Cafe Arcane

7 Landing Page Terms in Plain English

Mystech — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:54:37 +0000

Every industry has and loves its jargon. As marketing and advertising fully embraced the internet, many of new terms where invented, adapted or evolved. For the designers/developer that spent most of her time on the technical side of things, this could be double frustrating. I know it was for me when I was working through ...

Please Don’t Take My Google Reader Away

Mystech — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:36:31 +0000

The Google Reader “hiccup” the last couple days made me painfully aware of just how much I rely on it (and it alone) as my sole means of digesting the tremendous volumes of news and information in each day without becoming completely overwhelmed. Unanticipated outages aside, every so often Reader seems to come under consideration ...

Ultralight Backpacking Canister Stove Review

Mystech — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 23:09:28 +0000

Putting together estimates/proposals for websites is melting my brain, so I’m going to a time-out to do a product review. A few months ago, a buddy and I were looking at a suspiciously cheap hiking/camping canister stove on Amazon. Since they made the same claims as the $60 SnowPeak I’d bought (and worn to a nub) several ...

System Bar Lock For Android Tablets

Mystech — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:28:32 +0000

So you’re on your Android tablet, playing your favorite game, seconds from finishing a particularly difficult level or establishing a room mate punishing high score and your hand drifts ever so slightly into the system bar area. Before you know it, the notification or recent apps menu has popped up, and your chances of digital ...

Best Practices JavaScript Coding

Mystech — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:04:10 +0000

One of the strengths and unfortunate weaknesses of JavaScript is its easy, almost casual structure and rules when compared to some more formally structured languages. This makes it very welcoming to newcomers to programming but it also makes developing bad habits very easy. I know I’m personally guilty of several of these, whether out of ...

Kindle Books by Email

Mystech — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:19:52 +0000

It is probably fair to say that nearly all Amazon Kindle users load books on to their various devices by simply hitting the purchase button on the Amazon site and minutes later, their books are downloaded and ready to read. But the Kindle is actually much more versatile and flexible if you’ve got books from ...

Audio Jack Hack For Switching Headphones and Speakers

Mystech — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 14:14:30 +0000

As with many laptops, plugging into the headphone jack, even with an audio extension cord, causes the external (and internal speakers) to be disabled. This is usually the desired result as you probably don’t want audio coming out of headphones and speakers simultaneously. My situation is a little different however. I work with a laptop ...

Life Reaches for the Stars

Mystech — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 02:09:17 +0000

There is a saying popularized by Carl Sagan that “we are stardust”. Sagan was referring to the fact that during the Big Bang, the only matter probably created was overwhelming hydrogen, significantly less helium and, relatively speaking, trace amounts of lithium and beryllium. The rest of matter would have to be forged in the heart of huge stars ...

Cycling Commute Update

Mystech — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 17:19:05 +0000

I’ve been slowing gaining confidence with my new bike. It has been decades since a bike a major part of my personal transportation portfolio and although “you never forgot how to ride a bike” that doesn’t mean you don’t get rusty. Add to that, how much cycling has changed (and continues to change) and you can probably ...

The Mystery of the Disappearing Windows 7 Start Menu Icons

Mystech — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:37:29 +0000

In less than an hour after installing Windows on any computer, I have probably added anywhere from one to three dozen applications depending on what I’ll be using the machine for. This is more a statement about how I want my machines to be “just right” than any shortcoming in the Windows operating system ...