… something to write home about.

Chris Pirillo is an uber-geek and proud of it.

It isn’t a bad thing, far from it.  He is smart, personable, passionate about technology. These are all good things.

He also annoys me on a regular basis.  Allow me to explain.

Mr. Pirillo (we haven’t met that I know of) runs a web site or two and provides lots of commentary and insight into things technical, computer, and the Internet.  One of my favorite geek shows of the past, Call For Help from TechTV, used to have him as a host for a while and the occasional guest host on The Screen Savers. He also sends out a intermittent email filled with links with cryptic titles about all things tech.  It is a great resource and I really quite enjoy the articles.

Which is why he annoys me.

On every web page on his web site he has a little flash applet that shows his office in streaming, live video.  This is neat. Unfortunately, this is not an ‘opt in’ service.  You load the page and it is running.  You do have the option to pause the video, but I shouldn’t have to; I should opt in to his content not be forced to view it.

Annoying, but not the worst part.

No, the worst part is that if I pause the video or turn the audio all of the way down, there is NO WAY TO SAVE THESE PREFERENCES.  That’s right, I have to do it every time.  Couple that with the fact that in one of his email newsletters there are 20 to 25 links to different stories and I might click on three or four of those links. This means that for every page, I have to find the page and either turn down the audio or pause it.

It isn’t horrid, it isn’t life threatening but it is really annoying.  I have the habit of going through my email, clicking on the links of interest and then during the day going back to a link or two at a time while I work.  I can’t do that with Mr. Pirillo’s email so I have to wait until I can pay attention to it, which means that often I leave it for a few days and then end up deleting it, unread.

I haven’t unsubscribed yet; I really do get a lot of value out of it and have bought software and services based partially on his recommendations.

Still, he annoys me.  A few minor changes to a very nice flash app that almost every other major web site does would turn this from an amateur night to a professional gig.

But, hey, what do I know; I just use this stuff.