My Chromebook was stolen over the weekend. The good news is that I didn't lose anything given the cloud only nature of the device. The bad news was that I didn't really want to get a new one.

I loved the cost and the boot speed and being able to do nearly everything I needed to with a browser-in-a-box.

But the nearly was a deal breaker. I sometimes need to VPN and the Chromebook wouldn't. It just wasn't compatible with our flavor of VPN and I didn't want to buy another Chromebook on the off chance that Google would eventually fix this. I also have to use Skype (I'd rather not) and this isn't really possible on the Chromebook either. Imo.im was good while it lasted. IM+ is horrible.

I've abandoned the Chrome dream and picked up a Surface Pro 3.

(Read the full Chromebook adventure: Part 1: Going Chrome, Part 2: Staying Chrome? and Part 3: Leaving Chrome)

I so want to get to 100% on Google PageSpeed Insights but I'm getting dinged for loading Google Analytics!

I last got one of these in 2010 and assumed it must have died by now, but no, otherwise sensible organisations are still training their customers to fall victim to phishing attacks by asking them to open dodgy email attachments.

The product in question is Cisco Registered Envelope and it deals with the lack of security in email by sending you an encrypted HTML file. Opening this file sends you off to register on some website and then runs a Java app to decrypt the message. This is insane. The HTML attachment in insane and the Java applet is insane.

The latest email I got in this format was an appointment reminder from UCSF. I'm sure there is some HIPPA requirement that they can't just send medical information in a plain text email. But they could send an email that lets you know you should login to your account to see the appointment. It's not like the securedoc.html method is magic, you still have to create an account on a website to use it so it buys you literally nothing.

UCSF, shame on you. Look after your patients digital health as well as their physical health. Out of self interest if nothing else, nobody can pay you if their bank accounts have been emptied after falling victim to a real phishing attack.

Cisco, shame on you. This product is so wrong headed it's impossible to believe that you're doing anything right.

​(previously)

I'm working on page speed and Google PageSpeed Insights is telling me that my PNGs are just way too large. Sadly .NET does not provide any way to optimize PNG images so there is no easy fix - just unmanaged libraries and command line tools.

I have an allergy to manual processes so I've lashed up some code to automatically find and optimize PNGs in my App_Data folder using PNGCRUSH. I can call CrushAllImages() to fix up everything or CrushImage() when I need to fix up a specific PNG. Code below:

Good HBR article on LEGO and girls: LEGO’s Girl Problem Starts with Management, depressing conclusion:

"Don’t hold your breath, though. Despite its first-day sold-out success, LEGO has decided not to continue the Research Institute line. It was only a “limited edition.” So girls, back to the pool. The guys in this boardroom don’t seem to want to give you any ideas… let alone seats at the table."

(previously, previously)

Autumn starts now in the northern hemisphere, Spring in the southern. Rendered in Catfood Earth (Windows, Android).

(Previously)

Sunset over the Sunset district in San Francisco. There is also the start of moonset at the start of the video and then clouds roll in and, unusually, out before the sun goes down.

Worth a visit.

My Scottish Grandmother would always tell me off if I said I was English instead of British. She also said it was better to be moving in the wrong direction rather than standing still in the right one. That mostly applied to navigating traffic, but I think it's true for Scotland as well. Help make the UK better and don't become small and stagnant and some sort of irrelevant bland euro-region.

And if you do go then this.