Jott is another example of a simple yet brilliant idea that when you hear about it, you immediately kick yourself in the butt for not coming up the idea first.

In short, here’s how Jott works:

1. You call Jott
2. You speak your reminder
3. Jott transcribes your message
4. Jott sends email containing reminder

You can also send messages to groups of people via Jott, but I’ve only been using it to send myself reminders. Today I was in my car and I heard a song I wanted to download when I got home. I called Jott with the name of the song. When I got home, the email was waiting for me.

Without Jott I’d be sitting here listening to “True Colors” instead of “You’ve got another thing coming”.

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I’ve tried a number of Twitter apps for Windows and all left me wanting more. Tonight I finally found one that’s a keeper called Tweetr. Ya, corny name but it kicks butt.

Seth Godin says it’s better to ship nothing than it would be to ship an inferior product.

I think back to a few companies I’ve worked for who were in the position of making a go/no go decision on a product. I can only think of one instance where the decision was made to not ship. And looking back it turned out to be the best decision.

It takes some guts to not ship. You have invested in a lot of time, money and resources into the project. The last thing you want to do is kill it. But even worse would be to ship a product that damages your reputation and hurts future business.

Ball! Just a little outside. I can’t believe Eric Davis wasn’t able to dig this one out of the dirt.

Check out the video of one the worst first pitches I’ve ever seen. This ball is thrown so badly, it goes off the screen!

Here’s the Mayor’s explanation.

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Yes! If you’re tired of switching bag to Internet Explorer just to watch embedded videos on sites such as MSNBC you’ve got to try the Firefox add-on called MediaWrap. It safely wraps the ActiveX control into the Firefox plug-in. I’ve been waiting for someone to pull this off for several years now. Finally!

Over the past few months I’ve written a number of posts dealing how much I enjoy Windows Vista as well as some of the problems I’ve had running the latest operating system from Microsoft. But for the most part I like the way Vista looks and many of the small enhancements like photo management and search are a vast improvement over Windows XP. I’ve been recommending Vista to family and friends who own newer machines. Dang, I guess I’ve been a Vista cheerleader!

So tonight I’m bummed to admit that I decided to wipe Vista Ultimate off my home computer and go back to XP Pro like Chris Pirillo did a while back. He obviously knew something that I didn’t back then and it took me longer to find out. I can’t believe I fell for all the hype. I’d take my box of Vista Ultimate and toss it into Lake Washington if I could be assured it would wash up on the lawn belonging to Bill Gates. I really would.

Here are just a few of the problems I’ve been having with Vista:

1. Movie DVDs don’t play on my Sony DRU-530 drive under Vista – I never had a problem watching DVDs on XP. But Vista would say I didn’t have permission or just sit and spin and spin. One of the first DVDs I tried to watch (these are not ripped DVDs either) Vista told me that I would need to download a new driver from Nvidia that would “authorize” DRM’d content on my machine. WTH? Had it just been one or two DVDs I could probably live with it. But not being able to watch any DVDs on my computer just won’t fly.

2. Vista is a slow poke – When I first installed Vista, it didn’t feel much slower than XP. But once I installed 10-15 programs that I need, it really bogged down. I didn’t think too much of it until I sat down on my kids machine with 4 year old hardware running XP, and it ran faster than my new machine running Vista. Do not install Vista hoping your machine will run faster. All three machine I’ve installed Vista on now run slower than what they did while running XP.

3. Driver issues – I was still having problems with my HP OfficeJet 4215 and Logitech MX 900 mouse under Vista. My Apple iPod had troubles at first and then settled down. Even my Microsoft Live Cam didn’t work on Vista until I hunted down the correct drivers. I know this isn’t Microsoft fault, but it’s surprising that a large company like HP still hasn’t released drivers for some of printers. One needs a lot of patience to run Vista right now as you’ll be spending a lot of time searching for drivers that work under Vista.

4. Living in a Microsoft World – By running Vista, I felt like I was supporting the Microsoft monopoly. And not just supporting but promoting it. The first time you boot into Vista and try to do nearly anything you’ll be greeted with the dreaded User Access Control dialog box asking for permission to do even the simplest task. Luckily you can turn this crap off but you shouldn’t have to. You’ll be inundated with invitations to sign up for Microsoft Passport and reminded over and over why you should be running Windows Defender before something bad happens to you. And good luck trying to shut up Windows Media Player. It loves to show up and plaster itself off every menu available. The same can be said for Windows Live Messenger. If you run Vista you sign up to live in a world controlled by Microsoft.

5. Small annoyances – A number of smaller annoyances spoil the Vista experience. The start menu likes to disappear when you delete program icons or folders off it. Some Vista compatible programs crash for no reason. How come I can customize some areas but not others? Wallpaper handling/sizing is an exercise in frustration. Some Windows updates won’t install yet pester me to keep trying.

I cannot believe that going back to an operating system that’s over five years old feels like an upgrade, but it does. XP feels fast and stable. I’d kick myself in the butt if I could for assuming Vista was better. It’s not. At least right now it’s not, and it’s a shame Microsoft is charging up to $250 for Vista upgrades. Many people will drop good money assuming they will be getting a more productive operating system, yet all some will get are hours of frustration.

So I’m sorry if you bought Vista on my recommendation. I hope my experience has been one of the few bad ones. Maybe it’s running just fine on your machine. I hope that’s the case. But if you Windows XP computer is working well for you, my suggestion would be to keep Vista as far away as possible from it.

Few things get the kids excited like hot chocolate with a large dab of whip cream. According to them, there’s never a bad time for a hot chocolate. Breakfast, lunch, dinner or late night snack are all ideal times for one.

The kids will try to rope Kim or I into making hot chocolate as a late night snack. They tell us it will help them go to sleep faster. I think the opposite is true but try telling them that.

Sometimes when I run a quick errand I’ll take one or two kids with me. I used to think they thought it was fun to take a drive in the new car. But I’m on to them now. What they really hope is they can convince me to pull into the gas station up the road from our house and pickup a hot chocolate.

This weekend I pickup up a few items at Fred Meyer which is attached to a Starbucks. I took Luca along with me and she was so well behaved I asked if she’d like to get a “special” hot chocolate at Starbucks. I ordered her a “Tall kids hot chocolate with whole milk, not too hot” and we sat at a table and talked. This is one of my favorite things to do with the kids. Luca sat at the table, her little legs dangling over the chair.

We were ready to go and I asked Luca, “Isn’t that the best hot chocolate you’ve ever had?” and Luca replied, “Dad, it’s so good….it’s almost as good as the one Grandpa Nordquist makes for me”.

That put a big smile on my face. I’ll assume she’s as excited to spend some time with dad as she is to get her very own hot chocolate.

Now that I’ve had nearly a month to drive our BMW, I can’t imagine driving another brand of sport sedan. It’s everything I thought it would be and more. Here are a few things I’ve noticed over the past month:

1. Manual transmission + Rear wheel drive = driving bliss!

2. Balance & Composure – Past cars I’ve had didn’t feel as balanced or composed the harder I drove them. But the BMW is in its element when driven enthusiastically. It makes me feel like a better driver than I am.

3. Engine Note – It’s clear that the engineers at BMW are concerned with how their cars sound. It doesn’t try to isolate one from the environment like a Lexus. The engine provides a great soundtrack of feedback. More times than I care to admit, I’ve turned off the radio, rolled down the windows just to listen to the engine. This is to be expected when ‘motor’ is part of your name. (Bavarian Motor Works)

4. Impressive Dealer – Although I didn’t buy the car from a BMW dealer, I’ve been very impressed with BMW Northwest in Fife. I’ve been to the deal on two occasions and both times I was treated very well. I took my 2 year old daughter with me today to pickup a part and the women working the parts counter found a coloring book for my daughter and gave her a puzzle and crayons to take home.

5. Spartan Interior – The car is all about driving and that comes through loud and clear even in the interior which is classy and quite simple. You won’t find fancy gadgets and dozens of knobs like I’ve seen in a Mercedes and Jaguar. The dash is slanted towards the driver. Every switch and knob is within close proximity and logically placed.

The car is an absolute blast to drive. I thought my Miata and Passat GLX were fun to drive but the BMW is even better. I can see why it’s been considered the benchmark of sport sedans since it was introduced in 1975. I think Kim is getting used to my late night errand runs which take longer than she expects. I have no regrets choosing this car over a more mainstream sedan.

–Link to My Squidoo Lens about the 3 Series

I saw the movie, The Lookout, last night and really enjoyed it. It reminded me a bit of Fargo and Memento. I’m not sure it’s as good as either of those but it’s pretty darn close. Highly recommended.

–Link to Richard Roeper review at the Chicago Sun-Times

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Especially when it comes to car insurance. I insured my cars with State Farm from 1989 till last year when we purchased a second car. I decided to shop around when State Farm quoted a much higher rate than I was expecting. I was paying around $85/month for our 2000 Honda Odyssey, but adding a 2000 VW Passat would have raised the premium to nearly $170/month. That didn’t seem right so I called my rep at State Farm and she confirmed the quote was correct. That still seemed high so I made a few calls, researched several companies and gathered a number of quotes based on the same coverage I was quoted from State Farm.

I eventually decided to switch to GMAC Insurance last year mainly because doing so would save me just over $600/year. I don’t understand all the intricacies of how policy premiums are established but a $600 difference was too much to pass up. Under State Farm I had three or four windshields replaced over a 15 year period, but that’s it. No accidents or moving violations.

This past month we got rid of the Passat (long story) and purchased a 2002 BMW 325i. I called my rep at GMAC and was happy to find out that my premium wouldn’t change much. But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to shop around again given the previous savings still fresh in my mind. As I was reading one of the many BMW forums, someone mentioned the excellent service and price they had received at Response Car Insurance. I’d never heard of them before but several other contributors to this message board chimed in with similar positive experiences with them so I figured it was worth requesting a quote.

I didn’t save the $600/year like I did when I left State Farm but I’ll save nearly $500/year by switching from GMAC to Response! It’s definitely taken some time to make this happen. I’ve spent maybe 30 minutes on the phone and another 30 minutes gathering information and filling out forms. But it’s time well spent given the savings. It certainly pays to shop around when the internet makes it so easy to compare quotes from multiple companies.