Posts

Posted on

CzechLish in Software

Several months ago, I purchased a UPEK Eikon Digital Privacy Manager fingerprint authentication system when they announced a preview version for the Mac. The device was cheap ($40) and I was curious to see how it worked. It worked OK, but when Leopard came around, it stopped working, so I put it away. As part of the setup process you swipe your finger over the device a few times to get a base. I swiped one finger and the dialog said something to the effect “you should swipe another finger in case something happens to the finger you swiped”. I didn’t get a screenshot of that, but still remember it and laugh at it. The wording wasn’t quite right and it didn’t dawn on me why; maybe it was a developer joke that would get fixed in the released version.

The UPEK folks have a small booth and I got a demo to see what was new. I mentioned that dialog and the guys there started chuckling. They said the development is done in Praque and they call the language CzechLish. I’m well versed in JapanGlish, but had never heard of CzechLish. I’ll have to check out their latest software to see if the dialog is still in there.

Posted on

Hardware vendors, hire me to do your UI

I always harp on UI as I think that it shows a lot about a product. While the old saying is to not judge a book by its cover, in the case of a UI, it shows me that developers are either lazy or clueless and what else is wrong with the software if they can’t spend a little time working on the UI.

Many hardware vendors make decent hardware, but rush out the software, have it done in a foreign, non-English speaking, country, or just don’t care. If they spent a little time and money on the software (in some cases, maybe half a day), they could have a much nicer looking (and working) product.

I am serious that if hardware vendors want to contact me, I’d be more than happy to take a look at the software and give them an estimate on what needs to be done to clean up their UI.

Posted on

State of the Art UI, 6 years ago

In my travels today, I poked my head into the EPSON booth and asked for a demo of their scanner software (I could care less about the scanner), so that guy fires off the Scan from Photoshop and the awful UI pops up. I said, “oh it looks like your UI hasn’t changed in 10 years”; the guy responded “it has only been 6”. You’ve got to be kidding me, they can’t come up with a better UI in 6 years? He did say that the driver is now a universal binary which is good news for all the poor souls still using EPSON scanners with ReceiptWallet.

Posted on

Ill informed sales guy

One of my stops today was to see the IRIScan Express2. It seemed like an OK scanner, but with crappy software. The guy demonstrating used their Readiris 11 software to scan. I happen to have a copy of Readiris that was free with my Fujitsu ScanSnap. Here’s a screenshot of the version I have (the one he demoed looked the same).

I asked him if it was TWAIN compliant and if I could use it in other programs (for instance, ReceiptWallet). He swore it was. I asked if I could try using Image Capture to scan; he said I could. It didn’t show up. Image Capture should show all TWAIN compliant scanners. Next I looked in /Library/Image Capture/TWAIN Data Sources. It was empty; all the TWAIN drivers should be there. I decided to stop arguing with the guy as he obviously didn’t have a clue, unless they somehow used some magic TWAIN driver that only shows up in their app.Now here is the dilemma. I’m going to have people ask about the scanner and my answer right now is “I haven’t tested it.”. They have a show special that makes the scanner $99 (normally $149) which is pretty good. Should I get it? I probably will and then if it doesn’t work, I’ll warn people to avoid it. They have a more expensive version (IRIScan Executive 2) that has the same hardware, but includes Cardiris 4 for scanning business cards. It doesn’t seem all that impressive, but I’ll reserve final judgement until I try it out.This leads into another one of my rant; why do hardware vendors have such crappy looking software?

Posted on

NEAT Receipts could be quite slick

I know in the past that I wondered if NEAT Receipts would take some of my UI and put it in their Mac product. I stopped by their booth today and was pleased to see that their UI didn’t take anything from me, in fact, they have some ideas that I’d like to use in ReceiptWallet! They have an iTunes like source list on the left that is separated with things like Library and Collections (I can’t recall exactly what the titles are). That definitely makes the app look more up-to-date than ReceiptWallet (not that ReceiptWallet’s interface is all that old). In addition, their “image” view (like my thumbnail view) is actually useful; my thumbnail view has small thumbnails or receipts that I personally think is useless. In their implementation, they have decent sized receipts on the left side and the metadata on the right side. So when you scroll down, you see the receipts and the metadata. Finally, they do have a Cover Flow like view of the receipts. I’m not sure how useful this is, but I’ve had a user ask for this in the past, so it has been on my radar, just not high up on my list.

I don’t have any plans to do UI changes in ReceiptWallet, but the next time I do, I think I’ll re-visit iTunes to see how it does things. However, I do have some issues with iTunes and am not sure it is the perfect UI, either.

Posted on

Quicken is sort of not dead

As I was entering the South hall of Moscone, Intuit people were handing out “Quicken Online” flyers. I immediately thought that this was the end of Quicken for the Mac. Considering that Quicken still doesn’t ran natively on Intel Macs, I didn’t think this was strange. When I got to the Intuit booth, I was pleasantly surprised to see them demoing a successor to Quicken which I was told was a complete rewrite in Cocoa. However, as another blog has mentioned, it will be missing a number of features of Quicken 2007. As long as it is equivalent to Quicken 2005 (which I use), I’ll be happy. One feature that struck me as a gratuitous use of Cover Flow is the ability to scroll through your accounts with a Cover Flow like view. It seems like a lot of eye candy; hopefully the product will be solid. We’ll have to wait until September to see.

Posted on

Macworld Expo Newbie

Right before I saw Jesus, I was crossing the street and some guy was coming towards me handing out flyers. I learned a long time ago not to take stuff from strangers (Have you seen the people handing that stuff out? They really are strange.), so I steered clear. However, the guy next to me hadn’t learned the same lesson; he was a bit older than me (and probably twice my width) and he pushed and shoved to get the flyer. I glanced over after he got it and saw that he got a flyer for porn or some smut like that. I almost burst out laughing, but just smiled.

Posted on

Coming within 20 feet of Jesus

Today as I was leaving Moscone West to head on over to Moscone South, I noticed a group of people at the corner, one of the women had an Apple badge that said Events (not an expo badge, but a permanent one); then I saw that she had an Exhibitor VIP badge holder for the Macworld Expo. I thought it was interesting, but continued walking. As I was waiting for the light to change so I could cross I heard some commotion behind me and saw Jesus, I mean Steve Jobs, in that group of people crossing the street with me. I’m kind of surprised that no one else even noticed or didn’t say anything. With so many Mac fans absorbed in the reality distortion field, I expected some type of uproar.

I continued walking and went on my way. I have no idea where Steve and his Entourage went.

Posted on

Macworld off to an excellent start (at least for me)

Even though Macworld Expo 2008 hasn’t even started, it is off to a good start. 2 companies, Fujitsu announced the ScanSnap S300M (similar to the S300 which doesn’t work on the Mac; the Mac specs aren’t online, yet) and I.R.I.S. announced the IRIScan2. Both scanners are portable scanners similar to the Pentax DSMobile and make them perfect fits for ReceiptWallet and DocumentWallet. I’ll go visit their booths tomorrow when I’m at the expo and check them out. The problem is that I have to buy 2 more scanners; just what I really needed!

Posted on

Illegal Immigration vs. Speeding

My views on illegal immigration keep shifting, but after a discussion I had yesterday, I think I have nailed down my position (at least for now). It is quite apparent that the US economy wouldn’t survive without undocumented (illegal) workers. How many of the former auto works would go out in the fields and do backbreaking work to pick crops? How many would do the low paying jobs just to survive? There are so many industries that undocumented workers take jobs that no one else wants. We should be grateful that they’re there to fill in the gaps.

We know that coming over the border illegally is a crime and working in our country without proper documentation is also a crime, but how bad a crime is it? People speed all the time; that’s a crime and if caught, people pay a fine (if they speed too fast, they might goto jail) and that’s the end of it. The comprehensive immigration reforms packages have proposed that people pay a fine and then they’re on their way to a legal status. What’s wrong with this? Some critics say that illegal immigrants commit crimes. A large majority of them don’t, so why punish everyone?

Let’s get realistic about immigration. Sending undocumented workers back is not an option. There must be a way that “we can all just get along”. I’m not saying reward those that commit a crime of coming here illegally, but make the punishment fit the crime; who is the crime hurting? If there are specific requirements, i.e. learn English, have no criminal history, have a job, etc., then what is the harm in accepting them into this country?