Safari wish list

New tab toolbar button

Odd that this isn’t an option.

Copy text of link

The context menu for a hyperlink gives the option to copy the link, but not the option to copy the text. Oddly enough, choosing Copy from the Edit menu does copy the text.

“Open in...” for incomplete URLs

If you select some text that is a URL (though not a hyperlink), the context menu will have “Open in new window” and “Open in new tab” options. If it is a partial URL, however, these options aren’t given. If we’re dealing with a raw URL that isn’t a hyperlink, there’s a good chance it won’t be a complete URL either.

Search in Google in a new tab

Select some text, and the context menu will give you a “Search in Google” option. More often than not, however, I’d rather “Search in Google in new tab”.

Add RSS feeds to Google Reader

When Safari sees a page with an RSS feed, it makes it easy to subscribe to it with Safari or Apple Mail. I miss the way Firefox would add RSS feeds to Google Reader.

An open letter to AT&T

1. Don’t tell me I requested something when I didn’t.

When I signed up for U-verse, this apparently required the unbundling of my mobile bill from my other AT&T bills. They didn’t tell me this. Instead, they sent me a card telling me that I’d requested it.

Note that it isn’t that the mobile bill cannot be bundled with the U-verse services. They’ve now re-bundled it for me.

1a. You should’ve told me up-front. 1b. You should have not told me I requested it when I didn’t. 1c. OK, this may sound crazy, but maybe you should just not require the unbundling in the first place.

2. If the billing address and/or account number changes...I don’t know...maybe...tell me!

Oh, and 3. Date your correspondence.

How I feel

A man had held his dream job for nine years, when his boss met with him.

The boss said, “We’re going to have to let you go. You just haven’t been doing your job correctly.”

The man asked, “What have I done wrong?”

The boss replied, “A number of things, but what’s important is that it clearly isn’t working out.”

The man said, “But here are my annual performance reviews. They each say that I’m doing fine. There are none of these concerns.”

The boss said, “I know. I tried to make things work, but I can’t any longer.”

The main pleaded, “Let me know what I’ve been doing wrong, and I’ll do them right.”

The boss replied, “I’m sorry. It’s just too late for that now.”

Just to be clear: This is a metaphor. I know I wouldn’t have this problem at my current job.

A threat to marriage

I see on Facebook that someone has changed their status from married to single. Someone has made a comment...

“Congratulations!”

I simply cannot fathom that response.

Yes. Sometimes marriages end. Sometimes they even need to end. But is it ever a happy thing? Even if you don’t believe in marriage, surely you can understand that divorce is never pleasant.

Gay marriage isn’t a threat to the institution. If you want to find a threat to marriage how about the mindset that would respond to divorce with “Congratulations!”

The next century of change

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves—if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

—President Elect Barack Hussein Obama

Extrapolating from the changes the last hundred years have brought, what might things be like at the end of the next hundred years?

Do you like what you foresee?

Not filibuster-proof

This year was the first time I voted in a primary election. I’ve always considered myself an independent, so I figured the primaries were none of my business. I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a Republican for a federal office, though.

I even attended my district Democratic caucus this year.

While it may now say “Democrat” on my voter registration card, I’m glad the Dems didn’t get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. While I’m very happy that Obama won, I can’t say I’m terribly comfortable with the Dems also having majorities in both houses of Congress.

But then, I’m weird. I think gridlock is a good thing.

We’ve been ready

I suspect that Obama’s victory is a sign that we’ve been ready for a black president.

I think candidates may have not won because of racism, but I don’ think a president gets elected because they’re black. Obama won because he was the strongest candidate and racism is weak enough that it is no longer a factor.

Likewise, I think the country is clearly ready for a woman president. Clinton came close to winning the Democratic nomination, and the both parties have now had a woman as a vice-presidential candidate. We got our first black president instead of our first woman president merely because Obama was the stonger candidate; not because the country isn’t ready for a woman to be president.