Metamorphium

My Journey to Jekyll

2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00

My Journey to Jekyll

01 Jan 2012 - San Jose

I recently switched to generating this blog using Jekyll, and hosting it on GitHub Pages. Over the years, I’ve gone through many blogging platforms before arriving at my current choice. This is a quick overview of the platforms I’ve tried, and my thoughts on each one.

Wordpress

I used to host my own Wordpress blog up until a few years ago. Back then, Wordpress was by far the best blogging solution around. It offered amazing expandability and customization potential, with an unparalleled plugin library and strong community. If you wish your blog could do something, somebody has probably already made a plugin for Wordpress to do it. Unfortunately, Wordpress’s high popularity also made it an attractive target for malicious hackers. New security vulnerabilities would be found on a regular basis, which meant you had to constantly keep your installation up-to-date. My site got hacked after I hadn’t updated my blog in several months and, as a result, failed to install the mandatory security updates.

Today, Wordpress just feels like overkill, and I can’t think of a single senario where it’s actually the best solution. Sure, it offers lots of features that you probably won’t find anywhere else, but chances are, you have no need for those features and the security vulnerabilities they bring. With each new feature it packs, its relative ease of use decreases, leaving it somewhere in the middle of being easy for a non-technical person to pick up and being satisfying for a hacker to customize. It’s kind of like driving an SUV when you want a sports car.

Tumblr

After my Wordpress installation got violated, I decided to give Tumblr a try. It was easy to get a blog up and running within a few minutes. The themes were beautiful and the community features were quite appealing. Unfortunately, this was back when they were having frequent downtimes, and soon after setting everything up, I lost access and quickly got frustrated.

Now that they seem to have solved their downtime problems, I would recommend Tumblr to any non-programmer looking to start a blog. It offers the best balance of features and ease-of-use, and it’s aesthetically appealing. The community sharing and follow features make it easy to build up a readership. It’s essentially the Twitter for blogs.

Posterous

Put off by Tumblr’s unrelability, I ended up switching to Posterous for a while. When I switched, Posterous was basically a simplified Tumblr. Their most attractive feature was that I could just email my posts in from anywhere, formatted with Markdown. It didn’t have any obvious problems, so I thought I had finally found my ideal blogging platform. However, over time, I began to realize just how much I hated its control panel interface. It was slow, poorly organized, and required way too many clicks for common tasts. Posterous would also regularly garble my Markdown formatting, forcing me to log into the control panel and manually edit the posts. I just ended up blogging less and less.

Now, Posterous looks far more complicated than it needs to be, and I’m not even sure I understand the point of Posterous Spaces, their new group blogging focus. It used to be that you could just email post@posterous.com, and they would email you back with a link to your new blog that automatically got set up. Any future emails from that same email address would get posted to the same blog. That’s as simple as it gets. As far as I can tell, that setup process seems to be gone, or is at least completely hidden, which is a shame.

Jekyll

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I recently switched to Jekyll. So far, I am very happy with it. It’s simple, fast, and secure. My entire blog is just a git repositary that’s hosted on GitHub. In fact, you can view all the source files for this site! I can write my posts in any text editor in Markdown format, and just push the changes to GitHub. Of course, this approach requires significant technical knowledge, a desire to hack away at code to get everything running, and experience with using git for source control management. It matched my requirements perfectly, but may not for others.

If you do want to try Jekyll (which I highly recommend to anybody who enjoys tinkering with code), the easiest way to get started is to fork an existing blog and customize it to fit your needs. You can use my blog if you’d like, or one of the many others. I used Tom Preston-Werner’s blog, who is the creator of Jekyll. Another option that was recently emailed to me is Jekyll-Bootstrap, which aims to be “the quickest and most hassle-free way to get your new Jekyll powered website up and running.”

Jekyll is like a Tesla Roadster. It’s insanely fast and cool, but it does require a significant upfront investment. It’s barebones, but easy to customize, meaning it can be spruced up to be as beautiful as you want if you’re willing to get dirty and hack at it yourself.

My Recommendations

To recap, if you’re not a hacker, I’d recommend Tumblr. It offers the best balance of features and ease of use, and they seem to have solved their downtime problems. If, for some reason, you don’t like Tumblr, check out Posterous. If that still doesn’t suit your needs, Wordpress.com (the cloud-hosted version of Wordpress that gives you the power of Wordpress without the headache) would be my third recommendation.

If you are a hacker, definitely check out Jekyll.

I would not bother with self-hosted blogs unless you really have a need for that level of control, since the cloud-based or static options are so powerful these days. And most likely, if you do need that level of control, you’re probably better off investing a weekend and writing your own CMS.

Bonus: OhLife

I also recently discovered OhLife, which is a great way to keep a private journal. It’ll send you an email at your chosen frequency (daily, weekly, etc) asking “How did your day go?” and you just reply with your journal entry. I’ve only been using it for a week so far, but it may be the first time I’ve kept a journal for even this long.

Bonus #2: Calepin

While writing this post, I came across Calepin.co, which looks to offer a simplified cloud-based blogging platform that’s a mix between Posterous and Jekyll. It lets you write your posts in any text editor and just save them to your Dropbox folder. Then you click on Publish on their site, and it scans your Dropbox and publishes the new posts for you. Since it uses Dropbox, that means you can write your post pretty much anywhere (your computer, your iPhone, your iPad). The only annoying part I can think of is that you have to go to the website to click Publish (although I suppose that’s not much different than pushing changes to GitHub). It also doesn’t offer any customization options at all, and does not yet support custom domains. It looks like an interesting solution for somebody that wants some of the benefits of Jekyll, but has no coding experience. I doubt I will ever give this a try myself, but I’ve decided to leave this summary here for others.

How Apple Adopted the Kleenex Problem

2011-12-16T00:00:00-08:00

How Apple Adopted the Kleenex Problem

16 Dec 2011 - San Jose

I just realized that some people think the Samsung Galaxy Tab is a type of iPad.

I heard the following conversation a few days ago:

Person A: I just bought this new iPad.

Person B: Nice, is it a Galaxy Tab?

Person A: No, it’s an iPad.

Person B: Yes, but is it a Galaxy Tab?

At first, I thought person B had simply misheard person A, but that didn’t explain the clarification. Then I read an article at The Sydney Morning Herald, interviewing Samsung Australia’s vice president of telecommunications, Tyler McGee, about the effect Apple’s lawsuits against Samsung have had in Australia:

“At the end of the day the media awareness certainly made the Galaxy Tab 10.1 a household name compared to probably what it would’ve been based on the investment that we would’ve put into it from a marketing perspective.”

Gruber adds:

The overwhelming majority of the media coverage I’ve seen for the Galaxy Tab is related to Apple’s various lawsuits.

The majority of people probably only hear about the Galaxy Tab when it’s paired with Apple’s name, which understandably leads to an association between the two companies.

It has been said that, “There is no tablet market, only an iPad market.” By that logic, it is reasonable to assume that most consumers now view ‘iPad’ as a general product category, rather than a specific product, much like Kleenex or Xerox. When a competing product is announced, it is now another type of iPad.

Kleenex invested a lot of time, money, and energy fighting the misappropriation of their brand name. The problem is that people assume all brands of tissues on the shelves are Kleenexes, diluting the Kleenex brand. If they are unable to prevent people from using their trademark generically, they risk becoming a genericized trademark and no longer being legally protected.

You may not realize it, but by using the name Kleenex® as a generic term for tissue, you risk erasing our coveted brand name that we’ve worked so hard for all these years. Kleenex® is a registered trademark and should always be followed by a ® and the words ‘Brand Tissue’. Just pretend it’s in permanent marker. (via Stephen Young)

It’s a common problem that many large companies face. Apple, for their part, has been extremely aggressive in protecting their trademarks, often suing for any use of the word “pod” or the iNoun naming scheme.

However, it seems Apple is on a path to generating a trademark problem for themselves with the iPad brand. Ironically, the iPhone brand hasn’t experienced this problem thanks to the “us-vs-them” mentality of the Verizon Droid ads. “Droid does” is a well-recognized slogan that implies there are differences between Android and iOS, separating the two products in consumers’ minds. With the iPad so strongly dominating the tablet market and few recognizable competitors (who’s heard of the Xoom outside of tech geeks?), that difference between competing products ceases to exist.

The question then becomes, did the lawsuits against Samsung do more harm than good for Apple? I believe the former will become increasingly apparent. They should have just let the Galaxy Tab release and fade into obscurity, rather than accidentally turning it into a household name that’s linked to Apple’s brand.

Calculating Reading Time

2011-06-04T00:00:00-07:00

Calculating Reading Time

04 Jun 2011 - San Jose

There’s a useful little shell command posted here to calculate the reading time of a text selection based on the average reading speed.

Such a simple feature got me thinking about all the places this could be used, like RSS readers or Instapaper to let me filter my articles based on the amount of time I have.

The most useful place I’d love to see this implemented is in my email client, such that it warns me if I am sending an email that will take longer than 30 seconds to read. That would be a great way to finally encourage people to send shorter emails.

Update: I threw together a quick Safari extension based on the above idea for Gmail. You can get it from GitHub.

Passion Shows

2011-05-20T00:00:00-07:00

Passion Shows

20 May 2011 - San Diego

Found on a San Diego beach, the attention to detail in this sand castle is beyond ridiculous. The creator places each layer of sand one inch at a time to get that level of detail. He’s been building sand castles for nearly two decades. He started when his kids were toddlers, and just kept doing it even after his kids left for college and moved on. His passion shows. The beach was covered in similar castles that he had been building all day just for fun.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

2011-05-20T00:00:00-07:00

Keep It Simple, Stupid

20 May 2011 - San Jose

via blogs.forbes.com

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

It really does take a lot of courage to cut down features and “get rid of the crap,” but if you can, you come to the following realization:

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done.

Quote - Warriors and Scholars

2011-05-10T00:00:00-07:00

Quote - Warriors and Scholars

10 May 2011 - San Jose

Aza Raskin, discussing user interface design:

“The society that separates its warriors from its scholars, is a society that’s doomed to fail. Because if you do, then your idiots do your fighting, and your cowards do your thinking.”

The exact same thing is true of designers and engineers.

Raskin quotes an ancient Greek philosopher to illustrate why designers and engineers need to work together to design great products, rather than simply tacking an interface on top of an engineering project.

Ignoring Calls Elegantly

2011-03-18T00:00:00-07:00

Ignoring Calls Elegantly

18 Mar 2011 - Chicago

I read a post last month about phone etiquette in social events that encouraged people to switch to airplane mode so that calls would be sent straight to voicemail while you could keep using the social features of the phone for the conversation. While this strategy makes sense for showing pictures from my local photo library or taking notes, there is little else my phone can do without a data connection. Often times I use my phone to look up a fact to settle a debate between friends or grab a file from Dropbox.

So how can we still encourage good phone etiquette without using airplane mode?

I was out for dinner last night, and my friend’s phone was on the table. Half way through the night, it started ringing, and his first instinct was to flip it over to make it stop. Obviously, it kept ringing so he had to flip it back, forward the call, and then put the phone back on the table face down.

Why couldn’t the phone just forward the call automatically as soon he flipped it over? That’s a fairly universal gesture to signify that you wish to ignore your phone. This simple interaction design would make it far more acceptable to leave your phone on the table during a meeting or social gathering, and quickly ignore calls that don’t need your attention.

I’d love to see iOS 5 implement this functionality, since all of the hardware needed (accelerometer and proximity sensor) is already built-in to all of their devices.

Ideas don't make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does.

2011-03-13T00:00:00-08:00

Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does.

13 Mar 2011 - Chicago

via blogs.forbes.com

Good ideas are like Nike sports shoes. They may facilitate success for an athlete who possesses them, but on their own they are nothing but an overpriced pair of sneakers. Sports shoes don’t win races. Athletes do.

Bet on the jockey, not the horse.

My professor used to drill this saying into us in my Intro to Entrepreneurship class 2 years ago. I still use that quote most when giving advice to other students who have an idea but are hesitant to share it.

My freshmen year in college, I met two students who had just received VC funding, and they told me one tip that had helped them most: they shared their idea with anybody who would listen, because they never knew how somebody might be able to help them along.

If you truly have a good idea, somebody else is working on it too. You might as well talk about it and get all the help you can.

Quote - Why Entrepreneurs Should Love Rap Music

2011-02-13T00:00:00-08:00

Quote - Why Entrepreneurs Should Love Rap Music

13 Feb 2011 - Chicago

via areallybadidea.com

Rap music is music for entrepreneurs. Other genres write about love (rock, r&b), unattainable love (indie), nothing at all (electronic / dance), or redneck issues (country). But only rap music is almost maniacal in its focus on success, the acquisition of money and subsequent dispensation of it.

Google Search Results Statistics

2011-01-30T00:00:00-08:00

Google Search Results Statistics

30 Jan 2011 - Chicago

via fastcompany.com

(Indeed, search Google for “stop Farmville notifications,” and you’ll get over 50,000 results.)

Why do people always insist on citing the number of Google search results as a measure for popularity?

Pivotal Tracker Pricing Updates

2011-01-28T00:00:00-08:00

Pivotal Tracker Pricing Updates

28 Jan 2011 - Chicago

I just received Pivotal Tracker’s email regarding updates to their pricing plans that were announced last week. While their previous announcement was totally understandable (a company needs to make money), it was a bit of a bummer to suddenly see such a great free tool cost money. Their new email, on the other hand, presents a new pricing structure that they have modified based on customer feedback. I am really impressed at how they listened to feedback and quickly adjusted accordingly. I always appreciate dealing with a company that actually cares about its users, and their email just strengthened my support of their product and convinced me to stick with them once the pricing plans take effect.

Introducing Odorno Virtual Home Furnishing

2011-01-28T00:00:00-08:00

Introducing Odorno Virtual Home Furnishing

28 Jan 2011 - Chicago

Well, ok, not actually introducing, since Odorno isn’t a real product. It’s an early-stage business idea my partner-in-crime Muhammed Fazeel and I came up with our first year in college.

The idea was that the excitement of moving into a new home, apartment, or dorm was often muddled by the stress of having to shop for furniture. Usually, furniture shopping required taking detailed measurements of your home, then driving store to store, finding items that will fit in your space while also looking nice and matching, bringing the items all the way back home, and if it didn’t work out for whatever reason, taking it back to the store. Lather, rinse, repeat.

At the time, IKEA offered a free virtual room planning software to tackle this problem. We tried using it, and even with our engineering backgrounds, were completely at a loss. It required first creating a top-down 2D blueprint with manual dimensions of your rooms, which is not a trivial task. Another major problem was that the furniture catalog was limited to only IKEA’s products. After a lot of work, we finally got a render of what our room looked like according to IKEA’s software: apparently we had three chairs floating midair in the center of the room and a desk half way through the door. Yup, pretty accurate.

We wanted to simplify this process by using augmented reality to allow homeowners to easily create 3D panoramic models of each room that needed to be furnished. These models would be created from a simple automated tripod equipped with a camera and laser tape measure that could automatically create a 180° panorama of the room with the push of a button. The laser tape measure would calculate dimensions and perspective using a matrix imaging algorithm we came up with that was inspired by medical imaging techniques (at least in theory, we never got to test if our imaging method would actually work).

These models would then be uploaded to our online service, which would feature an extensive catalog of furniture from various manufacturers, already filtered to only show the ones that will fit in the user’s room. Users could easily drag-and-drop items into their room for an immediate visualization of how the room would look, even in different lighting conditions. The service would even feature an interior design community, where a professional designer could help you design your home for a small fee or an amateur designer could suggest designs to build his or her portfolio.

Background

We had submitted this idea to an entrepreneurship competition at Illinois Institute of Technology called the Idea Challenge. To our surprise, we won second place with a $100 prize and advanced to the Idea2Product MO-IL regional competition at Saint Louis University. As we prepared for the regionals, we talked to a handful of manufacturing companies in Chicago to see if they would consider listing their products in our catalog, and generally received a positive response (although this was probably because we were just students and they weren’t making an actual commitment). We also talked to a couple real estate firms to see if they would consider using our service to help their clients furnish new homes, and also received a generally positive response. We created hundreds of versions of our presentation, designed UI mockups, and wrote our first five-page product summary.

After much stress and many sleepless nights, the day of the competition arrived. We nervously gave our presentation, and awaited the results. In the end, we won $250 but did not advance to the finals. Wondering how we could improve, we eagerly found our judge to receive feedback. We were shocked to hear a couple of racist and even sexist comments that I won’t detail here. Suffice it to say, we were quite angry, though, in hindsight, this incident is one of the most humorous experiences I’ve had as an entrepreneur, and was a definite learning moment for us.

As student entrepreneurs, we expect to receive our fair share of racism and ageism and other forms of discrimination. There will be ups and there will be downs, but that’s what makes the journey fun. The only thing that matters is how we deal with the downs, and we chose to keep pushing forward because the ups totally make it worth it. A few months later, we competed in Northwestern University’s Entrepreneurship Idol, where we reached the finals and lost due to a mistake on our part. We were just ecstatic to have successfully competed in such a high-level competition at such a relatively young age (I had just turned 19 a few weeks earlier), and we knew that we were going to make make something big together.

However, after much deliberation, we decided to shelve Odorno in favor of another idea we wanted to pursue for a few reasons:

The housing market and overall economy was in the drain, leaving little room for a luxury service like our’s.
The technical expertise needed to build our hardware components was far beyond our skill level, meaning the product would be years away from a feasible launch. If it’s software or a web app, I can make it, but hardware is a different story.
Odorno’s success depended on building strong relationships with furniture manufacturers, an industry where we had zero experience.
Even if we had a working tripod and the furniture inventory, the capital needed to build the infrastructure for mass-producing those tripods as well as shipping them and the furniture would have been phenomenal.

Having said that, I still think there is a future for Odorno.

Going Forward

We know that everything is moving towards augmented reality, and nowhere does this make more sense than in the home decor industry. Since shelving Odorno, we’ve seen various companies release concepts and even actual products that piece-by-piece come closer to our goals with Odorno. First, there was the fake “Apple tablet” concept video that showed how users would shop for furniture in the future. Then, UC Berkeley researchers showed off a laser backpack that creates instant 3D models, obviously a perfect fit for Odorno. There was also the Nooka Augmented Reality Accessorizer concept video, which showed a similar concept to Odorno applied to trying on watches from your home. And that’s just a small taste of the many companies working on solutions to this problem, but as far as I can tell, nobody has tried our approach. Of course, this may be because it is technically impossible right now, or simply because nobody has thought of it yet (hopefully the latter). Keep in mind that our idea is over three years old and was created long before the recent surge in augmented reality became popular, meaning there have probably been huge advances in the field that could be applied towards Odorno since we last researched it.

I’m finally releasing these documents and telling this story because in the past few weeks, we have decided to completely dedicate ourselves to our current project, Tabule. Just as it’s important to never give up on an idea you believe in, it’s also important to recognize when you are not capable of making an idea a success, at which point you should refocus on something that harnesses your strengths. That means that we will not be following up on Odorno, but I sincerely hope that somebody else will. I finally got a chance to write up this post, and hopefully somebody will stumble across it and find it inspirational. Given the large interest in this field and the size of the industry, somebody with the requisite know-how might just be able to turn this into a success where we couldn’t.

If somebody does find this idea interesting and wishes to take it up, feel free to email me at neil@metamorphium.com if you want to see our presentation slides or other details on the idea.

Read our product summary.

How to Make Your Car's Navigation System Safer

2011-01-28T00:00:00-08:00

How to Make Your Car’s Navigation System Safer

28 Jan 2011 - Chicago

Last night, I was watching The Colbert Report do a segment on Obama’s State of the Union address. During one part of the speech, Obama encouraged entrepreneurship as a cure to our current economic crisis, reminding us that America is responsible for putting cars in driveways and computers in offices. Colbert made a joke about how we then proceeded to put computers in cars, which put the cars in offices thanks to poor drivers distracted by their touchscreen navigation systems.

We hear stories all the time about people who drove their car into a ditch or into their garage door because they were looking at the screen instead of the road. Obviously, having a touch screen in the car is not good for safety. Some car manufacturers have tried to address this by preventing the screen from being used while the car is moving, but this is a huge annoyance for a passenger who should be allowed to freely use the screen.

In November, I competed in Lawrence Tech University’s Innovation Encounter, which is basically a product design competition where you are given a problem and you have three hours to design a solution and present it. In this particular competition, we were tasked with designing the best way to integrate an iPhone with the car.

My team and I decided to focus on improving the experience of using one’s phone in the car, rather than creating any new overt features. For example, it’s annoying to have to carry my keys everywhere when I already carry my phone, to have to plug my phone in every time I get in the car, and to switch between using my phone and using my car’s control system. We designed an elegant solution that would solve each of these problems.

Lose the Keys

Cars that start when the key is still in the driver’s pocket have become extremely popular lately. But why not make my smartphone the key itself? Assuming that our phones have NFC chips in them in the near future, replacing the physical key with a smartphone should be trivial.

Juice Me Up

Once I’m in the car, I don’t want to have to look for a USB cable and plug my phone in before I start driving. Usually, I just drop my phone in a cup holder and go. So why not inductively charge my phone through the cup holder? If inductive charging won’t work, why not at least make some sort of universal docking system for the cup holder that at least makes it easier to plug my phone in? Of course, these solutions would need to be waterproof so that it still functions as a cup holder.

SmartHawk

Finally, instead of switching back and forth between my phone’s interface and my car’s interface, why not just let my phone control my car and not require me to even fiddle with the car? The most common adjustments a driver makes when entering his car are to adjust the rear view mirror, fix the seat location, change the air conditioning temperature, input a location in the navigation system, and play some music. If we are using our phone as our key, then the car already knows which person is driving based on the phone that is in the driver’s seat, so it can automatically adjust the rear view mirror and seat location based on the user’s saved preferences. I’ve seen cars that support driver profiles, but none that automatically switch based on recognizing the driver’s phone. Usually, I adjust my car’s interior temperature when it is either extremely hot outside or extremely cold. That means that ideally, I want to set the temperature while I am still inside my house or office. I should be able to easily choose a temperature on my phone and push it to my car, which will enable the air conditioning so that the car is waiting for me at perfect temperature when I get there. While I’m setting the temperature, I want to be able to also push the directions I looked up on my phone’s built-in maps app to the car’s screen without fiddling with a second navigation system. Now, when I get into my car, everything is set up, the temperature is perfect, and the car already knows where I’m going. As soon as I enter the car, it should begin streaming my music from my phone via Bluetooth. We call this system SmartHawk.

Now that’s the perfect in-car experience in my mind. Of course, we designed all of this in less than three hours, so some of these features may already exist and we just couldn’t find them or some of them may still be impossible for some reason I haven’t thought of yet. But from as far as I can tell, each of these features should be feasible, and the existing solutions seem to stop just one step short of such a seamless experience.

Safety First

But wait, what does this have to do with making the navigation system any safer? Well, for one, you no longer need to use the car’s screen because everything should be set up before you even get to the car. But just in case you are still tempted to do so, we designed a safety measure that we can’t figure out why nobody has implemented yet: we placed a proximity sensor on the left side of the in-car screen that would activate while the car is driving. If the driver tries to reach over to the screen, it will immediately shut off and prevent him from doing so thanks to the proximity sensor, but the passenger can still freely use the system from her side.

We ended up winning “Best Business Acumen” with a $500 cash prize, which is nice, but I’d like to see these features actually built into a car one day. Luckily, at the rate Ford Sync is improving, that may be sooner rather than later. When somebody does build this system, let me know and I’ll be the first in line to buy it.

Core Compentency

2011-01-28T00:00:00-08:00

Core Compentency

28 Jan 2011 - Chicago

via wetzler.me

In the end, it really came down to one incredibly genius idea: Dropbox limited its feature set on purpose.

Insightful post about why Dropbox beat out all the other competing backup solutions…

Keep it simple, stupid.

To be fair, most companies that complicate their feature set don’t do it because they enjoy writing more code and making complicated products. The reason focusing on your core competency is so difficult is that a simple product sounds boring on paper. It’s incredibly difficult to pitch to a VC or potential employee. Who wants to support a product that’s just going to sync one folder instead of your entire system? But it’s always the companies that manage to make it through that stage that succeed.

Personally, I prefer Apple’s approach with the iPhone: Make a dead simple and limited product, and then iteratively expand with what’s needed most.

Site Redesign

2011-01-27T00:00:00-08:00

Site Redesign

27 Jan 2011 - Chicago

Quick update: I’ve redesigned the Metamorphium site to give it more of a focus on some of my photography, rather than a boring grey background as before. I’ve also decided to just link to my Posterous blog itself rather than using the Posterous API to show my blog within my own site without Posterous’s branding. This was merely a decision of convenience, since I did not want to deal with updating all of my code to use Posterous’s new API, when I’d rather be working on Tabule.

There’s still a lot of changes that need to be made at the time of this writing, and I will be rolling those out slowly over the coming days. The biggest missing feature is still the complete lack of photo gallery. I just haven’t had the time to build a nice gallery, so for now, I’ve just dropped five or so pictures that caught my eye in my Aperture library into the home page (click on the Metamorphium logo on the homepage to randomly cycle through the pictures without reloading).

More changes to come. Stay tuned.

Quote - Hockey Players

2011-01-27T00:00:00-08:00

Quote - Hockey Players

27 Jan 2011 - Chicago

via 37signals.com

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

-Wayne Gretzky (via advice from his father, Walter Gretzky)

I love finding inspirational quotes like these in the middle of working.

Lack of Appreciation for User Experience

2011-01-21T00:00:00-08:00

Lack of Appreciation for User Experience

21 Jan 2011 - Chicago

This is an old article, but I recently found it in my notes and figured I’d post it here.

via 37signals

EventVue was always a vitamin instead of a pain killer. Conference organizers typically liked our product but none of them said they needed it. It didn’t make their lives easier, make them more money or cut any of their expenses — it was just ‘nice to have.’

Not everything needs to be a pain killer. Sometimes people need vitamins too.

We wrongly assumed that since we were obviously improving the conference experience, organizers would want to pay for it. One of our customers memorably said ‘If I wanted to improve the conference experience I would buy everyone steak dinners. I don’t care about the conference experience. I care about selling tickets. What can you do to help me do that?’

This mentality that the user experience doesn’t matter unless it solves some core pain is an unfortunate one for consumers, albeit necessary for the company’s bottom line. I’d like to see more services and companies that actually care about my experience, and actively work towards improving it, even if it harms their bottom line a little bit. Companies that show that kind of appreciation for their customers earn their loyalty.

Best Method for Testing Usability?

2011-01-16T00:00:00-08:00

Best Method for Testing Usability?

16 Jan 2011 - Chicago

Comment from my Facebook news feed:

haha… droids are to complicated to operate when drunk… id rather have my blackberry back for pictures IT WAS TOO EASY

That must be the ultimate test in usability. If somebody can easily use your product while drunk, then you know it’s well designed. On the other hand, if they can’t even figure out how to save a picture, you should probably go back to the drawing board.

Quote - Of Course

2011-01-08T00:00:00-08:00

Quote - Of Course

08 Jan 2011 - San Jose

via GigaOm

Most companies (including web startups), he said, are looking to “wow” with their products, when in reality what they should be looking for is an “‘of course’ reaction from their users.”

Such a simple, deceptively obvious comment, but so incredibly important for understanding the secret to good design.

This is another one of those quotes I’m going to carry with me for the rest of my life. The entire article is full of great quotes, and is a must read for anybody interested in product design.

iPad in Education Report

2011-01-08T00:00:00-08:00

iPad in Education Report

08 Jan 2011 - San Jose

via Notre Dame University

In particular, we found it striking that on average, students feel the iPad; a) encourages exploration of additional course topics, b) helps manage time, c) provides new functions/tools, d) increases learning, and e) makes courses more interesting.

This is the first formally published report for a term-long study on using iPads in classrooms, which were a phenomenal success apparently.

Initial Thoughts on Mac App Store

2011-01-07T00:00:00-08:00

Initial Thoughts on Mac App Store

07 Jan 2011 - San Jose

Apple finally released the Mac App Store yesterday, which will undoubtedly change how most people use their computers forever.

Like everybody else, my initial reaction after launching the App Store was to look quizzically at the new user interface. Tim Morgan details each change in his interesting analysis of Apple's design decisions.

However, the inconsistent UI shouldn't surprise people anymore. Apple has a history of experimenting with different UI's in each of its products, such as the strange stoplight buttons in iTunes, the scroll bars in iPhoto, etc. Each time, it bugs me that Apple is breaking its own HIG, and for no clear benefit either. For better or worse, we are stuck with these inconsistent and unique interfaces, and should get used to third party apps following that trend as well. While I personally believe that ignoring the HIG is a bad idea, only time will tell how Apple's decision plays out. At least the App Store is still way better than the old way of installing apps: downloading individual DMGs.

As a side note, the only worthwhile apps in the App Store for me seem to be Apple's own apps. Being able to get Aperture for $80 (vs $200 before) or individual iWork apps for just $20 is awesome. If only companies like Adobe and Microsoft would join in, but that is unlikely to happen due to the 30% profit sharing with Apple.

LG Promise

2010-12-31T00:00:00-08:00

LG Promise

31 Dec 2010 - San Jose

I was going through my old files recently, and came across a concept design I made in April for LG’s Design the Future competition, and figured I’d throw it up here just to document it.

The LG Promise is a concept phone that uses RFID technology to replace your physical wallet with a virtual, more secure wallet. It also features new interaction models, such as a proximity sensor that displays and hides the on-screen controls when the user’s hand approaches.

Trunk Notes

2010-11-30T00:00:00-08:00

Trunk Notes

30 Nov 2010 - Chicago

I've been meaning to try transitioning to a wiki for organizing my notes for many years now, after hearing so many recommendations for using them. I even got as far as setting up MediaWiki on my server, but the biggest challenge I faced was that it took too long to navigate to my wiki, log in, create a new page, add content, and then optionally link it with the rest of my wiki. It seemed so much easier to just email myself the note, since I always already have my email client open, and it's simple to edit one text box and hit send. Email has a low pain threshold, which is why it has managed to remain so popular, even in the face of so many newer, more advanced technologies. But even if I got used to leaving my wiki open all the time too, making it as accessible as my email on my computer, I hit another barrier when I realized that I spend most of my time and write most of my notes on my iPhone. However, editing a full fledged wiki site from the iPhone is definitely unpleasant, to put it gently. As a result, I avoided wikis for another few years and ignored peoples' constant urges that I should try them.

Recently, Trunk Notes for iOS garnered a lot of publicity on the usual tech blogs. I decided to try it, and after just one day of use, I have to say, I am loving it. Not only does the wiki structure lead to much more organized notes, but there is no additional pain threshold. Up until now, I had continued to use iOS's built-in Notes app, despite much more powerful note taking apps like Evernote. My only problem with Evernote is that it is slow. I still use it for organizing receipts and business cards, mostly due to its amazing OCR-based search, but I never used it for text notes. Usually, I want to quickly jot down a note, and the Notes app was always the fastest. Amazingly, Trunk Notes is actually faster than Notes!

Great speed, Markdown syntax, full wiki power, Dropbox syncing. What's not to love? Do yourself a favor, and if you haven't already, download Trunk Notes! It's just $4 for a universal app. I haven't had a chance to install it on my iPad yet, but it works great on my iPhone.

Quote - Bootstrapping

2010-11-20T00:00:00-08:00

Quote - Bootstrapping

20 Nov 2010 - Chicago

via 37signals

The things you do more often are the things you’re going to get good at. So if you get really good at spending money, you’re going to be really good at spending money. If you have to work on making money from day one, you’re going to get really damn good at making money. And that’s what you need to be as an entrepreneur…

This logic applies to favoring bootstrapping over getting a large VC investment as well. By forcing yourself to be frugal early on, you get good at saving money. When you take a large VC investment, you get good at spending money.

Quote - Product Releases

2010-11-12T00:00:00-08:00

Quote - Product Releases

12 Nov 2010 - Chicago

via 37signals

Usage is like oxygen for ideas. You can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something you’ve created until it’s out there. That means every moment you’re working on something without it being in the public it’s actually dying, deprived of the oxygen of the real world.

-Matt Mullenweg

It can definitely be very intimidating when first releasing your product, since it’ll never feel perfect. Of course, as many entrepreneurs have said, if you aren’t embarrassed of version 1 of your software, then you waited too long. With that in mind, I am currently trying to convince myself to wrap up development and release my software.

For Election Day

2010-11-02T00:00:00-07:00

For Election Day

02 Nov 2010 - Chicago

whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com

Entrepreneurs Are All Screwed Up

2010-10-31T00:00:00-07:00

Entrepreneurs Are All Screwed Up

31 Oct 2010 - Chicago

via TechCrunch

There are lots of things that I will probably never experience in this life. Military combat. Being dictator of a small central American country. Dunking a basketball. Being a famous rocks star. Or walking on the Mars.

But one thing I have been, and will always be, is an entrepreneur. And damnit that feels pretty good.

Great read about why being an entrepreneur is so enjoyable, even when the risks are so high and the chance of success so low. It’s true that we gamble everything away, including personal relationships, just for the adventure. And while I have many regrets, this still isn’t one of them.

Deprecating Java on Mac

2010-10-24T00:00:00-07:00

Deprecating Java on Mac

24 Oct 2010 - Chicago

via The Register

In the beginning, Microsoft provided Java for Windows - but Sun took over when Microsoft violated their contract and made Java code written on Windows unable to run on other systems.

This in an interesting article about the difficulties that Java faces on the Mac. The above quote simply made me laugh as it illustrates how Microsoft never changes its tricks.

But in all seriousness, I really am curious as to what Apple’s plans with Java are. I agree that many Java apps are a second-rate experience that probably should not be allowed in the App Store. But there are still many examples of amazing Java applications, such as Eclipse itself, that would greatly hurt Mac OS as a development platform if lost.

Java is the language of choice for most introductory programming courses in schools due to its relative simplicity. By deprecating Java support, Apple has made it clear that it is not a good idea to depend on Macs for working with Java. That means a Mac is no longer an option for many students and they will be forced to use Windows again. If a student learns on Windows, he or she is likely to keep using Windows through life after that. Apple’s large growth has, in part, been due to so many students adopting a Mac and then using those Macs even after graduating.

It shall be interesting to see what happens as they move forward with Lion.

Quote - Group Think

2010-10-23T00:00:00-07:00

Quote - Group Think

23 Oct 2010 - Chicago

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.

-Sir Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson

From my Social Psychology textbook.

Lincoln Park Apple Store

2010-10-23T00:00:00-07:00

Lincoln Park Apple Store

23 Oct 2010 - Chicago

It was an exciting day today at the Apple store opening. Aside from seeing Apple umbrellas and getting completely seduced by the new MacBook Air, I met Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s ex-Chief of Staff, in line at the opening. I can now add him to my list of famous people I’ve physically met, which I mentally began after meeting Hugh Jackman two years ago.

Quote - 10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong

2010-10-11T00:00:00-07:00

Quote - 10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong

11 Oct 2010 - Chicago

via hannahnewwhen.tumblr.com

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

True Story

2010-10-08T00:00:00-07:00

True Story

08 Oct 2010 - Chicago

Yes, I realize the comic is referring to Indian Institute of Technology, but I can definitely relate after three years at Illinois Institute of Technology.

Quote - Success

2010-10-06T00:00:00-07:00

Quote - Success

06 Oct 2010 - Chicago

via BlogOfBenglert

Success is fucking up on your own terms.

-Guillermo del Toro

The Value of an iPad is Emotional

2010-10-02T00:00:00-07:00

The Value of an iPad is Emotional

02 Oct 2010 - Chicago

via Forbes

“Don’t throw away apps.” In 20 years, he explained, the iPhone app made for a movie like The Men Who Stare At Goats will be worth a lot of money. While the rest of the world is getting used to using tablet technology, Fry is making a date with his future antique dealer. Now that’s forward thinking.

Stephen Fry compares the value of an iPad to a dog. It’s about emotional connection over function. At the end, he brings up an interesting question. Will apps appreciate in value in the future when they are replaced with newer apps and become unavailable, like certain music records are today? Will there be app collectors? Or will DRM prevent any of this from happening?

How Campus Network Lost to Facebook

2010-09-30T00:00:00-07:00

How Campus Network Lost to Facebook

30 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via Slate

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

The above quote is from Goldberg’s Facebook profile. Goldberg is the founder of Campus Network, a now extinct social network that was once Facebook’s biggest competitor. The story of why it lost is a great read and reminder of how important simplicity is in products. Rather than building a long bullet list of features, focus on a few core features and be the best at them. Then, iterate and improve over time.

For all the mistakes Zuckerberg is accused of making, he sure is a brilliant business man.

Quote - iPad Changing Education

2010-09-29T00:00:00-07:00

Quote - iPad Changing Education

29 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via Fraser Speirs

The thing is that, when you use an app on an iPad, the iPad becomes that thing. Maps makes the iPad a map. iBooks turns it into a book. Brushes turns it into a sketch pad. I feel that teachers aren’t looking for “new software that I can run on this computing device”, rather that they’re asking “can I make this iPad into something else useful for my teaching?”.

The iPad has already revolutionized education in this one school. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the schools catch up.

Apple's Market Strategy

2010-09-29T00:00:00-07:00

Apple’s Market Strategy

29 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via O'Reilly Radar

In this regard, Apple’s product strategy is a study in market segmentation. Versus merely trying to stuff a product, burrito-style, with as many different features as possible, they target specific user experiences, and build the product around that accordingly.

Great article about the dangers of conventional wisdom.

Unfortunately, even customers today have grown up with this conventional wisdom and like to see a long bullet list of features, rather than focus on the experience. This problem is especially prevalent in enterprise where the people making the purchase are removed from the people using the product.

Namesake

2010-09-28T00:00:00-07:00

Namesake

28 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via New York Times

As the saying goes, it’s not what you know, but who you know - and a startup called Namesake plans to capitalize on that mentality by providing a social network that gives users a way to seek and promote job opportunities through the people they know - all in under 200 characters.

Namesake is exactly what many early start ups need. My biggest problem right now is finding people I know who have the skill set that I need. This is much harder than I anticipated, and I have been dreaming of a service that helps me find people easier. As TechCrunch puts it, Namesake is the Match.com for professional opportunities.

This service could really take off if they target universities where there is a lot of talent looking for ideas and a lot of ideas looking for talent.

What's the Biggest Sign that Everything is Going Cloud?

2010-09-23T00:00:00-07:00

What’s the Biggest Sign that Everything is Going Cloud?

23 Sep 2010 - Chicago

Blockbuster files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

It’s the end of an era… Blu-Ray really is doomed.

Apple's Mobile Market Share vs Profit Share

2010-09-22T00:00:00-07:00

Apple’s Mobile Market Share vs Profit Share

22 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via CNN Money

Click to enlarge. Source: Canaccord Genuity and IDC

Innovative Entrepreneurs Create Innovation Through Entrepreneurship

2010-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

Innovative Entrepreneurs Create Innovation Through Entrepreneurship

21 Sep 2010 - Chicago

I was at the House of Blues last night for the Chicago Innovation Awards nominee reception party, which celebrates Chicago’s most innovative companies. It was a fun night of free food and networking in an awesome environment. However, as my partner pointed out, after two years of entrepreneurship conferences, the words “entrepreneur” and “innovation” are far too overused. Can we please get some synonyms?

I was going to propose ‘innovatorship’ but turns out that’s actually already in use…

Conquering Failure

2010-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

Conquering Failure

21 Sep 2010 - Chicago

A drenched man is not afraid of the rain.

-Anupam Kher at IIT

Kher gave an extremely inspiring speech at IIT yesterday about learning from one’s failures and never letting our perceived weaknesses hurt us. He is a living example of the rags to riches cliché we see in movies.

His most significant lesson that he kept reiterating was to be honest, work hard, be yourself, and most importantly, be confident. The world will constantly try to put you down and focus on the weaknesses that you are afraid of. However, if you acknowledge your weaknesses (be honest), build your strengths (work hard), focus on exhibiting those strengths to the world (be yourself), and don’t be insecure about your weaknesses (be confident), then success is all but guaranteed. If your weaknesses, no matter how severe, don’t bother you, they can’t bother anybody else either.

One example he mentioned during Q&A really demonstrated this philosophy. In India, there are exit exams for 10th grade. If you fail, you must repeat that year before moving on. This is the most embarrassing thing for a student. One day in high school, Kher’s father treated him to an expensive lunch at an upscale restaurant. Coming from a poor family, this surprised him, but on his father’s insistence, he ate a full meal, wondering what the occasion was. At the end of the meal, he asked why he was being treated, and his father said, “You failed 10th grade.” Naturally, Kher wondered why that would result in a treat, to which his father replied, “I am celebrating your failure so that you are never afraid of failure again.”

Most people spend their whole lives never taking risks or not living up to their potential because they’re afraid of failing. It is this fear, not our lack of ability, that holds most of us back. But the best part about failing is that you’re already drenched, so there’s no reason not to keep trying again.

Got a crazy idea or dream? Try to achieve it. And if it doesn’t work, then work hard and try again.

In the Silicon Valley, failures are more readily encouraged. Many VC’s won’t even invest in a startup unless the founders have experienced at least one failure. While that is extreme, since it is entirely possible for people to be successful on their first attempt, it is refreshing to see failures considered acceptable and even encouraged in that region. This culture needs to spread to the rest of the world because when it does, we will likely see an explosion of innovation.

Over the years, I’ve picked up several inspirational quotes that I remember and use almost everyday. They range from common sayings, like “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” or “Ask and you shall receive,” to more specific ones, like “Innovators are always seen as crazy until they’re successful” or “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” I will be adding Kher’s quote to my list, and I hope you do too.

Apple Finally Killed the Remote

2010-09-18T00:00:00-07:00

Apple Finally Killed the Remote

18 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via 9to5mac

That means you can watch most Internet video on AppleTV over AirPlay. The day AppleTV is released, you’ll be able to watch free SD clips of shows that appear on ComedyCentral.com like the Daily Show and Colbert Report via Airplay. You theoretially should be able to watch Hulu Plus so long as it is encoded in H.264 (and doesn’t get blocked once the networks figure out what Apple has done here).

Ever since the first iPhone launched, I’ve been waiting for Apple to kill the remote with an integrated touch screen device. Apple has finally done it.

Google’s strategy is to turn your tv into a computer, and bring all the web’s content to the TV. Apple, on the other hand, wants to make the TV a dumb screen that waits for you to send it content, just like speakers wait for you to give them an audio source. By making that source your existing computer or iOS device, Apple has killed any need for an additional remote control. Instead, just use the device you’re already comfortable with, and easily push content to your TV. No extra device, no separate app, just the same exact environment you already use.

Valuable Advice for Any CEO

2010-09-16T00:00:00-07:00

Valuable Advice for Any CEO

16 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via ben's blog

Innovation is almost insane by definition: most people view any truly innovative idea as stupid, because if it was a good idea, somebody would have already done it. So, the innovator is guaranteed to have more natural initial detractors than followers.

Ben is a partner in an investment firm, and he talks about lessons he’s learned as a prior CEO and as an investor. I highly recommend reading ben's blog to any entrepreneur or CEO. It’s full of advice and lessons that are better learned from his mistakes, rather than making them again yourself.

IE9 - Better, But Still Not There

2010-09-15T00:00:00-07:00

IE9 - Better, But Still Not There

15 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via TechCrunch

Microsoft is launching with a slew of partners from A to Z, including Amazon, CNN, and Jango, to tune their sites especially for IE9.

If you have to tune a site for a specific browser, then something’s still wrong. When will IE stop holding the rest of the web back?

A Radical ATM Redesign That's Actually Sexy

2010-09-15T00:00:00-07:00

A Radical ATM Redesign That’s Actually Sexy

15 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via Vimeo

I'm glad somebody is finally focusing on ATM usability. Read more at The Future of Self-Service Banking from IDEO.

Study Investigates Teaching with iPad Instead of Book

2010-09-14T00:00:00-07:00

Study Investigates Teaching with iPad Instead of Book

14 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via TUAW

One group is using the HMH Fuse app and a control group is using the standard text. As far as we know, this is the first time a full year subject matter course has been rolled out as an app. The study will be conducted by Empirical Educations Inc. an independent testing group, and will measure differences and similarities in areas of achievement and attitudes about learning. They also want to learn about how and if the students use the app the way it was intended.

I am very interested to see the results of this study. This is the first iPad-related study I’ve seen that is actually collecting data in an experimental model with test and control groups.

Observation - Transitioning Between a Laptop and iPad

2010-09-14T00:00:00-07:00

Observation - Transitioning Between a Laptop and iPad

14 Sep 2010 - Chicago

Quickly transitioning from working on an iPad to working on a laptop really makes their respective strengths and weaknesses clearer. The iPad is sleek and convenient. It's perfect for browsing the web, emailing, and writing papers for students. The laptop is large, clunky, and hot. It has sharp edges that are painful to rest on, it requires more effort to type on in my opinion, and it blocks the user's view of the rest of the room.

This difference is especially important in a classroom. In most of my classes, students have a laptop screen between them and the instructor, creating a barrier between communication. In my humanities class, where there are mostly freshmen with iPads, this barrier is removed. This results in a higher rate of participation, as well as more visual feedback for the professor, as he or she can now see the students' faces.

An Often Forgotten Benefit of iPads in Education

2010-09-12T00:00:00-07:00

An Often Forgotten Benefit of iPads in Education

12 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via Fraser Speirs

Simply put: if your device doesn’t last for 10 real-world hours of use, your device is no longer competitive in education. I can’t imagine ever going back to using 4-hour devices like laptops on a regular basis.

Strong words about the death of the laptop in education.

Apple Finally Releases App Store Review Guidelines

2010-09-09T00:00:00-07:00

Apple Finally Releases App Store Review Guidelines

09 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via App Store Review Guidelines (Mirrored by Engadget)

4-3 Apps that use location-based APIs for dispatch, fleet management, or emergency services will be rejected

The newly released App Store Review Guidelines are an interesting, humorous, and surprisingly blunt read. Lots of good tid bits.

However, the point quoted above stood out most to me.

Medical startups are extremely hot right now, especially those that take advantage of the power and mobility of iDevices. While it makes sense that Apple would want to distance itself from the legal headache of life and death situations, this is going to be disappointing to several medically-oriented startups.

Why Psychology?

2010-09-07T00:00:00-07:00

Why Psychology?

07 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via TechCrunch

It is such an under-discussed issue as we spend our time in startups mostly talking about products, marketing and fund raising. And business schools seem to also over emphasize the quantitative skills over the human ones. I guess the latter is harder to teach but I believe a bigger driver of success.

If you want to attract world class talent you have to be inspirational, persuasive and persistent (they best people always have other offers). If you want to retain the best talent you have to be able to devolve power, coach people for performance, resolve conflicts, find ways to create growth opportunities, balance carrot / stick motivational techniques, etc.

People always wonder why I'm double majoring in Psychology, when I'm clearly a programmer and a businessman at heart.

I originally decided to study psychology because it would complement my Computer Science side. I wanted to use aspects of learning theory to make good interface designs. A good interface is just as important to a program's success as the code behind it, a fact that is unfortunately often overlooked by most programmers. In this regard, studying psychology has already helped me tremendously.

However, along the way, I realized that psychology has several uses in business and even day-to-day life.

Psychology is also useful in marketing. Knowing how people tend to think and respond let's you stay one step ahead. Do you want to use the foot-in-door phenomenon of attracting people by advertising low prices and then upselling, or use the door-in-face phenomenon of setting high prices and then offering a discount to reduce the price?

And psychology is good for managing people. Any HR specialist worth his salt will be properly trained in Industrial Organizational psychology, which focuses on hiring and managing people. I think that all CEO's should also be trained in it. Knowing good leadership techniques, how to motivate, and even how to properly fire somebody are crucial skills for any leader.

It is often said that a company's most important asset is its people. Well, good people can't be programmed, they have to be found and nurtured.

Most people think that psychology is only good for running therapist sessions. This couldn't be farther from the truth.

Reaction to iPads in School

2010-09-07T00:00:00-07:00

Reaction to iPads in School

07 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via Fraser Speirs

Some questions or, should I say, assumptions commonly arise in these comment threads. I'd like to answer some:

Did my taxes pay for this outrage?

Not one penny of it. We charge parents a fee and cover our costs that way. Incidentally, those fees come out of money that's already been taxed to pay for that child's state school place that's not being used.

Are you no longer teaching children to write?

No, kids are still learning to write. Consider, though, that a child starting school this year will not leave until 2023. Now think about how much you hand-write today and imagine how much less you'll be writing in 2023. I can't see handwriting retaining its privileged position forever.

Are you no longer reading books?

We're experimenting with eBooks and I'll report back on how that goes. I can guarantee you, though, that school pupils rarely value the "rich texture of paper". Most school books get printed on stock that looks more like a slightly stiffer sheet of Andrex than the weighty, luxuriant pages of a fine-art book.

Many printed materials for Scottish education are not availale in electronic form so, even if we wanted to eradicate the paper book, it will take some time.

Won't the children lack "proper" computer skills?

Define 'proper', 'computer' and 'skills'. Now define them as commonly understood in the year 2023, which is when a pupil starting today will leave school.

I've never taught to specific software packages and never will. Of course, we have to use actual real software, but there's a big difference between "teaching Excel" and "teaching spreadsheets". Don't forget we still have MacBooks and iMacs too.

This is a constant tension in educational technology: do you teach for the current "business environment" or do you teach for learning? I prefer the latter. I'm not doing this just to produce the next generation of cubicle fodder.

A child graduating our school this year started school when the Apple Pippin was still current. How can I possibly know what specific technologies will be used in their career? It's beyond absurd to even pose the question.

Aren't you experimenting with children's futures?

Yup, but that's nothing compared to the experiment that all of Scotland is engaged in with Curriculum for Excellence.

This might not work. In three years we might not renew our lease and we could easily go back to a situation where kids get an hour a week using computers. Does that sound like it will be a defensible idea in 2013? Not to me.

This is actually a tamer reaction than I saw to my university introducing an iPad program. Why so much resentment and jealousy to changes in technology?

Textbook Rentals Market Growing? Why?

2010-09-06T00:00:00-07:00

Textbook Rentals Market Growing? Why?

06 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via TechCrunch

College textbook rental startup BookRenter is also taking part in this growing market, reporting 725 percent growth in revenue from textbook rentals since last September. The company says that revenue is expected to be in the range of $20 to $50 million in 2010. Of course, this is still behind competitor Chegg, which is expected to see revenues in the range of $130 million this year.

Like its competitors, Bookrenter wants to be the Netflix of textbook rentals. By renting textbooks, Students are able to save money by loaning textbooks for a fixed duration, usually a semester, and end up spending only the fraction of the cost of outright purchases.

Textbook rentals make little sense at the moment because even a fraction of the cost of purchasing a new textbook is more expensive than buying a used book and re-selling it at the end of the semester. What we really need, is a subscription-based rental service, like a true Netflix for books, for book rentals to fully replace purchases. You would pay a monthly fee to rent x amount of books per month. Profit would be made by attracting large numbers of people and conquering the market instead of pulling large profit margins from a small number of people.

This model would work best for ebooks, which desperately need an affordable subscription model to replace traditional textbooks in schools. An even better service would allow schools to purchase campus-wide licenses to certain ebooks and then allow students access to the books associated to their enrolled classes from their iPads or other mobile devices.

I have experimented with replacing some of my textbooks with ebooks, and the experience has been amazing. Being able to easily search and annotate books, as well as carry my whole library in a small bag, has increased my productivity and study abilities tremendously. Unfortunately, the licensing terms required to make the above business model a success are probably too aggressive for traditional publishers.

Android vs iOS - Who Will Win?

2010-09-06T00:00:00-07:00

Android vs iOS - Who Will Win?

06 Sep 2010 - Chicago

via TechCrunch

Android has succeeded despite Google. In fact it’s safe to say that Android is successful for one primary reason. The iPhone is only available on AT&T. If the iPhone was on Verizon a year ago. Android would be no where near as popular.

Obviously, Beach isn’t the first person to bring this idea up. But he brings it up in a way that he’s able to back-up his feelings from a developers’ perspective, while at the same time roping in what isn’t ideal from a consumer perspective about Android as well.

Android will continue to grow and become the dominant mobile OS. However, not because it's the better OS. Instead, people will purchase Android phones for the same reason dumbphones have prevailed for so long: people like free phones, and Android phones will be significantly cheaper than iOS phones.

Although Android will capture the majority of the market, all of the money will be made from iOS phones since its customers will be more likely to spend money on apps than their Android counterparts. As a result, the good developers will flock to iOS as well. Android will become the budget phone of the future, and iOS will be the high-end phone of luxury. By market share, android will win. By revenue, iOS will win. But both will co-exist just fine.

Site Redesign Progress

2010-09-05T00:00:00-07:00

Site Redesign Progress

05 Sep 2010 - Chicago

To my surprise, this site came together rather quickly in the last 2 days. However, there is still much work left to be done, and I must currently shift my attention to another project for the moment. Therefore, in case you are browsing Metamorphium before I have a chance to update, please know that the following features are broken or missing:

Blog RSS feed
Blog Search
Add picture galleries
Add video gallery (waiting for Sublime Video player to release before implementing this one)

While most of the work so far has been put into advancing the hash based URL system, there is still a lot left to be done to make it more robust and expandable. My next goal is to allow better ajax integration, rather than only loading inline HTML content, as it does now.

Hello World

2010-09-04T00:00:00-07:00

Hello World

04 Sep 2010 - Chicago

Welcome to the totally revamped Metamorphium!

While designing this site from scratch, I realized that I was being limited by Wordpress and really didn't need 99% of its features. For my blogging needs, which are very modest, a simple custom designed blog made most sense. But rather than pour hours of work into making a whole new blogging platform, I realized that Posterous's solution was exactly the thing I needed. Since I spend most of my time mobile and live off of my iPhone, being able to email in my posts meant that I'm much more likely to maintain the blog. Even this post was typed on my iPhone.

In order to integrate Posterous with my new site design, I used their public API to pull my posts from their servers and display them on my site. This allows me to use Posterous for my backend without it ever showing in the front end.

You may have noticed that I do not have comments in my blog. This is because adding comments support seemed to cause more problems than it solved in several aspects. However, I still love to hear your feedback and questions, and will try my best to respond quickly. Head on over to my contact page to get my address.

While performing this move, I also realized I have little reason to keep using Twitter, so I have decided to stop tweeting and switch to Posterous for all my blogging needs.

We'll see how this experiment goes.