Flush Gun Blog: January 2013

Kyjen Squeakin' Eggs Plush Dog Toys, 3-Pack Read more...

Comes in a set of three

Helps you save money

Prevents the need to purchase an entirely new toy

Great for indoor playing indoors I have many of the Kyjen toys for my dogs including over 20 of these eggs. They make great toys in and of themselves. I have a basket full of them so I can keep throwing balls to entertain my puppy. My disability prevents me for being able to run and play but the kids love it if I sit on the couch basket of eggs beside me and just keep throwing them. Very inexpensive way to let my dogs run and play in the house without damage.
Winner!! My dog LOVES LOVES these eggs. Who knew! They are just eggsbut I'm not a dog.. She absolutely loves to play with it. She is a 22 lbs terrier mix and a heavy chewer but I think this one will last a long time. It's well made. The squeaker is still going strong after 2 weeks.
Dogs love them!!! I have a 70 pound shepherd/retriever mix and these are her favorite toys. She is not much for the animal that often comes with them she just likes the eggs. My parents have a miniature dachshund and she loves them to. I would recommend for dogs small to medium/large.
Plush balls Our lab/golden retriever is obsessed with her Kong ball which is great for outdoors. These soft balls are great to just toss back and forth in the house.
Good but fragile Our dog absolutely loves these maybe too much. They are great to play fetch indoors as they are so soft and light. The problem is they are easily torn and the stuffing and squeeker pulled out. After gingerly treating the plush balls our dog Cody 15 lbs will just decide to disect it and the ball is too fragile to withstand his attention. At least the balls are cheap! But a more durable cover would be appreciated.
Little dogs' favorite toy! We got the Platypus egg baby for our dogs five of them! to play with. The smallest ones aged rat terrier rescues quickly latched onto the eggs as their favorite toys. They are the perfect size for their little mouths they can easily get at the squeaker and they can carry them around which they love. I was thrilled to see the egg replacements available on Amazon and have bought one package already and will be buying more. The Platypus is still around but they all prefer to play with the pieces separately. One of the bigger dogs does however enjoy the thrill of getting the eggs out.
Dogs Love Them! I don't know what it is about these eggs but my two small dogs17 and 20lbs love them. They are easy to throw and roll on the floor. One of my dogs loves to catch them. My only complaint is that the squeakers break way too soon. My dogs still will use the toys though so it is not a total bust. In the end this product provides great enjoyment for my dogs for the price despite the squeakers breaking.
My dog loves these! I thought these might be too big for my chihuahua but she manages just fine and these are by far her favorite toys. It's great that they are so cheap too. I bought a bunch of packs since we tend to lose some underneath furniture only to have them magically reappear days later. She loves to have me squeak them and throw them down the hall so she can chase them down. She even plays with them by herself. These are ovalshaped and have an unpredictable bounce which she loves. She cannot squeak them with her mouth but sometimes she accidentally runs into one against the wall and if it squeaks she jumps away a bit scared very funny. Some of the squeakers arrived not working or barely working. I doubt the squeakers last long but the material used to cover the egg seems durable enough for my 6.5 lb dog and she likes to chew on the ends. For the money these are great toys even if they had no squeaker at all. The dog loves to bat them around herself and it's just about the only toy she will mess with when I'm not playing with her which is a big plus since I cannot play with her all day long. If your dog likes toys they will probably love these eggs.
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plush indoor ball fun! My Siberian loves these balls I have gotten them for him for many years and he will bring worn out ones over with a sad face when he wants a new pack. he sees the new ones in the package and leaps to grab them before I can open them. It is wonderful to have a ball that I can toss in the house that wont harm breakables. I first got them with the cube but just the balls alone give them more delight then the puzzle cube they prefer the treat puzzles.
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Kyjen PP01056 Hide-A-Squirrel Pet Toy, Large NF Terrier playing with this toy

Kyjen Egg Babies Dog Toy, Original Series, Platypus Dog is Crazy about this

onmouseover= ...Read the full

Kyjen Oakley the Octopus Junior Plush Pet Toy Dog loves Oakley the Octopus Jr

Kyjen Squeakin' Animals Replacement Bees for Hide-A-Bee Toy, 3-Pack - Large Sturdy Adorable Dog Toys with Great Squeakers! These adorable little bees are a costeffective way to entertain any dog who loves a good squeaker. They will last indefinitely with light chewers and need to be replaced periodically with moderate or heavy chewers. My ...Read the full

Kyjen Squeakin' Animals Replacement Squirrels for Hide-A-Squirrel Toy, 3-Pack - Large Item is NOT as described! The actual toy is great! My dogs love it and my house looks like a squirrel massacre! However the item name needs to be updated because these are not the Large squirrels. They are quite small in fact. I know this is ...Read the full

Friday, January 25, 2013

One more Twittery data point

The LA Times is clearly comfortable with Twitter, or at least its online version is. A recent article on the Boeing 787 (aka Dreamliner) seems to consist mostly of tweets. We see tweets from stranded travelers and tweets from not-stranded travelers commenting on their predicament. Most significantly, I think, is that Boeing's official reaction is given in the form of tweets.

This seems to be more the exception than the rule, judging by a few other LA Times articles I clicked through to.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Greenies Dental Chews Dogs Regular PLEASE RESEARCH BEFORE GIVING TO YOUR DOG!

Greenies Dental Chews for Dogs, Regular, Pack of 27 Read more...

Tasty dog treat helps control harmful plaque and tartar build-up

Ideal for dogs 25 to 50 pounds

Contains natural sources of antioxidants and dietary fiber

Carries Veterinary Oral Health Council (VOHC) Seal of Acceptance

Please read label carefully upon delivery

Crack for my dog My dog loooves these treats. He's a 50 lb Rhodesian Ridgeback mutt and devours these! I'm not sure about the dental impact yet as he's only had them for 2 weeks or so. But this combined with toothpaste would be more effective.
Fatal Why aren't there more negative reviews on the site? Greenies are known for the harm they've caused many dogs just look it up to see for yourself.Years ago my Pomeranian died due to biting off a chunk of a Greenie bone and having it obstruct her intestine.It was a painful and horrific death and I found out the same thing has happened to many other dogs to the fact that they are full of cellulose fiber. There are many other types of teethcleaning bones out there that WON'T seriously injure your dogs. They're probably cheaper as well.
Great My dog and I both love this product. My vet even said it was great that my dog is having one every day. I feed my dog homemade dog food which includes sardines so Greenies are a necessity.Don't know what we would do without them.
Greenie Good Our labradoodle likes his Greenies. The product seems to be helping with the plaque problem he's been having. It is a bit costly for continual use.
PLEASE RESEARCH BEFORE GIVING TO YOUR DOG! Read the stories online.dogs have died from Greenies. I gave my 50lb pound dog Greenies for the first time 2 weeks ago and she became very very sick for more than a week. She was vomiting and having potty issues the entire time. These cause blockages and do not allow the dog to fully digest. I can't believe these are still on the market.From one loving pet owner to another DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE GIVING YOUR DOGS GREENIES! TRUST ME.
Greenies The shipment came on time and was packed perfectly.
Dog Teeth Cleaner I read the reviews and decided to purchase Greenies for my two dogs. Unfortunately neither one will eat them. I gave one box to my son and one to my daughter and thier dogs love them. Go figure.
My dog loves these. My dog is not wild about many treats but she loves Greenies. She just can't resist them. She never eats the cat's food but once I had some cat Greenies in the bowl and she scarffed them up! The only reason I gave them 4 stars is that I wish they weren't so expensive.
Great dental chew deal I purchased some Greenies Regular pack of 27 which I think is a great deal and it was delivered promptly. But there is extra packaging which needs to be recycled.
Greenies Dental Chews My doggie loves Greenies she will not go to bed without her Greenie. They are digestible helps clean teeth. They are a bit expensive but they are a good product and I would and do recommend them.
Read more...

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Greenies Dental Chews for Dogs, Teenie Pack, 96 Chews my lil' beast is crazy for greenies!! i still worry about the rumored threat to dogs from these treats but they have changed the formula so i am assuming all is well with them. and i am assuming since they are front and center in most pet ...Read the full

Greenies Dental Chews for Dogs, Petite Pack, 45 Chews Dogs love Greenies! My dogs love them and they really help in freshening my dogs' breaths! This is the most costefficient pack I could find. ...Read the full

Greenies Dental Chews for Dogs, Large, Pack of 17 My Dog's Favorite and Amazon's the Place to Get Them! My German Shepherd is a complete Greenie addict. She knows when they're in the house. She knows which cupboard they're kept in. She knows what time of day she's supposed to get hers. ...Read the full

Greenies 36-Ounce Dental Chews Value Tub, Regular No savings in 36 oz. value pac Greenies 36 ounce dental chews value tub regular size with 36 chews in package is actually more per chew than the same item in the 27 ounce package. where is the value or savings in buying the larger package of ...Read the full

Greenies JointCare Treats for Dogs, Large - 28 Count Much better than pills One of our dogs whom we adopted as an adult had torn cranial cruciate ligaments in both back legs and a really difficult time getting around. We opted for surgery on one leg to see if it would help but the repair did ...Read the full

Monday, January 21, 2013

Is there a UX crisis?

Back in the early days of computing, a software crisis was declared. Projects were being launched with high expectations -- this was back when computers could do absolutely anything -- only to end up late, over budget, disappointingly lacking in features, buggy to the point of uselessness, or not delivered at all.

Many solutions were proposed. Software should be written in such a way that it could be mechanically proved correct. Software engineering should become a proper engineering discipline with licenses required to practice. Methodologies should be developed to control the development process and make it regular and predictable. There were many others.

None of these things has happened on a significant scale. A proof of correctness assumes you understand the problem well enough to state the requirements mathematically, which is not necessarily easier than writing the code itself. For whatever reason, degrees and certificates have not turned out to be particularly important, at least in the places I've worked for the past decades.

Methodologies have come and gone, and while most working engineers can recognize and understand a process problem when they see it ("Why did I not know that API was about to change?" ... "How did we manage to release that without testing feature X??"), there is a high degree of skepticism about methodologies in general.

This isn't to say that there aren't any software methodologies -- there are hundreds -- or that they're not used in practice. I've personally seen up close a highly-touted methodology that used hundreds of man-years and multiple calendar years to replace an old mainframe system with a new, state-of-the art distributed solution that the customer -- which had changed ownership at least once during the wait -- was clearly unhappy with. And well they should have been. Several months in it had been scaled down as it became clear that the original objectives weren't going to be met.

I've also seen "agile" methodologies put in place, with results that were less disastrous but not exactly miraculous either. Personally I'm not at all convinced that a formal methodology is as helpful as a good development culture (you know it when you see it), frequent launches, good modularity and lots of testing.

Several things have happened instead of a cure, or cures, for the software crisis. Languages and tools have improved. Standards, generally de facto, have emerged. Now that a lot of software is out, both customers and developers have more realistic expectations about what it can and cannot do. Best practices have emerged (Unit tests are your friend. Huge monoliths of code aren't.). Projects get delivered, often late, over budget, lacking features and buggy, but good enough. And it's just code. We can always fix it. I can sense the late Edsger Dijkstra shaking his head in disapproval as I write this, but nonetheless the code is running and a strong case can be made that the world is better for it.

We don't have, nor did we have, a crisis. What we have is consistent disappointment. We can see what software could be, and we see what it is, and the gap between the two, particularly in the mistakes we get to make over and over again, is disheartening.

Which leads me back to a persistent complaint: UXen, in general, suck.

Yes, there are plenty of examples of apps and web sites that are easy to use and even beautiful, but there are tons and tons that are annoying, if not downright infuriating, and ugly to boot. For that matter, there are a fair number of pretty-but-useless interfaces. Despite decades of UX experience and extensive research, basic flaws keep coming back again and again. Off the top of my head without trying too hard:

Forms that make you re-enter everything if you make a mistake with anything (these actually seem to be getting rarer, and a good browser will bail you out by remembering things for you -- and in many cases that's a perfectly fine solution).
Lists of one item that you have to pick from anyway as though there were an actual choice.
"Next" buttons that don't go away when you get to the last item (likewise for "Previous")
Links to useless pages that just link you to where you wanted to go in the first place.
Security theater that pretends to make things safer. Please make it stop.
Forms that require you use a special format for things like phone numbers. Do I include the dashes or not?
Wacky forms for things like dates that throw everything you know about keys like backspace and tab out the window.
Error handling that tells you nothing about how to fix the problem.
Layouts that only line up right on a particular browser.
Pages that tell you to "upgrade" if you're not running a particular browser.
General garish design. Text that doesn't contrast with the background, which is too busy anyway. Text that contrasts too much. Cutely unreadable fonts. Animated GIFs that cycle endlessly.
Things that pop up in front of what you're trying to look at for no good reason.
Editors that assume, a la Heisenberg, that the mere act of opening an edit window on a document causes unspecified "unsaved changes" that you must then decide whether or not to save (yeah, Blogger, you're guilty here).

And so forth. This is just off the top of my head. I've ranted about several of these already, though for some reason the industry doesn't seem to have taken heed.

How does this happen?

How does any less-than-satisfactory design ever happen? One answer is that reality sets in. Any real project is a compromise between the desire to produce something great and the need to get something out in front of the customer. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

In an ideal world, people would be able to describe exactly what they want and designers could just give it to them. In the real world, people don't always know what they want, or what's reasonably feasible, and designers don't always know how to give it to them. In the ideal world a designer has at hand all possible solutions and is never swayed by the desire to use some clever new technique whether it really applies or not. In the real world designers are humans with limited resources.

This isn't unique to software by any means. Doors have been around for millennia, and people still don't always know how to design them.

I should pause here to acknowledge that UX is difficult. There are rules and methods, and tons of tools, but putting together a truly excellent UX that's both pleasant and fully functional, that makes easy things easy and hard things possible, takes a lot of thought, effort and back-and-forth with people actually trying to use it.

Again, though, that's not a property of UX. It's a property of good design. The question here is why are UX things that seem simple enough -- like avoiding useless buttons and links -- so often wrong in practice. A few possible answers:

Actually, UX designers get it more-or-less right most of the time. We just notice the failures because they're really, really annoying.
It's harder than it looks. It's not always easy to figure out (in terms even a computer can understand) that a link or button is useless, or how to lay something out consistently on widely different screens.
The best tools aren't always available. Maybe there's a really good widget for handling a changing list of items that allows for both quick and fine-grained scrolling and so forth. But it's something your competitor wrote, or it's freely available but not on the platform you're using.
Dogma. Occasionally guidelines require foolish consistency and UX is not in a position to bend them. This may explain some tomfoolery regarding dates, social security numbers and such.
Plausible-sounding reasoning that never gets revisited. It may seem like a great idea to make sure you have a valid social security number by requiring the user to put in the dashes as well. That way you know they're paying attention. Well, no.
Reinvented wheels. The person doing the UX hasn't yet developed the "this must already exist somewhere" spidey sense, or thinks it would be Really Cool to write yet another text editing widget.
Software rot. The page starts out really nicely, but changes are jammed in without regard to an overall plan. Inconsistencies develop and later changes are built on top of them.

Hmm ... once again, none of these seems particularly unique to UX. Time to admit it: UX is a branch of software engineering, liable to all the faults of other software engineering endeavors. Yes, there is an element of human interaction, but if you think about it, designing a library for people to code to is also a kind of UX design, just not one with screens and input devices. You could just as well say the same things that make UX development error prone make library design error prone as the other way around.

To answer the original question, there is no UX crisis, no more than there was a software crisis. We just have the same kinds of consistent disappointment.

But who asked? Well, I did, in the title of this post. Interestingly enough, no one actually seems to have declared a UX crisis, or at least the idea doesn't seem to have taken off. Maybe we have learned a bit in the past few decades after all.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Premier Pet Squeeze Meeze Dragon Loved it, but wrecked within minutes, no durability!

Premier Pet Squeeze Meeze Jr. Dog Toy, Dragon Read more...

Are sure to keep dogs occupied for hours on end.

Tongue/Flames & Tail extend.

Vibrantly colored and playful.

Loved it but wrecked within minutes no durability! This was a big hit but didn't even last 15 minutes. My dog chewed right threw it. Unfortunately wouldn't recommend unless your dog is not a chewer at all! It just doesn't have any durability.
Doh!! Based on other reviews I thought this would be a good toy.
Bailey's favorite toy I have a one and a half year old Havanese and the elephant is her very favorite toy. She did tear off the trunk and tail pretty quickly when she first got it but it still became her favorite. She's had it for about a year now and just recently chewed it enough that the insides came out so I just ordered another elephant and this time I also got the dragon. The Jr. size is great for small dogs.
My Dog's FAVORITE Toy! When we first got our dog my sisterinlaw gave us one of the octopus toys. Our pit bull puppy was initially terrified of the squeak noise that the toy made but she simultaneously fell in love with the toy and would daintily pick it up and carry it around by one or more of the rubber tentacles. She LOVES to play fetch with it and once she overcame her fear of the squeaky noise she loved to hear it land with a squeak and then run and get it. Her other favorite thing to do with it is pick it up by the tentacles and thrash it from side to side allowing it to smack her on both sides of her face. After 6 months of rough play Mr. Squeaks as we call him has lost 4 of his 8 legs and no longer squeaks. But that doesn't really matter it is her favorite toy. I just ordered a few more of them today so that when she's finally torn off the last leg we'll have another one or two or three waiting to fill the void.
My puppy loves this but I got this toy for my 3 month old Labrabull Lab/Pit. He's a bit of an aggressive chewer and has a pretty powerful bite given his pitbull side. That being said my dog LOVED this toy. I got him 3 different toys at once and he piled them together before choosing to play with this one. However in about an hour he had ripped off the tongue and tail and has continued to rip tiny bits off since. He really likes the toy so I let him play with it when I'm watching and make sure if he rips anything off that he spits it out.
My Dogs all time favorite toy I bought this for my dog 4 years ago and it is now torn to shreads.. she has an entire toy box and always goes for this one. I searched and searched for another one and I am so happy I just found it on amazon. She is going to be so happy to see this under the christmas tree.
No durability My puppy ripped the tongue and tail off of this toy within 30 minutes. And of course once there's a hole in it it no longer squeaks. I'm not impressed with this toy at all.
Good toy with one huge flaw The Positive The dog loves the sound these makealthough your neighbors will not. It's loud high pitched and sounds like it's dying. Good for the dog though.The Negative Every creature in the lineup has some sort of rubber piece that the dog will snap off within 30 minutes. The elephant has a trunk the dragon has a tongue the octopus has tentacles etc.Trust me These do not last long if your dog is moderately curious 40 pound Basenji mix here.
Not a Good Toy My PUPPY Golden Retriever never destroys his toys He's not a tough chewer he has little puppy teeth and he still has every toy that he's ever owned. That being said within 3 minutes he had chewed off both the tongue and tail of this dragon and probably would have eaten both if I wasn't monitoring him with his new toy. If this thing starts falling apart with only a few puppy chewing minutes it has no chance with adult sized dogs. Yes my dog loved it but I don't want him taking apart and eating a rubber dragon. Don't get this.
I don't know why my pug won't touch this My pug loves little squeaky stuffed toys and I wanted to try something different with this cute dragon. I don't know if it's the texture of the rubber that it's not stuffed I don't know but he will not play with this toy. I'm sure other dogs will like it but no for my lil pug.
Read more...

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Kyjen Plush Puppies Squeaker Mat Long Body Gator Dog Toy with 16 Squeakers Please read this review for the safety of your dog! I rarely leave 1star ratings. This review will probably get lost in the numerous reviews and disappear.My adorable dog isn't a huge chewer but he kept chewing this product. He started ...Read the full

Kyjen PP01056 Hide-A-Squirrel Pet Toy, Large NF Terrier playing with this toy

Premier Pet Latex Ladybug got this same exact dragon in Jr version dog loved it but destroyed in 2 days. I have a 7 month old schnoodle. He's only 10 lbs but while he's been teething he's been capable of destroying everything! He was initially very careful with this dragon. He would creep up ...Read the full

Hartz Zoo Balloons Dog Toy (Toy May Vary) Beagle loves it and it lasts! At last a toy that can survive lovin' from my beagle! She is ballobsessed and will drop anything at the sound of a squeak toy. Yet she always makes it her mission to kill the squeak. We've found toys that are more durable than the ...Read the full

Saturday, January 19, 2013

"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean"

Another one in over the transom:

I have accounts at two different banks. It's usually not a problem, but sometimes I need to transfer money from bank A to bank B. I was happy to find out that bank B can do free transfers from other banks, after you've set things up. It takes three days or so to clear, but that's generally no big deal.

All you have to do, once it's set up, is go on their web site and select "Transfer from outside the bank". You select an account that you've already set up (bank A in my case). You fill in the amount. You select how you want the transfer done. Actually there's just one choice: three-day free transfer. At the bottom there's a button labeled "Complete Transfer"

So you click that button. Another page comes up confirming the details you've just put in. Great. You're done.

Not so fast.

Three days later, there's no money transferred. Contact customer service. No, we don't see any record of it yet. Please contact the bank where you initiated the transfer.

You're the bank where I initiated the transfer.

Sorry, don't see any sign of it.

Then you go back and try again. You fill in the form. You click on "Complete Transfer". You see the same page with the details you just put in ...

... and you think to scroll down to the bottom, which is cut off by your browser window. At the bottom is a button that says "Send Transfer".

Didn't I just complete the transfer? Guess not. Click "Send Transfer". The window goes gray and a spinny thing spins for a while. Then you get a different window and a confirmation number. Three days later the money is there.

Would it have killed anyone to have labelled the first button "Continue" instead of "Complete Transfer"?

Indeed.

[There's a happy ending, as announced in this post: The bank changed the text. Yay!]

Friday, January 18, 2013

Kyjen PipSqueaks Donkey Plush Dog Cool toy

Kyjen PipSqueaks Donkey Plush Dog Toy Read more...

Perfect for smaller dogs

Animalistic sound will drive dogs crazy

Made of an ultra-soft terrycloth material

Cool toy My little mutt loves this toy. I have accidentally thrown it in the wash several times with the voice box still in it and it still works. The only thing I don't like about it is that you can take the voice box out which because of the opening makes it easier for a dog to take it out to. Of course it is your typical made in China type toy that starts falling apart at the seams etc. but this is typical of every toy I have ever purchased. We have had this toy for about 4 months and his tail hair has fallen off and I have had to perform surgery on his arm to repair a stuffing leak. Overall it's a cute toy and my dog loves the unique noises that he makes plus he loves it's small size.
Eh it's alright. This is such a cute little toy. Unfortunately the donkey sound it's supposed to make doesn't work very easily. You have to whack it against something to get it to make noise. It won't bray with normal play. My dogs love toys that make noise and I have to bang it on the floor hard in order for it to make the noise it's supposed to. I was dissapointed.
cheaply made This is not worth the cost it does make sounds but if you have a chewer don't get this. My dog is a larger dog but she is gentle with her toys now that she is older so the flimsiness of this is not so much an issue.
Great to watch the dog's reaction I bought this for my dog for Christmas and love the reaction she had when she started to play with it. She was expecting a squeak and instead received an animal sound. She first looked at it and was not sure what to make of it after a short while she decided it was great fun making it make its distinctive sound and ended up cuddling with it after playing with it.
A huge hit! I love the Kyjen toys that amazon stocks. I have bought almost all of them at this point and my dog loves them. This Donkey doesn't squeak though it makes like a loud mooing sound a little startling the first time you hear it. Also the sound goes off on its own it appears to be triggered by movement and not squeezing. I can be in the opposite room with my dog and we will hear it go off on its own. Which makes it like a tracking game for my dog so I'm not bothered by it.
My dogs love this toy! Not only do my two Maltese dogs love this toy but it is so adorable watching them carry it around the house. The size is fine for a small dog as it's easy for them to pick up and carry.
The BEST Kitten toy ever!!! My kitten loves this donkey dog toy. She carries it all over the house! We gave her the 1st one when she was 7 weeks old and she teethed thru it until 7 months of age. Bought here a new one and she's having the time of her life with this toy!! We took out the noise makerthing because that scared her. This is an awesome toy for teething kittens.
PipSqueak Donkey's not heehawing This is the ONLY toy my dog plays with. The donkeys used to be part of an entire line of assorted 'talking' toys but this was her favorite. Unfortunately this product has been scarce and this particular offering was a reasonable priceWhenI do find the donkey I purchase about ten at a time. Unfortunately I had no way of knowing until I received this delivery that the donkey's beloved heehaw is no longer the same sound. I believe it makes a sound one of the other animals used to makebut can't recall which one. Anyway there are some quality issuesFirst not all the sound boxes work.
very cute but the sound box didn't work bought for a friend as a joke.
It is cute..but not a good dog toy. This is very cute. My teenage daughter who likes eeyore from Winnie the Pooh likes this. I find it hard to believe that this would last very long as a dog toy. Our dog is very gentle with stuffed animals and I didn't even give this to her for fear that it would last only a couple of minutes.
Read more...

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onmouseover= ...Read the full

Kyjen Plush Puppies PipSqueaks Pig Great little toy for your little dog Love these Kyjen Talking Toys..and perfect for small dogs I have 2 Yorkies and what's great about these is that when you toss them and when they hit the ground they grunt or oink and that way your dog can find where you tossed ...Read the full

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Kyjen Squeakin' Eggs Plush Dog Toys, 3-Pack My girls LOVE these!!! I do not usually review items that I have purchased but this is an exception. My girls LOVE these toys. They are just squeeky enough but do not have a ton of stuffing surrounding them that entice them to shred the toy so they actually last for ...Read the full

Kyjen Dog Games Treat Wheel treat wheel

Kyjen Dog Games Treat Wheel Read more...

All games include instructions and tips

All treat cups included (not sold separately)

Dishwasher safe

Good toy but not as challenging as wanted I have a 4 year old Border Collie/Australian Cattle Dog mix who is very food motivated.I bought this toy after reading all the positive reviews from dog owners on this site.A lot of the dogs referenced were Labs or Retrievers.. so I assumed this would be perfect for my pooch.He figured it out rather quickly.. and even though he still loves to play it. Is done finding the treats in less than 2 mins. And if I am not right there with him on the floor next to him he will throw the toy around to just get the treats out.I will continue to use this toy with him mostly to work on patience with him but as far as challenging this toy did not prove effective.
only good for the first use buy a treat ball My dog figured this out really fast and likes it a lot. However it's over priced since my dog can get to the treats fast and he's a fast eater. I would suggest investing in a treat ball instead. That'll keep there attention longer and they are similarly priced.
Two paws down My ten pound Yorkie is very food centric when it comes to games if there isn't food he isn't playing. We have several bumble balls and kongs that he loves to play with and thought this treat wheel would be a fun new game for him. The yellow playing pieces were much too big for him to get his mouth around and he was unable to master using his paws to flip them out of the holders. For a dog that LOVES any game that involves food this just proved much too frustrating for him. And believe me we tried to help our little guy out with this. We left the yellow cups off and just slightly rotated the wheel but even that was too difficult for him to spin as it did not move easily. And it's not like our dog isn't Pawcentric as he is actually quite adept at using his paws to move and flip his Kong and to fish treats out from under furniture etc. We tried over the course of several weeks to try and help our pal get the hang of this toy but all parties finally agreed that this just wasn't fun the way a toy should be. Perhaps if you have a bigger dog this will work for you but it received two paws down from our little buddy.One other concern that I had was the fact that the small hole in the top of the yellow cups seemed just the right opening for a dog to catch a nail in and get stuck on his paw. Granted that on one should ever leave a pet and a toy unattended but something for people to keep in mind if they do buy this product.
treat wheel The spaces are interconnected under the blue top hard sharp edges inside and on the mobile lining and the dogs have a hard time getting to the food. My little guy actually yelped I suppose he got his tongue caught. He did not go back to 'negative reinforcement.' Not a good invention.
lots of fun Highly entertaining to watch. Both of my dogs LOVE it. The older one has a little more trouble with itbut he can do it! He hasn't quit figured out that he has to move the yellow cups before the wheel will turn. On the other hand my younger dog thought that removing the yellow cups WAS the game. Had to show him that there was something inside. Does very well removing the cups now. Timing him he is down to a little over 2 minutes. You do have to show them how it works a few times if you don't have a super smart dog.
Great for slowing down feeding time! This is a super easy puzzle it took my standard poodle who is about 6 months old about 3 minutes to figure it out the very first time. So I don't think it makes the best puzzle but it is amazing at slowing down chow time. I fill all four compartments up with kibble. I holds about 2 cups of food and it extends eating time from 2 minutes to 10 minutes. Which means less gas for my dog and sweeter air for me.
Fun! Our dog loves this game even with just 1 treat or piece of food per section and will play over and over again. We just have to watch she doesn't try to eat the yellow cups but the blue part is durable. She easily figured out tho that she can move it around instead of spinning the disc to get the treats out. She knows where we store this game and tries to get into the cabinet to get it out! Great price at Amazon and a good value dog toy. I would buy this again.
Not a challenge I wanted a new challenge for my terrier and she figured this out in no time flat. Then she ran off with the compartment covers and chewed them to bits. So the product is not challenging and not robust. Maybe this would work for a declawed cat but if your dog is halfway on the ball get something else.
Too hard for a small dog to use My toy poodle was quite interested in this toy but it proved difficult for him to play with. He has a small mouth and it was hard for him to pick up the yellow pieces to get at the treats. It was also hard for him to rotate it on its base to expose the other treats. I think this is a fine toy for bigger dogs but Liam is only 7.7 lbs. My husband also didn't like all the noise.
Good at first This kept my dog's attention for a couple minutes the first few times we used it but now she has no interest. I think my 2 year old enjoyed it more than my dog did. It seems to slide around too easy and our dog has a tough time getting the yellow cups out. She's not overly food driven so that may be part of the problem. Guess we'll try something else.
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Dishwasher safe

Can be filled with treats or dog food

Bounces and floats

4" diameter

Extremely durable

Very Popular in My House I picked up this toy on the advice of a Schutzhund training blog which claimed that this was one of the few toys their GSDs could enjoy without destroying. I'm from the school of don't tempt fate very few of my dogs' toys including this one are left out long enough to be chewed to pieces. So I can't say for sure that this toy could be safely left out for long periods of time. However I can assure you that my dogs are absolutely nuts over this toy. They are obviously more excited when I pull this one out even more than they are over Kongs. I think it's the bounciness and pliability of the toy along with the fact that kibble magically appears in its wake. So far it has no signs of chewing damage. But like I said there are very few toys that I leave out 24/7 and most of those are Nylabones.
Most durable toy we have found yet! Our pitbull x and our shepherd x lab can destroy anything. Black kongs are shredded in 45min the hard nylabone get worn down fast and makes their gums bleed. The pit x even takes down trees in the backyard. Every other toy we have ever bought him from tire toys to kongs to rope toys have all been destroyed in minutes. This ball has lasted two months!!!! They love it. We don't put treats or anything in it although we did just to see how it would hold up. They got the treats out and still didn't destroy the ball! This toy is well worth the $. It's still good after two months we are now starting to see little nicks and pieces missing from the treat openings. And the pit held it down with his paws and pulled up with his mouth so hard it made a stress line on the inside but it hasn't torn through yet. Even if I had to replace it right now I wouldn't hesitate the $ to preplace it every couple of months is just fine by me. I'm just so happy our dogs have a toy they can enjoy for more than a few minutes.
Awesome!!!! My Weimaraner has the large ball and now she has the small one. The chew ball is extremely sturdy and she loves chewing on it. I don't have to put a treat in it.she just loves it.
Disappointed I had high hopes for this ball based on the reviews I read and the price I paid. After 2 minutes of chewing my dog pulled off a big chunk of it. Then 5 minutes later the ball was destroyed. This ball cost me more than $1.50 a minute of play. Not a very good investment. I will return to Kong products as they last the longest. Think twice before purchasing this product if your dog is a strong chewer.
8 hours and I'm impressed. My 1 year old lab/doberman/border collie is not only an extreme chewer but also got the border collie intelligence gene. I recently purchased the kong treat ball and she was able to remove the treats from that faster than i was able to put them in. She can clean the peanut butter out of an extra large extreme kong in 5 minutes flat. So when I purchased this toy from a local pet store earlier today i wasnt expecting much. I got this ball along with the locking treats that are made for it. She has had this ball for a little over 8 hours now and it actually still has the locking treats in it. This is the first treat toy she has had that has lasted more than an hour. Bully sticks nylabone edibles you name it and she can eat the whole thing with in 510 minutes.
Good for my dogs I have a couple of dogs who aggressivly chew they have even managed to destroy other everlasting toys in no time flat but this one is a favorite maybe because it is not as hard as some of the others it has lasted three months the longest any toy has survived so far. I got this because the chewtoys that last the white nylabone stuff get really pointy and sharp from my dogs chewing it up while not destroying the toy it did create a hazard for my foot when they dropped it there. This might not work for all dogs but if you have an aggressive chewer you should be used to the fact that your dog will destroy it sooner or later usually sooner.
Best Ball Ever! These are well worth the money. If you have a dog that likes to destroy everything he gets in his mouth get these. They are flexible so they can flex their jaw with it in their mouth and are extremely durable. You can't go wrong with these. Highly recommend.
A very tough and time consuming toy! My dogs love this toy so much I bought one for each of them. The ball is great for a dog who likes the rolling treat dispensers or a dog who likes chewing treat dispensers. If you fill the ball with larger things chicken jerky sweet potato bits it will take the dogs hours to get treats out and they don't fall easily out the other side. We can only give these balls with treats for an hour or two at a time once we left them on the ground overnight and our corgi played with it ALL NIGHT without sleeping. Our GSD on the other hand likes to bring it to bed and cuddle with it. This is a serious money saver when we otherwise might be giving them expensive dog chews to keep them occupied.
Tough enough for a terrorist! My 14monthold English Bull TerroristerrTerrier absolutely LOVES this ball! I put puppy biscuits in it and she works forever to get them out.
Green Ball Indestructable. We own this ball and it is sooooooooooo tough. Your dog cannot destroy it. I have a pitbull/boxer mix 2 years old. She ruins every toy she has except for this and her kong. We put treats inside of it and she has figured out how get them out. She plays with this ball all the time. Buy this and you won't be sorry.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Banking on web security

People do care about web security. There are highly competent full-time professionals in the field. There are conferences on the subject on a regular basis. You'll see them in the press -- Experts Meet to Fix Security on the Web.

And yet, in large part because the problems to be solved are hard and involve significant non-techical factors, there is no shortage of things that could stand to be fixed.

Authentication is a mess. For the most part, we have passwords and security questions. I've griped about this before, multiple times, and I'm sure I'll gripe about it again.
Identity is a mess. Everyone has scads and scads of identities -- logins here, there and everywhere. They can easily get confused ("That wasn't me, that was some other David Hull!"). There's no good way to say two random identities are or aren't the same. I've griped and speculated about this before, too, and I expect I'll have more to say on that, too.
Anonymity is problematic. Everything you do on the web leaves traces, but unless you're paying extremely close attention you generally don't know exactly what kind, or whether that can be tied to your identity (whatever that is).
Network infrastructure is scary. Https with certificates is widely deployed, and most people probably at least know that some sites are "secured" and some aren't, but many fewer understand (or should need to understand) details like signatures, secure hashes and certificate authorities, or what can fail and what's less likely to. Did I mention DNS?
PCs are scary. Viruses, rootkits, system crashes ... some platforms are better designed than others, but nothing's perfect.
The cloud has its own problems. Who owns what you put there? Who's liable if data is lost or compromised? Who can see what? Who can see who sees what?
Spam is a perennial problem, not helped by any of the above.

I could go on, but if it's so bad -- and it is -- how does it work at all? People continue to be able to use credit cards both online and in person, people continue to email and text each other all sorts of sensitive information, people continue to turn to the web for all sorts of vital information. Clearly Bad Things can happen to a person on the web, but just as clearly it's not bad enough often enough to put people off the web entirely. Far from it.

My guess is that banks have a lot to do with it, at least in the US. In particular

Banks handle liability. If someone steals your credit or debit card, whether physically or online, you can tell your bank and generally they will make sure you don't have to pay for things you didn't buy. That's oversimplified, and there are certainly cases where that simple process has turned into a nightmare, but it's still a vital part of getting people to do business confidently online.
Bank cards provide a de facto stable identity. If you're buying something from my web site, I do care who you are (well, I would, and stores in general do seem to care what their customers are up to), but I certainly also care that your payment is going to go through. To some extent I'm talking to you, but I'm also talking to your bank account.

On the first point, you're not responsible for keeping your bank accounts absolutely safe. You're responsible for taking reasonable precautions, so that if someone does get hold of your account number and misuses it, they're clearly at fault (the usual "I'm not a lawyer" disclaimer applies here). Putting the rest of the burden on the banks and legal system is a large part of what keeps the wheels turning.

On the second point, if I shop at store A and store B, it's important that my bank knows that those purchases both come out of my account, and I know that I'm the same person in both cases (at least on a good day). It's less important that store A and store B know I'm the same person. There may even be cases where I'd rather they didn't know.

In short, security and identity matter when money is at stake, in which case your accounts serve as your identity and you have legal protections that predate the web.

Security and identity also matter where reputation is at stake, that is in the social realm, be it email, social networks, Twitter or whatever. The landscape is different there, but it's worth noting that most accounts and identities, including your bank accounts, don't play into that much. If someone compromises my account at widgetco.com, they might be able to have a truckload of widgets sent to my address at my expense, but they won't be able to say embarrassing things about me on this blog. Likewise if they compromise my bank account, though that would of course be bad for other reasons.

If you buy that, then you should make sure to use strong unique passwords and unique security questions for your bank accounts, your email accounts and your major social accounts, and use better security than that when it's available. How much to worry about other accounts depends on how closely they're tied to the accounts that matter. For example, if your city's online parking ticket paying site doesn't remember credit card numbers or your nefarious history of overparking, you probably don't care as much about security there.

Monday, January 14, 2013

75 years of Tanglewood online

This has actually been going on for a while, but in keeping with the usual Field Notes standard of cutting-edge reportage I only just now noticed that the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as part of its celebration of the 75th anniversary of its Tanglewood concert series, is bringing out 75 concerts from its vaults throughout the summer. Many of the concerts had not been previously available and as I understand it some are of programs that were only performed at Tanglewood.

The BSO is making one new concert available each day as a free stream. After the first day the concert is available for sale, whole or in parts. You can also subscribe to the whole series at a substantial discount off the cost of buying the concerts individually.

Imagine what a promotion like this would have looked like before the web. The symphony would have worked out a deal with one or more radio stations to get a regular block of time for broadcasting the day's selection. Assuming it could swing the deal, you the listener would have to set aside that same block of time to listen to the concert, or at least record it off the air for later listening.

The symphony could make the entire series available for mail order as a set of CDs (or vinyl, if we want to go back in time). If you didn't want the full set, you might be able to order individual CDs, but you wouldn't get to pick what was on them. If you liked one piece from each of five concerts, you could end up buying five CDs to get them all. And then you'd wait for them to show up in the mail. If you lived outside the listening area of the radio stations involved, you'd have to buy the concerts on spec without a chance to listen, and you'd be more likely not to have heard about them at all.

Put together all the conveniences of the web, I wouldn't quite say you've got a revolution. The dedicated classical music fan has had access to top-quality performances for quite some time. Nonetheless, it's enough to make a difference. Whether it's also enough to keep the symphonies in business in this age of digital entertainment remains to be seen, but it certainly seems like a good approach to try.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Real science, hot off the web

A while ago I commented on an Economist article claiming that Web 2.0 tools "were beginning to change the shape of the scientific debate." My contention was that the web wasn't so much changing the debate as changing the means of publication. In particular, there had always been a trade-off between speed of publication and thoroughness of review, and the web was becoming a publishing mechanism of choice on the lightly-reviewed end of that continuum.

More recently, looking for something I no longer recall, I ran across Cornell's arxiv.org (I assume the x is meant to represent a Greek χ), a repository for "Open access to 703,281 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics." The number 703,281 was current when I scraped it. It's probably higher by now.

That's a lot of articles, but does anyone use it for anything important? Well, one recent entry is Superluminal neutrinos in long baseline experiments and SN1987a (Cacciapaglia, Deandrea, Panizzi et. al., yes, those neutrinos). Indeed, there seems to be a lot of activity in the experimental high-energy physics section overall, which makes sense. It's useful to have experimental results available quickly, bearing in mind that there can be quite a bit of calibration, number-crunching and checking before an experimental paper is ready for public consumption (months, in the case of the neutrino paper).

Submissions to arxiv.org "must conform to Cornell University academic standards". It's not immediately clear to me what process is in place to ensure this, but from a little browsing it's clear that these are serious academic papers. It also seems reasonable to assume that most of the papers have not been through the full process of peer review required for publishing in a major journal. Indeed, the published version is almost certainly not going to appear on such a site, if only for reasons of copyright.

It seems like a good niche to fill. If you have a significant result that you're comfortable sharing with the world and staking your reputation on, there should be some way to make it immediately available, with the implied tradeoff between speed and thoroughly careful vetting. Publishing under the aegis of a major university gives everyone some assurance that you're at least doing real research. I notice from random sampling that the reference sections generally don't cite arxiv.org, giving some indication of the preliminary nature of the publications.

With that in mind, arxiv.org looks like a great resource not only for working academics but for the curious layperson as well.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

More stuff to be uneasy about

Previously I mentioned a couple of attempts to mine the Twitterverse for signs of what's going on in the world. It's also perfectly possible to mine the conventional media. One such effort is globalincedentreport.com, a "global display of terrorism and other suspicious events".

Global Incident Report gathers together news stories and plots their locations on a global map using eye-catchingly garish icons. There are several categories of incident, such as disease outbreaks, gang-related activity, drug interdictions and terrorist threats (you'll need to establish an account to view those and a couple of other categories, which seems reasonable). Basically everything that makes your local TV news the angst-fest it is, right there in one handy web site.

Comparing this to Twitter, I'd say the geo-tagging is more accurate (though the site seems to think Miami, OK is on the Kansas-Missouri state line) and of course the information is more reliable. Sorry, Web 2.0 fans, but I've been up and down this one. Mainstream media have their own problems, but I'll take "rush-job vetting and curation aimed at selling ads" over no vetting and curation at all.

There's a clear sampling bias. Since the reports are all in English, incidents tend to cluster in the US, UK and India. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the Commonwealth are sparser, but they're also generally less populated. Beyond the bias toward English, it's not clear which feeds the site samples, which it self will be a subset of which feeds are made available. So, definitely, caveat lector.

Even with the caveats, it's an interesting effort. The mapped incidents link directly to primary sources -- transparency is good -- and the global view lets you get the big picture of what's going on. Or at least what's being reported. And tracked by the site ... anyway, still interesting.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Cookies in the UK (or should that be "biscuits"?)

I haven't tracked down wether Parliament decreed this, though it seems likely, but a number of UK sites I've visited in the past couple of months show you a brief popup or other announcement to the effect that they use cookies (small files that your browser stores on your disk and hands back to the site on later visits so the site can tell it's you). The announcement is typically a couple of simple sentences with a link for further information. For example:

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more here.

The linked page details in clear, precise language what cookies are and what the site uses them for. It explains how to set your browser to disable cookies for the site, with the understanding that you might not have as nice an experience since the site won't be able to remember who you are. Once you dismiss the announcement you don't see it again, because -- of course -- it has set a cookie and knows not to come back (unless you disabled cookies or later clear the cookie).

Wow. They Got It Right. Well done!

Flush Gun Blog

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

More Silly UX

Monday, January 28, 2013

KONG Squeakair Tennis Medium Yellow Kong

Kyjen Squeakin Eggs Plush 3 Pack Winner!!

Friday, January 25, 2013

One more Twittery data point

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Greenies Dental Chews Dogs Regular PLEASE RESEARCH BEFORE GIVING TO YOUR DOG!

Monday, January 21, 2013

Is there a UX crisis?

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Premier Pet Squeeze Meeze Dragon Loved it, but wrecked within minutes, no durability!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean"

Friday, January 18, 2013

Kyjen PipSqueaks Donkey Plush Dog Cool toy

Kyjen Dog Games Treat Wheel treat wheel

Treat Dispensing Chew Ball Medium Awesome!!!!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Banking on web security

Monday, January 14, 2013

75 years of Tanglewood online

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Real science, hot off the web

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

More stuff to be uneasy about

Friday, January 4, 2013

Cookies in the UK (or should that be "biscuits"?)