Confusability

Bribery, Gifts and Corruption

I just won a competition and have won a Slingbox. Now I just have to work out what I am going to use it for!

After that piece of good luck, I would like someone to tell me how I can get hold of the Vista PC that Joel Spolsky turned down.

Here is Joel's advice on Vista:

1. Do not, under any circumstances, consider upgrading an XP system to Vista... even if it's fairly new and even if it's Vista Supremo Premium Ultra-Capable.
2. When you get a new computer, if it comes with Vista pre-installed, that's when you'll upgrade.
3. Don't buy a new computer now just to get Vista. If your current system meets your needs, stick with it until you really need a new system. Vista is not reason enough for a new PC.

It's heartening to see Joel setting a good example on bribery and corruption.

The ntl:Telewest Simplicity Rip-Off

Earlier this year my cable provider "Telewest" merged with "NTL".

This is what they told us about the changes to come:

Surely my services are going to change?
Today it's business as usual and there's no change to your services, contracts, prices or customer service contacts as a result of the completion of the merger. However, we will go through a process of integrating the businesses, based on taking forward the best of both. As decisions are made and changes take place, we will ensure that information is communicated to you as early as is possible.

What sort of changes might take place?
Our aim is to offer a consistent service to all cable customers - taking the best of both companies - and therefore some changes to the services offered today may take place. It's too early to be specific. New technology and innovation may also lead to new services.

It sounded great. I was going to get the best of the NTL offerings and NTL customers were going to get the best of the Telewest offerings.

This morning I received this leaflet in the post:

It goes onto say:

Since Telewest and ntl joined forces, one of the first things we’ve done is make sure our prices offer the same great value to everyone. We’ve tried to make everything clear and simple for you.

Now I love the idea of simplicity, and I was anxious to find out how my life was going to be made simpler.

They had changed the name of my TV package from "Supreme" to "TV Size: XL". Not much problem with that, although it does make me sound like I have a TV obestity problem.

I then looked at the price changes and saw that my renamed TV package was being simplified from £17.50 a month to £20.50 a month. That means that I will be paying 17% more each month to watch the same TV I am watching now.

I wondered if NTL customers were already paying this amount and I just happened to be getting the raw deal in the "simplifying" process.

After looking at the equivalent NTL leaflet I saw that the NTL package that was called "Family" had also been renamed to "TV Size: XL". They are currently paying £19.50 a month for their package and they will soon be paying the simplified £20.50 as well.

Now forgive me for being a bit stupid. But there is only one option available that would take "the best of both companies" foward. Telewest customers continue to pay £17.50 a month and NTL customers have their charges reduced from £19.50 to £17.50.

The next worst option would be to charge NTL customers the same £19.50 a month and increase the Telewest charges from £17.50 to £19.50 a month.

The absolute worst option would be to charge NTL customers £1 a month more and charge Telewest customers £3 a month more.

That's not simplification. It's a bloody rip-off.

If you look at some of the presentations that they have been making resently, you can see how they have already "saved" over £150 million pounds this year by sacking staff:

and it is clear that the current "alignment of products" is just the start of the "Virgin Media" rebranding process that I am going to have to pay for.

It's very interesting to listen to the audio presentation while looking at the slides and you can hear how they are "getting rid" of the NTL customers who aren't paying enough (slide 3).

I wonder why they didn't put the presentation link in their leaflet? 

How Much Exercise Does a Cat Need?

I have been perusing the US Patents library by searching on the new Google Patent Search.

I have got two cats and I never realised how cruel I was being to them because of my ignorance of their exercise requirements.

US Patent 5443036 Method of exercising a cat

A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct.

I have always used a piece of string or wool and got exactly the same effect.

Why don't you play my "Find The Stupid Patent Game" (pat pending) over this holiday period.

When you get bored of that you might like to look at the 79 Usability Patents by Jakob Nielsen that I have put together on my unofficial Jakob Nielsen Blog.

I have also updated my "Simply Google" page with the new patent search as well.

The Future Of Software Engineering

From an interview with Grady Booch:

FJ: Do you think the innovation in software engineering is diminishing or thriving? What's the Best Practice in software innovation?

GB: Software is perhaps the world's most important industry: what we do touches upon every other industry, and both create new businesses as well as greater efficiencies in existing ones. Some areas of the field are mature; some are still in a stage of vibrant innovation, some areas need a bit of new vitality.

FJ: What's your career advice for people who work in software industry?

GB: Being a software developer is both a privilege and a responsibility. In this field, there are so many places to grow and contribute. Learn by studying the work of others; follow your passion. Most of all, be sure you have fun in the process.

Agile Arrogance on the wane?

In his latest Agile Newsletter Scott Abmler writes:

A few months ago I attended a user group meeting and the person giving the presentation had some incredible insights into software development. After the presentation a bunch of us went out to a local pub where I had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with the presenter. I told him that his techniques, which had been proven in practice many times over, would be of great interest to the agile community and I invited him to share his ideas with the community. He snorted and said that he had tried to do exactly that, but had been all but banned from the discussion lists which he had joined. He said that he'd been treated so poorly by the "close-minded agilists" that he wasn't interested in even trying to get involved with us any more.

I myself have seen abhorrent behavior occur on several of our most popular discussion forums, conferences, and user group meetings. It seems that there are several "favorite whipping boys" that are commonly attacked on agile discussion lists, regardless of experience in those topics on the part of the discussers. I'm often astounded at how stupid and incompetent management is portrayed to be, ignoring the fact that these are often very intelligent people doing the best that they can in often less-than-ideal situations. Everyone knows that the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is the root of all evil, even though some interesting work is being done in Agile CMM and in (egads!) an Agile Maturity Model itself. The Unified Process (UP) is also commonly attacked, regardless of the numerous case studies written about how it's been instantiated in an agile manner, not to mention freely available agile versions such as the Agile Unified Process (AUP), Open Unified Process (OpenUP), and Essential Unified Process (EssUP). A lot of people on the lists "just know" that quality assurance (QA) and data management (DM) groups within organizations are simply incapable of being effective members of agile teams. It seems to me that our community has many unwarranted prejudices, prejudices that could very likely turn potential converts away from agile software development.

Truth be told, I'm no saint; I've been known to give data professionals a relatively hard time (okay, a really hard time), but at least I make a conscious attempt to understand and present the philosophies and techniques of the traditional DM community in a fair light.

Full Article: An Agile New Year's Resolution for All of Us

The History of Flash

Flash celebrated its 10 years at a conference in Brighton in the UK - called Flash On The Beach - which brought together hundreds of developers, designers and illustrators, many of whom work exclusively with the application.

Ten years ago, it was just a way to present animated graphics on a web browser - but people are now experimenting with it in many other ways, for example with mobile phones.

However, it remains best known for animation, and not just on the web; increasingly, Flash-based content is broadcast on television.

Dominic Minns of firm Plug-in Media compares it to the revolutionary way that, in the 1960s, animation company Hanna-Barbera came up with the idea of layering cells on top of each other, meaning that much less had to be drawn at any one time.

"Yogi Bear and all those characters have a necktie on, so that they don't have to draw the body again, they can just draw the head and you don't see the join.

"That made animation back then a lot cheaper, and able to be mass-produced for TV."

He adds: "And that's like Flash now - the way that Flash works in that when you animate for Flash, you build up libraries of different animation - someone running, someone talking, all the different mouth shapes.

Listen to Digital Planet on the BBC World Service.

Electronic Echoes and Angels

For the past few years I have been visiting Leslie Harpold's Advent Calendar.

I was a bit upset when I saw that the days had stopped being "opened" up last week, but today I found out that Leslie had died and no more doors would ever be opening on her advent calendar.

Thank You Leslie

Sugar Usability

Read this:

OLPC places an emphasis on discoverability and usability due to our target audience. Usability has everything to do with the actual behavior of the activities, the layout of the buttons and tools, and the feedback that the interface provides to the user through interaction. Ultimately, the design decisions that make your activities usable will depend greatly on the type of activity you are developing, and it will be up to you to consider carefully the kinds of interactions users will expect when presented with it. As a general rule, if the interface provided does what the child expects it to, you are off to a good start. However, since it is quite difficult to know what she will expect—and in practice not all children will expect the same things—there is no substitute for user testing.

Watch this:

Install this:

Bristol Usability Group

Visit the Bristol Usability Group wiki for more information.

Why people come to BUG:
Networking and meeting people with similar interests; discuss different usability methods and approaches; keep abreast of what is going on in the field; see what projects others work on and what practices they use; learn and share experiences...

Previous Meetings:
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 (World Usability Day) The topic was: Making masks for participatory requirements gathering, by Dave Ellender, cxpartners.

Vista no go zone

I just tried the Vista Upgrade Advisor on my two year old Dell Dimension XPS and got this result:

Not looking too good.