Alan Kay once wrote, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”—but how do you go about inventing the future? I’ve been thinking a lot about that this week, as I’ve been […]
The profit in designing great
I’ve been tinkering with a Ramsey 555 timer kit, refreshing my long-dormant soldering skills (not bad; first attempt passed our lab guy’s inspection) as a practice project before embarking on something more sophisticated at work. […]
The Long Tale of the Caliper: Part 1
You’ve seen them before—and probably even have one in your toolkit. Those inexpensive digital calipers of questionable design lineage that make measuring things fun, instead of a pain in the Vernier. Mine is a General […]
Tailless Mice on Glass
I needed a new travel mouse a couple weeks back, to fill in for those times when my favorite TrackPoint isn’t quite the right tool, and to save a bit of wear-and-tear on my right […]
Aesthetics over Information = Confusion
Last night a buddy texted an invite to dinner, but because I had been in the library earlier, I had silenced my iPhone, and didn’t notice for a while. Just how long a while was […]
Simplicity Through Obscurity is Bad
Making things easy is hard; it can never be said enough. However, there is a tendency by many technology developers to attempt at solving this difficult problem by hiding things. In my humble opinion, this […]
Where did all the IrDA ports go?
Setting off to the East Bay for the family Easter gathering, I want to program the address into my GPS. But using the on-screen UI of this particular Garmin is painful—shouldn’t I be able to […]
Wonderful Tech Support Call Experience
When the topic of a horrible tech support experience came up over dinner Monday night, just about everyone’s jaw dropped when I said I had just had a wonderful experience that morning.
But when I said, simply, “I own a ThinkPad”, a few said “Oh”—understanding implicitly that my statement was true. When I told the story, one even noted that the result was a bit better than what they would expect of Apple.
It began something like this:
“Hello, my name is Chris, and I’m in Atlanta, Georgia. How can I help you with your ThinkPad today?”
When Good Enough is not Good Enough
There is a concept held by many engineers and analysts that products competing for market share generally have to be good enough—not perfect; perhaps not even optimal. This concept does indeed work in some situations, […]
Outside of the Box Defined
Facing the challenges inherent in working on something radically different, one is quite inclined to use the phrase “outside of the box”. But what is the definition of thinking/acting/inventing outside of the box? How do […]