Tag Archive for tweet

Dealing with business documents on my Windows Phone

I am starting to fill out my apps on my Nokia Lumia 900. The first class of apps I need are the apps to handle all the documents in my job/life — text documents, pdfs, office documents, etc.

  • PDFs. Adobe Reader downloads by default the first time you need it, and it seems to be solid, renders well, no obvious problems. I haven’t tried it on huge docs yet but happy so far. Check this one off.
  • PDF annotations. There are many apps to view and annotate PDFs on iOS. I am not seeing an obvious choice on WP. I do have the Kindle app and so I guess I could pop them into that as I believe it supports annotations, but that seems convoluted. Is there another choice?
  • Signing docs. This is totally lacking as near as I can tell. I can use the web interface of Docusign or Echosign but that is clumsy for an inbound email. Is there a solution?
  • Evernote — the evernote app is great, so I have all my text notes. Check this one off too.
  • and Boxfiles for Dropbox seems to work well, can fully navigate all my Dropbox content, edit notes. And I can view PPTX, DOCX, etc files. Check.
  • As I’ve previously mentioned, I lack a good Markdown editor targetting Dropbox, there are a dozen of these on iOS. Any choices? Does the built-in boxfiles editor support Markdown? I mean of course yes is supports editing Markdown content since that is just regular text with some conventions, but will it render the content into HTML?
  • Office Mobile is also on the phone and I can do some things with it — I can create new word docs and edit them, create new xl docs and edit them. I seem to not be able to create new PPTs but can view and edit existing. I can save docs to Skydrive, to the phone. And also to Office365 tho I don’t have an active account for that. 

So part way there, some holes to fill. Probably really important to fill these for tablets since I would expect people to do even more document work on tablets.

My first 48 hours with the Nokia Lumia — mostly good

Ok so I am 48 hours into my Windows Phone trial with the Nokia Lumia 900 and so far the experience is pretty good. I think most people would be pretty happy with the phone and experience.

There are some things done very well:

  • Placing snippets of content on the home screen, not just apps. A specific note out of evernote, a mail folder, a contact — this is so right. I can get my kids, my spouse right on my home screen and have quick access to calling them, texting them, seeing fb updates, etc. I can get the Evernote for a current project right on the one screen. The phone experience becomes much more personal, this is way better than an unending grid of app icons.
  • Cyclic panes within an app. I can just keep swiping to the right or left and see all options, they are not lists with fixed beginnings and ends. This is highly useful.
  • Most of the apps I need are there. Evernote, Spotify, WordPress, ESPN, I’m really not feeling bad about the depth of the app catalog. Plenty of nice games. I do need a Markdown/Dropbox editor. 
  • The AMOLED display is beautiful. 

Some things I am undecided on:

  • I am always fumbling around trying to figure out which end is up. No obvious physical guide like the iPhone home button. Maybe I will get used to using the camera lens as a guide.
  • Tango video calling but no Skype? And you can’t even find Skype in the marketplace but have to know the URL? I don’t mind having Tango preinstalled but c’mon, I need reasonable access to Skype.
  • The UI for apps has less decoration (icons, menus, bars, buttons) but way more whitespace and big fonts than iOS. Looks a little nicer than iOS but no denser, I’m not sure it is any more productive. 

And some things are Wrong:

  • I am one of the 7 people that have Zune subscriptions, no OTA sync of my music subscriptions, I have to plug into my PC? Lame. Of course no one else on the planet will see this because they will all be using Spotify which seems to work fine.
  • Linking inboxes or contacts. I had to got thru and link my inboxes so that I could see all my mail in one place (thanks Henry) and I had to link my contacts with facebook contacts so that I could see facebook and contact details in one place. This was a PITA and should be automagic. (iOS links mail automagically but not contacts and doesn’t even have the Facebook integration)
  • Browser. When resizing and dragging content, lots of repaint issues. Lots. There needs to be some substantial work done on this.
  • Search buttons. Permanent button always goes to bing. App specific button with the same graphic goes to app search. Does anything search my whole phone — ie search across email and contacts and music and apps?
  • The app marketplace needs some serious merchandising work. First I have an App Highlights app which seems to showcase good apps but has no search function. So not very helpful. Then I have the Marketplace which gives up premier placement to Nokia and AT&T which they both squander. And first page placement given to podcasts, seriously??? There is no clear editorial guidance on great apps. This thing is kind of a mess. 
  • And the biggest problem — my existing Shure mic/headset doesn’t work, apparently you have to buy headsets specific to this phone? Seriously Nokia? This is so f$&ked up. You are light years behind in the market and so you decide not to work with all the existing 3rd party headphones? Thanks guys. Really making switching from iOS easy.

Ok I don’t want to finish on a downer. Again most people will find this to be a pretty good experience — the hardware feels solid, the software is easy on the eye, there are plenty of apps covering most needs.

Switching to the Nokia Lumia 900 for a while

I’ve decided to move away from the iPhone for a while, I just got the new Nokia Lumia 900 and am filling it up with apps right now.

Why? Well, iOS is starting to feeling stale — I have an unending grid of apps, there have to be other ways to organize tasks and data. iOS has poor integration across apps, very limited integration between apps and the shell, little data sharing between apps, etc.

And only exposing myself to iOS makes my brain stale — I start to let myself be constrained by the iOS grid and app model. I need to experience are other ways to skin the cat, and Windows Phone is trying some different things which are worth understanding — the facebook integration, pinning of content to the shell, etc.

Switching to Windows Phone also appeals to the contrarian in me. How cool can it be to have an iPhone if everybody has one?

So off I go. Hanselman has a good list of essential apps. And I’ve installed the WordPress, ESPN, and Starbucks apps. It is interesting that I can bill apps to either ATT or to a credit card on file with my Zune app — I wonder what the rev split is between carrier and MSFT and app developer for these two different models.

One very positive initial reaction — no stupid pair of crappy earbuds in the box. I’ve thrown so many of the useless Apple ones away.

Saturday morning software tools roundup

Stuff I recently saw which intrigued…

Deshaun Thomas staying for junior year

Per ElevenWarriors and multiple other sites. This is just huge, I felt Deshaun was actually more central to the team’s success this year than Sullinger, tho it was the combo of them that made the team lethal.

I don’t really get Gamification

I love games, online or board. We always have a gamefest at family get-togethers — this year’s mania was Survive: Escape from Atlantis. And if you tracked my minutes of computer use during the week, I’m pretty sure the game of the moment would be in the top 5-10. Games are what sucked me into software and computers long ago, I still love them.

So I get games and gaming, they are a durable source of entertainment. We’ve played games for all of human history and we will continue to do so. Betting on games seems like a sound investment strategy tho we’ve never found an investment that worked for us (man I wish we’d had money in PopCap).

However, games have their place, and I don’t want to play games all day long. If you look at the rest of the top 10 sites or services that I engage with, none of them have gamification features. No badges, or levels, or reward systems, or points, or whatever. I use sites because they are great tools (WordPress, Evernote, Twitter, Amazon, etc) or because they have great content (various sports, tech, econ, news sites) or they are in some other way very effective at helping me run my life or get my job done. All these sites invest a lot in user engagement I am sure — tracking my use, trying out alternatives and watching my response, moving UI elements around to encourage engagement, etc etc. But they don’t push explicit game features at me as part of the site (the sports sites obviously offer fantasy game experiences as an optional part of their site).

Gamification seems to take engagement management a step too far, where gamification means putting explicit badges/levels/etc on an otherwise non-game site, to encourage engagement. First, real engagement comes from deep utility — great content or a great tool that really saves people time. No amount of gamification window dressing will overcome shortfalls in utility or content over time.

Second, gamification seems to miss the point of what makes games engaging. Great games have great stories, great characters, great head-to-head combat, are beautiful to look at, respond naturally to your input, etc. Level systems and awards are a part of the experience but only a minor part. Yes I get some gratification from leveling up in COD or other games, but if the game sucked, the level rewards wouldn’t keep me there.

Investing in user engagement makes total sense, and there are a ton of techniques to use, and some of them may start to resemble some elements of games — for instance Keas is using team-building and team competition to encourage engagement in health programs, and this seems to work (we have an investment in Keas) — social is an excellent motivator in many arenas. But gamification as it is generally defined doesn’t really make sense to me. Active management of user engagement, sure, that makes sense. Building great games, that makes total sense. Applying minor elements of gaming to non-game properties, ehh, it just feels manipulative.

I do wonder if applying the deeper elements of games — story, characters — to non-game properties would be a smart thing to try. Obviously requires a lot more creativity and skill, but stories are very very powerful.

Hey, Father’s Day is not that far away, if you need ideas for me…

Unfortunately I have more ideas than offspring…

To heck with AppleTV, give me an Apple Microwave

29 buttons on the front panel and almost none of them do what I want. The designers have optimized for packaged convenience foods and I never eat those, but cooking those is the default on the damn thing. All I want to do is defrost frozen foods and reheat leftovers. And 90% of the time I reheat, not defrost. Why is this so hard? 

If this is my biggest problem I guess life is ok.

Check out Motif Investing and help me win an iPad

I love Motif and if you check it out I could win an iPad. OK I will probably have to give the iPad back as we are investors but still I do love Motif, it is worth looking at if you do any investing whatsoever — a much more natural way to invest.

Skeptical about voice control

There was a Sunday NYT article on voice recognition and how we are all going to control our TVs and other devices with voice. Building on the Siri wave, there is a popular belief that voice will become a significant or even dominant way we interact with devices and services.

I’m a big believer in voice. Ignition is an investor in Spoken who is doing great with their existing cloud voice processing business, and have some great ideas for the future. We’re an investor in AVST, Twisted Pair, Public Mobile — all voice-based businesses, all doing great. People are never going to get tired of talking to one another.

And that is what voice is really all about — people talking to people, not to devices. I will invest all day long in technologies that improve people talking to people — making it easier, more accessible, cheaper, augmenting with additional services, hosting conversations, etc. 

On the other hand, we don’t talk to our tools and instruments. We touch them. A well designed tool or instrument fits the hands naturally, and in the hand of a skilled practitioner allows great creativity and/or great performances. The feedback during its use is important, we are very sensitive to the feedback and can adjust our use in very fine increments. We don’t attempt to use voice which is an imprecise, error-prone method — in fact, trying to talk very precisely can be quite annoying and unnatural.

So are our computational devices more like tools, or more like people? Do we want to interact with them as tools, or as people? My gut says more like tools, and that we will be more effective using touch and gestures than voice. 

There are always going to be edge cases in which voice control is preferred — people with disabilities, handsfree situations. But I’m not convinced voice control will become significant.

He was kind of a crummy dog, but he was our crummy dog

He had a terrible attitude. He didn’t play well with other dogs. He’d bite you if you just looked at him wrong. He was fearful and was useless as a guard dog, retreating into his crate at any disturbance. He’d wander off and get lost if you didn’t constantly watch him. He had ugly cherry eyes which scared off a lot of people. He was incredibly picky about his food and had to be coaxed to eat. He had allergies and constant ear infections and bad teeth. He was so cranky he scared the vets. If you tried to pick him up he’d turn into a wild animal and try to rip your arm off.

But he was our dog, and we adapted to him, and made a home for him. And in his last year, he got sweeter and more attached to us, and accepted our carrying him and helping him through his day.

We will miss him.

Recent books — Dream Park, Backstage Wall Street, Filter Bubble, and some dreck

  • Dream Park by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. Not sure how I missed this one 30 years ago, a very nice murder mystery set in a futuristic theme park. Has aged well, the story is solid. 
  • The Barsoom Project by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. The followon to Dream Park, not nearly as good. I gave up. Too much wandering around in mythology and the psych aspects of Dream Park. 
  • Avogadro Corp by William Hertling. Interesting ideas about the emergence of a worldwide artificial intelligence, but terrible writing, terrible characters, terrible story telling. In the hands of a good writer this would have been quite a tale.
  • Backstage Wall Street by Joshua M. Brown. The author pulls the curtains back on some of the sell side antics of financial services firms. If you were confused and thought that financial firms were working on your behalf, this is the book for you.
  • The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser. Great book on how the major players on the Internet are collaborating to feed us pablum. Reminds me that I need to challenge myself in my reading and force different thinking into my life.

Hey it is Kansas Hate Week

Reasons to hate Kansas. Or at least feel really sorry for them:

  • Tornados. Lots of them.
  • A state so bad, even it’s namesake city refuses to be in the state. 
  • Just like the Wizard of Oz suggests, the entire state is colorless.
  • Wikipedia says the name means people passing wind or something like that
  • The first us state to adopt prohibition — the least fun most humor impaired state ever.
  • There is an official state soil. If all you have to celebrate is your dirt, you are one sorry state.

And a joke:

Q. How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Kansas?
A. If it was invented anywhere else, it would have been called a teethbrush.

Decent article in Seattle Times about maker resources

Good article in PNW mag yesterday about maker resources here in the Seattle area. The particular things I noted:

As an aside, it is so odd that in 2012, the Seattle Times would go to the trouble to research, write, and distribute this article, but then in the web-published version, not link to any of the resources mentioned in it, leaving it to people like me to scrounge together all the links. The web version of the article seems like the afterthought, and the Times misses the opportunity to create the web-based page of record for “Seattle Maker”. I would have thought by now the web version of the article would be paramount, and the print version would be a derivative of that page. But obviously I don’t get it.

In general I don’t get the whole Seattle Times web strategy — and in 2012 that means I don’t get their overall business strategy. Why do they continue to hide their brand under the nwsource domain? It clearly seems like they just don’t care about the web. No other media company of substance behaves this way. Strange.

Cameras in my TV, and not in a creepy way

So apparently all our tvs will have cameras and mics soon, and hopefully the mfrs will be a little smarter about privacy and usage rights than this abysmal first Samsung attempt.

I also note that Xfinity keeps sending me mail about their home security offering, they want to come in my house and install a bunch of sensors and extract even a higher monthly fee from me.

So the obvious thought — why do I need a bunch of distributed sensors in the house? If I can put several cameras and mics in the tv (they are basically free), with full directionality and distance sensing, then my tv could sense in-room movement, perimeter movement, glass breakage, basically all the things a security system senses. Heck, throw in heat, smoke, and CO sensing too for fun, and an accelerometer to detect theft. 

I’ve got a TV in our family room/kitchen, my office, our bedroom — if each of these provided full room monitoring for security, that would cover the bulk of the issues in the house. There is some great software that needs to be written to process the signals, identify perimeter movement, let me establish baselines to be ignored, set up different watch conditions for times when home versus times when away etc. But I don’t see why I should need to go thru the braindamage of putting sensors everywhere, solving wiring or battery issues for them, etc.

Yes the retina display iPad is beautiful, but the software is starting to feel dated

OK I am completely conflating issues in this post but that accurately reflects my state of mind.

Like everyone else has said, the new screen is beautiful, the pad does run a little hot, the extra weight and thickness is a little noticeable, blah blah blah. Nothing new to add here. For me, the greatest impact is on the readability of text in retina-enabled apps, it really is easier n the eye. And kind of bizarrely, the few iPhone apps I use on the iPad now look really nice when blown up to full screen, they no longer look clunky.

To the point, tho, the iPad hardware continues to improve and I find myself using the iPad more and more. 

However iOS is starting to feel dated. The iPad is delivering a Windows 3.x shell experience — a big beautiful screen and all it shows is a sea of spaced icons. And when you tap them, you get full screen apps, it is actually like earlier versions of Windows.

This works fine if you are basically just launching full screen games, videos, and books all day, which is admittedly the greatest part of iPad use for most people. But i actually have to do some real work in my life, I need to accomplish things. I need a tablet that is a little more productive. Right now if i want to work on a project, I have to navigate a sea of apps, and all the project details are spread around in a million places — I’ve got notes in Evernote and docs in Dropbox and Keynote/iCloud and relevant emails in Mail and todo lists in several places. It is not a great experience dealing with all this — hop into mail or evernote to see what I should be working on (and navigate the folder/tag hierarchies in those as necessary), then hop over somewhere else to work on a doc, meanwhile fighting off distractions from other incoming mail or whatever. My projects and my tasks take a distinct backseat to the app hierarchy and that seems wrong. I’d like to have a screen per project — slide over to my screen with all the things i am working on with respect to a portfolio company, and i could see the docs i need to work on, my todo list, upcoming meeting dates, and the latest email thread, and i could send notes and work on docs right there. or slide over to my maker project at home and work on that. or to home remodel project screen where i can see the plan docs, the latest email, the upcoming schedule and discussion items, etc.

I also want all my data to sync everywhere. If I have a project I am working on, I should be able to go to a folder on my desktop machine and see all the related files. And these should all be available on my work machine, my home machine, wherever. Right now I have content stored in Evernote and synced across all my machines, in Dropbox and synced across all my machines, in iCloud synced across all my machines. If I want to get all the content and files for a project, well good luck. None of these storage solutions are really working the way I want to work. Evernote does a nice job keeping everything ordered by folder and project, and has a nice UI, but it is work to get content in and out of evernote and into other apps. Dropbox has the very natural folder-on-the-desktop model which makes it super easy to use with a million apps, but my Dropbox folder is now chaos with all kinds of random stuff intermixed, apps creating their own confusing folder hierarchies (Byline I am looking at you), and it is just chaos. iCloud also keeps stuff stored by app, not by project, and is just further fracturing my storage.

So to summarize, I want a very project-centric experience, with transparent and complete syncing of project files and contents across all machines, and I want all my apps to work with the same project contents. I could use a web product like OneHub (an Ignition investment) and they have a good ipad app, and this may be the way to go, I am seriously considering. Box.net is too expensive, Basecamp doesn’t have an iPad app. All these solutions have a lot of great collaboration support but that is secondary for me — I just want to keep my own life in order and get my own stuff done. The iPad and current cloud storage solutions aren’t really helping me to focus, keep things ordered, and get things done.

Starting to dabble with Arduino

A few years ago when I was very active in Halloween decorating, I used the Basic Stamp for prop control. This is still a solid product and you can still buy a lot of stamp-based kits and products.

I’m starting to work on some new projects and it seems like all the cool kids have moved onto Arduino-based designs, probably because of the open nature of Arduino.

So I’ve ordered a handful of test kits from Adafruit, Sparkfun and Maker Shed seem to have a lot of nice products too. 

Arduino programming is C-like which seems like a bit of a step back, I wish I could use something more like Python.

I am tired of being used by the web.

Jerry Michalski just published a nice article on big data and how we are all being stalked online by commercial entities seeking to extract value from us. Everytime we hit a web page, tens and hundreds of companies and organizations are learning about us and making money off us.

On that Forbes page with Jerry’s article, for instance, looking at the page source reveals explicit references to Omniture, Gigya.com, Doubleclick, Facebook, Buysub.com, Googlesyndication.com, a tremendous number of Forbes subdomains, Truste.com, Sharethis.com, loading scripts from most of these. And who knows what all those scripts do, some of them may pull in other companies and ad networks. All these orgs are collecting data about our page views and making money off that data — selling it to advertisers, etc.

Looking at another example page, College Football News, there are visible ads from Fox Sports, H&R Block, Microsoft, Bing, MSN, McDonald’s, Chase, HTC, Lancome, ESPN, Canon. Digging into the page source, there are a whole slew of companies that are tracking and noting activity: Advertising.com, Comotionmedia.com, Realmedia.com, Doubleclick.net, Googlesyndication.com, Footballfanatics.com, Cloudfront.net, decipherinc.com, imrworldwide.com.

Now look at the cookies stored by the browser, there is a huge list of advertisers and trackers, in fact the list of cookies is dominated by ad serving and tracking companies: 123count.com, 247realmedia.com, 2o7.net (adobe), 33across.com, adbrite.com, adelixir.com, admeld.com (google), adnxs.com, adsrvr.org, adsymptotic.com (drawbrid.ge), advertising.com, adxpose.com, AEG Digital Media, afy11.net (Adify), and so on. Hundreds of these things. (Prompting me to clear the cookie cache and turn off 3rd party cookies, but how many users know to do this, and why do I have to go do this?)

None of this is new, this is the way the web has worked for years. But every year the ads and tracking just seems to get a little more invasive, a little more pervasive, a little creepier. Through all this, no one is really acting as the representative for our interests. Obviously the ad networks are not acting in our interest — and the fact that they hide their actions under a profusion of cookies with a profusion of obscure brand names suggests that they are actively working to obscure their actions. Web sites aren’t acting in our interest, they don’t inform us up front who is tracking us, they let all these tracking cookies be placed. Our browsers aren’t acting in our interest — yes we can go twiddle cookie settings but it is not default or obvious.

Here is what we need from someone, anyone: a sidebar in browser that shows

  • For the current page, a list of all the advertisers, of all the ad networks and trackers, and the ability to opt out, block the ad or cookie right there, not deep in some preferences dialog.
  • Also, an imputed value — what did that advertiser pay to the website for that ad? How much did the ad network/tracker sell our visit for?
  • And for each tracker — exactly what data did they collect, what have they collected over time? What do they know about us?
  • For the day/week/month, a summary across all our browsing — how much data has been collected, how much total $ has been made by who for our data

No one is acting in our interest today, the advertisers and web sites and ad networks and browsers are all complicit in extracting our attention and monetizing it, without disclosure to us. At the very least it is not respectful; and it feels much more odious than that. It is doubtful that MSFT or Google or Apple will lead in solving this, they are too involved in the advertising $ flow. We need to look to smaller creative independents.

Friday afternoon musing about TV — VCOs, Airplay, Cameras

Gearing up for lots of basketball watching over the next month, OSU is on tonight, Go Bucks, humiliate the Boilermakers. I know he is long retired but that combover that Gene Keady sported for years still annoys me and Purdue must pay for it. Anyway, random TV thoughts:

  • Why are there no virtual cable operators? Why have MSFT and Hulu pulled back from this strategy? Rumours are it was over rights fees but given what I pay for a full load of cable channels each month so that I can get all the sports content, it is hard for me to believe there is not a viable offering in here. This seems like the only viable “cut the cord” strategy (vs the wishful think about ala carte pricing), I don’t understand why no one has bit the bullet and tried to make a VCO work.
  • When will all our TVs have cameras built into them? OK maybe this year — Samsung plans Kinect functionality? The chip cost is de minimus and the TV guys need features. How will that change how we use our TVs? If I have a camera in my iPad and Airplay and a camera in my TV, which will I use for video calling? I am confusing myself.
  • Should we junk projectors in our conference rooms and just use AirPlay/AppleTV and an LCD display? Or at least use AppleTV as input to projector? Would this end the silly game of trying to get laptops to work in conference rooms with projectors? The new Airplay features of the iPad seem undersold. The press coverage seems to be all about resolution and network speed and multicore but this Airplay thing seems pretty interesting.
  • Oh and back on the VCO thing — hooking up your PC to your TV can be a PITA, but it seems like AirPlay is going to help on that, so maybe this makes a VCO more viable?

Recent books — Made to Stick, Burroughs’ Mars series, Bazell, McDevitt, and more

  • Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Excellent how-to on how to effectively promulgate ideas. Reader’s Digest version of the book — tell stories, not bullet points. I don’t like many business books, they all seem to blur together, but this is an excellent book.
  • Why Startups Fail: And How Yours Can Succeed by Dave Feinleib. Solid lessons for startups from a guy who has been in many, and has invested in many. And is a friend and colleague from MSFT and other past endeavours.
  • A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Ok I admit I actually read this book almost 40 years ago, and I bet it hasn’t aged well, but I loved it and I in fact still have the whole paperback series and am hugely looking forward to the movie, tho I fear it could be a bomb.
  • Firebird by Jack McDevitt. One of his Alex Benedict novels, think Indiana Jones in space. Fun stuff, solid tale. A Nebula nominee, for good reason.
  • Wild Thing by Josh Bazell. Not as good as his first, Beat the Reaper but still a fun ride. 
  • Don’t Put Me In, Coach by Mark Titus. I wanted to like this book — a loyal Buckeye — but it is sophomoric, misogynistic, and homophobic. When you claim not to be bigoted but use misogynistic and homophobic language over and over again as “humor”, well, you need to rethink.
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