Computers are stupid

iPhone contact info isn't saved when you hit save (once)

2009-05-10T16:37:00.003-04:00

The iPhone's interface for adding new contact information should be more robust.
If, for example, you are getting someone's contact information and you enter their name and hit "save" and then get their email and hit "save" it is very easy to think that you are done. Let's say you have an interruption at this point such as a text message or call. This information will be lost and you will get no indication that you are losing it. It would be best if the iPhone started saving the information as soon as you hit save. Somewhat worse would be returning you to where you were in the info entering stage when you reentered the contacts application.

http://www.everythingicafe.com/forum/iphone/iphone-lost-contact-25510.html

Spreadsheets are the new blogs

2007-09-08T12:40:00.000-04:00

You heard it here first.

Merging blogs and spreadsheets
I think we are going to start seeing people merge blogs and spreadsheets in interesting ways. A straightforward example would be for a weight loss program. Instead of just having an excel sheet with calories, the date, and weight this could be expanded by having a comments section that is really a description of the person's entire day.
If someone who was charismatic and could write well did this it could take off. People would be able to get into the persons ups and downs. Pictures of the person could be taken on different days and interested into the cell.

Another popular possibility could be the spreadsheet of an athlete training for the Olympics. People could see how her changing her training regime affected her sprint times.

Spreadsheets will be checked for daily progress
An important part of this is that these spreadsheets are not just presented at the end in progress. Seeing a spreadsheet of a training regiment that an athlete present after the Olympics was over would be interesting but dry. But for people to be able to check in each day and see how the timings are going gets exciting.

The personal spreadsheet
It will be startling how personal a spreadsheet can be. Even just a record of how you spend your leisure time can startle you. One part of creating a spreadsheet is that your idea of what will be in there changes as you create it. You may start with just 4 columns but as you begin to enter data, you think of other fields that may be related. This type of thinking is not available to conventional bloggers they are thinking more generally.

What needs to be done
The technology isn't here yet to make this easy. Or it is here and isn't properly integrated. The presentation also needs to be fixed. The product that ends up winning won't look like a spreadsheet.

It may take less work to make blogs more like spreadsheets. It will also reduce the intimidation factor. Here's a simple change that could be made to blogger. In the preferences a new section is created called "personal stats." There you can choose from a drop-down with some fixed values (e.g. weight, mile time, money spent) or have the ability to add a custom one.
Then in each new post web page. The name in the name value will appear (non-editable) next to a text box. The user will enter a number.

That is all the user has to do. Blogger will then create graphs based on the date of the post and the data.
This setup should be very easy to understand even for people with no spreadsheet experience.

Google Pages should integrate Google applications

2007-09-08T05:17:00.000-04:00

Google Pages should make it easy to show all my Blogger posts, Google or YouTube videos, GoogleReader shared items, and Picasa images. These nuggets should be as full featured as possible. None of the nuggets available even come close.

The YouTube nuggets show only search or popular videos. I could add a specific video with YouTube generated custom HTML but if I add a new video a week later users will have no way of knowing. It should show icons for the videos I've created with the most recent first.
The Blogger nuggets available only do search.
There is a Picasa nugget but I was unable to see it. After clicking ok the preview pane still stayed displayed and did not add to the page. The preview pane also didn't show a preview.
The same applied to the Google Reader nugget. This nugget appears to have not been generated by Google. In addition during customization it shows the users password in clear text. I don't think the outside developer should be blamed- Google needs to to be responsible for integrating its properties.

I may not have chosen the best available nuggets for these since there were many options shown when I did search. Yet this is part of the problem, Google should be making it easy.

Other notes: Blogger seems to have some function for integrating Google Reader shared items. But doesn't have ability to add any of the nuggets above so it is not a suitable alternative.

Google analytics should also be automatically integrated. There should be no user setup. If not a nugget should be made available.

Google Groups would be good too. A display could be made of all the items I've posted.

Going wireless makes my Powerbook hot

2006-08-17T21:27:00.000-04:00

Even when only having textedit running I noticed computer hot and fan running. Turning off wireless fixed this.
Not to say that it isn't a problem but you can go wired if you are getting annoyed by the heat.

Mac backup software reviews

2006-08-09T23:05:00.000-04:00

I was needing to backup my computer and these are my quick notes on the different solutions

Carbon copy cloner (donation-ware)- . It only works for people with administrator privilege. can't be canceled. folder selection method makes sense in terms of common actions but is non-intuitive. It doesn't remember your selections. Support is supposed to be very good.
rsyncx- I could not install
rsyncbackup- just a script
synk (Full use for thirty days)- This has a nice looking interface. One useful feature is that it shows how many files were moved. One annoying part of the process was that adding folders to be copied had to be done one at a time.
sync pro x (Full use for 7 days, $99)- The software seems nice. It would be useful if I needed to do syncing. Here's a useful review.
superduper! (crippleware, $28)- This software had good reviews including on Macworld but not many downloads. It was recommended to me by a friend as doing the best job of preserving metadata. Unfortunately it's crippleware.

The only method of copying it will let you do is to completely erase everything and then copy. Being made to delete my data is wrong.
It's not possible to see how well it does at doing a differential backup especially in terms ofspeed.
The available functionality is less then I'd get doing a drag using the finder.
I emailled these concerns to the developer points to the developer. Here's his response: "A single folder is a single folder, and can be dragged and dropped. We're more useful when you have a more complicate situation..."

Problems setting up an external hard drive- Seagate hard drive and Macally enclosure

2006-08-09T18:43:00.001-04:00

I had a much harder time than I should have setting up an external hard drive enclosure.

Macally enclosure
First I had problems getting the Macally enclosure opened and then closed. The opening problem was mostly my fault. On close it is easy to mistake whether you are putting it on backwards. The enclosure gets less than a quarter-inch from closed and then stops. It makes it seem like the reason it is not closing is that you have misjudged the alignment or need to jiggle it.
Once I had everything set up I had trouble connecting the drive. There were colored indicator lights but no explanation as to their meaning.
I called Macally for help during the problems and was happy with their support. Here's the meaning of the lights: "If you are only getting a red light, this mean two things; either the hard drive is defective or there is not enough power going from the power brick."

Seagate jumpers
The sticker showing how to set the jumpers is on the hard drive but is facing the opposite direction from the jumpers. This makes it confusing to set the jumpers correctly.
I also had some problems making sure the cables were all the way in.

Conclusions
I'd say the problems were 70% me. But it would have been easier if

Seagate reversed the sticker
Macally had some FAQ saying the meaning of their indicator lights
Macally had designed the enclosure so the way parts came together was obvious.

Music upload sites

2006-07-22T21:49:00.000-04:00

Numly.com- Maybe I've been trying to force a round peg into a square hole. This site must really only be meant for the original user. It's not geared to having other people be able to access. Which is a bit wierd because the purpose should be that other people can see that something was done by you.
The portal page links well to text files created with docly. But for other files the links have to be hosted by you. So all this provides is a little extra assurance.
The developer is very responsive but the site has a long way to go in terms of usability. Songs have to be uploaded twice. Unchanging information needs to be added manually every time.

Garageband.com- The interface is very confusing. I found myself on the podcast upload page and then couldn't figure out how I got there (switch to the Tab "My music"). It's a hell of a lot of work to add a song which is why I'm switching to their podcast feature. But now I lose ratings and comments.

Youtube- They are now for musicians but they don't except mp3s. Maybe when I have some videos.

Path Finder 4- Not enough reason to switch

2006-02-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

I tried Path Finder 4 this morning. The useful features for me seem to be the drop space and the tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing is supposed to make it easier to transfer files but I still find it slower and more difficult than a two-column view like Total Commander.
It seems a little quicker for launching applications vs. launching from the application folder in dock. It's nice that you can copy text out of a document in preview mode.
Path Finder seems better than the Finder but not worth paying for or having to deal with using it as well as the Finder. I think I need to use it more to evaluate.

Bugs/Missing features
It can't undo file moves or renames. Not really sure what it can undo.

Mac security

2006-02-13T12:02:00.000-05:00

Clamxav and Henwen
I looked into some mac software today. I downloaded Snort which monitors network traffic and Henwen which is a graphical interface to Snort. I also got Clamxav which is a virus checker. Clamxav takes a long time and has no pause button. I haven't detected anything so far.

Console
I tried to find a good log viewer for a while. I had forgotten about Console. I do think they could have named Console to have log in the title. Console is a bit short on features.

.hosts
I made some edits to my hosts file to block some time-wasting sites. There is evidently some synchronization problems with this. If you visit a site, block it in hosts file, close browser and reopen access will still be allowed. Clearing caches doesn't affect this. I guess this is not done by the browser but by some backend DNS service.

Common Criteria
I also installed the Common Criteria stuff from Apple. There isn't much documentation but it seems that all this does is install the Audit Log Viewer.

X-Statistics
Give some basic info from log files. I didn't find it useful.

Neooffice, Openoffice x11, and Abiword

2006-02-05T13:15:00.000-05:00

I was annoyed by Neoffice's slowness so I took a quick look at the alternatives. Openoffice X11 had a very bad looking interface but even worse the font look jagged and distracting. It was faster.
Abiword has trouble with my document- letters are cutoff. There isn't much in the way of navigation besides a Table of Contents. I might be able to make it work if I saved as Rich Text. Very snappy performance.

T-amp vs. Panasonic reciever

2006-02-05T12:11:00.000-05:00

I tried out the t-amp (@$20, low energy, small) against my Panasonic reciever (@$250, high energy, big) and there was no clear difference in quality. There may have been more presence on the Panasonic but I suspect it was modifying the signal.
If I were doing it again I'd get the t-amp. Now I'm not quite sure what I'll do with the Pansonic.

Panasonic sa-he100 amplifier- using with power strip causes overloar

2006-02-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

Occasionally the amp was shutting off with an overloaded message. I would have thought that this would mean it was getting too much audio input. In reality it got better when I plugged the electricity directly into the wall.

Audio recording problems tonight

2006-02-03T08:43:00.000-05:00

From the Behringer mixer there is a lot of hiss. If I have any of these above the middle I get it: Gain, level 1, and main mix. I have all the other inputs down.
These results occur whether or not the mic is on or even plugged in. It also does not matter whether I listen through headphone jack or main out.

I wasn't able to use Audacity's monitor function but then suddenly it started working. It may be that you have to start a new project or track.

It wasn't until I started recording that I had these systemuiserver problems.

Wrong directions

2006-02-01T20:47:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when you are in a strange city you have to ask directions and the person, without complete confidence, sends you in the wrong direction. I always feel the same way after talking to tech support.

Unable to record this evening

2006-02-01T20:44:00.000-05:00

Recording and any other efforts are shot for the evening. When I tried to record today nothing was showing up. The monitors within the software were showing sound coming in so it was a software issue. I talked to Apple Support an experience which as usual made me never want to deal with Apple again.
I refused to accept the first guy's answer that it was a microphone problem- (Sound could be seen in monitor waveforms and heard in the headphone monitors!).
I talked to a second guy and we did a lot of reboots and cord changes but no preference or system changes and eventually it worked. So neither of knows anything more about what caused it.

Performancing blog extension and keeping blogs synced

2006-02-01T07:01:00.000-05:00

I'm finding Performancing easier to use than Blogger due to keeping posts persistent (not having to Publish or save as draft) and having a convenient history. Unfortunately editing the same post with both causes many extra line breaks.

I'm going to use this space for edits to other posts until I figure out what I'm going to do.
Garageband advantage- Because it exports to iTunes it has a syncing advantage.

Garageband vs. Audacity

2006-01-31T06:28:00.000-05:00

Recording feels like an endless eye-doctor session. Do you like this one... or this one? This one... or this one.
Garageband's real-time filters can be a lot of fun but I'm starting to find a few features frustrating.

Garageband disadvantages

Pausing recording. To pause you click the play button again this then creates a gap until the end of the measure. If you then record again it makes another section. You can join these two sections together but this is extra effort.
Recording in correct track. I'm very often recording in the wrong track. I'm getting better about this. I would select a time within a track and think that would switch me to the instrument that is in that row.
It would be nice if you could use metronome without recording.
With Garageband muting and soloing tracks seems more difficult than it should be. Solo isn't really solo. When a solo is added then all other solo buttons are kept- it functions like a checkbox rather than a radio button. The mute button already functions like a checkbox.

Garageband advantages

Adjusting for people's timing and tone problems- Due to my tin ear I'm having some trouble with detecting the changes in tone but it is very clear how it can moves songs toward the beat.
Monitor works correctly- I haven't gotten the monitor function working with Audacity.
Tuning feature- Tuning feature is useful for quickly figuring out what note you are playing.

Other notes

There is quite a bit of background hiss that I need to find the source of.
There are bad sounds with my 't's and 's's
When I tune the guitar the strings are often sharp. I thought that strings over time, unless they are tightened, strings only went down in pitch.
I wasn't sure how many beats/min to say the song was. I was able to use Metrognome to tap it out.
There are two disadvantes to the in-ear headphones I'm using. A lot of the original sound come through so it is harder to get an accurate picture of what recording will sound like. Also some sound escapes the headphones and is picked-up during recordings.

Behringer uB502

2006-01-25T18:04:00.000-05:00

If I was doing it over I would probably get the m-audio.

Simplicity- Having one less cord would simplify this setup.

Power- Since its bus-powered it would not use electricity when not in use. Behringer doesn't even have power/switch.

Portability- The total weight including the powerbrick is probably quite a bit more.

Multi-track- so possible to record two separate tracks at once and have two tracks go into computer.

Sound isolation- no interference from laptop.

Quality- m-audio's sound processing is no doubt better than the laptop's.

Sound recording

2006-01-24T18:20:00.000-05:00

After fixing three problems, I got my computer to record yesterday. I'm using a Behringer UB502 mixer with a Sennheiser e825s microphone. The tape outs don't work using outputs from the mainline fixed this. I had to change the sound input in system preferences. Because Audacity only showed one option for sound input this made me forget about other options. Finally the gain had to be turned up quite high.
I kind of expected there would be that microphone hum but there is really no sound when I'm not speaking.
I'm dealing with a mess of wires.

Audacity
I'm still using Audacity to record. Their webpages have a good amount of general recording advice they also suggest Shure microphones such as the sm57 and sm58.
Shure's website has much more support for users

Audacity made the most sense for crappy recordings since it was so light weight.
I haven't tried Garageband again yet. But I may continue to use Audacity unless I find the UI confusing.

Bugs- The mac install is poor. The help file doesn't install. Also the folders are packaged outside of the app. This means I created a new folder somewhere in the applications subtree to house everything instead of in the main folder.
Metrognome
Metrognome is the best of the metronome programs I downloaded. It does sound like the beta version of audacity has a click track. Might be cool to see how the clicks match with my sounds in the waveform.

Is search making organizational document editors obsolete?

2006-01-09T08:25:00.000-05:00

I was looking at Notational Velocity and thinking about looking at Voodoo pad but I'm wondering if search has made these irrelevant. I think it is still relevant on the web because you don't know what is available. If I wrote it though I know it exists even if I don't remember what I thought about it or where it is.

Cable reception problem

2006-01-05T20:19:00.000-05:00

We have cable so it seemed odd that we would have a reception problem and what was even more odd was that it only affected the network channels. Since the signals all came from the source I couldn't understand it.
It turns out the problem came from having the ethernet cable box next to the cable line. I still don't know why it only affected the networks.

RSS on Firefox

2006-01-05T19:22:00.000-05:00

It would be nice if I could get an RSS reader in Firefox. Using Vienna is nice but since I end up wanting to browse in Firefox it feels like I'm interrupting my train of thought if I go through all of the rss and then go through the windows in Firefox. Switching back and forth between each is even worse.
Also having two less icons showing up in my crowded dock would be nice.
Still Wizz is not good because it doesn't give short descriptions or have a preview pane.
Vienna does sync well with Safari but if you use Safari you already have a good integrated RSS reader.

I want to restrict my internet access

2006-01-04T06:20:00.000-05:00

I want to restrict my internet access to an hour a day and still retain the admin rights to my com puter. Is this possible?

Google Base as a cure for Amazon

2005-12-07T06:56:00.000-05:00

I wrote a book review on Amazon this morning and never posted it. I don't like turning over my thoughts, howerver sloppy, to anyone. I trust Amazon not to be like some sites -taking user-submitted information under a free model and then charging for it. But this isn't good enough. I'm not even sure I'd be allowed to reprint one of my reviews here.
On the other hand it doesn't do much good for a review to languish on an isolated site. Google Base may be the solution. You retain your data and it allows group reviewing of the same work. There is no system for rating others' submissions yet but that may come or be developed by a third-party.
Update: I reread the Amazon agreement and it said that their rights are non-exclusive.

iView, Finder, Shoebox, Qpict

2005-11-30T21:10:00.000-05:00

Requirements
Image managing software should not create a second copy of files. Have robust meta-data editing capabilities. Not keep your data- data this program generates should be accessible to other programs.

iView
Bad
Does not allow partial deqownloads
Does not adjust if underlying image is moved
Not allow common keyboard shortcuts such as Get Info
Company Website RSS feed is invalid
Annotation does not affect original files. But pro version 3 does have XML export.

Good
Doesn't create its own copy
Fast!

Finder
Doesn't allow the editing of meta-data of multiple files. Disqualifier.
No second copy.

Shoebox
Shoebox would be great if it weren't buggy. It allows the creation of heirarchical metadata with many preset categories. Has ability to do inverted selections. Unfortunately, no matter what filter I use I am seeing every image.
Other problems:
No RSS on site so I won't be able to tell if these problem get fixed. I added it in VersionTracker to check for updates.
Many negative reviews on VersionTracker.
Unresponsive customer support.
Pictures with no place data. (? Not sure what I meant here.)

Qpict
Keeps your data. Can't add keywords to spotlight. There is an XML export but who can import this XML?
Help is only offline.

Note:
Do apps work fine if left as a disk image? I kind of like not moving things to application folder while evaluating them.