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I'm making a pledge as a software developer to think of accessibility with every change I make. My first step was to turn on iOS' VoiceOver and test everything I'm working on with it. In the first five minutes of using it, I've discovered so many necessary improvements to make the app even useful for someone who has trouble seeing. There are many more accessibility tools than VoiceOver (like Dynamic Type) that should also be on your list to try. Baby steps. ...

A couple days ago we had to replace the air conditioning condenser and evaporator units in our home's central air system. The unit was 21 years old and was leaking coolant slowly throughout the last summer. It was just time. The new unit is much more efficient, handles more air, and should be quieter even though it's physically larger. We had been talking about another item in our furnace and that was replacing the A/C motor with a D/C motor. The A/C motor is called a PSC or permanent split capacitor motor and they are largely inefficient over time. The Nest Thermostat allows you to schedule your fan to be on for time periods in the day. We've been running our fan for 15 minutes every hour during the daytime to keep air circulating to reduce warm/cool spots and to help reduce dust. Running the fan that much with a standard PSC blower is expensive and taxing on the motor itself. ...

I purchased an UpDesk PowerUp Series I (original) last year and love it. I got the standard maple-colored desk top and am very happy with the density of the wood, quality laminate and curved front edge. The one thing I was not very satisfied with was the mounting option given for the clasps keeping the wiring under it from hanging. I was given a good amount of these self-adhesive twist plastic cable ties: ...

We bought our first house in June 2001 and moved to our new home in January 2013. In that 12 years (plus the five years in apartments) we've create a crap ton of content. That content is in the form of home video and movies on VCR tapes, photographs, negatives and all of the digital files stored on CDs, DVDs, and hard drives. I realized that some of that content is on aging media (VCR tapes and IDE hard drives) and needs to be moved to newer storage to prevent inaccessibility. We all have a responsibility of archiving that content so that our future selves and generations have access to it for historical and entertainment purposes. We all must become archivists. ...

I'm not terribly paranoid about online security compared to some. I do take some extra precautions when doing things online that involves financial data and logging into accounts. Here are a few rules I follow internally when out and about: Public WiFi should only be used when cellular data isn't sufficient or availableAlways ask what the SSID (network name) is when using public WiFi at a coffee shop - don't assume you've picked the right oneNever ever do anything with financial information (banks, credit cards including purchases)Never create new accounts over public WiFiWired and "protected" WiFi at hotels is just as unsafe as public WiFiUse a VPN (virtual private network) to a trusted destination when using a public Internet connectionSecure your home WiFi with a strong password and WPA2-PSK encryptionA virtual private network connection lets you create a safe connection from where you are to where the VPN server resides. Depending on the VPN configuration it may allow you to go back out to the Internet from there or you may be limited to local connections only on the server side. In the case of how I use VPN, I connect to a home server which effectively makes someone in the coffee shop I'm at unable to see my online activity. ...

Public Service Announcement - Be careful who you send emoji characters to via text message - they may not be getting the output you expect! I was at a friend's house and she showed me her phone after getting a bunch of cryptic messages from an iOS user. I realized emoji doesn't necessarily render correctly on Android phones. Apparently KitKat fixes this to some success, however, she can't upgrade to that OS quite yet. Google Hangouts as her SMS application helped some but only to send. She still receives the malformed UTF-16 characters. ...

A few years back I switched to Verizon Wireless here in the States which is a predominately CDMA-based carrier with a fairly large LTE 4G network. Previously I was on AT&T which is a traditional GSM network with a LTE 4G network as well. I left AT&T because their footprint where I spend most of my summer is quite poor and results in the inability to work remotely there or even enjoy streaming radio. ...

Last week I was having a discussion with my coworkers about how I think someone should feel when viewing/interacting with their site stats in the WordPress world. I made a list of things I'd expect and one of them I wrote down was definitely inspired by my personality: https://twitter.com/gregibrown/status/452133773727899648 I do really like shiny things. Okay maybe part of it is attention-related but in general I like things that stand out. Why have stuff that's dull and drab when it perform the same function but LOOK AWESOME? ...

I have the strangest glitch happening with Mac OS X Mavericks and I can't find anyone else describing the same issue. I have a D-Link DUB-H7 USB 2.0 hub connected to my Thunderbolt Display which is in turn connected to my retina 15" MacBook Pro. If I cold boot with this hub connected to my Thunderbolt Display, both the USB external keyboard (not connected to the hub) and the built-in keyboard have a number of keys that do not function. I, J, M and a few others I know of offhand that don't work. As soon as I disconnect the hub, both keyboards work perfectly. Also, after I log into Mavericks, the keyboards work fine regardless of the hub being connected or not. ...

I've been using my MacBook Pro with the lid closed and only the external Thunderbolt Display. I'm finding it helps keep focus on the task I'm working on. I didn't want to waste room on my desk with the Griffin laptop stand, so I moved to a BookArc which is working great! http://www.twelvesouth.com/product/bookarc-for-macbook-pro-retina