A couple of weeks back Opera announced that they were going to give away their browser free (no ads and no licensing fee). Just like Firefox.
I promptly downloaded the latest version of Opera and installed it in my laptop. And I was hooked! I really can't say what it was that made me switch but in a day I had Opera as my default browser, uninstalled AvantBrowser and delegated Firefox to the second browser spot. Earlier I had Firefox as my 'first' browser, AvantBrowser as my 'second' browser and IE as my 'third' browser. Now I have Opera as my first, Firefox as my second and IE as my third browser (simply because I can't safely uninstall it and still expect Windows to work).
This Opera is just starting.
By the way, if you're wondering what I meant by "the fat lady singeth" look at this page.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
User Experience
The other day (no, it was not THAT other day) I was at an ATM. Lets call the ATM of Bank 'I-52' (why does everyone call the unknowns - X and Y?) So there I was pushing buttons, working the thing and waiting for the dough when I started thinking.
Before that a bit of a background. I have also had the good fortune to access more than one bank. Not that I have a lot of moolah to store, but thats besides the point. So I have used the ATM of Bank 'C-87' also in the past. OK now on with the story.
OK so while waiting for the dough I started to think about the differences I noticed in the ATMs of these two banks.
Bank 'C-87' has this nice plushy casing for its ATM with a touchscreen monitor embedded into the wall (or table or whatever they can find at that particular location). You just press the icons on the touchscreen, the thing gives out a few comforting beeps and out comes the moolah. Plus the graphical interface on this ATM is also quite nice - subtle colors, soft corners on buttons, very easy on the eyes etc.
Bank 'I-52' on the other hand has this box-like contraption which encases its ATM machine. There are hard physical buttons (no touchscreen) for you to type your PIN number etc. The menus are operated by another set of buttons which are nowhere near numeric keypad that you used to type in your PIN number. The on-screen graphics uses very harsh colors which are not necessarily easy on the eyes. Especially when you are desperate for the moolah.
And there are no comforting beeps.
OK so what is the moral of this story? Well I 'feel' happy and content (like a baby that has just had its milk) when I use the ATM of Bank 'C-87'. Bank 'C-87' makes me feel good about the experience. Whereas the ATM of Bank 'I-52' makes me 'feel' that life couldn't get any worse.
I get my dough in both situations (and in approximately the same amount of time) but the difference was in the user experience.
The moolah is really in the user experience.
Before that a bit of a background. I have also had the good fortune to access more than one bank. Not that I have a lot of moolah to store, but thats besides the point. So I have used the ATM of Bank 'C-87' also in the past. OK now on with the story.
OK so while waiting for the dough I started to think about the differences I noticed in the ATMs of these two banks.
Bank 'C-87' has this nice plushy casing for its ATM with a touchscreen monitor embedded into the wall (or table or whatever they can find at that particular location). You just press the icons on the touchscreen, the thing gives out a few comforting beeps and out comes the moolah. Plus the graphical interface on this ATM is also quite nice - subtle colors, soft corners on buttons, very easy on the eyes etc.
Bank 'I-52' on the other hand has this box-like contraption which encases its ATM machine. There are hard physical buttons (no touchscreen) for you to type your PIN number etc. The menus are operated by another set of buttons which are nowhere near numeric keypad that you used to type in your PIN number. The on-screen graphics uses very harsh colors which are not necessarily easy on the eyes. Especially when you are desperate for the moolah.
And there are no comforting beeps.
OK so what is the moral of this story? Well I 'feel' happy and content (like a baby that has just had its milk) when I use the ATM of Bank 'C-87'. Bank 'C-87' makes me feel good about the experience. Whereas the ATM of Bank 'I-52' makes me 'feel' that life couldn't get any worse.
I get my dough in both situations (and in approximately the same amount of time) but the difference was in the user experience.
The moolah is really in the user experience.
In search of power
The other day I was on my way to a meeting when my mobile (a Nokia 6255) beeped. I looked at its screen and found the message "Low battery". Accompanying this message was a cute animation of a battery with very little "juice" (power) shaking around all over the screen. This set me thinking - why can't mobile phones be a little more intelligent?
Lets say the phone is nearly out of juice and could shut itself down at any moment. The last thing you would want it to do in such a situation is display a cute animation which uses up even more juice and hastens its end. What I would like the mobile to do in such a situation is to get into a mode that uses as little juice as possible but yet warn me so that I can get it charged again.
Perhaps the phone could have some form of power management (do any mobiles do that already, outside of these 'smartphone PDAs' that is?). Sort of like the power management you find on laptops - with several hundred profiles such as "writing email", "oogling at pics", "trying to get work done in MS Word" etc which adjust the processor's speed etc based on the kind of activity you're currently on. I am sure there must be a dozen activities that the latest and greatest mobile phone does which have absolutely no impact on your life and which could be safely switched off in favor of a bit more juice.
How about if you're on a call and the mobile phone is able to recognize that you are at the receiving end of a boring conversation? The phone could send you a subtle beep which means "Hey this conversation is not worth my juice". You would then have an option to, for example, clear your throat in the next 5 seconds, which the mobile phone would recognize and promptly disconnect the caller. The phone would then send a message to the mobile service provider's server instructing it to automatically issue a 'busy' signal to that caller for the next 12 hours, hence saving some more juice. Hopefully by then they would have also forgotten what they wanted to say, saving some more juice.
Lets say the phone is nearly out of juice and could shut itself down at any moment. The last thing you would want it to do in such a situation is display a cute animation which uses up even more juice and hastens its end. What I would like the mobile to do in such a situation is to get into a mode that uses as little juice as possible but yet warn me so that I can get it charged again.
Perhaps the phone could have some form of power management (do any mobiles do that already, outside of these 'smartphone PDAs' that is?). Sort of like the power management you find on laptops - with several hundred profiles such as "writing email", "oogling at pics", "trying to get work done in MS Word" etc which adjust the processor's speed etc based on the kind of activity you're currently on. I am sure there must be a dozen activities that the latest and greatest mobile phone does which have absolutely no impact on your life and which could be safely switched off in favor of a bit more juice.
How about if you're on a call and the mobile phone is able to recognize that you are at the receiving end of a boring conversation? The phone could send you a subtle beep which means "Hey this conversation is not worth my juice". You would then have an option to, for example, clear your throat in the next 5 seconds, which the mobile phone would recognize and promptly disconnect the caller. The phone would then send a message to the mobile service provider's server instructing it to automatically issue a 'busy' signal to that caller for the next 12 hours, hence saving some more juice. Hopefully by then they would have also forgotten what they wanted to say, saving some more juice.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
More cool stuff
Here's stuff I found on my travels through the Internet today.
LifeHacker.com - downloads, websites and shortcuts to save time.
LifeHack.org - this is a similar sounding site on productivity and "getting things done".
MinimizeToTray - this Firefox extension allows the Firefox browser to be minimized to tray.
AJAX - this technology has been made popular by Google via its various services such as Google Maps and Google Suggest. Here's a good example of a web-based service developed using AJAX.
OneLook reverse dictionary - describe a concept and get back a word. Simple.
Google Blog Search - Finally Google unveils a specialized search for just the blogs. I searched for my name and found a link to my blog and also this post on another blog.
Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions - Yes Microsoft actually gives away "express" versions of its Visual Studio software (includes free versions of Visual Basic 2005, Visual C# 2005, etc).
LifeHacker.com - downloads, websites and shortcuts to save time.
LifeHack.org - this is a similar sounding site on productivity and "getting things done".
MinimizeToTray - this Firefox extension allows the Firefox browser to be minimized to tray.
AJAX - this technology has been made popular by Google via its various services such as Google Maps and Google Suggest. Here's a good example of a web-based service developed using AJAX.
OneLook reverse dictionary - describe a concept and get back a word. Simple.
Google Blog Search - Finally Google unveils a specialized search for just the blogs. I searched for my name and found a link to my blog and also this post on another blog.
Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions - Yes Microsoft actually gives away "express" versions of its Visual Studio software (includes free versions of Visual Basic 2005, Visual C# 2005, etc).
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Cool stuff for the week
Here's some stuff that I am trying out currently.
Qurb - this software provides spam protection as well as a "challenge-response" mechanism to keep your inbox clean of unwanted email. It also has a very fast email search facility for Outlook.
Audible - Listen to hundreds of books, magazines and radio shows. I'm addicted. Atleast this way I read/listen to one book every month.
RhymeZone - When you haven't got the time, to make up a rhyme - visit the RhymeZone and get tons of suggestions.
Qurb - this software provides spam protection as well as a "challenge-response" mechanism to keep your inbox clean of unwanted email. It also has a very fast email search facility for Outlook.
Audible - Listen to hundreds of books, magazines and radio shows. I'm addicted. Atleast this way I read/listen to one book every month.
RhymeZone - When you haven't got the time, to make up a rhyme - visit the RhymeZone and get tons of suggestions.
Engineering the environment
I was listening to Michael Crichton's State of Fear last month (yes, listening and not reading - I finally subscribed to Audible). The book's excellent and well researched like most of Crichton's books. This book and some real life incidents have set me thinking.
In the book, an organization working for environmental protection and against global warming resorts to engineering natural disasters like a tsunami, hurricane and so on in order to prove its point that global warming is leading to disastrous changes in climate.
Over the past month two natural disasters occured that I am aware of - one was the torrential rains that hit Mumbai in the North of India and the other was the Hurricane Katarina that hit the Gulf Coast of USA. Both incidents resulted in unprecedented losses of life and property.
I'm not saying that these incidents are due to global warming. But I am thinking what would happen if real life mirrored fiction and terrorist organizations started engineering natural disasters by manipulating the environment? Would this lead to "eco"-terrorism?
In the book, an organization working for environmental protection and against global warming resorts to engineering natural disasters like a tsunami, hurricane and so on in order to prove its point that global warming is leading to disastrous changes in climate.
Over the past month two natural disasters occured that I am aware of - one was the torrential rains that hit Mumbai in the North of India and the other was the Hurricane Katarina that hit the Gulf Coast of USA. Both incidents resulted in unprecedented losses of life and property.
I'm not saying that these incidents are due to global warming. But I am thinking what would happen if real life mirrored fiction and terrorist organizations started engineering natural disasters by manipulating the environment? Would this lead to "eco"-terrorism?
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Memories and a lot more
Beep.
That was me booting up. After being in hibernation for a month if not more. Somehow I can't seem to "find time" to write. Or maybe I'm just plain lazy. Its been so long I wonder if anyone still checks this page for updates.
This past week has been eventful. I got duly food poisoned by some fruit juice I had last Sunday and spent the best part of Monday and Tuesday this week vomiting and rushing to the bathroom - not necessarily in that order.
Morbid as it may sound but this was also probably my first experience in passing out. It was a strange feeling. I was seated in my chair trying to get some rest. At first it felt like a rush of blood to my head. As though my brain suddenly needed more of it. I felt my vision blurring. And then there was nothing. It was like as though someone had just switched me off. After a few seconds (or maybe a few minutes, I don't know) I was switched on again and was in a different place (in front of the wash basin actually - put there by mom who was splashing water on me face). What happened in between I would probably never know. It was a strange feeling.
We take so much for granted. Sight, sound, smell, thought, ... I wonder what someone that didn't have one or more of these senses would do. What if I couldn't see? What if I couldn't speak or hear? When you're alive, you exist - and that feeling of existing is felt both by others and by you. You know you exist. Others (even if they choose to ignore you) know that you exist. What would the person that was in a coma feel? Will their existence be of any meaning to them? Will their existence be solely for the purpose of other people, who hoped that one day they would switch themselves on again?
I'm probably crazy, but such thoughts do make their presense felt in me and I wanted to put them down some place.
I went and had a hair cut today and saw many small kids getting their hair cuts. Their dads were proudly standing behind the chairs directing the barber - "hey not so close, leave it natural". I normally don't go to the saloon on Sundays since it would be too crowded, but today was an exception. The sight brought back memories. Memories of when I was a kid and my dad used to take me to the saloon. It was a big event. The Sunday visit to the saloon. We used to go on my dad's scooter (a 'Lamberta' or something - he had to actually wait 5 years after booking the scooter to get it delivered, such was the demand for scooters those days). The saloon was right next to Kamal Haasan's (the Tamil actor) house and it prided itself in having him among its prestigious clientele. The barber used to be delighted to see me. Maybe he was like that with everyone but he made me feel special to sit there in his chair and get my hair cut. He would go about his business telling interesting stories (and gossip) to all those that cared to listen to him. At the end of his labor of love would be me, spanking clean with a nice hair cut and smelling of talcum powder. Wonderful memories.
The past week also saw some techie announcements that I have been following. First of all, iTunes 4.9 is out and it has podcatching support! Which means I can just click and subscribe to podcasts within iTunes and they sync automatically to my iPod. Cool one. And then there was also the announcement from Microsoft that their (here soon now) Longhorn OS will natively support RSS feeds - which means blogs can stream to your desktop, inter-person communications can take place via RSS feeds, and a lot more. Both these announcements were made at the Gnomedex 5.0 conference organized by Chris Pirillo (did I spell it right?). The power of blogs and podcasts meant that I could follow the conference happening in Seattle right from the comfort of my home. The written word, the photos, the audio, the video - created a picture of all that was happening at the conference. The wonder of technology...
A couple of things about the conference. Adam Curry's keynote speech (which was at the end of the conference) - was totally awesome. He is a great podcaster and I admire the way he timed his speech, inserted the punch lines, raised emotions with Rob Costlow's success story and left the audience cheering and clapping and thinking. The showman extraordinaire! And then there is Dave Winer. He's the guy that came up with the RSS specification that lead to the birth of blogs and podcasts. Together they make a great team and have, along with several other pioneers, launched the next big revolution in media and broadcasting.
The future is being podcast! :-) I think podcasts will be a serious alternative to radio and other media sooner than we think. And just wait till iPods get video capability and then we can see a surge in videocasts as well. And that could lead to maybe professionally produced (short) films downloadable to your iPod. And a whole new industry of "indie" (as they call it) media.
There's one thing I noticed with iTunes 4.9. When podcasts are downloading there is no way (atleast as far as I could see) to pause the download. Sometimes when 3 or 4 podcasts are downloading it eats up all available bandwidth and I can no longer browse any other site (or its extremely slow to be usable). In some cases I may want to actually pause the download and then restart it after I'm done browsing. When I cancel a download it actually now starts downloading from the beginning. This is something that will probably need looking into.
Oh well, I go from one topic to the other without any proper sequence but thats the beauty of blogs.
I watched "Black" - a Hindi movie - on DVD today. It generated a wonderful, touching, emotional experience. Sort of encapsulates some of what I've said above - the feeling of being lonely, the feeling of darkness all around, the feeling of succeeding after years and years of trying. I would give it a ten out of ten not because everyone's raving about it, but because I really felt the emotions the director was trying to convey with the film.
Soon it will be a year since I started blogging and I need to clean this place up and give it a new look. Or maybe you would like me to vacate this space forever? :-) Suggestions are welcome.
[o&o]
That was me booting up. After being in hibernation for a month if not more. Somehow I can't seem to "find time" to write. Or maybe I'm just plain lazy. Its been so long I wonder if anyone still checks this page for updates.
This past week has been eventful. I got duly food poisoned by some fruit juice I had last Sunday and spent the best part of Monday and Tuesday this week vomiting and rushing to the bathroom - not necessarily in that order.
Morbid as it may sound but this was also probably my first experience in passing out. It was a strange feeling. I was seated in my chair trying to get some rest. At first it felt like a rush of blood to my head. As though my brain suddenly needed more of it. I felt my vision blurring. And then there was nothing. It was like as though someone had just switched me off. After a few seconds (or maybe a few minutes, I don't know) I was switched on again and was in a different place (in front of the wash basin actually - put there by mom who was splashing water on me face). What happened in between I would probably never know. It was a strange feeling.
We take so much for granted. Sight, sound, smell, thought, ... I wonder what someone that didn't have one or more of these senses would do. What if I couldn't see? What if I couldn't speak or hear? When you're alive, you exist - and that feeling of existing is felt both by others and by you. You know you exist. Others (even if they choose to ignore you) know that you exist. What would the person that was in a coma feel? Will their existence be of any meaning to them? Will their existence be solely for the purpose of other people, who hoped that one day they would switch themselves on again?
I'm probably crazy, but such thoughts do make their presense felt in me and I wanted to put them down some place.
I went and had a hair cut today and saw many small kids getting their hair cuts. Their dads were proudly standing behind the chairs directing the barber - "hey not so close, leave it natural". I normally don't go to the saloon on Sundays since it would be too crowded, but today was an exception. The sight brought back memories. Memories of when I was a kid and my dad used to take me to the saloon. It was a big event. The Sunday visit to the saloon. We used to go on my dad's scooter (a 'Lamberta' or something - he had to actually wait 5 years after booking the scooter to get it delivered, such was the demand for scooters those days). The saloon was right next to Kamal Haasan's (the Tamil actor) house and it prided itself in having him among its prestigious clientele. The barber used to be delighted to see me. Maybe he was like that with everyone but he made me feel special to sit there in his chair and get my hair cut. He would go about his business telling interesting stories (and gossip) to all those that cared to listen to him. At the end of his labor of love would be me, spanking clean with a nice hair cut and smelling of talcum powder. Wonderful memories.
The past week also saw some techie announcements that I have been following. First of all, iTunes 4.9 is out and it has podcatching support! Which means I can just click and subscribe to podcasts within iTunes and they sync automatically to my iPod. Cool one. And then there was also the announcement from Microsoft that their (here soon now) Longhorn OS will natively support RSS feeds - which means blogs can stream to your desktop, inter-person communications can take place via RSS feeds, and a lot more. Both these announcements were made at the Gnomedex 5.0 conference organized by Chris Pirillo (did I spell it right?). The power of blogs and podcasts meant that I could follow the conference happening in Seattle right from the comfort of my home. The written word, the photos, the audio, the video - created a picture of all that was happening at the conference. The wonder of technology...
A couple of things about the conference. Adam Curry's keynote speech (which was at the end of the conference) - was totally awesome. He is a great podcaster and I admire the way he timed his speech, inserted the punch lines, raised emotions with Rob Costlow's success story and left the audience cheering and clapping and thinking. The showman extraordinaire! And then there is Dave Winer. He's the guy that came up with the RSS specification that lead to the birth of blogs and podcasts. Together they make a great team and have, along with several other pioneers, launched the next big revolution in media and broadcasting.
The future is being podcast! :-) I think podcasts will be a serious alternative to radio and other media sooner than we think. And just wait till iPods get video capability and then we can see a surge in videocasts as well. And that could lead to maybe professionally produced (short) films downloadable to your iPod. And a whole new industry of "indie" (as they call it) media.
There's one thing I noticed with iTunes 4.9. When podcasts are downloading there is no way (atleast as far as I could see) to pause the download. Sometimes when 3 or 4 podcasts are downloading it eats up all available bandwidth and I can no longer browse any other site (or its extremely slow to be usable). In some cases I may want to actually pause the download and then restart it after I'm done browsing. When I cancel a download it actually now starts downloading from the beginning. This is something that will probably need looking into.
Oh well, I go from one topic to the other without any proper sequence but thats the beauty of blogs.
I watched "Black" - a Hindi movie - on DVD today. It generated a wonderful, touching, emotional experience. Sort of encapsulates some of what I've said above - the feeling of being lonely, the feeling of darkness all around, the feeling of succeeding after years and years of trying. I would give it a ten out of ten not because everyone's raving about it, but because I really felt the emotions the director was trying to convey with the film.
Soon it will be a year since I started blogging and I need to clean this place up and give it a new look. Or maybe you would like me to vacate this space forever? :-) Suggestions are welcome.
[o&o]
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