How I totally failed at Swedish Death Cleaning

Swedish Death Cleaning is the latest declutter fad.  The idea is to get rid of as much as you can so those left when you die won't have to deal with it.  So after you do the Maria Kondo's whole tidy plan and ask if each thing brings you joy, then you decide if your relatives will want to deal with it when you are dead.  If not you chuck it.  I'm not really sure it makes much sense but we have a bunch of extra stuff in the basement I needed to start somewhere. So I decided to sell all the Wii stuff scattered all around. We haven't played with it for years. I collected it all, lined up about 3 dozen games, took pics, confirmed the boys did not want any of it. Adam then casted doubt on it still working so I hooked it up to the TV upstairs and put in Tiger Woods golf 2008. It worked great and in fact I liked playing it better than the switch game I bought for the switch for Christmas.

I went back down to grab the newer Tiger Woods golf 2010 I left in the basement and found the box was empty. Turns out 80% of the boxes were empty because the boys took almost all the games with them...so I have much less to sell. But after having such fun playing golf when I can swing the controller like a club what should I do?

Well I decided to keep the Wii to play the better Tiger Woods but instead of having Jacob ship 2010 version across the country I bought Tiger Woods 2012, the best version, off Facebook,...so not only did I not get rid of anything I ADDED to my collection. But I'm sure when I'm dead the boys will be glad to get the newer version, so maybe I did this Swedish Death Cleaning right after all, thoughts?

Tuesday Tips

 Here are a couple pandemic tips:

1. Buy individually wrapped disposable masks and stash a few in every vehicle glovebox, backpack and purse in case you forgot to bring one when you need it.  I've needed mine 4 times already.
   
   
   
2. Setup Apple pay or Google Pay on your phone in case you get to the counter without your wallet.  Since you no longer carry a wallet around the house since you never leave, and when you do it's the last thing on your mind because your not even sure you still know how to drive.  Apple Pay saved me twice so far. 
   
   
   
3. Muster up an attitude of gratitude because it will make you and everyone around you feel a bit better even (and especially) during a pandemic.  If you can't think of anything, be thankful this is not the 1918 pandemic, or that your family is not off fighting a war, or that Netflix still works.

The 2020 Black Bean Scandal

 I like black beans. I like Wegman's Organic Black Beans. I buy 6 cans at a time. I don’t like the recent change of only filling the cans 1/2 full of beans.  

The can indicates it holds 3.5 half cup servings which totals 1.75 cups.  I confirmed the can indeed holds 1.75 cups of product.  However, I only got 1 cup of beans with .75 cups of water.  There is always some water, you know the kind of black sludgy water that recipes warn to rinse off so your whole dish is not a black gross looking mess...well no worries with these new cans, the water is almost clear and the beans are completely clean from sloshing around in the black bean spa in all their travels.  The cost is far fewer beans.

I will inquire about the bean drowning program with Wegman's officials and report back.

Review: Recipe Keeper

During the day I work for DocFinity which is software schools, businesses and governments can use to eliminate paper and optimize their processes, so for us printing and filing paper should be avoided at all costs.  A digital recipe box is perfect and I've been using one for many years.  No paper recipes allowed.

I started using Pepperplate because it was free and had all the things I cared about at the time, easy to add recipes, each could have a picture, and notes, and they even had a way to grab recipes of specific websites without having to type anything in.  I moved all my paper recipes to Pepperplate and it served me well, however over the 10+ years I've been using it they have not improved it at all.  The website grabber has not read a recipe I've found online in years but I paid nothing and it still functioned.  Then a couple months ago all Pepperplate users got an email saying we had 2 weeks to subscribe to continue using it, to the tune of $36/yr.  They claimed to need money to improve it but failed to list any planned improvements.  That got me looking for it's replacement and I'm glad I did.

I searched, downloaded and tested Yummly, RecipeBox, Epicurious, Big Oven, OrganizEat, Recipe Keeper and probably others.  Some were not really organizers and much as places to find recipes.  Others were klunky or complicated, in the end it was between Big Oven and Recipe Keeper and I chose Recipe Keeper

It's easy to use, can grab recipes off the web from almost anywhere perfectly, imports from other products, syncs recipes between all your instances, allows for custom organization, even let's you take a picture of a recipe to add it and uses OCR so it's searchable.  It runs circles around Pepperplate in every way.  But it does cost a little bit to get all this quality, which I'm glad to pay for once I used it.

Beth and I had our own Pepperplate accounts and kept our recipes separate but we do have many in common too.  Ideally we'd share one digital recipe box. Recipe Keeper has a two level organizational structure (taxonomy) - Course and Category.  There can only be one course per recipe but each can be in unlimited categories and you can add your own and remove any default categories you don't need.  I added a "Jim" and "Beth" category so we could see only our own recipes if needed.  I also added "Low Carb", "Crockpot", "Pressure Cooker", and "Try" for recipes that we have not made but added because they looked good and we want to try them.  If we are looking for something different we can check out what's in the try category.  As you can see in the picture above we have 23 things to try. 

It allows easy resizing of recipes by simply specifying how many people you want to feed and based off the "servings" listed for the recipe it does the math for you.  It also stores nutrition information and will grab it from a website recipe if available.  I use notes to tell me what worked and what did not and what to try next time.  There is a 5 star rating you can give each recipe so you can quickly find your best ones.  If you want step by step pictures you can upload those too.  If someone asks you for a recipe you can quickly share it right from the app by entering their email address.  This gives them a direct link right to that recipe.  I've already shared recipes a couple times.

We never bothered using the shopping list or planner with Pepperplate because it was more hassle than it's worth but with Recipe Keeper we have tried it really kind of like it.  Pick some things to make for the week using the menu planner, then go to the shopping list and all ingredient are there to make it all, simply click on all the things you already have, add things not part of the recipes like laundry detergent, and it creates a dynamic shopping list organized in grocery store categories automatically and you can reorder them once and it remembers, so ours are in Wegman's order.

We shop together and start at opposite ends of the store and as you pick something up, mark it off the list and it shows as picked up on the other persons phone immediately.  High tech shopping at it's best.

Recipe Keeper is not a website but a collection of apps which sync together, so we bought iOS version for my iPhone and iPad and then Mac version for our Macs.  Beth had to get her own on her iPhone since it's a different Apple ID.  Each app is $5.99 per platform, so we ended up spending just under $18 for all our devices.  Not bad for a top quality product.  They also have apps for Android and Windows.

The only complaint would be cooking off your phone is tough because the ingredients are on one tab and the directions are on another, so flipping back and forth to get quantities is a pain.  But on the iPad and laptop this is not an issue at all.

I highly recommend it. 

Review: Carbon Steel Pan - Matfer Bourgeat 11 7/8-Inch

Non-Stick pans have been the rage for home cooks for a long time, but they don't last and they should not be used on high heat.  The chemicals are either coming off as a dangerous gas or flaking off in our food when we use them too long.  They can't handle metal utensils but a good one let's a egg slide right out.  When our Pampered Chef non-stick pans wore out I went looking for the new and improved versions which solve the previous issues and while there are some improvements the same issues still exist.  What do the pros use?  The answer is Carbon Steel.

A carbon steel pan is similar to a cast iron pan but 1/2 the weight and much smoother so when it's seasoned it becomes non-stick, or so they say.  But they are also about the cheapest pan you can buy.  From a restaurant supply site you can get them under $10.  They heat evenly, can handle high heat, oven baking, and are possibly the best pan to sear a steak.

I picked America's Test Kitchen #1 rated 12" carbon steel fry pan made in France - Matfer Bourgeat 11 7/8-Inch for $37

It was heavier than I expected.  A cast iron pan this size is 7lbs and this is only 3, but holding 3lbs on the end of a long stick is not as easy as it sounds.  That said it way way easier to manage one handed than a cast iron pan.  I like the lack of rivets which always catch food and become a pain to clean.  The pan has a very smooth finish, though it looks a bit rustic with it's welds and rough looking edges.

The downside of cast iron or carbon steel is the prep and maintenance.  You must never use a dishwasher, or soap beyond the initial cleaning and you need to season the pan before use and perhaps occasionally refresh it.  I'm willing to put in the work if it is everything they claim it is.

This brand has one of the most bizarre seasoning rituals I've ever heard of but America's test kitchen and others have said it's the best way.  You put 1/3 cup of sunflower oil, 2/3 cup of salt, and 2 potato skins in the pan and sauté that mess for 15 mins. The last 2 minutes will fill your house with smoke, but as you can see from the pictures the result is amazing.

It's a beautiful color but is it really non-stick?  The answer is a resounding YES.  In fact, it is the most non-stick pan I've ever used.  That chicken appeared to be stuck to the pan and yet barely touching it caused it to slide across the pan.  As you can see it left a nice sear on the chicken too.

However, I had the heat too high and as I cooked the 2nd batch of chicken I noticed the remnants, fond, left  in the pan started to burn.  That should have been my clue to turn down the heat, but I pressed on removing the burnt bits and deglazed the pan with broth for my sauce.  The broth immediately turned to steam, clue 2 it was too hot, and as I stirred the sauce I noticed more than fond was coming off.  In the end much of the seasoning on the pan appears to be gone.  

Is it still non-stick?  Do I need to re-season it?  From what I've read it may be just fine and the seasoning and color will build up with continued use.  I'll report back once I use it again.

My over all conclusion:  I love the idea, the pan seems like a good one, and I'm excited to keep using it and experimenting with it.  I need to up my game, but that's really the point isn't it?

UPDATE (2/26/2020): My second use was cooking Smash Burgers as a test to see if the pan was still seasoned and still non-stick.  The result was great.  It was perfect, the burger got a great crust and none stuck to the pan.  I'm happy to say the color does not indicate the effectiveness of the seasoning.  I plan to continue using it and will report back any issues.

UPDATE (3/3/2020): Third use was sautéed onion and prosciutto. It was initially like a non-stick pan but as the meat started browning a nice fond began forming on the bottom of the pan. Note how amazing that crust looks. I really should have deglazed it and made a sauce. I was afraid it would be tough to remove but a little water and nylon scraper is all it took and it came right off. So far so good. 

Baby Back Ribs tip

One step in prepping baby back ribs for the smoker, pressure cooker or slow cooker is removing the membrane on the back.  It's either impossible or easy...

Whoever figured out that using a paper towel to grab the membrane on the back of a rack of ribs so you can peel it off was a genius.  I'm not sure what magic happens but barehanded that membrane is slippery and adhered to the ribs at an atomic level never to be moved but once you grab it with a paper towel it gives up and comes right off.  

Another tip I have found is starting at the small end works better than the wide end.  Not intuitive to me, but clearly faster and easier.  

Now go forth and make pork! Yum.

 

Best Burger

As a grill guy I was skeptical, but after using this method 5-6 times I can say without a doubt it is THE BEST way to cook a burger.  Every single time I make these I say "these are amazing, why would we do it any other way?".  I will warn you it gets a little stressful when you are in the middle of it since they cook so fast and sometimes are hard to get off the pan in one piece, but the reward is so worth it.

The Ultra Smashed Double Burger - https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/03/ultra-smashed-cheeseburger-recipe-food-lab.html

The Cadillac of Crockpots

In my quest to find a quality crockpot, you know one that does not have a hotspot where food always burns and one which won't set your house a blaze and kill Jack, I came up short at local stores or online reviews.  However, I recently discovered two models which look amazing and at a price which makes me hope they are truly a cut above.  If you are looking for a true multi-cooker with an amazingly high quality look and feature set check out the Wolf Multi Function Cooker.  It appears to be the best crockpot, rice cooker, and decent sous vide machine, and it sears, so it's more than a slow cooker.  It better be a rock star for $600.

Since there is no water circulator I would expect the sous vide is not the best, but likely good enough for most things.  I like the probe feature to ensure meat is actually done right vs. "low for 8 hours".

But if you tire of chopping, stirring, mixing, grinding, and weighing by hand and still need a slow cooking, meat searing, food fermenting, computer guided recipe bot which updates itself while you sleep, check out the Termomix T6.  You can probably use a home equity loan to pay for it.

 I expect the T7 will be named Rosie and deliver your meal right to your lap with attitude. 

It's worth noting that none of these are pressure cookers.

Update: If you like what the Wolf does, Instant Pot brand has a very similar unit for 1/5 the price and would likely be my choice if I needed a new slow cooker (it's also NOT a pressure cooker).

Reviving a dead couch

Our much loved leather sleeper sofa had become so saggy our backs got sore and we could barely get out of it.  We added a sheet of plywood under the cushions to firm it up but then it was like sitting on a brick.  We eventually realized the problem was the cushions had worn out.  The solution was replacing the foam inside.  It’s possible to buy foam already cut to size and even wrapped with a batting which protects the foam and fills out the cushion nicely. However ordering those requires exacting measurements and can cost over $100 per cushion.  I chose to buy one large piece of foam and a separate roll of batting from The Foam Factory for $80 total to my door. This made 3 cushions with some foam left over.  One complexity is knowing which foam to pick, there are many options with different firmness, longevity, and materials.  I guessed we wanted a medium firmness (36 lbs ILD) and did not need high quality as this would become secondary seating.

I cut the foam with a bread knife and followed their directions on stapling the batting.  It took simple tools and a couple hours but now the couch is like new.  One trick I learned is rolling the cover off the old cushion allowed you to easily unroll the cover onto the new cushion without having to fight to stuff it in smoothly.

Review: Pampered Chef Quick Cooker

Pampered Chef has their own pressure cooker based multi-cooker ala Instant Pot with a unique look and outlandish list price $240-299.  I’m glad we only paid $23.

Bottomline:
Is it worth it?  No
Is it better than a $70 InstantPot? No

The Good:

• Pressure cooking works well and is simpler and quieter than a stovetop pressure cooker
• Outside stays cool due to insulated plastic outer cover
• Sear mode works well for things like reducing sauces, but not searing as you’ll see below
• Lid is easy to lock, unlock, and remove
• The carrying handles work well 
• Accessory kit is high quality and I’ve read others say it’s amazing, I have not used it yet
• Everything I’ve made so far tasted great.  The ribs recipe which came with it was simple and great. 

The Bad:

• Controls are the worst.  One problem with Instant Pot is having to click + or - a million times to set the time, so I was excited to see a dial which could save time and hassle.  However the dial only selects the mode, not the time. You still have to click + or - repeatably every bit as bad as Instant Pot.  But unlike Instant Pot which has a button for each mode so you can set with one click, you must spin the Quick Cooker’s dial until the proper mode lights up...spin, look, spin, look, spin, look...ridiculous. Is it a big deal? Not really but I’d be embarrassed if I was Pampered Chef. 
• There is no way to control the temperature, so you can’t use it for Sous Vide,  The custom mode only sets pressure and time and it only works for pressure cooking, not slow or sear..
• The steam vent design differs enough from Instant Pot to make steam direction accessories not work
• The steam vent does not always close tightly so steam leaks as it’s heating.  You must fiddle with it while steam is coming out to get it to seal.  Not expected or safe.
• Searing in a deep pot has very limited usage.  Searing a big hunk of meat should be OK but searing diced chicken is unbearable.  It sticks firmly, needs tongs to flip, there is no way to slide a turner/spatula under it, the surface area is small so it needs to be done in batches which means removing one batch to add the next and managing a mess.  Just use a large skillet or fry pan on the stove, easier, faster more effective.  This is the same for all pressure cookers.
• Slow cook only has one temperature which I tested to be 185.  That is a normal low temp on a Crockpot.  Instant Pot has 3 slow cook temperature settings low, mid, high.  
• It’s unclear if the clear Instant Pot slow cook lid will fit and Pampered Chef does not offer one.  Not required but nice to see what’s going on without having to open it up and release heat and moisture.
• A cheap Crockpot has 2 temperature settings, and wide pot and clear lid.  As a result, the Quick Cooker is a poor slow cooker.

General Information:

• Proof keeps water at about 95 with top off (too low for sous vide)
• Slow cook keeps water at about 185 with top off (too high for sous vide)
• Warm keeps the temp at about 165 with top off (too high to souls vide)

Conclusion:

• We had a couple lifetime warranty Pampered Chef pans fail and the credit they gave us allowed us to get the Quick Cooker with accessory kit for $23, otherwise I would have bought a different machine. 
• If you don’t have a pressure cooker, a true multi-cooker could be a versatile tool in the kitchen.  I would look for one which has multiple temperature settings for slow cooking, precise temperature controls for sous vide, a stainless pot like the Instant Pot and Quick Cooker because a non-stick one will wear off and simpler controls.  I would not worry about how many modes it has because they are all just different temp/time/pressure settings and most are max temp and pressure.  Being able to set all 3 allows unlimited “modes”.   
• If you absolutely have to have the Pampered Chef cooker wait for a sale, they have been discounted 50%, but know you are buying one of the worst multi-cookers for more than the most popular one even at 50% off.
• This might be a better all around multi-cooker for 1/2 the price though I have no experience with it:

Update: I found out who makes the PC Quick Cooker - Midea in China.  The Amazon reviews are pretty positive about it and those selling it now are asking over $600 for it. I'm guessing in China is sells for the equivalent of $50.  I stand by my assessment, there are better machines for less money.

Update: Searing works pretty well for reducing a sauce.  If you cook meat for instance and want to turn the juices left into a sauce use sear, add additional ingredients and stir.  It will work for that fairly well and reasonably quick.  You are still leaning over a deep pan and getting steaming sauce in the face but it smells great, so you have that going for you.  You are also not likely under a vent fan as you would be on the stove, so look up at the ceiling after using your Instant Pot for a couple years and I bet you'll be able to tell where it sits when in use.

Focus

“Life is better savored and work is better with focus”

Experiences over stuff in life.

A lack of focus wastes time, resources, muddies your marketing message, and causes confusion among the team. 

Pizza by the pound

I love local businesses. I'll try to support them whenever I can. Not because they grow things locally and they don't haul peppers from Chili. But because I can relate to the underdog. The guy trying to sell against big box stores and chains with marketing and advertising budgets bigger than their life time income. I'm intrigued by the business models they employ. How they can be unique in a world of so many choices.

Today I got my second recommendation to try a new local pizza shop in town called "Nola's Joint". They serve gourmet pizza rumored to be the best tasting pizza around, maybe anywhere. In fact my friend said "At this point I'm so addicted to the stuff that I don't really care how long the line is"

Quality by itself might be enough to make them succeed, especially against the giant chains cranking out eatable disks of bread and cheese by the millions. However Nola (assuming that's the owner) chose to sell her prized pizza by the pound.



The more I think about it the more I think buying pizza by the pound is the dumbest idea ever. Another friend relayed his experience of waiting in a long slow moving line as each person tried to figure out how to get what they wanted. This sounds like a lose/lose situation since all the customer knows is they want 2 slices of pizza and a coke and has no clue how much it might weigh or how much it will cost. Additionally, the restaurant is bound to be left with odd shaped small scraps they can't sell. It must take awhile for workers to know how to cut exactly 1 lb of pizza based on each variety of toppings. Who exactly is this business model helping?

Everyone I know is OK with a pizza being cut into 8 equal pieces. If Nola wanted to give customers more control, then she could sell 1/2 slices. I don't know of any place selling half slices but it might be nice to get a slice and a half some days.

This is like buying a car by volume - "I'll take one blue car with 16.3 cu. feet of space inside please"

How many pounds of pizza do you normally eat?

No guts, no glory

I saw Avatar this weekend and in typical good story form, the character had to overcome impossible odds to achieve a goal that was bigger than himself. Donald Miller would say this is also what makes a good and meaningful life. It takes guts to face impossible odds. There are risks and you may be ridiculed for your resolve and belief, but when you stand firm and see it through the rewards can be great.

I wonder if this is also what makes an interesting and impactful company. Apple, for example, has the guts to stand by their vision, their "higher calling". They don't follow, they lead. They don't worry about comparing themselves to anyone else, they have a vision of how things should be and they push to make it happen no matter what "they" think.

Apple just released the iPad, which no one asked for and which falls short of other products in so many ways. It plays movies yet does not support 1080 resolution, it is not pocketable, memory is not expandable, it has no camera so no video chat, no flash support, you can't replace the battery or anything for that matter, there is no stylus so it's not an artist's pad, it can only run one application at a time. Yet it's simple, relatively cheap, fast, and can run for 10 hours untethered. Apple knew what they wanted. They avoided the mistake of trying to make everyone happy. They did not try to play catch-up with other slate products or even netbooks. They defined their own market, targeted their own audience, and went for it. There is no guarantee it will succeed but taking a risk is the only way to make a real difference.

It takes guts to stand up and be different. It takes guts to stick to your vision even when others don't believe. There are more risks doing things this way, but there are also much richer rewards.

Some companies try to keep up with the crowd, others know where they want to go and blaze their own trail.

Which company would you rather work for?

Which life would you rather live?

Do hard things

I have noticed a disturbing trend in people working hard to find the easiest way to get a job done. My problem is not with a desire for efficiency, it's with pushing to make a marginal solution. The question becomes "What is the bare minimum I could do and still get credit for doing something?" or "What is the smallest feature set we can give the client to get them off our backs?". Instead the question needs to be "How can we knock their socks off and still deliver on time?"

In reality, if we are not striving to do the best and taking opportunity to surprise clients by going beyond what they expected, we are just plodding along punching a clock and collecting a paycheck. Not very inspiring. What excites people is knowing they are building something great, something that matters. The only way to do that is by doing something hard.

One of our engineers spent much of last weekend solving a hard problem. We had decided we could compromise the solution to get it done in time and it would still work OK for most people. None of us were proud of that choice, but what else could we do? By spending his own time, this engineer was able to solve the hard problem and deliver a feature that we can be proud of.

What are you most proud of? I'll bet it is the things that you worked hard to accomplish. If you find yourself trying to figure out how to get out of doing something hard, you may still get a paycheck but you are robbing yourself of the greatest prize - knowing you accomplished something that matters. Don't shy away from the challenges. Hit them head on.

Do hard things.

Chair economy

How can anyone justify buying a $750 chair when you can get one for $100? Style and prestige may play into it but neither are a reason your accountant will approve so let's look at the return on investment. The $100 chair will likely last for 2-3 years before it's worn out or broken. The $750 chair comes with a 12 year warranty and will likely last 15 years or more. As a result, the cheap chair costs $33-50 per year and the top of the line chair costs about $50 per year. Is it worth a couple extra dollars a year to sit on the best?

To a software developer, a chair is the 2nd most important tool for their job. The most important, a computer (with software) will cost a company at least $500/year, ten times the cost of the chair. Put another way, the best chair will only cost 3 cents an hour. All of a sudden it sounds like a deal.

The numbers show a great chair is not much more expensive, in the long run, then a cheap chair but what are the benefits for the company buying expensive chairs?

1) Improved Morale - Having a nice work environment makes everyone feel better about their job
2) Better Health - An ergonomic chair can make all the difference for anyone with back problems
3) Less hassle - A cheap chair will need to be replaced 5 times for each top quality chair
4) Recruitment Edge - A great work environment will help attract the cream of the crop
5) Increased Productivity - In a "scientific study" Steelcase found a top quality chair will improve productivity by 17.8% due to more focus and less fidgeting. Even if you only see a 10% improvement the chair would pay for itself in no time.

Now you can go back through my chair reviews and pick out the one that's just right for you.

How successful is your business?

When considering if a software business is successful, I start with revenue per employee. Revenue per employee tells you the capacity of the company and shows how much "headroom" they have to motivate employees, grow the business, or innovate the product.
Tracking profit per employee might seem to make more sense, however, profit is only what's left over after expenses and I want to know how much the company can spend on expenses.

If a company makes $10M per year and has 100 employees its revenue per employee is $100k. That may seem pretty good until you realize that there is overhead to keeping the business going - operating costs, employee benefits, cost of goods, etc. With only 100 employees perhaps your overhead rate is only 50% of the labor cost. This means $33k of the $100k is overhead, leaving $67k as the average salary.

That's a pretty sustainable business in the software world, but doesn't allow much room to get creative. You may not be able to hire the best, or kick off a new product development effort, or buy lunch for everyone every day in order to build a tight team.

A better goal for a software company is $200k/employee. With revenue approaching $200k per employee there are many more options open to you. Lunch everyday is a no brainer. Hiring the best is within reach. There is room to try something new and fail. You also have the ability to build up cash reserves in case the economy or your market takes a bad turn.

Minitab, maker of statisics software, brings in $196k per employee and as a result has built a 35 person movie theater, real putting green, gym, and pool for employees to enjoy. They have a top notch facility and have been rated one of the best places to work. They can hire for specialized positions like build engineer and installation tester. With those resources, quality can dramatically improve, driving a great reputation and customer loyalty, all of which feeds back into revenue.

Overhead expenses can vary widely between industries, so comparisons should be within a particular industry. As companies grow their overhead per employee tends to go up and so their revenue per employee must be higher. This provides an advantage to a smaller company that can sell at a lower cost than "the big boys" and still pay it's employees well.

I stumbled across an interesting statistic today on Hoovers: "The packaged software industry is capital-intensive and highly automated, with average annual revenue per worker surpassing $400,000. The custom programming industry is labor-intensive: with average annual revenue per worker of about $115,000."

Give me a product company over a services company any day.

What's your revenue per employee?

Review: Exercise Ball

Exercise Ball

Price: $25 (street)

Pros: Cheap, unique, versatile, promotes movement, available in several colors

Cons: No back support, does not encourage proper posture, can burst with proper application of scissors

Notes: I used the ball for several days and initially it loosens up the back, but I found if I used it for more than an hour or 2 my back hurt later in the day. Exercise may be its best use. Several people at work use them as chairs, one popped (ouch) and another lady fell off hers today.

Review: Humanscale Liberty Chair

Humanscale Liberty

Website
Price: $910 (list) $750 (street)

Pros: Minimal simple controls, sturdy construction, understated style

Cons: If you are not average build you may need more controls to get comfortable, does not look like an expensive chair

Notes: This was a very comfortable chair. The clean and simple design would go with any decor. Constructed mostly of metal makes it look solid. I needed something with a little more adjustability so I reluctantly left this one in the store.

Review: Humanscale Freedom Chair

Humanscale Freedom

Website

Price: $1180 (list) $950 (street)

Pros: Great looking, solid construction, weight controlled recline, nice headrest and moves

Cons: Weight controlled recline tension was not firm enough, hissing sound every time you sit, seat back a little narrow, looks like a dentist chair

Notes: I had high hopes for this one due to the good looks and great reviews. However, I did not even need to take it back to the office for a test. The back was a little narrow and the weight adjusted tilt was noisy. It seemed to be implemented with an air or gas chamber so that every time you sat on it the chair would hiss, releasing gas, for 30 seconds or more. It was very annoying. It did not "learn" and went through it's hissing routine with each use. However, it still did not have enough recline tension. Perhaps this chair is best suited for a smaller person.

Review: Herman Miller Aeron Chair

Herman Miller Aeron

Website

Price: $1277 (list) $750 (street)

Pros: Sturdy construction, good looks, super adjustable, 3 different sizes match to different builds, 12 year warranty

Cons: Only colors choices are shades of gray, hard lip on the sides of the seat, cable driven controls can be unreliable, basic lumbar did not work well

Notes: This is the one that started it all. It's still very popular and seen in TV shows and offices everywhere. I fit best in a size C, which is a big chair. Adjustments are nice and I was able to dial in just what I liked. The basic lumbar adjustment was pretty easy, but the foam block you move up and down or flip tended to move throughout the day as I moved, and almost fell out. The demo chair I had seemed to have much more wear on the lumbar foam then the rest of the chair. The PosterFit support might be the best option although I only tried it for 5 minutes in the store. The recline tension adjustment is too fine and literally took me 100 turns to tighten it enough. The deal breaker however was the hard lip in the sides of the seat. I found I sat to the side or with my legs spread enough that after a day of use my thighs had bruises. I really noticed it the next day when I sat down and my thighs hit the edge again. A coworker who sits with his leg pulled up under himself cracked his ankle on the lip. I really like this chair and would have excused all issues except the hard raised lip on the seat.