Forums - Good, Bad and Ugly

Over on Branch there is a discussion about "Why forums work". I have asked to be invited to the discussion but they are in beta mode right now so adding my two cents will have to be done the old fashioned way, with my own blog.

One problem with forums is not knowing what's new. You have to visit each topic or forum to find the new posts. No "inbox" per se. So I was glad to see an inbox in Branch.

One of the problems that has begun to plague Stack Overflow is that new questions fall off of the front page quickly. This is a problem for HackerNews as well but in a different way. HackerNews requires users to go hunting for the new posts and doesn't make the new posts visible to the general audience. Posts that the audience may enjoy will go unseen unless you are a celebrity or game the system in some way.

Finding a way to bring new posts to the audiences that can "use them", answer the question in SO and read the article in HN, has to be a key factor to any forum these days. Sometimes it is as easy as an inbox like feature, and for the application I am building that is the way we are going.

One solution would be to notify users of "interesting articles". Learn what users are interested in and then bring new posts to them. The plethora of services trying to do that these days are all trying to use your social network to gain insight, but I think there is more value in just watching what the user does and determining his/her expertise based on actions instead of friends. Something along the lines of NetFlix suggestions but for articles or questions.

I think forums work because their hierarchy is easy to understand. It is organized and takes a minimum amount of moderating to keep things orderly.

Google + Hardware = Not a Bad Idea

Google didn't buy just a phone company. They bought a hardware company whose best known for phones. Google bought a hardware company. Why would Google buy a hardware company?

So much of Google's software business depends on hardware. All of their search engine software sits on hardware. Those servers can now be looked at by a team of engineers. And let's not forget all of the forward looking hardware. Self-driving cars require hardware. Hardware components that need to be miniaturized.

What other projects might those crazy engineers want to launch that requires hardware? Only time will tell. While everyone is worried about Google screwing over their phone partners, I am betting they are working on something else entirely.

Why all the hate for Google Motorola merger?

Is it just me or is the media really pouring sour grapes on the Google Motorola deal? I have seen more negative speculation/news on this purchase than most other deals. Is it just that it is a high profile/stakes play? I mean I understand why the Apple and Microsoft lovers would not be fans of the deal, but really? Do we need an article on the 5 ways the deal could go bad? Or speculation that while the other handset makers are saying they support the deal, in reality they are all suspicious? Because Microsoft is going to be a better partner? More secure platform? More profitable? Lower cost? Easier to customize for your customers?

When Nokia and Microsoft signed their deal most of the media thought the Nokia/Microsoft deal was a desperation move on Nokia's part and cast shadows of doubt on whether or not Microsoft had a viable platform. However when Google buys Motorola to protect themselves from litigation suddenly Microsoft's platform is somehow better? Give me a break.

Why chase the dream?

I have been having a conversation with a good friend about future plans. He is a couple of years ahead of me in experience and dropped some insight that challenged me to answer a question: Why chase the dream of owning your own business?

Growing up I was exposed to the entrepreneurial spirit. My grandfather started his own business while working full time. He ended up passing the business on to my uncle. Was it as big or profitable as the consulting company I work for? Not by a far stretch, but it employed 30-40 people each year and was a good place to work. More importantly though the business was a legacy to me and my family.

As a family we were proud of the business. We were proud of my grandfather and what he had built. My uncle took it to a new level when he took over and we were proud of that too. Pride in accomplishment of the family is what we had. I miss that feeling and that is what I am looking to achieve. I have been on this search for a while without knowing what it was that I was looking for. I knew I was looking to build something that I could call mine, but I didn't know why.

Why are you chasing your dream?

Humorous design decision of the day: Color coding titles

We are replacing a couple of spreadsheets with a web application. One set of spreadsheets had data separated/categorized into "orange section" and "green section". These were the background colors of the data in those sections. This data really belonged in a wiki, but that is another story. Anyway, everyone started referring to the data by color: like "Is that the orange data or the green data?" The users did not want to lose the distinction of the colors because now every one refers to the orange data and the green data instead of their proper names (which are pretty ambiguous). To keep the orange and green I made the background colors of the page names orange and green to match the spreadsheet. When we showed these pages to the customers they were very excited that we managed to incorporate their color scheme into the application. Sometimes it is the small things that matter the most to the customer.

XPRT tweaks

Coming from the HTC EVO to Motorola's XPRT has been eye opening on the differences in Android experience. It is completely different depending on vendor. HTC's Sense is pretty nice. My biggest complaint was the browser hides the notification bar. I really like to see the time while browsing so I know when to stop browsing :-) Everything else about Sense was great. If HTC makes a phone with a physical portrait keyboard I will go back. What I really want is the BlackBerry Torch form, but until HTC provides either of those I am sticking with the XPRT.

So, XPRT has a couple of "features" that aren't all that great. Here are the alternatives that I came up with to solve the "problems" that Blur has.

The calendar doesn't scroll and only shows three appointments. It resizes, sure, but there is so much padding around each event that you can only see five events at a time in a full screen widget. I needed a better calendar so I installed Pure Calendar widget (~$2) which doesn't scroll either but I get between two or three days worth of calendar events.

The next issue was actually more difficult to find a solution for. Sense allows you to create a shortcut to call a person with one tap. So on my home screen I had the faces of my family members and I could just tap the face and boom, phone call made. Blur only allowed you to add a link to the person's contact page, but from there you can tap on their phone number and it will connect you. I feel weird saying this, but that seems like to many taps. I want one tap calling! I won't give you the whole story about finding a solution to this problem, but there were at least three apps installed to solve this problem. I finally settled on One Touch Call/SMS (Free!) which works like a champ.

During my search for calendars and one tap calls I happened to install Launcher Pro Plus (Launcher Pro is free, to get some of the extra features you have to upgrade to Launcher Pro Plus which is ~$3). While playing with LPP I just found the calendar form that I have been searching for (scrolling agenda!) so Pure Calendar is about to get deleted. Anyway, Launcher Pro Plus has a couple of other fun features like a quick launch bar at the bottom that you can load with links to applications or contacts. It has snazzy transitions between home screens and a plethora of other features (including a calendar with an agenda!). One cool feature Blur and LPP shares is the ability to resize widgets. I highly recommend LPP.

Anyway, my XPRT is more to my liking now.

Posting eXPeRT

Yay! This is my first post from my Motorola XPRT! I have had the phone for a week now, and am thrilled to actually have a keyboard again.

I have to say, going from HTC Sence to MotoBlur hasn't been great, but the list of awesome features I gave up for the keyboard continues to grow. Several people expressed concern for my sanity over leaving my top of the line EVO for the XPRT but I assure you all, it is worth it.

The one thing that I wish that it would do but doesn't is autocorrect i and known contractions. The contractions are the worst because I havent learned where single quote lives on this keyboard. I have to search for it every time!

Also, I have enabled the mobile version of this site. It looks great. Thanks Google for adding mobile to Blogger!