Mirrors: I'm pretty picky about mine and how they're adjusted. Almost OCD-ish.
The rearview has to be as centered as possible in the rear window when I'm looking through it from my never-changing seat position.
To adjust the left, I rest my head against the driver's side window, then adjust it until I can barely see the side of the vehicle. To adjust the right, I lean toward the center of the car, again adjusting it until I can barely see the side of the vehicle.
Adjusted this way, I don't see the edges of the vehicle but have little or no blind spots. I figure I know where the sides of the vehicle are anyway: right behind me. Don't need to visually verify that.
I do adjust them in for backing, though. I try to use only the mirrors for backing. Good habit since I'm often in a vehicle (like the dumptruck) or pulling a trailer that makes the back window useless.
Hmmmm.... A programmer with a dumptruck. That's got to be a rather small subset of the population. Yeah, I often get told that my parents must not've let me get Tonka Toys when I was a kid.