OSX Innovations continue to make more sense: Chinese TrackPad Character Recognition

Having recently switched to OSX from Windows, I am continually impressed by the type of innovations that Apple continues to release for it Operating System.

Integral features, that have distinct usability.
For example, TimeMachine vs any Backup solution on Windows that I have ever come across.

Now, Chinese Character input, on your trackpad.

Coming to OSX in 10.6:

Fibonacci Interface Designs

My father is a wood worker.
He loves working with it.
He does finish carpentry, builds homes like the one I grew up in around Upstate NY and recently builds Adirondack Chairs and Steel Lap Guitars.

I was recently researching Fibonacci sequences and found the following video:



Then it came to me.
Is the Golden Ratio applied to Interface Design?


Is there a relationship between navigation element ratios along the tops and sides of interfaces?
Is that ratio currently or better supported by application of the golden ratio?
Can a trend based on the golden rule be measured in great interface design works?


I can't imagine that I am the first to have such a thought, but my initial google searches turned up few related results.

The Future of Storage in End-Point Devices

Recently Lucas Mearian wrote an article for Computer World titled "What your computer's drive(s) will look like in 5 years".

I found the article interesting except I disagree in one significant way.

Computers won't have just one 'Drive'

I believe computer's in the not-so-distant future will have dedicated and quite possibly on-system-board SSD for the Operating System with very high performance, but a relatively minimized capacity (let's say 10-20 GB).

A regular HDD, but removable, will be used to backup the image of the OS Drive and contain all of the personalization relevant to a particular user including Documents/Media and Configuration/Settings.

By being removable, this allows the "personalization" of computers to be portable.

This also allows a 'standard' configuration (more appliance-like, in my opinion) of the hardware to be shipped by hardware vendors and offsets the flexible drive sizing responsibility to the customer.

A side benefit is that when computers are built in this manner, it allows your data to be removed such that turning it over for service does not expose your data to a repair service and also makes loaning and retirement of systems more secure in a way that most users could blindly understand (I "ejected my data").

You could even use the drive as part of a 2-Factor Authentication for securing logins.

Some people say that Cloud Computing and related services offsets the need for such solutions, and that data will eventually live in the cloud, but I really see the desire for security (both privacy and availability) to be an expectation of users until network performance can match that of the slowest local disk and security mechanisms becomes more transparent.

I actually built a working prototype of a very similar solution on Windows a few years ago and tried with the help of Bill French, Brad Feld and the folks at iSherpa, to bring it to market.

I still think there is a significant need in this space to help users deal with privacy, cost and reliability.

The industry has provided some interesting stop-gap solutions but none that deal with the fundamental issues.

Are we stepping backwards in Phone/PDA Technology?

As a bit of background, I have been a PalmOS user nearly since it's inception.

Now Palm has introduced a new Operating System for it's new "Pre" Phone called WebOS.

This could be perceived as fantastic, as Palm is long overdue to seriously re-engineer it's OS model.
Or lackluster, if you think Android and iPhone are the answer to all life's problems.

I have a question for Palm, and really for the whole industry:
Are we moving forwards or backwards in basic business functionality of PDA Phones as we embrace the online experience?

Consider this:

• Windows Mobile has no task categories as of WiMo5 and I didn't see any fixes in 6.
  
• WiMo also wouldn't hold my whole Calendar either.
  
• WiMo also doesn't have task or note categories.
  
• Plus WiMo was pig slow on a $600 HTC Phone.
  
• The iPhone can't do advance repeating events in Calendar.
  
• The iPhone also basically has useless note taking as it has no categories and doesn't sync.
  
• The iPhone has NO COPY AND PASTE.
  

What is going on in this industry?!?
I assume Android is the same way?

Someone please prove me wrong.
Is our industry basically going BACKWARDS on Handheld tools in the name of webification?

This is really a major concern for me, as I am a heavy user of Calendar, Tasks, and Memos (all at v1.3.2)  on PalmOS.

• What will happen to my 10 years of Calendar entries that include Birthdays reminders, Diary entries, Meeting notes, etc?
  
• What will happen to my 10 years of Memos entries that include Poetry, Recipes, Fitness Logs, Lyrics, Dream Notes, Favorite Quotes, Bookmarks, etc?
  
• What will happen to my 10+ categories Tasks entries that I really hoped to find an UPGRADE for?
  
• I really was hoping that Tasks might be expanded to include MORE features and be more like a light project management tool.

Like any relatively hot/new phone owner:

• I play full screen movies on mine, landscape and portrait.
  
• I read books on it, landscape and portrait.
  
• I listen to my music and audiobooks on it, synced from the desktop or copied to the card.
  
• I play games on it.
  
• I get my email on it, with attachments, editable.
• I check websites on it.
  
• I take pictures and movies with it.

But also consider the following:

• My Palm has always held all of my Calendar Items, notes and all, since the very first Palm came out and it doesn't slow it down.
  
• I have basically never deleted a single contact that I have ever entered and it doesn't slow down finding contacts.
  
• I have several hundred items in notes, grouped in categories that are sorted and always searchable.
  
• I manage my projects in it including teams and tasks and deadlines.
  
• It has the handheld equivalent of desktop search: one search, all applications.
  
• It can copy and paste, pretty much anywhere.

It does nearly all of this without any additional software license burden.

Granted you can get some similar functionality on your iPhone, but you have to install, configure, buy a pile of different software from a pile of different vendors.
It's not integrated, doesn't work together and costs more.

If Palm decides to skip over transitioning the necessary data and features from existing users like me, I guess I have to give up Handheld Devices in general as there isn't any device that can deal with my data.

Or what should I do?

Go Microsoft, Sync it to Outlook and leave it on the desktop and not in the phone?

Backwards!

Go Apple, you too.  Sync it but not have copy/paste, notes, ability to enter repeating events?

Broken!

With either platform I lose all my notes/categories on the handheld and lose major functionality.

Maybe Android has what I need?

Oh but wait, I pick up WiFi...

So what? What is it that I'm using the WiFi for?

Email?  I get that over my cel network, and it's not expensive.  (with attachments, even yes)

The Web?  Why?  All these sites have to be re-rendered for handhelds, it's all not the real keyboard/mouse web that you are used to.

Oh yes, I forgot, I'm supposed to be going to the web for YouTube...

If that really is the case, the handheld industry is basically taking a step backwards in my opinion.

Converging International eCommerce Healthcare Standards

Recently, the Coalition for Healthcare e-Standards (CHeST) and the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association (HIPGA) have joined forces to align industry standards.

The Standards That are Being aligned include:

GLN:    Global Location Number 

GTIN:   Global Trade Item Number 

UNSPSC: United Nations Standards Products and Services Code

PDU:    Product Data Utility 

GDSN:   Global Data Synchronization Network 

AHRMM:  Association of Healthcare Resource and Materials Management

HSCSC:  Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Coalition 

SMI:    Strategic Marketplace Initiative 

Here's a question that begs answering for me with this:

What is the base language and/or currency for these standards?

A historical challenge beyond traditional mapping issues with converging HealthCare Standards is that they are regional demographic focused which implies both language and currency adaption.

My input to this process is that there should be a META-Standard to which National Standards should map.

The META-standard should specifically address language and currency in it's schema in  such a way that allows for Nations to address the implementations of language that influence the utility of the Standard in the Marketplace (like PinYin vs 汉字 IME, etc).

The META-Standard should also have numerical field representations for currency and naming that would allow mapping to language/currency specifics based on National requirements.

A PAC-file workaround for proxy use in OSX

As a big user of proxies in China, I really grew fond of the FoxyProxy extension for FireFox once my good friend Alex exposed me to it.
It allows you to set rules for when to use which proxies.

This can be a big benefit as many sites in China work fine and you don't want or need to use a proxy to see them.

I have historically used FoxyProxy with Secure-Tunnel and had great results.
Their software is usable through their windows client software or through any SSH client that supports tunneling.
It is not a free service, but worth it if your business depends on reliable International Internet connectivity.
They also over Site-to-Site solutions meaning you could configure, as an example, the router in your Rep Office to send all traffic over secure and reliable links.

But, when recently switching to OSX, I decided to make (albeit futile) attempt to stay with mostly Apple provided software and thus have grown accustomed to Safari, Apple's provided browser .

The only real limitation for me in relation to FireFox (besides a few useful but not necessary extensions) is that it doesn't have flexible proxy support as provided by FoxyProxy nor does it have a plug-in for it.
There are some interesting plug-ins available for Safari like Saft and Pith Helmet but none gave the proxy functionality I was looking for.

I believe this is due in part to Apple's decision to leverage the OS-level proxy support for Safari rather than have it be included in the browser code itself.

In my travels to get rule-based proxy settings workable in OSX, I came across the Configure Proxies: Using a PAC File option.

WikiPedia has an entry for these types of configurations.

Has anyone ever attempted to use a PAC file to direct certain URLs through a proxy and others not?

I am very interested in using a PAC file as a method for providing Proxy rules to Safari and this might be a viable method.

My assessment of OSX

So I've spent the last few months exploring OSX and how it positions itself in the OS marketplace.

I purchased a used iBook G4 for RMB 3300 (~$500 at the time of this entry) and upgraded the RAM from 512mb to 1gb and promptly reloaded a fresh 10.5.x from Disc.

Now, this machine is largely underpowered for 10.5 I have heard online, but I was surprised at how well it coped with all the overhead of OSX (see more on this in a bit).


Likes:

• Expose - Using Expose to manage switching applications is fantastic. In my opinion, much better than alt-tab (Windows or Mac) or choosing applications from the Start Menu Area (Windows). I have it set up so that I can just move my mouse in the upper right corner and pick from a preview which application I want to switch to.
  
• Spaces - Although I don't use Spaces as much due to how great Expose is, I am fond of having only 2 spaces, and then running a movie in a separate space. When some action occurs in the background I can quickly move my mouse to the lower right corner and see what's going on.
  
• Dashboard - I don't know if you do this or not, but I have a pile of little apps open all the time in either Windows or Mac... Calculators, notepad/post-its, translator, etc. With OSX, you can put the all in their own uncluttered space. Oh and this is set up to come up by moving your mouse to the lower left corner of my screen (notice a trend here?)
  
• Zoom - Zoom on anything, anywhere at anytime with an always on keyboard shortcut. This may not sound like such a big deal, but how Apple has implemented it is flawless. I use it to show my Chinese girlfriend words I need translated, or to zoom in on sites that don't support zooming (sometimes I even use it for YouTube).
  
• .DMG File Format - Take the .ZIP format, add in some .ISO similarities and use that with way OSX packages programs and you have a good recipe. I especially like trying new software out without having to install. I run it right from the .DMG file. Slick. I also like how the File Format is 'mounted' instead of having to decompress somewhere and waste duplicate space. Smart.
  
• Battery Life - My G4 consistently runs 5 hours+ on a single charge with WiFi on. Wow.
  

Dislikes:

• It's huge: 20gb Base Install - I understand Snow Leopard is supposed to make an attempt at de-bloat, but seriously 20 Gigs? Nothing like wasting my backup space with a bunch of OS junk.
  
• No 'Maximize' for Windows - I have heard time and time again from Mac pundits about how "I don't use it right" when it comes to 'Zooming' windows as the Apple crowd calls it, but I grew up in a time/space of full-screen apps. I want them. I prefer them. It makes me single-task. Is there an add-on to remove this 'feature'? I'm just not drinking the cool-aid.
  
• Wireless Network Key Index non-existent - Is this a joke? Several occasions have left me unable to connect my iBook because there is no support (officially standardized or otherwise) whereby you can connect to a WiFi hotspot that has a Wireless Index of anything other than 1. Ok, Thanks Apple. You basically prevent my machine from attaching to networks no other machine has problems with.
  
• No NTFS write support for large USB drives - I really wish someone (Governments?) would ratify a universal file system protocol standard. You buy a new big USB drive and you can't write to it with OSX? I have to move my stuff off and format it and move them back? This is stupid. I blame the industry. Please EXT/FAT/NTFS/UFS/etc, find a way to cooperate.
  
• USB 'deleting' - You have to empty the trash before things are actually removed from your USB keys. Someone please explain the value of this feature to me.

As a result, I will be making a move to Apple Hardware and OSX at my next upgrade opportunity.

I have also learned that Apple has a no per-seat licensing mail server option, I will certainly have to check that out.