Category Archives: Technology

Unsung Software

What are the least glamorous software tools for the Macintosh that you can’t live without? I’m not talking about the likes of Quicksilver, Adium or other high profile applications that, even if they don’t come from major league publishers, manage to get plenty of coverage already.

Rather, I’m talking about little known or little-discussed applications, widgets or utilities without which your productivity just plummets. I know that I’ve got a handful of these that I unequivocally must install on any Mac I use; I’m passionately dedicated to them. So it occurred to me the other day that lots of people probably have unsung favorites too; and by virtue of their modest dignity, I likely haven’t heard of them.

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Old Rumors, New Rumors

Supposedly there are updates to Apple’s .Mac service due to be announced tomorrow. I can only hope it’s true, but I’m not sure if I’ll be enraged or depressed if they don’t happen. Fingers crossed.

Speaking of rumors, here’s an idea about the rumor that floated several weeks ago in which it was suggested that Apple might sometime in the future release a smaller, less expensive version of its iPhone in order to reach a wider consumer base.

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My First and Lost Weekend with iPhone

Here’s an update: my iPhone is now working after a rather tortuous weekend in which I was barely able to use it for anything. It wasn’t until Sunday night that my account was activated, allowing me to actually use the features on the phone at all. But even then, the telephone coverage wasn’t working (it was able to access Wi-Fi networks, though), and only this morning was I able to place a phone call with it. All told, that was some sixty hours or so after I originally bought it. Nicely done, Team AT&T, nicely done.

There’s so much iPhone coverage out there that I fear I won’t be able to add much of a unique perspective here, at least not today. I’m compiling a list of review points in my head, but here are my immediate take-aways.

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All This Useless Beauty

So yes, I got an iPhone. The story of how I acquired it is slightly amusing but not particularly interesting enough to excuse this fact: I had it paid for and in hand as soon as fifteen minutes after it went on sale yesterday at 6:00p, but I have yet to be able to activate it or use it.

Right now, I’m stuck in some kind of frustrating limbo between AT&T and Verizon Wireless, in which my new AT&T account isn’t yet active and my Verizon number hasn’t quite transferred over — I get a message that says “Your activation requires additional time to complete.” Because of the obsessively controlling way in which the iPhone experience was designed, it’s actually impossible for me to use any of the iPhone’s features — even those that have no need whatsoever for wireless service — until this situation is resolved.

My friends who transferred mobile phone numbers from other wireless carriers are already up and running with their iPhones. Not me. Instead, I’m spending frustrating hour after hour on the phone with customer service operators at both carriers with no luck. Meanwhile, my remaining time on this Earth is wasting away…

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The Limits of My Stupidity

Somewhere along the way during all of the build up and anticipation for this Friday’s release of Apple’s iPhone, I became personally invested in owning one on — or very soon after — the first day of release.

I had an ‘in’ for a while there, when a friend of mine who works at Apple assured me that he would help me procure one through internal means. But, as no sign of an employee purchase plan has yet presented itself, I’m realizing that I need to make alternative arrangements if I want to avoid the mortifying shame of getting caught still using my old mobile phone next Monday. I’d just about die of embarrassment. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.

Except… I’m cringing at the idea of queuing up outside the Apple Store to get my hands on one. That’s about where I draw the line, I think. Standing in line too easily dredges up memories of long spells in line at my local shopping mall trying to get decent tickets to see R.E.M. or some such act when I was sixteen — I guess I’m glad I experienced that kind of extravagant stupidity once, but I’m not about to do it again. Ever.

The fact that I’m more or less mentally committed to buying an iPhone at the first reasonable opportunity — regardless of what potentially scathing reviews its touch-based keyboard will undoubtedly receive — is enough, I think. I’m not going to physically plant myself on a sidewalk through heat, rain or multiple mealtimes just for bragging rights. It’s just too much; this personal investment in having an iPhone of my own by Saturday isn’t that important to me.

On the other hand, if you have a surefire plan to share queuing duties, let me know.

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Thinking and Driving

Living in New York, I can easily get by with rarely ever driving a car. Which, when I think about it, really accounts for the fact that I’m not dead.

That’s because I’m afflicted with a particular kind malady that a friend and colleague of mine calls “transportation narcolepsy.” That’s a condition in which, whenever I board a plane, train or automobile, I’ll fall asleep, almost instantly — or at least struggle to stay awake.

It’s the steady, vibrating motion of most mechanized transportation — the hum of a car on the road, the regular propulsion of a train on tracks, the muted rumbling of jet engines on a plane — that knocks me out. I’m surprisingly baby-like; rock me back and forth a little and I’ll pass right out. (It’s compounded by the fact that I rarely get enough sleep to begin with.)

This past weekend, though, I rented a car during my visit to California and discovered that having a G.P.S. unit on my dashboard is a surprisingly effective way to keep me awake. I also discovered a little something about what it takes to hold my attention.

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The Soft Underbelly of Hardware

CanoScan N1240UWhy is the software that ships with digital hardware so frequently bad? When you buy a scanner or a printer, for instance, the software included in the box that allows you to interface with that hardware is, virtually without exception, some of the most poorly designed and difficult to be found anywhere.

I was reminded of that this evening when I spent a fruitless hour trying to reinstall scanning software for a CanoScan N1240U that I’ve had for several years. This software is categorically horrific. Even its most recent versions seem as if Canon is living in a Mac OS 9 world; scanned files cannot be named with spaces, and are restricted to thirty-two characters in length. The interface is hopelessly out of date (even though it was never particularly consistent, even, with Mac OS 9’s look and feel) and difficult to use. What’s more, the software comes in two obscurely named parts: CanoScan Toolbox and Canon ScanGear — can you guess the difference, and intuit which must be installed before the other? Neither could I.

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The Wii as Salesman

WiiSince its debut late last year, there’s been no shortage of adulatory commentary about the Nintendo Wii, which is probably the reason I’ve abstained from writing about it here.

Suffice it to say, I think it’s a home run of a console, a real breakthrough device that has expanded our collective idea of what non-gamers — regular people — can expect from video gaming. I know, because while I’ve long been a huge technology enthusiast, video games had left me cold for about fifteen years. Before the Wii was introduced, I never gave a serious thought to owning a PlayStation or an Xbox.

Now I own a Wii. Or rather, my girlfriend does, because I bought one for her as a gift in February. We play it regularly, and we consistently marvel at its elegant learning curve and high degree of fun. It’s a wonderful example of smart, empathetic design.

But I think I’ve found a flaw in it: it has the wrong form factor.

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Offending Experts and Pleasing Everybody

An audio recording of my talk at Carson Systems’s Future of Web Apps conference has been posted online, so those interested in what I had to say but who couldn’t make it to the conference can now have a listen.

For myself, I’m pretty sure I’ll never plop it onto my iPod, as I hate hearing recordings of my voice. This probably runs counter to my interest in continually improving as a public speaker; it would do me some good to sit down and hear all my gaffes, my stuttering and my aimless diction. But I already subject myself to plenty of discomforts in the name of self-improvement, so this is one I’m just going to forgo for the time being.

I don’t mean to discourage you from listening to it, though. Several people told me my performance was ‘not all that bad’ and ‘definitely less painful than watching the slaughter of kittens.’ Go hear for yourself!

On a less disingenuously self-deprecating note, I wanted to share here a visual illustration of one of the things I mentioned in my talk. The idea is that, as interaction designers, we of course don’t want to offend any segment of the user base. But if you’re going to offend anyone, it should be experts and not beginners or intermediates.

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Writing and Sizing Twitter

Twitter LogoFor some time now, everyone’s been crazy for Twitter, a kind of hub for digitally checking-in with your friends, where everyone alerts one another of what they’re up to, sometimes as frequently as from moment to moment. If that’s a bit of an obscure description, it’s because there’s nothing else quite like it. Actually, ‘cute’ may be the best and most succinct descriptor I can come up with.

More Web service than Web site, I had a hard time remembering to post the short, punchy updates that are Twitter’s principal currency until the advent of Icon Factory’s free, desktop-based Twitterific utility for Mac OS X.

Twitterific puts a persistent kind of ‘heads up display’ right on your Mac OS X screen so that your friends’ posts are immediately available, and that you can easily add new posts yourself. No more having to load the Web site, or remembering to visit that tab in your browser where you’ve got Twitter.com running.

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