The more I use it, the more conflicted I am about the iPad. It’s bright and renders images beautifully. I love the way designers are now taking this big screen into account when they produce apps like Pulse news reader and FryPaper. It’s really fun for showing photos to people.

But—and there are so very many buts—it’s not brilliant for writing or taking notes. It’s super fast on slideshows, but takes ages to type, correct, select, copy, and paste. Editing text is still annoying after weeks of practice.

Blogging, as I’m doing now, keeps reminding me how much easier this would be on my trusty laptop. That image I want to use isn’t quite right, so I’ll skip it. What I won’t do is try to find a good image editor app that actually doesn’t resize, then find another that does but hides the file somewhere I’ll never see it deep in the workings of the iPad, I assume. So i won’t do that…again.

Dedicated apps can be brilliant, but the ones for services I use aren’t always. The WordPress app, for example, is terrible. There isn’t an iPad version of the excellent tumblr app for iPhone at all. So, for most things, it’s site-based tools missing letters like tumblr and flickr. But these don’t always render well, and if they need Flash, you’re obviously stuffed.

I’ve also just discovered that I can’t scroll within a frame. This means that I can’t edit—or even see—the text I’ve typed here. So I’ll have to trust that it’s ok. (It isn’t, I’ve switched to my laptop, and have corrected a typo and fixed a missing markdown link.)

More often than not, I’ve got my laptop or my iPhone with me, and more often than not, the iPhone impresses me with its usefulness and size. Indeed, my relatively new iPhone 4 is the best piece of kit I think I’ve bought this year. It’s fast, the resolution is stupifying (I can finally read books on it without feeling eye-strain). Its battery life is great, and it replaces a camera, flip video recorder, sat nav, pad and paper and pen relatively painlessly. There are more dedicated apps for it than for the iPad, and they’re usually better. So the iPhone continues to impress me, and the iPad continues to fail to impress me. When I’m sat at home, coffee shop, or office, the Mac reliably does everything it’s possible to do, and is only slightly bigger than the iPad really.

It’s not that I think the iPad is a terrible device; far from it. It is an impressive piece of kit, and its screen and speed and battery life are great. I do enjoy the times I’ve passed it around to show photos, for example. I was impressed that my two-year-old niece was able to make swirlly patterns on it, and she did it without needing any explaining. It’s great for consuming: for reading Kindle books and magazines and blogs and watching video. It’s got something fun about it, and did I mention that screen being brilliant?

So, I don’t understand tablets. I don’t get the desire to touch the thing you want to work on: your hand blocks what you’re looking at! It’s also awkward compared to a laptop which angles so you can see it and work at the same time. The iPad is constantly falling off, and its keyboard only makes sense if it’s mostly horisontal, making it difficult to see. The screen is so reflective that it’s useless out of doors, even in relatively sun-free Britain. They don’t multitask in the same way that a laptop does, and they’re not as portable as a smartphone.

So, unless a tablet is running a kick-ass operating system, is small enough to be truly portable and has thousands of dedicated applications written for it (hmm, sounds like an iPhone…), I don’t think I’m sold.

When Lucas joined our household, I knew he’d make a great working dog. His sire was a steady, dependable sort who is used for picking up, and Lucas took immediately to retrieving. Not only do I like the idea of having him with me in the field, but I can also see just how much dogs seem to enjoy the challenges working to gun seem to bring. But I knew it had to start somewhere, so I ordered a few training dummies that had caught my eye at a game fair last autumn. I thought these woiuld be a better size for him, since they came as either partridges or pheasants, and I had started the pup out pretty early to work off some of his unlimited supply of energy.

When they arrived, I was surprised by the dummies themselves. They were made to a very high standard, with a pleasant shape (they fly really well off their toggles!). I’ve since discovered that they float, can take just about as much munching as Lucas can give as he stumbles up hills, and last much better than the other one I bought (which, if I recall, was actually more expensive). I was interested in why they seemed so well-thought-out, since they’re essentially just a bag on which to practice retrieving. I quickly found their weak-point, however, when the dummy landed toggle-side down on a stone: the shiny molded plastic shattered! My interest with the company, however, was further piqued when I ordered a few more, and I found the toggle to be a made of hard rubber, which bounced and gripped even better in my hands. This was iterative design, working to make an ever-increasing standard without changing the price or making a feature of general improvements. Being so impressed, I contacted the makers (the Working Dog Company) to find out their story:

Ian has been working his Labradors for a number of years. One of them had a particular problem delivering the standard type of dummy to hand. He either held it by one end like he was smoking a big cigar, or he tossed it around his head by the toggle flap. I spoke to a number of people and gun dog handlers about this problem and it seemed not to be unique to me or my dog. I could not find a dummy on the market that would help me, so I discussed the problem with my daughter who is a designer for a top country clothing retailer and supplier. We decided if we were going to start from scratch, lets change the shape to more closely resemble the shape of a game birds body. Make it softer for the dogs to hold and reduce the size of the toggle flap so that the dog would not be tempted to take hold of it. We came up with this design, offered it in 2 sizes: the Partridge to be utilised as a puppy dummy and the Pheasant to make a dog open its gape and carry as we would expect it to hold a shot bird. When I retired after 30 years service in the Fire Brigade Jill and I decided to set up The Working Dog Company Ltd, the web site went live in August 2008 and the new dummies were launched (pardon the pun) at the Midland Game Fair in September 2008. They have proved very popular, demand has been high and we received 2 very good reviews in the shooting press, namely BASC Nov edition magazine and Shooting Times. To view these testimonials visit our web site. We are now providing to a number of gun dog training clubs, professional handlers and shipping out to Scandinavian countries where gun dog training and handling is almost a national past time.

I really like seeing innovation in things that often go un-noticed. I can say that my little pup definitely prefers retrieving the Working Dog Company dummies. In fact, it’s difficult to make him retrieve the other if he’s allowed his preference! It’s certainly a success story so far, and I wish the WDC great luck in future.

Fool’s Gold

As a child in Colorado, I have a distant memory of finding a nugget of pure gold, bigger than the tip of my thumb. I instantly became the richest kid in America! I thought I could buy a husky (with a sled) and a Tama Starclassic Birch studio set with a full range of Paiste cymbals, and maybe a house or three. I could move out on my own, I could—so many expectations; so many promises.

My dad took a quick look and said something like: “Wow, you’ve found iron pyrite. Fools Gold.”

The disappointment! All those things to which I was looking forward disappeared, and the lump of cold angles suddenly seemed a reminder of what could have been.

I have recently had a similar experience with some fools coffee.

Coffee Suppositories?

About three weeks ago, a courier arrived as I sat working from my home office. He delivered a box big enough for a springer spaniel to sleep in, and heavy enough to make the manly nonchalance I affected while carrying it away from the door quite difficult indeed. Nonetheless, I left the box packaged and wrapped up in the hall until the evening, looking forward to the reward of an espresso or six after work.

As I worked my way through the layers of packaging, I gradually unveiled a stainless-steel, microwave-like appliance that dwarfed anything else my kitchen held, except—just—the oven. I scanned the quick-start guide and with a single word, my expectations instantly disappeared: “nespresso”. I lost the will even to unpack and set up this monstrously-large contraption.

Nonetheless, I did set it up, removing all of a counter-top from usable space. My disappointment, if anything, grew as I laboriously set up the menu through an achingly-complicated process involving the use of arrow buttons and “OK” to calibrate a dizzying array of possible settings. Throughout the next two hours, I played with settings, opened all the openable compartments and tried several of the coffee suppositories. My thoughts follow:

The Miele CVA3650 is a giant appliance which costs £1,000 (c. $1400). It looks impressive, with a stainless-steel finish and various accoutrements, including backlighting, obviously included as talking features. It would not feel out of place in a posh flat in Kensington—fitting in like an addition to a designed suite of expensive appliances. Indeed, the lasting impression is of a lifestyle rather than coffee. Browsing the Miele site, I found many photos of kitchens, appliances, and artfully-arranged mugs sometimes held by comfortable, rich-looking models. The only thing missing from these photos?

Coffee.

Nespresso tastes worse than I thought it actually could. I’m not saying that to be snobbish about my coffee, and I was genuinely curious to know what the little, coloured “pods” could produce. The result of every single “brew” was a flat, metallic, suspension of frankly disgusting, tepid liquid. Some aspect of the extraction produces an interestingly-contrived crema every single time, so the drink (I can’t call it coffee) certainly looks impressive. My wife recoiled after the first sip, and I left more than one completely untouched. The terrible “flavia” machine in my office makes better-tasting coffee than this!

The Miele machine is touch-button automation at it’s most falsely economic (time-wise). Sure, it’s convenient to press a button and have an espresso (ahem!) within 30 seconds, but that does not account for the half-hour (no joke) of programming every time the machine is re-plugged back in. I’m afraid I’m green-conscious enough to flip the switch at the wall after every brew, so this makes it ridiculous to use. The menuing system is cumbersome enough to make my eyes water. Two arrows, and “OK” to make every selection. It takes a huge amount of patience, and its… just… aweful! So many features, so few necessary or even useful. You can, for example, programme 9 different “user profiles”. Why? It’s a pod of shite coffee, which will taste EXACTLY the same, no matter which button you push. Why go through dozens and dozens of beeps in order to have a user-specific nescafe?

The only part of this machine which is convenient, is the actual making of a drink. For that, it is fast! It produces a coffee of your choice (out of 5 different capsules) very rapidly (provided it’s been programmed and has already been switched on, obviously.) It will then automatically rinse itself, and let you make another soil infusion very rapidly. You only have to remove the spent capsules periodically from a tub within the machine, and fill up a water reservoir whenever it’s low (though, this is fairly frequently, thanks to the rinsing).

Final Words

I understand its premise of being a super-convenient means of having a sophisticated-looking hot beverage, but I much prefer my coffee to be tasty, regardless of time. And the amount of time spent scrolling endlessly through menus isn’t really conducive to suiting busy people like myself as a domestic coffee machine. [in reply to the statement that it might prove to be] I’d be much more likely to advise people invest in a cafetiere, grinder and decent beans. For the £1,000 they could have spent on this, they could have many scores of kilos of excellent, locally-roasted, hand-sourced beans, and enough left over to send a thank-you bottle of single malt to the coffee roaster.

Reviews of new Windows releases always seem to say the same thing, depending on what kind of person writes them. Mac enthusiasts say it’s yet again stolen more MacOS features. Microsofties defend the new-found stability and the speed compared to last editions. Non-techies say how pretty this one is in comparison with the last, et cetera.

Well, I’ve got a preview build of Windows 7, and I’d like to give you a three-way look at it.

The Good

Windows 7 already feels stronger and faster than Vista. It installed easily using Bootcamp, and is happily running on my MacbookPro. When I got all the drivers working (to be expected running on an Apple, I suppose) it’s robust and more or less respectable. This particular build/driver combination is particularly nice, because it’s got some special Apple drivers which let it play nice with my keyboard and F-button settings (volume, keyboard and screen brightness, eject).

Windows found my external display fairly quickly, though it would not use it’s full resolution at first. Then, randomly, it let me do so (though nothing had been downloaded or tweaked—it couldn’t; I had yet to connect to my network!). This was a nice surprise, but I kind of wish it would let me choose what’s going on instead of hiding its preferences and features in the background (more on this later).

A slight improvement over Vista is the ease by which Windows 7 seemed to handle getting online. It’s a breeze to select a wireless network and get connected. I also like some of the more subtle things they’ve done with 7, which make it a bit more pleasant to use such as the way they’ve layed-out the control panel settings, and the better file-layout in the navigation panels of explorer windows.

By far, so far, the best thing has been the speed. Windows 7, at this stage, is fast enough to work nicely. I don’t know how it will do after months of updates, registry bloat, and anti-malware software; but it MUST be better than Vista in this regard. Finally, however, is a small thing that I like: Windows Live Writer. It’s great! It’s available for Vista, however, so it’s not new. However, the Live Essentials on this version seem a bit easier to get going and running. Windows Live Writer is the only application that I wish I had on the Mac, and it’s still the best blogging tool out there.

The Bad

Firstly, why is networking with Windows so hard? It found my router, got onto the internet, and updated itself fine. It talks with the Windows Mothership on the cloud easily enough. Would it, however, find my Mac on the same network? My iPhone? Yes… through Bluetooth! When will Windows start to recognise they need to make networking easy for users?

Secondly, this is basically Vista done not-so-badly. It’s, so far, what Vista should have been. Light (ish), easy, stable. But, to me, these are table-stakes. It’s not that impressive to say: “Our operating system doesn’t hang when you use default features! It’s stable, It’s easy!” It should be, why are you so proud of this?

The final reason why this isn’t going to be the best OS out there, however, is that it’s still Windows. Now, before you label me a fanboy or anti-establishmentarian; let me say why this is a problem. There are countless menus and features and settings and objects on this system. There are too many, unconnected settings. Windows Control Panel has 63 icons! OSX, in comparison, makes do with 26. The user also doesn’t often see an immediate effect from a settings change. After several sets of “OK” are pressed, I find out my network adapter’s been disabled, and have to go though a completely different route to get it back. The language used to describe the setup options has always been difficult to follow. Consider the Networking setup: Some based on actions, so you can “set up a new connection or network;” “connect to a network;” “fix network problem” etc. Others are categorical ‘HomeGroup,” “Internet Options,” “Wireless Network Connection” etc… I’ve had to go through every single one of them, and many subsequent menus besides in order to setup my home network. The “wizard” does nothing. It’s always been this way with Windows…you are expected to know exactly where the settings are hidden within some obscure menu, but you’re teased with easy options along the way. My favourite screen so far has been one which says: “Troubleshooting could not identify the problem.” Thanks for the help…

This problem stems from always being the Least Common Denominator. What results is that every set of functions is a compromise of some kind.

The Not-Ugly but unfortunately Not-Original

It’s not a new thing to say that this version of Windows is copying Mac. I grew up being told that Windows has stolen every good idea it’s ever had from someone else. While this may have been true with many things, I can’t believe they have never had an original thought. Despite its many shortcomings, Microsoft’s software is the market dominator, and has been for as long as anyone can remember. Sure, they’ve bought companies and talent along the way (so has Google… so has Apple!), but the Live stuff is pretty different, and works decently (except for its annoying insistence that all the services you use should be MS—a characteristic it shares with Apple services like MobileMe.)

Having a look at the promotional video for VistaII—I mean, Windows 7—and I’m struck by how little there is to say about it.

Firstly: “Windows Gurus”? Tell me that’s not a play on “Apple Geniuses”. You can imagine the board meeting that chose that name: “Right, we need something of an authority on the matter that sounds brainy and starts with G, but isn’t ‘Genius.’ Wilkinson?” “Uh, er, guardian…guarantor…general… guru?”

They seem terribly proud about how the windows all have previews and there’s a brilliant new thing called a Task Bar! Windows has had a taskbar for years, this one just works a bit more like the Dock in OSX. That’s it, move along.

They’ve renamed the “Workgroup” the “Homegroup”, and it does the same thing. It’s tweaked, supposedly, but it’s just a network. I find myself wondering if this a reaction to the “I’m a Mac” ads? “This isn’t work, it’s home. We’ve renamed it, HOME, cause it’s not at work. Get it?”

IE has had a few features added, called “accelerators” which essentially allow for interaction with the web through the browser. It could be a great step, except that there are Firefox folks doing it so much better. Bit.Ly plugin allows for a huge range of interaction with data on the screen through Firefox.  Ubiquity on Firefox is a genuinely new way of blurring the web, our human interactions, and our machines. “Accelerators” just seem like a glorified right-click or contextual menu. There’s also “InPrivate Browsing” which turns off cookies and history. Guess what Safari has called this? “Private Browsing”. Go figure…

I know this is a preview release, but my overall impression is that Windows 7 should have been launched in 2006. This is great, for a Windows release, it works and pretty well so far. Aside from the basic problem that it is Windows, and works by being everything to everyone, it’s OK. But it’s not exciting, it’s not THAT new, and it feels a bit like we should be seeing a real breakthrough by now.

So, the web is full of interesting stuff, right? Gadgets, people, blogs, books, tips, wine—all good things. At least, the web is full of interesting pages about these things. In a single session, you might read a mate’s blog (maybe about wine), then browse a retail site for a book that that mate recommended and stumble across a brilliant gadget. That’s five good things in the space of a few minutes. Here they are, in case you missed them: your mate’s a person (good), and he’s got a blog (debatable, but there you go). He’s talking about wine (which is definitely good), and he happens to recommend a book (great). In the process, you stumble across a gadget (brilliant!).

The problem with all that is that you didn’t instantly recognise all the good things in that very brief narrative sentence. The web is an interconnected bunch of arbitrarily-related pages, like a catalogue of (often good) stuff, without an index. It’s arbitrary, because the pages only exist when it’s linked to; and the stuff can be anything from a purchasable item to an innovative idea. This network is mind-numbingly huge and even the most versatile of polymaths can’t be interested in all of it. So, what we want is all the good stuff, and we want it with all the flexibility an arbitrary system can offer (I like this, this and this… are they related in any way?)

Well, when I look at them, I can see that they’re related; and not just because I happen to have chosen three things I like. I have had the tremendous privilege of testing a gadget which lets me capture these things, and lets me peek at how they connect with my own little perspective on the web. The gadget’s called Glue, and it’s the latest offering from AdaptiveBlue. I’ve blogged about AdaptiveBlue’s Smartlinks in the past, and they’re responsible for the little icons next to the linked things above (if you have a decent browser). What they’ve been doing is allowing you to contextualise the stuff on the web, and Glue goes a step further by letting you also interact with other folks’ contexts.

Firstly, Glue is a browser plugin for Firefox (remember, I said to get a decent browser?). Glue creates a  bookmark in your bar, but the real magic occurs when you navigate to some stuff. As you seek out or stumble across interesting things online, the Glue menu glides down, giving you instant options to “like” the item, find out more about it, and see who else has “liked” it too. They have an excellent walk-through on their site, so I won’t duplicate their efforts by explaining how it works here, but it does recognise many kinds of “stuff” from a myriad of very important sites.

The interesting part, for me, is that it brings a context to all the arbitrary links we follow all the time. We can see where we fit in with this, and what our mates think too. Best of all, these things are treated just like that: as the things in which we’re interested. I want to talk about this book, not this page about the book. I want to rate this book, and if a friend sees it on another site, he’ll still see that I liked it!

Best of all, it’s a social network without the need for a social-networking space. It’s the first thing I’ve seen which successfully breaks out of the need to be inside a specific place in order to interact and contextualise—we don’t need MyFace’s training wheels! Glue shifts its focus from trying to hem in, or reduce the web, to elegantly augmenting it.

As you can tell, I really like this gadget, and I thank @fraser and @alexiskold for building it, and letting me have a play of the Beta.

Sometimes I come across a site and have to wonder what the designers, consultants, marketers, management teams and everyone else involved were thinking when they signed off on the project. The sting is that much worse when it’s a re-design of a well-loved site.

Well, the brains behind the new BBC iPlayer layout have failed, miserably! The new design is cluttered and lacks the wonderful functionality of the older sidebar. Its ease of use is completely gone in favour of… something? I have no idea what benefit the new layout brings. There is no additional feature set. It doesn’t DO anything different.

I have two major concerns with it:

1. It’s cluttered.

The benefit of the original iPlayer was an ease of use and elegant design. It was simple to find a programme, easy to play it, and easy to find related content. They have now juxtaposed radio and television programming, littered the screen with unfathomable boxes, and made the filtering by category bloody difficult. Its main content doesn’t fit above the fold, making its screen real-estate poorly-used even though there is much more content on display at one time. The wonderfully-simple method of sidebar filtering is gone in favour of some myspace-esque scatter-box setup. It’s complicated, un-elegant, and supremely difficult to use.

Poor effort, badly done.

2. It’s ugly. I know this is subjective, but the actual player doesn’t fit well in its space. For all the seeming effort to splash content across the screen, the player itself doesn’t use enough of the screen when it’s in viewing mode:

You wouldn’t guess that the better-looking part of this screen is below the window scroll line, would you? Instead you get terminal-esque white text below a plain box which doesnt fit.

When I went to the forum to see if anyone else had noticed, I was pleased to see the top-most comments were all complaints about the bad layout. The boards were closed (I can only hope because of overwhelming viscerole being poured out!) but I did note another poor design feature: the background gradient repeats both horizontally and verticaly. What this means is that on a wide-screen layout, you see a tiled gradient instead of a smooth black-to grey.

I hope the BBC Design team heeds the forums, this plea, and countless others waiting to occur. Please fix the great iPlayer. This revamp’s rubbish and it feels like something pushed out to tick boxes rather than satisfy user needs.

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• Owen Gibson on how the BBC iPlayer is to be revamped

Image via Wikipedia

I’m trying out a Zemanta blog post. What it does, apparently, is to suggest ideas for the article you’re currently writing. It’s a semantic blog suggestion feature, and it’s manifested in this instance as a firefox plugin that adds a write widget to my WordPress WYSIWYG editor. IIt updates every 300 characters, and also has ‘semantic features’. There’s an interview over at R/WW, for more information. I’m kind of trying to see what it recommends so need to fill in the 300 characters:

• It’s not just about Zemanta (but z-ta is cool) [via Zemanta]
• Rich blog content at the click of a button – Zemanta has gone live! [via Zemanta]
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Well it looks like it suggests related articles, and adds a bunch of Zemanta boxes into the blog space. It also finds images from Flickr.

I could see this tool being very handy in future, though I usually blog from a client, and I don’t think this supports ScribeFire or ecto (which is rubbish, by the way.) However, there are a few problems with it:

1. It generates an unhelpful set of areas in the blog itself. So if you include a Zemanta suggestion, it pastes it where you’re typing, and you end up typing in an alt area in the code… annoying.
2. It updates every 300 characters. This is annoying because it’s not necessarily that real-time. This is an awkward interface feature. It also places your curser at the top of the post every time it updates, meaning what I just typed appeared above the opening line…

I think this kind of application, however, is prescient of the direction the Read/Write web is heading. It’s active and dynamic, and I’m sure the interface will be ironed out over time. I’m not sure what ‘semantic’ features they’re necessarily incorporating (is this just keyword-searched or is it tyingin with some RDF store somewhere?) but I like the way it’s heading.

I like the fact that it suggests images (all images in this post provided by Zemanta), but I’m not sure about the inclusion of ‘Zemanta’ presence everywhere… I’m also slightly concerned that some of the images it supplies are ‘license unknown’, meaning  you could use one and infringe on copyright. It does, however, have a link saying you can check it yourself, which shows they’re thinking ahead! It’s implementation of images is a bit of a struggle, however, in that you end up typing in the description area without the ability to click out of it. This is balanced by the fact that it automatically adds citations. It only adds a single image, though… so you can’t add a second image to the same blog post.

Now, they just need to make it a bit smoother, and stop jumping to the top of the bloody post

I read about sliderocket over on R/WW, and at ZDNet, today, and signed up for a Beta. While I’m waiting for them to send one out (I hope) I’d like to talk a little about why I love the idea of this product.

Firstly, I was recently tasked with conducting a 40-minute presentation. This is something I was quite excited to do, since it was about the Semantic Web, but I didn’t have any presentation software on my PC. I downloaded a copy of OpenOffice, which has a presentation application built in, and found it ironically bland for an app called ‘Impress’. I know, as a person of geekish persuasion (I’m only half-geek, on my father’s side) I shouldn’t give a toss about what an application looks like, but should focus entirely on what it does and how well. But this is a presentation–aesthetics is what the software was written for. I’m not crunching numbers or writing code, I’m standing up in front of people discussing an exciting topic, trying to put forward a well-polished talk. I want my slides to reflect that–they need to add to the talk, and they can’t do that if they’re boring.

Not only this, but I find OpenOffice’s Impress seemed to have loads of options in random places, and a difficult-to-follow system of preferences. It has dozens of background settings, but it’s like pulling teeth to get a gradient you like.

Eventually, I downloaded a trial of Microsoft’s Powerpoint 2007 and found it much, much better. It’s easy to use, simple-to-navigate, and aesthetically pleasing. It’s huge downside, however, is that it’s expensive.

Now, having seen sliderocket’s site, and had a look at their demo presentation, I’m struck by three things. First, it’s gorgeous! The actual presentation is stunning, and eye-catching and flawless. This is desperately important for a presentation app.

Secondly, because it’s a web app, it can incorporate web-features natively. Granted, I find it hard to think why I’d need a hyperlink in a presentation (I’m there, pointing to it, after all), but it offers import assets from Flickr and other web-tools. This is a huge step towards a semantic-type application which could use the very latest information in a presentation (live stock reports, automatically-updated images, up-to-date contact information for companies…).

Finally, this is platform agnostic. It’s on the web, so you can use it on the web. Although there is an offline reader for download, you can play it using just flash seamlessly. No longer will you have to make sure the place’s projector will talk to your laptop (or like me, that the laptop they provide has a reader for your presentation ;~)). It’ll run on Linux, Mac, and Windows!

There is one, only one, concern of mine, though, That’s that when you click to advance a slide, your curser turns into a clock and you have a bit of a delay. This could be incredibly annoying for time-critical presentations or animations. We’ll just have to see how well this bears out in a trial, though.

Are we, as a society or set of societies too quick to categorise?

I think we have built upon the Victorian-era’s predilection for classification for understanding. You’ll notice, no doubt, that I categorised the idea of classification as Victorian. Perhaps this is a helpful metaphorical conduit for expressing a large number of semantic nuances–a sort of communicative shorthand. When I mention ‘Victorian’, loads of images appear in my mind: women in petticoats and parasols, men with mustaches, steam engines, industrial buildings, red-brick, tea, lack of smiles… and a corresponding set of ideas begins to emerge rather like a tag-cloud which gets more intricate the longer you focus on a single tag.

But, what if this becomes a hindrance to meaning. I am not alone in experiencing the frustration involved when someone tries to categorise you. My wife, a veterinary surgeon, was recently introducing herself to a middle-aged woman who had asked us how long we’d lived in our town.

“Oh, I recently got a job in the vet’s practice,” says my wife (who’s blessed with ageless looks which often leave people stunned to learn her real age)

“Really! Do you need some sort of qualification to do that?”

Both my wife and I had to bite back any reproach involved in explaining that it does indeed take quite a bit of training and qualification before being allowed to take a job as a practicing veterinary surgeon, the last of which being five-years’ worth of 40+-hour weeks of a veterinary degree and harrowing RCVS examinations.

What the woman was trying to do, of course, was to find out whether Wendy works there as a nurse or sweeping floors and cleaning kennels. Her surprise proved this when Wendy laughingly explained that she’s a vet and therefore has several necessary qualifications.

What this illustrates is a time when the categories we use as a conceptual structure don’t fit. The woman’s whole perception of my wife came to a crashing, embarrassing end when she was forced to re-render her conceptual structure. Now, I believe that we, as humans, require certain conceptual and metaphorical constructs in order to turn our perceptions into understandings. They, in essence, allow us to contain a concept in order to analyse it and let our abstract processes work. They give non-physical concepts substance so we can get our physical brains around them. (For more, I highly recommend Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors we Live By).

What I am beginning to wonder is whether there is a glitch in the natural necessity for these constructs. What happens if a society becomes transfixed with its own metaphors? Or, maybe it’s just that the shorthand is used too freely? What does it mean to be ‘post-modern’, ‘ecological’, ‘ethical’, or any number of tags we use to convey huge propositions of meaning? I propose that conceptual tagging, and the short-hand language of metaphor is fast becoming the newest form of cliche. We are learning, culturally, to package more meaning than we understand ourselves into ever-smaller packages. Communication is beginning to break down at some levels due to ambiguity and a lack of understanding so that the entire semantic package is not necessarily being transmitted.

If I am having a conversation about industriousness, working hard, or innovation, I use the idea of ‘Victorian’ in a very different way from its use in a dialogue about expressive freedom, colonialism or interior design. So, to a certain extent, the context of the conversation is important. But what is actually happening when someone uses ‘toxins’, ‘carbs’, and ‘omega-3′ as tags for ‘unhealthy’, ‘bad for you’, and ‘beneficial’ respectively? I’d love to understand this phenomenon of communication more fully.

Please note: I am not attacking culture, education or the general state of the world, but trying to explore the concepts of understanding and communication. If you have ideas, please let me know them.

Live Writer

Right, so I’ve been blogging using Windows Live Writer for a few weeks, and have generally enjoyed it. It’s easier than logging into my CMS, and it integrates with the site theme, so what I see is actually what the post looks like.

As you can see, it’s a pretty slick interface, and I think it’s  relatively simple, so the focus is on the writing rather than the application (Windows’ biggest design fault IMHO!) There are a few exasperatives, however:

• Insert Video only works with a select set of video sources, and I even had trouble with YouTube. It’s a slick idea, but it executes poorly.
• My Site favicon appears, which is nice, but it runs over ‘View Weblog’ and falls off the bottom of the window. Surely it’s not too hard to resize or align it in a satisfactory way?
• Set-up was quick, but there’s no native support for Drupal (you have to cheat and call it WordPress or MetaWebLog). This isn’t so bad, but it does limit the options you’re given if you choose the wrong one.
• It has the ability to tag posts, but it calls them ‘Categories’. They’re Tags. It’s a Blog. And, it’s one of the things that doesn’t work if you choose the wrong set-up type.

Aside from those, it’s brilliant. I use it all the time, and it is easy to use. You just have to html-in the videos you want. And, like I said, it’s pretty.

Live Mail

I hate Outlook. It’s ugly, complicated, and runs slowly and in its own very particular way. I’m sure it’s brilliant for all you Server-Oriented people out there, but I don’t use Exchange. I’ve been using Gmail’s web interface for three years or so, and decided I’d like to explore a desktop app. I set up Outlook 2003, but I hate it so much… Besides, I use Google Calendar, and I haven’t got a satisfactory sync yet (Yes, I have added Google’s new Sync app, but I use multiple calendars…) You have to muck about with the OS’s Mail settings to get rid of unwanted accounts. Then it crashed, cause I deleted it’s precious Data File…  so, Outlook’s out. Instinctively, I’d use Thunderbird, but it isn’t as good as Firefox for some reason, and I don’t want to think of Mozilla in a bad way… (Whoever said I was unbiased?)

Thing is, I like the OS integration of things I use all the time, I just don’t like Window’s versions. I like the Idea of Internet Explorer, but Firefox is better in so many ways. I like the idea of Windows Contacts, but it doesn’t grab my contacts from the Cloud… like Plaxo used to before it broke! So I love the idea of Windows Live Mail… it’s eye candy Aero style and looks simple, to contrast Outlook’s frankly cluttered layout.

Unfortunately it works simple too. Not simple as in keep it simple, but  simple as in: ‘He was a bit simple, now you mention it.’ IMAP frankly frightens it, and you have to use advanced settings to keep it from defaulting to POP. My favourite thing about it so far, though, is the way it mindlessly keeps doing what I tell it not to. I don’t want it to synchronise the ‘All Mail’ folder with Google, cause it’s colossal. I don’t want it to sync the spam folder, cause it’s full of spam and I’m happy with my c0k $iz£, thanks! But it keeps doing it. I tell it not to synchronise, and even remove it’s messages; they keep appearing. And I know it remembers what I told it because the tick box is still ticked (it’s not the only thing getting a ticking off) (See Image).

It also doesn’t seem connected with its tray icon, which still displays unread mail long after you’ve read and cleared the inbox.

For some positives, it’s pretty, not complicated, and it has a structure which works better than Outlook. It supports a big, one-stop inbox without needing a BSc (Hons): Outlook Settings and Apologetics. I like it, I just wish it worked like it should. Kinda… like Vista!

Update

It looks like Live Writer has updated and now recognises Drupal. Unfortunately, it now sees the CSS in a different way, and makes posting very visually difficult! It used to have  a white background (See top image) but now looks like this:

It’s a nightmare to read… oh well, I can’t really be arsed to muck about with the CSS of my theme… it was fun while it lasted!

I just watched the most unhelpful but beautifully-shot promotional video for the new Sony Ericsson XPERIA. I assume it’s a mobile phone from the five-second glimpse you get of it. The rest of the video is a bit of a mystery. It’s very enjoyable to watch, so I’d recommend it. It’s got lots of paper aeroplanes flying around NYC, with a Mystery Tour song going round.

In seriousness, I read a review on Last 100 about it, but they were baffled by the marketing speak too…

The EXPERIA X1, available in the second half of 2008, is a “premium experience of energized communication”, whatever that means.

It looks fun, and I can’t wait to see what it will do; but I can’t say I don’t feel a bit sad that it’s Windows Mobile. The limited experience I’ve had with WinMobiles has been poor, really. I don’t really want my mobile phone to pause and hang like my PC does… However, I love Sony’s hardware, and this looks rather fun…

After covering the Typeroom Light beta earlier, I sent a few questions over to the makers, and they’ve sent back some interesting answers. I should have mentioned that the Typeroom I tried out was a lite version (think 3.2 lager, but without the bubbles). The pro version seems like it will have more options, many of which seemed right in line with my questions…

1. How does Typeroom Lite work with CSS and site templates?

TypeRoom Lite does not actually work with templates. TypeRoom Professional however, does.

One of our most important design considerations when creating TypeRoom Lite was that it had to be instant. We needed a way to introduce people to this concept of "remote CMS", and instead of going through the explanations, we wanted to just show the view (using their own site as the subject of demonstration).

So while TypeRoom Lite is being released as a product in and of itself (with a free and paid version of TypeRoom Lite), it also has another and possibly even more important, role as a means to preview of the technology on which we are basing our complete CMS.

2. With the premium version, will the system be able to cope with RSS, Permalinks and other essential characteristics of Blogs and syndicated content?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is that we are planning on releasing a minimal version of the professional version to start with so we can iterate with the help of the community. So RSS is probably not going to be in the first release.

Another thing of note is that we are not actually including a blogging engine. A site managed with TypeRoom can co-exist with a blogging platform, but our focus is primarily on hierarchical websites. We feel that a blog engine is a great tool for…well..blogging, but that to manage a larger, more structured website, a blog might not be the best tool (even though you can make word press do just about anything).

3. Will the premium version support templates?/ Will the premium version work so that someone could set up a website using Typeroom as a creation as well as maintenance tool (like open-source CMS’s or WordPress)

Yes. TypeRoom Professional is based off of templates. It also includes support for menus, permissions, drafts and the various aspects of a CMS one finds necessary on a usual basis.

And to answer your question on the building a site vs. just using it for maintenance, we think it might be more of the build option for starters. Retrofitting a CMS onto an existing site is not the easiest task given the complexity of various websites out there. This will be an ongoing challenge for sure.

Thanks to the folks at Typeroom for their clarity. I am really looking forward to seeing where the pro version takes their concept. With the streamlined interface I saw in ‘Lite, I think this might be spot on for the purposes mentioned above–especially for sites already in existence and beginners. I could also see this as a possible solution for small businesses, with limited budgets, to maintain a comprehensive online presence. It will be interesting to see if that is how it’s adopted, and to see how much the Pro version costs. Typeroom also have a demo video so you can see for yourself the slick interface:

Typeroom is a content management system which takes a different approach to traditional Content Management. Instead of using databases and managing content directly, Typeroom works more like Adobe Contribute by allowing traditional html pages to be edited in real time. With the service due for public testing shortly, I have had a Beta test of the setup and have a few observations.

The editor is web-based, and a user simply enters a url into Typeroom’s site and navigates to content they wish to edit and selects ‘edit this page’. Typeroom then displays a copy of the page and opens a WYSIWYG editing environment. This is a multi-paned approach, with the editing at the bottom and a preview panel above that updates in real time. Text and images can be manipulated from the editing pane, and there are various formatting options. The look is not dissimilar to TinyMCE or other familiar WYSIWYG platforms. Impressively, they have a drag-and-drop interface for adding images, and an auto-align by simply dragging images around the editing area. This feature, if it works consistently, could be of major advantage to non-technical users, because it eliminates the need to assign either a style or an attribute to an image to make it flow consistently. 

Publishing makes use of either FTP or a Typeroom account, which presumably stores FTP information. An interesting feature, though, is the ability to ‘publish’ by sending a revised version by email to a webmaster. (Having been in that position, I could see this being a mixed blessing to the Webmaster!) This option emails a link to the webmaster, so no files are actually exchanged. The page can then be published by the webmaster. Alternatively, the page can be ‘published’ in a downloaded Zip file, which I could see being handy for revisions and records.

The overall feel of Typeroom seems not dissimilar to a stripped-down (or maybe: ‘streamlined’), web-based version of Adobe Contribute. They will have to price themselves carefully because Contribute is made by a market leader and can be picked up for around £120, making it a very inexpensive option for content management.  Adobe’s option, however, can be slightly daunting for users not familiar with DreamWeaver or other Adobe environments. There are lots of options, and perhaps a slimmer model could be just the ticket. We’ll have to wait to see what toys the premium version offers, as it seems Typeroom  have opted for a ‘Freemium’ pricing model. I would be wary of having no access to HTML, however, and this is something Contribute used to drive me mad over. As good as a WYSIWYG can be, there will still be things the user will be frustrated over. Whether an intrusive div tag keeps everything aligned incorrectly or a spacing gif is left over from a sloppy code, changing pages can be infuriating if you can’t see (or understand) why the code won’t let you ‘just move that thing over here’!

There is no mention of stylesheets or other site-wide formatting tools, so I don’t know how it matches a page consistently to the site. You can choose formats, but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere for styles. The code it produced for me doesn’t validate, but I don’t know if this might be the CMS’s template it’s finding fault with. Also, it should be noted that I don’t think  this works with sites which are already  CMS-based.

So, no blogs, no Drupal sites, no bespoked-CMS sites. And this brings up a few concerns I have with the idea behind Typeroom. First off, I wonder if the trend for sites to be content-managed is actually at odds with this ‘Remote CMS’ idea. This works, basically, for one-off changes to static pages within a site, and doesn’t mention anything I can see for site-wide changes. I wonder how well it will handle a change to navigation, or to a theme image? In all, I don’t think of this at all the same as a CMS, which actually manages content. Rather, it is a sleek, web-based page editor with a very easy-to-use interface and an impressive ability to work with code it didn’t create.

Also, insofar as Typeroom is similar to Contribute, it doesn’t seem to have some of the safety features of Adobe’s product. Contribute allows automatic roll-back, and a robust user system so people who have access can make changes, whereas those who don’t can’t. In the same way Typeroom isn’t a CMS, neither is Contribute, but Adobe’s option is far more complex and works well for a semi-geek position.

Overall, I am very impressed with the ease of Typeroom’s system, and the speed at which it works online. It’s editor is sharp and the environment is pleasant. It offers multiple publishing options, and I can see if filling a very useful niche for people who have absolutely no training making changes to small, static sites. What I doubt with the system, though, is it’s future-proofing. I can’t see it fulfilling the same role as database-driven CMS’s, and it isn’t the same as publishing a blog. It is very simple to use, and that is brilliant, but many features of Adobe’s Contribute are lacking: for good or ill. I don’t know where Typeroom is going, but I can imagine with such a brilliant interface, and a very slick application, it could fill many holes with the system as it stands now. What it really needs to do, though, is work out where it stands with sites already using a CMS, especially bloggers.

The folks at Read/Write Web have published an article I wrote  for them about UK-based innovations company Talis.

Feel free to have a look over at the post, and feel free to leave comments either on Read/Write Web, or here on zachbeauvais.com.

I know this is behind the game, and that the bleeding edge of blog reviews has moved well beyond online streaming service Hulu (even though it’s not yet out to the public). But I received my beta invite last week and have had all this time to play around with it.

My initial thoughts: none.

No, not one initial thought. Hulu doesn’t work in the UK. They don’t tell you: "Hey, if you live in the UK, you will be able to access and begin your Hulu experience, but when you choose a show to stream, you’ll be disappointed. Have a nice day." You have to jump through all the Beta hoops to get there first.

Now, I know I should have known better, being a generally web-savvy chap. But after a few pre-reviews of the Hulu service, I decided not to read any more blogs about it until after I’d tried it out myself. I knew not to expect too much, after reading the last review over at Between the Lines , but I wanted my own experience.

Since then, I’ve found dozens of blogs about how bad it is that Hulu doesn’t work in Europe. Aside from whingeing about the lack of support, I can’t really think of anything more to write about Hulu (apart from its ridiculous, trying-too-hard-for-the-Web-2.0-market name).

But, doesn’t this kind of go against point of the web? The idea that we can make connections, share content, stream and connect?

The principle of the internet is broken by this experiment, and I don’t think a platform intended to be a YouTube killer should ever have been trialled in a geographically-limited network. Sure, I understand private Betas, but why limit this to the States? I don’t think News Corp really gets the Web 2.0 thing. In fact, I wonder if they really get the internet?

It reminds me of LaunchCast (now Yahoo Music). When I first launched the player, all the content was free, and there was absolutely loads of it. I was thrilled! Over months, however, content became harder to find due to advertisement interruptions and restrictions on skipping tracks. Suddenly, Launch re-directed to Yahoo, and I could no longer skip any content without upgrading to a premium service which hadn’t existed before. Then, when I moved to Britain, all the content was unavailable apart from a limited selection which I can only presume was intended for a British audience. (Don’t think my mates here would have agreed in a focus group!)

I haven’t used a yahoo service since. No, seriously, I haven’t used Yahoo. As soon as Konfabulator was purchased by Yahoo, I uninstalled it. I was all set to set up a Flickr account, when I found out it was Yahoo. (I might go back on that one, once I get a decent digital camera.)

This wasn’t really a boycott so much as a pre-emptive decision. I know that as soon as Yahoo gets a hold of a service, its user-friendliness will dissolve into advertisements and ‘premium services’ (a contradiction in terms!) This is what Hulu reminds me of. An attempt at grabbing a market instead of a well-thought-out startup trying to sell a genuinely good service and make a profit on its quality.

What is Web 2.0? Hulu doesn’t know, and it makes me think that News Corp hasn’t really got its head round it at all. I shudder to think what’s going to happen with LinkedIn.