Why Google is completely and moronically wrong….

NFC tech has it’s uses, buy a coke from a vending machine.  Hoorah! But seriously, the appeal of the QR code is the simplicity in use and creation – it’s ubiquitous. 

ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE can create a QR code. Heck, an artist can even paint one on a wall.  If a deli shop wants to, they can create one for their menu. Put them on flyers, and post them around town. It can even be a coupon.

But NFC, where am I going to get a chip.  How am I going to embed that into my resume when I send it off? How is an add in a magazine going to place that NFC chip in the page? How is it not going to be confused by 50 other NFCs in all the other ads?

Seriously, this is a brain fart on the part of Google.  Not to demean NFCs in any way. More tech the better.  And it’s probably just what we need for more advanced transactions. But I view the two technologies as complimentary, rather than exclusive. Both serve different roles and have their advantages.

 
Google Kills Off Those Little Square Codes You Scan With Your Phone

Anyways, the concept is to get away from all the typical level up bars. I mean it’s almost a guarantee that an RPG is going to use a level up bar or a pie. But why? It is probably the simplest way to convey a level. But it’s definitely not original.

My thought was to use the color spectrum. We know how primary/secondary color circles work. Red, to orange, to yellow, to green, to blue, to purple.  So theoretically you can show a progression via color change.  Furthermore, standard RGB has something like 16,000,000+ colors. So right off the bat you have an XP system that can handle 16 million experience points.

http://easternstorm.net/sassie/colorleveler/ColorLeveler.html

Not sure, whether I would implement a different color shift for a level or if I would have each level go through the entire shift. And use a level multiplier to handle the XP. (ie: Level 1 only needs 1,600 XP.)  Well there you have it, food for thought.

It was fun to code even though I kept finding myself hitting hurdles. That is until I hit the += bug.  Seriously, WHAT THE HECK am I doing wrong. Source code is available. It’s probably some stupid typo or goof. Having been coding ActionScript in a while. Rusty.
More info over here on the code warmup…

http://codewarmup.jessefreeman.com/

Steve Jobs & Wozniak pretty much ushered in the era of the “personal computer” with Apple. Apple brought a lot of innovation to the PC world.

One might also argue that Steve Jobs is personally responsible for bringing the era of the PC to an end. That’s not to say personal computers are going to disappear anytime soon, if ever. Rather it is the acceptance of a fundamental shift in computing.

As the PC was a shift from the era of mainframe terminal computing; a new shift away from the PC has occurred. Computing has become even more personal and intimate.

There is no denying that the iPhone truly ushered in the mobile computing era of tablets & computer phones. We now hold in our hands yesteryear’s super-computers. Even recent technologies like email seem old school in light of face-to-face chatting, gps location of loved ones, instant Internet anywhere. The experience is so much more intimate than the old boxes sitting on our desks.

Sure there were earlier attempts. RIM’s blackberry. Palm made a good effort in the 90′s. But none reached the magnitude needed to become sustainable. In fact the iPhone wasn’t the first time Apple envisioned this future. Over a decade ago Apple introduced the Newton. But it was still the Age of PC.

If the PC was the personal computer than this is the IC era: the Intimate, Individual, Interactive, computing experience.

I do not have the statistics on sales of PCs vs smartphones & tablets. But I’d wager one has seen a down growth while the other is surging toward dominance. How soon until the average Joe & Jane give up their unwieldy boxy PCs and just take their tablets? Combined with the near limitless storage of cloud computing. Suddenly, the PC seems less needful today.

I find it fascinating that Steve Jobs’ life seems to span that of the PC. He was at it’s birth. And strangely Steve’s death seems to coincide with the end of the PC age. But what a legacy you left us Steve. Before you departed us, you kicked off a whole new era.

Thank you for being the visionary you were…

- Jason

[Composed on an iPhone]

I wanted the ability to highlight the row of the active cell. Makes for easier data entry. A number of examples are out on the web. However, most involve simply highlighting the entire row and clearing all highlights upon loss of focus.

Problem is, that system removes any highlights you might actually be using. After a bit of wrangling I came up with the following code which checks on a cell level to see if a highlight exists. And only highlights the cell if one does not.

It’s not a perfect macro. I haven’t tested to confirm loss of “undo” (a common issue with macros affecting worksheets in Excel for some unknown reason). The highlight will also fail to work if there is background coloring on your worksheet. But if those are not a concern to you, this might be a solution.

 Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    Static oldRange As String 'Stores old range
    oldRange = "A1:CW100"
    Dim cN As Object
    'If an old range exists, remove highlight before during active selection
    If (oldRange <> "") Then
        'For each cell in row loop and reset color IF highlight color
        For Each cN In Worksheets("worksheet").Range(oldRange).Cells
            If (cN.Interior.ColorIndex = 24) Then
                cN.Interior.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexNone
                cN.Borders.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexNone
            End If
        Next cN
    End If
    'Create and store range
    oldRange = "A" & ActiveCell.Row & ":CW" & ActiveCell.Row 'Stuff range into old range for future removal
    Dim cNum As Object
    'Loop over all cells in activecell row. Highlight IF not already highlighted
    For Each cNum In Worksheets("worksheet").Range("A" & ActiveCell.Row & ":CW" & ActiveCell.Row).Cells
        If (cNum.Interior.ColorIndex = -4142) Then
            cNum.Interior.ColorIndex = 24
            cNum.Borders.ColorIndex = 2
        End If
    Next cNum
End Sub
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    Static oldRange As String 'Stores old range
    oldRange = "A1:CW100"
    Dim cN As Object
    'If an old range exists, remove highlight before during active selection
    If (oldRange <> "") Then
        'For each cell in row loop and reset color IF highlight color
        For Each cN In Worksheets("worksheet").Range(oldRange).Cells
            If (cN.Interior.ColorIndex = 24) Then
                cN.Interior.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexNone
                cN.Borders.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexNone
            End If
        Next cN
    End If
    'Create and store range
    oldRange = "A" & ActiveCell.Row & ":CW" & ActiveCell.Row 'Stuff range into old range for future removal
    Dim cNum As Object
    'Loop over all cells in activecell row. Highlight IF not already highlighted
    For Each cNum In Worksheets("worksheet").Range("A" & ActiveCell.Row & ":CW" & ActiveCell.Row).Cells
        If (cNum.Interior.ColorIndex = -4142) Then
            cNum.Interior.ColorIndex = 24
            cNum.Borders.ColorIndex = 2
        End If
    Next cNum
End Sub

That said, there are several aspects to my social network design that have not been implemented in Google+ “Circles”.  So I am sharing them below. Perhaps Google will implement some of them in the near future.

And sure, there is a small part of me that wonders did someone read one of my “suggestions” to Google.  Maybe, if they did, it’d have been nice if they contacted me during development. But I believe it more likely that the Circles concept is just a “common sense” idea that was waiting to happen.  These concepts are what we do day in and day out on a sub-conscious level.  Implementing them into a social networking site isn’t a noteworthy or patentable thing – or at least it shouldn’t be. Rather it’s just an evolutionary process of bringing ourselves into the  digital world. I’ll just be happy to have an alternative to Facebook. An implementation I greatly dislike, I am hopeful that Google implements key components below. If they don’t, they will leave the door open for somebody else to do so. And perhaps it’ll be me.

A significant issue with all current social networks is the “tides”. Flood of information in and out…Circles assist in part with the tide going out, but only in part. It needs to be related to a concentric layer of circles for the individual.  This enables a social network to respond as we do in real life. So far, no social network has realized this elementary concept. That “Ogres are like Onions – they have layers”, and people are like Ogres.

===================================

Congratulations on Google being the first to “get it”. I’ve have the concept of a circle based social network site for approx. 5 years. Even tried registering a variety of names based on “circle”, “sircles”, etc. Had several ideas for commercials as well.

Google’s implementation is a good start, and I figure it’s that…just a start. Well, seeing as I probably won’t be getting my site off the ground I will share some of the concepts I had. I did attempt. Right now, Google’s almost implemented part 1 of my concepts.

I. Circle based grouping, allow for overlap and nesting (ie: sub-groups). Right now I can create “Friends”, but I want to sub-divide friends. “Old College Friends”, “High School Friends”, etc, etc

II. “Ogres are like onions.” – People are like Ogres, we have layers. The biggest failing of most social network sites today is a lack of layers. Right now on Facebook I can read a group, or I can read a whole smackdown of EVERYONE. The end result is that I see a lot of crap from people I don’t care about. And nearly 100% of the time I miss the stuff that’s important to me.

So take the individual and divide them into 10 concentric layers (circles). Now, I take Joe Schmo that I knew from High School and I put him at layer 5. John Doe I just met at a club I put at layer 9, my good friend and drinking buddy Charlie is at level 3. My wife is in circle 1.

- 2A)

Now I define my reading level. If I set it at 4, I will see the posts by my wife and Charlie. But not those of my other associates. However, a few additional options exist in my concept. One is shout-outs, a couple of times a year a person can do a shout-out post (e.g. “I’m getting married!”, “It’s a boy!”, “I just lost my job, got any leads?”). The shout out posts would be readable 2 levels higher. So in this case. Joe Schmo who is in circle 5 shouts out “It’s a boy, 9lbs 4 oz”. I would see this, and be able to congratulate him. Where as most of his posts would pass me by.

If I’ve got one of those friends that is always posting (like 30 times a day, we all have one of them). I can lower the circle level he is in. This provides a stream that is truly relevant to “ME”.

- 2B)

It’s not just individuals which are assigned to a specific circle of ME. Entire groups are set to a level. So I might take everyone at work or church and assign those groups to level 7. Now any individual in that group would be granted level 7 status. But I could still grant an individual a higher status.

- 2C)

Information Access. For each bit of personal info (email, direct msg, phone, address, etc, etc) I would assign it to a circle layer. So someone with layer 7 access could see my email, circle 4 members could see my phone. Where as circle 10 would only see my birthdate mm/dd and only be able to msg.

Furthermore, when I post or upload a photo, I could set a circle layer level. (eg: this post is level 5, so anyone with level 5 access or in a group with level 5 access could view it). This would be on top of making a post or uploading an image to a specific group; which would then only be visible to those group members.

- 2D)

Negative circles. Creation of a circle that overwrites other circles in a given post. For example, I could create a circle “No Mature Content”. In this circle I would add those in my circle who are minors, my mom & dad, and some of my uber-puritan religious friends.

Now when I make a post, and add that negative circle, my post would be viewable by anyone EXCEPT those in any attached negative circle.

III.  Thumbs Up/Down (+/-)

Another way that posts might show up in a stream is if they receive enough thumb’s up. If a post is highly ranked it might be viewed one reading level above it’s normal viewing.  This is nothing new. This concept has existed since BBS days. The only change is the applying the effect to raise or lower a post’s position in an individuals read feed. These aren’t all of the ideas I’ve had. Just thought I’d jot down a number of them.

IV. Break the Box

One of my intentions was to break the “squareness” of the net. The icon/profile pics were going to be circles, not square. We were going to apply a mask over the image so that all a viewer saw was a circle. Furthermore it was going to be modeled after a “coin”; with a heads and tails side. One side would be a profile pic and the other side an avatar. Yes, two profile images. One the actual you and one iconic. Viewer would be able to flip or spin to see the other side. Yes, it is a total gimmick, but it was to help break the square feel.

I also intended to break it further. If you clicked on a circle of a user, it would split into four and then slide away to become the corners of their profile. The result would display their feed, posts, etc.

V. Display of Posts – I envisioned a number of aspects with posts. The ability to post just a subject, which would act as a tweet or microblog. As well as an ability to read differing modes. One could read just the headlines. Essentially having a more twitter feel, but be able to expand those items with full posts. Or one could view in full.

I also felt one should be able to re-share a link. Essentially, it’d be a subject and a link. Twitter does this both well and horribly. Twitter does re-sharing of links amazingly well. But it fails in the actual link implementation. A link should not, IMHO, take up your tweeting space. One should be able to include a msg+link. This little change would do wonders for a microblog service.

VI. Ability to save/archive a post as a memory. Could be your own, or one you are tagged in.

 
NON-CIRCLE CONCEPTS:

When I got my iPhone 3G, I had envisioned an app that I called “Forget-Me-Not”. The idea was to have geo-located tasks that were triggered by proximity or departure. (ie: “pick up milk on way home”, an alert would be triggered when leaving your work office and when passing by the grocery store.)  At the time, Apple’s policy of no background apps put this idea on hold. Along with my lack of an Apple computer to develop on. I was quite glad to see Apple’s announcement of a similar feature for iOS5.

To me, Forget-me-not, circles, etc. Are all no brainers.  Things that should have been implemented 2-5 years ago.
————————–

Sad to think these ideas have been sitting in my head festering. Really wish I was a better coder and could have implemented all of this. But maybe that’s a tad insane, if Google is having a challenge. Maybe it really was more than one mediocre programmer could have implemented.

So how to deal with having ideas and not being able to move forward?

If I could sit down with Google’s Eric and Sergey, I would endeavor to convince them of a new strategy. Patent sharing.

So many out there have patent ideas. I’ve got numerous ideas from magnetic firearm holsters to external vehicle airbags. Problem is, that for many $750 for a mere provisional patent is outside our economic abilities.

So imagine if Google, decided to offer a program to help people pursue provisional patents. Google would cover the fee, in return for being listed as co-inventor.  Google would also have the choice to cover conversion into a full patent if they chose to do so. And maybe even an option to pay the inventor $10,000 and to place the idea into public domain.  Google would implement an easy to access patent licensing system. Then split the licensing proceeds 50/50. It’d be interesting to see how much more stuff would enter public domain or be easily licensable.

The next step is uber-intuitive. Google’s addition of YouTube service to Google App accounts is not enabled by default. You must enable it before you can log in. And while Google does have a blog post stating this, it doesn’t provide much info for where to go in order to accomplish this feat.

Log into your Google Apps admin account (or other account with administrative privileges).  Then click on “Organization & Users” <sarcasm>because everybody would think to find the enable services under that heading</sarcasm>.  Next, click on the Services tab to the left of the Users tab. Scroll down, in my case, all the way to the bottom. You will see three YouTube services. Enable these….

You should now be able to use your Google for your domain email accounts to log into YouTube. In my case, I had already de-linked my YouTube account and associated it with a stock Gmail account. So I re-associated it back to my email. I am not entirely sure how the transition will go for you.

Also, my first attempt at association failed. I tried it a second time and succeeded.  I am guessing it was just a matter of latency in processing the service add request; and communicating it to YouTube.

Anyways, it’s nice to sign back in….

*********************************************************************************

Recently, Google chose to migrate it’s google app accounts (ie: google hosted email accounts such as ***@mydomain.com hosted by google) and merge them with their general account system.

But IMHO they failed big time, and should receive a “2010 Award for Biggest Botches”

The problem arises where you have utilized your email address to sign up with another Gmail service (ie: youtube).  So if you created your youtube account using an email address ****@mydomain.com that was hosted by google.  Have fun logging in…

—

So what is Google’s solution to this problem? Have you create another account. Rather than merging accounts together, or recognizing that to the user it is all the same account, they’ve created quite a nightmare.  This should have been a seamless transition on the part of Google. In fact, there is no reason people on the front end should ever have had an issue.  At worst, we should have encountered an alert that read something to the effect of “This login was established separately from google domains account. Would you like to merge these accounts. Please provide authentication.”

BAM!!!!

Everything gets associated. You can log into Youtube with the same account you’ve been using for years. But nope, that’s not the way it’s done. And trying to understand Google’s cryptic instructions which seem to offer no real solution is always fun.

Google needs to take some time and hire some non-developers. People who can help Google in communicating.

*sighs*

Come on Google, I expect better of you than this. I’ve waited several weeks hoping the matter will improve and am finding that it’s only getting worse.

FAIL

So today I synchronized my phone. The result? I noticed an old app I had deleted. Bizarre. Then I realized ALL my folders were gone. Everything is re-arranged, altered.

This occurred after I tried to purchase an app, then ran into an issue of Apple’s terms changing (yes, the ludicrous 54 pages of terms that updates every couple of months).  I didn’t notice the alert nor proceed. So when I tried it had timed out.

I re-downloaded, bought the app, and installed it. Only to discover that all my apps are now altered. I presume it was due to synchronization but I am not sure. I’ve set it to not auto synchronize but find that it often does. It’s extremely frustrating, as I liked my folder setup. I liked the state my phone was in. Now it is ruined…again.

Sadly, restoring from back-up is not an option. Because the <sarcasm>geniuses</sarcasm> Apple doesn’t let you do back-up points. And keeps a single back-up, which it copies over at every sync. So when you have a problem, it’s too late, your back up has already been corrupted.

I am !@#$% sick of this…

As for those who complain about me complaining about my iPhone. I’ll stop when either a) the products work with any decency b) AT&T let’s me out of my contract.

Seriously, I have never dealt with a more horrendous product than iTunes/iPhone sync.  I really don’t understand Apple’s problem.  Heck, just allowing for multiple backups to be created without jumping through hoops would help tremendously.

So here’s my review….I will try to avoid spoilers as much as possible.

The new TRON movie is a bit darker, a little less playful. If I had to describe it in terms of other films, it is a cross of the original “TRON”, “Blade Runner”, and “I, Robot”.  With much more the feel of Blade Runner.  I think many will feel that the movie progresses a tad too slowly.

TRON Legacy is no Matrix. It’s not going to leave you walking out of the theaters thinking their is a splinter in your mind. It’s hard to make a firm judgment on the film, as we’ve had near dream-like expectations. The honest truth, it doesn’t meet those dreams.  That said, there is a lot to enjoy in the sequel. Including seeing some ol’ friends.

NON SPOILING:

The Positives:
- Revisiting the Grid
- Some stellar visuals
- Great soundtrack
- Ol’ friends.
- Glowing blue coolness
- Solar sails
-  The Recognizers….I always loved these, but the new ones are uber-cool.
- 3D, TRON is a movie that benefits from 3D. Ironically, the most overwhelming scene for me was a flyover at the beginning of the movie in the real world. Literally made my stomach dip; and felt like I was falling.

The Negatives
- Slow at times
- Some convoluted dialog and statements.
- Doesn’t quite have the magic of the original
- No multiplying bugs
- No bits (Yes, No, No, NO)
- Miss 90 degree turns
- Jeff Bridges portrayal of Flynn was not quite what I was expecting. But that could be a good thing.

[Minor Spoilers]
The Positives:
- Clu, was by far the the most TRON like feeling character. To me, he fit the world so well. I loved the performance, even the look and feel of him.
- I was not as disappointed in the performance of Sam Flynn, had heard a lot of trash about the acting. But though it was decent, except for the final closing shot.
- There is an aerial seen that is rather impressive at points.
- TRON, nice to see this character included in the sequel.
- Pre-Grid real world stuff. A touch of hokiness here and there. But I actually REALLY liked this part.
- There is definitely a big window left open for a sequel at the end. And I think I’d like to see one. While this film may not have fully lived up to my expectations. I think it has actually laid the groundwork for a much better follow-up film.

The Negatives:
- Castor character, saw a lot of praise for this character. But it didn’t do much for me.
- Felt how they described the ISOs was kind of weird, and would have come across much better if they just described them as “souls”.
- There were aspects that seemed to be cut out and never came to fruitation.  Two examples. Sam Flynn picks up an extra light cycle bar. You expect it to get used at some point, but never does. Another is the mention of one particular light cycle being faster than all others. But we never get the opportunity to see this.

Overall Score:
C+ to a B, I am really not settled yet. I think I need to see it a second time.  Somewhere between a score of 78-84. (Probably closer to the 84.)

I did enjoy this film. It had it’s weak spots for sure (Jeff Bridges defining of what an ISO is being the biggest for me). But it also had it’s strengths.  I have found that after a day or so I am still running a lot of imagery and scenes in my head – which is a good thing. I’d definitely have changed a few things. But I am determined to see it again, and even perhaps bring my wife.

—

UPDATE:  Saw it a second time on IMAX3D. I enjoyed it more the second time. Had decent re-play value. Brought my wife, she enjoyed it as well. Gave it a 7 out of 10. Mind you, my wife is not from my generation and did not grow up on TRON.

I’ve already come to the conclusion that there are no accessories that are optimized for the iPhone. Forget the fact that I had to spend $50 on a stupid cable to allow me to output video to my external screen.  Clearly, it’s not optimized for the iPhone – even though it came from Apple.

I can’t figure out this !@#$% message. Because my iPhone will be playing just fine in an accessory, and than *poof* up comes the alert and it screws everything up and it stops playing.

Just stop with the message crApple….thank you.

—

UPDATE: I had gotten it to work on my iPhone4 with some cleaning. Not something that should be needed with a fairly new phone. But alas, the cable won’t work with my phone, nor my daughters. For a $50 cable, that does what a $3 dollar cable used to do – I am disappointed.

Even more annoying, waiting for Apple’s customer support call, and it goes straight to voicemail. Thank you AT&T…

I was wrong. I guess I should get used to Apple disappointing.  The printing is limited to a select group of printers (approx. 10). So unless you happen to be one of the mere few thousand to own such a printer. AirPrint is merely a waste of screen space.

Oh well…

–

On the positive side, Apple has decided to allow for a free MobileMe account to facilitate finding your phone and other theft features. This is a great step. But I ‘ve felt for all we pay a month. We should get to sync our contacts as well.

Here’s to hoping that this is a step in the right direction.