Thursday 30 August 2007

Open Standards

I've been playing with calendar software/services. It started with a nifty application called Rainlendar, which allowed me to enter my friend's birthdays as well as any pending tasks. Some time later Google launched its calendar service and I moved my schedules onto their server. Although Microsoft's MSN (or Live or whatever you want to call it) and Yahoo also have calendars built into their email services, I never use them. Google allows me to share my calendars in iCal format which can be read by many programs and online services. Microsoft only lets you export to Outlook, which I hate so much it's not installed on my computer. I don't think you can share Yahoo's calendar.

As more and more services like PageFlakes and NetVibes come online, my insistence on using open standards paid off. I can now incorporate my calendars into these "personal portals" which would have been impossible had I stuck with MS or Yahoo.

The lesson here is that sticking to open standards is good because your data is not confined to the original service provider. If a competitor comes up with a better way of working with the data, you can take your data and defect to the superior service. In short, it gives you the consumer more choices.

Which explains why I still don't see myself buying an Apple product, despite their superior functionality and aesthetic design. The iPod forces you to upload songs with iTunes and you can't buy songs from anyone else except iTunes Music Store (unless it's from eMusic, which has no DRM). The iPhone forces you to use their nominated mobile provider, AT&T, and you must unlock the phone with your iTunes account. Sure there are ways around these restrictions, but the fact that Apple consistently create their products around closed systems shows their unwillingness to work with competing products. I have no intention to deal with companies that restrict my choices.

So there you go: open good, closed bad. Alternatively, Google good (usually), Apple bad.

Saturday 25 August 2007

Reality TV

I find it ironic that people in Britain should complain about racist comments being thrown around in Big Brother. The reality is that there are many racist people in our society and BB (Big Brother), being a reality show, inherited the vice.

I am confused as to whether the complainers are denying the existence of racism in their country, or are they angry at BB revealing too much reality? The former claim is obviously false, as demonstrated by the participants in BB, whereas the latter is self-defeating: people watch BB because they like seeing reality on TV, but that "reality" better conform to their moral standard. Trouble is, the scenario where everyone does conform to the moral standard is not the reality. It appears those viewers are unsure of what they want to see: the whimsical actions that is reality, or the unlikely chain of events carefully crafted by storytellers.

Saturday 18 August 2007

One Hand iPhone

I'm not going to discuss why I will not buy an iPhone even when it becomes available in Australia. Maybe I will talk about that -- and other Apple products -- in another post. What I want to talk about now is a strange idea.

Through heavy marketing, Apple has got everyone to associate touch screen phone with iPhone. It is not the first touch screen phone, but it may be the most usable (I don't know, just guessing). Clearly a touch screen allows for more creative ways to interact with the device, such as zooming into a picture with two fingers. However, I wonder if it can pass my "one hand" test.

One day on my way to uni, I reflected on how I use my current phone, the Nokia 5300. I would often whip out my phone with my left hand -- it is always in my left pocket -- and start working the navigation keys or keypad with my thumb. The only exception is when I am typing in a message or note to myself, in which case I use both thumbs.

Having discovered this habit, I wondered how well one can operate the iPhone with a left thumb only. I won't say it is impossible, but from what I saw in the commercials, it may not be the easiest thing. In the ads they always hold it with one hand and operate the screen with the other. The iPhone is also wider than the 5300 so my thumb may not reach the screen.

Not being able to "one hand" a phone would be inconvenient. Speaking of convenience, I would also like to find out the possibility of skipping a music track without taking the phone out of my pocket. I tend to do that a lot.

Tuesday 7 August 2007

Counting Days

Yesterday I had my investment tute. There was a question that required us to work out the number of coupons paid by a bond. The coupons are paid every March 15 and September 15, and the bond goes from July 2007 to March 2019. So the first coupon pays on 15 September 2007 and then the 15th of every March and September until March 15, the last coupon. Clearly there should be 24 coupon dates.

The guy next to me challenged the tutor's answer, claiming that "there is only one coupon date in 2007 and one in 2019, so there should be less than 24 coupon dates." He reckoned there should only be 22 coupons.

To confirm his answer, the tutor wrote "Sep 2007" and "Mar 2019" on the board, paused and thought for a minute, then proceeded to write down the years "08", "09"...up to "18" between the two dates. He then counted the middle years twice to make sure there were 11 years in between, 22 coupon dates excluding the first and last dates, so there are 24 dates in total. He was right after all.

Clearly neither of them could count, or count quickly enough to save their lives. There are 13 years between 2007 and 2019 inclusive, so the student's calculation should be 13x2-2 = 24, since Sep 2007 and March 2019 must be excluded from the total. While the tutor had the correct count, he should know that 2018-2008 = 10, but that doesn't include the year 2008, so he must add one to his answer to get 11 years. That would have been much faster than writing every year out then count them. One wonders what he would do if it was a 50 year bond.

I was amazed -- as well as horrified -- that this was a tutorial for a third year finance subject.