Category Archives: it just works

Nov 15 0 comments
Computers, it just works, software

Time Machine (The Mac OS X one)

Computers fail; often.

And if they don’t fail, they get stolen.

And if they don’t get stolen, they get lost.

And even if you backup, how often does that backup work.

I use a Mac, and every so often I’m reminded why I use a Mac. It gets out of my way and just works, so I don’t worry about what computer I use, but it does happen to be a Mac.

I was reminded by this last weekend. The MacBook my wife uses has an internal hard-drive that simply died. It simply died. Booting from the System disk yielded the error that the hard drive was unrepairable.

No sweat was expended. I could have bought a new internal hard drive and installed it, or do what I chose to do. Replace the entire machine. (It was nearly 4 years old and had put in a good innings.)

Friday night, I ventured down to Best Buy, walked in and out in a few minutes and 25 minutes later had the new MacBook Pro (13″, a VERY nice machine) restoring from the Time MachineTimeMachine backup that was last updated about 30 minutes before the old computer died.

It restored in about 4 hours to exactly has she left it. The mess of icons scattered all over the desktop included.

While the machine was on my desk, I installed Snow Leopard. That was another 35 minutes. (Which itself is another functional upgrade.)

I took the machine upstairs and returned it, exactly as she had last left her old machine not a few elapsed hours earlier.

Time Machine truly does work.

Whether it is a single file, an entire hard drive or the way your system was two weeks ago, Time Machine simply works.

Knowing that you always get back to exactly where you were, be it because someone stole your laptop or you were just stupid is very powerful. You can get back to doing the work that you do and not worry about HOW you do it.

It Just Works!

Oct 17 1 comments
electronic gadgets, it just works

Corded Phones

My NT Vista 350Northern Telecom Vista 350

Growing up in Toronto in the 80s and 90s meant that my telecom provider at home was Bell.

While you used to be able to buy phones, you also could rent them. For numerous reasons (mostly because Bell was a corporate brother to Northern Telecom) Bell had “NT” phones.

And damn, those phones were good. I should say ARE good.

Upon return to Canada back in ‘97, I purchased from London Drugs a refurbished Northern Telecom (the older branding of ‘Nortel’) Vista 350 for what I recall as nearly $100. My lovely wife mocked me. She said it was a waste of money and had those horrible things called cords.

13 years later.

In those 13 years probably 3 or 4 sets of cordless phones have arrived and departed because they sucked or died, or both.

I just finished working from home for a week, using my Vista 350 phone making 20-30 calls a day.

Without fail, every phone call was perfect. The buttons are clearly labeled, and each operation worked as I expected them.

Conversely, my client’s office uses an Avaya PBX with expensive handsets. But no one really know’s to use them. I’m sure it has a ton of features, but it’s so damn non-intuitive, no one tries. It’s fairly common to see people on their cell phones, while sitting at their desks.

My Vista 350, with fewer buttons than the ugly Avaya (i.e. Lucent) permits a multitude of seemingly obvious tasks with ease:

  • Call Display (Name AND number; that Avaya only does number)
  • Scrollable Caller list (Avaya doesn’t have one)
  • Maintain a directory of phone numbers and names (Avaya is a no go)
  • Add a recent caller to a the directory (Avaya can’t do that)
  • Redial last few dialled numbers (nope for Avaya)
  • Put caller on hold, make new call, connect callers (I fail every time on the Avaya)
  • Visual ringing (bright blinking red light which his handy when kids Nintendo Wii is blaring)
  • Awesome speakerphone

And this phone is well over 15 years old and it works without power.

(Oddly, these are all things that an iPhone with similar grace.)

But try and buy a phone like my Vista 350 today.

No luck, FutureShop carries a single corded model. Telus makes no indication they sell corded telephones on their web-site.

Though I’m happy to see that Bell still sells a child of my phone the Aastra 390.

It Just Works — the phone on my desk.

Sep 12 0 comments
it just works, software

WordPress – It just works!

It’s not the Trini.  Sorry mate, I had to hijack your column for a post.

We just upgraded The Cheap Scottish Bastard back-end (that certainly sounds strange doesn’t it?) to the latest version of WordPress (2.8.4) from an older 2.7 version.  Unfortunately the automatic 2.7->2.8 upgrade process didn’t work.  The manual upgrade, while a bit labor intensive, worked just fine.  I believe the automatic upgrade failure was due to a limitation at our host rather than an issue with WordPress itself.

If you’re not running WordPress as your blogging or content management engine, you should.  Why? It just works!

That being said, if you notice any problems with the site please let us know!  Use the handy contact link top-right.

-the scot

Aug 16 0 comments
Uncategorized, electronic gadgets, free stuff, it just works

Google Voice

Google purchased a company many years ago called Grand Central, an aptly named company that gives you a new phone number, performs a few tricks and goes a long way to making your choice of phone company irrelevant.

Not available in Canada (yet) and available in an invitation only mode in the US, Google Voice has made your phone service (be it landline or wireless) a commodity.
4232368305-voice_logo_smMost people who have a phone also have a computer. So why is it that the only integration that exists between your phone and your computer is the fact you can get an email with your monthly bill along with some online account maintenance?

Where’s my Rogers or AT&T voice mail delivered to my email box? It’s 2009 folks!

Why can’t I send an SMS from my computer as if it came from my phone? (I sure can type a LOT faster on my computer than my phone.)

Why can’t I auto-magically send certain callers to voice mail, or certain callers to ring my phone at home?

Google Voice does all of that. For free (for now).

It seamlessly integrates your voice mail, your SMS ‘life’, your address book, the multiple phone lines in your life between your computer and your phone and makes the actual phone companies you use nothing more than a carrier of bits.

The sad part is that the the big wireless customers had the ability to implement many similar services but failed to take advantage of the opportunity.

The cat’s out of the bag. Google Voice — it just works.

Jul 19 0 comments
it just works

“Mobile” Web sites for the masses

I still don’t like most web-sites. Most of them seem to forget usability in lieu of eye-candy.

As a traveller I often notice travel web-sites more than most. There are some serious offenders from good design rules.

Why is it more difficult to get a flight status on Air Canada’s website than search for a new flight?

But I digress from my “It Just Works!” post.

As iPhones and other mobile web-browsers become more numerous, I’m seeing a delightful trend. The trend is for web-sites that are designed to load quickly in a small amount of real-estate and contain the information most likely to be desired.

Perfect example: http://pda.continental.com
calweb1

Even on my laptop with super duper internet speeds, I use it instead of their ‘full’ web-sites.

It loads extremely quickly and the information listed is the frequent traveler’s top information request.

It gets better. When looking up a flight you can choose, in advance, the information you are looking for. This saves a click and a page refresh. Smart.
calweb2

For the airline enthusiast and the frequent traveller, Continentals web site goes one further. It tells you which FIN # is assigned to any flight and tells you where the plane is coming from:

calweb3

The result is information that without a doubt will tell you when your flight is going to be on-time.

Continental’s mobile web-site is an example of “It Just Works!” The user’s experience is maintained as the #1 priority. All that talk of “Less is more” is true in this case.

There are numerous other companies that have mobile web-sites which in my opinion are as good as if not better than their standard websites if you just want to do something quickly:

And some other air travel related web-sites:

I wish my list was longer.

Jun 20 0 comments
electronic gadgets, it just works

Labeling the paper towel dispenser

As a very frequent travelerimg_47701, I see a lot of paper towel dispensers.

Most of them represent the worst in design.

A good designer can make even complex mechanical objects simple to use. But why is this so rarely applied to paper towel dispensers?

I have a rule, if you need to label a paper towel dispenser, you have failed as a designer. (For that matter, if you need to label a door ‘Push or Pull’ you have truly failed.)

The dispenser pictured failed on two accounts.

1) The “Pull with both hands” should be a reminder to the user that the designers failed to take into account that a users hands are often wet when grabbing the sliver of exposed paper towel. As a result, the towel will fail to retain that modicum of strength required to get the towel out.

2) Once that sliver of exposed paper towel disappears the user requires additional instruction to turn the knob on the side of the dispenser to get more paper towel.

This is not an old dispenser, I took a picture of this dispenser in a recently renovated bathroom in the Portland, Oregon airport.

Contrast this with the paper towel dispenser now seen more and more often, the Georgia-Pacific enMotion.

59460A picture of a waving hand in front of a small window is all that the user needs to know about how to operate this dispenser. Such a dispenser works, and works well.

Though I’m biased (I worked with Georgia-Pacific for over a year in the early 2000’s) but also had the opportunity to have lunch (in a diner in Green Bay, WI) with the designers of this paper towel dispenser and learned how well it is designed.

  1. “D” cell – This thing runs on a single ‘D’ cell battery, and should last over a year on a single battery.
  2. The plastic is barely see-through. Why? The user can see if the paper towel has ran out and can move on to another dispenser, but not get distracted by it’s mechanical contents.
  3. Length – Settings inside the dispenser control how much paper towel is dispensed each time.
  4. Wait – Settings inside the dispenser control how long the user must wait until the next towel.
  5. Pre or Post – An additional setting controls whether a towel should be ‘at the ready’ or spit out when the user activates it.

As a result, the dispenser can be setup to prevent that ‘4 foot paper towel guy’ to dry damp hands or customized to keep nicely square towels on the ready for a kitchen.

It’s very economical to operate, looks cool and the user is usually left not even aware they had an encounter with a paper towel dispenser. This is a function of good design.

I hope that you’ll never see a paper towel dispenser in the same way again.

- The Traveling Trini

May 27 0 comments
it just works

The ’splash stick’

I work in a part of the world where neither Tim Hortons or Second Cup is to be found. I’m thankful for Starbucks as a result. I love my coffee.splashstick

Another feature of the part of the world where I work is bad drivers and pot holes.

Starbucks finally introduced the “Splash Stick” to this US metropolis. It’s a simple piece of plastic that covers that little slurping hole in the top of every cup. It covers that hole where vast quantities of coffee can exit  rapidly upon hitting a modest sized pot hole or swerving to avoid bad drivers.

Simple and ‘it just works.’

(And yes, I re-use wherever I can to minimize waste.)

Apr 30 2 comments
it just works

RCMP’s Gun Control Method

I read an interesting article in a newspaper a while back about a simple method of gun-control being used in some towns in Northern Canada.

Rifle

Gun-owner’s protest often decry any attempt to control what they believe to be a right: “To own a gun”. Which for the most part is legal in Canada.

And one of there often quoted reasons is they wish to go hunting, which is also legal in Canada.

But it is when those legal guns are used for things other than legal hunting where things go awry. (i.e. domestic violence regrettably occurs.)

A simple solution: Your guns are stored at the local RCMP detachment. Flash your ID, take your gun hunting, return it when your done.

This also might lower your home insurance, remove a temptation for a young child and reduce a temptation for a thief.

It just struck me as very smart; “It Just Works!”

Apr 26 1 comments
it just works

It Just Doesn’t Work – Furniture Sales

Sometimes the Travelling Trini does rather domestic things.

This weekend involved buying a new ’sectional’. (A chesterfield with a curve for those Canadian’s that are following along.)

Maybe I am thick or I am giving away the next great business idea here.

The Travelling Trini’s lovely wife and I visited several stores, some with international brand-name recognition and requested to get a price on our desired combination of ‘ends’, ‘chaise’s’ and ‘fabric.’ I’m guessing that the average furniture sales person gave out 30 similar quotations on the same day.

Such volume, one would think, would warrant a rather disciplined process that would do several things:

  • Capture our name and phone # (so someone could follow-up)
  • Capture the product configuration and special pricing quoted (so someone could confirm the price offered)
  • Project an air of “We sell furniture” professionalism.

Didn’t happen.

We received quotations on a business card, an outdated brochure and a photocopy of a page designed for internal sales orientation.

In a competitive marketplace (these places were all on the same street), one would think sales rep would leave themselves a phone # and name to do some sales follow up. What else would they do while looking out into that empty store of smelly leather listening to some bad FM hitz-pop radio?

Now that I think about it, the price quotations when buying my last car consisted of hand-written price on the back of a business card belonging to someone else other than the person I spoke to.

I guess the world continues to buy furniture with this sort of lame process; so no one changes anything.

Apr 13 0 comments
electronic gadgets, it just works

The best RSS News Feed Reader!

The Travelling Trini is travelling today, to Trinidad.

As I passed through the airline lounge lobby I was reminded of the best RSS reader, ever!

This RSS reader has solved almost everything that drags down most readers. It prioritizes, reflects local priorities, has incredibly relevant advertising, appropriate pictures and diagrams, is divided itself into multiple sections, never duplicates news items and can be read ‘during take-off and landing.’

paperIt’s been under development continually for several hundred years. But alas the newspaper as we know it, may not be around much longer.

It’s very depressing to hear of newspapers unable to make a ‘go’ of it these days. And I don’t see how reading news on a computer, or even a phone is better.

In the incredibly rich info-world we live in, if I want to find out what is likely to be important, what I need to know, what is locally relevant and never read the same news item twice; I read my local newspaper. There is a good chance that a professional news gathering and editorial team will do a better job than I can.

Sure there is plenty of reason to subscribe to vastly technical and geeky newsfeeds about your obscure interests. But how a web page or software program is going to piece together a summary of the news of the day, ensure it is in the same voice and deliver in for pennies I’ll never know.

The best part?

I can ignore the “please store your computers, iPods and phones” for takeoff and landing bit.