Jan 24, 2008
I was just trying to send a picture to myself to edit out the phone number from the display on my office phone (you’ll see it here in a minute), and I swear Sprint has the most convoluted mobile picture system in the US. When you send a picture message to a mobile number or email, the recipient doesn’t get your image as an attachment, they have to go on the Sprint website and are presented the image in a slideshow (with multiple "buy prints" links). To download the image, you have to exit the slideshow and click an unlabeled dropdown menu. I consider myself to be pretty damn competent figuring out interfaces (on average I try 3 new websites or applications a day), so if it takes me more than 60 seconds to figure out how to perform a simple task, there is something grievously wrong.
This is such a shame since it ruins the flow their almost perfect text messaging application and makes it hell for developers to work with their system. C’mon Sprint, stop forcing your monetization scheme on users as a value add and give us a system that just works.
About the author: Lisa Brewster is a project manager-y web type person in Sunnyvale, CA. Subscribe to this blog by RSS or email, or follow me on Twitter for more updates.
Jan 24, 2008
I met Pete Cashmore of Mashable at the Crunchies last weekend, and he was very adamant to get me to submit pictures of their shirt that just came out in the latest Startup Schwag package.
PS: See? Potato.

Jan 21, 2008
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Jan 17, 2008
Computers and I in general just aren’t getting along so well this week. I think I need to take a break from having to passively troubleshoot just about every application I use on a regular basis. Troubleshooting is so ingrained in my standard thought process that it doesn’t typically bother me, but when too much starts building up I start having suicidal thoughts of flattening my drive and laying down a nice tame install of Windows 2000.
A small list of what has me seething:
Disclaimer: May not actually be related to beta software.
* Microsoft Exchange
* Firefox randomly deciding to clear all my stored usernames and passwords
* Websites without contact information
* Vista’s finely tuned ability to activate a new window right when I’m typing/clicking somewhere else
* My obsessive-compulsive perspective on managing RSS feeds
* Sprint Connection Manager’s recent preference for 1xRTT
* Paragraph tags
* Trillian Astra