In my recent efforts to re-learn and learn a bunch of languages, I’ve noticed several trends in the majority of grammar books I’ve leafed through both in book form and on the internet.  When learning romance languages, it’s critical to properly and fully understand the grammar as they apply to verb conjugations and tenses.  I’ll be using French as an example in this post.

In my use of these references the trends I’ve noticed are:

• The terms used to describe the tenses are overly technical and are essentially unrelated to what they are describing.

For example, the ‘imperfect’ tense refers to the past tense.  I think it’s essentially meaningless to the casual learner to refer to it as the imperfect tense.  In fact, why is it imperfect?  Then there’s the perfect tense, also used to describe the past.

Another example is the subjunctive.  The what? I hear you ask.  Well, the subjunctive describes a conditional future.  That is, when expressing it, the speaker has some doubt over whether the future being described will be true or not.  For example, in the expression ‘It’s important that he be here…’ the speaker uncertain whether the person will, in fact, be here in the future.  It needs a special grammar and in French this would be ‘Il faut qu’il soit ici’, where ‘soit’ is the third person subjunctive of être.  We don’t use it very often in English any more.

Don’t get me started on the pluperfect. What is that??!!

• In most grammar books I’ve seen, the grammar and specifically tenses are presented in an almost continuous stream of facts that must be rote learned.  The only concessions to the learner are a brief introduction and some examples.

• The various tense tables are presented according to the technical name of the tense and then each conjugation is presented with no English equivalent.  In order to learn the tables, people essentially need to rote learn the whole lot.

• Verb tables differ considerably in their completeness depending on the author.

I think there are two things missing in how the grammar is presented / taught.  The first is a conceptual model clearly showing the tenses in relation to a timeline.  And the second is to simply include the English (or other language) equivalent of a tense and conjugation.

Tenses on a timeline

This is the approach I’m thinking of taking to express the grammar on a timeline.  I haven’t fully thought it through yet, but I’ve put some of the tenses in the table using the French verb ‘parler’ (to speak).

It also occurred to me that in addition to expressing the tenses on a timeline so you can clearly see how they relate to each other, there are actually several timelines.  The timelines are actual, alternative and uncertain.  The actual timeline is used to express what has, is and will occur.  The uncertain timeline expresses the subjunctive – a past, present or future that is under some doubt – why not call it what it is!! (you tell me, is ‘subjunctive’ or ‘uncertain’ more meaningful?).  The alternative expresses what would have happened if some circumstance had been true.  For example, ‘I would have spoken if I had the chance’.

In this table, I am changing the traditional conditional tense (e.g. I would have spoken) and calling it an alternative timeline in order to keep the subjunctive only as a conditional timeline (where there is some doubt).  I also want to avoid using seemingly contradictory terms, such as ‘past future’ for the ‘would have’ expression.

There’s a bit to go, but you can see where I’m heading with it.  Some of the improvements are needed for past activities that started and stopped in the past, were repeated in the past and started in the past and continue into the present.  A graphical enhancement is needed to show this more effectively than a simple table.

Tenses with the learner’s native language equivalent

The other thing I noticed with every tense / conjugation tables I looked at is that the tenses and conjunctions are given in the target language, but there is no equivalent provided in the learner’s native language (English in my case) next to each conjugation within the tense.  Each tense does include its technical heading.

Now, in learning the target language people know what they want to say in their own language and need to know which tense to use to express that thought. If they knew what to do, then they wouldn’t need to refer to tense / conjugation tables.  I don’t think it helps a learner who hasn’t been exposed to formal grammar to select which tense to use by only providing the technical name and the target language only expression – especially in developing conversational skills.  People are much better at recognising something than trying to recall it.

So what’s the change?  It’s so simple – just provide a translation with each tense and conjugation.  For example

How much easier is that?  With the English translations, you can also more easily see which one you want by recognising the expression / tense in your native language.  I don’t know why more people don’t use this approach.  I suppose it’s because they can’t predict the native language of the reader and need to present the table in a more generalised format.  I think it needs to be done and with a little crowd sourcing, it wouldn’t take long to handle all the permutations, especially if focussing first on the high frequency languages.

In future articles, I’ll provide updates on the timeline concept once I’ve thought through the approach and checked with some native speakers.

I’ll also be putting some more thought into the tenses in order to handle other situations that aren’t apparent from the conjugation tables. For example, in French, the translation of ‘I have been speaking’ is simply the present tense ‘je parle’.  What makes this a little tricky is that you actually need the full expression, such as ‘I have been speaking French since January’ which would translate as ‘je parle (le) français depuis janvier’.  You wouldn’t say ‘j’ai été parlé français depuis janvier’ which would literally translate as I (j’) have (ai) been (été) speaking (parlé) since (depuis) January (janvier).  You also can’t use ‘I was speaking French’ (J’étais parlé français or je parlais français) to express that thought because it would imply I was speaking in the past, but no longer do so, when the expression is about speaking in the past and continuing to do so now.

While there is some complexity it’s actually straightforward if you can see how all of it fits together rather than rote learning tenses.  The management of the tenses on a timeline and then the full expression of the tenses with their native language equivalents is key for leaners to have that ‘a ha’ moment when then realise which tense to use to effectively express their thoughts.

Please accept my apologies for any errors.  French is not my first language!!

So many times, we hear people and businesses go on about it, but I don’t think any of that really works in the long term. Various efforts are made to give people social / team based activities and give other perks while at work.  However, the pressures of client deadlines, work schedules, etc., all conspire to force us to work longer hours and make us sacrifice the things we were going to do to get the balance we need.

Then there are the weekends.  How often do you feel like you’ve only just wound down and then realise it’s Sunday? And then the grind starts again.

I think a more radical approach is needed to achieve work-life balance and to do something for staff that properly differentiates the working environment from others to make it an attractive place to work.  I think that truly, the last thing people really want is to have time filled with team bonding activities when they could’ve been at home instead or doing something else completely different.

Starting from 2013, I’ll be instituting a four day working week for all staff.  That is, the whole company will operate on a four day week – Monday to Thursday – with Friday a mandatory day off for everyone.

How will this work?  Simple.  No change to salary (same pay), no change to annual leave (four calendar weeks), no change to billable hours (32 hours per week).  I only expect people to bill 32 hours per week anyway.  The company’s profitability models are based on 32 hours.  Why not do that in four days instead of five?  After all, we all know the maxim – Work fills the time available.

Rather than trying to invent the next contrived activity to keep people motivated and create an attractive workplace with other meaningless games and trinkets, why not give people what they really want – the time to the things they’d rather be doing than going to work.  And here’s another maxim – Who, on their deathbed, ever said they wished they had spent more time at work?

I think the only real way to achieve work / life balance is to have more time for the life component.  Just imagine what you can do with a three day weekend, every week.

You can find it on the PTG website under ‘Our Thinking’ and then go to the ‘Psychology / Social’ section.

You can also download it directly from here.

Let me know what you think in the comments…

You can find it on the PTG website under ‘Our Thinking’ and then go to the ‘Psychology / Social’ section.

You can also download it directly from here.

Let me know what you think in the comments…

This paper is Part 1 of 3 and starts with a discussion about the NPS and surveying, followed by Part 2, where I’ll show you how to design a rigorous causal survey. In Part 3, I’ll take you through how to quickly and simply analyse a causal survey using multivariate statistics.

You can access the paper from the PTG website, under ‘Our thinking’, in the ‘Psychology / Social’ section or directly from this link: How to make the Net Promoter Score truly actionable.  I hope you enjoy it.  Look out for parts 2 and 3 in the very near future.  If you have any views or comments about what I’ve said, please let me know…

I’m also going to provide an insight into some of the thinking that went in to the design enhancement so you can see why it was necessary. While the example is trivial and the solution obvious, you’ll see there are other solutions that could have been used, and why the selected one is better.

The first thing I’m going to cover is a new feature found in iTunes 9.1 called ‘Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps’.

Converting higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps

The first question is why is this available at all?  You can see it in the image below:

I imagine the primary answer is that the Apple Store now sells 256kbps (referring to the file’s ‘bit rate’) songs, but the iPod Touchs, which sell like hotcakes, have limited storage capacities (32GB / 64GB) compared to the hard-drive based iPods (160GB). Also, the smaller iPods, the Nano and Shuffle, have even smaller capacities, limiting the amount of music to a few tens of CDs.
At first glance, it seems reasonable, but let’s look at some other circumstances in which it would be useful, some of the flaws in the implementation and therefore why it needs some enhancement to make it truly useful for a variety of situations.

Ripping CDs for listening and / or for archiving

In my own situation, when I first used iPods and iTunes, I ripped my CDs at 160kbps (instead of the default 128kbps) to give the ripped file a bit more quality.  I’d like to think I’m a bit of an audiophile in that I like high quality music and equipment, but I’ve got enough self control not to blow a small fortune!!  A few years later, I then re-ripped them at 256kbps VBR, again to increase quality as I upgraded my iPod from a 40GB to 160GB version.

However, more recently, I’ve been re-ripping my CDs using ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) to provide both an archive copy of my CDs, as well as play back my music through my AV system in CD quality, which is why, of course, people buy CDs instead of tapes.  I play them back through an AppleTV, which feeds my receiver through an optical digital cable.  This gives me CD-quality sound – the same as the original.

ALAC results in files that are about half the size of the original CD (e.g. 350MB per CD), while recording at apple’s standard rate of 256kbps results in files that are about 1/6th of the CD size (e.g., 100MB per CD).  The corresponding bit rate is a little over 300kbps up to over 1,000 kbps, depending on the complexity of the source.

For a while, I maintained two copies of my CDs; one using ALAC and the other transcoded at 128kbps or 256kbps, depending on the type of music (e.g. general pop / rock music would be at 128kbps, while my renaissance polyphony and other classical music would be at 256kbps.  This meant having special playlists created to separate out all the duplicates.  As a consequence, it would be fair to say that my library became unmanageable.  I then bit the bullet, deleted all the lesser quality copies and began selectively re-ripped my CDs using ALAC, meaning that I could still get most of my really good music on my iPod.

Buying music at 256kpbs and transcoding to 128kbps

The Apple Store sells music at 256kbps.  It’s common knowledge amongst audio fans that transcoding from one lossy format to another exacerbates quality problems and results in a poor quality experience.  This is in contrast to transcoding from one lossless format to another (e.g., ALAC to FLAC).  The lossless compression is similar to the popular ZIP compression method which can be used to compress large documents for emailing, which can then be uncompressed to access the original document. that is, the decompressed version is identical to the original version.  Lossless encoding seems to allow around a 50% reduction in file size, but no better.

When compressing audio files using a lossy method, in order to make the file smaller than the original, an algorithm is used to remove some of the audio information that we can’t perceive.  For example, a loud drum sound masks other quieter sounds.  When these quieter sounds are removed, the file size becomes progressively a little bit smaller.

Imagine if the ZIP compression format removed information from your documents, such as all the 1, 2 and 3 letter words, leaving behind only the bigger (and more meaningful) words?  It simply wouldn’t work since it would take a lot of effort for us to read the document and try and figure out what the missing words are.

While for audio compression, it’s not quite as serious (since we can’t perceive the missing sounds anyway, and it doesn’t generally affect sound quality), however, it does become serious when transcoding the compressed file to another format.  This is similar to taking a photocopy of a photocopy.  The second copy is not as good as the first, and is obviously so, though we can generally tell what the picture in the second copy is.

The transcoding effects become more serious when the file sizes are even smaller due to lower bit rates.  For example, transcoding from a 320kbps file to a 128kbps file is OK, while transcoding a 160kbps to a 128kpbs file can be worse.  This is because the smaller file was created using a lower bit rate, which means more information was removed from the source to make the file smaller.

One of the ways to prevent the transcoding issues is to create the second lower bit rate version from the original source.

Transcoding other music formats, variable bit encoding and managing the threshold

In the last section, I discussed the transcoding issues and how the quality of end file is dependent on the quality of the source.  a low quality source results in a low quality second file.

This is important because many people, like myself, have collected music over time, some of which is in the older formats, like MP3.  In contrast, Apple’s format, called AAC, is generally considered to have better algorithms for compressing the music.  Therefore, an MP3 file at 128kbps does not sound quite as good as an AAC file at the same bitrate.  Therefore, transcoding a lower quality source file to the specified target of a 128kbps will cause a loss in the quality of the file and is likely to become perceptible.

With Apple’s implementation of the transcoding feature, it is not clear where the threshold is, but it can be assumed that any file greater than 128kbps will be transcoded.

In my collection, I have a number of MP3 files that are encoded using the Variable Bit Rate encoding method (VBR).

VBR encoding is one of three methods, with the other important one being constant bit rate (CBR) encoding.  With CBR encoding, each file ends up with a target bit rate of exactly 128kbps.  Without going into the detail, VBR encoding usually results in better quality sound at the same bit rate, but the final bit rate can vary quite a bit.  for example, with CBR each file from a CD will be 128kbps, while for VBR, each file can fluctuate between 100kbps and 130kbps, as the algorithm optimises the final bit rate based on the complexity of the music.

The effect this has is that some files that are just above the threshold of 128kbps will be transcoded, while others will not.  If you’re listing to an album you know well, you’re very likely to hear the difference in quality from one track to the next.

Summary of the issues

Knowing a bit about the domain (what determines audio quality and how the various formats differ from each other), people’s music libraries (different formats, different bit rates) allows you to think about the different problems that could occur with a simple implementation.
These can be distilled into the following three core issues:

• No ability to change the source file bit rate threshold (e.g., all files over 128kbps, 160kbps, or other)
• No ability to specify the source file format (AAC, MP3, both)
• No ability to specify the target file bit rate (e.g. 128kbps or 256kbps, or other)

Now, Apple prides itself on delivering a simple solution that works for most circumstances, but doesn’t necessarily work for all.  This is especially important in a mass-market product where many customers are not overly tech savvy, nor care to be so.  The solutions to the three core issues need to take into consideration the nature of the product and the target market.

So that brings us to thinking about solutions.

Design solutions

In determining solutions to the issues, knowledge of the domain is very important.  If you didn’t know that there were lossy and lossless encoding formats, and that transcoding from one lossy format to another causes a greater loss of quality than encoding to the smaller file size direct from the lossless source, you would design a solution that would be ignorant of these factors, letting people possibly have a low quality experience with their music.

I’m going to approach the solutions by addressing each issue individually, rather than simultaneously.  You’ll recall that the original implementation was like this:

Selecting the source bit rate threshold

In its simplest form, this is solved as follows:

The user can now select the minimum threshold before transcoding takes place.  This satisfies a need to only convert files of a sufficient quality so that the transcoding effects on quality are less perceptible.  This solution has a number of issues.

Going back to the domain of audio encoding, it turns out that the highest bit rate MP3 files (320kbps) overlap with the lowest bit rate ALAC files (just above 300kbps).  This means that users cannot use the bit rate setting as a proxy for only selecting ALAC files for transcoding where the transcoding quality artefacts will not be as obvious.

That is, uses cannot simply select all files over 320kbps, since some ALAC files will not be included. therefore, users either need to know what bit rate to select, or to simply accept the fact that not all the files will be transcoded, possibly affecting how much music is stored on their iPod / iPhone

The second issue is that it uses a drop down menu to select the source bit rate.  the menu would contain the popular bit rates, such as 128, 160, 256 and 320kbps.  This approach can be faster and more usable, but it limits user specificity.

Selecting the source file format

This can be solved as follows:

This allows users to only transcoded files of a specific format.  In this case, only ALAC (lossless) files will be transcoded.  This means that lossy file formats will not be transcoded.

However, this has the issue that anyone using ALAC is likely to be sensitive to file quality and will probably want to select a different target bit rate.

Selecting the target bit rate

This can be solved as follows:

This allows users to select higher bit rates for the target files, especially important for those users who want higher quality music on their iPod.  by implication, all files over 256kbps would be transcoded (since it would not make sense to transcoded a 128kbps MP3 file to a 256kbps AAC file!!)

However, it doesn’t allow users to select the source file format, or a threshold at which they will be transcoded, especially when using 256kbps VBR encoding, where the file sizes fluctuate, but not enough to make it worth transcoding a 270kbps file to a 256kbps file.

Combining the individual solutions

It’s easy to provide individual solutions to the three core issues.  Combining them into something that is usable, understandable and aligned with Apple’s design philosophy is something else.

There are two approaches that can be used:

1. Combine the individual solutions to make a single selection of source and target settings
2. Use a method similar to smart playlists where multiple expressions can be created to select source and target settings.

Combining the individual solutions into a single selection

From the domain knowledge we gathered, it would seem that the most critical determinant of the final quality of the audio would be the source format, rather than the bit rate.  If you didn’t know this you could have simply used a target bit rate instead.

Therefore, one of the solutions is as follows:

This allows users to only select lossless files for transcoding, and to select the bit rate they want.  Therefore, if they have bought music from the Apple store, then all their quality music will be at the same quality.  Further, lower bit rate files remain untouched and therefore there will be no transcoding artefacts affecting quality.

However, this has the following issues:

• It only makes sense to include the lossless formats (WAV, AIFF and ALAC) in the drop down menu, because you can’t (shouldn’t) select all MP3s for conversion, especially lower bit rate ones due to transcoding quality issues)
• 256 / 320kbps files (MP3 or AAC) cannot be selected to be transcoded to 128kbps files

Consider instead this solution:

This allows users to select to convert only ALAC files to AAC, or to convert high bit rate lossy files to a lower bit rate.  However, it has the following issues:

• Users cannot select both high bit rate files (e.g. 320kbps MP3 files) and ALAC files and convert them to a lower bit rate AAC
• It is a somewhat complex expression and not quite as simple as the previous one allowing selecting of just the file format.

Consider instead this solution:

This allows control over the source bit rate, however, it can’t easily be used to select only ALAC files (since the lowest bit rate ALAC files overlap with high bit rate lossy files).
Using multiple expressions to select different formats

A number of the single solution approaches, while richer, don’t offer enough flexibility to include songs of a range of different formats.  They don’t offer enough value to consider implementation at this stage.

In iTunes, the smart playlists editor provides an approach where multiple rules for selection can be included.  This screenshot shows the smart playlist editor:

We can adopt this approach for the selection of file formats:

Note that the ALAC format has no bit rate selection because the format is lossless and the bit rate is a function of the song complexity, not the level of compression.  Therefore, only if the format is lossy, then a selection of the source bit rate is presented.
When the ‘simple’ version is selected, then this display could look like this:

The background processing and the user interface design

One thing we haven’t considered is the behind the scenes aspects to the solution, namely, what is the selection criteria?  At what bit rate will the files be selected?

Given the issues regarding transcoding and audio quality, it makes sense to only transcoded files that are sufficiently greater that the target bit rate.  For example, if the target bit rate is 128 kbps, then only files greater than 256 kbps would be transcoded.

In this case, consider the following design:

In this solution, the solution borrows from the design that selects a target bit rate, but uses supporting text to decrease the ambiguity over which files will be included in the conversion.

The supporting text would be updated based on the target bit rate selection.  For example, if the target is 128 kbps, then the text would read ‘only songs greater than 256 kbps and / or encoded in a lossless format will be converted’.

The final solution

You can see that there are many solutions, each with pros and cons.  In general, attempting to add a little bit of flexibility did not result in a strong design, compared to adding a lot more complexity (i.e., the multiple expression interface).

There are two solutions.  The first is likely to be in alignment with Apple’s design philosophy and offers just enough flexibility and clarity for audio quality sensitive people.  It also ensure that songs with a bit rate that is too close to the target rate are not converted as there is no material gain, but a good chance for a degradation in quality.

Solution 1 – Simple selection of target bitrate with supporting text

If you select 128 kbps as the target bit rate, then, say, only songs 256 kbps or greater would be selected.

Solution 2 – Selection of source formats and bit rates

The second solution builds on the first and allows for multiple selections.  The rationale is that anyone making such selections is likely to be savvy enough to make sensible selections and understand the impact.

When expanded, the following is shown, in page:

The design is simpler than allowing for a target bit rate for each of the song formats.  This extension could be adopted if necessary, but I don’t think it is.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article and considering the thinking that went in to determining the final solution.  While the final solution may be obvious, quite a bit of thinking went into it to test out the consequences before settling on one that worked the best.  much of this was based on understanding a bit about the audio domain and therefore not making decisions that would result in a detrimental effect on audio quality.

The iPad is both the best and worst kept secret to come from the computing powerhouse / genius of Apple.Like many, prior to its launch, I’ve been reading the various rumour sites imagining what it might be like, what I need from it and trying to discern fact from fiction.Now that it’s here, I’ve done a quick synopsis of what I think are its strengths and weaknesses based on the available Apple information.

Strengths

Given that the iPad can be considered a larger iPod Touch / iPhone, there are many strengths being carried forward in terms of the included applications, and there’s no point in re-iterating what we already know.I’ve selected a few that I think are noteworthy.

Touch enabled iWork Suite

Having used DocumentsToGo on the iPhone, the addition of a full-fledged word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application is very welcome.The only thing missing is a stylus and inking.But more about that later.

Pricing

What else is there to say – incredible (and still profitable) pricing.

Full bezel to grip the device

Although not really, a strength, it’s worth mentioning because there’ve been some comments that the bezel is too large and not in alignment with an ‘Ives’ design.But you do need something to grip without putting your fingers over the top of your content.The iPhone design where the screen goes almost to the edge on the left / right (when holding vertically) is fine because it fits in your palm – you don’t really grip it like a book.

Weaknesses

No front facing camera

This, along with no apparent MS Exchange support is one of the two biggest weaknesses for the iPad.I want to be able to make video calls, especially with such a large screen available, either direct through a built in 2G / 3G phone application, or a Skype or similar application.

Clearly, the camera would need to make use of face tracking and stabilisation (using the accelerometer) to keep a stead image.

No apparent MS Exchange support

The Apple website notes that the email client works with popular email services such as Mobile Me, Gmail and Hotmail.But there’s no mention of MS Exchange.It seems a bit strange to attract business users with the iWork suite but not include exchange connectivity.I really hope this is just an oversight on Apple’s part.

Screen resolution is too low and 4:3 ratio

For a video playback device, not having a 16:9 ratio is very surprising.Also, the screen resolution should be at least 1280×768 (or 800) or even 1366×768 (or 800) to enjoy a full widescreen movie.

Along with this weakness, the single speaker also limits the video playback appeal of the iPad.

Only one speaker

For a device touted as a multimedia playback device, having only one speaker is amazing.The device needs at least three speakers, using the onboard sensors to determine which orientation the iPad is at.This assumes a speaker is located on three corners (rather than partway down the side), with sound only being played from two of the speakers, depending on orientation.Four speakers could be used orienting them part way down the sides as they are now.

No pen / inking support

This is what I think is one of the killer features for both the education and business market.Apple’s had inking in Mac OSX for a while now.People say Steve Jobs dislikes styluses – maybe this is the reason for its absense.

64GB is not enough

For a multimedia device, 64GB just doesn’t cut it.128GB should be the current largest option.Unless it works like my Apple TV and connects to my iTunes to share files when in range.

Use of a Micro SIM instead of a normal SIM

There is no apparent reason to include a micro SIM unless it’s to support some level of carrier lockin.

Cannot make calls

I’m guessing you think this is a strange one???And no, I do not mean to hold the iPad up to your ear and look like you’ve got a 1970s mobile phone!!

I imagine working on the iPad, and making calls using the headset or handsfree.After all, if you’ve got to have another SIM card, you might as well make the most of it (notwithstanding the cheaper data only SIM cards that the iPad uses).Not everyone uses Skype / SkypeOut.

No wireless syncing

Also missing from the iPhone is wireless syncing.Why would I have to plug in the iPad (or iPhone for that matter) to perform a sync?

>I appreciate that the iPhone (and presumably the iPad) is performing a back up of the various apps and settings and this may amount to several hundred megabytes (especially with, say, a navigation application installed), but syncing could be reduced (e.g. latest settings) when connecting wirelessly, or an option set to sync all, as a hard connection would do.

It’s up to the user to deal with this, especially when the iPhone is docked elsewhere and within range of their wireless network.

No Finder / network browsing

When you start offering productivity applications of the caliber of iWork, you need to provide proper file management, not just some synchronisation folder, especially when in the presence of your wireless network.

On windows, I use the offline files / folders and this works brilliantly.I don’t have to move files around a temporary store and deal with version issues.

For the iPad, I should be able to access my files remotely and work on them, rather than having to make a special copy of it.

Non weaknesses

Various news sites have reported the following as weaknesses.I’ve included them here because I don’t think they’re show stoppers.

No USB

Although there is an adaptor, if the iPad comes with the few extras, such as a built in camera, there’s no need for it.What would you really attach to it as opposed to merely having the possibility of connecting something?

No Adobe Flash support

Having used the iPhone for quite a while and racking up some 500MB per month of browsing (a little or a lot, depending on your usage), I have not missed Flash, although it would have been nice to have on a few occasions.

I did think it was interesting that the initial promotional videos from Apple included websites with Flash content being shown, which have now been replaced.

No multitasking

For me, applications (on the iPhone 3G) start fast enough as you close out of one and start another.The Apple ones and some others behave correctly and resume where you left off.

Key applications like the phone (i.e., on the iPhone), iPod player, and some others are all the ones I’ve found myself using simultaneously (e.g. checking my calendar while on a call).If preserving battery life has the small price of no multitasking, then it’s a fair price.

Conclusion

I can only imagine that the next version will be significantly stronger in terms of some or all of the above weaknesses.I appreciate that including too much functionality from other devices (such as the iPhone, or MacBooks) causes confusion and makes it difficult to establish a new product category, but I think that some of the omissions, for the device it is, are very surprising.

Assuming it’s a multimedia playback device, the following weaknesses are an issue:

• Mono speaker
• 4:3 ratio screen and low(ish) resolution
• Only 64GB of storage

Assuming it’s a low cost, low power computing / productivity device, then the following weaknesses are an issue:

• No Finder / file management / remote file access
• No apparent MS Exchange support
• No front facing camera

Assuming it’s an education device, then the following weaknesses are an issue:

• No pen input / inking (for notes, drawing, etc.)
• No Finder / file management

You can see that the iPad doesn’t quite tick all the boxes, no matter which category it’s in.I’d link to think that Apple is testing the waters with the iPad and will embark on a process of continual refinement.I hope that many of the above issues are addressed immediately in the next version – some of them are pretty obvious.

Perhaps the price is too cheap?A few more of the core functionality and perhaps there really will be a killer category.

However, having said all that, I’m sure it’ll sell like hotcakes.

The guys at Lina are promising write once – run everywhere, using the native look-and-feel of the host operating system. This was also the promise of Java, which also uses a virtual machine to run the binary code.

It certainly looks interesting, but the FAQ on the site says there will be a 2x performance hit (i.e. applications will run at half the speed of a native version). Other solutions, like using a VMWare, VirtualPC and Parallels for the Macintosh provide alternative approaches to running applications from one platform on another. These tools work best when the host operating system is running on an x86 processor, meaning that virtualisation speed is around 80% of the host processor – which is a very good level of performance. This occurs because the virtualised processor is the same as the processor and there is limited need to translate the instructions.

However, their disadvantage is that you need to buy the host operating system (e.g. running Parallels on the Macintosh requires that you buy MS Windows to run a windows application inside the virtual machine). This can be an unecessary overhead and cost on the end user.

There are also alternative to Lina, such as Wine, which allows a lot of compiled / binary Windows applications (including Office 2000) to run on Linux. If you’re writing your application in .Net, then you can also use Mono, which works essentially in the same way as Wine but is restricted to running .Net applications. Mono is a cross platform simulation of the .Net framework.

What next?

There are many different solutions available to creating an application and running it on multiple platforms – until there is a unified platform for computing where developers can write once and run everywhere – with the same version, no emulation and no virtualisation.

This is as close or as far away as the major players choose to make it, or until some truly disruptive technology platform comes along and reshapes the playing field. I have some ideas about this that are well into development…

I’d been doing some shopping around for a new sub notebook / UMPC. I seriously considered the new Samsung Q1Ultra, but finally settled on the Fujitsu P1610. If you’re in the market for a sub-notebook / TabletPC, I strongly recommend taking one for a test drive. Read on for the strengths and weaknesses.

(Images borrowed from http://www.fujitsu.com/sg/services/computing/pc/products/notebook/p1610/gallery.html)

Here are its strengths for me:

• Weight – 1kg (28% of my old laptop)
• 8.9 inch bright screen with a resolution of 1280×768 pixels
• 80GB hard drive
• Keyboard (it is 3/4 size and the Samsung UMPC has a tiny keyboard)
• CPU is an Intel Core Solo at 1.2GHz (apparently equivalent to an older 1.6GHz Centrino) is great for the size. of Tablet PC. It can play back high bit rate MPEG4 videos without chopping
• Vista and Office 2007 work at acceptable speeds
• Battery life is good at around 2.5 – 3 hours
• The tablet PC and handwriting recognition is excellent in Vista
• I can comfortable hold the Tablet PC in one hand and write on it with the other. It’s like holding a larger paperback book. In contrast, the bigger 2kg / 12inch screen models are just too heavy to do this
• Fingerprint scanner for login
• The bidirectional screen rotation reduces risk of damage
• It has a touch screen (compared to a digitizer on other brands and models), meaning that I can use my finger as a mouse, not just a special pen
• The screen is very clear compared to digitizer based tablets that have a grainy effect.

As with everything, there are weaknesses:

• There is no webcam for video /skype
• No hot swappable battery. I bought an extra 6-cell battery (about 6 hours) so I can use it for a whole day and not bring a power pack, but you need to fully shut down to swap over.
• SD card slot is not Vista readyboost compliant. It apparently uses a slower interface so cannot read and write as fast as the actual card can handle.
• The P1610 does quite a bit of disk thrashing (apparently a known issue for UMPCs)
• There is no trackpad, only a track point. The battery makes up some of the front part of the unit (palm rest), rather than having it sit under an extended palm rest where a trackpad could go
• The pen is fine, but feels a bit cheap
• As I mentioned earlier, the screen resolution is 1280×768. should have been 1280×800 and would therefore meet minimum website standard of 800×600 when in portrait mode (the fewer pixels means some chance of vertical scrolling)
• There should be two slots for for memory, or a standard SO-DIMM instead of the Micro-DIMM (i.e. for a total of 2GB RAM). Vista really needs 2GB to work well. (Edit: This was addressed by installing a 2GB module from the 1620/1630)
• I had to disable part of the trackpoint’s operation because I kept tapping it while typing meaning the I kept typing in the wrong area.

Despite these minor issues, it’s an excellent notebook. You wouldn’t want to use it as an everyday machine. My former Dell was a desktop replacement and I used it at work and home. Now I have a desktop at work and at home and use the P1610 while on the road – and just while on the road.

I can’t wait to see what the next version will be like!