Dang! Frogger! You no behave right!

I am getting proficient enough with the black USB froggie to start doing some real work, but this bug that I finally uncovered make using it really painful. Whenever I use the ctrl-s combination on the frogpad, the ctrl key will lock, eventhough the ctrl indicator does not show it. This kinda makes everything you do after that difficult. No, this does not have the feel of a polished product.

Here's the latest on the frogpad. I exchanged my bluetooth frogpad for a USB one, and the reason is: the USB one had a non-sticky symbol key: so, the latest product(the bluetooth version) is worse than the earlier one(the USB), at least from my perspective. The USB one works a look better in terms of typing in symbols, at I expected. I am still using only on and off though, so I really need a lot more practice before I can use it for normal work. I do use it at work some times, and it's quite easy to switch back and forth, and/or have a different key input for different windows.

Sigh... I like typing on the frog. But till now, I haven't been able to use it for my programing work because, while it is quite good for typing in English, it is lousy for typing programs. This is because symbols on the frog are a pain to type. You have to hit one key to go into symbol mode(it's modal) hit your symbol, and then another key stroke to go out of symbol mode. In most programming langages(except maybe COBOL), you alternate between letters and symbols quite often, this is why the frog may not be suitable for programming. Can you reprogram the keys? I don't know, haven't found any resources on it yet. I later found that the USB version of the frog is better in this respect because the symbol key is non-modal(like the shift key). No word yet on whether I can get my Bluetooth version to do that though. Keeping an eye on this thread.

So I've had my frogpad for about half a month now. I've been practicing on it about a hour every two or three days, and.. this is my first blog post on it! I still obiviously need a lot more practice, but it's coming along.
I tell ya, not having to switch back and forth between the keyword and the mouse does change the way you do things a lot. You'll find that you'll be able to use the mouse in a lot more situations where you normally wouldn't. This is cool! As for my normal typing, because I've been switch back to it for my normal usage, I've sort of overcome the skill deteriation there.

I've been training with the Frogpad now about a hour every other day or so. And I've found it's negatively affected my normal keyboard typing. Basically it's causing a confusion in the circuitry in my brain that responds to what to do when I want to type a certain letter. Whereas before it "hardcoded" on what to do, now it has to first know whether I am typing on a regular keyboard or a Frogpad. There's a term for it in cognitive science, but I can't remember it now. When I learned DVORAK I had the luxury that I intended to give up QWERTY completely, but now with the frogpad I am not sure that's the case. I guess right now I'll just try to learn the frogpad while still staying proficient with DVORAK by switching back and forth. Crossing my fingers...

Yea!!! Pictures to come. I love my shiny new gadget! Starting to practice...can type some sentences slowly now...

I ordered one of these today, can't wait to try it out!!

After watching some old Alan Kay videos, I started thinking about modeless interfaces and tablet PC's. I think that the tablet PC has been largely under-appreciated, but is a form factor that has a lot of potential. The reason that it was under-appreciated, in my opinion, is - at least partly - because of the software. The operating system on most of the tablet PCs in the market is windows, but the version of windows installed on the machines is not any different from any other windows. Aside from some duck-tape-like software to allow for hand writting recogition and a few other features, there's really very little work that's been put into making the software working great with the form factor. With the hype of multi-touch screens, I think conditions are ripe for a comeback for tablets if the right things happen. Apple has the best chance of making it work: doing with tablets what they did with mobile phones, plus they already have multitouch technology on their side, so it's a natural match.

Now, why tablets? How did I settle on that? I guess it started with a video Kay show of a modeless interactive system which uses a stylus. It was some sort of flow-chart editor. The main thing is that it was modeless. To create a box, you didn't have to go and select the box tool, no, you just draw a box in the shape of a rectangle. And to make a port on the box, you just draw it on the edge of the box. To write text in the box you just scribble it. To connect 2 boxes you just draw a line from the edge on one to a edge of another. Why don't we have more interfaces like this today? In photoshop, in order to do anything at all, you usually have to be aware of being in a combination of at least 3 different kinds of modes: your selection, your tool selection, and the current layer. Plus, with many of the actions you take, modal dialogs popup afterwards to asks you for parameters you want before anything actually happens. This is why doing anything in Photoshop feels like such a hassle. Well, okay, that's more of a user interface issue than about the tablet, but that's what inspired it. What's special about the tablet form factor, I think, is that the stylus gives you better control of fine movements than the mouse, and therefore allows you to draw more accurate shapes, which allows you to better articulate what you mean to the machine, with which programs can better detect gestures. That's why graphic artists prefer tablets to regular laptops, after all. You may have concerns that using a stylus freehand tires your wrist, but there's no reason why you cannot rest your palm on the surface: in fact I tried out the HP tablets at Fry's the other day and resting your palm while writting does not interfere at all. The second thing that's major about the tablet form factor is the emergence of multi-touch. There isn't a major multi-touch tablet in the market today, but Apple already has the iphone and the Macboox Air - which allows you to use iphone-like gestures on the touchpad. If you haven't played with the iphone, the multi-touch hand gestures like swipe, flick, pinch, and spread, are phenomnonal in terms of user-happiness. These gestures are intuitive, easy to use, immersive, and...modeless. Many iphone users have complained after going back to their macbook, that they can't use these gestures anymore. It's pretty obivious now that macbooks from now on will all have multi-touch enabled touch pads. Now, you might ask me, you like the stylus, and then you are talking about multi-touch, are we going to use the stylus or our fingers? I am just saying...we use both. In fact, one hand could be using the stylus while the other could be making gestures. Imagine, for example, editing a long document using the stylus like a pen, and swiping with the other hand to scroll the document. Now, you may object and say: you still need a keyboard. Well, I agree, and the reason is that you can type faster with a keyboard than you can write with a pen. But, with the asterisk that this is not the case with everyone, only people who can type well. If you can't type faster than you can write, then you don't need a keyboard at all! Wow! Then all you need is a giant size touch-screen. But for touch typists, yes, you will need a keyboard, otherwise you will be sacreficing a lot of speed. I don't know, will this be a slide out, or a fold up? Not really sure. What about one handed keyboard? I personally have a thing for one-handed keyboards.

Anyway, that's my vision of the future, and I think Apple obiviously stands the best chance of making it happen, but personally I don't really care who does it. Will it happen? Well, I was right about the iphone before, so...

Today I explored using video playlists on the ipod: so that I can play video clips(video podcasts in my case) one after another without stop or me having to do anything in between. It's sad, but I found the need for this as I often have lunch by myself and watch video podcasts. But by default on the ipod after a video finishes, it just goes back the menu and stops. If I want to watch something else I have to go look for something and click on it again. This sucks. What I want is a continous stream of videos. You can do this on the ipod but it's an obscure feature. What you do is you create a playlist or smart playlist containing videos - in my case I created a smart playist of all the video podcasts that I follow: the episodes of which I haven't seen. If you are doing a smart playlist you could use a filter like: kind contains Video, kind contains Movie, or Video Kind is Movie to filter in all the videos. To sync it to the ipod - this is the tricky part - you go to the music tab(yes, you that's right, music tab), and make sure the playlist is included in ones to sync. You would have thought they would put that in a videos tab or something, but this just shows that it's not just Microsoft: Apple produces a lot of UI WTF as well - and trust me, this isn't the only example. Anyway, back to the ipod, select Videos, and then Video Playlists, and you should see the video playlist you created, click the play button and there you have it!
Major bummer: this doesn't work in front row, so my podcasts-as-if-it-were-tv experience is limited to the ipod for now, I hope this changes in the future.
update: This ipod feature only works when shuffling is OFF, and this setting applies for the entire ipod, not just videos. Also, I think the videos that I skip while watching the stream should not be revisited again in the stream, but the way it is now, ipod always starts from the top of the list and then down.

Amazon's Kindle actually looks pretty impressive(watch the 2nd video on the page). What impressed me most is that the store connects to the internet via satellite(not wi-fi) for free! Yes! Free! You can do the following things online: buy books, read newspapers and blogs, and search wikipedia. The idea is that amazon is providing you internet access for free because you are supposedly paying for it by buying their books. I already read tons of blogs and new regularly and I know reading it on an e-reader will be much more pleasant for my eyes, so this is something I might actually consider. I don't read books a lot now but that's mostly because it's so troublesome to carry a book around. There is a downside to this device though: it is UGLY! It's definitely not an iphone.

update: there are other negatives, actually:

1. the price $399 is pretty steep
2. you have to PAY to subscribe to magazines and BLOGS? I am NOT paying to read blogs if I haven't had to do it otherwise
   

The iPhone-like iPod is out today. But even more importantly, you can now buy songs and download them directly to your ipod if you have a wireless internet connection. They are calling it the Wireless iTunes Store. I wonder if you can download podcasts the same way? That way you can sample them a lot easier. This is a hugh feature that lots of people's been wanting, and it's great that they got it out there.

That is correct, Wii is here. We got one from Costco today! And another one from Fry's... And also I ordered another bundle 2 days ago from Curcuit City online... Yea... I guess we'll have to return the extra TWO Wii's that we have. Unless anyone wants to buy it from us personally.

Now, for the review... The Wii is awesome! If you haven't experienced it, then you have to! Go play with a friend's Wii, find a store that displays them, SOMETHING! Or, just buy one. I have not regreted it, but I've only had it for one day.