randomosity

Last week I pointed readers to the excellent article by Dustin Wax comparing note-taking methodologies and weighing the pros and cons of a couple techniques. I was not personally aware of the Cornell method. I am however a big fan of Microsoft OneNote for organization not just of notes, but of research materials of all kinds. I use blogs, wikis and OneNote together to manage my data and happened upon a Cornell template for One Note users this morning.
Read the complete article… »

There’s an interesting short article on Low-End Mac about how the author uses an Apple Lisa for his writing tasks. He cites the fact that he can turn it off and resume exactly where he was by turning it back on, not having to worry about either saving documents or power outages. More importantly he reminds us to consider whether all the bells and whistles of the latest greatest productivity appas are things we actually use. I blogged earlier on this point and was comparing Word 1.0 on the Mac to the current incarnation. Without being some neo-Luddite and pretending like the older technology is that far superior, I think that there are points to be made for simple and fast.

Nonetheless, its not quite that black and white. I have tried to find an alternative word processor for use under Windows with less baggage than Word. I have been unsuccessful. Both AbiWord and OpenOffice seem as bloated and frankly try to emulate Word at the expense of actually thinking about how the human actual processes words. Admittedly there are a few challengers of note on OSX. But, what about starting with TextEdit or the like and simply being able to modularly add features as desired.

One of the other points raised relates to the concept that some tasks haven’t been improved upon by faster processors and the like. Word processing can get away with the older 68K…frankly given the choice, I would actually be very happy doing my word processing on one of the NeXT boxes and WriteNow. That was (and still is) speed with an awesomely crisp display. Pure monochrome (I have little need for colour when word processing) and a joy to the eyes. strangely far less eye candy than OSX has become bloated with. A purpose built word processing engine. I should crank up the old NeXT laser printer and see if it still works as well.

As to the age of the machine we use…think about that for a sec - a twenty four year old computer. And its not the oldest working ones about…alas, it seems like just yesterday.

Update: The pondering is usually good enough to get me exploring. In this case I happened upon PolyEdit from Russian publisher PolySoft. They have a tiny 1.3Mb word processor that reads and writes .docs and seems to have a rather robust feature set, yet runs like a wee demon. I’ll post comments if my trial goes well. So far so good.

Further Update: Well, if I didn’t need footnotes or endnotes I’d be doing well, unfortunately PolyEdit has neither. Additionally, while it will import Word 2000/XP/2003 versions, it will only save as Word v6. Pity. Its super fast and does offer a wide variety of features and the interface really works.

Mitch Ratcliffe at ZDnet is conducting a longer term comparison between a new MacBook Pro and a Lenovo X60 as part of a series of articles looking at broader user experience with two OS platforms. I normally would not cite an article from the more mainstream eNews media as they often strike me as being removed from the average users experience and entirely submerged in the manufacturer’s marketing messages. In fact, Ratcliffe notes up front that he may take Lenovo on a as a client during the span of his series of articles. Well, at least he’s honest. So why am I citing this article?

Ratcliffe has presented a better eNews article. He has started from scratch in looking at the way in which manufacturer’s address the total user experience. Today’s article focuses on unpacking the two machines and appreciating the experience that this creates. He notes immediately that the Apple packaging itself replicates the experience of carrying the laptop away from the store, with a slim box and a carrying handle. This compares with Lenovo which packs a smaller, lighter machine in a larger, non-descript box that “makes the ThinkPad appear clunkier when it’s not.” Moreover the MacBook is ‘framed’ and the packaging itself focuses on the product itself, presenting it as an object of a certain desire. The ThinkPad unfortunately, with loose fitting wrappers that fit all ThinkPad shapes and sizes presents the computer in a generic way…packed in a pile of uninspiring packing material to be thrown away. In contrast, the Apple box is one that begs to be kept (even displayed). I wonder if the folks at Lenovo are listening? I wonder if they do care about these things? I certainly can’t tell from my past experience with my ThinkPads, but will admit that I am typing this on my X32 which is my weapon of choice, despite not having established a personal or spiritual relationship with the machine’s manufacturer.

Although its clear that not everyone notes these salient little details, I appreciate that some are struck less consciously by this attention to detail and this is where Ratcliffe is going with this artile. It is meant to look at the all important first impression. Ratcliffe’s choice of words are well chosen and I look forward to reading his subsequent articles which will hopefully continue to explore som of the less discussed aspects of the user experience beyond simply usability.

Clever lads have run the CES address of Bill Gates and the Macworld Keynote by Steve Jobs through a variety of text analysis tools to get an idea of why one has greater impact than the other. The article demonstrates that there is a huge difference in the complexity of the message. Jobs delivers short, easily comprehended sentences, where Gates tends to be using longer sentences, with more complex language. The word clouds generated from the speech are not that different in terms of focus. Both featured most frequent references to the products being featured. Interestingly this contrasted with Michael Dell’s CES presentation which was seemingly used much more ambiguous language with less direct reference to particular products. There’s also a slider-based version linked to the article that offers an alternative way to view the clouds. Unfortunately unless you use the arrow keys (i.e. read the small print) it seems next to impossible to click on the magic spot to get Gates cloud displayed.
This exercise begs the question of magic however, and whether it is merely the message and not thew actual technology being presented that enthralls the audience. One would expect that the concept of the iPhone itself may actually be more appreciable than Windows Vista and Michael Dell simply didn’t talk as much about products because he didn’t have any exciting new product to introduce. Nonetheless, a fun little intellectual exercise.
Gates in fact doesn’t seem to have always had the product focus that he does now. There is a word cloud timeline of his communications and it is only recently that products have bgun to experience high frequency of reference.