This is a guest post by Dana Harrison. Check up on his other activities at The Linux Experiment and his other posts on audiophonik.

Hi, all!  You may have noticed already by reading my slightly different name, or perhaps you’ve heard of me over on the wildly popular site I co-founded, The Linux Experiment, but I am not the usual Phil.  My name is Dana, and I’m a young professional working in IT for a large insurance company.  I work with Phil and also had the pleasure of founding The Linux Experiment with him.  This is my second guest post for audiophonik.

This time around, Phil has asked me to do another review for an application available on Google’s Android platform.  This time, it surrounds my new (I use that phrase loosely) HTC Magic+ phone on Rogers, sporting Android 1.5 because HTC and Rogers are too damn lazy to have updated me yet to Android 2.1.

Swype: An Introduction

Swype is a multi-platform, and rather kick-ass, replacement to the usual hum-drum keyboards offered with today’s touch-screen smartphones and other devices.  It offers gesture-based text entry for all of the usual applications included with these devices, like e-mail, messaging, and web-browsing.  Here’s a nifty screenshot:

The idea behind Swype is simple: instead of individual key presses on a QWERTY or T9-based keypad, the user simply slides their finger around on the screen, covering the keys for each word they want to type.  The sequence above could correspond to “or” or “our” – in this situation, both options would show up on a prompt.  To better simulate “or”, you could slide your finger up and around the other buttons, stopping at “r”.

Sounds awesome – how about in practice?

While it takes a bit of getting used to, Swype works beautifully in real-world applications.  It’s intuitive, quick, and incredibly accurate – more than once have I randomly scribbled my thumb over a few different keys, and nine times out of ten it gets the exact word I was thinking of.  Getting used to single-thumbing a full QWERTY setup can be challenging, after only two days of full Swype use I’m sure that I’ve improved over my previous typing speed.

The only real ‘issue’ I’ve encountered is actually with my phone itself.  I’ve found that having a second-generation Android device can… lag, at times.  Word choice can take up to a few seconds to show up, depending on how badly I’ve butchered the key gestures.  On the upside, I can continue typing along, hoping the whole time that the proper words are going to come up (before they all do at once).  The screen on the HTC Magic can also get a little… moist at times, which will sometimes cause sliding motions to skip over the screen, missing letters.  Maybe I’m just a sweaty bastard, I don’t know.

The Verdict

Swype is a fantastic, easy-to-use, and super-fast alternative to the standard keyboard of any touch-screen device.  While the public beta is closed for now, I’m sure it’ll either be up again shortly or pop up on the Market for several mobile devices in no time.  I suggest you get it as soon as you can.

Screen captures to follow – video, if I can manage it – as soon as I figure out how the hell to get it to work on Windows.

Recently, I’ve been reorganizing my computers based on their usage. My old HTPC, has resumed its duties as my primary desktop/server, my Mac Mini has been attached to the my desktop through Synergy, my server was given to my brother for personal use, and his old computer – a nettop – is now being used as our new HTPC.

After a painful decision making process – a topic for another time, and another post – I decided that this nettop, named Apollo after the Greek god of many things including “music, poetry, and the arts” [as close as I could get to entertainment],  should run Ubuntu 10.4 with XBMC as the media center app. After testing it’s media playback capabilities from a local file, I was rather impressed. I set out to add a SMB share from within XBMC, and was prompted to add a username and password.

I wasn’t really expecting this, because Leviathan – my desktop/sever running Windows 7 – has public sharing turned on, as well as a guest account. I entered in my credentials, and was asked yet again for a username and password. After trying multiple times, I decided to quit XBMC and see if I could get Ubuntu to connect to the share. Here too, I was prompted for a username and password, again and again.

Next I headed to the terminal to run smbclient. This didn’t work either, as I was shown a message saying smbclient failed with “SUCCESS – 0″. I guess success shouldn’t be zero, so my next move was to attempt mounting the network share using CIFS. Again, I was met with repeated defeat.

Begrudgingly I took to the internet with my problem, only to find that there were many people unable to connect to their Windows 7 from Ubuntu. The suggestions ranged from registry hacks to group policy administration, none of which worked. One repeated suggestion however, was to un-install the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant. However, as a user of the Windows Live Essentials (Wave 4) Beta that was recently released – I had no such program. I did however have a similar application called the Windows Live Messenger Companion, which I chose to uninstall – again, to no avail.

However, I soon reasoned that perhaps whatever was blocking people using the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant was now being used within the actual Windows Live Messenger client or the other Windows Live Essentials apps that I’d recently installed. I started by uninstalling everything but Windows Live Messenger – because I really, really like the beta version. Alas, this did not help. Next I uninstalled the actual Windows Live Messenger client and voila – I was able to connect with no prompting for passwords at all. Because that makes -any- sense.

As a matter of interest, I installed the regular WLM non-beta client and made sure that the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant was installed, and tried to connect again. Not surprisingly, I was no longer able to connect to my Windows 7 shares. After un-installing the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant my shares were back up and I was mostly happy. Except that I couldn’t use the new Windows Live Messenger beta.

I can’t be sure if the other tinkering I did also helped clear up my problems, but as a recap here are the steps I recommend to access your Windows 7 shares from Ubuntu:

1) If you have the Windows Live Essentials (Wave 4) beta installed, you’ll have to uninstall all of the applications that come with this. For now, you can install the current version of Windows Live Messenger and the other Windows Live Essentials.

2) If you have Windows Live Messenger installed, or ANY of the Windows Live Essentials programs installed check to see if you have the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant installed. If so, uninstall it.

3) Hopefully, now you can enjoy your Windows 7 shares in Ubuntu

Important Note:

Beta software has this nasty habit of leaving beta status sooner or later. If this issue is not resolved when the newest version of Windows Live Messenger is officially released, you may not be able to use the Window Live Messenger client if you need your Windows 7 shares from Ubuntu. I would suggest using an application like Pidgin as your instant messenger, as it can also connect to the Windows Live Messenger service. Other options include Digsby, Miranda, and Trillian.

Software mentioned in this article:

Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Essentials (Wave 4) beta
Synergy
XBMC
Ubuntu 10.4
Pidgin
Digsby
Miranda IM
Trillian

It happened when I was looking at an older post on the site, one with links I had already visited, but forgot that I had seen. For whatever reason, the theme used at the blog styles visited links a red colour. Not really a big deal right? Red’s a nice enough colour.

When I considered hitting the link, I noticed it was red. Immediately I changed my mind and kept browsing. Moments later, I found another red link, and was a little irritated. It took me a few seconds to realize why, but thanks to Wikipedia‘s styling, I have apparently started associating red links with missing content.

For those readers who aren’t familiar with Wikipedia, it hosts a bunch of information on basically everything. Each page on the site is full of links to other pages within the site, but sometimes those pages get removed, or links to pages that don’t exist are added to remind someone to make that page later. To help out their users, Wikipedia has styled these links in a red colour, so that readers know that there’s no page at the other end of that link.

Realizing this, I went ahead and clicked the links to find that I’d already seen the content. So what does this mean? For starters, the blog’s operators should probably fix this problem, being as it is a blog for a user experience group and shouldn’t go around messing with people’s mental models. It also means that the next time I design a web-based system I’ll have a new mental model in mind to optimize how my users will interact with it.

I’d like to point out that IxDA Waterloo is an awesome group. If you’re in the Waterloo region and interested in user experience or interaction design, I’d highly recommend joining the User Experience Peer Group at Communitech’s website, joining the local IxDA group, and coming out to their monthly meetings. March’s meeting was on table-top computing, and in April we did a UX Show and Tell where I recently gave a short presentation on Project MORIS. Its definitely worth your time.

Has anyone else noticed they’ve started to treat red links in the same manner? Questions/remarks about mental models or something else I mentioned in this post? Let me know in the comments.

Imagine a sporting event — Natal could know which team you’re for because it sees your jersey, or knows you thought a bad call was made when you yell ‘boo.’ It learns about you and gets smarter to create a more tailored entertainment experience.

The sporting events/their broadcasters could theoretically partner with Microsoft and collect this sort of  information live, and display it during breaks in the event. For example, it could show the precent of Natal viewers who also thought that call was bad, or how many Natal viewers are cheering for the same team as you, and how many are cheering for the opposite team.

This kind of new interaction amazes me, but also scares me. I find it really eerie how close this situation is to a 1984-esque world, in which your TV watches you just as much as you watch it. Regardless, the technology is very exciting, and applications like this one will continue to catch my interest.

Let me know your thoughts on this kind of living room interaction in the comments!

Project MORIS was the final project to a directed study on User Interface Design that Tyler Burton, Jon Fritz and I completed in the Fall of 2009 at Wilfrid Laurier University under the supervision of Dr. Angele Hamel.  We decided to analyze the current registration system used at WLU called LORIS. After our analysis, we created a prototype of a new interface for LORIS using Visual Studio with Windows Forms and C#.

For the presentation we spent a few minutes whipping up a slideshow that gives a quick overview of what features of LORIS that Project MORIS was designed to fix. We intended to show a live demo of the application, however we ran out of time (presentations were limited to 6 minutes) so I decided to post both the slideshow and the application on the web. This way anyone who wants can check out the application or see a quick highlight of what we aimed to fix.

You can read a bit more about it on my About page, or just download the files here:

Presentation: Redesigning LORIS [.ppt]

Presentation: Redesigning LORIS [.pdf]

Application: Project MORIS [Requires the .NET Framework 3.0]

Leave your thoughts or questions in the comments and I’ll get back to you!

I started thinking of what else you could do with that sort of technology. The first thing that came to mind was to move information from the dashboard to the windshield: your speed, gas tank’s gauge and whatever else you might fancy.

Now of course, there are dangers to having things displayed on the windshield. The big concern is that they may get in the way of seeing what’s on the road. Having them more prominently displayed might also cause drivers to look at them more often, causing a distraction. Both of those problems can be resolved by having some sort button on the steering wheel that toggles the display.

GM’s examples are even cooler than my initial ideas though: they have the system highlight the edge of the road in foggy conditions and pick out signs along the way and bring them to your attention with an outline. It seems that the system only highlights one thing at a time right now, but it’s not much of a stretch to imagine they’ll be able to do something like full road highlighting to make driving at night easier.

GM's HUD showing the edge of the road in fog

GM's HUD pointing out the speed limit sign

What excites me the most about this technology is the possibility for a GPS system where the instructions and path are drawn onto the windshield. This might actually make using a GPS safer, as you won’t have to look away from the road to check your path – it would be drawn onto the road! I made a really crude mock up of what the overlay could look like using a picture of the King St. and Weber St. intersection in Waterloo from Google Maps with Street View.

Windshield GPS Overlay
(Click to view higher resolution)

I really hope that GM can expand on this technology and make it affordable. I’d really love to see the applications of this make it to consumers.

Source: GM Makes Your Entire Windshield a Head-Up Display @ Wired.com

This is a guest post by Dana Harrison. Check up on his other activities at The Linux Experiment and his other posts on audiophonik.

Hi, all!  You may have noticed all ready by reading my slightly different name, or perhaps you’ve heard of me over on the wildly popular site I co-founded, The Linux Experiment, but I am not the usual Phil.  My name is Dana, and I’m a young professional working in IT for a large insurance company.  I work with Phil and also had the pleasure of founding The Linux Experiment with him.

For reasons unbeknown to me, Phil asked me a few months ago to install Slide Screen for Android onto my Rogers HTC Dream – that’s a ‘T-Mobile G1′ for any American readers out there.  Slide Screen is basically a complete home screen replacement for the standard Android interface, and is meant to reduce screen clutter and information overload in a nicely presented, simple, single location.

Installation and Setup

This was just about the simplest thing in the world, as is the installation of most standard Android applications.  Open up the Android Market, search for Slide Screen, and install.

Setup was also quite simple, offering the option of either completely replacing my home screen (which I chose) or running as a launchable application.

First Impressions

I have to hand it to the folks at Larva Labs – they know how to code a nice-looking interface.  The Slide Screen interface is certainly clean if nothing else, but while preventing me from experiencing information overload, I feel I may have been left out of information altogether.

Among other frustrations, I found the Slide Screen application significantly slowed down the all ready slow ROM included on the Rogers HTC Dream.  In addition, the constantly running application reduced battery life noticeably.

The notification widget for missed calls also, inexplicably, did not actually bring me to my call log(s) as expected, but instead populated the number in my phone application for quick dialing.

I also found the ‘simplification’ of information rather strange.  Instead of keeping the information I want in plain view, I found that the application held information I want in inconvenient (ie, having to launch it myself) places.

Final Thoughs

While I can see the merit in this application, it’s not specifically for me.  If the folks at Larva Labs can find a way to integrate more popular applications into the main screen while reducing overall memory footprint, I may explore it again in the future.

For now, I am falling in love with the Sense interface of my HTC Magic!

The about me page now features a projects section which acts as a portfolio to highlight the projects that I’ve been a part of that are related to my technical skills. Take a look to see what kind of shenanigans I get myself into on my spare time and through school.

Take for example, a stove I saw with touch controls. This stove had an attractive glossy black surface, with touch sensitive areas seamlessly built into the surface. It looked very elegant, however I was immediately concerned about the usability of such a stove. The first scenario that came to mind was the user groping around for controls while trying to cook a difficult dish. It’s not difficult to imagine that the user might burn themselves by touching part of the element because there is no tactile or visual indication of where the touch-controlled area ends and the element begins.

Similarily in the comments of my pseudo-review of the new MyFord Touch dashboard, Jon and I discussed the issue of having these touch sensitive buttons in place of traditional dials and push buttons. The old input methods worked for years because they’re easy for the user to find when their attention is required on the road, and using them provides tactile feedback – be it the physical turning of the dial, or the depression of the button when you press it. Touch buttons and sliders will not lend the same convenience.

But now, an example of touch technology done correctly. A colleague showed me this video for the Delta touch faucet using Delta’s Touch₂O technology – a faucet that can be activated by a touch from the user. The purpose of the touch control is highlighted in the video below.

The video highlights how a user with dirty hands can tap the faucet with their wrist to activate the water – preventing the mess from spreading onto the faucet’s handle. A lot of the usual concerns about touch technology don’t apply to this situation. Since the faucet only preforms one action “turn on the water”, the user will not have to search for the correct button or area to touch. Additionally, it’s easy to tell if the action worked – the water will be there, or it won’t. Another piece of convenience of this product is that the traditional controls still work alongside this new fancy one, so that the user can make the transition to using the new feature easily.

If more industries can work on thinking of creative ways to use touch technology instead of trying to work them into already existing systems, I think that we’ll see more applications of touch technology that won’t aggravate or inconvenience the user.

Source: Smart Solutions: Touch₂O @ Delta Faucet’s Website
Source: Delta touch faucet, infinitely better than a pump handle @ dvice
Video: Delta Faucet “Hands” TV Ad @ Youtube

It seems though, that while I was off dreaming of the future, Ford decided that the future is now. At this year’s CES, Ford showed off its expansions on sync, as well as their new MyFord prototype. The MyFord prototype featured a single, giant, Volkswagen-esque speedometer, with a digital display on either side. As Engadget points out in their coverage of MyFord at CES, the kicker of the whole MyFord setup is the 8-inch touchscreen display in place of traditional radio controls. This is where SYNC will display information, and allows for a slew of features – including 3G/4G connectivity, and an in-car browser.

Ford didn’t just limit their news to hardware, as they announced what they’re calling the “Sync App Ecosystem”, which will allow smartphone apps to easily hook into a SYNC API. They also announced increased support for different mobile phones, including Android, iPhone, Palm, and Blackberry. This approach is useful because it won’t introduce yet another “app store” for you to have to buy apps from. Ideally, the developers of your existing apps on your Smartphone will just push out updates that include SYNC support, and voila! SYNC integration for everyone.

Alas, these announcements were not without some drawbacks. While the browser was by far my favourite announcement, as it would allow Hype Machine use on the go like I mentioned earlier, Ford’s has decided for safety concerns, the browser will be disabled while the car is moving. A good idea if you want to prevent drivers from reading the news or watching Youtube while they’re driving – however what about the passenger? Why can’t they use the browser? Ideally, they should be able to, without distracting the driver. Additionally, this means no Hype Machine support either – as there is still no mobile phone application for the site – even though they teased one for the iPhone back in October 2008. Even then, who knows if Flash support would be enabled.

On the hardware side of things, in what I assume is an effort to make operating the rest of the vehicle seem like operating the 8-inch touchscreen, they’ve removed traditional buttons and replaced them with touch sensitive areas. While this seems good, I can garuntee that lack of tactile feedback will not be appreciated – if for nothing else than that you won’t be able to fumble around with the controls until you feel the button you’re looking for. In fact, you’ll probably end up writing a tweet, listing yourself as “its complicated” on Facebook, and changing the radio station 8 times before you finally feel your way to the button you’re looking for. This sort of defeats the purpose of trying to create a user interface that doesn’t require the driver to take their attention off the road.

Overall I find this a much more promising development in the area of having computers in cars than the initial launch of SYNC. The new hardware opens up a lot of opportunities for developers to get in there through mobile phone apps and have a presence in vehicle. Hopefully the whole situation with browser-lock can be alleviated somehow, and the tactile feedback won’t be as much of an issue as I’m expecting it to be. Additional technical features, pictures, videos, and Engadget’s thoughts can be read in the source links.

Source: Engadget – MyFord dash and Sync App Ecosystem hands-on