Archive for June, 2007
Workmanship
For the first time I got to see the inside of my house today, while picking holes in the workmanship of the contractors involved. A bad bit of paint here, a lump on the wall here, a mis-aligned cupboard there, there was quite a list by the end of it. It was very exciting, as for so long we’ve been coming along to see the progress from the outside, it was nice to finally see how it all came together on the inside.
On the whole it’s complete and ready to be lived in. Just one week to go.
Fever
The US has iPhone launch fever, which is certainly the first time I’ve heard of that happening for a mobile phone. Usually they just sneak out without much fanfare. I mean who can honestly say that they know when a new Sony Ericsson or Nokia phone is really released? They’re announced months in advance and then they kinda just appear as an option from your carrier. Nobody queues up outside a store to get one.
For me, I’m still not convinced. I don’t think the price is a problem, there are plenty of PDA’s and even phones (some Nokia models) that come in around the same price point, but I like my phones to be small, robust, and generally just be phones. That’s why I always go with the Sony Ericsson models, they’re simply, light, have good cameras and just kinda work, even after I’ve dropped them twenty times. I don’t know how often I can see myself using it to play video or listen to music, I have iPod’s that can do that and I don’t use them either. Maybe it’ll come down to the convergence factor, just having all these things in one device might be the differentiating factor, once I don’t need to carry all these things separately I may be more inclined to use them. But at the moment I’m afraid I just don’t have iPhone fever. It’s very cool, don’t get me wrong, and I’d love to just play with one for a bit, but I don’t think it’s the second coming, nor do I think it’s going to come close to being as successful as the iPod is.
Championship
Who would have thought that Pacman could be relevant once again. The game that introduced me to computers and videogames more than 20 years ago is back, with an update from it’s original designer, in the XBox Live Arcade game Pacman Championship Edition. It’s as simple as ever, and the upgrades take nothing away from the original concept; eat the dots, avoid the ghosts. But now, rather than the whole maze being covered, only one half is covered at a time, which once you’ve eaten a certain amount of it, a piece of fruit appears. Eat the fruit, and the other half of the maze gets covered in dots. You then repeat this, hoping to gain as many points as possible before the 5 or 10 minute countdown at the top of the screen reaches zero.
It’s good old-fashioned fun, and easy to enjoy for somebody like me who still has trouble with all the games nowadays that require every button on the controller to play. All the fancy graphics in the world can take nothing away from something as classically enjoyable as this.
Slog
After months of looking for a sofa, we finally bought one today. And even better, it has a delivery time of 5-6 weeks (rather than the usual 12) meaning that we should be sitting in comfort before the end of July. What a long slog that was, we’ve been absolutely everywhere looking for something that would fit the bill and it got tiring and annoying a long time ago. At the end of the day we ended up buying one in the nearest furniture store to the current flat, Reid. In fact, it’s within walking distance. This is the result of our hunting. You wouldn’t think that sitting on sofas all day would be tiring, but you have it oh so wrong.
As a double header to make the day even more productive, we also bought a bed, which will actually be delivered the day after I get keys. The perfect timing continues. Finding a bed wasn’t quite as hard, I had a reasonably good idea in my head already what I was looking for, it was just a matter of hunting it out. Turns out I bought the most expensive bed in the shop (didn’t find that out until afterwards), but sometimes quality comes at a price. And it wasn’t anywhere near the £7000 bed that we saw in And So To Bed. If your bed is going to cost the same as some of the cars in the street, I’m going to suggest you’ve bought the wrong one.
Game
Thanks to Andrea, who recommended it, I got to see The Game, starring Michael Douglas. One of the best films I’ve seen in years, hugely compelling, wonderfully written and acted, and an excellent crafted conclusion. Highly recommended. 4 1/2 out of 5.
Affiliates
The idea is simple. You find something on Amazon that you think people are going to be interested to buy, even better, pick a range of products. You then setup an Amazon affiliates account and a Google adwords account, before advertising said Amazon products on Google, linking to them with your affiliate ID. You then, should you be doing it well, watch the money roll in.
At least, that’s the idea. I’m advertising iPhone accessories, because I think lots of people are going to be looking for them when it comes out next week. But so far I’ve made the most money from somebody who clicked on my ad before buying some kitchen mops. It’s a difficult balance, some Amazon products are obviously a lot more expensive than others and therefore offer the best chance at a good return, but they’re also going to be bought less often. Those items that people are going to buy a lot of are not only going to be cheap and therefore offer little in terms of reward, but they’re also not the kind of thing that people are going to be searching for on Google.
It’s a fun little game to play, although potentially expensive when you advertise the wrong thing. But checking each morning to see if you’ve made any sales is really addictive.
Hanks
Me and Andrea went for a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan trivector, by watching Joe Versus the Volcano, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail over the past few days. It’s part of our Tom Hanks season, where we’ve also watched Big and Saving Private Ryan. I’ll say one thing for him, he’s certainly flexible, there’s quite a wide difference between Josh in Big and Captain Miller in Ryan, and it’s testament to his skills as an actor that he’s just as watchable in both. That’s why he’s such a good actor to pick if you want to just work your way through somebody’s career, there’s such a wide range of work to be found here. And unlike some actors, he also seems pretty good at picking a good script (although Joe Versus the Volcano is perhaps one of the exceptions to that rule), considering the sheer number of highly rated movies he’s appeared in.
Deeds
My copy of the deeds arrived for the house today, a big wad of legal paperwork, going into every minute detail of what I’ve actually bought. There’s plans of what I’ve bought too, with a red line indicating exactly the boundary that my wild parties and illegal activities are allowed to extend to before I’ve crossed into somebody else’s land.
There was also a bill from the solicitor which doesn’t actually add up to the correct amount. I’m a little concerned that if they can’t add three simple figures together, what chance do they have understanding the deeds are actually giving me title over what I’ve bought.
Candles
Happy Birthday Graham.
Puppet
I bought Daniel (my nephew) a dinosaur puppet for his birthday, but really I just want to keep it for myself. It’s just so cute. There’s probably something wrong with somebody of my age thinking that.
Mandolin
With the Apple Corps versus Apple Computer lawsuit behind him (which I’m still surprised Apple Computer won outright), Paul McCartney is now free to work on an advert for iTunes. And I found it to be quite lovely.
Calibur
I have two Dreamcasts, a Japanese one and a British one, and it was with excitement that I unpacked my British one from the box I’d just gotten back from Mark at the weekend. I’ve always considered it to be one of the most underrated consoles, with a mis-timed release from Sega and lacking the support that the Playstation got from EA, it didn’t really last long before Sega signalled that it would be the last hardware that they would produce. It’s another example of how difficult it is to compete in the gaming hardware space, even for an established brand, and why so many companies flail and die on their first attempts. Sega Rally 2 is some of the most fun I’ve ever had with a racing game and I still think that Soul Calibur holds up graphically today, especially next to anything the Wii is doing.
Unfortunately my excitement was short lived. I’m not only lacking any games, but also the power supply and the cable to plug it into the television, so it seems like there will be no returning to those dirt filled tracks just yet.
Also, happy birthday Mum.
Shiny
It’s Apple’s worldwide developer conference this week and today was the opening keynote from Steve Jobs, telling us everything we can expect from Leopard, the next version of OS X, when it’s released later this year. Straight off the bat, the new transparent menu bar looks stupid and the idea that the dock is a table on which things reflect is pointless eye-candy (and the icons are still flat, rather than having depth like the dock itself, which makes it worse), and both seem like change for change sake, rather than actually bringing anything new and worthwhile to the table.
The rest of the system is all incremental updates and improvements, and I’m not sure how many of them will actually affect me in my day to day usage. I don’t work with lots of files so being able to search through them quickly is rarely required, and while Quick Look looks helpful almost everything I look at is online anyway. I don’t use iChat, have never found a need for virtual desktops (Spaces), don’t have a secondary drive to backup onto and never make meetings via iCal.
But what will make me upgrade is the potential for software developers to do cool things with new API’s like CoreAnimation, or the addition of all those little features that you’ll run into every day, like Stacks. There’s also the fact that every OS X install I’ve ever done has made the computer feel faster than every before, which is more than can be said for any Windows upgrade. Plus, like a magpie, I like new, shiny things.
Sandwiches
I got the key handover date for my house today, July 6th, exactly on schedule. Now I just need to scrape together the necessary money to pay for the thing, as moving is an expensive business. Even more so when you’re moving from a fully furnished flat and therefore all you have is a desk, a chair, a television and a couple of random bits of kitchen equipment (like a cheese grater).
I guess I can sit and watch TV while eating cheese sandwiches.
Chef
Normally software products are designed with a list of bullet points in mind, specific things that it must do in order to compete in the marketplace. This is even more true of software that’s going to compete with something that already exists in the marketplace, because conventional wisdom holds that nobody will take you seriously unless you can at least go toe to toe with the established competitor. Whatever features you may have that are unique are less worthy if they’re not the icing on top of a pre-existing cake, rather than if they’re the cake itself.
Unfortunately this methodology leads to a development cycle of diminishing returns, as you pile more and more bullet points onto your feature list, you get further and further away from the problem the software was created to solve in the first place and in turn put off more and more potential users, not just those upgrading from a previous version who don’t see anything worthwhile, but new users as well, who see your software as far too complex for them to understand. A good example of this is Microsoft Office, which gets an upgrade release every couple of years or so, and which Microsoft finds ever harder to sell to businesses. They just don’t see enough benefit in changing. And for the new users, or those that have upgraded, there’s so many features that they don’t even know they exist. When Microsoft does studies to see what people want in the next version of Office, 99% of the time the feature already exists, it’s just so buried under everything else it’s not clear. And the funny thing about all this is that they’re stuck, because if they change the interface too much and try and solve the problems users have about not being able to find the features they want to use, like they’ve done in the latest release, business complains that it’ll cost too much to retrain the users and still won’t upgrade. Microsoft are on the upgrade merry-go-round now, and there’s no getting off.
But for new software, there’s no reason to put yourself in that position, as long as you accept that your software doesn’t need to be right for everyone. When I designed Alertbear I did so because no existing RSS reader out there did what I wanted it to do, so I designed the reader for me. It didn’t matter if it didn’t do what everyone else wanted, it did what I wanted, and that was enough. Turns out from some of the email I receive, it does what lots of other people need it to do too. But if you’ve got 500 feeds and you check them every 2 minutes, then you probably want to look elsewhere.
Like some foods, or a musical group, software isn’t for everyone. But rather than create it like a chef does for a customer who chose it themselves from a menu of many choices, we spend most of our time trying to create a dish that caters to all palates. Nobody would pick a restaurant where there was only one dish containing every possible ingredient, you’d be disgusted, in fact you’d probably be sick. So when you’re designing your next bit of software, be choosy, pick only the best ingredients, and mix them together with the care and attention of an award winning eatery. You may just find people pick your dish from the menu far more than you would think.
Interface
Most technology ads these days don’t make much of an effort to show you exactly why you might be interested in buying the product. They’re all about lifestyle, showing the product to be cool so that you think you’ll be cool if you buy it. Intel have always been the masters of this, never even mentioning how many Mhz their new processor happens to be or any other technical information, it’s always about the music you’ll be able to create or the things you’ll be able to do with your pictures, but always in a very abstract way.
Apple have followed this example as well, the iPod ads are always just figures dancing to some form of upbeat tune, rather than a demonstration of the scroll wheel capabilities, or how easy it is to sync with the music on your computer. For years they’ve been criticised in their Mac adverts for not better showing off OS X and what it can do, but how do you cram the feel of a desktop user interface into 30 seconds when on the face of it, it’s all just windows, icons and a pointer.
All of this is what makes the new iPhone ads so special, because unlike any other technology ad, and especially unlike any mobile phone ad, they’re actually all about the interface. Thirty seconds designed to quickly and succinctly show what makes the phone so special, without any fast music, without any quick cuts, just a camera looking at a phone held in someone’s hand, being touched by a finger in real time. No need to shout about it, no need to fancy it up with special effects, just exactly the kind of demonstration you’d give to someone if they were standing next to you and had never seen one before.
If it works as well as is advertised, and of course we have no reason to suspect it won’t, then it cannot fail to make an impact on the market. If only to shake all the other manufacturers up a bit.
Vulnerable
If you haven’t used Windows Vista yet, then you may be unaware of the major interface change that has taken place. Behind all that fancy transparency is the decision that you can no longer be trusted with your own computer.
Computer security is a tricky thing, especially on a home PC where users like to download and install new software. But I honestly can’t believe that the best way to solve the problem of malicious software installs is to treat the user like a baby, and constantly ask them if they are sure what they are doing is what they want to do. Called User Account Control, it feels like such the wrong approach to the problem, like making the user confirm every left and right turn they make on their car steering wheel in case they’ve taken a wrong turn. It seems like a good idea at first, but before you know it you’ve just caused an accident.
It’s almost like Microsoft are throwing in the towel, that they’re resigned to the fact that the underlying operating system is insecure. So rather than fix the holes that allow the programs to do nasty things, they’re going to make you agree to the program doing them before it does. So when that new virus comes along and wants to chop away at all your files, at least now you’ll get a friendly dialog asking if you’re sure you want to allow it. Shouldn’t they just stop the virus from having that kind of power in the first place? And even if they have (and the better handling of users and permissions is certainly their attempt to do so) isn’t this still like an admission of guilt, that they don’t believe they’ve done a good enough job of securing the vulnerable parts of the system?
Minority
This is cool, Microsoft Surface. Basically it’s a big touch-screen interface, installed on a table. There are cameras mounted underneath the table which look up and can then sense all the things that you, or somebody else, is doing. It’s multi-touch, so lots of people can be using it at the same time. The simplest comparison is Minority Report, flicking through photographs and documents on a screen using nothing but your hands.
The best demo is when they pick up a camera, take a photograph with it, and then just sit it somewhere on the table. The photographs are then automatically downloaded from the camera and appear to spill out of the bottom of it onto the table. They can then be manipulated, moved around, zoomed, even videos play. Then a PDA is placed down on the other side of the table and the photographs are dragged across and virtually pushed into the device, which then downloads them. Really, you have to see this for yourself, describing it just isn’t the same.
$10,000 at the moment, mostly aimed at businesses like casinos, but in five years time this could be something that lots of people have in their home. Rarely does Microsoft come up with something that feels so futuristic.
Nexus
Today I registered the domain tvnexus.com. There is an idea behind that which I would like to see brought to the light of day before the end of September.
Outlandish
I’ve just switched to a new phone contract and therefore got the opportunity to pick a new phone. Unfortunately I had to pick it within 30 seconds, looking at them on a computer screen upside down with no opportunity to really look into what each one was going to give me. I would normally spend ages looking through all the available options to see what the best fit was for me, comparing once against the other, thinking what I would be able to do with whatever selection I decided to go for. But I had none of that here, just a quick look at a few pictures on a website. So I went with Sony Ericsson again, this time a k800i. It wasn’t the highest spec phone I could have got, but it was the only one on the website that still looked like a phone. Desperate to make each phone look different from the last, it seems that all the mobile companies have decided it’s time to get more and more outlandish with their designs, to the point where they all just start to degenerate into an ugly mess.
On the surface, it seems like it’s just the same as my last model, the k750i, but it has a 3.2 megapixel camera, a step up from the 2 megapixel in the previous model. Unfortunately they ruin this with the choice of lense covering, a silly, flimsy bit of plastic with little to no weight to it, which has the terrible habit of sliding back as soon as you put the phone in your pocket. Or breath on it the wrong way. I am starting to wonder whether or not anybody actually uses these phones before they’re released to the wild, it would seem that anybody using it for 5 minutes would have noticed that as a fairly serious design flaw.
