort of used to it now though; like an old friend. I guess it’s time to ’see somebody’ about it. *sigh*

Update (April 23rd): Okay, now it’s really starting to get annoying. This eye twitch still hasn’t gone away! Before you ask, no, I haven’t gone to the doctor about it… I would feel so lame telling a doctor that my eye is twitching - that’s my problem. I’ll give it one more week.

I was so excited when Yahoo released their desktop search application based on X1’s technology. X1 has the best desktop search offering available, but they charge too much for it, in my opinion. I’ve been using Yahoo’s version of X1’s product for a while now (about 2 months), and although I love the interface, it has what is for me a fatal flaw. Occasionally when I attempt to search for something, the entire index for my email is completely missing.

Really it’s just a bug of some kind, and something that I would be willing to investigate and patch up. However, Yahoo’s support for their desktop search offering is pathetic. Granted, it’s a free offering, but there’s not even a way to see if a newer build is available. The discussion forum for it is probably the worst I’ve ever seen for any product; there’s no way to search the forum’s messages for answers to your issues. From Yahoo, that’s just atrocious.

Given that Yahoo obviously rushed into the desktop search realm with this release, but appears not to be serious about supporting it, I’ve decided to switch back to Copernic’s Desktop Search offering which I first wrote about here. The latest build is 1.5 which is still in beta, but so far it looks like a winner to me. I really like the control Copernic gives the user over how aggressive the engine should be about indexing, and what rules it should follow to ensure it stays out of your way when you’re actively using the computer.

Sorry Yahoo. Better luck next time. Marc invited me to try Yahoo 360; hopefully I’ll have something better to say there.

Raymond Chen has been at Microsoft for years and years. His blog - The Old New Thing - is definitely one of the best ones by a Microsoft employee. Raymond discusses many different topics, but in my opinion the most enlightening subject he discusses is Windows backwards-compatibility, and everything that encompasses. So many times, some weird behaviour in Windows can be explained by the need to maintain backwards compatibility.

I have a particular pet peeve with Windows, so I decided to submit it to Raymond through his Suggestion Box. Here’s what I submitted:

One of my pet peeves is keyboard shortcut inconsistencies in Windows. I’m sure it’s a “legacy” thing, but the one that gets my blood boiling every time is the CTRL-Backspace shortcut to delete the previously typed word. It works in about 70% of the programs I regularly use, but fails to work in a select few that really drive me crazy: Notepad and Excel top that list. Is that keyboard shortcut something that has to be implemented on a program by program basis, or is it something more subtle?

Since he gets so many suggestions, there’s a good chance he won’t be able to cover this. But, if anyone knows why this happens, it will be Raymond.

Digital Media Thoughts points to this crazy contraption of an alarm clock: Clocky. From the site:

When the alarm clock goes off and the snooze button is pressed, Clocky will roll off the bedside table and wheel away, bumping mindlessly into objects on the floor until it eventually finds a spot to rest. Minutes later, when the alarm sounds again, the sleeper must get up out of bed and search for Clocky. This ensures that the person is fully awake before turning it off. Small wheels that are concealed by Clocky’s shag enable it to move and reposition itself, and an internal processor helps it find a new hiding spot every day.

I’ve always wanted something like this, but now that it’s available… I’m not so sure I really want it. Great idea though. I mean really, how can you go wrong with a carpet-covered alarm clock?

This is the coolest WordPress plugin that I’ve seen; Touched allows you to interactively edit a post without entering the admin interface. It’s hard to explain how that’s cool, but I’ll try: Basically, you can click a new edit button that will change your post from display mode to edit mode without reloading the page you’re on. So if you choose the 3rd post down on your main page, only that post changes into an edit mode, and it does so almost instantly. Once you’ve finished editing your content, simply save your change, and you are taken back to the display mode with your changes incorporated.

Note that some mild changes may have to be made to your template file to make this work, but it’s worth figuring it out.

It really has to be seen to be understood, but trust me, if you use WordPress, you want this plugin.

I just upgraded my WordPress installation to 1.5. If you notice any “weirdness”, please comment here - although I’m already working on the biggest issues. So, pretty much this post is for my own benefit.

Move along; nothing to see here.

Wow; my Filers vs. Pilers post was mentioned on The Gadget Show (a podcast which is part of The Podcast Network) during an episode-long interview of none other than David Allen!

Anyone who knows me or has read this blog for more than a week knows that I believe wholeheartedly in David’s Getting Things Done methodology. How cool is this?

Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research puts it more succinctly than I could.

Have you ever wondered how much information sharing goes on between search engines? I’m willing to bet that it’s far more than you think. Check out this wonderful interactive chart showing how various search engines are related to one another.

Hat tip to Steve for the link.

Scoble has been ranting about how evil Google’s new AutoText feature in the new version of its toolbar is. I think he’s way off base on this one, and here’s why (I posted the following as a comment in one of his posts about the matter):

SmartTags were, in fact, evil - not because of what they did, but because the user had no real choice in the matter. They were to be a pre-installed “feature” of the pre-installed browser on the most common operating system on the planet. Microsoft was proven in court to have been evil in its approach to the browser wars; SmartTags was an extension of that mindset.

AutoText, while not my preference, is in no way evil. Why? Because I don’t have to do anything to avoid being affected by it. I simply don’t install Google’s toolbar.

It’s simply the whole opt-in, opt-out argument. Opt-in is fine; opt-out is evil.

Sciencenews.org has a very interesting story about the accidental result of surgery to close a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a hole between the upper chambers of the heart that all fetuses have, but that are supposed to close over on their own after the baby is born. In the U.S., complete closure doesn’t occur in 25% of the population.

The accident is that the patients report being cured of migraine headaches. Although comprehensive studies have yet to be done, the theory is that the hole allows foreign objects in the blood like air bubbles, clots or dissolved chemicals to bypass the lungs where they would be exhaled or broken down, and head straight up to the brain, causing migraines, and eventually, strokes. It’s the stroke victims that have had this procedure done that are reporting migraine relief.

I’ve suffered from headaches and migraines my entire life; I can’t pretend not to find this extremely interesting.