I just got an update from Citibank notifying me of several upgrades being made to their online features.  Among the other items noted, they specified that they will allow you to "request PDFs of your statements as far back as 15 years."  Note to other banks, utilities, and major service providers: please look at what Citibank is doing, and take notes. 

Will I want to see what regrettable purchases I made back in 1992?  Not likely.  However, being able to go back 2, 3 or possibly even 5 years is absolutely understandable.  Although I'm ultimately holding off judgement on their implementation of it (what exactly does "request PDF" mean, exactly?), I applaud Citibank for offering up services that make using their products just that much friendlier.

I mention this because there are many downright horrible online services out there.  As a counterpoint, I offer up my city water online "service."

To log in, I must present my account number and my address.  That's it.  No secret phrase, no user ID.  Anyone who's interested in my payment history need only stake out my mailbox and look for my water bill.   Once in to the super-high-tech system, I'm offered the following information:

Now, here's the magic question: given the above information, how much do I owe at this moment?  $0.00 or $157.12?  Only because I've been using this horrific UI for months do I know the real answer.  (Hint: it's not $0.00.)

The takeaway (as a developer) is this: make sure to have your application reviewed by an unbiased outsider every once in a while, and look to see what the best-of-breed is up to.  Although you may not have the time to implement 15 years of statements, it's obvious that in the above example the developer/developers that created this application never had anyone review the code and/or final product, and may have never even looked to see how other bill presentment applications work. 

Situation: You've been asked by Mr. BigShotCEO to create a proof-of-concept of that new whiz-bang website idea you told him about 8 weeks ago.  Oh, and he wants it ready for an 8am presentation in the board room.

Problem: If you use PowerPoint, or better yet, iWork's Keynote, you can whip together a presentation that won't embarrass you or get you fired.  [That's assuming you don't use any sound effects, but that's another matter.]  With websites however, it becomes a bit trickier, as many application developers a(including me) are frustrated artists, not getting much beyond still lifes in high school.  Unless you have a designer available at your beck and call, your hard work might lose it's punch if the audience is concentrating on why you chose to use puce and electric orange for colors.

Solution: there are a few good sites out there that will do the job in a pinch.  Since they're free (as of this writing), and have snappy interfaces, you can get a fairly unique and (generally) visually acceptable site with nominal lifting.  Getting the design out of the way will allow you to concentrate on the task(s) at hand.

Free logo design

• LogoMaker.  Good: the site allows you to position the graphic and any accompanying text however you want, using "layers" a la Photoshop.  Bad: they want your personal info.  Use: create your logo and take a screenshot.  Sure, you'll have hash marks, but this is just a demo.
• VistaPrint.  Good: no hash or watermarks.  Bad: no positioning of text elements.

Free web templates (available templates in brackets as of Oct 18, 2007)

• Open Designs [761] You can search by #of columns, license type, main color and validation type
• Open Source Web Design [2080] May be hard to find since they only show 12 a page, but all open source
• Open Web Design [2527] Tells you up front if the design uses CSS, which can be of great help
• Open Source Web Templates [~300?] Hard to search, as proven by the inaccurate number of designs
• Smashing Magazine They have more links, so I couldn't exclude them; good if the others fail

So there you have it.  I hope you get a big promotion and commensurate raise by Mr. BigShotCEO.

I came across a couple of great articles on upgrading Ubuntu to the latest build.  Given that version 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" is being released out of beta tomorrow, it seemed to be a very timely find.  Kevin van Zonneveld shows two ways to upgrade:

• 1-step upgrade if you're like me and have Feisty Fawn or some other version running with few to zero tweaks
• 3-step upgrade if you've really muddled with the Ubuntu system.

I came across this blog created by the new owner of a Cirrus SR22, a beautiful modern general aviation aircraft.  He's going through his thought process of why he purchased this make/model versus others out there, including Cessna, Columbia, and Diamond. 

I hope to one day join the ranks of Cirrus pilots, if not outright owners.  Cirrus makes a beautiful aircraft, and given the current dismal state of our national airlines, it might just be the way to get around the southwest with the family.

In a recent post, I was complaining about an odd issue with Windows Defender hammering my hard drive.  Well, today I found myself diving into Process Monitor again, looking for the reason my HDD once again was being taxed to the limit.

In the logs, I found two oddities:

1. iPoint and iType, two applications used for added functionality for Microsoft's Wireless Desktop devices, were constantly creating a file, querying a directory, then closing a file over and over again.  I haven't been able to find any information about this online yet, but I'm going to keep looking.  I may have to open a ticket with Microsoft about this one.
   
   
2. The real cause of my HDD spooling issues was something called SearchIndexer.exe.  This, in the UI and Vista marketing material, is also known as Windows Search.  It's basically supposed to index highly user impacted directories allowing for quick search results.  It's also supposed to go to sleep when processing demand is high.
   
   Well, apparently the last bit of that hasn't worked out so well, as there are quite a few people looking for answers to permanently shut down SearchIndexer.exe.  In my case, it wasn't consuming so much CPU drain, as my task manager barely showed it at more than 2% of total CPU use, but my HDD was just getting beaten, causing all I/O tasks to get queued up.  That brought my computer to a near stand-still.  E.g. shutting down the 7 apps I had open (Office, FireFox, VisualStudio, iTunes, SQL Management Studio, and LiveWriter) and shutting down Vista took nearly 10 minutes.  I'd like that 10 minutes back.

In searching for a resolution, I came across a good post at Office Watch which describes what they claim is a potential/the issue with Windows Search.  What's especially nasty is that if Windows Search goes bad on you, it's very difficult to shut it down, as it has hooks in Windows and Office products.  This means that you can shut it down, but when you sneeze in the direction of Outlook, it'll go off to the races once again.

I for one never use the search functionality in Windows.  Visual Studio?  Sure, you betcha.  But I just haven't found a need for it yet.  I'm not sure if that's an indictment of my use of the OS, or maybe a simpler point like I always keep the documents I use where I expect them.  Regardless, if you don't think you'll be using Search anytime soon, you can go into Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services, and find Windows Search (you can sort via Name).  Right click on it, and select Properties.  Change Startup type to "Disabled" and stop the service by pressing "Stop."

Sweet relief.

Continue reading at Office Watch for other suggestions on how to get Search working normally again.