Surviving Modern Conveniences

Today my car wouldn't start. I guessed the battery died.

I try to use Lyft. Their app says it is a bad connection and so it won't work (using iPhone on Sprint in Charlotte, NC - the 17th largest city in the USA). Sad but ok, whatever, deal with it. Ok try my iPad mini with ATT. Lyft connects and doesn't let me use it requires putting in a phone number before it will do anything so that I can get pin and give it to them. Ok, give them the number. Nothing ever comes from them.

Ok try Uber on iPhone. Uber asked for permission to spy all the time (not just when you are using Uber. Decline that intrusion. Now it can't find my current location. So I type it in. It finds it. Uber says it isn't available where I am and only offers their "luxury" options.

Now I could go directly to work but I have a mover scheduled to unload my large moving items at my new house this afternoon. And my dead car is blocking the garage (and there is a fairly steep hill up to the house) so backing the truck to the garage seems like a much better option so I want to move my car out of the way before they arrive (it is parked front in so jump starting it would be very hard I figure).

I select the closest Walmart (that I went to the night before 3 miles away or so). Driver shows up in the most beat up car I have ever been picked up with by Uber or Lyft (including traveling around SE Asia (where actually they were always very new and clean). This is Uber's luxury option remember. They then drive me to some other Walmart at least twice as far away.

I get a trickle charger (to charge my car battery) at Walmart and am back on my way. I use my iPhone to request Lyft and they show up. The signal strength is actually good. Now I am late to my 3rd day onsite at a new long term client. So I ask the driver to wait and let me take 5 minutes to setup the trickle charger and then he can take me to work. He asks me to add the new leg to the Lyft app. I tell him it might not work since my Sprint signal is so bad usually and I try and it fails. He says he will wait but you can tell he isn't thrilled with it. I guess that Lyft has a bad process to deal with situations like mine (or maybe he just wasn't certain how it would work).

I try calling someone at work using my iPad mini (while the ATT signal is bad, Sprint is much worse) and it connects but constantly breaks up.

But he says he will wait. I hurry up and set things up and am going out the door in maybe 3 minutes and I see him driving away. I try Lyft again and it fails again (on both phones just like earlier).

Then I try Uber and decide to give them my address again and they come pick me up. I type in the wrong address (a leading 4 instead of a leading 1, sigh). It doesn't seem we are going the right way, I figure that out and ask what address we are going to... I am amazing able to update the address in the Uber app (the connection barely works). The driver and car were nice for this trip.

Now I am late to work but am able to put in a partial days work then have to leave to meet the mover. My workplace is one of these huge building with big delays for visitors checking in... I have no idea how you can get Uber or a taxi or anything or any idea who you can ask (those I did ask have no idea either). So I decide to walk out (the equivalent of a few blocks to a sensible public street. I actually have 4 bars on 3G on Sprint (the iPhone) which is the best I have seen yet in Charlotte. I try to use the iPhone Lyft app. Won't connect due to bad connectivity. Seems much more likely it is some caching bug but whatever it doesn't work. And of course the other Lyft app (on the other device) won't let me use it (due to it not sending my pin number). So I open up Uber on my iPhone (which as with other other times today Lyft said it couldn't work due to bad connectivity the Uber app on the same phone worked fine. But now the wonderful Uber app (that I didn't allow to continuously spy) has decided that the only place I can be picked up is my house that I entered the first time. They won't let me change it.

So I have now use 3 of the 4 ride hailing options I have at hand. So I try my 4th and final option, the Uber app with full spying privileges and thankfully it works. And the can is new and clean and the driver is professional.

I get home go look at my car. The charger is off. I think wow that is pretty good I didn't think it would be finished. Put everything away and try to start the car and nothing. I put everything back the way it is and it all lights up like it is fine and charging and in about 15 seconds turns off. It must not like something, I try it a couple more times and finally reach a state where it won't turn off.

Of course when the mover arrives I the car won't start. Actually we tried to back it up the driveway some but it was too steep and couldn't make it anyway.

The modern convinces really did help in many ways (I am still hoping the trickle charger will help, though as I write this it is still questionable). The battery is about 10 months old. But while it is great to have cell phones and apps to help us when we are stuck it is very annoying to have such bad connectivity in the 19th largest city in the USA and such lame usability failure in the Uber and Lyft apps. And it is frustrating to have to deal with your own lameness that likely caused the battery to die (I left the lights on in the car - the garage had lights on so I didn't register the car lights were no going off...) and putting in the wrong address...

And this is one of what seem like several such episodes each day for the last few weeks. I agreed to move states within about 10 days to a full time job on site with a client. I didn't really have a desire to do so but I have worked for the company as an offsite consultant for years and understood the situation they were in where I really was the best option and it was fairly important. So far it has been a struggle. I hope soon I will have passed through this spate of frustrations. If I had this one episode happen some week it wouldn't bug me much. But day after day of multiple such things is wearing me down.

And since I have no decent internet connection I can't even Netflix and chill :-(

More Bad Ux by Google and the Value of RSS Feeds to Avoid Bad UX Practices

These are my slighted edited comments on the Vlogbrothers video by Hank Green on the very bad User Experience of YouTube Subscriptions that Google made even worse recently (I take it that is what happened, I avoid that by using RSS feeds to access the content I want to view).

Google has been really bad at UX (user experience) for a long time. I use RSS feeds to manage the content I want to enjoy and it works great (for blogs and You Tube and podcasts). Thankfully Google hasn't broken this yet (though given their track record in the last 10 years it would not surprise me if they do at some point).

Of course it will be easy for creators to generate their own RSS feed for their videos if Google does break it. I created several feeds on my personal site for (selected blog posts by John Hunter and a time travel feed for my blog posts*).

By the way Hank, it would be great if you would create RSS feeds that let me do things like subscribe to specific courses in crash course. Frankly, I have long thought it is pretty lame that this doesn't exist. This link to Crash Course literature videos for example should have an RSS feed of all the videos. Given Google's lame Ux it isn't so amazing that it is missing an RSS feed. But it is super easy to create a RSS feed from some [whatever your corporate overload name is - nerdfighters or ?] that let people easily have feeds that have good Ux and give them the granularity to pick what they want to add to an RSS reader.

As you mentioned in your video, while many users may have failed to take advantage of RSS readers, many power users have. So cater to them. Also encourage others to use this extremely useful tool which does many great things including shielding your from the extremely bad Ux practices of many of the huge internet giants.

* the Curious Cat time travel feed adds a new post each day using posts from my blogging history (which stretches back 14 years now).

Related: Curious Cat Travel YouTube channel - Filter Out Links to Lame Websites on Reddit - Getting Around Bad Web Page Layouts - Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux) for Investing Data

Filter Out Links to Lame Websites on Reddit

The Reddit Enhancement Suite is a great browser extension to enhance Reddit browsing. One of the very useful features is the ability to filter out all the links from sites that are not worth your time. I use it to filter out links to Twitter in several subreddits and for "newspapers" that post clickbait and misleading content (several UK "newspapers). I also use it to filter out links to sites with bad practices such as autoplay videos or popups.

Follow this link to add a filter. I have found it hard to locate by browsing but at the current time it is found under the [SubReddit] section and then [filteReddit]. Hopefully they keep the url and don't force you to try and figure out where it has moved to (if you are browsing this after they make updates to the software).

I first discovered this since /r/CollegeBasketball was full of all sorts of useless Twitter links. Removing them made the subreddit much better for me.

And now using it to remove the poor usability sites and to eliminate all the clickbait "newspapers" makes it much better. Having to try and remember which UK "news" sites were even as reliable as a random middle school kid was too complicated. I knew The Guardian and BBC were pretty good but sorting through the links from all the others was wasting my time. Now they no longer clutter up my Reddit browsing.

The image shows the options which include removing matching content from specific subreddits, removing it from everywhere and also removing it everywhere except specific subreddits (which I can imagine is occasionally useful - I put in an example just to show how it works).

I am adding more sites to improve my experience with Reddit and figured I would take the opportunity to share this useful feature in this blog post.

Related: Most Popular Links on Management Sub-Reddit in 2016 - Curious Cat List of Super Useful Websites (2012) - Curious Cat Interesting Web Sites to Browse

Subscribe to blog posts by John Hunter

I have added an RSS feed to the blog posts I add to JohnHunter.com. I add items there for some, but not all of my posts, from my various blogs.

There is a list of blogs I author on my Curious Cat blog site. I write on several topics including

• Management and Leadership
• Money, Investing, Lifestyle and Personal Finance
• Travel
• Technology, Computer Programming, Engineering and Science
• Society

I am currently in the process of adding items for the past few years (as I stopped updating this part of the JohnHunter.com website for awhile).

I believe RSS feed readers are one of the most valuable tools for those learning online. I wrote about what RSS feed readers are and how to use them previously.

Netflix Throws Users Under the Bus

First Netflix was an awesome streaming service that just worked and was focused on providing users a great experience.

Even at the beginning (or at least my beginning) they through Ubuntu users under the bus and just said we won't serve you. So I didn't use it. Later I got a Mac and then I decided to give it a try and it was wonderful, it just worked (well after requiring you install Microsoft Silverlight).

But most large companies just expect users to fit themselves into whatever constraints the big companies wish to impose (see Comcast, United Airlines, Verizon etc.). So compared to these really bad companies using Netflix was wonderful.

There are many issues with bad connections etc. and Netflix while not perfect (they would often only buffer a short amount and fail when the bad connection failed or got to slow) but they were much better than others at just working.

The last 6 months though it is more and more like the typical experience of some huge company that just expects you to cope with whatever they force you to do.

They continually won't work when I forget I have to sign off my vpn to use them. They blame others for this bad service (blaming others for treating customer badly is of course what all the companies people originally sought to escape the Time Warners, AT&T, etc. of the world by using Netflix. Oh well so one more time Netflix is selling us out.

Then then continually degraded the usability of the website. They seem intent on reducing the usability so that they can only bother to design as if we all were limited to smart phones. So if you have a computer and want to have more information available on your screen too bad, we are going to force you to pretend you are limited to a smart phone interface.

I found it frustrating. Netflix had gone from one of the few companies I really enjoyed dealing with (Trader Joes's is one on that short list) to the typical company that I could tolerate. Instead of the joy of it just working it became a relief when it just worked and if I was surprised it wasn't because of something good but yet another annoyance as they moved from a company that was a joy to yet another Comcast of the world.

And the latest disgrace from Netflix they won't play the show at all. They break the playback with one of their typical "we are treating you now just like Microsoft treated people in 1995" you are doing something we decided to not allow you to do. We now have the market power where we can just have you jump through whatever hoops we want and you can't do anything about it.

The latest message "Please ensure your monitor is HDCP compliant and is not mirrored using Airplay."

Why am I being bothered with this junk. Just like dealing with Microsoft decades ago when they would just have you jump through hoops try and figure out what they would let you do in order to use what you paid for. Netflix now justing just not "just work" it is constantly a struggle for how they are going to break things now.

I have never had a company I found to be really good fall so fast and completely lose any concern for their customers experience.

The shows they pay others for (including most of those they brand as Netflix but many of which they don't even own - they just are licensing certain rights to them) are decent. A few are really good. And Netflix is cheap for what you get. But I am very disappointed I now have to feel like I do using the typical disaster customer service companies (Comcast, any USA airline, Verizon, etc.). Every time it isn't a disaster I feel relieved (but having anxiety every time I use a service that the company is going to annoy me is not what I want). My expectations are just please don't torture me or completely block my ability to use what I pay for since you do that so often all I can hope for is the absence of lousy treatment. Actually getting good treatment is a distant illusion.

It is so sad. As I say the content isn't bad if you can fight through the lousy roadblocks they have put in the way of getting to it in the last few years. And the price is cheap. I would gladly pay double the price to just go back to the "it just works" Netflix instead of the current we are going to make it hard for you to do what you want Netflix we have now. And while I wouldn't be as happy I would pay 3 or even 4 times to get that back.

But this lousy treatment is moving me closer and closer to just dropping them. Something I never thought would be possible 2 or 3 years ago.

I actually tried to get a preview of Amazon Video (or whatever they call their thing) but couldn't find how to do it. I tried to use their help system but it failed (I know from experience they have a poorly coded website that has fragile code and breaks in the help area and that happened again so I gave up. I might try HBO. I really am amazed Netflix has managed to make using their service so annoying I don't want to put up with it.

I hardly see any commercials anymore (only when watching sports) but there is one where one company makes fun of the takeover by some horrible cable company making all sorts of idiotic steps. I know that didn't happen to Netflix but as a customer that is exactly what it feels like. Some bozos took over and just decided to drop any care about the customer experience.

It is annoying that so many companies have this attitude but often I can just avoid dealing with them. Though sometimes you have no real choice - you need to fly someone there is a good chance Southwest Airlines [the only non-horrible USA airline in my experience) might not fly there or you have to choose Verizon or Comcast or even have no choice for an ISP... But Netflix was something I had really grown to enjoy. I fear Amazon's isn't likely to be very good for Ux. But I think I will try it. And even if that doesn't work I may still drop Netflix just to avoid the pitiful Ux practices they have adopted in the last few years.

Related: Utopia (Dreamland in the USA) is an Amazing TV Program (2015) - Netflix is Well Managed - People are Overreacting to Short Term Issues (2011) - Curious Cat List of Super Useful Websites (2012), Netflix wouldn't make the list now, but it did then

Security - Verification of Change

Many web sites will now notify you if a change is made to various aspects of your account, say you change your address or email or phone... Every one I have ever received says if you made the change do nothing, if you didn't then call us.

My guess is this is because it provides some security and is super easy for them. But if security were the priority I think you would do more. Why not require them to affirmatively agree to the change? The main reason I can see is that it would create more work. You would need a process for the case where they failed to affirmatively agree to the change.

Still for very important matters it seems like this would be wise. Yet I have never seen anyplace do this.

One thing I can think of does has this process in place. For a long time (15 years?) if you get a new credit card you have to call and activate it (usually they use caller ID to auto approve if you call from the phone number on file, if the call isn't made from such a number you are asked other details to verify who you are).

Such a system could be opt-in, so only people concerned about security could participate and someone that didn't want to bother could continue as things are today.

Related: Protecting Your Privacy and Security (Curious Cat Investing blog) - Protect Yourself from Credit Card Fraud - Governments Shouldn't Prevent Citizens from Having Secure Software Solutions - Making Credit Cards More Secure and Useful (2014) - Bad Security on Government Required RFID e-passports

Deleting Apps on iOS When the "x" is Missing

I recently bought an iPad mini. Unlike many people that say they interface is wonderful I find it to be annoying and lacking and not up to what I expected from computer applications 15 years ago, forget what I expect today. But I guess I am in the minority.

Well I couldn't delete an app. I followed the instructions

1. "click" an icon and keep holding it down until all the icons "vibrate"
2. "click" the x to delete what you want (note Apple doesn't let you delete the apps they don't want deleted - their default apps - I guess the same idea as them forcing some music streaming junk in the next version of extremely bloated iTunes, that seems to be verging on becoming unremovable crap-ware)

Anyway not only Apple's favorites but all apps didn't have the x. I couldn't find anything online explaining what to do.

I went to a Apple reseller store and they were able to figure out that in settings there were restrictions set. Why the Ux doesn't have the x and then when you use it gives a challenge to prove you can override the restriction is beyond me. But lots of the Ux decisions they make in iOS are beyond me.

Anyway what you have to do is go into settings and then restrictions then type in your passcode then you can delete it. You also then can see the restrictions and turn some off if you want. I am sure I got some advice on making things more secure (the security setup seems horrible to me - the Ux makes being secure a real pain so encourages bad security). And stuff like fingerprint "password" is lame. "fingerprint" is username not password. But whatever, that should let you delete stuff.

Related: Bad iTunes Ux and How to Submit a Podcast to iTunes - Use Urls – Don’t Use Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z Instructions - Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux) for Stock Market Data (post is from over a year ago but the problem remains) - Gobbledygook (bad password usability)

How to Turn Off Google Hangouts on iPad Mini?

How do I turn off Google Hangouts on my iPad Mini?

I don't understand how smart phone and tablet apps seem to miss super basic functions and that people actually find using such apps acceptable. Either there is some UI feature that lets you deal with super basic stuff (like turning off something you don't want bothering you) that I can't see or I think people are crazy to accept such broken software as acceptable.

As far as I can see the only way to turn Hangouts off is to uninstall it. So their model seems to be, if I wanted to turn my car off I had to sell it. Then when I want to use it again I have to buy it, reregister it, reset… What kind of idiocy is this? I would say this is impossibly stupid and I must be missing some setting somewhere, but there are not that many buttons to push, it seems like I have tried looking everywhere numerous times and uninstalling is the only way to turn it off. But maybe I am wrong, please tell me how to do so, if I am?

Also having used several apps now for awhile, missing super basic things seems common. It seems like apps have reverted to failing to do super basic stuff that even bad software has done for a couple decades so having to un-install in order to turn something off, while amazingly lame, may actually the true level of service provided by the app.

Also how the bleep to you stop nagware idiocy on items you purchase asking you to do their marketing for them by posting app reviews? It is extremely common in the few apps I use to have this nagware that hasn't been seen in a decade in the software I use (I used to get nagware for freeware software over a decade ago).

Related: Complicating Simplicity - If Tech Companies Made Sudoku - Bad Visual Controls in Software

Getting Around Bad Web Page Layouts

The page layouts of some sites seem to be designed by people only viewing sites on huge monitors. Google also seems to test some of their stuff only with super fast and super low latency connections. It isn't so surprising companies that don't have much customer focus just do what looks good in their office (which often isn't what the customer experiences).

Zillow and Trulia offer real estate information and provide maps. Unfortunately they don't bother to design the page layouts for the needs of people without huge monitors. For example, Zillow has 20% of the top of my screen used and then 50% of the right of the screen taken so you have this pretty small window for the content I want to see - the map.

I super easy design that would be done if customer focus was a concern is just allow the right column to be closed by users that don't want that waster their screen. But Zillow doesn't do that.

Given this I found another way to get back your view even if the page is designed to prevent it. Make the browser window very large (much more than your screen). Have the useless right column that you don't have any use for moved off the screen. This is obviously awkward but it works.

Sadly they then center the content for specific housing result so you have a huge amount of white space on the left and the page results scroll off the screen on the right. If they just didn't center it, things would be fine. If you right-click open the link in a new window it works (because the window opens as a normal sized window instead of the super large window created to cope with the badly designed web page).

These are the kind of solutions that only make sense for badly designed sites that are worth your time working around their bad designs. Most of the time I just abandoned such sites. But in those rare cases I actually find the site worth dealing with even with the poor design choices you can sometimes find work arounds in case you are not sitting in the exact conditions of their office (no large monitor, perhaps less awesome eyesight - which goes as people age…).

Another common failing of sites is thinking they can (or should even try) to treat web pages like magazines. So when you use larger fonts (very common for older users - very uncommon for web designers) the display falls apart - Trulia has this failing in the vary bad way of having content fall behind other content so you can't even see it).

Zillow and Trulia are actually pretty useful sites if you are interested in USA real estate. Supposedly Zillow is trying to buy Trulia. In a capitalist society this wouldn't be allowed. I hope it is not. But in a corrupt political society where cash buys votes and regulatory decisions it would be allowed. My guess is it will be allowed.

Related: Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux) for stock market data - Customer Focus and Internet Travel Search - Political and Corporate Cronyism are not Capitalism - 6 years Later Goolge Acts To Let Me Block Sites I don't want to see - snd then Google re-polluted the results :-(

Government Intruding Where it Doesn't Belong

This seems like a matter the government should not be involved in, U.S. Targets Buyers of China-Bound Luxury Cars:

The domestic divisions of Mercedes-Benz and BMW say the clampdown by federal authorities is a legitimate attempt to regulate trade and to ensure that American consumers who want to own a car for personal use are not deprived of a chance to buy one. “The BMW Group has been working closely with federal authorities for almost two years to stop illegal exports of our vehicles from the U.S.,” said Kenn Sparks, a spokesman for BMW of North America. “Illegal exports deny legitimate customers here in the U.S. the popular vehicles, which are in high demand.”

I can imagine legitimate reasons for government to be involved (avoiding taxes…). But the inability of companies to match supply to demand is an absolutely stupid reason for the government to be involved. I can see it as the right of companies to make life difficult for customers if they want. So if HP wants to break their products based on where someone tries to use them maybe that should be allowed. If BMW wanted to make getting service on a car purchased and shipped elsewhere maybe that should be allowed. And if China wanted to prevent import for some sensible reasons (maybe imported cars don't meet some safety standards, or they are attempting to avoid taxes). And I would even support government having visibility of transportation across boarders if crime prevention was an issue (lots of stolen cars…). But the heavy handed insertion of government into enforcing silly demands of companies shouldn't be tolerated - even if those companies have purchased the legislators we elect. Related: Protect Yourself from 11 Car Dealer Tricks - Customer Service is Important - Customer Un-service by Automakers - If You Create a System That Includes The Perfect Conditions for Scandals, Expect Scandals to Happen - Bad Customer Service - Leading Economic Freedom: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland

Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux)

Financial website universally (at least those I use) do a very poor job at some very simple things. It is confusing for non-professional investors to keep track of what markets are open when.

It is really lame that huge sites (Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, CNBC, CNN, Marketwatch...) can't easily show what markets are closed. Instead they show changes (which imply changes today) that are often for the previous day. So half an hour before a market opens the display indicates it has returned whatever it returned yesterday. And if the market is closed that day, all day long the display acts as though it has the return it did that last day it was open.

Display on Bloomberg. But actually the Hong Kong market is closed today, bad Ux :-(

This feeble usability failure should have been fixed years ago. Yet as far as I can tell all the sites continue to fail to take sensible steps to make it clear what the real data for today is.

From Marketwatch, you have to look at the graph, see it isn't yet 2 PM in Hong Kong and then deduce the Hong Kong market isn't open today, bad Ux

On a much more minor point, eliminating tiny decimal places is better (as Marketwatch does but Bloomberg doesn't). 100% (99.999% rounded up :-) of users don't want to see the Nikkei is at 14,788.80 it is better to display 14,789. Similarly don't display fractions of a cent for stock quotes.

Related: Bad Visual Controls, Software - Customer Focus and Internet Travel Search - 6 years Later Goolge Acts To Let Me Block Sites I don't want to see (2011, then Google removed this useful feature so again lots of lousy sites clutter the results) - Understanding Technology and Programing is Vital - Gobbledygook (bad password usability)

Blog commenting options

I agree evolving the comments is good. I like the promise of disquss but it haven't gained enough traction. I don't trust a commenting system that exists outside my blog. The unreliability of services others provide isn't acceptable to me (look at how many services Google has abandoned - trusting that things will exist doesn't seem wise).

The ability to comment on a blog and have that comment shared (say via Google+ or Disqus or something) seems like it would be nice (but leave the comment in the blog itself so if Google pulls a Google and shutters their commenting everything isn't lost). It would also be great to be able to track comments for a specific person. I find it so annoying I post some of my comments on an old blogger blog I had so I can find them later, if I wanted.

Comments sparked by: How WordPress Comments are Evolving

Related: Your Online Presence and Social Networks for Managers - John Hunter online

New YouTube Website - Good Progress, But Late

YouTube is an amazing web service.  From Google's purchase of YouTube I was convinced they would do very well with their investment (even with the majority opinion being that they paid way too much).  I think most know appreciate how valuable YouTube is (as a service and a profit center for Google).

I have been amazed how poorly done the YouTube web site has been.  They have put in place a new site design today.  It seems like a big improvement.  Still, most of it seems like stuff that could have been done 3 years ago.  I don't understand why they have been so slow to improve the website.

The home page is much better for seeing what new content has been added on those channels I am subscribed to.

It will take me some time to see if they have done better at showing me content I might enjoy.  I can't believe how bad the existing site had been at doing this - showing me content I might like.

The definitely should let me remove useless buttons like Facebook (connect).  I guess the popularity of Facebook makes defaulting to including the button ok, but don't make everyone that has no intention of using Facebook (or linking YouTube and Facebook accounts) have that button in prime navigation location.

I should be able to decline a suggested channel (and get new suggestions).

I can't see that browse has been improved much (it seems a bit of a UI improvement at the top).  Which is very lame.  This should be extremely valuable - instead it is lame.

Netflix is so cheap now ($3.5 billion market cap), maybe Google should be buy it and use their preference matching and content suggestion technology.  At the very least hire a great team of engineers (money should essentially not be an issue - they could have all the money they would need - doing this well should bring hundreds of millions to Google) and have them create a much much much better job of suggesting YouTube content for users.

Related: 6 years Later Goolge Acts To Let Me Block Sites I don't want to see - How Google Should Improve (2006) - Web Search Improvements (2005) - YouTube Uses Multivariate Experiment To Improve Sign-ups 15% - Google Stock Price Rises 5.7% Today (to $255), Why? (2005)

Understanding Technology and Programing is Vital

In the future, will we *all* have to code?

However, if you want to put together a quick prototype, but use real content, then that kind of implies hooking it into a back-end database.
...
David Haynes from Soundcloud suggest that developers are the people who are shaping the sound of modern music. And there is a constant debate these days in the journalism world about whether journalists need to learn how to code.

So, are we all going to have to learn how to code?
...
[pairing] allows both parties to use their areas of expertise to develop something that is potentially bigger than the sum of its parts, rather than dumbing down software development to a commodity level.

Oh, and just a little something to throw into the mix - the pressure seems to be coming from both directions. Last week Tyler Tate posted “Why developers should become UX designers”

I believe most importantly we will all need to have a coding mentality. The world has changed from 50 years ago. It is hard to imagine making serious decisions about priorities for most any organization without a basic appreciation of coding. Here I am talking about something a bit different than you, I am talking about program managers that are not going to be doing anything related to creating the code behind the effort and executives... I don't understand how people think they can continue to be ignorant about technology and hope to be relevant. I don't think you need to have the knowledge to code yourself but you need to be much more knowledgeable than most people are today. And really if you are under 40 (maybe over that you can hope to slide by into the sunset without suffering too much from your ignorance but that is a dangerous gamble), I think you have to try to pick up coding in simple ways. Not to be an expert but to be able to at least understand the capabilities, the tradeoffs, databases, Ux principles...

My guess is over the next 20 years we will figure out much better ways to let people gain knowledge of coding ideas without having to become coders. But until then I think it is imperative for most people to realize to comprehend the modern world they need to gain an understanding of coding (even if they are not going to be an expert).

I agree strongly with your thoughts on pairing with experts. It is much easier to pair if you at least comprehend the general ideas of the others areas of expertise. I don't think it is great to dumb things down to the level one expert can do the others job. But I think it is critical to understand that your expertise is part of a system. The Ux is part of the solution. Coding is part of the solution. The whole is what matters.

However, if you want to put together a quick prototype, but use real content"

Absolutely. Prototypes without real data lose a great deal. Super quick, first drafts maybe that is ok. But quickly getting to prototypes that are integrated with real data should be the goal.

Related: Management By IT Crowd Bosses - Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work - Involve IT Staff in Business Process Improvement - Internet Access at Work

6 years Later Goolge Acts To Let Me Block Sites I don't want to see

A bit over 6 years ago I suggested a few things to improve Google search results (Jan 2005) they have finally adopted the feature:

Ability to restrict sites from the search results in my preferences (Google doesn't seem to be able to restrict certain obvious spam names databases from results, so let me do so myself. It would be best if there could be filter lists that are maintained by various communities that I could choose to apply. I can imagine there are technical hurdles to overcome to make this a reality).

Then I posted about how Google should improve, again a year later

Let me remove web sites from my default searches. I would imagine this could even be used to help Google’s normal search results by getting a sense of sites huge numbers of people “block” The same spam sites show up for searches and I would rather block them if Google can’t figure out how to do so.

Hide sites to find more of what you want

We’re adding this feature because we believe giving you control over the results you find will provide an even more personalized and enjoyable experience on Google. In addition, while we’re not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future.

Better later than never. But 6 internet years is a long time to wait.

Related: Google Social Circle Results - Search Share Data, Checking the ACSI - find management content online

Hulu Desktop for Ubuntu

I have been having all sorts of trouble with Hulu on my new Ubuntu desktop. When it does work it has a great fullscreen display. But the fullscreen mode would not work quite often. And when it did work it would always choose the smaller of my two monitors no matter what I did. The Popout option was nice and I could move it to the monitor I wanted but the control (pause, restart etc.) wouldn't work.

In trying to find solutions to these bugs I stumbled across Hulu desktop for Linux (including an Ubuntu 64 bit option). It works very well. The interface for Hulu desktop is flashy and nice in some ways but in some ways it is not easy to navigate. For example, it is much easier to see a list of the episodes you have subscribed to and their expiration dates.

And I get to watch programs like Caprica that I couldn't otherwise, since I don't have cable TV.

Related: Embedded YouTube Videos Won't Play - Using Multiple Firefox Profiles at the Same Time in Ubuntu

Problem: Hulu full-screen mode fails on Ubuntu in Firefox, Chrome and Opera. Hulu popout screen controls fail - Ubuntu 9.04, 64-bit. How to move a Hulu fullscreen to another monitor (using Hulu Desktop you can choose which monitor to use).

Gallery of Free WordPress Themes

WordPress Themes 4 Free is the newest curiouscat.com site. Find great, free, designs for your WordPress blog.

Google SearchWiki

Google now lets you customize your search results. You can move results around (change the order in which they appear) add your notes and remove sites you don't want to see. Others don't see your notes by default but they can choose to look at all the notes for a search.

Suggestions for Improving Google (Jan 2006)

1) Let me chose the type of files searched (exclude pdfs, word, power point..). Then if I can’t find what I want I can expand to include them. At the very least give me some way of making the type much more visible (I realize it is there now but I often click before my mind notices...).

2) Let me remove web sites from my default searches. I would imagine this could even be used to help Google’s normal search results by getting a sense of sites huge numbers of people “block” The same spam sites show up for searches and I would rather block them if Google can’t figure out how to do so.

3) Let me create site search lists, where I create lists of sties I want searched

The third one Google did a year or two ago. I have created several search sites based on that capability: investing search - science search - Management Search.

Related: Google Knows it is a 2.0 World - What Factors Should be Used to Determine Search Results - Google PageRank Update - Yahoo's Open Approach to Search

DRM is Junk

Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it

The bad dream of DRM continues. Yahoo e-mailed its Yahoo! Music Store customers yesterday, telling them it will be closing for good—and the company will take its DRM license key servers offline on September 30, 2008. Sure, it's bad news and yet another example of the sheer lobotomized brain-deadness that has characterized music DRM, but the reaction of most music fans will be: "Yahoo had an online music store?"

If you think this sounds familiar, it's because this happened earlier this year with MSN Music, although Microsoft has since relented and will keep the DRM authorization servers up and running through 2011.

Once the Yahoo store goes down and the key servers go offline, existing tracks cannot be authorized to play on new computers. Instead, Yahoo recommends the old, lame, and lossy workaround of burning the files to CD, then reripping them onto the computer. Sure, you'll lose a bunch of blank CDs, sound quality, and all the metadata, but that's a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to listen to that music you lawfully acquired. Good thing you didn't download it illegally or just buy it on CD!

Importance of Search Rankings

Attention Website Owners: If You Aren’t on Google’s First Page, You’re Dead to Us

You can have the most attractive website of all your competitors. You can hire usability experts, professional photographers, and the greatest PHP developers money can buy. If you aren’t on the first page of Google, you might as well be from Mars. Sorry.

While it is true many people do not look past the first page some could be mislead by wasting time on usability... You don't say wasting time but imply it is the wrong focus.

Some reasons why you might want to consider usability important:

1) let even say you are on the first page of Google - just getting them to click on the results and visit your site is probably not the goal. You want them to do something. Not flee your site immediately.

2) Search results are not your only source of visitors. Taking care of those that visit is important (so don't think of search results as the only measure of your success).

3) Inbound links can certainly be impacted positively by having a usable site with valuable content (which will increase those visitors mentioned in item 2) and increase your search ranking.