Hot Koehl

I hear Toyota is contemplating a quick makeover to their current logo and tagline…

Wish I could take credit for it, but at least it comes complements of fellow PSL member Eight Eleven.

Update: I complimented the author Aaron, and the following conversation ensued…

Aaron:
I’m going to end up in a lawsuit with Toyota for sure on this one.

Frank:
As a design firm, what a boon for business THAT would be!

Aaron:
Yeah, I can see the headlines already: “Japanese automaker Toyota files lawsuit against New Jersey based Advertising and Marketing Agency, Eight Eleven Inc., then mid-suit, hires them to execute a new branding campaign.”

Fantastic.

Reviews for Apple’s iPad are all over the place. Personally, I feel that tablets have tried and failed enough times in the general consumer market to call the concept dead. iPad will likely find adoption in the same niche’s as its predecessors: hospitals and other similar venues where it can effectively replace a manilla folder of documents.

Instead, I find the lack of Flash support more interesting to consider. This seems like a terrible omission for a device that Jobs touts as “the best browsing experience you’ve ever had” (around 3:10). I don’t know about you, but *my* browsing experience would be far less than perfect without access to the de facto standard video streaming technology.

The decision was apparently made due to compatibility problems…

Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.

That may be where the web world is headed, but the iPad is entering a market nowhere near that reality. This just screams classic Apple mindset. They may share the mantra “Everyone else’s stuff is crap” with Microsoft, but Apple tacks the phrase “and that’s why you can’t use it,” onto the end.

I thought that Apple had figured out the market, how to balance a closed platform in order to maintain stability and skyrocket profitability. The Flash decision definitely throws that balance off kilter, and now I’m curious to see if they’ll fall back into the decision-making style of the PC wars in the late 80′s and early 90′s (Note to the kiddies: Mac wasn’t always “cool.” They lost a lot of weight and their acne cleared up just as you entered buying age).

They can get away with dictatorial control over platforms like the iPod and iPhone because they are very focused devices. However iPad is a closer technical cousin to the laptop than the smartphone, and the last few years of App Store and iTunes revenue may be skewing their vision on this one.

My gut tells me they are using iPad to push public perception away from Flash and toward HTML5. There’s no way they’ll make such a play on the Mac platform, but the iPad offers very controlled environment to test the waters. If people (continue to) complain, they’ll publish the iPad Flash patch that they’ve already got sitting on the shelf. Trust me, it’s there.

Update: This image sums up the problem for me quite nicely.

In my life as a full-time employee, I ran a membership management system for an international non-profit that organized over 40,000 volunteers at the local, state, and national levels in almost 30 countries. It coordinated physical material deliveries (part of the system was a full shopping cart installation), managed electronic documents, and delivered news to all those volunteers. I built the system myself from scratch (minus said shopping cart), and ran it on my own for almost three years.

When I wasn’t coding it or maintaining the server, I provided tech support for the office staff and customer support (including phone calls) for volunteers.

I was the only technical person in the whole place.

I can count the number of times that system went down as result of anything other than a hardware issue on one hand.

Much as I love it, I fail to see how a minimally configurable 140-character obtuse message board can fail so often!

Update: Alright, it’s back up. Good recovery this time, but you still have to reset the “Days since an accident” sign back to zero.

With the untimely and unfortunate death of beloved Logitech G5, I was forced to quickly find a replacement. While I know I could simply get a replacement, I figured it might be time to look for newer gear. So after a thorough Google consultation and some in-store browsing, I purchased a Logitech G9 through Amazon.

Let’s just say this is the first and last time I will ever purchase a mouse without getting my hands on it.

At first glance, the mouse seems to be a perfect fit for any hardcore PC gamer, or anyone who spends extended time working on a computer.

First the physical stuff. The eye is a laser instead of infrared. Some people complained that early laser models had a “floaty” feel to them; that effect is gone in newer ones, and provides very good movement accuracy and responsiveness. The bottom of the mouse has broad contact pads, making for very smooth movement across any decent mousing surface (I use a Funcpad F-series F10.s). The gripping surface of the mouse is made to endure extended usage, with a coating that prevents getting sticky or slippery with sweaty hands. Plus the body itself is customizable; you can swap covers to allow for different grips and hand sizes (the unit comes with two sizes). Finally, the scroll wheel can move in a smooth, fluid fashion, or use a “precision mode” with the familiar slight drag.

Under the hood is even more impressive. Like the G5, you can customize the the Report Rate — how often the system reads the mouse for movement. There are 5 possible values, as low as 125 reports/second (about equal to your typical cheapo mouse) or as high as 1000. The higher settings makes the mouse movement extremely responsive and precise.

Also like the G5, you can modify the DPI setting on the fly. Changing the DPI will increase or decrease how far the cursor moves in relation to the mouse. A higher DPI and the mouse cursor moves very fast, a low DPI and the motion becomes more precise. Gamers love this because you can use a high setting in high velocity situations, and a low DPI for things like sniping.

However unlike the G5, the G9 sports an extensive profile system, which allows you to set various DPI sensitivity layouts, in addition to completely custom button mappings, scroll settings, movement speed (which is not DPI), and acceleration. These profiles can be activated based on program — one for games, another for photo editing, etc. — or can be manually switched using a button on the bottom of the mouse. As if that weren’t enough you can store up to 5 of these custom profiles right on the mouse, allowing you to unplug it and take those settings with you. You can store as many profiles as you like on your computer.

All of this sounds impressive. But no matter how nice the bells and whistles, the number one concern when picking a mouse is hand comfort, and the G9 fails miserably in that category for me. The G9 completely lacks the extended length and high arching curve typical of Logitech mice, opting instead for a shorter length and thinner, flatter profile. So instead of supporting your whole hand down to the butt of your palm, it drops off just past your knuckles, severely limiting your ability to firmly grip the mouse.

The thin profile means that you have to tuck your ring and pinky fingers to get them out of the way when moving the mouse, as opposed to the big arch in most Logitech mice that suitably supported your unused digits. If you’ve ever used one of those impossibly tiny travel mice and gotten cramps after using them for a while, you know exactly what I’m talking about here.

There are consequences for the other side of your hand; thick thumbs will have a hard time staying away from the back and forward button on account of the limited space between the top and bottom of the thumb area.

Keep in mind that I did all my testing with the “Wide Load Grip,” a name I decry as a misnomer. The thinner “Precision Grip” was even worse. Perhaps a better custom grip would solve these issues, but as far as I can tell Logitech is not selling any additional grip designs.

The left and right mouse buttons are concave instead of convex, with the left mouse button sporting a deeper well than the right. Due to the curvature of the rest of the mouse body, this layout creates a noticeable gap under your index finger (not as pronounced on the right mouse button). This only exacerbates problems with the DPI button arrangement (more on that later), creating a strong likelihood of accidental clicks.

The scroll wheel itself feels sturdy, but the motion is terrible. I personally don’t like a smooth scrolling wheel, and prefer a crisp click vibration when I move the wheel. Since this mouse does both, the click mode feels like a sloppy half-measure. Tilting the wheel left and right (those are “buttons” too) feels very good, but pushing the wheel down for the middle click is abysmal. It has a ton of resistance, doesn’t go deep enough when you push it, and lacks an audible “click” noise. The net result: you’re often unsure if you’ve actually activated the mouse wheel click, deliberately or accidentally, and you must check the screen for a result; way more effort than necessary.

They also moved the buttons and indicators for the DPI setting from their earlier location. On the G5, they had two ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons that sat below the scroll wheel, with an indicator that sat on the edge of the mouse to the left of your thumb. It was easy to quickly read and change the settings without moving your hand too much.

On the G9, the buttons are turned horizontal and placed directly below the clicking area of the left mouse button, and the indicator is above the button. There’s no comfortable way to look at or change the DPI setting without removing your hand from the mouse completely, and its very easy to accidentally hit the button with the bottom of your index finger. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking. Obviously the intention was to allow quick setting changes with the bottom of your knuckle, but (a) I never need to change the DPI setting that fast or frequently, and (b) it’s a little straining to keep my finger in a restful position with this arrangement.

Ultimately, the design lends itself to people with small hands, and those who like to “blanket” or “float” their hand over the mouse (aka palm grip) will probably be satisfied (not enthusiastic) with the G9. However people who prefer to maintain a tight grip around the mouse (aka claw grip), or any decent-sized hand will find the form of the Logitech G9 completely unappealing.

Logitech G9 ~$50
Pros

• Excellent surface material
• Great supporting software
• Very customizable

Cons

• Terrible shape for most hands, lacks “grip-ability”
• Lots of accidental clicks to back/forward buttons, DPI switches
• DPI switches & indicators less visible, accessible
• Crappy scroll wheel

Decision: Fail
Returning it to Amazon and purchasing another G5.

While my MS complaints are (rightly) focused on their desktop apps, I knew Microsoft would end up in this series at some point. However, even I was surprised at how quickly it happened. These guys can’t help but do stupid things in pursuit of copycatting their competitors. Here’s a screenshot several steps deep into the Windows Live registration…

Yes, that page is requesting a credit card number. No, Live does not have a monthly subscription fee. As the page states, they simply want to ensure you’re an adult.

As any savvy ecommerce retailer can tell you, the most challenging part of the online sale is the checkout. It’s easy to throw virtual items in a virtual shopping cart, but you have to commit when it comes time to pay. So site owners try all kinds of things to minimize the hurdle and get them through the messy part as quickly and effortlessly as possible, lest they change their mind. Meanwhile, Microsoft is taking this same large mental hurdle and trying to turn it into a speed bump. I can’t think of a faster way to send potential new users running for the hills.

Don’t get me wrong, using a credit card challenge as identification is perfectly fine when there’s a darn good reason for it; using it to ask “are you an adult” before opening a free messaging account is not one of them. Why is a kid with a Live account a problem? Are the risks greater than other such messaging services, or the Net at large? I suspect that the Live team is simply trying to avoid the legal hassles, but haven’t AIM, Google Chat, Yahoo IM, and their own MSN operated just fine for years without an age challenge? I think the answer is an obvious “no” to all of the above.

Were it me, I’d take my chances facing legal nonsense and give kids a greater level of access than adults. Children and young adults most rapidly adopt and embrace new technologies. IM, P2P, txt’ing, Facebook…all of these tools owe most of their success to users who, by and large, do not have credit card numbers. To willing cut them out of the deal is to quite literally cut your chances of success by more than half.

While working on the file manager section of the Fwd:Vault website, I decided to do a quick check on cross-browser compatibility. The following screenshots are of the same page using the same HTML layout, CSS definitions, etc…

[Show as slideshow]

At this point in my career, I don’t think words can express how much I utterly loathe Microsoft’s IE team (and Microsoft in general) for their completely overt dismissal of browser standards. But that won’t stop me from trying, so listen up, you morons.

Building a website is an incredibly complex task, and that complexity increases almost daily. Today, all my sites include code written in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, and PHP (or ASP, JSP, etc). Nuance aside, that’s five languages! All intermingled to accomplish one goal: put a page in front of a user.

On top of that, I have to worry about abstract concepts like SEO, caching, file sizes/load times, traffic stats, usability, server uptime, SSL, data integrity, backups, security…I could keep going. I have enough to do without having to worry about your browser — I check the others, I only worry about your browser — mucking up my display or breaking my Javascript. Less time spent dealing with browser compatibility issues equals more time building a better browsing experience, which is good for everyone, even you.

Furthermore, I don’t like the notion of “pushing” a user toward or away from any given browser. As a web developer and webmaster, I am in the business of delivering my site content. Having to urge people to choose a better browser is a distraction at best, lost traffic at worst. From the perspective of my users, it’s better to just handle the problems quietly in the background. I think this same mindset is why you don’t see overwhelming support (yet) for movements like WeDontSupportIE.com.

However, as my example above starkly displays, there are now four solid mainstream alternatives out there, and plenty of smaller options as well. That says nothing about the inroads of Mac and Linux into the OS market. How much longer do you think “IE inertia” will carry?

In short, when it comes to HTML/CSS interpretation and display, IE should be in lock step with competitors. If you do that, you can essentially remove web developers from the browser debate, which is big for you because you’re not winning any popularity contests with us. Differentiate yourself from the competition by creating a better user experience, and let the end user decide.

Of course I’m not holding my breath, so one of these buttons my end up on Fwd:Vault before launch

I haven’t decided yet…

Maybe I’m just getting more cynical, but I’ve been finding a lot more sites doing really stupid things that serve only to piss off their users. As a result I’ve decided to start a new series of posts titled “Usability Fail” which will discuss just that: sites that make dumb decisions that utterly fail in the “user-friendly” and “usability” categories.

The Site
Today’s site is one that I’ve actually lauded in the past. Xenocode develops really cool sandboxing software that allows your to run a program on any platform (Windows vs Mac vs Linux), at any patch level (service pack 2 vs service pack 3), and regardless of existing software (run IE7 alongside IE8). In their own buzzwords…

Xenocode is an advanced application virtualization and streaming microkernel that emulates core OS subsystems entirely within user-mode space. Virtualized applications reside in isolated “sandboxes”, allowing software to run side-by-side without conflicts or modifications to the host device.

Our unique, patent-pending application virtualization and XStream delivery technology provide users with a highly reliable, low-latency product experience on the web, intranet, or USB storage devices.

If you squint your eyes and tilt your head, you can see some good points through that bull.

Their browser virtualizers are great for testing your site in the various flavors of Internet Exploder. Personally I think you’re okay if it looks decent in IE7 and IE8, but some are still supporting IE6, and they have a virtual install of that as well. I keep links for all 3 versions on my desktop, and find them incredibly handy.

The Failure
So with all this cool software, what’s the problem? They made them difficult to load and run from anywhere other than their site. When you click any of the run buttons, the program is downloaded to your desktop and executed, but leaves no obvious traces to rerun the program later. Interestingly, this was not the case when I originally reviewed their software. I have since updated that review with a warning, along with instructions on how you can get them to run without visiting the site (just gotta pull the downloaded executable out of their temp folder).

Obviously the intention here is to keep eyeballs on the site in hopes of creating sales conversions for their virtualization software (you can wrap your own programs). It feels like an MBA got his or her hands on the implementation reigns, and decided this was the way to drive traffic.

Obviously, I strenuously disagree. I know where I got the software, and if I ever need to virtualize a program I know exactly where to go. Forcing me to visit your site every time I want to use your extremely helpful tool only does two things: annoy me and increase the likelihood that I will jump ship to another product when it comes along (and it will). That second reason is especially nasty, because flexibility usually trumps functionality. The alternative may not even be as good as Xenocode’s software, but if they let me use it how and when I want, the difference becomes mentally negligible.

The Solution
Fortunately the fix is super-easy: just go back to what you were doing before and put the program right on the desktop. If you really want to drag your heels, present an opt-in option to make the program locally available, though that approach may only serve to further prove user opposition to you getting in the way.

Even if Xenocode doesn’t change a thing, you can still follow my instructions to achieve the same result. Here’s hoping they take the extra legwork back out of it.