Over the past few days I've held off on emptying my deleted items folder in Outlook to get a better sense of the number of messages I "process" per day.  The average over the past three days with very little varyance per day was 800 per day.  Granted this does include RSS feed posts I go through but it is still several hundred without them.

This doesn't include IM, voice mail, meeting requests, personal email or text messages.

The bad news is that I am not getting to zero in my inbox each day either so there is some "carry" from one day to the next.

I've got to come up with a better way to handle this.  I've read various GTD-esque things but at some point, the incoming flow and accumulation of tasks and meetings just doesn't average out to zero per day.

Stay tuned...

It really annoys me when a software vendor tries to bundle other applications with the one you downloaded and installed.  It's even worse when they try to do it through their crapware auto update mechanism.  Adobe is guilty of this and so now is Apple.

The problem here is that I only want QuickTime on my Windows PC.  I have never installed iTunes on it nor have I installed Safari.  Given recent security news about Safari, I'm glad I haven't installed it.  The nice Apple Software Update app not only checks off all three applications by default but it also doesn't give you a way to only update QuickTime.  For those wondering, you can do it but you have to ignore the Apple updater and go to the QuickTime site to download the patched installer again.

I wonder how many of the non-technical iPod users on Windows have been duped into installing Safari.

No software is bug free or perfectly secure but trustworthiness is a combination of security by design, being up front with your users when installing and updating and responding to exploits proactively, not just after a bunch of them have made the news.  On this measure, Microsoft clearly beats Apple, despite the lack of cool advertising we do.

In mid-May I bought an Argus Bean 5 MP camera from Best Buy.  I was captivated by the industrial design and ruggedness of the camera.  It can clip like a carabiner to a bag or belt loop, is weather resistant and has pretty simple controls.  Though it is designed for kids, I thought it would make for a great knock-around camera for those times when I didn't want to lug my DSLR with me.  At $60, the price was definitely right as well. 

It got a lot of looks for its design but I found out after taking numerous pictures that it must have a strange image sensor that scans somewhat slowly to acquire the image.  I found this out because many of the pictures I took had wavy images likely caused by movement of my body when taking them.  The images also had the "video" look to them rather than the nice still images you would get from a higher end camera.

If you don't care about pictures that look a little like the fun house mirror, this camera is great.  However, I like my pictures a bit more than that.

It is disappointing when the feature list and industrial design of product is so promising yet the core functionality and reliability betrays that design.  Perhaps I just had a lemon (or maybe a lime given the color) but I hope somebody can make an inexpensive SD card capable knock-around camera like this that takes decent pictures.  I may just have to accept my cell phone as that device though I would certainly hesitate to use it in dusty, sandy or wet conditions.

Moral of the story:  When you design a product to stand out in price, features and industrial design, make sure it doesn't disappoint when people use it. 

Verdict: Returned.