Yet again, Robert (@sanchothefat) makes a good point. He vents his frustration on Twitter over the Mac’s inability to Cut and Paste files and folders, like you can on Windows. The folks at Apple argue that it’s because they’d rather users didn’t confuse the cutting and pasting of text with files. Some others argue that files may get lost if one forgets to paste the cut file. Though, this never happens since nothing happens to the file until the user performs the paste command. OSX creators and users prefer to think of the operation as a Move.
While I’m mostly a Mac convert and against Windows, I can’t argue that Robert is correct. When coming from a Windows machine, this difference in usability will strike you as odd. But there’s a more insidious philosophy at work here. In the world of digital, cutting and pasting no longer has a place. Instead, it needs to be consigned to the annals of time because in a world where nothing is fixed, and all is editable, the idea of cutting followed by pasting is just foolish. There is never a Cut without a Paste. That would be a delete. In the world of print, there definitely still is the notion of cutting, with or without a resulting paste. Digitally, the semantically speaking, there is only Move. You move text around a document. You move files and folders around the filesystem. ANd the same applies to, say, household items, or even body parts. You don’t cut and paste your TV remote from the sofa to the coffee table and you don’t cut and paste your legs as you walk.
Hardcore Linux users will be right at home with this idea as the command to move files around while in the terminal is, in fact, mv, short for ‘move’. But for the rest of us, many of whom began our lives on a Windows machine in some form of another, it may be a stretch to condition our minds to this change in thought process. We’ve grown up with OSes and programs that have taken the idea of print-based mechanics and applied it to how one uses a computer, to ease one’s mind into this new medium. But now we’re here, it’s probably time we started thinking more accurately about how things are actually working.
I’m sure this has been said before… aaaand now I’ve said it too.
After moving apartment (again) and being without broadband until it gets activated, I was in desperate need of some internet access. My life as a freelancer kind of depends on this…
I was faced with the following possibilities:
Spend all my days in Starbucks making the most of my rewards card and either bankrupting myself or dying from over-caffienation.
‘Drop by’ friends and acquaintances offices/homes and consume their Internets – I don’t have many of these. Could be a problem.
Rent a hotdesk at one or two known locations around the city. ~£17 a day is, however, what nightmares are made of.
Fortunately, thanks to Mr @jonthebeef and his recent trip to Japan, I learnt about the wondrous MiFi, which is simply a portable WiFi hotspot that connects to a 3G or even faster high speed internet HSDPA (You don’t want to know what that stands for. Trust me).
There are a few models floating about, on networks such as Vodafone and 3. I bought the model from 3 as they provide the best, fastest and cheapest 3G data plans.
So, I walked in to a 3 store. I doubled checked some of the finer details and clarified the monthly tariffs for future reference. 5 minutes later I was out the door with MiFi in hand and a SIM with 1GB of data already topped up. The device itself costs £49.99 and you have to buy some amount of data on purchase with it as part of the SIM package: 1GB – £10, 3GB – £15, or 7GB – £25. As I was still getting home broadband, I opted out of a monthly tariff, but the tariffs seemed pretty decent.
The device itself is small. Shorter, narrower, as thick as my 32GB iPhone and about as heavy. I’ll let you decide how attractive it is, but the fact that my eyes haven’t melted yet must mean it’s doing something right.
After the initial charging, which it suggests is 12 hours but actually turned out to be more like 6, I was ready to set it up. This is where it gets all space-age. And by that, I mean to get it up and running you need to hold down three buttons for two seconds each, consecutively, almost like an ignition sequence. In under a minute it’s on, broadcasting the WiFi and connected to either 3G or better. Next, turn on the device of your choosing. Find the provided network name, unique to each device. Type in the provided password, and you’re done.
There are 5 icons on the display that show the statuses of the device. Oddly, they turn off after about 10 seconds so you don’t know if it’s even on at a glance. A push of one of its buttons fixes that, but it would be nice if you could at least see which data connection it’s currently on.
Getting the fastest connection is a bit random. I’ve had moments where shifting it around my table switched it between 3G and HSDPA. Not that it really mattered, as the speed of this thing is astonishing. I managed to upload the two pictures I took of the device onto Flickr at 3MB each and it didn’t even blink. It’s noticeably slower on each initial page load, and especially pages with lots of frequent small connections. Google Maps slowed it down a bit with its constant accessing of small images. But once it gets going, you’ll barely believe it wasn’t your 20Mb home connection. I’ve heard 3′s 3G coverage is excellent. Though, since I’ve only used the MiFi at home so far, I can’t comment.
The battery life is decent. I’ve been using it most of the day, at about 6 hours of constant use before the battery ran out. Of course, you can use it connected into the mains, so that’s not a huge concern. And it does mean that it will keep up with your laptop battery when out and about, which is probably as long as you’d need it for.
The main issue I have with device, isn’t actually with the device, but rather the fact that the top-up data you buy only lasts 30 days from the point of purchase. So however good value the 7GB is at £25, it’s let down by the need to use it within the month.
Ultimately, I’m impressed with my kawaii little MiFi. What prompted me to get this over a 3G USB dongle is that I can use it for multiple gadgets and not just my laptop, with the ability to then network between them. If I were ever to buy an iPad, I wouldn’t need the extortionate 3G version with data tariff. And after my O2 broadband is set up at home, I can still see myself throwing this into a pocket when I’m out and about, completely removing the shackles from a home office, and allowing a true work anywhere lifestyle.
I hope that’s helped clear up any questions you had about it.
Reading @jake74′s excellent post http://www.systemerror.co.uk/2010/02/05/html5-video/ about the <video> tag only served to re-ignite my frustrations over its implementation. I love the implications of the tag, but the codec situation along with differing opinions from the browser vendors is stifling what could be something very useful for us developers.
Am I the only one seeing another Linux-like outcome arising from this? Many different approaches to the same problem preventing one from ever truly taking hold, and so dooming it to the provinces of the hardcore developers, with only the users truly suffering.
Browsing the iTunes App store today, I’m reminded how much the interface has improved in so short a time. One hefty re-design and a handful of minor improvements dotted around the place have made it a joy to use. But my favourite aspect, oddly, is the increase in sideways scrolling elements.
Windows users may not share my enthusiasm for such frivolities, as their mice often involve ‘scroll wheels’ that limit such side-to-side motions, leaving them to uncover the wonders of a scroll bar. But interacting with them using my lovely new Magic Mouse has made it trivial. Brushing a finger sideways over the mouse is just as comfortable as scrolling up and down. Even in my days of using the Mighty Mouse, and its somewhat unreliable nipple, the action became nearly second nature. Now I barely realise I’m doing it.
I’m guessing Apple know this. Previously, examining screenshots of Apps required clicking arrows, but as their last two generations of mice included such a lovely mechanism, they’ve really taken liberties, and I’m happy they did.
It doesn’t stop there though. With the ability to scroll ‘with momentum’ (the page slowly scrolls to a stop), now afforded by the Magic Mouse, getting around the page is more fluid, and easier to get to the tops and bottoms of said page without the need for a ‘back to top’ link. Macs also have a feature sorely lacking in Windows machines which allows you to scroll pages of a window which is out of focus. When I move my mouse over a scrollable area, I don’t have to click on it to scroll it.
I can’t bear to browse the internet on my Windows machine at home anymore because it feels so clunky, looks ugly, and lacks lots of features that improve my usability in ways I hadn’t realised from all my time with a Mac.
Apologies for using a ‘featured’ theme from wordpress. At some point I’ll try and sort out something a little more personal. Not that I’m a designer…
As the title suggests, this is not the beginning, as many moons ago I set up a blog on blogger to vent about my old job. It wasn’t flexible enough for what I plan to do with this blog, so here we are. Poor souls…
