Accents Quiz (Flash Audio Quiz)
How well can you tell someone's nationality or linguistic origin from their accent? Here's a quiz that helps you find out. Accents Quiz. It uses Question Writer's capability to embed Flash files to associate the audio with each question. There's a tutorial on how to do this too.
Posted by Alexander at 01:01 PM, September 08, 2008 | Accents Quiz (Flash Audio Quiz) | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Google Wins. Wikipedia Wins.
I'm at the end of my informal one-week search engine comparison. My conclusion? Google wins. Overall, it provided more relevant links, higher up the search page than did Microsoft. I'd approximate that for about 60% of searches the quality of the results were equivalent, Google provided better results in 30% of cases and 10% went to Microsoft.
Google was also more likely to provide relevant advertisements and only to provide them when they were useful - Microsoft placed ads directly above the search results nearly always, and they were of lower relevancy.
The other thing I noticed was the 'Wikipedia' effect. For a lot of my more general searches, the search engine that placed the Wikipedia link higher in their search result was the one that provided the better result for that search. Sometimes I find myself adding '+wikipedia' to my searches - and I notice Wikipedia ranking highly for many searches irrespective.
For technical information, I think I'll always want a full web search - but I wonder if a general search for me will gradually evolve into the best way to find what I'm looking for on Wikipedia.
Posted by Alexander at 05:14 PM, July 18, 2008 | Google Wins. Wikipedia Wins. | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Search Engine Taste Test
I changed my homepage from Google to Microsoft last week. I've been thinking about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal and I wanted to test my contrarian hypothesis that there's not much difference in the quality of search between Google/Microsoft.
I tried http://www.msn.com first - this seems to be the page that Microsoft suggests as a homepage - but it's unusable. There are too many distractions and the seach box actually moves as the page loads in. http://www.live.com is a much better for direct comparison.
I found out that I prefered the interface for Live image search, and that the search results for 'Flash Player' from Live are suspiciously bad. I didn't find out much more. Mostly I was wondering if the results from Google would have been any better without bothering to find out.
This week I've used my HTML and Javascript skills (circa 1998) to put together a search page that loads up results from both searches side by side. For every search I do for the next week - I'll see both sets of results and get a general idea of which is producing better results for me. You can play along too if your monitor is wide enough!
Posted by Alexander at 03:33 PM, July 09, 2008 | Search Engine Taste Test | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Vista is Killing My Productivity
I've been using Vista for several months now. I thought I'd give it a try because I resisted XP for a long time, but I quite liked XP once I started using it. I thought it would be the same story with Vista. But there's one thing that's killing my productivity and turning my habitual zen-like calm into apoplectic fury.
Folder View.
I spend a lot of time working with files. I thought everyone did. Well, every time I try to open, save or otherwise interact with the file system, I have those files displayed to me in some god-awful random fashion, contrived to cause me the most frustration.
Sometimes I get giant icons, too big to view many in a small 'file open' dialog. Sometimes I get the files in two, or three columns, alphabetized horizontally! Sometimes I get a list of artists, ratings and genres. I nearly never get what I need - Filename, Size, Date modified. In other words 'Details View'. Always. You keep the rest of all that other nonsense until i ask for it.
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Don't say it. 'Apply to Folders' doesn't work. 'Reset Folders' doesn't work. 'Apply this template to all subfolders' doesn't work. Hacking the registry doesn't do it. And I don't want to. I use Windows because I hate configuration. I don't want to spend an hour hacking the registry to view my files the way I've viewed them for the last 15 years.
215 people agree me with enough to register and vote on this -
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I'm annoyed enough about this to rant about it online and completely blow the cool, calm, collected persona that I've been cultivating. That's frustration. Microsoft! Fix this.
Posted by Alexander at 08:54 PM, July 08, 2008 | Vista is Killing My Productivity | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Seeking Translators
This blog gets more exposure than the Question Writer Blog - so I just wanted to echo an offer I've made there - I've got some academic licenses for Question Writer in exchange for translations of the GUI . It is fairly easy and low cost to outsource the translations, but that kind of approach might result in a poor quality interpretation from someone who'll hurry the task and isn't invested in the final outcome. But a user knows what the expressions mean, how to interpret them and cares as much about getting it right than just getting it finished.
Translating the interface is a great way to learn about all the features of the software and it's an especially good deal if you're expecting to be a long term Question Writer user because as I update the software to new versions, I'll supply you with free upgrades for the few additional items that are needed for translation in each version. You don't need to be particularly technical, but it helps to know a little about XML. You'll be able to make the edits in a text editor.
Here's the Question Writer Blog item.
Posted by Alexander at 12:41 PM, March 04, 2008 | Seeking Translators | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A Waste At Every Level
Next time you hear some-one spouting off about the perfect efficiency of the free market, spare a thought for the 'Hawaii Chair'. From the design, to the manufacture, to the marketing, to the shipping, to the near immediate disposal, this is a waste of resources at every single level.
Posted by Alexander at 11:06 AM, February 06, 2008 | A Waste At Every Level | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
UK house prices, adjusted for inflation
So here's an interesting chart. It's UK house prices, adjusted for inflation over the last thirty years. Source - Nationwide Building Society.
Compare this to the non-adjusted for inflation values, again, same source.
What looked like a crash between 1989 and 1995 in the first graph, looks more like 'prices going sideways' in the second graph.
I'm no economist, but I am fool, so I still like to predict the future.
I'm expecting to see continued increases in UK inflation in the next few years to avoid the appearance of a house price crash. I'm also expecting trickery to keep the official inflation figures low. We might see house prices (while they are declining) reflected in the Bank of England's inflation target and/or a different remit for the BoE who are currently charged with keeping the CPI at around 2%.
Posted by Alexander at 02:48 PM, February 03, 2008 | UK house prices, adjusted for inflation | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
UK Mobile Broadband
I heard about this over the weekend and it took me by surpise. Mobile network operator "3" now offer the best value and most convenient broadband connection for a substantial segment of the UK market. It's HSDPA and functionally like a precursor to Wi-Max.
Attach this device to your PC/Mac via a USB port, and it will use the 3 mobile network to offer a (max speed) 2800/384 kbps connection. It's £10 month (18 month contract, 1Gig cap). It's a suitable replacement for both a light home-user, and as a replacement to the patchwork wi-fi network in place across the country for mobile users.
The revolution here is because it doesn't require a landline (£11 p.m. alone) . . . . BT now also require an 12 month contract for any new line connection and an installation charge of £125. That's pretty tough for a student or a short-term renter. You might think TalkTalk would be an alternative . . . but what they don't say is that they can't connect phone lines. So you've got to sign up with BT first. 12 months later, you can become a Talk Talk user.
For anyone who doesn't need a landline - this broadband is very affordable. And it's mobile.
Posted by Alexander at 10:34 AM, November 12, 2007 | UK Mobile Broadband | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
LearnDirect's Jeremy Kyle Sponsorship
LearnDirect sponsors "The Jeremy Kyle Show". In other words, you may need an education or a new vocation if you find yourself watching this show.
LearnDirect's goal here is to reach the right audience but a side effect of its sponsorship is to underwrite the show. I wonder if that remains a tenable way to spend taxpayer funds after Judge Alan Berg's comments yesterday in sentencing one of the show's participants after a head-butting incident -
"It seems to me that the purpose of this show is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil. It should not surprise anyone that these people, some of whom have limited intellects, become aggressive with each other. This type of incident is exactly what the producers want. These self-righteous individuals should be in the dock. They pretend there is some kind of virtue in putting out a show like this."
He added that it was "a form of human bear-baiting which goes under the guise of entertainment".
Posted by Alexander at 03:48 PM, September 26, 2007 | LearnDirect's Jeremy Kyle Sponsorship | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Japanese Market
I spent yesterday working with a translator to provide a Japanese interface for Quiz Edition. It strikes me that it's been a great use of time - in a single day, I've added a large new potential market.
And I'm particularly excited by the Japanese market. Generally, Japan is poised to do exceptionally well in the coming decades. I think its financial markets will suffer with the rest of the world in the short term with the inevitable return to a 'real economy' (as opposed to a 'financial services economy').
With the US looking down the barrel of deflation/stagflation/hyperinflation right now, Japan has been emerging from a 15 year deflationary period, stronger and leaner. The emerging Chinese market is on Japan's doorstep and with an emphasis on honesty and productivity, it's in pole position for a global rebalancing.
Posted by Alexander at 02:42 PM, August 21, 2007 | The Japanese Market | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Public Support Forum Helps Sales
I want to talk today about the Question Writer Support Forum because it's one of the things that is working really well for Question Writer. It's a warts-and-all forum - you can see the kind of problems people are having and what's getting resolved. I offer e-mail support too but offer a faster guaranteed response time(24hrs) for the forum than for email(48hrs). I've incentivized it that way because that's where I prefer to deal with support enquiries. Here's why -
1) It grows and creates a knowledge base. That's searchable, so users can find the answer to their question immediately if it has been answered before, although I'll always answer a question rather than expect users to search for the answer.
2) It's indexable. Google indexes it and it's already full of the keywords that people searching for quiz software are looking for.
3) It's public. Each post is timestamped - that provides a public record of how long it takes to get answers to support queries. And it's usually much faster than the guaranteed 24hrs - I'll drop nearly anything to respond to a support forum request.
It requires dedication - but the benefit was crystallized for me last year when I got this e-mail confirming the direct link between forum support and sales -
"I want you to know that one of the things that convinced me to purchase the software was looking at your support forum and seeing how well and, especially how fast, you always responded to questions and comments." - Alan Merrell
I made it a priority to get the forum right from the start because I knew that quality of the forum is important in making a purchasing decision and because so many software companies make mistakes with their forum. The main problems I see are -
1) Hidden Forum. Some won't let you see the forum until you're already a customer - that doesn't suggest confidence in the product.
2) Empty Forum. Some forums are empty with few or no posts - you wonder if anyone is using the product at all.
3) Undersupported Forum. Some leave all the support to a customer support department - but some questions can only be answered by the developers.
4) No Forum. Some don't have forums at all - they have 'Frequenly Asked Questions' but they're more like 'Favourably Answerable Questions' - only questions that cast the product in a favourable light are there.
5) Private Forum. And most have some kind of registration system (but who wants to set up a whole new account just to ask a question?)
Posted by Alexander at 04:45 PM, July 30, 2007 | Public Support Forum Helps Sales | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Britian Facebooked after BBC article
About half of Britain signed up to Facebook last week. The other half will sign up this week. I think it's down to Rory Cellan-Jones. Whether it's the Atkins diet, anti wrinkle cream or Facebook, there's nothing like some BBC approval to turn something into an overnight hit in the UK.
Posted by Alexander at 12:29 AM, June 05, 2007 | Britian Facebooked after BBC article | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Flash Video on BBC news
BBC News is embedding Flash Video alongside some of its news stories. BBC limited video feeds to a choice between Windows Media Player and Real Player previously. I groan when faced with that choice and usually select neither. Now I can read the story and then play the video, confident that it has already loaded in the background. Nice to the see Auntie catching up.
Here's an BBC news report about using the PSP as a wifi phone/video phone.
Posted by Alexander at 01:49 PM, May 24, 2007 | Flash Video on BBC news | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Press Conference as Performance Art
This is some of the best performance art I've ever seen.
These guys held a press confence on hairstyles from the 1970s amidst the media circus of the Boston city bomb scare. They refused to play their assigned roles, thereby highlighting and questioning the broadcast media's automatic right to define the story.
The real story was the incompetence and overreaction of the Boston Police and their willingness to cause fear (or terror if you like) rather than admit their mistakes. To add to the city's shame, the artists had trumped-up hoax charges levelled against them in support the official narrative.
The charges have been dropped today, but it looks like they've been through the wringer. I hope that they can find a way to capitalize on their fame.
Posted by Alexander at 07:56 PM, May 11, 2007 | Aqua Teen Hunger Force Press Conference as Performance Art | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Buddhist Monks and Ant Infestation
I like this story about the difficulty some Buddhist monks are having with an ant infestation. They are finding it difficult to get rid of the ants with non-violent means. I think it shows that, whoever you are, inflexibility is eventually going to you into trouble.
Posted by Alexander at 02:28 PM, March 13, 2007 | Buddhist Monks and Ant Infestation | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Jury Nullification
Patricia Tabram is in Carlisle Crown Court today charged with growing and possessing cannabis for personal use. She's 68, a grandmother, uses the drug to relieve pain and she's defending herself. She's admitted the facts but has pleaded not guilty.
She's hoping that the Jury knows that they have the power of jury nullification. (Jury Equity here in the UK). That's the ancient power of a jury to judge the law as bad rather than the defendent and bring back a 'not guilty' verdict (or a hung jury) even where it flies in the face of the evidence.
Typically, a judge won't tell the jury of this power and inisist that they only consider the facts of the case.
Furthermore, a judge will typically hold a defendent in contempt if trying to educate the jury of their power.
She just has to hope that they already know.
It doesn't seem the mainstream media is rushing to educate people either - this Sky News report doesn't mention jury nullification, even though it's clearly relevant in this case.
In the UK, where mass protest is largely ignored, voting has little impact, and complaining on the internet does squat, jury nullification is a real power that reasonable people have to reject unreasonable laws. But only if people are aware of it.
Let's hope Patricia Tabram gets lucky and gets a fully informed jury today.
Posted by Alexander at 06:06 PM, March 05, 2007 | Jury Nullification | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
How to Praise
This New York magazine article about praise is full of educational psychology ideas for teachers. I hope you'll read the full article, but my takeaways were -
Praise for effort rather than intelligence or even results.
“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”
To be effective, praise needs to be specific and sincere.
New York University professor of psychiatry Judith Brook explains that the issue for parents is one of credibility. “Praise is important, but not vacuous praise,” she says. “It has to be based on a real thing—some skill or talent they have.” Once children hear praise they interpret as meritless, they discount not just the insincere praise, but sincere praise as well.
Teach that intelligence can be developed.
The teachers—who hadn’t known which students had been assigned to which workshop—could pick out the students who had been taught that intelligence can be developed. They improved their study habits and grades. In a single semester, Blackwell reversed the students’ longtime trend of decreasing math grades.
The only difference between the control group and the test group were two lessons, a total of 50 minutes spent teaching not math but a single idea: that the brain is a muscle. Giving it a harder workout makes you smarter. That alone improved their math scores.
Intermittent Re-inforcement
The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”
That intermittent re-inforcement idea is particularly important in developing persistent behaviour - it's why you check your e-mail too frequently and why gamblers in Las Vegas continue to play slot machines.
Posted by Alexander at 05:25 PM, February 12, 2007 | How to Praise | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
QTI 2.1
QTI is an XML format used for describing tests and assessments. This QTI Training Guide is quite a good introduction for people considering implementing QTI 2.1. Question Writer already supports QTI 1.2 - but drop me a line if you'd like to see support upgraded to include QTI 2.1 also.
Posted by Alexander at 06:00 PM, December 09, 2006 | QTI 2.1 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tone Deaf Test
Here's a test to measure your tone-deafness. It plays two sequences of music and asks you whether the two are identical. There's 36 sequences and it is purposefully very difficult. Over 85% means you have potential as a world class musician - although I wonder why you'd have to score less than 50% to be 'tone-deaf' - a tone-deaf monkey randomly pressing the buttons will score better than 50%, 50% of the time. Maybe using a 'don't know' button here would help to improve the accuracy.
Posted by Alexander at 10:47 AM, November 10, 2006 | Tone Deaf Test | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
My Gmail Spam Box
Something I do more and more is to mark mailing lists that I can't get off of as spam. Some require long-forgotten passwords or multiple responses to e-mail robots to unsubscribe. Much easier to let Google treat it is as spam than to work out some e-mail command list manager interface circa 1996. That's why you should make it really easy to unsubscribe from your mailing list - if multiple people are marking it as spam because they can't unsubscribe, Google is going to eventually decide that it is spam, and not send it to anyone.
There's 4603 spam e-mails in my spam folder today. I don't delete them anymore, Google trashes them after 30 days - so the number is a good indicator of volume of spam in the previous month. It's getting worse. The number was hovering around 2000 only a few months ago. It's half my own fault - I have dozens of e-mail addresses connected to one thing or another, all funneling into the same place. Google's spam filter is reasonably good, but there's still some spam getting through, and an occasional false positive.
Something I've asked Google to do is to let me direct all Chinese and Arabic language e-mails to my spam box. I might get one or two genuine foreign language e-mails a month, and if they're French, German, Spanish or even Danish, I might see they're genuine and machine translate them. But with Chinese or Arabic, I don't stand a chance and when I've tried translating, it just confirms what I already thought - it's spam. Another idea - maybe they could put a 'translate' button on the interface for foreign language e-mails. They already have the translation service.
Posted by Alexander at 10:55 AM, October 24, 2006 | My Gmail Spam Box | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Netflix Million Dollar Prize
I find this contest remarkably interesting. Netflix has a database of their customers' ratings of various movies. They use this database to make recommendations to their customers on which movies they might like to see next. The recommendation is not so much 'Goodfellas is a great movie' - but more 'Goodfellas was rated highly by people who like the same kind of movies that you do'. The competition is to improve the algorithm making the recommendations - prize $1 Million USD - open to anybody, anywhere (so long as you're not hated by the USA, including Quebec, harshly enough).
The target doesn't sound too ambitious. The ratings are between 1 and 5 stars. Their current system 'Cinematch' doesn't do too well. On average it's out by just under 1 star for each rating - so typically Cinemax will predict that a viewer will watch a movie and score it 4 stars - the viewer will actually score it 3 or 5 stars. You could probably get close to that level of competence by guessing that the viewer will rate every movie at 3 stars. Many times, you'd be right, and many times, you'd only be one star away. The vast majority of movies that I've seen are 2, 3 or 4 stars.
The contest is looking for just a 10% improvement on Cinematch to be eligible to win the prize. If I understand the small print of the contest correctly - it'll run for a minimum of 4 months, and provided at least one entry meets the 10% improvement, the algorithm that does best will win the prize.
This kind of contest is right up my street - I specialized in artificial intelligence subjects in University, but I've found it difficult to use those skills outside of personal projects. I'd have to regard this as a bit of fun too - but it's great to have this dataset to work with, and the potential prize makes it a lot more exciting.
Posted by Alexander at 02:54 PM, October 02, 2006 | Netflix Million Dollar Prize | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Blackboard - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
I wonder why Blackboard is suing Desire2Learn for patent infringement. Software companies usually don't enforce software patents except when defending themselves. Big software organizations routinely infringe each other's patents, but Mutually Assured Destruction prevents everyone suing the pants off everyone else. For example, before the acquisition, Adobe won $2.8 million from Macromedia in May '02 for patent infringement. Eight days later, Macromedia won $4.9 million in a counterclaim. They could have gone on all night, but instead declared a truce and made some fat checks out to the lawyers.
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Patent trolls are different - they usually don't have anything to lose - so they have much upside, and no downside when enforcing trivial patents. Blackboard does have something to lose - a whole software business, and the people who use their software are the same people who are most infuriated by this kind of patent claim. (And everyone at SlashDot, of course).
So why piss off your users so much? Have they come to the conclusion that the goodwill and the software business are not worth keeping?
I think the going might be getting tough for Blackboard - Jim Farmer estimates (pdf) that it might cost upto $250,000 for Blackboard to acquire each new enterprise customer. When I heard that figure, I nearly fell off my Aeron - I could write the damn software for less than that.
Or even better, I could use an open-source alternative. Blackboard's sales prospects have been working that out in their droves too. Moodle is rapidly taking market share with estimates that 56% of all UK Further Education institutions are making use of Moodle.
Could it be that Blackboard is facing such bleak prospects that it sees the patent troll route as more profitable than the software business?
Or is it that they hope that this case might get settled without testing whether the patent is valid (it's probably not). That would leave the threat of lawsuits hanging over universities and schools using Moodle - you'd hear administrators arguing "It's better and cheaper, but we might get sued if we use it, we'll use Blackboard instead". And, assuming Desire2Learn license the patent, it might not be so bad for D2L either.
Either course seems risky for BB. It might be the new environment that is forcing them to take risks to maintain their position, but It seems counter productive to me to gratuitiously sue competitors or to frighten customers into using your software.
I'll leave you with some of Paul Graham's thoughts on patents -
When you read of big companies filing patent suits against smaller ones, it's usually a big company on the way down, grasping at straws. For example, Unisys's attempts to enforce their patent on LZW compression. When you see a big company threatening patent suits, sell. When a company starts fighting over IP, it's a sign they've lost the real battle, for users.
A company that sues competitors for patent infringement is like a defender who has been beaten so thoroughly that he turns to plead with the referee. You don't do that if you can still reach the ball, even if you genuinely believe you've been fouled. So a company threatening patent suits is a company in trouble.
Posted by Alexander at 03:12 PM, September 16, 2006 | Blackboard - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Royston Forum
I've just managed to get my office set up. I'm in Royston now, about 10 miles outside of Cambridge. There's new details on the contact page. I just want to thank and recommend some people who helped along the way.
Lorna, of the Lower Warren Guest House runs a great B&B near the centre of town. The nearby The Old Bull Inn has a pub that provides good Wi-Fi coverage and a good lunch.
Thanks to the friendly Dave Martin, of Dave Martin Transport who provides a courier and taxi-van service. Taxi-vans are a great idea - you get a van, and a guy who drives the van and helps you move your stuff.
I've also set up a Royston Forum - I was a bit dissappointed with the lack of service from the local estate agents (there's about 10 of them) and I thought there should be a better way to disintermediate when renting or letting in Royson - hopefully this forum will help.
Posted by Alexander at 12:57 PM, August 29, 2006 | Royston Forum | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Royal Junk Mail
I really like this story of a postman who found a way to lighten his load. He recommended a junk-mail opt out scheme to people on his round. Junk mail is beneficial to those who send it, but it wastes a little bit of time for a lot of people, so overall it's a waste and makes the economic pie smaller for everyone. It's great to see employees conspiring with customers to reduce this waste! Royal Mail have made a calamitous error by suspending this guy - I didn't even know about this opt-out scheme until it became this story. Now I do and I'm going to join!
How to opt out of UK junk mail
Posted by Alexander at 12:34 PM, August 29, 2006 | Royal Junk Mail | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A Hot Potato
If you'll ever have to name anything, you'd best have a look at Igor's naming guide. It's goes into detail about companies and products, but I think it's widely applicable to many kinds of naming tasks.
It got me thinking about different names in my area - quiz software. I've known for a while that 'Hot Potatoes' is the best name out there and now I know why - a hot potato can be a difficult problem or question, and is also a children's game - it does really well by suggesting the experience of learning through play - that's just right for school quiz software.
Posted by Alexander at 12:57 PM, August 15, 2006 | A Hot Potato | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Flash but no Javascript?
Just a question I wanted to put to the blogosphere (you) - Have you ever run into difficulties with a platform or machine that has Flash but no Javascript? I became curious after reading the comments in this blog post.
Over the years, I've heard a lot of references to a user who might have Javascript disabled, but still run Flash. It has never rung true to me - I'd imagine anyone uncomfortable with Javascript is doubly uncomfortable with Flash. But has anyone actually seen problems with this? Is building for this case over-obviation?
Posted by Alexander at 01:05 PM, August 09, 2006 | Flash but no Javascript? | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Mobile Software Publishing Office
I'm doing the mobile office thing this week. I'm in Royston, a town about 15 minutes away from Cambridge looking for a new place. It'll be a week or two before I get moved in anywhere, but I'm surprised by the amount that I'm able to achieve with just a laptop and a quiet pub with a wifi access point.
I use Gmail so I have all my e-mail available and searchable, and remote SVN hosting, so I can work with clients on the latest updates to projects. I'm not quite able to publish a complete Question Writer recompile from here. Maybe by the end of the week.
Posted by Alexander at 04:27 PM, August 01, 2006 | Mobile Software Publishing Office | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Central Question International Headquarters Moving To Cambridge
I'll be busy over the next week or two with a move from Manchester to Cambridge. The move is for personal reasons, but it could be a serendipitous location - Paul Graham suggests that Cambridge is the most likely place in Europe where a Silicon Valley environment might develop because of Cambridge University.
I asked a handful of American computer science professors which universities in Europe were most admired, and they all basically said "Cambridge" followed by a long pause while they tried to think of others.
There's already a place in Cambridge referred to as 'Silicon Fen' which is a play on a place in Scotland called 'Silicon Glen'. But to get that joke, you'd probably need a degree in English. From Oxford.
Posted by Alexander at 02:51 PM, July 26, 2006 | Central Question International Headquarters Moving To Cambridge | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Plagiarism or Copying?
Prof. Sally Brown thinks that students don't understand what plagiarism is. I agree - the word is misused in a downright dishonest fashion in many colleges and universities and it's no wonder students are confused. The simpler word 'copying' is a much better fit in most instances.
To plagiarize implies that a person is presenting the work as original, that he has asserted that he is the sole originator of the ideas where he is not, and even that the real author has suffered injury as he now has difficulty claiming the work as his own original work. Plagiarism is a serious business and it does happen in academia, but rarely at the undergraduate level.
In many cases, students are completing assignments, without any pretence that their ideas are original, that they are the first of the thousands or millions to have completed a similar assignment and to have had original ideas and thoughts on it. The professor isn't looking forward to gleaning new and fresh insights from his undergraduates. When a student cheats, by copying work or having someone else do it, sanctions are fine, but the grandiloquence is unnecessary and demeans the seriousness of real plagiarism.
Seeing students trying to outsource their own education is comical but is just a symptom. It speaks that the students value the qualification more than the education, which is the real root of the problem.
Posted by Alexander at 12:49 PM, June 19, 2006 | Plagiarism or Copying? | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Free For Personal Use
First thing - here's the download link for Question Writer - Personal Edition. It's free for personal use and is for making multiple choice Flash quizzes like this one on the Seven Wonders. The challenge was to make something powerful enough to be useful without giving away the farm. There's an upgrade tip on startup - but I've kept the 'nagware' aspect to a minimum - I really wanted to make something for people to enjoy using and recommend to friends rather than something that would be a hassle to use.
Here's the Question Writer Blog entry.
Posted by Alexander at 04:59 PM, June 05, 2006 | Free For Personal Use | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
2GB of Automatic, Incremental, Encrypted, Remote, Online Backup
Computer backup used to be something that you needed to do every month, week or even day. Now it's a fire and forget task - something that you can set up once, and forget about. There's really no need to manage a large collection of backup tapes, cds or dvds with automatic backup to a networked hard disk.
But my favourite, as I mentioned last year, is automatic incremental encrypted remote online backup. That's a mouthful but it's very simple. It works like this - a small app sits on your desktop, watching for changes in the files and directories you've chosen to backup - when it notices that the computer is not in use, it sends the changes to the server.
It's remote, which is smarter than storing your backups in the same location as your files. It's encrypted - so no-one can snoop on you data. It's automatic - so it's always up to date. It's incremental - so it doesn't hog too much bandwidth. So here's Mozy - which provides 2GB of backup space. It's free and it takes five minutes to set up. Even if your hard disk doesn't go kaput tomorrow, it'll pay you back in peace of mind before the day is out.
Posted by Alexander at 09:42 AM, May 15, 2006 | 2GB of Automatic, Incremental, Encrypted, Remote, Online Backup | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Free Ebay Sniping Service
Game theory suggests that the optimal way to win Ebay auctions is to 'snipe' - that's placing your maximum bid in the closing seconds of the auction - it minimizes bidding wars and doesn't encourage additional interest in the item you're bidding on. Here's JustSnipe - an ad supported service to place last minute bids when you really can't place that bid at 4.34 am.
Posted by Alexander at 10:47 AM, May 06, 2006 | Free Ebay Sniping Service | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
PSP Buttons Map to 'Escape' Key (27)
While doing some PSP tests for Chris O'Shea - I found some unexpected keyboard mappings - pressing the Start button maps to '27' as does the square button in combination with Up/Down. Personally, I think mapping the start button to the 'Enter' key would have been more use - but checking for a combination of the start key with a direction key gives an additional 4 commands to send to the unit.
On a related note - there's no way to press the 'TAB' key that I've found, but the yellow rectangle can be made to appear by using a 'SetFocus' command if a direction key is pressed when nothing has focus. Using the Start Square button to trigger a mousepress on the focussed unit could allow for full keypad tab navigation for Flash Lite 2 style apps.
Here's a list of the full results from the tests
Mouse position - yes
Starts at 0,0 regardless of where the mouse is located. When the mouse is moved, it picks up the correct location. Top left is measured at (0,0), bottom right is measured as (478.95,271)
Hide mouse - no
The mouse pointer is clearly visible
Move arrow keys - yes
These move the black box around fine. These work for games, but the situation with arrow keys is more complicated for tab-style navigation a la Flash Lite 2/Mobile phones
Keycodes - interesting
The arrow keys are mapped
left - 37
up - 38
right - 39
down -40
and
cirle is mapped to 27 (but tries to close the browser)
square + left/right/down/up - mapped to 27
Start is mapped to 27
27 is the same as the PC 'Escape' key
Update: I wasn't able to repeat my initial finding with the Start button so I'm striking some of the text.
Posted by Alexander at 05:44 PM, April 28, 2006 | PSP Buttons Map to 'Escape' Key (27) | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
PlayStation Portable - Flash. Day 1.
I've been trying out a new theme we created for the PSP update - I've just looked at it this afternoon - but here's what I'm seeing so far. This is the content - it's the Italy test with new PSP theme applied. Generally, it's being rendered properly on the device with a few big caveats -
It's slow. The image zooming is a bit much for the device - that's to be expected - but even moving between pages takes maybe half a second or a second.
No streaming. Flash is usually capable of streaming - it'll usually show you the content as it loads. Not with the PSP though, it waits for everything to arrive before it kicks off.
Keypad control. This is the effective showstopper. The PSP has a pointer device, and this in combination with the X button is the only way to interact with the content. I haven't found any way to use the keypad in the same way you might navigate around a Flash Lite 2 app on a phone for example. There's not even the equivalent of a 'TAB' key.
Update 19:34 I've just found this pacman game - it does use the arrow keys - so there is a mapping there - I'm hopeful there's a way to use them for tabbing around too.
Note to self: it might be possible to hide the cursor and use the pointer device to replicate a directional TAB control
Memory. In the content above, the PSP gets to question 10 before throwing the 'Out Of Memory' error - that's pretty good, considering all the different question types and scrollbars. I think with a bit of tweaking, we could do a 10 question quiz (no feedback) or a five question quiz with full feedback.
There's some more first impressions on the 'FlashForward2006 Blog'
Posted by Alexander at 06:14 PM, April 25, 2006 | PlayStation Portable - Flash. Day 1. | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Flash 6 for PSP in Japan
Just announced - Japanese PSP users are to get a firmware update tomorrow, which includes the Flash 6 player for the PSP Browser. The update is version 2.70, and users will need to enable the Flash Player in the system settings. 'Some functions are not supported.' - I'm not sure what those might be - possibly video / some FSCommands are not included.
Posted by Alexander at 02:06 PM, April 24, 2006 | Flash 6 for PSP in Japan | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Quiet Computing
The first thing I do when I re-install Windows is turn off all the sounds. All the bleeps, bings, blips, burps and bleats. Maybe they're useful for the novice user, but when something is going wrong, I already know it's going wrong without a chorus. Pavlov conditioned his dogs to salivate to the sound of a bell and Windows can make my hammering hand distinctly twitchy just by beeping. It's the repeated association of the sound and the frustration of something not working.
Here's how - it takes less than 30 seconds to enjoy quiet computing.
Start->Control Panel (Classic View) -> Sounds and Audio Devices Properties -> Sounds -> No Sounds
It'll still play music and movies - just not all those Windows sounds.
Posted by Alexander at 01:51 PM, April 19, 2006 | Quiet Computing | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Implicit Association Tests
My data suggests little to no automatic preference between Open-Source and Microsoft. That's according to the Microsoft - Open-Source Implicit Association Test which aims to uncover differences in conscious and unconscious attitutes. I found taking the test hard work in some places because I could see how it encourages lazy short-cut associative thinking, and that required effort to resist. There's a whole page of different sample tests - covering attitudes like sexuality, race, age and disability.
Posted by Alexander at 01:42 PM, April 13, 2006 | Implicit Association Tests | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Subscript / Superscript
Subscripts and superscripts are often ignored in Flash applications because the player can't display them dynamically. That can be a real drawback for mathematicians and scientists. However, an effective technique in Flash is to provide additional fonts in the same face, at a smaller size, vertically offset, so that they effectively become superscript/subscript versions. This is the technique I've used in Question Writer to process subscript and superscript tags in the html tags.
Here's an example number theory test and .qwz source - it uses a many of the HTML features. Unfortunatly it doesn't score the questions correctly because I don't know the answers ! If you do know any of the answers, please feel free to put them in the comments below! No need - it has all the answers and feedback now.
Posted by Alexander at 11:33 AM, April 11, 2006 | Subscript / Superscript | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
OS X on PC hardware
I predict that Apple will settle on 64-bit Intel processors ASAP (with FireWire 800 please), and at that time will announce a product similar to Boot Camp to allow OS X to run on bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware, turning the Boot Camp relationship on its head and trying to sell $99 copies of OS X to 100 million or so Windows owners.
I agree - I think Boot Camp will show Joe Public the distinction between the hardware and the OS. Manufacturers will start to sell PCs that run two operating systems instead of one. It will turn into a checkbox - right beside 1GB RAM / 3Ghz Processor / Windows and Mac OS. I'm also convinced that Live CDs are going to be key in driving a wedge into this market.
Posted by Alexander at 12:09 PM, April 07, 2006 | OS X on PC hardware | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
PSP Browser - Flawed Masterpiece
I picked up a Playstation Portable the other day in anticipation of the Flash 6 update and to use as a mobile web browser. The PSP was designed for games but I'm a PC gamer, and the Flash update isn't out yet, so I'm considering it here for use as a mobile web browser.
First off, I was stunned by the ability of the PSP to render websites in much the same way as a desktop browser. I thought I'd be using Gmail's mobile interface for example, but I'm using the ordinary interface - because it does such a good job of rendering HTML.
Even with nested tables and complex layouts, it does very well. Any blurriness in these images is down to my lack of photographic skills - the text and images are sharp - it's easy to read from, even with small text that fills the whole screen.
There's some Javascript support - but as soon as a page tries to change its own elements (to repopulate a drop down list for example) - it runs into problems. I tried checking an airfare on Travel Spy - I chose the destination country, the webpage tried to update a drop-down list with the available locations and this caused the browser to crash. I can live without Javascript though - it's not integral to many of the most usable websites. Also lack of Ajax on the PSP may be an opportunity for Flash developers to strut their interactive stuff.
I had hoped to use the PSP to respond to e-mail and support forum queries on the move. However it's clear to me now that it is of no use for this purpose. The text entry interface is horrendously bad. There's a good summary in the comments of this blog entry -
The PSP's on-screen keyboard is the worst implemention of an on-screen keyboard ever. It blends the disadvantages of a plus pad with the disadvantages of a phone, leveraging the strengths of neither.
I suspect Sony developed this interface for limited use like entering once off details like Wifi passwords and connection names and then later released the browser deciding it already had 'good enough' text entry. It's a pain to use even for small things like URLs, usernames and passwords - but it is unusable for more substantial text entry for e-mail, forums or blog entries.
There's no details yet on when a keyboard might be available - Logic 3 had announced one, even releasing a product photo, but it was later cancelled. I'm guessing it's because Logic 3 just assumed they could build this but that there may not be a keyboard driver in the PSP firmware.
I can see the strengths and potential of this device and I'm still excited about it but it's a flawed masterpiece. I can use it only to check e-mail not respond to it. I'm waiting for better text entry or a keyboard before I can leave my laptop at home.
Posted by Alexander at 04:09 PM, March 27, 2006 | PSP Browser - Flawed Masterpiece | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
