Background

I found out about capacitive touch-compatible (CTC) gloves years ago, after a friend of mind asked if there was any device he could use instead of a finger to control his iDevice. I had known about pointing styluses with special rubberized plastic made to mimic the characteristics of human skin and when I went on a Google-hunt (my favorite type of hunting) I found the styluses mentioned in addition to the gloves. I sent my friend the link and filed the existence of CTC gloves in the back of my mind, where I keep all of my quick reference filing cabinets.

If I were drawing up a list of requirements I would list: good build quality, warm enough for freezing-point temperatures (32°F), competitively priced compared regular gloves, unobtrusive, no behavior change, neither conspicuous, nor dorky looking and fashionable if possible—this was a woman after all, not me. So, I packed a lunch, bowed to the cat and off I went to hunt. It was easy enough to find plenty of contenders, but either they failed on one or multiple levels: This one was too expensive; this one was too dorky, this one just has two small conductive pads, and this one was meant for sub-zero temperature and too bulky, etc.

I realized that instead of a hunt, it was actually a round of Survivor, with the gloves being the contestants. I finally narrowed it down to a few and checked out reviews and the company sites for their background to see if this seemed like a company that would treat you like they wanted your business or if they were just cashing in on a market and treated the product like a gimmick.

The products were similar enough, but the company info for the Agloves said that they were made because they were tired of answering the phone with their nose. Two things struck me about that: (1) they made a product they wanted to use which is significant, and (2) the claim of answering the phone with your nose rang true because I have done that when my hands were full.— Winner!

I contacted the company to see if anyone carried them locally because a friend needed them for a trip she was taking in a few days. Less than a day later, I received a reply from Sarah Hansen, who told me that Verizon stores carried them. I called a Verizon store down the street. After a few minutes of phone maze navigation, I got to a real person. I was a bit annoyed by the phone maze, but luckily the person on the other end was beyond helpful. She looked up store inventor in the region and found nothing stocked. It turns out that Verizon only offers them online. I was sent out a pair gratis, for review, and got them in time for my friend’s trip.

Review

The Agloves Bamboo are touchscreen-friendly gloves fit comfortably. When I put them on I immediately noticed the construction quality and cooling effect bamboo has on the skin. Treated bamboo is antibacterial, but I do not know if the Agloves use this treated bamboo textile (They make no such claims on the tag.). I noticed the finger tips had seams and thought that it might be uncomfortable during use. I then tried them on my iPhone and it was like I wasn’t even wearing gloves. The touchscreen stayed responsive as ever, and at no time did I have to change my natural interaction with the device. I figured this would be the effect because the Agloves have silver thread interwoven throughout the gloves.

After using them a few hours, my touchscreen was still clean. Also, I didn’t feel like the gloves were getting uncomfortable either. I chalked this up to the bamboo. The only things I didn’t like were the plain natural color and the fingertip seam. But the color is purely subjective, and many people will probably like the natural color. The seams at the finger tips didn’t bother me either. I imagine that would make shortening the fingers easier and less obvious for those with shorter digits.

I lent them to my friend for her trip, and when she got back her observations were inline with mine. She too noticed the finger tip seams when I handed them to her and she put them on, but also reported that they didn’t bother her at all during the trip. The color didn’t bother her for a second. She said the temperature was in the 30s and 40s during her trip and the gloves kept her hands comfortably warm. She is allergic to a lot of things most people don’t think people can be allergic to. So, I was also a bit worried that the silver thread or bamboo would bother her. She did mention getting a bit of a rash on her wrists, but ruled out the gloves as the culprit. She was very pleased with how well the gloves performed, and didn’t have a single complaint. Even though I’ve asked for them back, she has yet to get around to it. So, I’ll probably end up buying my own pair.

The bottom line is the Agloves Bamboo touchscreen gloves function as advertised in cold weather with no loss of ability to use touch screens. The build quality is great and they meet all the requirements I listed above. I would buy a pair for myself (and probably will end up doing that).

Full Disclosure: I received these gloves for review from Agloves directly without any other compensation. (And I’m wondering if I could get another pair for re-review because my friend has claimed them under her banner. {Insert cheesy smile here}). If you are interested in learning more or buying a pair, check out Agloves site.

Social Networking is the hottest property on the internet. Social Networks (SoNets) allow better targeted marketing and allow companies a glimpse into who is buying their products.

Most companies on the internet either have or are working on ways to establish  positive mindshare by encouraging customers to talk about their products and build communities based on common product interests.

It used to be that the best source for information on what people were buying was financial institutions, which tracked what each account was buying, as well as large retailers that offered a wide range of products. Getting this valuable data was expensive and not always easy. Slowly, large online retailers discovered cross-promotion and established partnerships sharing customer information.

Then social networks (SoNets) came along and kicked over the traditional model. Any company knows that its customers are their best advertisers, but until SoNets came around there was no effective way to tap into that. There are now companies that try to determine and track the opinion makers and leaders of social circles. Collecting the wisdom of the crowd is being packaged and sold by market research firms that have taken to the internet: profile-mining for profit.

It may sound paranoid, but corporations know more today about our preferences than science fiction writers, just a few decades ago, imagined the government would. And the greatest thing about it — for the corporations — is that most people are giving away this information for free.  Although, they do offer baubles like badges and awards to those who provide their personal information.

The default for most social networks is that everything a person posts, “likes” or “+1s” is shared with the global community of users. When your friends see that you like a band, they are more likely to check it out. They are also more likely to form a positive opinion thanks to the associative properties of the human mind.

Even after locking down your feed to only friends, if you “Like” or “+1” something, it gets reported to the entity that put up the button. In some cases that also allows the corporation to view your profile. Their next step is to aggregate the data and study the patterns to understand the profile of their fans. This helps marketers determine how to target their campaigns. If a SoNet information analyst notices that a lot of people who like their brand also like certain artists or activities, then they can target people with similar profiles to find more potential customers.

What was once difficult and expensive to collect is now as simple as assigning one internet savvy person to adapt current marketing material to the product page and let the information pour in. If a company is smart, they also have internet savvy, personable employees interact with their product fans and encourage positive discussions about the product. Even smarter ones use this free direct connection to their customers to improve their products.

I’m not against these practices in principle, but there is too little protection for customers. If it were up to me, I would pass legislation that extends consumer protection and privacy laws by requiring all sharing to be opt-in by default, all customer data to be stored with current strong encryption, and ban selling or trading customer information for reasons other than providing a customer requested service. If a company were to go bankrupt or was sold, before the user data was transferred to a new entity, each customer would have to approve the transfer of their information to the new company. Essentially the goal would be to put people in charge of their data and make advertisers pay them to license it.

I am the product they are selling; it’s my personal information and preferences, and I want my fair share for what amounts to my intellectual property. Why should I give services such as Spotify my complete list of Facebook contacts and things unrelated to music for a mere 10 hours a month of listening, complete with commercials? Why would I want the public to know that I am at least an hour from home by checking in on Foursquare or posting a message on Google+, Facebook or Twitter with my location tagged in it? The Please Rob Me website explains why this is a bad idea.

Facebook has slapped the deceivingly pleasant word “frictionless” onto this practice of broadcasting everything you do through a SocNet, rather than linked service to don’t tell it not to share with everyone.

What’s worse is that one of my personal gripes: content posted in people’s feeds that they didn’t generate is becoming more commonplace. In my opinion, allowing an application to post a generic message to your feed automatically is not only rude and disrespectful of your followers, but makes you just another marketing tool. If I post something about a product to my feed, it is because I think it is worth my friends’ time to check out. Hell, I’ll sing the praises of things I think everyone should try quite loudly — and without the baubles: “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.”

I am always cautious with following links, and I check what the true URL is before clicking if possible. But increasingly, I’ve also become leery of clicking links on SoNet sites I’m logged into, with the exception of new aggregate sites such as Reddit and Digg where the whole point is to share news. Often if you look at links (in marketing emails or on sites you are logged into), they have some sort of way to track who you are and where you came from: sometimes it is a unique number after a question mark or sometimes it is your e-mail address. I often edit those or just go to the original source instead of using the link.

Facebook’s recent run in with the FTC for overstepping privacy boundaries by making private information public reminded me of salespeople using the “bait and switch” tactic on unsuspecting consumers. Then recently a researcher found that even logged out Facebook users are laying down cookie trails that could be easily traced back to them only accentuate the problem. ( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393564,00.asp )

It seems like at least once a month for the past few years there’s a story about a company’s customer database getting hacked or accidentally released. Check out how many don’t reach the news here: http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach if you don’t believe me. If not security breaches, then the news story is related to other privacy concerns. Thanks to the GPS chip now required in all mobile phones or integral to OnStar’s service, your probable location is only a court order or hack away. What’s worse is that some companies are rewriting their terms of service to include clauses that make you agree to allow your information I including your location to be traded at will as a term of service, or even allow them to track you after you unsubscribe in the case of OnStar. ( http://www.technewsworld.com/story/73361.html )

At some point this has got to stop or else walking through a mall will resemble the Scene in Minority report. John Anderton (played by Tom Cruise) walks through a shopping center and interactive video advertisements targeted at the person whose eyes he has pop up and follow him. The only exception will be they’ll be accurately targeted at you by using facial recognition linked to your SoNet profile courtesy of you, for free. Would that be so bad? Hey, I’d love to know when Loius CK decides to put out another special direct to web free of DRM or other stupid limits for the price of a large mocha. However, I’d rather chose to sign up to his email list and avoid someone deciding I must also like Robin Williams if I like comedy. I don’t. Privacy watchdogs have been sounding the alarm for a long time, but it just can’t hold a candle to the 3Oh3/Katy Perry video playing on the next link over. (You’ll have to search for “3oh3” and “Katy Perry” video because I’d rather you spent your time looking at any of the articles linked above.)

There are many failures in use of  technology by companies that should know better that I wonder how the people in charge manage to keep their jobs. Now it is easy for me to sit here atop my perch and take pot shots, insulated from all the conflicting pressures of making products that both please the management’s bottom line and customers. However, I have always been of the opinion that there is a way to do both. There are solutions that can actually deliver more satisfaction to both company and customer.

Most of the failures, I chalk up to simple lack of consideration. From the looks of it, things are designed by people that don’t actually use them. If the person who is in charge of “User Experience” doesn’t test the hell out of the end result and try to break the system by finding exceptions, then the experience isn’t going to be as good as it could be. The other problem is people are unfamiliar with all that is available to them to help them accomplish their task. I’ll often get people asking be about a,b,c when they really just want to get d and e done., and there is a product that makes doing d and e as simple as pushing one button.

Today, I’ll focus on pointing out things I encounter everyday, and I’m sure you do as well. You can spot them too. All you have to do is take note of anytime you suffer a work-stoppage because something trips you up and makes you deal with it before you can get on with your task.

The biggest thing is for people to move away from this paradigm of digital documents being limited to those of physical objects. The answer to making things easier for people to reference things was revealed decades ago: it’s Hypertext. I do not know of a single modern desktop nor mobile OS that doesn’t have the ability to be hypertext-aware. Hyperlinking the hell of things would solve a ton of wasted time.

Here’s my Festivus “List of Grievances”—a bit late, but the problems below delayed this:

Software

Unhelpful “Help”: If you’re going to bother including a help file, why make it a single level file with no external links? A hypertext laden document with external and internal links to related content is easy to create if the people who put together the documentation are hyper-aware and comfortable using any variety of markup languages from HTML to Markdown.

Unfamiliar Icons: If you are going to use new icons in your interface for goodness sake, introduce them. A screen shot with each icon hyperlinked to an explanation and “further reading” would help a lot. I’m a pretty savvy computer user, so if it takes me well over 5 minutes to find out what the hell this cryptic symbol meant, you’ve failed as a UI designer. If I can’t find any reference to your icon or any application specific words used in the interface in your documentation, you’ve failed as a technical writer.

“Mystery options”: In preference panes a little superscript question mark in a circle “(?)” that users could click and see what the option means would save a trip to searching the documentation. Mouseover tooltips also work. It could be a simple help ballon with a link to the entry in the help documentation. That would allow your user to learn the product quickly and access the more advanced features many people never use because they don’t even know they’re there or finding out how to use them is cumbersome.

Error Dialogs: cryptic codes or insufficient information. Making hyperlinked dialogs to revamped help apps with links to up-to-date information and the KB article would help immensely.

Online

Knowledge Bases Information Hunts: Information in Knowledge Bases is either too little or too much. Often I do not know what the technical term someone used for something might be, so I have to hunt for the magic words. If I do not use the exact phrase the documentation writer did, I will not find anything. Worse is when I cannot limit the scope on my search to one product, or filter out information that only pertains to previous versions. That results in getting hundreds if not thousands of hits.

Vague Web Forms: There is a general lack what’s acceptable input, only that it is required or optional. Whenever I hit the password field it devolves into a guessing game “Will it only take alpha-numeric or will it also accept common symbols?” & “What is the maximum password length?” So, I fill out these forms blind, and if I’m lucky the exception is then explained in red text: “Only alphanumeric characters and *$!% are accepted” or “The maximum password allowable it 15 characters.” This morning I tried to create an account on a cutting edge web service company’s site and didn’t even get any feedback as to why it couldn’t handle my registration. Is the system down? Or can it not handle a 128 character password with symbols? I still have no idea, so I can’t use the service. The California DMV site is surprisingly helpful, listing their username, password and email policies. Too bad their email filters out legitimate email addresses.

Monolithic or Fragmented Documents: Documentation in many projects takes one of 2 forms: either it’s one huge page with an index that no one bothers to hyperlink to the relevant content, or it’s a separate page for each and every entry, including the introductions to the topics. If it is a long intro explaining things, that’s more forgivable, but when it is a one paragraph entry making you click many links to get to the information you want. PHP’s documentation annoys me for this reason. Luckily there are a few projects out there that include hyperlinks in the index or ones that allow some flexibility in how far down the outline one goes.

Overly General Product Information: “Product Specifications” pages that are nothing more than brochures listing vague details. Last year I was trying to find an inexpensive laptop that could operate in harsh environments. Few manufacturers had environmental limits listed in their spec sheets, if I could even find a specs sheet.

PDF files in place of HTML Documents: Unless you want people to be able to download a single file for print or some other purpose, there in no excuse for only offering information in PDF format if it is for public consumption. PDFs are not searchable outside of Acrobat reader, and they are hardly light on storage needs.

Flash-based Content on Pages Linked for Mobile Devices: not just iOS won’t handle it, and Flash on mobile is a huge battery drain. I’m glad to see many sites offering HTML5 video finally. I often see a link on twitter that leads to a page where I can’t watch the video. Luckily, this has improved immensely since Adobe announced pulling the plug on mobile Flash.

Over Tweeting or Double Tweets: Hey, I know you want to raise awareness and build a following, but tweeting excessively will annoy people. If you are an aggregate service, a daily or thrice-daily link to relevant news would be appreciated. What’s completely unacceptable is when a company or someone tweets the same content with slightly different “teasers.” (I’m looking at you HuffPo and Kawasaki.) It is as if they are unaware that I could simply scroll down to see the previous entry into the feed. I usually just end up un-following those companies. (Yes, I know I can make lists to filter, but having to filter to make your feed manageable is different from wanting to filter.) There are some people that use Twitter masterfully and people could learn from them: George Takei and Ars Technica come immediately to mind.

Other

Internal Data Systems for Support Designed by Morons: A customer service representative’s job is hard enough. Why make them collect the same info from a customer multiple times? Why make me key in my account number if you’re just going to have a rep. Ask for it again? Why make them able to accept credit cards, yet not be able to toss that info into a the custom order database? I made or received about 10 calls to or from various company support lines  in the last 2 weeks and many of them had these problems and worse, some had their system down so they were unable to work. If you have a database system, link the hell out of it, and stop making your representatives jump through hoops to serve the customer. Their job is hard enough.

Support Lines not Properly Staffed: If I call a support line, the person on the other end should know what I am talking about and either have all the information needed or be competent enough to research it on the fly. That also means giving your support people full access to internal knowledge bases and the internet. If people are goofing off and your solution is to cut internet access, that doesn’t address the root problem.

Conclusion

This is usually where I wrap it up, but I’m pretty sure the above stands on its own. If you take away one thing, it is this: do your homework, take the time to research best practices in design, interfaces and respecting your customers and followers. I’ll touch more on Netiquette later, but until then: remember the goal of technology. Think about it the next time you come across technology that makes your life more difficult: give the people that designed it feedback, and try to be constructive. Thanks for reading.

A Rare Challenge

Clan Lord is a veritable Methuselah among online role-playing games, the graphics—2D hand drawn sprites—are crude compared to todays 32-bit texture laden 3D graphics. The reason is that this game is on its second decade of existence having come out of beta after about a year of testing in 1998. Since then development efforts have gone into expanding the world and adding features on occasion.

The gameplay is simplistic for fighters and for the first few levels of “healer-dom.” One simply runs into what one wants to try to kill or start healing. Unlike 3D games, a 2D system allows this because there is no “ASDF+turn key” navigation needed in a 3D space, In a 2D space your mouse does quite nicely.

In addition to this lack of combat mechanic complexity, there is also a very simple items system, and thus not much of an economy. If a person is not too concerned about rapid advancement while off-line and doesn’t carry more than the maximum of allowed objects, there is almost no reason to even have coins or care about obtaining them after one gets their basic equipment needs met, aside from the 5 coin boat fare to leave the island and chain repairs.

So, what does this game so clearly lacking offer, and why are people still playing after over 10 years? Clan Lord has a radically different concept and approach to games than pretty much every other RPG online or offline out there. And the difference in the environment it came out of and exists in has both its strengths and weaknesses.

Different Player Base

Clan Lord’s player base was initially RPG fans, mac enthusiasts, casual gamers. The Mac was a very different platform in 1996–1998 (CL’s formative beta period), with a different type of average demographic. “Real gamers” bought PCs with Windows, and Mac Gamers were often treated with disdain by most PC gamers and mainstream game publications. The typical Mac user tended to be a creative person, and thought along different lines than the “herd mentality” of the typical PC user. (That’s not to say all PC users follow the flock, but many don’t care and just use what everyone else does for simplicity.) It wasn’t until a European company formed by players licensed Clan Lord and developed a Windows client for the game.

Mac’s “Toy” Legacy

Only with the advent of iOS did Apple even get a foothold in the gaming industry. One of the main reasons gaming never really took off on the platform is that Apple was trying to downplay the image of the Macintosh as a “toy” and thus discouraged game development. It only half-heartedly put the effort into making development tools for game creation after a decade of existence. Game Sprockets were a collection of APIs for developers that Apple tried but failed to maintain due to lack of internal enthusiasm and game developer conflicts.

Today any company would be crazy to discourage third parties from developing a market for their product, but in the mid-eighties, games were considered unimportant to all but console makers such as Atari, Sega and Nintendo. Also computers at the time were only of interest to academics, technology enthusiasts and businesses. To have a product associated with leisure activities—especially one as time-wasting as playing games—was verboten if one was trying to get businesses to adopt them.

Hobbyists Started Gaming, Not Companies

Luckily, a lot of enthusiastic programmers and researchers decided to spend free time making games for fun that were released for free. Some of the earliest games were very simple and among them was an RPG called Rogue whose gameplay concepts Clan lord borrows from. If one looks at the spirit of Delta Tao, one realizes that Joe, Tim and the volunteer staff hail from the days of programmers making games for fun, not for profit. (That is probably one of the other reasons that Delta Tao stopped charging a subscription fee to players. Now all that is needed is an initial purchase of an account and the option of adding character slots to it.)

It didn’t occur to programmers nor their companies that video games could be a good revenue stream until someone took a look at arcades. Those companies focused on making games that generated a profit and got old quickly so the gamer could move on to purchasing the next game. It wasn’t until persistent subscription models that game developers had to consider how to make a game with enduring appeal. This was never really a concern of Clan Lord either, but in order to succeed at building an online community, CL had to keep players interested. Unfortunately for a long while about 4–9 years ago, Clan Lord heavily relied on its community to keep the game afloat because of stagnant development.

Developers are in Control

Developers and artists are almost all volunteer, and they choose their own projects and have no deadlines and no duty to do anything other than follow the basic tenets and not crash the server. Thus the sporadic development. The inner workings are developed free of burdens that make development an unpleasant. As a result of not being directed or compelled by management to make this or implement that, implemented features are not geared at pleasing players. A developer for the game said that if players don’t like the way the game is going that they are free to SACWAG: Start a company. Write a game. The phrase became used so often, that “SACWAG” and “soon!” are also bandied about by players in response to complaints from players, new and old. “Soon” is the response to when a player asks when a new feature or area will be released. Because there are no deadlines and the developer is free to work at his or her own pace, “soon” is the best answer. “On the list” is another phrase that means that the developer is interested in doing it, but there are other projects that are before it.

However the casual development has also lead to many developers leaving because their work is not handled as quickly as one would a paid developer’s code submissions. A lack of feedback and implementation are the main reasons cited by those that leave. After all, the volunteer GMs that oversee and manage the code have no requirements and aren’t being paid to perform. Since there is no pay, developers have to do other things to put food on the table, and many have other hobbies. All of these reasons lead to development cycles closer to “Duke Nukem Forever” than “World of Warcraft: (Cool Expansion Pack Name).”

Lack of Drive to Profit

With the stagnation of new abilities released, the game got a bit stale for a while, and still suffers from sporadic updates. The reason for this is a fundamental difference in the goals and concept of the game itself. The game had very modest goals that cost almost nothing to implement.

Clan Lord is not a huge commercial venture that has a giant development and support staff, and it was never intended to be. The CEO of Delta Tao has said publicly that the concept of what became Clan Lord was an experiment at creating an online community with a game being the medium to deliver it. It was a sort of collective programmer’s hobby. Therefore, instead of investing a ton of money of hiring developers and trying to turn a profit, it relied of developers that also liked the idea of playing with a world.

Small Player Base

CL never achieved critical mass, thanks in part to no advertising and no other promotion, the number of players remained small. As a result of the small pool of players (estimated at less than 2,000 total with a peak of probably under 8,000) players often ran into the same players each day they played. Even if the person only played a few times a month, they’d often encounter the same people playing if they played in certain time slots.

When the game was young, the larger player pool and single world meant that at all times of the day and night there would be people to play with. As the Americas went to bed Asia would come online, and as Europe went to bed the Americas would come on-line.

As a result of this small town aspect, players have to not only cooperate with each other, but also get along and from relationships almost as strong as real world friendships. While many online games have stories of players meeting and marrying, I would guess that per capita Clan Lord beats them all (but the small player base helps that).

No Ads

Instead of spending money advertising to reach as many gamers out there, the game relied on word-of-mouth and the occasional article about the Clan Lord, MMOs, and software listings. Joe actually dislikes the idea of advertising because advertising is usually fraught with techniques that make associations to unrelated things. Ads for the most part are irrational appeals to deep-seated emotions of a need for outside approval, insecurity, fear on one hand and desire, pleasure, and selfishness on the other. Very few products are advertised with truth about what they actually do. The mom is made to fear not taking care of her kids, and is told that to get their approval she needs to get them salty snacks and sugary drinks. Children are programmed that a sign of care is a toy, and that their life will be so happy and complete once they get a doll or other toy, teenagers and young adults are told they won’t be thought of favorably (look cool) unless they drink this beverage, use this brand of electronic device or use whatever product the advertisers are pushing. Men and Women are easy to manipulate by suggesting use of the product advertised will make them more attractive and interesting to attractive and desirable people.

Advertising is considered a bad idea to people who believe that true contentment and fulfillment come from inner peace, acceptance and striving to be a better person. Joe is one of those such individuals. So it is obvious the game would reflect his values.

The Clan Lord Philosophy 

Clan Lord’s philosophy follows a similar path to Joe’s changing way. There are not many items because people do not truly need them. Most of a character’s strengths come from learning. Ranks as a form of experience are not numerically listed because that is used as a status symbol and not truly indicative of the quality of a person. Instead there is something akin to reputation called “Karma” that fades and must be renewed that one earns from other players. There is a lack of any real economy because that would encourage people to compare bank accounts, and also distort a person’s real value.

The combat mechanics are extremely simple because they are easy to grasp but take time to master. So, a new player controlling an “Uber” (a long-established character with thousands of ranks) often gets killed faster than an experienced player controlling a character with half the ranks. A modicum of skill is actually needed to play the game effectively. This is probably because of a philosophy that wisdom is the true value of a person. Experience and the ability to apply that experience are what truly separate the better players from the rest.

There is no pressure to achieve higher levels either. In fact if one tries to catch up with the top tier, it takes literally at least a year of heavy play to do. In addition, taking an extended break is fine thanks to offline experience a character gets in the Libraries. When the person returns, the experience accumulated is doled out a rank at a time in 90 second increments.

Tinkering is Possible

Also, just like early programmers, there is a very simple macro language that players can tinker with for fun and to improve their character’s ease of control. As crude as it is, it allows characters to do some pretty impressive things. Some of which, automation of ones character, are actively frowned upon by the GMs and can lead to penalties that ranger from experience and items loss to being banned from playing.

Conclusion

With all I’ve said, it might seem that I’m trumpeting the game to some, and condemning it to others. It really depends on the type of person you are. And to be honest, not many people fit into the “I don’t care about stuff or status” category. Many people find the casual, lack of concrete goals in the game also disorienting. It is very hard to get used to and many people are not cut out to this way of thinking. That’s why I’ve given up recommending Clan Lord to friends. New people often ask, “what’s the point of the game?” The best response is similar to answering the question, “What is the meaning of Life?” The answer in Clan Lord is to “Set your own goals, find a place you are comfortable being in and have fun. Basically ‘Enjoy yourself.’ Oh, and try not to be a jerk.”

“I recently enabled iTunes Match, iTMS automatic purchase downloads and iCloud. Previously when I had only iTMS auto downloading, I only had to log in once. Now whenever I open up iTunes, I have to log in 3 times. The funny thing is, these are all linked to the same account, and I’m setup within my OS X system prefs to auto login to iCloud and sync that way. Why doesn’t iTunes check to see if account name/email match and have a setting that makes it a single sign-in instead of having to type my password 3 times each launch?

“It is mind-bogglin’ that iTunes, a supposedly user-friendly program that emphasizes simplicity, doesn’t have this very obvious feature. It is as if no one at Apple in charge of UI and user experience actually uses the software. I checked the Apple site and Apple doesn’t have a VP of UI while it does have Jonathan Ive in the Industrial Design side. What Apple needs is a “Jonathan Ive of UI Design” to reign in all these Apple apps to conform with Apple’s own HIG.”

But, knowing Apple’s long history of not listening to the wisdom coming from outside its walls, this will probably fall upon deaf ears. While writing this I also noticed that iTunes fails to grey out the “authorize” or “deauthorize”  computer menu items. That another example of Apple not following their own rules. It takes me about 5 seconds to spot these errors, why can’t anyone at Apple take a 5 minutes to correct them?

While Apple is following its usual pattern of appealing to the higher end of the market and people that value qualitative aspects of devices, the non-Apple mOS products are racing to the bottom in a war that is getting quite interesting. There are “Cadillacs” in the mobile phone space, but the tablet space is another beast entirely. The tablets released at the same price point as an iPad have met with bleak sell-through figures. HP threw in the towel with its WebOS tablet. Blackberry’s Playbook met with disappointment and general indifference. Samsung, a leader in many consumer electronic spaces, is facing an uphill battle against the 300 billion pound “iBranding” gorilla in the corner. How did we get from Apple being a minor player to Apple being the player to beat? I could list all of Apple’s build up since the acquisition of NeXT. Apple capitalized on a string of successes based around their ease-of-use principles.

By all accounts, Steve Jobs had the idea for the device that eventually became the iPad long ago. But before the iPad was a huge success, there were so many failed tablet attempts that Halted could probably dedicate an aisle to them. Here’s a short list of the ones I saw come and go: Microsoft Tablet PC: 2002. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition: 2001. Apple Newton line: 1993-1998. Penpoint OS: 1991. Windows for Pen Computing: 1991. GRiDPad: 1989. Why did the iPad succeed and become the model that showed how to make a tablet?

Technological hurdles with making a hand-held computer not withstanding, there were conceptual failings all around. Aside from the battery, connectivity and processing limitations, the biggest problem was how mobile computing was perceived. The biggest problem was that computer companies considered one market: business and priced accordingly. It didn’t seem to occur to them that people might want to use their mobile devices for other things. I might scoff at paying around $1000 for a mobile for myself, but there were companies paying 4 figures per device that were close relatives of the first Pilot just a 4–5 years ago.

With the aughts (‘00s) came WiFi, color screens, low-power ARM processors and longer battery life which made mobile computing seem inevitable. In the early aughts, Microsoft trumpeted their tablet initiatives but each one was still making the same mistake. Repeatedly, Microsoft tried to squeeze a desktop OS into a tablet form factor without significantly modifying the UI to accommodate the new environmental conditions.

There were other conceptual problems as well. One problem was the target market of business users and the premium prices devices made for them can command. Businesses can generate a lot of money if you give employees a way to work more efficiently. However, despite their buying power businesses tend to be notoriously conservative and will use a technology until forced to upgrade. The bigger the business, the more set in their ways they are. As an example, I once heard about a technician that made a call to a client that encountered an acoustic coupler in 2008. This is an extreme example, but for the techs out there, how many people can think of a few businesses that are still running Windows XP. To put it in perspective, in another few years XP will hit puberty.: Windows XP had its 10^th birthday in October 2011I, and I forgot to get it anything.

In cases where you don’t have to justify the added expense of utilizing mobile computing, the business has to have a workforce that (a) needs a mobile information device, (b) can use it effectively, and (c) is paid enough to warrant spending money to save them time. So you’ve got a conundrum. Emergency services, construction and maintenance workers could certainly use the information mobile computers provide, but they do not usually have the training to effectively use data systems. Businesses are unwilling to risk dimes by training them to save dollars. Considering the circumstances, it was obvious the revolution would have to come from the troops and not the generals.

Steve Balmer proclaimed that people want to use styluses more than their fingers shortly after the iPad came out. He was using Microsoft’s F-U-D strategy to promote Windows 7 for Tablets. After seeing this interview (fast forward to 1:45 and 2:28), it was pretty apparent why. Conceptually a stylus is less than optimal because it takes a few seconds to get out. Styluses were easy to lose, and the worst part was that you had both hands full while using pen-top devices.

Considering all other companies’ failings, it was conceivable that a company that historically strives to push new technology into the mainstream would be the one to show everyone the way to making mobile appeal to the masses. Instead of trying to squeeze a complete desktop paradigm into a handheld device they rethought the interface completely. The iOS UI guidelines are an interesting read. While I do not agree with all of them, I do like much of what is said. Just as Apple reinvented smartphones just 5 years ago, they’ve reinvented tablet computers, or will we just be calling them all iPads in 10 years?

(This article was written mid-November 2011 and updated to reflect industry changes.)

Customer Service Representatives take a lot of abuse from some people, I know. So I’m generally polite to them and despite what some people think most of them have some authority to actually credit your bill a bit, or can pass you off to another person that can help you. Utilities are tougher since they are a monopoly, and don’t have to even provide decent service to their customers to keep them. I called my insurance company a month or so back to find out what these extra “administration” fees were on my bill. After the guy interrupting me a few times, I let him have it for being a customer service agent and not letting the customer finish speaking.

Usually, having worked phone support, I know there’s certain leeway in customer handling and you can either screw the person more or help than more than standard and still not break any rules, or even be up for disciplinary action. So, the cool people got more than the standard party line: “I’ll call networking and have them do a rush setup for you.” While the jerks and rude people got “I’m sorry, but there was no request for this service at the time of your order. That’s a separate department, and I can’t fix this for you because the setup requires at least one week to process and complete.” which was the policy.

Essentially, my tactic with dealing with CSRs is to quickly find out if by being nice they’ll blow me off or help me more. Some people are only helpful to nice and polite people or people they feel sorry for (senior citizens, etc.) and some you have to persuade and some you have to push a bit.

So, with the insurance bill, the guy started by being a jerk to me, and after we worked that out, he decided to take off the admin fees for that month (which at most companies the first tier CSRs can usually do some sort of “courtesy fee waiver”) probably because either I was pushy but polite enough or he realized he pissed an otherwise polite customer off — I’m not sure which — and also voluntarily told me how far in advance to pay before the due date to avoid the fees. We finished the call with me volunteering my tip to not cut off people while they’re talking unless you want to upset them quickly.

The patterns became more and more complex as time went on. Eventually, man too would create virtual universes cast in electrons and controlled by gates pulsing to the beat of an unsteady clock.

As engineers worked, they invented ways to work in this universe and be able to comprehend it all. Initially there were patterns that became patterns of letters glowing green or amber rasterized onto dim black screens. And so this was the interface to the world of electrons for decades. Then some very smart people started thinking about better and faster ways to express data, and new paradigms to work in, and the graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse were born farther back in time than most people realize.

As time marched on more people began to refine the GUI and human interfaces that controlled them: trackballs, touch pads, touch screens, etc. But all this might not have happened if not for one person, and it’s not who you’d think it is…

Oddly enough, I had the pleasure of meeting Jef in the late 90s at a company party held the night after a company meeting in New York. I was working for an investment research firm, that was getting traction, and this was my first company trip. We started talking, and I honestly had no idea who he was at the time. He introduced himself as Jef Raskin, told me that he was among the first Apple employees and worked on the Macintosh project. His name sounded vaguely familiar, and he was sincere.

I was pretty blown away by just the fact that this guy was on the team that was made the machine that would change the world and jokingly bowed down to him and said “We’re not worthy,” a la Wayne’s World. He chuckled and we spent about an hour or more talking.

We started talking about the early days of the Macintosh, and he mentioned the signatures of the Macintosh team molded as part of the case on the inside of the first model. I told him that I had seen the inside of the case because I had one. (I had to take it apart again to swap the CRT out with one from a Mac SE — don’t ask me why. I’m still mad about what led to that.) He was a bit impressed that I knew that and had actually seen that first hand.

Jef was very nice and down to earth. He was relaxed and soft spoken but confident and seemed like a guy that was content with his lot in life. When I told him how the Mac’s GUI got me more into computers and led to being with the company who was throwing the party, he opened up a bit more.

He loved talking about interfaces and how the Mac’s GUI hadn’t turned out quite like he envisioned. I asked him what he would have liked to have seen, and he told me a few things — many of which hadn’t occurred to me, and sounded like interesting ideas. I told him what I would change — mainly based on my wish to switch into advanced modes for myself and had more options for the UI in the Finder.  Also I mentioned I would have loved another button on the mouse so I didn’t have to hold down the special keys all the time.

Eventually the conversation turned to why he was hanging out with boring traders and investment people when he could be in high tech. He told me that he had many hobbies, and that this was one. It was a fun and interesting conversation shooting the breeze with him. We talked a bit about everything — wherever the conversation led to, and I think we both lost track of time. By the time we finished, the party was winding down, so I thanked him for the fascinating stories, said it was a pleasure meeting him and said goodnight.

When I got home from the trip, I looked his name up on the web and was floored. Here I was, a lowly desktop publishing geek, that doubled as the tech guru at a small company, and there I was telling Jef Raskin how I would make the GUI better. I’m a bit glad that I didn’t know exactly who he was, because I would have been much more intimidated and I would probably not have had the GUI discussion with him nor would have had such a long and interesting conversation.

Luckily, I didn’t put my foot in my mouth too much considering I told him how I had saved the Macs and PowerCenters at my company when my CEO came to me and asked if we could replace all the Macs with Windows machines when we upgraded. Jef was amused, and quipped something not too flattering about the alternative.

Looking back, I wish I would have recorded the conversation, considering how interesting it was. I think somewhere in the world, someone has a picture of Raskin and I together in their photo shoebox. (If you happen to be that someone with the picture, I would appreciate a copy.) But alas, I didn’t realize the significance of the chance meeting until much later.

True, it is well known that the Macintosh wasn’t what Jef envisioned, but the seed he planted to make an affordable, easy to use computing appliance grew into modern computing as we know it.