Archive for the ‘usability’ Category
Giving Xobni A Second Chance
In the past I was an enthusiastic Xobni user and a beta tester. But then I found out that enough is enough. Uninstalled and lived my life with Microsoft search. Kinda worked. Today, Matt Brezina the founder of Xobni “contacted” me and informed me that version 1.7 is now out of beta, “telling” me that I should give it a try. So I did.
After 5 restarts of outlook, one crash and lots of minutes crossing fingers while the outlook was not responding, it looks like working now. Faster than before.
FWIW, Xobni includes some refreshing ideas and scores very high for usability (one example below)
Example of usable message
iPhone Update & Other Usability Issues
In case that you were wondering, I said goodbye to the very cool and useful iPhone and I’m now using my old BlackBerry, which continues to serve me well. During the 4 weeks that I have used the iPhone I managed to type very fast, however I found it still inferior when it comes to sending emails. (Try to send iPhone emails while you are walking the dog or waiting in traffic on 101 South at the rush hour). Other than that, I only had issues with “spontaneous” calls that took place when I was placing the iPhone in my pocket without locking the device first. Unfortunately, my iPhone was calling home (3 times during a 5 day trip). Calling home at the middle of the day is nice, unless home’s time zone is PST and you are 10 hours ahead. To be honest, this problem is not unique to iPhone. Using BlackBerry, even when the keys are locked, I managed to call the emergency services (spontaneously of course) several times. The example below is clear (even though the picture was taken with an iPhone):
BlackBerry, ready to call 911
Unfortunately, I Can’t Use an iPhone
Similar to my phone
Trying to looks trendier, I decided that it’s about time to upgrade my not-so-new Blackberry. I just need to get ‘em to stare at my device, I thought to myself. My standards are not too high. I don’t need a camera, movies, mp3, sliders, voices or anything like it. It just need to be cool, trendy, light and above all, attune to my email habits. The first device that I tested was the iPhone 3G. I asked the doctor to land me his phone and after installing active sync server and protecting it with the SE, I was ready to go.
The good things:
The device is sexy and cool. The UI is simple to use (I do not read manuals) and intuitive. The app store is amazing. I will not be the first nor the last person to say that Apple changed the world with this application. Two big thumbs up for the idea and execution. Web surfing is great: it works fine in multiple languages, handles dynamic content well. Attachment management works well as well.
But sadly I report that the iPhone is almost unusable when it comes to handling my emails. Here’s why:
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The Bicycle-Like Instinct
My bikes
There are things that we just can’t forget: like riding a bicycle or even driving a car. I was accompanying one of our sales engineers the other day at a customer sites and felt the urge to configure a layer 4-7 switch. If my memory serves me right, the last time that I was doing something similar was in 2000. Yet, one stare at the Access User Verification prompt and my memory was loaded.
I’m sure that somewhere, someone is studying why there are things that we can not forget. I am more interested in the opposite question. Why did I remember how to configure this switch? No, it was not a Cisco switch. However since Cisco’s IOS, style has been widely copied by other networking products (including the one I was configuring), it was very similar. ? show run conf t ena always work somehow in a networking environment. Like seeing a friendly face in a “networking” cocktail party before the conference is a bout to begin…
Enough Is Enough!
The laptop is killing me. I now have 3G of memory and it still does not behave well. it’s a one year old, dual core Centrino. The best laptop money could buy in mid 2007 (almost). I’m an old dog. Old dogs can’t change work habits like keeping 26 emails open, 17 tabs, 3 presentations and 4 documents. But still, why would the XP use so much memory.
Memory Leaks
My operating system and me are going to separate soon. Expect some updates soon.