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How to Eat Healthily at Top Chain Restaurants on Lifehacker: "The food experts at Health magazine have scoured the menus at popular restaurant chains in search of the healthiest foods on the menu, rounding up several healthy menu options at otherwise unhealthy chains."
They found reasonably healthy choices at Denny's, Ruby Tuesday, and P.F. Chang's, among others.The "missing" iPhone ringtone on TUAW: "We've all seen the iPhone ads.... None are identical, but most have something in common. Namely, that peculiar ringtone. We call it peculiar because it isn't actually included with the iPhone. Luckily, most of us have it installed on our computers already."
The article goes on to explain how to convert the Apple Loop that comes with GarageBand (part of iLife '08) into a ringtone for your iPhone.Ode To A Burrito -- Chipotle Mexican Grill on Fast Company: "Good food wrapped in a socially responsible message has created legions of Chipotle fans -- and a superhot business. Acquired by McDonald's in 1998 when there were only 14 Chipotles, the company went public in 2006 with 500 stores and watched its stock rise from $22 to $110 in 18 months. The now-independent outfit is enjoying an 80% revenue run-up over three years....
"Chipotle has achieved these impressive stats by spurning fast-food orthodoxy. Workers make each burrito by hand, which leads to long lines of customers waiting far beyond the four-minute industry standard. Turns out, that's not a problem for many customers." There aren't many Chipotles in Pennsylvania, but one just opened in Warrington, in the same complex with one of our two closest Wegman's. Why can't we eat there more often? [ via 37signals SVN ]Torvalds: Leopard file system "utter crap" on MacNN: "Linux creator Linus Torvalds recently blasted Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for having a file system that is 'complete and utter crap' at a Linux conference in Melbourne."
The Leopard file system, technically known as HFS+, has been around in some form since the last time I was a Mac developer-- 1992. Of course Apple would like to move to something more robust. They've been building up to switch to ZFS, or some other sophisticated file system, for some time now.
Forty years since Masterton's death on the Globe on Hockey Blog: "Masterton, 29 at the time, was checked by Larry Cahan and Ron Harris of the Oakland Seals, and hit his head on the ice after falling backwards. The game took place Jan. 13, 1968, in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Masterton died in hospital two days later due to a brain injury."
"His death led to the lobbying of more widespread use of helmets, and a mandatory helmet rule was passed in the summer of 1979." Anyone playing ice hockey should pause for a moment and remember Bill Masterton. His unfortunate death began a series of rule changes and other protective measures that have made our sport much safer.
Andrea Jung Joins Apple Board of Directors on MacRumors.com: "Apple has announced that Andrea Jung has been elected to Apple's board. Andrea also serves as Chairman and CEO of Avon Products, board member of General Electric, and member of the New York Presbyterian Hospital board of trustees and the Catalyst board of directors."
Why the CEO of Avon and why now? Speculation is that her board seat at GE will make her helpful in brokering an agreement with NBC Universal to bring them back into the iTunes fold.
PC Makers Take A Stylish Turn To Tackle Apple in The Wall Street Journal: "...Spurred in part by the success of Apple Inc.'s innovative products, as well as a consumer shift toward notebook computers, PC makers have begun a radical overhaul of their machines' appearance. They're racing to replace boring boxes with sexy silhouettes that will differentiate their products, entice new buyers and command higher prices...."
I think that this will prove to be a classic misunderstanding of the market, akin to the mobile phone companies' efforts to find a touch screen handset to compete with the iPhone-- Apple doesn't depend on industrial design alone to sell its products.
Washington Post Flubs Story On RIAA -- RIAA Still Not Going After Personal Copies (Yet) on Techdirt: "While we know that the RIAA is constantly pushing to extend both the meaning and scope of copyright law, in this case the details were pretty clear that they were not going after Howell for just ripping his CDs, but for putting those ripped files into a shared Kazaa folder. Now you can (and we do!) disagree that simply putting files into a shared folder are infringement, but that's different than just claiming that ripping the CDs is illegal or that he was being targeted just for ripping the CDs."
This analysis contradicts the story we linked to early this week in our article RIAA Suing Individuals Over Ripping CDs for Personal Use. I don't know who's right on this issue.
Bills return to Buffalo by bus after loss in Cleveland, The Associated Press on ESPN.com: "Mother Nature sure had it in for the Buffalo Bills this weekend."
"Bad enough that a blizzard contributed to Buffalo's loss at Cleveland on Sunday, ending the team's playoff chances. Then, following an unscheduled overnight stay because of bad weather, the Bills were forced to bus home Monday after their charter plane got stuck in mud off a runway in Cleveland...." [ Thanks Julie Howson ]
Verizon FiOS with only a Apple Airport Extreme {sic} on Elecktronkind.org: Excellent article on the things you need to do to replace the ActionTec router that Verizon provides to most FiOS users with an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. Something we hope to do in The Home Office in Newtown sometime after Christmas.
One key fact to note from this article: You do need to keep the ActionTec router on the network if you have Verizon's digital cable service that's delivered over FiOS. Hopefully we can turn off the wireless capability of the ActionTec and put the AirPort Extreme Base Station behind it.
Amazon.com Sets Deadlines for Christmas Orders: Super Saver Shipping deadline is December 17. Standard Shipping is December 18. Amazon Prime December 20 by 6pm Eastern Standard Time.
One date that I didn't see in this list that's probably important: HDTV sale deadline is December 16th.