I haven’t posted anything on PH for a while as I’ve been busy as a mofo SHIPPING.

My first iPhone app is nearly done, and my third ebook for TourDeFranceTips.com is in production.

Flying back from France in July, I finally wrote this on my customs slip re-entering Australia, and it gave me a thrill.

For those of you wishing to get to this point, I have 3 books for you to read that will get you there.
Rework, by 37signals.
Linchpin by Seth.
The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.

Linchpin will slap you in the face and make you want to rule the world.
The 4HWW will show you how.
And Rework will show you how to do it once you’ve started.
Read them all and buy me a beer one day.

More news from me soon.

PayPal is broken. Customer Service never solves anything.

I contacted PayPal as my credit card mysteriously disappeared from my account with no explanation as to why.

I emailed them (after re-linking it), here’s what I got.

Dear Tim Marsh,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

I apologise but PayPal did not remove your card. If you will check the
card details on the Profile section on your PayPal account, you will see
that the card is still added. It shows that the reason why you were not
able to see the card when you send the payment is because the amount you
are trying to send exceeds your remaining sending limit. When you signed
up for a PayPal account way back in 2009, you were given an initial
sending limit of $11,250.00 AUD. You already spent $10,945.46 AUD and
your remaining sending limit is only $304.54 AUD. Sending limit is the
total value of payment you can make in your PayPal account using your
card. Each payment you send will be deducted from your sending limit and
by the time you reach your limit or if you are sending more that your
remaining sending limit you will be asked to Verify your account. Right
now, you can still process the payment using your bank account.

You can lift this limit and use the card again by confirming it on your
PayPal account. All you have to do is wait for the PayPal code within
2-4 business days after you requested to confirm the card.

Your unique, randomly generated 4-digit PayPal code is displayed on your
card statement next to or near the PayPal charge. In the item
description section, this code is printed next to the word “PAYPAL”.
1. Log in to your PayPal account.
2. Click “Confirm my debit or credit card” in the To Do List box.
3. Enter your PayPal code.
4. Click “Submit”.

If you need more clarification, please call our Customer Service agents
at (02) xxx xxxx so that we can assist you further.

Sincerely,
Cherrie
PayPal, an eBay Company

So I responded.

Thanks Cherrie.

The only reason I thought PayPal removed it was that there was no error message or warning to me (at least that was readily obvious to me) telling me why the card wasn’t available. What you’re saying is that I have to go digging through menus to see why I can’t pay by credit card.

You’re also saying you expect me to remember a small T&C from over 1 year ago, which is related to a limit. No offence, but the chances of a user remembering this limit is zero. We all have way too much going on in our lives to retain information like this.

I don’t want to use my bank account (ever), so that’s not a viable solution.

I suggest PayPal consider implementing more user friendly messages to its users.

Tim

PayPal, you are broken and need fixing.

Since reading Defensive Design for the Web by the Signals, I’ve become obsessed with good UI and UX; it’s something I constantly focus on at wherespresso.com and its iPhone app, as it’s developed.

In my mind, there are NO EXCUSES for poor UI and UX from big companies like Aeroplan. None. Zero. Zilch. If you have money, and resources, an incredible User Experience and User Interface is your obligation to your users.
Read this by Dustin Curtis, who wrote a “Dear Joe” letter to American Airlines.

So I thought I’d run through an utterly frustrating experience I had on Aeroplan.com recently, when trying to simply update my email and street address.

Now, Aeroplan’s user control panel (UCP) has tabs for managing different information and preferences. As I am not a coder, I don’t know how they’ve done the tabs (Javascript or whatever), but when you make a change, and click “Update”, it seems like it does not write the value to a database record for you. It’s almost as if it saves it, and then if you go to another tab, it is still able to qualify your changes against its validation rules. To clarify: you can move between the tabs, and this action does not cause a data save. You get a prompt asking if you want to keep your changes, or discard them, however, this didn’t help for me. I tried discarding changes multiple times (to get back to the original data set, but to no avail).

This to me is stupid: if you give people the ability to move between tabs, then force the data to save. Or, don’t use tabs.

Let’s see how I got stuck in a loop.

Step 1: I changed my address, then clicked the Communications tab to change my emails Oops! Why didn’t I receive some inline validation? By the way, I am sure my address conformed to their requirements.

Error, Error!

Step 2: I changed my email, then clicked back to fix the address error. Uh-oh. Because there was an error in the first tab, the second one wouldn’t save the changes, so now it has an error and we have dirty data in the cookie/cache/whatever. Oh-noz!

Ohnoze!

Step 3: I went back to the Communications tab, and changed my email again, the clicked to the Contacts tab, and chose “No” in response to the Keep Changes prompt. I thought that this might force the browser to re-populate the email field with my old email. No joy. I then tried the same thing from the Contacts tab. No joy. I tried a new browser (Chrome instead of FF). Still no luck.

Snafu!

So I went around and around, until it finally worked. 30 minutes! 30 minutes to update some information that ought to have taken 5 minutes.

I was so delirious with anger, frustration and confusion that I can’t even remember how I made it work. Now, I love dogs, but this process made me want to kill labrador puppies. That’s how bad it was. This process makes Kim Jong Il look like a cuddly teddy bear.

Now, I realise I might not have followed the workflow that sits behind the website, this is why errors were thrown. However, I am just a simple user, I don’t know their rules for validation and work/process flow, so it seems to me, Aeroplan should invest some time in rehashing this interface so that it minimises errors being causes by users exhibiting logical behaviour, but more importantly, behaviour that the interface actually encourages and supports.

For an added bonus, I’ve included some screenshots of how one can attain support from Aeroplan. Oh that’s right; via email, you can’t.

I couldn’t find an email anywhere in the contacts list. No help submission form. So, what did I do? Well, I went email hunting, and managed to fund a marketing person’s email, as well as the email of the Corporate Social Responsibility team. So I just fired them an email and got them to log the help request.

How woeful is that? You force a horrible UI/UX upon your users, they desperately need help, and then you load your staff – staff who are not helpdesk staff – with random requests.

I am about to embark upon a litany of global air travel over the next 24 months, and it’s crap like this that steels my mind as to whom I fly with, and to whom I direct my frequent flyer points. This makes Qantas look like some sort of UI/UX savant.

I may be missing something, but I am fairly sure an online helpdesk link is not to be found.

No help here

Or here

Nor here!

Or here

Here’s the email I sent. Revel in the frustration. This is not how it’s supposed to be.

Ouch

I did get a response, but, of course, it is a proforma apology, and I have no confidence this won’t be repeated. Over at GetHuman, they don’t have an email registered for Aeroplan help, and people rate their customer service as Poor.

As an added bonus, here is Aeroplan’s email address for help. Use with discretion: aeroplan [dot] help [at] aeroplan [dot] com.

So, how to fix this? Here’s some free advice Aeroplan.

1. In the User Control Panel, when a user clicks a new tab from an active one, save the data. Better still, do inline validation with jquery, so that if they enter an invalid piece of information, it’s highlighted immediately.
2. Disable the tabs, until new data in each tab is saved, and tell the user this!
3. Bring back the email help desk! I live in Australia, I do NOT want to call you.

God, this is UI/UX Remedial 101 stuff! And I’m not even a designer!

Recently, I wrote about how not to manage PR (this related to the Bonsoy recall).

As a continuation of that theme, I want to illustrate how easy it is to lose control of your brand/identity in cyberspace when people are angry about something you’ve done, particularly when there is an information vacuum. The market does not like a vacuum and in the absence of any credible, human contact, people always assume the worst (always). Jeff Jarvis gives a great example in his book What Would Google Do when discussing how bad Dell used to be in this regard.

As background, you can read about the Bonsoy recall here. Bonsoy is a soy milk product marketed and distributed by Spiral Foods predominantly in Australia, and in smaller numbers elsewhere.

Recently it became clear their product was making people sick through elevated levels of iodine – they added a seaweed extract to their soy milk. The whole recall has been, in many people’s eyes, an unmitigated disaster, both socially and from a marketing viewpoint.

The PR communiques from the company and/or their media representatives have been, how shall I say, pretty average in terms of sympathetic tone (more on that here).

Without going too much further into it, I want to show you some stats from that site, as they relate to inbound site traffic from keywords in Google search. You can see there are people coming to the site and staying a long time, and in many cases going pretty deep into the site (number of pages per visit). There are a fair few searches related to legal action.

You can also see a few of the keywords have a 0% bounce rate.

Pretty frightening stuff.

So, what should Spiral do? Apologise. Reach out to the stricken. Pay compensation. There’s no grey here. Their product made people sick – really sick in some cases – so they need to help the healing process.

And what’s the broader lesson here? Don’t create an information vacuum. Don’t forget there are real people reading at the other end.

Incoming Keywords

Incoming Keywords

Incoming Keywords

This particular problem has been causing me trouble on three of my Twitter accounts; @projectheresy, @tdftips and @shredquest.

Random characters: click to expand.

I’ve finally pinpointed the culprit: the Chitika Premium plugin for Wordpress, when used in combination with TwitterFeed.

I’d previously put the Chitika ad unit at the top of posts. I’ve moved it to the bottom and it seems to have eliminated the issue.

The Idea
I’ve been ruminating over setting free my idea for a while, and I’m just too busy to justify sitting on this, so I am giving it away.

For a while, I’ve been very intrigued about the lack of a really good home power management system.

Sure, there are some really good solutions that show you what you are using, but something needs to go a step further.

I don’t like the fact that many systems require (or used to) installation by a registered electrician onto the switchboard. This is a huge turn off (and stopped me installing one).

My solution bypasses that problem by measuring at the powerpoints themselves – it would be excellent to combine these with a fusebox reader to find any vampire devices, but this is an idea for another day.

What is missing is an all in one system that measures your power at the key powerpoints, then shows you what each point is using, AND allows you to power off power points on an adhoc basis or via scheduling.

I want to be able to see what each point or pool of devices or the system as a whole is using now, used last week, what my CO2 output is, my costs, everything.

I came up with this idea of a set of slave points connecting to a master controller.

Slaves could be forced into “pools” of devices; think an Essential Pool (never off, things like fridges etc), a “Don’t Care” pool for things like TV etc, that can be turned off whenever and a “Cycle Pool” for things like deep freezers which could be off 10% (or whatever you choose) of the time.

I came up with 2 systems; an entry level system that would give you basic energy use information and control, and an expert system, that would give you access to the system on your computer, allowing you to view stats and schedule device cycle times on a computer.

Slave-controller functionality would be achieved via RF or internal PLC comms.

Basic:

Expert:

Documents
Here are the documents for you to download and use.

1. The High Level Design, describing functionality, interfaces, requirements etc – here [pdf 173kB]
2. The Request for Manufacturing, used to obtain a quote from a manufacturer – here [pdf 74kB]

Why am I giving this away?
As I said, I’m way to busy to justify sitting on this. I have many (what I think are) good ideas, but I don’t have time to execute them. Shippers are winners. I’d rather see someone ship my idea than it not be shipped at all.

Additionally, this is a product that would require a fair wack of money in capex to get going, in a market where first-to-market would be a huge advantage. It’s money I don’t want to spend.

So I’m not losing anything by giving this away. What I do stand to gain though, is someone could take this idea and improve it, implement it in part or whole and use it to help lower electricity consumption and make the world a better place.

Legals
I have a provisional patent (Australia) sitting on this. I am releasing this under Creative Commons terms listed below. Take the idea, use it, improve it, make money on it! Just attribute to me.

My Intelligent Energy Power Management System by Tim Marsh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at projectheresy.com.

I hate Rework.

…About as much as I hate 3 foot of powder in the Canadian Rockies.

This book is THE BEST BUSINESS BOOK I HAVE READ. Actually I am wrong. Linchpin and Rework are neck and neck.

Here’s why you need to read this book.

• It’s AWESOME.
• It will change how you view your work, and how you are at work, and expose the daily fallacies and facade present in most workplaces.

But seriously. This book contains snippets of information, insight and tips designed to get you to think. It doesn’t really provide answers, nor in-depth “how-tos” (e.g. how to be an incredible businessman). It’s more a guide to what’s worked for them, and how you make it work for you.

I liked it, as I am already inclined to their way of thinking (having read their other kick arse book Getting Real as well as their most-awesome block Signals vs Noise)

What I really love about this book is that it has zero page filler and zero BS. Too many business books can be summarised in the first 100 pages or cut in half. This one is short, sweet, and to the point. I knocked it off in a week of mornings at my local coffee shop.

To illustrate my above comments, I’ve included the notes I took (coffee spills for authenticity!) from this book. Mostly, I took them in reference to my newly made-over coffee review site, wherespresso.com (which is why you see “WSP” throughout).

But, I do have a reason for hating Rework. I hate it because it wasn’t out 10 years ago when I needed it. But, as they say, the next best time to read it is today. Do yourself a favour and add this book to your library.

Page 1 notes

Page 2 Notes

Page 3 Notes

Page 4 Notes

Website makeovers can become horribly corrupted, go way off course from the original intent, and sometimes end up hopelessly compromised, and even go undelivered.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, particularly of Seth and 37Signals, and their lessons as they pertain to my goals in overhauling wherespresso.com were highly instructive (seriously, if you want to learn what works, and get way more intelligent about business, read these guys, specifically: Rework and Linchpin).

The key insights I gained from these guys (Linchpin, Getting Real and Rework) is that winners get things shipped. There are a whole lot of points around good (defensive) web design, which you can read here – a must read!

I thought I share some of the insights and key points so that if you are overhauling your site, you can learn from my mistakes and victories.

Please note my redesign is here: it’s far from perfect, and there’s loads to do, but it’s a good start. If you’re a UI/UX ninja and think I have some stuff that is completely wack (“OMG, Tim, WTF?”) drop a comment or email me on what I need to do (it might lead to work for you!).

The Story.
Wherespresso.com was a good idea, but poorly executed, at least from a UI and UX point of view. My key goal in getting a cheap and “nasty” version up quickly after I conceived the idea, was to provide people a platform to share their best coffee experiences with others to ultimately lift the standard of coffee everywhere (a noble goal, although very large).

I always planned to fix the UI and UX up, whilst maintaining a simple, focused site that brought people together and created a network.

So once I had the platform up, I knew I had to make it ultra easy for people to use and share, and best way to do that was to give them something beautiful to look at and beautiful to use (and of course, being highly useful).

The best way to achieve this I thought, was to split the work into 2 main areas: look and feel, and back end functionality.

The smartest way to do this was to knock off low hanging fruit – look and feel, and things that made submitting a review as easy for people as possible. Actually not “easy” but beautiful.

Look and feel could be accomplished by applying a skin to the site, with no other changes considered.

So, I came up with a list of things needing rectification (complex and simple), which I got from usability testing with Chris L (thanks man, you were invaluable) and from what I could see, and away we went.

Back End makeover.
The goals
I wanted to submission form really, really easy to use. A joy to use.

I wanted errors gracefully handled. When people were at their most confused point, I wanted the site to help them resolve the issue. I never wanted people to be left angry or confused about what was happening.

What happened

I thrashed early, and hard. I got people involved, chose a handful of friends, and thrashed through features and functions deemed absolutely necessary, and those nice to have. One of the strong lessons I got from Linchpin is that successful linchpins (shippers) ship as a matter of habit. Simplicity, and constantly shipping requirements was key to meeting this maxim.

Once I had a great list of things, I went to Elance.

I engaged a guy from China who seemed to know what I wanted, and things proceeded nicely. He answered my emails, was getting stuff delivered, and all looked peachy.

However, things then went badly. It's a story for another time, but to cut a long story short, I had to cancel the job. You need to know when to quit.

I then re-listed on elance and awarded the job to someone in Mongolia at a hefty premium to other quotes based on his excellent English and other projects I could find on the web.

This was a disaster. We got off to a good start, but things quickly went sour with him not answering emails, trying to change the terms of the engagement, and simply not delivering. In the end I had to cancel the agreement.

Out of sheer desperation, I posted a "Help Needed" on this site, and immediately got a response from Daniel at Doomstick (Daniel, what on earth is a doomstick?!), confirming he had the chops and could start asap.

I deliberately broke the work into an initial portion to allow me to assess his capability. I was not let down.

Daniel delivered the goods, so much so, that we ended up doing all the work, plus subsequent scope creep, in 4 phases (and we have plans for a lot more). I plan on working with Daniel into the future. He's got excellent communication and coding skills, and I always sought to get his input into my implementation ideas, as my ideas are one thing, but the practical implementation of them is another. Rather than epic code bloat due to my insane ideas, I'd rather underdo the site and make something kick #rse, instead of half-#rsed.

My budget was shot to pieces, but in this case, it was worth it and I think my budget was way too low to begin with.

How we Collaborated
Daniel and I worked based on trust. We collaborated using a set of requirements in Google Docs where we could park scope creep into subsequent phases and riff with each other with one column each for comments, with new entries being bolded. This was better than email. Way simpler.

I had an in-development section, a bug section, a completed section and a to-do list. Maximum transparency.

Once something was marked done, I tested the functionality on the test server, which had a copy of data from the live site. Once it met the requirements, that's it, done. Next! (Remember, you MUST ship, even if it's a simple requirement).

We kept repeating this process, killing bugs, until I wrote SHIPPED! in Phase 2B (which followed Phase 1 and Phase 2A).

Front end makeover.
To be honest, after seeing Lauren's site, chatting to her about what I wanted to achieve, and then getting a quote from her, there was never really any doubt about who to use. Lauren is an artist. She's clear, forthright and can-do. I cannot remember how I happened upon her (perhaps it was Smashing Magazine), but I am glad I did.

With Lauren, there is no scope creep, which is critical to getting stuff shipped. For some people, hearing "no" or "not in scope" can be galling, but for me, it's perfect.

Nothing is too big a deal for her, and she is unfailingly polite, and chirpy (which is a good balance to my direct, almost blunt, manner) human being.

We agreed on a scope, a cost (no timeframe), and away we went.

Lauren and Daniel communicated where needed, which made things way easier for me (I hope you guys didn't mind).

She's my go to person for design now.

The delivery time frame
I started this around August 2009, and delivered something that met most of wherespresso's user's requirements in March 2010; 7 months. I had originally intended to have this delivered before Christmas, so as that deadline passed, and then another, I began to feel agitated.

The delays impacted on the delivery of my iPhone app, allowing one of my competitors to get to market first. I had to remind myself being first to market never matters. Being *best* to market does (Google, anyone?).

At least on the shipping on time metric, I failed, or at least felt I had.

On reflection, I had nothing to ship, so delay was needed (a nice postscript to that is that the delay allowed me to read Defensive Web Design, which completely changed the design and function of the site for the better).

The lessons
Here is what I learnt from this. In no order of importance.

• Get someone who speaks your language natively, or near natively. I believe this is critical in understanding context, especially if one of the party is Australian - we have a very strange vernacular.
• Break your work down into portions that reflect their benefit to the user. There is absolutely nothing wrong with picking low hanging fruit that removes several points of pain for the user quickly and cheaply. If they can prove themselves with small tasks that can be executed quickly, you both win; you get pain points removed to the benefit of the user, and you can move on to tackle the big stuff.
• Go with someone who has a transparent history of delivery. Daniel and Lauren both have that. If the person has a site, with links to projects they've completed, that's an excellent start. Forget the resume and spin, Google has everything you need.
• Always wireframe your screens and functionality. I gave Daniel wireframes for UI screens, and use cases for UX/workflow. Functional specs are not functional.
• Find an artist with a history of shipping (yes, it's that important).
• Don't write a functional spec, they are not functional!
• Read these books! Getting Real, Defensive Design for the Web - at a minimum

Anyway, this would not have been possible without the following people:

• Kate: never complained when I was on my laptop, even when we were in Hawaii. You're a gem!
• Lauren and Daniel: you guys are incredible.
• Everyone who helped push this along (Chris L, this means you!)

We should all be so lucky to have such amazing support.

Seeing as I am heading overseas soon, I needed a way of saving attachments (pdfs, specifically, for plane itineraries and passport scans) from emails on my iPhone (both from the Mail app and from a browser) to my iPhone. I didn’t want to have them just attached to emails (even IF I had downloaded them), just in case.

There are a couple of problems with me wanting to do this.

1. There’s no way to natively save attachments except images in the iPhone (without some serious mucking around with iPhone hacks).
2. There’s no file browser on the iPhone.

So, as frequently needed with Apple products, we need a hack.

As an aside: why on Earth don’t Apple just open up their platform and let people get crazy creative; they’d sell LOADS more iPhones and iPods. This whole business of having to download Cydia to get proper access to your terminal is ridiculous.

In any case, in order to be able to save email attachments, you have two options.

1. Download Cydia, which allows you to hack your iPhone. Cydia is pretty easy to install, but involves a fair bit of stuffing around, particularly if you’re not techy. Additionally, some of the plugins for Safari/Email cost around $2.00, and the ones I downloaded and paid for didn’t work. You can read how this can be done over here.
2. Download an iPhone app that allows you to do this. This is the favoured route, and is what I describe below.

So, here’s how to save attachments from your iPhone email to your actual phone.

Note that this only works when accessing your email in a web browser. If anyone knows how to do this from within the iPhone Mail app, please let me know.

1. Download Downloads Lite from the App store on your iPhone. I couldn’t find it online sorry, so no link. It’s definitely in the App store on your iPhone though.
2. Open a browser and navigate to your mail.
3. Find an email with an attachment.


Attachment in mail (in browser)

4. Click on the attachment and open it. You’ll see the URL of the attachment above the attachment itself. Highlight the URL and copy it.


Opened attachment - see the URL?





Click on the URL





Select the URL and Copy

5. Open up Downloads Lite. Click the Downloads icon in the toolbar.


Open Downloads Lite

6. Click the + icon in the top right corner. It will open a dialogue where you can enter the URL you copied from the browser where your mail attachment URL was.


URL bar

7. Click the “Address” input; the paste button will appear; click it. Your attachment URL is now pasted in.


Paste URL





Pasted!

8. Hit “Done”. Your attachment will start downloading.


Downloading





Downloading





Done!

9. When it’s done, you can open it from the Downloads or Files menu.


Open Sesame!

10. Voila! Enjoy!


Magic!

The pros to this process.
Attachments can be saved.

Cons.
It’s a royal pain in the arse (fk you Apple, fix this!).
You can’t do this from within the native Mail App.
You can’t forward an attachment from within the Downloads Lite app (there may be others that let you do so).

If anyone knows of any apps that let you do the same thing, apart from Downloader Lite, let me know in the comments.

The files are saved in the App. If anyone knows how I can access these outside the App (e.g. an App store iPhone file system browser) let me know.

MaxBlogPress makes some handy Wordpress plugins, one of these is the Ninja Affiliate Plugin.

This plugin allows you to shortcut your affiliate keyword linking via a special plugin, saving you loads of time.

Anyway, this isn’t a hard sell. Check it out, and if you like what you see, I’d love if you bought it using this link (disclosure: this is an affiliate link).

The best recommendation I can give it, is that I use it.

Normally $97, down to $67 for 2 more days.

Here’s what it lets you do.

• Easy Affiliate Link Management – You can easily give each affiliate link an easy-to-remember name.
• Flexible Link Management – Accepts every affiliate link format out there, so you don’t have to waste time with various affiliate marketing tools.
• Create Professional Redirect Links – Use professional looking redirect links that let your prospects know you’re a pro marketer.
• Manage Links by Groups – Too many affiliate links? Ninja Affiliate allows you to easily create different groups to manage your links.
• Prevent “Affiliate Theft” – Cloak your affiliate links to prevent link theft and affiliate sabotage. No one will ever steal your hard-earned commissions again.
• Insert Affiliate Links Directly – Add your affiliate links directly for your Wordpress blog editor – you’ll never have to hunt for links again.
• Transform Keywords to Links – Automatically turn keywords in your blog to affiliate links. You can set a limit too, so your posts don’t look like a spam blog!
• Advanced Display Options – Ninja Affiliate allows you to display any text you want in your web browser’s status bar.
• Use “No-Follow” Links – Control your link juice and escape punishment from Big Daddy Google with ninja precision. In fact, you can control your links any way you want to.