Software I Bought but Never Use
I just got done reading Alex Payne’s list of software he’s paid for but has since stopped using and I thought it would be fun to do my own. I don’t know what it is but I’m a sucker for new software. I love it. I like to try everything out and kick the tires but I often find that it’s not right for me and I’ve already given up the money. I don’t mind helping out the smaller developers but I really get irked when I dish out big money for a major app that ultimately goes unused.
Without further ado:
- Acquisition – Xtorrent killed it for me. At one time I used it like crazy though. – No Regret
- Adobe Design Premium CS4 – I use Photoshop, Illustrator and occassionaly Flash. Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Acrobat and InDesign sit dormant. There’s a slight chance I bust out InDesign but Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Acrobat are dead to me. The bundle was more cost efficient than buying those 3 programs 1 by 1. – Moderate Regret
- Apple Remote Desktop 3 – I bought this to help my Mom and my Grandmother with their Mac issues. When Leopard was released it kind of killed the need. – Moderate Regret
- Coda – I think Panic is one of the best app developers in the world. I loved Audion and I still love Transmit. But Coda wasn’t good enough to take me away from TextMate, CSSedit, and Transmit. I never use it. – Deep Regret
- Connect 360 – I still have it connected and I did use it a lot when I first had it. But when I bought an Apple TV that was the end of that. – No Regret
- DigiTunnel – I bought it to help me VPN into an ex-employer’s network. Why did I buy it on my own? Didn’t work anyway. – Deep Regret
- Disco – Ooh it makes smoke when burning a disc. That is all. – Deep Regret
- Fitness Brain – I used it to track calories for about a week but it was cheap. Developer abandoned project. – Mild Regret
- Intego Internet Security – STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. – As Deep of Regret as you get
- iTunes Catalog It sounded cool at the time. I bought this pre-Last.fm or pre-Twitter or any other social site. And I never used it anyway. – Mild Regret
- Memtest – My iMac RAM wasn’t the problem. Super cheap though. – No Regret
- Missing Sync for Blackberry – It worked better than Blackberry’s own Mac sync piece of crap software. But it was no iTunes/iPhone. – Moderate Regret
- NewsFire – I think I used it for a day or so before I realized that without the ability to sync, it was worthless. Moved to Google Reader and never looked back. Plus it became free after I bought it. – Deep Regret
- OmniPlan – I think Microsoft Project is a total waste of time for project management. Why did I think Omni’s version of the same software would be any better? I love OmniGroup and most of their products but this is too middle-management for me. – Deep Regret
- PandoraJam – It worked and I got some cool songs. But I just don’t use it anymore. – No Regret
- Pixelmator – Here was the thought: “I’ll get rid of all of the bloat and only run Cocoa apps!” Didn’t work. – Deep Regret
- Salling Clicker – This is still better than Apple’s own iPhone and iTunes sync. It was the bomb. I loved everything about it. I wish it worked with the iPhone like it did my Sony Ericsson K790a. Best bluetooth syncing software on the planet. – No Regret (none, zip, zero)
- Suitcase Fusion – Fat, bloated software. Having thousands of fonts was a necessity in the print design world but I’ve since simplified. A lot. – Mild Regret
- Taskpaper – Awesome and quick “Getting Things Done” task list. But it was too simplified. And OmniFocus worked better for me. Still cool software though. – No Regret
- Vector Designer – Same purchase date as Pixelmator and for the same reasons. – Deep Regret
The Misunderstanding of the Internet
Twitter changed everything I thought I thought about an online presence. I joined Twitter in January of 2007 but I didn’t understand it’s draw. My initial tweets were mundane, ridiculous things like “Going to a meeting” and “Heading home.” I didn’t follow anyone, no one followed me and I quickly grew disinterested. Over the course of 2007 many of the people I follow online were starting to talk more and more about how Twitter was making such a big difference in their lives. It got to the point where I felt like I was missing something obvious. And unlike MySpace, whose popularity was based on the social desire to be around other people, Twitter sounded more like it was an answer to a question that no one thought to ask. So I started really participating in it again late in 2007 and once I figured it out, it opened my eyes.
The Internet is the Ultimate Mind Sharing Tool
What I discovered was that people, not algorithms, provided answers and content that was more useful, entertaining, and enlightening than anything I’d ever discovered before. In the fantastic article “We Travel in Tribes” by Rands, he perfectly describes why Twitter works on such a fundamental level. After reading that article and participating in so many other failed social web sites I started to realize that most people simply don’t understand the power of the internet. Even though many people have been using the internet for over a decade, it hasn’t helped them understand the incredible potential of what they’re using.
Some of the early names for the internet were spot on. The “www” in web site addresses stands for World Wide Web, a name given by the internet creators to help describe what the internet was. Another name, albeit cheesy, was The Information Super Highway. The early users of the internet understood the potential and usefulness of sharing the vast amounts of information around the world. The internet was a web of information that was not defined by your geographic location.
Unfortunately businesses started looking at the internet as an extension of their brick-and-mortar stores which required an extension of their print and television advertising campaigns. To marketers and advertisers it represented an “always-on” connection to their customers that could be marketed and advertised to on a constant basis. According to this view, if you could find a way to drive people to your web domain you could hit them with your marketing message and the customers would buy. This ushered in the rush for online advertising dollars. The internet was the next big medium after radio and television. But this view of the internet was flawed. Unlike radio and television the internet was not there solely for entertainment. The audience wasn’t an audience.
The Internet Deserves it’s Own Category
The internet can’t be lumped in with newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. It can’t be lumped in with encyclopedias, dictionaries, and educational books. It also can’t be lumped in with business-to-customer or business-to-business sales. It’s in a category all by itself because the world has never seen anything like this before. And very few marketers and businesses understand what to do. They continue to use old measuring sticks for success. “Please fill out this form” is the online equivalent to “for more information write to” from television and mailer marketing from years past. Page hits are like counting the number of people who enter your store. Web addresses with special character strings are the online version of 800 numbers with special numbers to indicate if an ad is working or not. This has all been done before in the world before the internet and so few have made any adjustments at all, they just continue to do what they did before.
The biggest misconception is that customers, or anyone for that matter, will come to your website and consume your content in the manner you want it consumed. This can be seen all over the internet at company websites where the content doesn’t change much, there’s no way to subscribe to the content, and no way to easily share what you’ve found. It all boils down to the idea that the customer (or researcher or whatever) has to come to you to get what they want. They have to come to your web site address and your little spot on the web just like they would have to go to a store or a library in the physical world.
Put Your Message in the Hands of the People
Something I keep coming back to in my thoughts is that web sites should think of themselves as a broadcast rather than the pages of a newspaper. Instead of requiring people come to you and absorb your content, broadcast your content to the right places and allow people to tune into you. As the internet matures and younger generations grow up with the technology, they are going to abandon the old model of “you produce content and I come absorb it.” That movement has already begun with the more tech-savvy users.
Over the course of the past few days I’ve been driven to videos, photos, web pages, store sales, and more by the people I follow. Either through Twitter or Digg or my RSS feeds I’m finding content that I never would have found before. The very idea that I’m going to waste my time to come to your web site and comb through your pages of marketing material as I scan for what I’m looking for is absurd. There was a time I used to do that but those days are over. If your content isn’t out there and people can’t find it and share it then that means your content is being overlooked. You are officially missing the boat.
I don’t have the answers to the marketing conundrum presented by the internet. But I know that the old model is the wrong approach. Feeding your information to the right sources is one aspect of a successful online presence but there’s more to it than that. And that’s where I get a little stuck. I know I’m onto something, I just don’t have all of the pieces yet.
OK. So I Was Wrong.
I really thought I was onto something when I decided to move away from the traditional site and broadcast my content. I also thought Tumblr would be an acceptable replacement for the traditional blog. But I was wrong.
I have few visitors and very few comments but I still miss the opportunity for debate. But the only way for someone to disagree with me was to take the time to write me via email or Twitter. And no one else would know that someone else had something to say and that made the content even less compelling. My content was all over the board since I could just share everything I read or saw on Tumblr. If anyone was subscribed to my feed for a specific article I’d written in the past then they would have been disappointed with what I was sharing. I need to focus.
This blog is going to be about web design, information architecture, usability, and the overall web trends that are happening. Every time I write a new post I will ask myself if it fits within those topics. If it doesn’t then I’ll use Tumblr. I will be creating my own custom theme and I will try to populate some of my tweets and tumbles here. But this site is going to be dedicated to the progression of my craft.
Google Reader for iPhone: A Step Backward
Google announced yesterday that they have a new version optimized for the iPhone and MobileSafari. They mention that the new version is better for the iPhone than their standard mobile version in that it utilizes javascript to do more from one view. “Starring, sharing, and keeping unread are done in place, so you never have to leave the list view or refresh the page.”
I think that all sounds well and good. But the truth is that the mobile version was actually better because it wrapped the original article in javascript and stripped out everything but the text and pertinent graphics. This was useful on EDGE and made it easy to keep up with my RSS feeds while away from my computer. I’ve been happily using the mobile version since I bought my iPhone almost a year ago and I wasn’t even asking for a change. The mobile version was such a great iPhone application. You just got the text, perfectly presented in your browser.
My biggest gripe about the new version is that they actually took features away. The mobile version has a Settings link that allows you to “Reformat linked web pages for mobile browsers.” You can turn that on or off as you see fit. I could choose to display 5, 10, or 20 articles at a time on the old version. The new iPhone version doesn’t even give you settings at all.
On both versions, there are 2 links at the bottom of your feed list: “Load More” and “Mark These Items as Read.” On the mobile version these links are stacked on top of one another and take up the same amount of screen space. Clicking either link is easy. But on the iPhone version the “Load More” link is left-aligned and significantly larger than the “Mark These Items as Read” link which is right justified. The first time I tried to click the mark-as-read link I actually clicked the load more link because that link spans the width of the iPhone’s screen. It’s awesome that they do that so I don’t have to be so specific with my touch but the mark items as read link doesn’t span the width of the iPhone and you must be very specific with your touch on that link. And the space it takes up is so much smaller than the load more link that it’s too easy to accidentaly touch the load more link.
Obviously the iPhone version is still in beta and these things can be easily fixed. But I wish more developers would remember that it’s never a good user experience to take features away (unless it’s proven that the feature is little-used and gets in the way of completing tasks). You should start with you already have and then add functionality to improve the user experience. I just hope they add those settings back. I won’t be able to use the iPhone-specific version until they do. Luckily for me, the mobile version was already an awesome iPhone app to begin with.
The Mac in Corporate America
I use a corporate-supplied MacBook Pro in an environment that is almost exclusively Windows. It’s a challenge, to say the least. This isn’t the first time I’ve worked on a Mac in an all-Windows corporate environment and you quickly learn how to troubleshoot your own machine since many IT people do not have the slightest clue how to help you if a problem occurs. Luckily for me the lines between Mac and PC have blurred considerably since the old OS 9 days and working in a PC environment isn’t as difficult as it used to be. Most people I interact with who don’t know the computer I’m using will probably never know the computer I’m using. They assume I’m on a PC just like them.
If you’re ever concerned about moving to a Mac because you fear that the software will be different or you won’t be able to share files with PC users, I’m here to put that fear to rest. Here’s a list of software I use that keeps me working with PC users:
- Microsoft Office 2008 – Written specifically for the Mac and is completely interoperable with Microsoft Office for the PC. It has Entourage instead of Outlook but they are pretty much the same applications. I am on an exchange server, my calendar is in sync, I have access to the corporate directory, etc.
- Keynote 08 – This gem just kicks Powerpoint’s booty and there’s no sense in using Powerpoint. I do my own presentations anyway so I don’t need to share my files with someone else. On the rare occasion I do need to share my presentation with another person I just export my Keynote file as a .ppt file. I usually lose some of the nifty animations but the presentation is still better than anything you can produce with Powerpoint.
- Omnigraffle Pro 5 – Superior to Microsoft Visio 2007 in almost every way. The beauty of it is that I get to use such a great program for all of my diagrams and PC users never know the difference because I can open and save in the Visio format. I’ve shown other IA’s Omnigraffle and how you can quickly create a site map using the outline mode and they’re always blown away.
- OmniPlan 1.5 – I’ve never used Microsoft Project so I can’t make a direct comparison but OmniPlan does the job nicely and no one has any problems opening and viewing my files. The Omni Group is on the ball. They just make killer software with real-world business uses. I also use OmniOutliner (which is never closed) and OmniFocus to help me keep my thoughts and tasks in order.
- Adobe Creative Suite – No one outside of myself has any need to open a Photoshop document or Illustrator document but they could if they had the software. Just like Microsoft Office, Adobe created their software to be completely interoperable between Macs and PCs. Just don’t use PostScript fonts and you should be fine.
- Parallels – When push comes to shove and I have to use a PC because some business application requires Active X or I’m working with Sharepoint I can open Windows XP and work with Windows applications just like they were installed on my Mac. The move to Intel was one of the smartest moves Apple has made and the architecture allows me to use Windows at almost native speed in a virtual world. It works so much better than Virtual PC ever did.
In addition to these titles that allow me to work with PC users I also use Mac-only software that I couldn’t imagine living without. Programs like 1Password, Coda, CSSedit, Delicious Library, MarsEdit, Skitch, TextMate, and VisualHub. I use .Mac to keep my Address Book, Calendar, Bookmarks, Mail Accounts, and FTP sites in sync but that service has finally gotten a Windows counterpart with Microsoft’s announcement of the Live Mesh service. Even though .Mac has it’s problems (and it does) I still find it incredibly useful, especially the online disk space.
One of the biggest myths is that you don’t get good software on the Mac. There may not be as many applications produced for the Mac but the software that is produced is almost always superior to anything you can find on Windows. I’m trying to say that without sounding like a fanboy but I know I come across that way. I just think the Mac software developers take a lot of pride in their work and it shows.
The Mac is definitely making a comeback and it’ll be showing up in more and more businesses. There’s no reason it should be excluded anymore. I work on a Mac every day and I’m able to access our network, use Cisco VPN to log in remotely, share files, and open and save PC documents. It’s truly a business machine.
UPDATE: My friend Pat Charles pointed me to this article on InfoWorld that has real-world data to support my claim that Macs will be showing up in more and more businesses.
UPDATE 2: It looks like this is a timely blog post as there are many more articles coming out about this very subject. Check out Business Week’s The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit.
UPDATE 3: This will be my last update on this post but this has never happened to me before. Clearly I was on to something. Please check out MacUser’s “Macs in business: Making the case” for their perspective.