Random Idea for iPad Functionality

I have my doubts about the iPad, and I generally agree with the various concerns about the non-opennes of the device. As to its niche, I do kind of think the "living room" device is a possibility. That is, a lightweight, readily accessible device that is within easy reach in the living room, to look something up quick while watching TV. Very quick, very casual usage, that doesn't require much body movement.

In that regard, I think a great function would be universal remote control. I actually have wished this function would be accomplished by an ordinary smartphone. And I still think that is the ideal platform. However, from a pure strategy point of view, if Apple could have made that happen and made in an iPad capability, that might have been a compelling usage.

The price is too high under all circumstances.

Help Out With My Bags? Are You Kidding Me?!

I made a rare trip to Kowalski's, our nearby Lexus of supermarkets, the other day. I still can't get over it, when I have one puny bag, containing the half-dozen convenience items I bought there, and the bag-boy wants to carry my grocery bag out for me. I am an able-bodied person, there is NO WAY I am letting someone do something for me that I am perfectly capable of doing, while I stand around and watch.

As I was driving away, I saw that very scene playing itself out, but, to me, at the next level of "no way!". A middle-age man, seemingly fit (but who knows, maybe he had a physical handicap), walking to his car, trailed by a 17-year old girl, pushing out his bags! I'm sorry, maybe I am old-fashioned, but that is just too much!.

I guess I have a little bit of ascetic or puritan or something in me. I just hate the idea of letting someone do stuff for me, when I am perfectly capable of doing it, and wouldn't even actually be saving time by out-sourcing the effort. It just seems lazy and decadent to me. I guess other people may consider it pleasant pampering. It's just not for me. It feels to me like another example of what I would call "cultivating weakness".

I guess my perspective is that if one is "able-bodied", one should certainly be grateful. And demonstrate one's gratitude by using the physical ability. For one thing, I think there is ultimately some risk of "use it or lose it" (in the very long term).

I have something of an ideology around this topic...maybe someday I will get around to thinking it through and writing it up.

Lesson from the Climate Email Hack

Why isn't email encryption more common? I suppose in that case the email was probably stolen from the server, so soft-core encryption (encrypting the email when transmitted outside the trusted domain) wouldn't have prevented it. That would have required hard-core encryption--where the message is only decrypted on the client computer, viewing the email. And most people think of soft-core encryption when they think of email encryption. Still, it is surprising to me that it hasn't taken hold, at all.

Teens Can't Buy A Drink, but Can Drown Themselves in Debt

During the Viet Nam era, it was observed, as a great irony, that young men could be drafted and fight in the military, but couldn't buy a drink. This led to the temporary reduction in the drinking age to 18. That era ended, another era began, and the drinking age was raised back to 21.

My ironic observation for this era would be that we don't let teens drink, but we do let them drown themselves in debt. No, I'm not talking about teens being preyed on by credit-card pitch-men, though that does happen. I am talking about the crushing burden of college debt that many graduating high school students take on, often without a lot of thought and guidance.

It's crazy to rack up $100,000 or more in debt, in pursuit of a generic undergraduate degree. I would submit that it is not reasonable to expect a 17 or 18-year old, who has lived at home, not supported themselves, and has no experience of debt, to make good decisions in that regard.We are talking about a debt burden that will have consequences a decade or more into the future.  In the short-term, going to the right college or one's dream college, or just a fun college, may seem totally worthwhile. But in the medium-term, that fateful, ill-advised decision, taken in one's late teens, can have life-long consequences. It's the kind of decision that can cause people to pursue the wrong career, just because it pays well, or to put off child-bearing, until it's too late.

But not only is it legally permissible for teens to make this choice--it is often socially encouraged!

Outlook Feature Idea: Per-Meeting Delegates

For each specific meeting, authorize calendar delegates. They would have delegate privileges, but only for that meeting (i.e., re-schedule, change content, change invitees).

Find All Feature in Excel 2003 Is Very Slick

I have been using Microsoft Office since before there was a Microsoft Office. The last Office upgrade that I found semi-compelling was Office 1997. At work we are still, happily, using Office 2003. I hate the UI in Office 2007, which we have at home on the family laptop.

Anyway, one of very few new features I have found to be significant is the Find All option in Excell 2003. Ironically, I only stumbled on it last week, after years of using that version of Excel.

Vibrate Before Ring--Really Nice Feature

For the first two rings, my cell phone (T-Mobile myTouch) vibrates, before it starts ringing. That is a really nice feature--gives you the chance to grab it, when you get a call in church, and realize you haven't silenced the ringer.

Another thoughtful ringer feature that my old "dumbphone" had was "one beep". This was vibrate mode, except that it would make one, modest little beep on the first ring. It was quiet enough, and not repeated, so that it would go un-noticed in business meetings or church, but if your ears were attuned, you would pick it up, just like a Daddy picks up his baby's cry. One of the advantages is that you never had to put your phone on full-silent, meaning that if you ever misplaced your phone and were hunting for it, you had a slight chance of audibly locating it.

Apple iPad Tablet - Medical Charting

10 years ago, I had a consulting assignment at a hospital, to write a white paper on the feasibility of electronic medical charting. My general conclusion was that what was required was a hand-held that was qualitatively bigger than the Palm Pilot (the hand-held standard of the time), but far smaller than the smallest laptop. It seems like the iPad might be about that size.

Big Media - Another Example of Doing Things the Expensive Way

This Cringely article talks about how much margin big media needs to be profitable. I know, some of that has to go to salaries and things like "hard cars" in war zones. But then there are the lunches and the expensive office buildings. He has a point. It kind of fits in with what is an ongoing theme for me--the extent to which we contemporary Americans have constructed a very high-overhead lifestyle.

Freakonomics

I've previously written about the fact that a catchy name is often half the battle in branding. The Freakonomics authors have been pretty successful extending their brand, with a regular feature in the New York Times. I read the book and enjoyed it, but really, there is nothing particularly freaky about the cases they cover.

Eating your own dog food, in Corporate in-house software development

Many contemporarly writers on software development, including successful sofware entrepreneurs, such as Joel Spolsky, Dave Winer and Paul Graham, emphasize the importance of "eating your own dogfood". This phrase is used a lot in contemporary software development, maybe a bit too much, but what it alludes to is using your product. Not just casually, but intensively. The eat-your-own-dogfood theory makes a lot of sense to me, in theory and in terms of the really good software I have ever used, and also the really awful software (PeopleSoft, for instance).

It is easy to see how it can work for consumer software, or tools used by software developers. It is more challenging to make it happen with in-house corporate systems. I mean, how many developers have ever used a claims-payment system, or a reservation booking system, for example? In my experience, large corporations fail terribly in this regard--and oustourcing and offshoring isn't making it any better.

The problem can be attacked. There are several techniques that I have seen to go a long way. One is to bring people with operational experience into IT. Unfortunately, the trend to offshoring it cutting off the opportunities for entry-level transition into IT. I know of Computer Science undergrads, with average credentials, who have left the field, because they could not get their foot in the door, for a development position. So it is even more unlikely that someone will be able to transition from a business operations job to a technical IT job; the best they can hope for is to make it as a Business Analyst.

Another, even less-used alternative is to have IT people spend some time "apprenticing" in functional areas. Although this has a lot to recommend it, this was never popular, and is even less likely to be tried now. So the last alternative is creating a scaled-down version of this situation. Have the IT people spend a significant chunk of time, 1-2 cumulative work weeks, sitting with real users, and learning their processes. Then, continue that partnership, where those real users--at the do-er level, not at the management level--continue to be closely involved in and consulted throughout the software-development process. Whenever I have done this, the payoff has been huge.

LinkedIn Offers Backdoor to Derive Someone's Email Address

Normally in LinkedIn, you can't see someone's email address if they are not linked to you. If you want to send them an invite, you can do that, but it goes through LinkedIn--the process does not expose their email address.

However, if you send an Invite to someone, and they have their Out of Office (OOO) reminder set, you will get an OOO from them, which gives you their email address. This is a little bit of a security gap, probalby not a huge on, but someone, somewhere, will exploit this in some say.

This problem arises from the interaction of LinkedIn with the OOO reminder (typically set in Microsoft Outlook).  Interestingly, a solution could be obtained if either piece of software were more security-conscious. LinkedIn could send the invitation request email without providing the Inviter's email address. That way, when OOO auto-generated a reply, it would not go to the sender of the invitation--it would go into a no-reply address at LinkedIn. And OOO should definitely be masking the "Reply To" address; not just for this reason, but in general.

Deficit-Reduction Idea

There is talk of a commission for reducing the deficit. I have an idea. Congress should steal a page from business, where many businesses require managers to rank-order their employees, in terms of value to the oraganization. So if you have 10 great employees, that's fine, but still, some must be greater than others, so--just rank-order them.

I would like to require every Congressman to identify the least justified 20% of spending in their district. Not that the 20% would automatically get cut, they just have to identify it. The criteria, in descending order of importance, would be:

1. Not in the best interests of the United States
2. Not accomplishing its intended purpose
3. Not in the best interests of the constituents

The idea is that, if the Congressman is on record as agreeing that the spending is not so useful, maybe that would make it easier to attack.

Gender Wage Gap

Superfreakonomics takes on the question of the "gender wage gap". The conclusion are what I would have expected: "while gender discrimination may be a minor contributor to the male-female wage differential, it is desire — or the lack thereof — that accounts for most of the wage gap. The economists identified three main factors:"

I would be interested to see a similar treatment of the question of age-discrimination.

Airlines Making Obese People Buy a Second Seat, At A Discount

NYT article with lots of comments, about how Air France is making obese people by a modestly-discounted second seat. They should have read my proposal from 2005--I've already solved the problem for them.


Here's a question, though-why don't airlines charge a premium for having an empty seat next to you? They charge for everything else, that actually seems like a really obvious revenue opportunity. I think the way it would have to work is that you pay a premium for an adjacent empty seat. If you don't wind up getting that seat, the premium is credited back to you. There would probably have to be some other rules. Like you can't reserve your specific seat in advance, the most you could do is specify aisle or window. That doesn't seem so bad, though. The other complication is that this would tend to require people to stick to their assigned seat, even if there are some open seats on the flight.

NYT Charging, Again!

I can't believe they are going through another iteration of this...they have done this SO many times. That comment was rhetorical, I actually CAN believe it, because I understand, they want to make money off of me, even if I don't want to give them any money if I can possibly help it. I do like the fact that they are trying something new, the hybrid approach. One good thing about that is that is doesn't put everything behind the walled garden.

Typically, however, the "cliff" between free and charging is too steep...so that flat fee, instead of being $3/month (acceptable) will be something like $11/month or $50/year.

I will be interested to see how they detect a repeat user. Slate's predictably negative take on the whole idea speculates about that.

Colts Class

Although I was among those who were aghast at the Colts' decision to turn their back on NFL immortality, I must say, they are one classy pro sports franchise.

Washing Machine Feature: Detect Electronics in the Load

My daughter had a good design idea today--she said that washing machines need a feature where they detect if an electronic device is in the tub. Obviously the point here is to prevent iPods, cell phones, etc from being left in pockets and tossed in the wash (has happened to her once). That really is a half-decent idea...if the machine had a detector for cell phone and wi-fi signals. I guess false positives would likely be a problem (cell phone in my pocket while loading the laundry).

Movies Android App

I used the Movies app on Android for the first time recently. I have got to say, it is super-convenient. It was pretty much effortless. I would go so far as to say it was as convenient, maybe better, than using a full-size computer. That's not something I could say for very many use cases. Now if only there were a Blockbuster app.

Maintenance--for IT Systems as much as for Cars

I thought this observation about "IT Nuisance Requests" had a lot of merit. It's more exciting to build something new than to maintain what you have. Of course, neglect maintenance long enough, and then you have no choice but to replace with new. So it creates something of a self-fulfilling cycle.

From an IT perspective, the request to change the report structure or one of a myriad of other request is simple enough but it is also small.  This type of project often goes onto a maintenance list prioritized against one another and demands for more strategic projects.  The open request is also a nuisance for IT...It is easy for both parties to overlook the list of nuisances.  Business and IT executives undervalue these individual small requests when prioritizing them against larger investment projects complete with business cases.  The natural inclination is to assign resources to the investment portfolio and address enhancement projects on a best effort basis.

I have seen this play out repeatedly, at different companies. A big project is commissioned, to replace the old, unloved system with the next-gen system. The project winds up being years late and over budget. More often than not, the new project winds up being canceled. Even when not canceled, it often comes in short of expectations, with the result being that the old system is not fully de-commissioned.

This result has a couple of implications. One, if a fraction of the money spent (wasted) on the next-gen system had been devoted to overhauling and maintaining the old system, success could have been obtained, far more economically, far sooner and with far less risk.

The other consideration relates to the overall IT environment. In the past 10 or so years, a huge focus of large, corporate IT departments has been in retiring/sunsetting/de-commissioning/harvesting redundant existing systems. This is far from the most exciting work, but it has become absolutely vital, because the cost of maintaining multiple, redundant systems is crushing IT budgets. So when a big project limps across the finish line, short of expectations, so that the old system is kept alive, this contributes to creating the kudzu-like corporate system environment that, as we have just observed, carries a very high price for maintenance.

Local IT Best Practices Rep

One constantly reads about the woes of corporate IT departments. How they don't have a "seat at the table", how the business doesn't value their services, how they can't get in alignment with the business. Well, I have one teeny, tiny little idea for how they can get a little more love.

Departments within an organization should all have a local IT Best Practices Rep. This person would not be an employee of the IT department. They would be a business user within the department. They would spend 80-90% of their time doing the normal work of their department. However, they would spend 10-20% of their time being the on-site representative of the IT department.

The general responsibilities of this role would be:

1. Serve as best-practices evangelist/consultant to the department
2. Serve as advocate for users, if necessary, when they are dealing with the Help Desk
3. Gently educate users regarding the facts-of-life of corporate IT

It always amazes me how un-informed the average knowledge worker is, regarding simple tricks of the trade. These are generic, personal-productivity techniques that apply to any knowledge worker in any industry. Some of the things I have in mind:

• Keyboard shortcuts. How painful is it to watch someone who isn't adept with the keyboard. I am thinking of things like HOME (beginning of line), CTRL-ARROW (next word), SHIFT-CLICK (multi-select), and even ALT-TAB. It's amazing how many people don't know CTRL-F for Find On Page.
• Archiving mail. This is partly the fault of corporate IT, for their stupid mail archival policies. But I have even seen people who print all their emails, so they retain a copy when the mandatory corporate archiving timeline hits.
• Save to Shared Drive, using Offline Files. WAY too many people save to their hard drive. Sometimes, out of habit--they don't even know there is a shared drive. For others, the motivation is to have access to their files when offline. Fortunately, modern versions of Windows handle this really well, with the Offline Files feature. It works beautifully. You save to your synchronized folders on the network drive. If you are not connected, Windows automagically hands you the synchronized, offline copy of the file. When you re-connect, it all re-synchs, automatically. It even works when you lose your connection mid-edit. I don't think 10% of knowledge workers know about this feature.
• Indexing. I have been indexing for years. I think that having indexing software, like X1 or even Windows Desktop Search, will make any knowledge worker at least 5% more productive. I am not kidding. I have seen people spend 30 minutes looking for an email that I can find in 30 seconds, using search. Again, I don't think 10% of knowledge workers use this, and the IT department does nothing to educate them.
• Corporate Help Desks often do a poor job of servicing users. Sometimes this is because users do a poor job of explaining their problems. The Best Practices Rep could both help the user describe the problem, and could also be a point of contact for the Help Desk. For instance, when the user swears their machine was on AC power, and not low on battery, when it suddenly shut down, the Help Desk will still tend to suspect the user is wrong (often, but not always, for good reason). The BPR can provide the Help Desk with a calibration of how savvy and reliable the user in question really is.
• There are a lot of things about IT that users don't understand. For instance, they may see the internal chargeback of $200/month for their laptop and think "that's crazy, I can buy a really good laptop for less than $1000!" What they don't understand is that $200 per month is an accounting number, burdened with all kinds of overhead.
• Security vigilance. Without becoming the local gestapo, they can remind people of the importance of locking their keyboard, not emailing sensitive information, etc.

I see this as a multi-benefit strategy:

• The IT department benefits by having both better PR and better rapport with end users
• The IT department also has some "reserve" troops to help do its work
• The business departments get better service from IT
• The BPR gets good technical experience

I think a key point here is that Human Resources are, well, human. Humans crave contact, relationship and the personal touch. So many things about the way business are run nowadays take this away. This approach is a way to give people the human-ness they want, in a flexible way that should deliver on the business objectives as well.

Avatar Movie Review

Visually beautiful and stunning. The 3-D was terrific, layered, complete and integral to the visual environment. Those things--3-D and visual environment--were the star of the movie. The plot was terrible, 110% predictable. And the movie was a good 45 minutes too long. They should have stopped when the humanoid city-tree was destroyed--that would have made the movie shorter, and fixed the predictability problem nicely.

As an aside, the movie was criticized for portraying smoking, by the Sigourney Weaver character, in a somewhat romantic way. The dumbest part about that is--it was completely mis-placed. It was thrown in to make her look really tough and hard-edged, but then the rest of the movie she wasn't.

Sherlock Holmes Movie Review

Not very good. Not recognizably Sherlock, just the modern action-movie protagonist type. A combination of Jackie Chan, Batman and Jason Bourne. Robert Downey was reprising his role as Iron Man (saw previous for Iron Man II, that looked really, sequel-ly bad as well). Over-long as well. Yawn. Best part was the re-creation of Victorian London.

Computer Viewing vs the Family Room

Although nearly in the Baby Boomer demographic, I like to view myself as fairly leading-edge in regard to technology utilization. But I have to admit, as far as YouTube usage goes, I'm not. For me, there are three reasons why I don't give YouTube much of my time:

YouTube, the video site owned by Google, is about 10 times more popular than its nearest competitor. But Hunter Walk still thinks of it as an underdog.

For Mr. Walk, director of product management at YouTube, the competition is not other Web sites: it’s TV.

“Our average user spends 15 minutes a day on the site,” he said. “They spend about five hours in front of the television. People say, ‘YouTube is so big,’ but I really see that we have a ways to go.”

1. Content is not compelling. Most of the viral videos are amusing but trivial curiousities. It's like eating donuts or potato chips--briefly enjoyable, but in the end, largely a waste. In other words, different from, but intellectually and spiritually comparable to, broadcast TV. And I happily gave up broadcast TV about the time I started driving.

2. Production values. I love HDTV. Love it. I pretty much won't watch anything in low-def, there is just no reason to. So why would I want to watch ultra-low-def YouTube?

3. Living-room factor. I spend SO much time in front of a computer, I really don't want to increase that amount. So when I read, I would prefer not to read on-screen (I often print articles for off-line reading). Same with watching stuff--I really much prefer to watch on my nice, big-screen, high-def TV in my comfy family room.

Microformat

Jeff Atwood on microformats, and their use for a standard resume format. Since the dawn of XML, I have been wondering when there would be an accepted resume format, and as far as I can tell, there is still no real movement toward structured resumes.

I think my ideas for the expansion of Android intents, to things like addresses for consumption by GPSs, or Bible verses, would be a good use of a microformat.

Smartphone Accessories

Newsfactor Business Report: Eric Migicovsky had his a-ha moment while biking along the canals of the Netherlands. The Canadian engineering student kept missing calls on the BlackBerry tucked into his pockets. So as soon as he got home, the then-22-year-old entrepreneur began work on an accessory that would help him know when he was getting a call.
His brainchild, the inPulse Smartwatch, relays text messages and caller information from the BlackBerry onto its owner's wrist, reducing the chances of missing an important call. Migicovsky says advance orders for the $149 device are twice what he expected and that he's already devising a similar gadget for smartphones that run Google's Android software. "No one is building intelligent accessories" for smartphones, Migicovsky says.

Two points. One, this highlights a different problem. Although I don't get nearly as many texts as the average teenager, I get quite a few emails. I don't want to be notified every time a routine email, or routine text, arrives. The problem is that there is no convention in POP3 or SMS to signifiy a high-priority message. Two, for myself, the accessory I want for biking is just a nice custom mount! How hard can that be?!

Easy-Access Mute Button

A small UI nicety in the Drivesafe.ly app that I just reviewed is the large, floating ON/OFF button. When I went to an Android phone, I was really hoping there would be an app that provided this kind of implementation for the mute button--to make it very, very easy, during a conference call, to mute and un-mute one's self.

Colts v Vikings

I think my two favorite teams are going to be in the Super Bowl. Since Week 5, I've been telling Seth it is a distinct possibility. He has a pessimistic nature, so he has dismissed the idea up until the a couple of weeks ago. We've really been enjoying this season. I took the plunge and got Directv, and they threw in Sunday ticket, so we've seen every Colts game (though they have been on TV so much, we would only have missed about 4 w/o it!). I'm totally addicted to DVR'ing games.

Drive Safely Review

I've written before about the problem of teens texting while driving, and solutions to help control it, by preventing texting when the phone is moving fast. Drivesafe.ly takes a different approach. It reads the text aloud, and auto-replies to notify the sender that the recipient is driving and unavailable (or whatever you want it to say).

I don't actually get many texts while driving, so I had to contrive to have a few sent to me to have it tested. It does seem to do a good job of speech-synthesis for texts. It also supposedly reads email, but that hasn't worked for me--maybe because I only have the trial version.

So in addition to the core feature of speech synthesis, the key features are:

1. Status bar icon for quick access.
2. Large toggle button for on/off. This, combined with #1, make it easy to turn on while driving--in case you forget to do so in advance.
3. Cutomizeable, auto-send of a reply, to explain your current status (e.g., "your text was read aloud to the John, who is driving and can't reply right now.").
   

#3, the auto-reply, is the feature that seals the deal. It fills in a gaping hole in texting technology--the need for status notification. It drives me CRAZY when my kids (say they) can't stop a texting conversation pronto, because the people they are texting won't understand and will think they are being rude. This feature solves that problem. So I actually see it is as being applicable outside the case of driving--any time when you aren't in a position to reply to a text.

So the bottom line is that, based on my very limited testing, this seems like a well-conceived, useful app. At $13.95, the price is grossly excessive, however. As far as missing features, I would like to see in the future:

1. Ability to select from a customized list of pre-set auto-replies.
2. Ability to read already-received messages. The typical use-case I can think of is you are driving, you forget to turn it on, and you realize you just got a message. Now you want to turn it on and listen to that message. I would think the way it should work is based on a customizeable default for "read messages received in last X minutes app is started".
3. Ability to re-read a message if requested.

Mobile Gmail Annoyance

Doesn't auto-complete email addresses, doesn't even seem to offer the ability to pick a recipient from your address book! Really deficient, I can't believe that the reviews haven't hit this point. The built-in messaging app does auto-complete pretty well, though not quite as well as full Gmail.

I guess the work-around is to start by pulling up a contact, and then select "email" as the activity. That is not nearly as natural to me as starting with email, and if sending successive emails, it is quite cumbersome. The other problem is that I don't have email addresses for most of my contacts--I usually just rely on auto-complete, when using full Gmail.

Genesis of An Urban Legend

I hate urban legends (though I sometimes enjoy writing about them). This article was interesting in that it traced the origins of a UL--something you don't see very often.

Mobile Form Factor I'd Like to See

I'm seeing more articles about the proliferation of Android hardware, including different form factors--eReaders, tablets, media devices. A form factor I would like to see is a two-screen folding device. No physical keyboard. So for routine phone and texting operations, you could use it unfolded, in single-screen mode. But if you wanted to do heavy internet browsing, or email, or other stuff, you would fold/flip it open. The extra screen would offer a few possibilities:

1. More real estate, for reading.
2. A "dedicated" virtual keyboard, for heavy typing. (Bonus points if the design is like a clamshell computer, allowing for the screen to be tilted at an angle from the keyboard.)
   
3. Split-screen functionality, for various forms of multi-tasking.
   

(Possible bonus points if the two halves were detachable. That might be asking a lot, and I'm not sure of the value, but something to think about.)

3 Key Features for Google Voice

1. Consistent outbound calling number--so it works with my T-Mobile Faves!
   
2. Ability to set all configurations within the Android app. Including critical, frequently-toggled things such as DO NOT DISTURB and CALL PRESENTATION
3. And when using CALL PRESENTATION with the Google Voice app, don't make the user rely on accessing the phone's keyboard for the options--present a nice, custom screen with big, fat buttons with labels such as 1-Answer Call; 2-Record Call; 3-Send to Voicemail.

Google Search Option I Would Like To See

Google search is great. However, more and more often, it is somewhat polluted by the predictable results:

• Wikipedia
• LinkedIn
• Facebook and LinkedIn imitators

I would like a search that gives me the top links for my search term, where the domains are outside the set of domains that frequently turn up as top domains for all searches. In other words, I want a way to get sites that are authoritative because they are specialists in the topic, not because they are the internet equivalent of mainstream media.

Drivethroughs

This article briefly reviews the history of drivethroughs, and claims that their popularity has peaked, though I didn't find it very convincing.

My cousin Cliff had a good rule, which was--skip the drive through, park and walk in. It's usually faster, always more reliable, and you have much more control over the time. What amazes me is the Dairy Queen in town--people will wait 10 minutes or more in the horrible drive-through line, when they could park, walk in and be served inside of 4 minutes. (Yes, I know, there are special cases involving newborn babies, but that isn't what is driving 90% of the people in the line.)

Single-Issue Politics

Historically, I have despised single-issue politics. But I am beginning to think it would be good to have more single-issue politicicans. Only thing is, not the same, tired handful of issues that traditionally generate the single-issue mindset.

Nuclear energy, for instance--I want a politician who declares "we must build the national storage facility at Yucca Mountain" at the end of every speech.

PS--I loathe Harry Reid the politician.

DoggCatcher Podcatcher Review

I have been using DoggCatcher for 4 months, on my Android phone. It is pretty good. Nothing about it really irritates, for a start. They have an unusually sophisticated set of preferences for a mobile app, including such niceties as when to auto-synch, and how many seconds for the skip button. They also have good UI details, such as “long press required for skip button”. It does a very nice job downloading feeds Over-the-Air, but you don’t have to download at all–you can stream if you want.

Probably the most obvious improvement I can spot is having default user preferences for the Feed Options–rather than having to set manually for each feed you add. In the same vein, I think the set of system defaults could be better--it wasn't immediately obvious to me why feeds were not auto-downloading.

My other, really big idea for them would be to have a web page where you can add feeds. The main benefit would be just to ease of data-entry. But a nice secondary benefit would be to maintain a history of all podcasts you have ever downloaded.

Note that it is a paid app. At $6.99, it is by far the most expensive Android app I have purchased. However, considering its quality and utility, I would say it is well worth it.

Last point--consider a different name...I get the pun: DOG-catcher / POD-catcher...but it seems like a "false pun"--what does "Dogg" have to do with anything podcast-related?

SIM Cards Rock - Why Doesn't T-Mobile Say So?

After years of being a Sprint customer, we recently switched to T-Mobile, and discovered the magic of SIM cards. And thank goodness we did--3 of my 5 family members lost or damaged their phones at some point, and had to make do with a cheapie "go-phone", which can be had for $20-30.

Their primary phones have since been replaced, in the upgrade-renewal cycle, but the go-phones are handy backups. Not just when you lose/damage your main phone, but when you travel in hazardous conditions. For instance, maybe I really don't to take my smartphone that would cost $400 to replace camping...why not just take the go-phone? Same thing for my son skiiing, which he does frequently.

What I don't understand is--why don't T-Mobile and AT&T market this angle more??

(Hint: while you are at it, push the designers. software and hardware, to make the best possible use of them.)

QR Codes: Interesting Idea

But, if these really take off, the hardware needs to be better--instead of taking a picture and OCR'ing the code, it needs a real scanner, like in the supermarket. (The way it is done in Japan, as this article notes.)

"Hell to Pay" - the shattering vindication of Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb

Review of the book Hell to Pay - "the shattering vindication of Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb". The article is interesting, and I'm sure the book would be too, if I had time to read it (right now I just don't). But it is a little ironic to me--although there are more details, this sounds like all the same arguments that have always convinced me that the atomic bombing was unquestionably the right decision, most humane of awful alternatives, for Japan as much as for the United States:

• Estimated 1 million American casualties
• Many, many millions more Japaneses casualties
• Japanese civilians pressed into service and otherwise used for war aims
• A general willingness of the Japanese military leadership to suffer a glorious, heroic final defeat, rather than surrender
• The disastrous potential of an incomplete defeat

It is scary to think that these lessons are so soon forgotten, in the United States, and in Japan.

Tuition Inflation

Full article: http://pundita.blogspot.com/2009/11/rethinking-usa-breaking-up-college.html

...colleges have learned they can charge whatever the traffic will bear for tuition, even during a deep recession, because they know the government will keep increasing financial aid for low income students. As long as the aid spigot is turned on for the poor, the colleges can get away with gouging middle income families because those are the ones that traditionally put up and shut up.

The upshot is that the college cartel bleeds middle income parents dry, keeps their children in debt for years after graduation, and inexorably drives the USA toward fully socialized higher education...

My father told me, years ago, that college tuition only got out of control when government got into the aid business.

Is there any way to break up the cartel? Yes, but it would take a revolt against the university system, which started out as benign and progressed to a tyranny that is wholly supported by society's inertia,

15 years ago, when my daughters were born, I was sure that by the time they were college-aged, the system would have been up-ended, by some combination of technology and revolt. The technology disruption has been slow in coming, and the revolt non-existent.

Cellular Carrier Marketing Strategy Memo

Android is something of a double-edged sword for cellular carriers. It is a hot, new platform that is driving some consumer interest. But it is in no way exclusive, nor for the most part, are the apps available for it. So there is some risk that Android could actually lead to increased commoditization for cellular carriers. T-Mobile did go down the path of trying to create differentiation, through a semi-exclusive app, Sherpa, but as far as I am concerned, that was pretty much a flop.

So here is my idea. Carriers need to work harder to leverage Android's flexibility and openness, to create differentiation and branding. Note however, this takes real work--it is not primarily about advertising, marketing or throwing some development funds at Android developers.

The big marketing campaigns from T-Mobile and Verizon have been somewhat successful in moving handsets, but have been very expensive, and have been rather hazy in regard to the overall benefits of the Android platform and the carrier of choice. Thus, they have done little to build a strong brand for the carrier--all they really say is "right now, we have a really cool handset you should buy".

I have a number of ideas, here is one multi-step strategy for enhancing carrier brand via Android.

Part 1: Solution for Teenage Texting-While-Driving

First, make a big splash by taking on the texting-while-driving problem. I imagine cellular carriers are a bit squeamish about facing that issue, but I think it is coming sooner or later, so why not be proactive and address it head-on.

Modern, GPS-based phones offer the opportunity to deploy technology to restrict texting while driving. The technology is already there, for any carrier to take advantage of. But nobody seems to be moving on it. Advertise yourself as the mobile carrier that puts parents in control. Then pre-install the software on your phones, and make it un-removable (short of admin access). If done right, a carrier would reap major, long-term brand enhancement from the trinity of: game-changing software; hardware value-add; strong identification of the benefits with the brand.

As I noted, I think the time is right, the meme is planted in regard to the dangers of texting, this would make a big splash. And would drive a lot of phone sales, sales that include profitable data plans. So that's the first step.

Part 2: Follow-Up with More

Follow up by executing the same tactics for two other very useful, high-value-add features:

1. GPS
   
2. Find-your-phone

Smartphones all have GPSs now. Google has just released a new version of mobile Maps that offers turn-by-turn directions. It's all there, it's all free, it's just crying out for a carrier to take it and run with it, from a marketing standpoint. Advertise yourself as the carrier that provides a GPS with every (smart)phone. A GPS that is always with you, and always up-to-date--unlike stand-alone GPS devices.

Note that none of this is remotely original thinking. There are already plenty of articles already predicting that Google's latest nav software will be highly disruptive to the GPS market. But that knowledge hasn't diffused to the average phone user. So there is still a window of time where a carrier, with good marketing, could make it seem like this capability was uniquely theirs. But no carrier seems to yet have woken up to this fact. So this opportunity won't last long. Again, advertising and marketing is necessary but not sufficient to build the brand. You have to offer some value-add differentiation. In this case, make sure to include a good very good phone mount, along with a car adapter USB power cord, free with every purchase.

Now the find-your-phone idea. Apple has this for the iPhone, but it is part of a $100/year subscription. Resist the temptation to charge for this feature--you want it in every product, so that it is built into your brand. This helps the value-add integration:

1. Pre-installed find-me and lock-me software
   
2. Not removable
3. Your software can be better than anything in the market, because you will work with Google to make sure it has root access to turn on GPS--something that apps aren't normally allowed to do.
   

If a mobile carrier were to execute on this strategy, it would be like taking a page from Apple's book, but re-writing the page in a way that leverages the Android platform, and a non-exclusive environment. Over time, a series of successful campaigns such as this could go a long way to creating distinctive branding.

Android Call Readiness

The software (Google's Android plus apps both from Google and from other developers) doesn't work and is unacceptable on a mobile device. First, the operating system doesn't work well enough to be considered a mobile OS. A mobile phone needs to have an OS that is really tied down and ready to perform at all times, like for receiving phone calls. This one isn't. The process management in the OS stinks. Press on an app icon; maybe it will come up and maybe the phone will just not respond. Who's to know why? Try pressing on the phone icon at 70 mph and have it not respond. Then try pressing again. And then get a message something like: "Activity Home (in process android.process.acore) is not responding." Force Quit or Wait. Oops! I just drove into the guy in front of me when he slowed down and now I'm dead!

I don't agree with all of this article, but he does have a point. When your cell phone is also a computer, it is also subject to the flakiness of general-purpose computing devices. To me, the occasional incidence of computer-like glitches and lockups impeding use for standard voice calls has been the Android's achilles heel. I have experienced it a few times. Then in the past few days, my phone has spontaneously re-booted 3 times. There is an app I suspect may be the culprit, so I uninstalled it; too soon to report any results.

Doing things the expensive way

This article talks about how the Motorola Droid Android phone has sold well. But it seems insane to me to incur that kind of cost-per-customer. That high cost has to be reflected somewhere. One place I expect it to be reflected is in continuing high prices for mobile data plans. Also maybe it means they can't afford to prevent or fix simple problems, like the battery cover falling off. I have had a similar problem with the back of the myTouch Android phone--the back cover seems very prone to fall off.

However, the success of the Droid is coming at a cost to Verizon. They are spending in excess of $100 million on one of the largest marketing campaigns I have ever witnessed. Over the past month I have seen non-stop television, radio, internet, billboard, and print ads. Verizon also has about a $350 subsidy on each phone ($549-199).

When you add up the advertising costs and subsidy, Verizon is paying almost $450 to acquire each Droid customer. I guess when you are the largest United States carrier, you can afford to do that. Verizon also knows that each Android phone is attached to a data plan so the influx of customers should help increase their ARPU (average revenue per user). In an order to offset the high subsidy costs, Verizon recently raised (doubled) their early termination fee to $350.

Appreciating HD

We have the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on. In past years, I have had almost no interest in it. I can't say I am raptly watching this year--just too many other things to do. But as I pass through the room, or hear my kids exclaiming about one thing or another, I glance at it. And from a sheer aesthetic viewpoint, the HD experience makes it far, far more interesting and enjoyable than old (NTSC) TV.

I Want to See this Stat on Football Penalties

In general, a team or player is never happy to receive a penalty. However, getting a penalty seems like only half the story. In some cases, the penalty may be a wash--if the offense was not committed, the result might have been the same. For instance, a 10-yard holding penalty that prevents a 10-yard loss on a sack is not a bad deal. In a few cases, the penalty may be a positive good--defensive pass interference that prevents a catch that could have been advanced for a touchdown.

I suppose those are still a minority of cases. But what bugs me is when the announcers make a big deal of a big play being called back because of a penalty, most often holding. In my view, in most of these cases, without the hold, the play would have gone nowhere.

Then there is the subtler analysis...even if a particular penalty is a bad deal, is it just the "price of doing business"? That is, for every 1 time caught holding, is the player getting away with it 4 times?

Google Ads More

Google doesn’t spend a dime on fancy TV ads, but the way it has designed its products represents a huge marketing cost. One example is the money it is leaving on the table by putting fewer ads on its pages than users would put up with, which helps build up its Zen-like brand.

But now, times are getting tough. Making quarterly numbers is getting harder. And Google is changing how it decides which ads to place in the yellow box above search results.

Seems like a baby step toward evil-ness. Undermining that "zen-like" brand just a hair. Those little things accumulate, though. Google has a great thing going, which is that most people are so satisfied with the Google brand that they don't even think of switching. In fact, they don't even think about thinking about switching. The thought literally does not enter the average user's head that maybe there are some serious defencies with Google, where competitors might do better. Eventually, though, the annoyances can add up enough to break through that "Google is perfection" zen-spell.

On the other hand, I continue to wonder about the limits of an adveristing-based revenue model.

Cellphone Apps

Cellphones over eReaders, for many users--I totally agree. Although I have, for various reasons, been somewhat disappointed to-date in my Android phone as a reading platform. Speed of access being the biggest problem

Start Load

During the keynote, he showed demos of how computer makers were able to make computers faster by not loading so many applications at start up time.

If this means what I think it does, it's a great idea. I used to have a bunch of stuff that started automatically, but that killed me on startup, so I went to the other extreme. A good middle ground might be to leisurely auto-load stuff, but not put it all on the critical path to the user's immediate access to the machine.

Of course with the trend away from fat-client apps, this may become less important over time.

DirecTV Mediocre

We've had DirecTv with HD-DVR for a couple of months. The selection of channels, the DVR and the HD are all wonderful (we upgraded from basic cable and no DVR). But I would rate the DirecTV software, and the experience it delivers, to be quite mediocre. Some complaints:

• Scheduling via web doesn't allow adding extensions (most of what I DVR is sports).
  
• I have been struglling to figure out how to get "Channels I Get" custom list to work. I have selected it, but it still keeps presenting me with channels I don't get. I had the supremely irritating experience of missing a football game I had set to tape on Sunday Ticket, because I selected the HD channel, but I don't have the Sunday Ticket Superfan, so I don't get the HD 704-1 HD channel--I just should have used the plain 704 channel.
• The above brings another complaint--Sunday ticket is a super-premium add-on, but those greedy bastards want to squeeze even more money from you to get HD. Outrageous.
  
• Speaking of Channels I Get--why isn ot that the default?? I mean, do they really think the typical user wants to see all the stuff on channels they don't receive? Of course not--DirecTV is showing their contemp for the customer, by forcing them to see all those unvailable channels. Why are they doing that? Because some marketing exec thinks that will drive users to upgrade to more expensive tiers. Never mind the vastly greater impact it has on every user, every day, by annoying them (at best) and sometimes causing them to DVR the wrong channel!
• The UI in general is just kind of clunky, and response is a bit sluggish.
  
• It doesn't all suck. The prompting to add extensions to sporting events is nice. Likewise for the helpful notices when you have scheduling conflicts.
• Feature suggestion: un-delete.
  

Windows Scroll Box--Why So Small?

In a really long scrolling screen/page, Windows helpfully makes the scroll box extra-tiny:


as compared to the normal size:



I believe the idea is to give you a visual cue of just how long the scrolling contents are. However, it has the very unpleasant side-effect of making "target acquisition" much more difficult. Just one more little example of how Micro$oft never improves anything unless it will drive upgrade revenue, or there is a gun to their head.

Marketing Coup for Somebody

I think the wireless carriers have an increasing commoditization problem. One way to combat that is adroit marketing. For example, Verizon's Droid campaign has probably made a lot of people think that Android is synonymous with Verizon. It's pretty clever, seeing as T-Mobile had a 1-year head-start, being the only carrier with an Android offering.

So for the life of me, I can't understand why one of the carriers isn't pushing, hard, on the ability to allow parents to exert control to prevent texting while driving. Wait, maybe I can--they don't want to draw attention to the issue? Okay, then one of the handset manufacturers should push that angle.

Heavier Americans Lobby Group

I fall in the middle on this article. Valid point: it certainly not right to disparage people for being fat, and it probably would not be fair or right to penalize someone in terms of heatlhcare premiums solely for being overweight. On the other hand, the likely tendency of this lobby will be to decry any references that cast overweightness[1] in a negative light. And that would definitely be going too far. Because while they are correct in asserting that the real social goal is fitness and health--not thinness thinness' sake--the fact is that overweightness is very strongly correlated with health problems.

Which brings me to my next objection to the article: like almost all articles I read on the subject, it almost completely glosses over the importance of exercise. Yes, there is one nod to the importance of "movement" (movement--talk about euphimisms!), but that's it.

Overlooking exercise is a very unfortunate omission. Because unlike dieting--which is very, very, very hard to sustain because it feels like permanent deprivation--exercise is a positive good. So exercise is far more sustainable than dieting.

In my 20+ years of regular gym attendance, I have very, very rarely seen a confirmed, dedicated exerciser who is severely overweight. Some of us exercise addicts may be bulkier than others, but almost all have weight reasonably under control.

____________
[1] Using the term "overweightness" rather than, say, "fatness" would be the kind of thing that an interest group might push. I typically detest that sort of euphimism-promulgation by the langage police--detention center for jail, landfill for dump--and would normally resist it. But in this case I think it is justified. "Fat" is a pretty loaded, pejorative term. Likewise for obesity, and anyway, it only properly describes the extreme of fatness. So awkward as it sounds to the ear, "overweightness" seems like the best term available. (Heaviness doesn't really cut it, because it is absolute, not relative--Yao Ming for instance is quite heavy, but hardly fat.)

Texas vs. California

None of this happens by accident. California's interlocking directorate of government employee unions, issue activists, careerists and campaign contributors has become increasingly aggressive and adept at using rhetoric extolling public benefits for all to deliver targeted advantages to itself. As a result, the political reality of the high-benefit/high-tax model is that its public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good. Instead, the beneficiaries are the providers of the public services, and certain favored or connected constituencies, rather than the general population.

This is the kind of insight that conservatives contribute, or should contribute, if they were doing their jobs, and not conspiracy-mongering about death panels and "this guy". This is the vital corrective to liberal naivete about the perfectability of government, humans and institutions. It positively dumbfounds me that California can still retain its "stranglehold" on high-tech employment, yet have so many terrible problems, including a really bad public-school system. I would think that would be the kiss of death for attracting and retaining smart employees. Maybe they all send their kids to private schools?

Here's my question, though. If the right can believe that the not-for-profit powers in California can develop such a dysfunctional, self-dealing arrangement, why is it such a stretch to believe it can occur in the financial services industry?

Android GPS

...especially appreciate the fact that you can just pop your Droid into a cradle in your car and it will go straight into the navigation and mapping environment.

That is the kind of little touch that is key. I was VERY disappointed with the phone as GPS unit when I got it. Screen too small, okay I could have predicted that, but no GPS-oriented version of Google Maps, no cradle, no text-to-voice without a subscription. My $70 dedicated GPS is way better.

Now if they can also make it super-easy to enter your target destination....

Android Carrier and Handset Commoditization??

While I am a big supporter of Android, and skeptical of Samsung Bada (see below), I can sort of understand the motivation. As this article says:

I can see why mobile marketing execs are struggling. They’re selling the same handsets as everyone else, using the same app stores as everyone else, all the content innovation is happening on the internet.

I could easily see Android significantly commoditizing both businesses. It's already poised to destroy the GPS market, it's pretty much eliminated any reason at all to buy stuff from your carrier at $5 per game and $1 per ringtone (not that there was much reason in the first place). So long-term, as much as I think Android and openness are great, I wonder if the carriers will ever be the same.

Samsung Bada, Really?

It seems clear that the Smartphone OS market is already due for a thinning of the herd. Windows Mobile seems most endangered, Palm OS maybe even in worse shape, and Symbian and RIM losing ground to iPhone and Android. And in the midst of this Samsung wants to launch a new mobile OS, the Bada?!

Death of WinMo

This is a great lesson to Micro$oft. Neglect product improvement and you pay the price. I wish it would happen more often--to SharePoint and Internet Explorer for instance.

The Healthcare Reform Risk Obama Should Have Taken

If Obama wanted to swing for the fences, to have a chance to really make a difference, to leave his mark, here's the speech he could make on healthcare reform...

America has a healthcare crisis. This healthcare crisis has a moral dimension, and an economic dimension. The moral dimension is that our great and rich country does a poor job of providing 'health security' for its citizens. Many lack coverage, many more can barely afford coverage, and others face medical bankruptcy. In the meantime, almost all of us worry about our coverage.

Then there is the economic dimension. Healthcare costs claim one-sixth of our nation's output. And this number only continues to rise. This is simply unsustainable. For a full generation, we have seen that healthcare expenses are devouring our standard of living, but we have continued to postpone the day of reckoning. Fellow Americans, that day is fast approaching. As President, I plan to do something about it.

For too long, as a nation we have stuck our head in the sand, looked the other way, pretended the problem wasn't getting worse. The failure to face up to this problem and attack it has been disastrous. It has led us to the place we are now, where most families have seen zero or negative real wage gains for two decades, because healthcare inflation has consumed everything. It has led to all but the very richest Americans living in fear, fearing that one major illness could bankrupt them.

The healthcare crisis is a national problem, and to an extent, the entire nation shares in the responsibility for letting it grow un-checked for so long. Political leaders have increased expenditures without asking hard questions about the value being delivered, and have allowed ideology get in the way trying new ideas to bring down healthcare expenditures. Physicians have not been good stewards of the resources entrusted to them--too often, they have chosen expensive treatments which are not effective, when patients would have been better served by less invasive treatments. Insurers have not been good gatekeepers--while they may scrutinize individual claims, they have been happy to allow premiums to skyrocket, because their profit margins tend to be fixed, so the larger the premiums, the bigger the profit. Drug companies have spent far more resources on marketing and patent protection than on R&D, resulting in too few breaththroughs, and far too many "me too" medicines at high prices. Finally, patients have not been good stewards of their own health and healthcare dollars--as long as insurance paid all or most of the bill, individual patients had little motivation to pay attention to costs.

So we are all part of the problem, and we all have a part to play in a solution. But it is the elected politician's job to lead, and as your President, that is what I intend to do. So tonight, I am going to lay out a simple plan and proposal that can halt, and start to reverse, the endless upward-slope in healthcare expenditures.

I said the healthcare crisis has two dimensions: coverage, and cost. My party has traditionally been focused on the coverage crisis, and rightly so. It is indefensible that a country as rich and blessed as ours rations healthcare by letting it become unafforable for the working poor and, increasingly, much of the middle class.

However, this crisis has been a long time in the making, so if a real, lasting solution requires giving up a short-term goal, no matter how cherished, then I am willing to make that sacrifice. So I am going to propose a program that attacks the twin heads of this crisis. But as I said, we are all in this together, and a real solution requires real cooperation between both political parties. In order to reach out to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I am willing to offer a plan that I think puts two of their biggest concerns ahead of covering the uninsured.

It has been often asked by Republicans where we will get both the money, and the healthcare provider capacity, to extend coverage to uninsured Americans. My plan addresses both of these concerns. Numerous studies show that 1/3 of all medical procedures are unnecessary, and sometimes even harmful. While it may never be possible to bring that number down to zero, if we could cut it by 60%, that would free up dollars and resources that could productively be transferred to providing care for the currently uninsured.

Our opportunity is to create an environment that encourages and allows doctors to practice evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based medicine means selecting the right treatment, based on the best available medical and economic research. It means not ordering extra tests and procedures, out of fear that in the event of a lawsuit, the physician will be endlessly second-guessed, if they omit any test, no matter how weak the medical argument for the test may be.

This is where our greatest single opportunity lies. If we can eliminate "defensive medicine", we can unlock vast cost savings within the system. The reduction in malpractice insurance--currently $80,000 per physician--is only the tip of the iceberg. For every $1000 spend on malpractice premiums, $10,000 are spent in unnecessary, unjustified tests and procedures, pursued for the sole purpose of protecting the physician in a lawsuit.

So here is what I am proposing. My program will be 100% revenue-neutral. We will only provide subsidized heatlh insurance to the poor, once we actually produced the savings through our reforms. Therefore, in the first two years of my program, there will be no coverage changes. The complete focus will be on achieving radical malpractice reform. Damage awards will be capped, and will be set according to uniform standards, applied consistently, fairly and reasonably. In short--we will start by cutting the trial lawyers off at the knees.[1]

At the end of two years, we will measure the savings, and will begin to apply those to extending coverage for the uninsured.

___________

[1] Of course Obama can't say it exactly that way. But his words should leave no doubt as to his intentions.

**********

In making this proposal, Obama would be risking almost everything, including fratricide from fellow Democrats. The trial lawyers are the biggest contributors to the Democratic party. They would oppose him ruthlessly. But by taking on one of the Republicans' biggest bogeymen, combined with his offer to save first, spend later, Obama would be making an offer that would be very, very difficult for Republicans to ignore, both politically and--if they actually care about governing--morally. And if he did this soon (ideally, 4 months into his term), he might, just might, hang on long enough to actually reap some of the benefits and get re-elected. Maybe then he could apply his political capital to taking on global warming.

Gestures for Android Speed of Access

I keep harping on speed of access. Especially for need-it-fast utility apps, such as Alarms, Timers, Calculators, Notepads. What I would like is a Launchy-style app launcher. The way I would like to see it implemented would be for the Home Screen to accept Palm graffiti-style gestures. For example, swipe out a "C" and you get your Calculator. Swipe a "T" and get the timer, and so on.

For bonus points: allow the lock screen to register the gesture, then execute it after you perform the unlock.

Speed Of Access Is the Key for Smartphone Apps

Today's smartphones are amazing in many ways, but in other ways, they aren't as useable as a turn-of-the-century Palm III. I've already written about the glaring lack of a PageDown key--a real miss, since they already have the hardware space, in the form of a pretty useless, or at least grossly under-used, trackball. Or better yet, maybe the volume rocker could do double-duty in reading apps.

What the Palm excelled at was speed-of-access. Just a couple of taps, and you could jot a quick note and attach a timer to it. That was one of my favorite uses for the Palm.

In contrast, have probably spent over 1 hour just downloading and evaluating alarm and timer apps for Android, and I still haven't found one that is very good.

Take Alarms, for instance. It is a fairly nice-looking paid app, but it just misses in terms of ease of access. Problems:

1. 3 clicks to access an Alarm-creation screen. Should be 1-click from a home screen icon.
2. This is really stupid--the datetime defaults to (I believe) the day I installed the app, rather than the current date.
3. Setting Date and Time are different pop-up screens, thus requiring double the clicks.
4. This is no surprise, since it is a common flaw in almost all Android apps, but the only way to set values are tedious up/down keys--no ability to key in the numbers of select from a list.
5. Another stroke to scroll down, past infrequently-used options, so that you can access the SET button, to finalize your alarm.
   

Why I PREFER Virtual Keyboards

There are some definite advantages to a virtual keyboard. One is that you can choose among customized versions. In terms of customizations, there are some interesting features you can get. I have had TouchPal for a while, and I like it pretty well. Being able to up-swipe to get a capital, and down-swipe to get a symbol is very nice. Also, I think in many ways soft buttons are more forgiving of big fingers. And if that isn't good enough, you can use TouchPal's hybrid, compact Qwerty, 2 letters per key keyboard, with very good word prediction--those buttons are almost huge! And, if you don't want prediction, at any point, you still have the option of left and right-swiping. Did I mention that you can slide back and forth, to exchange the compact Qwerty for full Qwerty, on the fly?

One big problem with virtual keyboards, though, is that the keyboard frequently covers up the fields in a form. There has got to be a way around this. One idea would be to give the keyboard some transparency. Another would be auto-scrolling through the fields.

It seems like with Android 1.6, my other big, fixable virtual keyboard gripe has largely been fixed: the keyboard is much more likely to auto-launch in many obvious contexts: compose a Gmail, compose an SMS (ChompSMS), launch a Market Search. That all points out the core benefit of a real mobile platform--it gets better.

The one thing I don't understand is why Google, device makers and carriers don't ensure that the high-quality basics (TouchPal, ChompSMS, Quickdial) aren't pre-installed with the phone. Would greatly improve the mean user experience.

Facebook Needs A "Strictly Business" Posting Type

To me, Facebook is largely Face-Bore. Most of what anyone, myself included, would post just does not interest me much (I know, this may well be a male-female gender-difference thing), and even it it did, I just don't have time for it.

But I do like the idea of leveraging my social network for "Angie's List"-type feedback from local and known sources. So I would like to see Facebook implement a "Strictly Business" type of posting. I enjoy sharing my knowledge, opinions and experience to help people solve problems, so I actually would be willing and interested to spend a modicum of time doing that via Facebook.

An example would be the one I just put up:

Does anyone have any feedback on Xcel Energy's HomeSmart Appliance Repair program? $13/month to cover repairs on 5 major appliances. Normally I NEVER go for extended warranties or service programs, they are a rip-off and typically the most profitable item i n the store. But the price here seems very appealing. What I am trying to figure out is--what is in it for Xcel?

Disruptive

Google Maps Mobile Nav feature (for good reason) is being touted as crushing for the incumbent (usually over-priced) nav companies. So would it have been legal for Google to have foreseen this, and shorted the stocks of those companies?

GPS for Android

This is great. Undercut the ridiculous TeleNav $10/month subscription. Although for the time being, I think that a dedicated GPS unit (and they are SO cheap) is more functional for the car. Over time, however, I think the functionality of the Android platform can far outstrip dedicated GPS's. One key step--phones have to start being packaged with custom mounts, just as exist for GPS units. The mounts should actually be custom on one end (the end that the phone clips into), but standard on the other end (the hole pattern that allows it to attach to existing, standard suction-cup GPS mounts).

If that happened, maybe I could FINALLY look forward to a good, bike-friendly GPS.

Android Apps

For Android to really live up to all the hype it is enjoying, and be a serious mainstream competitor to the iPhone, I think the out-of-box experience has got to be made into a slam-dunk for the average user.

In my opinion, one great way to do this would be to ensure the basics are well-covered, right out of the box. I divide these into 3 categories.

Tier 1
Great Tier 1 apps will make the new Android user productive from Day 1, and will provide a daily reminder of how useful their hand-held computer really is.

• Speed dial
• Great texting (Chomp)
• Great virtual keyboard (TouchPal)
• Email
• MP3 player
• Browser--the current one, the only one available, just doesn't seem that good. Not that fast, not that functional.

Tier 2
Great Tier 2 apps will delight the user by letting them discover new, less obvious but valuable uses for their mobille device.

• Alarm clock--see my other posts on how curiously hard it is to find such an important, simple app.
• Timer--ideally, should be part of the alarm clock.
• Calculator
• GPS--based on recent announcements, it does sound like Google is working hard to cover this one.
• Note-taker

Tier 3
Tier 3 apps will leverage the power of the device and platform to provide excellent functionality for more specialized apps:

• Podcatcher--DoggCatcher is pretty good, but still could be improved.
• E-Reader--lots of opportunity for improvement here. I want the functionality of a Kindle, but on my phone. The key is not to have to rely on a slow, mobile connection to read stuff in streaming mode--I want substantial chunks of reading material to be pre-downloaded, for very fast access.

Conclusion
Between Android, the device makers and the carriers, if they could make certain that the lowest common denominator for the Android brand were this high, Android would be in a much better position to compete with the iPhone. It seems to me like it wouldn't take all that much. Most of the apps necessary to get half-way there are available free or cheap. If some money were thrown into polishing them, and they were pre-installed, that would about do it.

MT3G Performance Much Better Post-Android 1.6

I almost returned my Android phone because it was lagging so much. Then I did a master reset, and it seemed okay for a while, but it eventually started to lag significantly. I was resigned to it, but it was a drag. Then along comes the 1.6 release (aka, Donut), and the problems absolutely disappeared. Gone. Performance is terriffic.

At first I though that Donut must have a number of performance tweaks. But now I think it just fixed one, big, bad bug related to Google Latitude and location services. What a difference.

Anyway, that is one example of the platform paying off. With a typical cell phone, what you buy is all you ever get. It never improves. If there is some really bad problem, you might get a firmware update, if you go after it. But with a real platform, such as Android, there are ongoing updates. In fact, there will have been 3 updates in about 8 months for Android. And they come automatically, for free, over the air, so it is totally painless.

On the other hand, this was a nasty bug, bad enough to really ruin the user experience. I don't think we should have had to wait for an upgrade for a fix to this to have been publicized (at a minimum, don't use Location Services for any extended period).

T-Mobile "Project Dark" Ho-Hum

T-Mobile is making a big deal out of a new plan structure. It has a few components, but a centerpiece is lower rates for unlimited talk. For instance, $99 for a 2-phone family plan with unlimited talk and text. This really just does not impress me all that much. I am currently paying $89.99 for a Family Plan with 1000 minutes and unlimited texting. With myFaves, 1000 minutes is nearly the functional equivalent of unlimited [1].

So I'll compare one of the non-unlimited plans to what I have. My $89.99 price was a specially-negotiated deal, the "rack rate" is (was) more like $109.99 for 1500 minutes. Now T-Mobile is offering 1500 minutes and unlimited texting for $79.99. That is $30 cheaper than the rack rate, $10 better even than my specially-negotiated, contract rate. So I guess that is pretty good, IF you didn't really care much about myFaves. myFaves is crucial for me, though, because I use the local version of my AT&T conference number as a fave, so when I work from home, I can make all calls from my cell phone, and not tie up the land line.

So I would have to go with the Unlimited plan, which is $99.99 for the family. I guess that is not a bad deal, it's only $10 more than my contract prices, with unlimited minutes. But still not worth it for me and my family.

[1] Google Voice puts my myFaves program "over the top", to be 100% equivalent to unlimited. But Google Voice is non-maintsream, and so outside the scope of this discussion.

Nook eBook Reader - Kindle Killer?

I still have a hard time seeing the e-reader as more than a niche product for now. For me, it is just too specialized a device. If I am going to carry something around, I want it to have full capabilities. I think the sweet spot will be when the e-reader is just a specialized netbook--one with a form geared to reading, but useable for general computing. One key might be a built-in virtual keyboard, with the option of course for a plug-in or wireless, for home-bound usage. So the Nook sounds like about a 1/4 step in this direction.

Android Alarm Clock

I spent a fair amount of time looking, and checking out a few freebies, and I have not found a really good alarm clock for Android. Right now I am using Alarms. It has a nice feature in letting you set multiple, concurrent alarms and displaying them in a list. But that is an advanced feature. Advanced features should only be implemented after the basics are perfected. And in Alarms, the big thing I want is a FAST-set.

There are likely a number of things to do to create a fast-set. But to pick on one obvious item--like most apps, it uses the + and - buttons to set Hours and Minutes. If you are developing for a computer, why emulate a simple, mechanical alarm clock? Give me a large keypad, like the Dialpad, to key in the time.

One the other hand, it does one thing right. Something that almost no other Android apps or built-in features I have encountered does. It makes the very reasonable assumption, when you begin to enter a new alarm, that you will want the keyboard for the label. Nothing else seems to do this. Although now that I check on this, I see the new version of Android Market does also exhibit this behavior.

SMS Backup Reinstall

A problem with Android App updates (which seem to come pretty frequently) is that they tend to re-set your app preferences. Usually this is just a mild nuisance. But it can have somewhat bigger implications. For example, I use--and love--SMS Backup to automatically copy my SMS strings to Gmail. Very nice. Set it and forget it. Except--for some reason I happened to look at my SMS-tagged emails, and was surprised to see nothing backed up for 4 weeks! A little poking around relvealed that the auto-backup option had been re-set, and I am pretty sure that happened when I updated the app.

Agile: Fail-Fast vs Perfect

One of the benefits of Agile software development is, quite simply, that it allows you to fail fast. If you assume that most first efforts are going to be failures, this becomes a very attractive feature. Build something, get very concrete feedback that shows you why your creation is a failure, and then incorporate that feedback into version 2.

Fast-fail saves immense resources. Because in software development, perfecting, polishing and productionizing takes a TON of work. With Agile, you don't go on to make those investments in a version that is going to be thrown away. You only undertake that very heavy lifting when you have something that sticks to the wall.

An incidental benefit to this arrangement is that the results the 3Ps will be higher quality, and probably more efficiently achieved, because you are documenting something concrete and complete, as to something that is an evolving work-in-process.

Other embedded emails

I mentioned before wanting to be able to email directions and have my email program automatically parse and pass those directions to my mobile GPS. No manual cutting and pasting or re-typing required. I have thought of some other types of information that I would like to have treated similarly: Podcasts, and Bible Verses.

The way I think this would work is using the concept of "intents" that is implemented by Android. Intents, as I understand them, are pre-defined activities, which different applications can register their interest in. For instance, my preferred Android speed-dial app, Quickdial, registers its intent to respond to the "initiate phone call" button. Then, when that button is pressed, Android responds by telling me all the apps that respond to that intent (Quickdial, Dialpad, Contacts), and letting me choose which one should respond at the present time.

So the email would include some marker that defines its intent. Something like: BibleVerseJohn 2:5-16. Then, my Android-based email program would parse the message, find the BibleVerse intent, and direct it to all BibleVerse intent-receivers. There are different ways those intent-receivers could react. They might immediately try to open the verse while I am reading the email. Or they might create a bookmark corresponding to the verse.

Similarly with Podcasts...the Podcast intent receiver might offer a choice of:

• Stream now
• Download now
• Add to download queue

Flyscreen Android App

I've been dabbling with Flyscreen for Android in the past few days. I'm not sure how much I like it. But one thing I really do admire is the fact that it syncs with a web page. I heard an interview with a principal from the startup, and he acknowledged that while it is nice to be able do manage an app from your mobile, if you have the option, it is a whole lot more convenient to do it from a web page.

I have really been missing this functionality in DoggCatcher, a not-inexpensive Podcatcher for Android, for instance.

Too Bad Google Is In California

I've long lamented that the electronics and software industries are so over-concentrated in California. If only Google had started somewhere else, it would have been big enough to create a software ecosystem in a new location. Much like Microsoft did in Seattle.

Facebook vs LinkedIn

I thought Facebook would eat LinkedIn's lunch. Then I changed my mind--they seem to be serving two very different purposes, even in cases where their audiences do overlap. LinkedIn is strictly business, while Facebook of course is more social. So a lot of professionals, such as myself, have no interest at all in having our colleagues and professional acquaintances as Facebook friends. I think this is really helping keep LinkedIn going.

But it also seems like a barrier that Facebook could easily overcome. They just need to implement a strong typing of a Friend, where the choices are business vs personal. Posts would only be visible to Business Friends via an explicit opt-in approach.

myTouch Trackball

This is a point that all the reviews miss...it is hard to do fine, single-character editing with your fingers. I try to use the trackball for this, but sometimes it doesn't work. I think that is just a flaw of the myTouch 3G implementation--it sounds like the Cliq has implemented this better: "some early reviews questioned the use of a D-Pad, but after spending some time with the Cliq, I found that it was much easier to fix a typo or manipulate text with it than using your finger, like on the iPhone."

Safer Ground Beef

Thoughts on making ground beef safer:

1. They should not mix it from so many places and so many animals. Couldn't they process 100 cows' worth of ground beef, then sanitize everything before the next batch? I'm sure that would increase costs a little bit, but would it be that much?

2. On that note--Irradition. I have been reading about its benefits since I was a teenager. It has the word "radiate" in it, so people instantly are petrified.

My UPS

I just got the following message from UPS:

Our records indicate that you have not taken advantage of My UPS recently. To keep your registration active, simply log in to My UPS before Tuesday, November 10, 2009. If you no longer have a need for My UPS, do nothing and your registration will expire on Tuesday, November 10, 2009.

Seems pretty clueless to me. I have used My UPS. I haven't had a reason to use it lately. I would use it again. Why try to force me to log in, just to keep my account alive? I just don't get the thinking behind it. I suppose that there is some marketing executive at UPS who would really like to get a sense of how many My UPS accounts are still being used. And getting all active users to log into their account sure would help her/him get better statistics for that. But that kind of inwardly-focused, UPS-centric thinking just doesn't work. Seems really dumb, unless I am missing something.

Another Entrant in the Texting-While-Driving Problem

iZup. Name is dumb ("eyes up", get it?), will be interesting to see if this category catches on. Others are ZoomSafer and TextEcution.

Key feature: Email with GPS

I have two GPS options. One is a stand-alone device that I keep in my car, the other is built into my Android phone. The stand-alone is better, and the only safe option when driving solo, but the phone option is nice in that it is always with me. I am not good with directions, so I originally thought I would rely on the GPS for finding any new destination. But I have found that they are just a bit tedious Both GPS options share that trait, even though the data-input strategy for each is quite different. So for very quick, simple new destinations, I still often it more expedient just to print the map, and navigate conventionally. But that is definitely a disappointment, especially when complications ensue, where a GPS would help--missed turns, detours, etc. So what I would like is an easy way to feed my destinaton to the GPS, one that doesn't involve typing on a tedious little device. I would like to email my destination to the GPS. Similar to how I can email a posting to my weblog. The difference is that a weblog is based on free-text, whereas the email-to-GPS would require a standardized schema, and encoding via XML. Along the lines of the "semantic web". Of course I don't actually want to type in an XML schema. So it would be nice if directions would include a "send to GPS option", which would generate the email with encoded address. And for free-text submissions, there could be simple, comma-based standards that would infer the schema.

01/15/22: That didn't age well.

Re: NYT planning to charge for web access

Interesting. They have been through this so many times. I do think it is probably the right business move. I agree with the hybrid part. Per article charges are a loser. I think they should offer an all-you-can-eat model for $50-100 / year, and a limited but reasonably high number of articles per month for $5/month or $35/year.

Pseudo-Cartestian Products

A Cartestian Product is what you get when you (accidentally) don't specify a where clause in the join between two tables in an RDBMS. It is the product of all rows in T1 times all rows in T2. You only get them if you completely forget to join two tables. It happens, but rarely. What is much more common is a flawed join, where you get a product between a subset of rows in each table, because you aren't using enough columns in the join.

We need a term for "imperfect join which results in a large number of rows, some of which are 'synthesized' and carry data which does not actually exist in the base tables".

T-Mobile Family Allowances

About a year ago, T-Mobile introduced this Family Allowances feature, for $2/month. It lets you control things like how many minutes and texts family members. It was a good start, but needs to be enhanced. In particular, there are only pre-set blocks of time that you can toggle on and off. That just doesn't work, they need an option for arbitrary time blocks (or at least the nearest 1/2 hour). Unfortunately, in 15 months of using it, I have not seen one single, solitary improvement made. I think it falls into the frustrating category of abandoned software, software that never gets improved. T-Mobile hasn't done much to market the feature.

DirecTV Football Features

Got DirecTV with the HD-DVR a couple of weeks ago. Great for football games. They really need a couple of football-friendly features:

First and foremost, the option to jump ahead in only 15 second increments, instead of the standard 30 (watch the first replay, skip the rest of the huddle).

It would be nice if there were a hack built into the guide/recording interaction, to identify sports events, and let you default to record an extra 30 minutes beyond the scheduled end time. We almost missed the last 4 minutes of a very exciting Monday Night Football game (Colts v Miami). The only thing that saved is that just about the time the recording gave out, we had caught up to real-time.

POSTSCRIPT: It seems like that second feature request exists. I was prompted to extend the recording by 30 minutes. Not sure why I didn't encounter that before.