ohryan.ca

A Web Developer in Winnipeg

  • The eLitePhone 5S

    The eLitePhone 5S

    in

    I’ve come to the conclusion that the iPhone 5S is too fancy for me.

    With the gold-trimmed sapphire home button and the extremely high price tag – topping out at $1040* in Canada; it feels like a $1000 watch to me. I don’t just live a lifestyle (or have the taste for fancy things) that would accommodate a $1000 watch.

    Granted the iPhone has always been high-end, but for a long time it has also been the only reasonable option IMHO. The 5C feels more my speed. I can only imagine this divergence in products is a conscious effort by Apple to continue to position themselves as an ultra-high-end retailer.

    * including GST + MB PST

  • RetroPosts is in the plugin directory!

    in

    My new plugin RetroPosts made it into the WordPress plugin directory last night! Check it out.

  • People Suck at Email #9, Notifications

    People Suck at Email #9, Notifications

    in

    Turn off your email notifications.

    Months ago I turned off all email notifications on my phone and years ago on desktop.

    I haven’t looked back. Being interrupted by new email notifications gives email an undeserved sense of urgency. Email is not instant messaging, it’s not a phone call or a text message, it’s not an alarm bell or siren. Nothing bad is going to happen if you don’t read an email for 15 minutes or a few hours.

    I highly recommend trying it out. Even though I don’t receive a huge amount of email, I feel like the amount of stress in my life has decreased by at least 33%.

    Caveat: I no longer run system critical infrastructure of any sort. I realize these types of systems do actually send “alarm bell” type emails. IMHO this is an inappropriate and antiquated use of email. If I was responsible for these sorts of systems, I would first look for an app to replace the alert emails. If that was completely impossible, I suppose turning off notifications would not be an option.