… Naming a company is far more difficult than naming a child. The name needs to sound snappy, separate its young company from the pack and provide a unique Web address. …
… Could Xoopit, which has yet to launch its service but promises to rethink how we organize e-mail, grow into a serious company with such a name? …
… The company plans to embrace the name in a marketing slogan that, using Xoopit as a verb, suggests its users will become smarter: “Don’t be stupid. Xoopit.” …
… is what you do when you’re trying to force your butt into some of these jeans. And then when you finally squeeze in, you realize they just kinda look fugly anyways. So you toss them onto the ground and grab the next one from the rack …
A friend and I hit a sample sale this morning. She drove up to my apartment very hung over but still able to make it to Starbucks with a screaming headache. When we got to the line we found out everyone else pretty much had the same idea, clutching their Starbucks coffee cups and bags of breakfast items. What’s funny is that 90% of the people in line were Asian Americans. As my friend put it: Asians love a good sale. $250 for 5 pairs of jeans? Oh heck yes.
We get in there and it was already turning into a steaming mass of bodies flicking through racks of jeans. I thought it was women’s jeans only but actually it turned out to be both mens and womens styles. Yay. However, despite advertising big name brands the majority of things on the racks were brands I hadn’t heard of. (Not that I pay that much attention to fashion but I do recognize brands and styles when walking through Nordies.) Still, a good pair of jeans is a good pair of jeans.
The changing room was a madhouse. Fortunately we got there super early and were like the 30th in line or so. My first trip into the changing room was with only 4 pairs of jeans and that was pretty quick in and out. The second trip took forever to get in. I was just going to do try-ons right there between the racks on the main floor but there were attendants who said you couldn’t and forced us all into the mass changing room. There weren’t enough mirrors in there. And while there was enough rack space it was still tight. Ugh. My second trip in had 8 items, the third also 8. There was a girl in front who had like 30 items. That must have been brutally heavy.
So in the end I walked away with a pair of ass-hugging skinny-ish jeans (only a slight flare at the end), some comfy Hudsons, and slightly looser embroidered-butt pair of light denim. Oh and a top with ruched sides. I didn’t recognize a lot of the brands but I mean, who knows, maybe they were name brands. Tons of J & Company–that’s what I remember–which appear to be going for $150+ on their website. I guess I was hoping for some presence of Paige, CoH, 7s, or some other brands. Not that I’m all about labels, but I like some of those styles.
Oh well, still I think I got decent deals. Now it’s off to get them altered!
It turns out a colleague used to sing in a very cool acapella group back in college, the Harvard Lowkeys. In recent years they’ve really gotten good, in spite of the usual turnover. They cover a lot of modern songs, are known for their beatboxing, and are not afraid to experiment with effects to bring an added dimension to their songs. Their rendition of “Where The Streets Have No Name” on their album Bring Your Passport is an amazing vocal feat. Check them out!
“Today, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) filed a lawsuit against the American Red Cross and four of its licensing partners for “unlawful conduct” related to the nonprofit’s use of the Red Cross emblem.”
“Specifically, J&J demands that the Red Cross:
* Stop the Red Cross and its licensing partners from using the Red Cross emblem permanently on first aid, preparedness and related products sold to the public;
* Surrender to J&J for destruction the Red Cross’ inventory of accused products;
* Hand over to J&J all Red Cross proceeds from the sale of these products with interest; and
* Pay punitive damages to J&J along with attorney fees related to its legal action against the Red Cross.”
“My boss came to me last week and said “here’s a book you have to read”: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. I’m thinking oh sure sure, I’ll give it a look later. Well, this weekend I finally got around to cracking it open and at first I thought it was a manual on how to draw contrasting motion lines. Rather, the book goes into Scott’s analysis of symbols, shapes, time representation, and storytelling. It is actually quite an interesting read for anyone who is in my position of structuring user interfaces.
Yes, user interfaces.
When you get right down to it, what is a computer display? It is a 2-D medium for conveying information. A proper user interface, IMO, is one that organizes information into digestible chunks, some which change from state to state and others which remain fixed as to provide some sort of visual anchor or a toolkit. While this part of building UIs is really not covered by the book, McCloud goes into what is the nature of symbols vs. words. Letters are, after all, symbols themselves and when you combine letters into words you give meaning. And properly chosen words convey intent and emotion. At the opposite end you have icons and symbols. The more photorealistic the icon the more specific it is, the more cartoony the icon the more the icon can suggest. For instance, an exact picture of a horse means “horse” whereas an abstract picture might represent “animal”, even though both are still in the shape of a horse. Taken a step further, an icon paired with words now becomes a powerful vehicle for communication.
There’s a whole section on time and motion representation. Simple blurring, motion lines, or the proper choice of words can deeply affect perception. Comparing this to computer UIs it is possible to represent future activity in a single icon, so the user knows what to expect. There is also a natural flow of the eye through the page and placement of page elements can suggest time as well.
It’s hard to encapsulate the 215-page narrative in a blog post so you’ll just have to go read it yourself.
On the surface they look cool, and they even seem to do many of the functions that the iPhone does, but the one thing they lack is something that is almost impossible to copy: class.
The iPhone, or Apple for that matter, represents more than an amalgamation of silicon, metal, and plastic. It represents a complete rethink of how people use user interfaces on small devices. Of course the consumer wants features and flexibility and battery life (which, of course, I do too) but there is a palpable “feel” of the device which cannot be denied. The iPhone feels “slick”, “friendly”, “snappy”. It seeks to impress you with the little things that it enables, like talking on the phone, sliding over to the web to get some info (while talking), and then composing an e-mail to your boss while still on said call. And when the call is done, things slide neatly back into place. Fade and swoosh. It is “simple”, “elegant”, and “tidy”. The point is: you can only copy this after you’ve seen it.
The Chinese knock-offs do indeed harken back to the not-so-long-ago era of Japanese and Korean knock-offs. To be fair, Asian countries have traditionally had a tough time being innovative probably due to cultural concerns if not general economic constraints. So, in a way, copies do represent a best effort and trying to make the best of a difficult situation. Still the copies feel like they lack something. I almost feel that Apple went with the one-button (technically 5 if you count the side buttons) interface so that they could release a limited set of software features, let the world experience it and try to copy it, and then wallop us with a more intense set of features. Kind of like saying, “ha ha! You thought you had us! Well think again!” And this strategy, I believe, does work. Well, to some extent.
The trouble is that people are getting smart and they’re learning how to innovate themselves. Copying is one way you learn. (I copy sample code I find on Internet tutorials so I can bootstrap my projects, and then after I’ve thought about things do I start to make fundamental adjustments and improvements. I think a lot of us do that since it leverages the open knowledge of others.) And then there comes the tipping point where you have enough technology that you can focus your brain on really cranking out new and unique things. China is at that cusp and probably only held back by its culture and government.
Chinese products, IMO, have always been cheap on the quality aspect. Did they have to be? Well, that’s an argument, but I’ll take the stance that yes they had to be in order for the common Chinese consumer to be able to afford them on meager earnings. Of course, selling the cheap products to non-Chinese buyers greatly helps to increase the cash flow. Will there come a time when quality does come to those products? It eventually happened to Japan. It has recently happened to Korea.
Turning our thoughts to Korea (since we now know Japan has quality products) do they now have innovative products? Sure. Quality? My old Samsung phone served me quite well until I dropped it the 10th time. Well, the software could have been a lot better on it too.
I think that if things continue the way they are with China that in the next 10 years we’ll see a vast improvement in the quality of the physical parts of Chinese products. Sooner than that, maybe in the next 5 years after that we’ll see a vast improvement in the software quality too. The government is still trying to control information but people are starting to get really crafty about how to get the Internet into their homes and that means once the dam breaks that a whole new generation of people are going to get smart. And once that generation really learns how to leverage code (if it hasn’t happened already) then real innovative development houses will be established. And once those houses are cranking out quality, tested code then the artists will come and really give it a polished feel. It’s not that far away.
The question remains: can Apple (or Silicon Valley) continue to out-innovate everyone else? I’m not so sure. I almost think there’s is a plateau you reach where you have so much knowledge learning more becomes rather pointless—unless you’re an academic. That baseline plateau will eventually be reached by many many locations around the world so that becomes the standard level. Then what? I think that then the human relationships factor will enter into the equation.
That’s one of the reasons I still live here in Silicon Valley. Where else can you go to a party and share a drink with so many entrepreneurs? Or walk to work passing so many companies? Or just by working at your job meet people that are so influential? I think that what we become is not thousands of little smart brains but one much larger smart shared brain. In the contest to one-up each other we often ally and partner with others and try to leverage shared expertise. Can China do that? In the underground sure it’s happening but what about in an open, public way? I don’t know. That’s something to read about.
“Other than that, I cannot see much of a difference between the Mac and PC. It’s a computer. It runs the same old applications (more or less), and it gets the job done, albeit somewhat more elegantly.”
That’s my general concensus too. My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, then we had a Tandy 1000 (PC Jr. clone), then we got the 386, then a 486, then I had a Pentium Pro, an AMD Athlon tower, then the Fujitsu laptop, and now a MacBook Pro. In between I’ve been subjected to using Macs, iMacs, IBM ThinkPads, and other various technologies. In the end it all comes down to one thing:
How can I get the computer out of the way so I can get something done?
I spent most of my time on a web browser or inside a Unix-like shell. I don’t really care what frames my apps or how nice the computer’s housing is. I just want to see stuff on the screen, manipulate it with a mouse or my Wacom, and send the work on its way to the server, client, or whatever. The only real reason I got the Mac is the software: I wanted to see what other Mac users were seeing on their screens and the face I can run Parallels helps so I can still test for WinXP. (I could get Vista but I see no point at the moment.)
Now I have this iPhone thing. I use it check my mail, get maps, and text other ppl. Oh and call someone once in a while. ^_^ The point is, I use the device as a device and then I put it down and move on. I can’t wait until all computers and devices are as dead simple as any pocket knife. Instant on, a clear indication of what state it’s in, specific tools on it for doing specific things well, rugged, just enough UI to figure out any advanced options, and that’s it. I want to spend more time writing music, taking photos, or hanging out with friends.
Me: I still think it’s weird using iTunes to sync a phone. Friend: yeah Friend: hahhahahaha Me: They should just change it to iOwnYourLife Friend: exactly
$250 for 5 pairs of jeans? Oh heck yes.
