Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Twitter: give "RT" references "for free" (suggestion)

There's been pleeeenty of discussion on the internet about the way Twitter is subtly changing its mechanisms (regarding retweets) but with not-so-subtle consequences. In short, I feel the current situation is a bit crooked, and at fault.

Short summary of current situation:

- you can either do "official" retweet which means the original tweet is unmodified and shows with the original tweeter's icon, but also to your followers. Essentially, you're giving the tweet more publicity.

This is good, but it lacks making even trivial corrections (s.a. fixing typos or formatting, or making the tweet slightly easier for the readers). Often, such changes are desirable.

So you have the "unofficial" RT characters. Mark "RT @someone" anywhere in a tweet and it's taken that this is a retweet (maybe edited) from that user. The new tweet will show under your "colors" at your followers only, like it came from you (which it did). The "RT" is just a social convention, though some (non-official) tools happily support it.

I like both. They serve different uses.

Now, let's take this tweet today from @TheEconomist.

: A Greek entrepreneur discusses the difficulties of doing business in the country due to bureaucracy

I like a different way of highlighting there's audio involved. Not at the very front, but subtly just before the link. Also, I like to inform readers if flash is required (which it is for the link above). So:

A Greek entrepreneur discusses the difficulties of doing business in the country due to bureaucracy. (flash audio)  RT @TheEconomist

That's it - and send. No - you cannot. Too many characters.

I could send it without the "RT" part but that's kind of stupid. I want to give @TheEconomist the glory. Worse still, if someone re-retweets this (the "RT way") she'd be adding my twitter id at the end, "@bmdesignhki". Now we're truly out of the 140 character bounds. This is very known problem.

The cure

What if any "RT @someone @another" mentions in tweets would be handled not as part of the 140 characters but "free", as metadata of the tweet. Twitter could do this. The implications would be:

- Allowing any tweet to be RT'ed any number of times, without bothering people with the 140 char limit
- Settling the official/unofficial retweet discussion. Hopefully.

The user experience would not really change at all (at least, not for worse). Any "RT" tweet would be shown in *my* colors, so that I cannot mess with the reputation of someone else, by malign modifications or fakes of their tweets. I guess this is behind the official policy of unmodified-retweets-only.

Better still, Twitter could actually link metadata to the earlier tweets this one was based upon (as a chain), not only the twitter id's. This way, I could "wind back" to earlier tweets if needed (s.a. the @TheEconomist original).

In short, I see this pretty easy to do. It's more of a political issue than technical, most likely. Please - do it.

If Apple was Twitter, they'd do this. :)  Give us modifiable retweets Done Right.

Addendum

Actually, give also '#tags' free of char-charge. In other words both retweeted id's and tags of a tweet (especially if at the end of a tweet) should be freely addable. If someone tweets a full 140-char masterpiece, I can then "RT" it but also add tags of my liking - i.e. "#masterpiece" - to it. The only place where the 140 char limit really stands on my way is these two issues.

Should be easy to fix, right? :)

Saturday, June 25, 2011

What is my future tablet (as in 2012-13) like?

I've bought two electronic books (Making Things Happen and Beautiful Visualizations) that simply won't get read without a tablet. (the woooorst excuse for new gadget, ever?)

Anyways, while I've been keeping a curious eye on the HP Touchpad, I'm beginning to doubt I'll actually buy one. The resolution is still the same as in iPad and the #1 sales argument for me would be 'paper crisp' readability. I do want color, also, so Kindle is out.

SO, here are the specs for making a tablet - just for my taste and need.

- paper crisp, FUN readability of electronic books and/or magazines
- ability to 3G-roam via my iPhone (I don't want another SIM card in the tablet)
- Great presentation skills ~ ability to run Keynote presentations on the tablet, to an HDMI (or similar) adapter (-> video screen)
- price around 399..499 eur

This should serve mainly as a reminder, in case I feel tempted to still get the HP touchpad. I shouldn't. Come 2012, there'll be an iPad matching these specs. Until then, back to my paperback. :)

Addendum:
Some links to what other people expect:
http://www.huliq.com/10177/analysis-designing-tablet-future

To me, storage is not an issue. Anything goes, and the OS should use cloud integration to essentially provide you with "unlimited" storage. Treat the local (flash) storage as a cache of sorts. (seems the article actually agrees with this)

Addendum II:
Viewing the Windows 8 video on Youtube made me think of adding "16:9 aspect ratio" to the list. It would not hurt, but I doubt iPads will be changing their aspect ratio anytime (soon/ever). And maybe for reading books that would actually be sub-optimal as well.

Btw, the usability of Win8 on tablets seems to be Right There. I'd be fine without the whole traditional desktop layer. Windows without Windows, eh? :)

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

New 3DConnexion "10 beta 10" drivers - still not usable under VMWare > Win7 32-bit > Inventor 11

I tried the 3DConnexion (Logitech 3D mouse subsidiary) "10 beta 10" drivers today. Great improvement on both Windows 7 (32-bit) and OS X side. At least it feels way swifter, now.


However, one homework remains for 3DConnexion and one for Autodesk.


The backdrop (shortly)
I'm running things on a Mac Mini, and Inventor 11 is almost the only reason (Solitaire being the second) for having Boot Camp and Windows 7 (32-bit) on this machine. I can use the Boot Camp partition either via dual boot or via VMWare (as a virtual machine running under OS X).


While this sounds like a complicated setup, it really isn't. I presume it to be rather common for OS X users, really.


The problem (3DConnexion's homework)
The SpaceExplorer USB 3D mouse works splendidly under VMWare, but the Inventor driver for it is useless under the VMWare Fusion > Inventor 11 setup. Response times are in seconds. If it weren't for this, I'd be using Inventor as a virtual machine.

Since all the "little demos" are as fast on VMWare as they are on native boot, I'm very inclined to thinking this is actually some kind of bug somewhere in the Inventor / 3DConnexion code. Something is done wrong and can be fixed.

Homework: try this setup. Analyze it. Getting it "right" will be a relief to us Mac + Inventor users.

The problem (Autodesk's homework - or maybe VMWare's)


Inventor license handling doesn't work with VMWare launching from a Boot Camp partition. The same license should be valid, regardless of running the partition natively or as a virtual machine. It's a one copy, not two.




This has been reported to Autodesk in the forum or bug system, but I don't expect much to be happening on it. I believe, VMWare could fix this on their part independently by reporting the magic thingies Autodesk asks (probably hard disk serial number or something) in a uniform fashion.

This means one must make a decision, either to run Inventor 11 always native or always virtualized. That kind of sucks, don't you think.




With these companies doing the above mentioned homework, life with VMWare, Inventor 11 and Mac would be pretty much perfect! :)


Picture of VMWare Fusion running Inventor 11. The "jet" demo runs as smooth as ever, controlled by the SpaceExplorer USB 3D mouse. The handle in Inventor - well - does not. Notice the "UNREGISTERED VERSION" in the caption. This copy really is registered (but on the native boot side).