“I’ve never really listened to my voice and gone, ‘That is a quality instrument.’ It’s more like, ‘Okay, that’s good and fucking loud.’ I’m kind of the horn section of any band I’m in.”
— Neko Case

As a collector of vintage steel bikes, I was delighted to find a Shogun 300 at a bike swap. It had clearly spent the last twenty years in a basement or garage, but cleaned up okay.

What an unremarkable piece of shit. Only the main tubes are double-butted cro-moly (Tange 900 DB, seamed), the fork is a manganese monstrosity that produces a muddy road feel with lack of responsiveness while still managing to transmit road shocks directly to your shoulders. It doesn’t have forged dropouts either.

It has what I believe were at the time low-or-mid-range components which is part of why I’m sure this beast hasn’t been touched in twenty years, because no one who rode this wouldn’t spend the ten dollars to upgrade them.

I’m reluctant to slag on it too much. This was probably as good as they could do for their entry into that segment. But even if I was going to give this to someone as a light or entry bike, I would need all new components or I’d be plagued with guilt.

It’s a reminder of how far we’ve come. This isn’t junk… And it is steel… but an entry-level bike today is so much better. Progress! Of sorts.

It does descend like a brake less freight train coming down from Mt. Shasta, if you need more excitement in your life. Or your life insurance beneficiary is in dire financial straits.

The installer’s the first thing most users interact with. Before “what are they trying to use the app for?” or “how do I build the best interface?”

Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac has in the course of the purchase and install
– forced me to create a log in
– tried to get me to install some crapware
– sent me a weird email asking me to go back and register for a second site*
– blackmailed me into registering to get updates

And now we’re here:

So I’ve now created an account, and I’m being asked to give it again, plus sign up for a complimentary magazine subscription (I guess) and when I’m done with that, I’m supposed to do it a third time in case I ever need to file a support ticket.

If you hit that question mark, you go to a page that tells you “Parallels needs this information in order to provide our customers with the best software and service.”

Great. Let me know when you’re doing that. Because right now, I’m regretting purchasing your products.

* Parallels: “NOTE: Your account in Parallels Support Request Tracker system is different from ‘My Account’ option on www.parallels.com site. Parallels Support Request Tracker (https://support.parallels.com/) is a web interface, that allows you to view and update your existing requests to Parallels Support and also submit new support requests on your own.”

Me: “First support request: why did this require me to create another account?”

I recommend this fine Brooks Review piece on how Sony’s lost their way (it was inspired, in turn, by this excellent Jeff Yang article in the Chronicle). When I was growing up, I loved, loved, loved Sony stuff. My dad owned a Walkman 2 (1981), and it fascinated me. Clunky controls: function over form, the weird selector buttons irregularly sized, paired with dials… and it broke music for me. Cassettes on headphones, with true stereo, and portable, it was a leap I couldn’t believe. I thought that thing was the coolest. For being so tiny, it took a remarkable amount of abuse and kept running. Twenty years later, writing this makes me want to go buy one.

“wm-2_2 by nextartist, cc-licensed”

My parents bought my brother and I Discmen one Christmas. I feel the almost the same way about the Discman as the Walkman II: it’s a beautiful device, the sound quality was amazing, and I used it for years. I cracked the display in a car accident, but it took ten years of use without complaint. A year or so ago a stereo died on me and I ended up digging it out of my nerd box of components. Ran like a top. I wrote my dad a nice re-thank-you note.

I only bought Sony whenever I had a choice. When someone stole the deck out of the awful Mazda 626 I was driving, I bought the crappiest tape deck Target sold (features included “Auto-Stop”) and went back to using my Discman and an adapter.

I can’t point to where exactly I gave up on brand loyalty, but after being less and less happy with each of my purchases, I went to discontent: one of my receivers died just out of warranty, while on another the display doesn’t work unless you press on the faceplate just right, which is… yeah, it’s a loose connection somewhere that results in a terrible experience every time I need to read it. And then to open frustration: the Playstation 3’s user interface is one of the worst I’ve ever had to wrestle with (and I worked on back-end telecom systems in the 90s). Every time it sends me off to a different random corner of its nested menus, I want to grind my teeth and never have to use it again.

When I could beg the Walkman II off my dad and the batteries ran out, all I could think of was how to get a new set, or milk another five minutes out of another set that wasn’t quite dead. I wanted to use it. Now Sony makes electronics I hate to use.

I miss Sony.

Postcript: fittingly, Sony’s abandoned their “Sony History” pages, which now 404.

I love interviewing. As much as anything else we do, it’s the chance to help pick the people who determine what the job’s going to be like, and the direction of the company. I’ll volunteer for any loop, I’ll substitute for anyone who is sick or working on a production issue, whatever. So I’m going to write about that for a couple of days.

When I interview people at Expedia, I only get an hour, and I’m pretty good about reserving at least half of it for the candidate’s questions. I want to answer questions about culture, what the roles are like, what we’re working on, and all of that, because
a) I think the answers to those questions provide as a far better argument for why people should work there than the job description or the salary offer or anything else
b) I’m curious what people will ask

One of the most common questions is “what do you like about working at Expedia?” and my answer depends a little about things have been going, but almost every time, I’ll say
a) huge problems to work on
b) my peers are tremendous people

Tomorrow I’m on two interview loops. And on both of them there are at least two other people that I’ve worked with, respect, and would love to have on any project I’m on. I love that I get to say, “the next three people you meet are just awesome”. Which isn’t to say that the people I don’t know aren’t great… I just haven’t worked with them.

As someone on the other side, I’ve found that part of the conversation’s great — I once got all the way through a loop and when I asked a simple question about the group’s culture, discovered there was no way I’d be a fit… and equally, I talked about sense of humor once and the detailed, thoughtful answer made me desperately want to work there.

A lot of candidates don’t have any questions. I don’t hold it against them, especially if I’m interviewer 5 of 6 that day. But I have to wonder — taking a new job’s a huge life change. What are you concerned about? What would make the job more attractive to you, or less, and how do you ask that in a reasonable way?

For instance, think about:
What’s the culture like at ____?
What did you work on yesterday?
What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing as a team? As a company?
What do you like about working here?
What’s interesting about your job?
Why do you work here, and not, say, your competitor?
I’m really interested in ____. Does your company have non-business DLs? Are they active?
I saw you launched feature X. Why did you do Y and not Z?

I can tell you a lot you want to know in thirty minutes if you ask the right questions. Ask! Ask!

I saw this by Fraser Speirs excerpted at Daring Fireball:

The iPad is an intensely personal device. In its design intent it is, truly, much more like a “big iPhone” than a “small laptop”. The iPad isn’t something you pass around. It’s not really designed to be a “resource” that many people take advantage of. It’s designed to be owned, configured to your taste, invested in and curated.

Everyone’s experience will vary, sure, but for me, “something you pass around” has been one of the best use cases of the ipad. I do this at least once a day. In meetings where we’re talking about design and how the live site looks, I pull it up and hand the ipad over so someone can look at it. We use a web-based project management program, and when we do our daily huddle I have the day’s tasks in front of me and can show people what they’ve pulled down and should update us on.

I find the ipad’s a far more social device than a laptop, that the barrier to handing it to someone else is so much lower. And I know that it’s not that far off from the size factor of a netbook, and yet if I was using a netbook and had something up, the expectation if I pulled up a web page would be that other people would move their chairs over to me, or I’d project.

I agree entirely that the ipad’s an intensely personal device. Yet there’s also something about the same things that make it personal, from the form factor, the size, the beautiful display, the speed of interactions, that also makes me want to share it. I know that I can hand it to someone and they’ll get it, and be able to look at the design, or the view of the day’s tasks, and use them immediately.

I spent much of today on the book, and my work process went
– write
– discover I’d been goofing off on Wikipedia for half an hour
– make coffee
– write
– mow lawn
– try to write but actually research something really interesting about city structures
– write
– word count made! have dinner
– sit down with good book
– suddenly realize how the chapter needed to end, and why

Now do I sit back down to finish it out? Or let it go, in the hopes that taking notes and asking the Muse to please keep to a schedule is productive?

“My semi-retirement” from USS Mariner.

I spent this week trying to keep it near me so I could use it immediately if I thought of something. So far, it’s about 50% “this is a large iPhone” and 50% glee that I’m using a device that feels like it’s straight out of all the science fiction I read and watched for decades.

Things it does well I was hoping it would do well:
– Great for reading on the bus
– Makes a great terminal where a laptop/netbook would be inconvenient (couch)

Things it does well I hadn’t thought of:
– Browsing the web with someone (ie, shopping for gifts on Amazon, or clothes). The big display and lack of keyboard make it great for passing back and forth
– Easy mini-projection (I can pull up one of Expedia’s web pages and show it to a small group without having to muck with projectors, etc)
– Turn the wasted first 5-10 minutes of meetings where you’re waiting for the late people into demo time and an interesting conversation about interaction design.

Things it does way better than I thought it would:
– It’s crazy fast. I could not believe how responsive it was for the first couple of days.
– Video. Stored video looks great. Netflix videos look pretty good considering they’re streaming. The display is tremendously nice.
– Immersion. I don’t know how else to put it. That 50% of the time where I’m grinning and you can see the thought balloon over my head that says “wheee!”
– Battery life is crazy. I’m used to being vaguely aware of how long it’s been since I charged my phone, or my laptop. I don’t care at all about the iPad. I know Kindle users can crow about days on days, but I used it on and off for four days and got to 60% before I plugged it in.
– The news apps from BBC/NPR/Reuters are tremendous.

Things it does worse than I’d expected:
– Sync seems to take forever. The first sync was glacial.
– Typing. The dimensions make it hard to type with my thumbs in portrait, and in landscape I’m either typing one-handed while holding it or struggling.
– Dimensions. It’s sometimes hard to balance it on one leg to type, and not fitting in a pocket means it’s hard to carry around without thinking. It’s the same problem you have with a netbook.
– It’s hard to conceal. If you’re in a meeting with an iPhone, it’s really easy to check email (or whatnot) and not be conspicuous. The iPad… no can do. Even swapping over from taking notes to something else is so obvious I don’t dare try it.
– File sync for iWork documents. It’s there, and it’s cumbersome and annoying. See here, here
– I am so tired of “ha ha I’ll wait for the next one that’s twice as good for $2.” 1. Yes there will be a better version eventually 2. I get that you think Apple’s upgrade cycle sucks. I understand, but 3. Is it cool? Do you like it? Can we talk about that?
– “So it’s just a big iPhone”. Even from iPhone owners. Yes. And your iPhone is just a phone with a touch screen and a pretty interface. Doesn’t your experience with what happened with the iPhone make you even a little curious?
– I didn’t think I’d need the 3G version, but I’ve grown so used to having access almost everywhere that it’s weird to not have it. Fortunately AT&T’s terrible network coverage got me used to flaky data access.
– Oh yeah, the wifi. I’ve had a couple problems with it, when one of my favorite things about my laptop is that it works everywhere with every wifi point I’ve ever encountered.

Things it would to well and doesn’t yet:
– Display extension. One of the developers I work with talked about this, and I totally saw what he was saying: it’d be so great to be able to use it as a second monitor for my other computers. There are apps that are trying to get there, and it doesn’t work yet

Should anyone else buy it?

If you’re as curious as me about computing and application and web site design, absolutely.

If you’re thinking about buying a Kindle or whatnot, and an extra hundred/two hundred dollars is worth it to have a fully, awesomely functional web browser, word processing, and all that good stuff — yes! do it! (unless you seriously go to the beach and don’t do beach things but stare at your computer the whole time)

If you’re not sure what you’d use it for… go play with one. Wrestle it from an owner’s hands for an hour. It’s worth seeing how it works. If you don’t get it, wait until you see it do something that makes your brain light up.

And as the apps get better, the case is going to get stronger and stronger. In six months I’m sure I’ll be able to demo a killer app for whatever your need is.