Archive for April, 2003

April 15th, 2003

Dancer in the Dark
Since Will decided to bring the patented twinrate system to our site, I thought I’d chime in with a quick review. Mine is a positive review, and instead of water filters, it’s about a movie. I saw “Dancer in the Dark” this past weekend and it was excellent. Bjork does an obsolutely fantastic job as the lead character Selma. To all of you who haven’t seen this film, do so, it’s well worth it. However, it’s very depressing, so if you’re the emotional type, you might want to have a box of tissue handy.

Wade
current music: Mogwai – take me somewhere nice

# posted at 5:08 am by Will

April 15th, 2003

Brita’s new smart pitcher is anything but
I recently saw the commercial for the Brita smart pitcher and being in need of a new Brita pitcher due to my recent move I thought I would buy it. I got it home, read the directions figured out the digital indicator is anything but smart as the ads and name state. In fact, it’s very stupid. You see, the old pitchers had a device that sat on the filter and measured the amount of water flowing through it and would click a notch. After a certain amount of water flowed through the filter it was to be replaced. Simple, effective.

This smart pitcher simply tells me when 8 weeks are up digitally with a little indicator regardless of how much the filter is actually used. I cannot tell you how much this irritates me. If I wanted something this stupid I would just mark 8 weeks down on my calendar. It seems like yet another lame marketing ploy to get people to buy more filters when they don’t actually need to. The fleecing of America continues…

Update: Here’s what Brita had to say in reply of my complaint: “Unfortunately, the BRITA Filter Replacement Indicators have been discontinued and are no longer available. This indicator is not necessary to the functioning of the filter. It is merely an aid in determining when to change the filter. The BRITA Electronic Indicator has replaced the Filter Replacement Indicator.” So I can’t even get the old (actually functional) replacement indicator if I wanted to, ugh.

Will

# posted at 3:22 am by Will

April 9th, 2003

It’s been 3 months already!
Well, things have been crazy for this half of ES. I successfully moved to Seattle from Iowa and am getting settled in nicely at MS. For the record, I’ve been pleasantly surprised about just how great of a place the MacBU is to work.

However, just because I’ve moved and started a new job doesn’t mean I have been neglecting ES apps, on the contrary in fact. I’m finishing up a healthy update to Maquarium and a minor update to One Key, look for both of those in the near future. Wade is pounding out yet another Bookit update and all his work seems to have been noticed. In the May issue of Macworld Bookit is listed as one of the best software bargains under $40 and was given 4.5 (out of 5) mice. Needless to say we’re stoked! 🙂

And on that up note, I’m signing off.

Will

# posted at 4:09 am by Will