RKL4

PiggyBank

2004-12-21T14:43:00.000+09:00

When you have changes, put the changes into your PiggyBank. That's how parents teach their children to save money. In future, when no more cash, money will be saved electronically, PiggyBank will die also.

8 Songs Walk

2004-10-01T08:39:00.000+09:00

I just took a 8 songs walk this morning accompanied by my iPod and dabbled to make a little calculation.

In my 15GB, i can put up to about 3000 5M's Songs. So, if I listen to 8 songs each day, it will took a year to listen to all song. And if I have 100 starred 5 (favorite) songs, I will listen to each 10 times a year, so it's about 4 months (I have no research data for this). And how many new release song I will consider? oh .. any statistician here? :( please help!

The point is capacity of storage is no longer an issue. So, what's next? is it more features? or is it compatibility? will Microsoft win again with their genius marketing fleet against cool but stupid Steve Jobs?

Stop Trial and Error

2004-09-07T22:58:00.000+09:00

For hello world (simple) program, you may use Trial and Error method. But for big project, never try that. It's suicide.

Beauty

2004-09-06T21:52:00.000+09:00

How could you develope software without design? Without design, you can't understand the beauty of the software. Beauty of design is the best way to beat the complexity, so don't miss it.

DVD Virtual Machine

2004-09-05T19:51:00.000+09:00

Just read about DVD spesification and found that the design is cool enough. DVD author just like a programmer, create machine code. DVD Player must create a Virtual Machine to process the command and end user can navigate the dvd when watching it. When navigating the DVD, machine code actually being executed by virtual machine.

Taking Lives

2004-09-04T22:15:00.000+09:00

Project without good planning, design, assessment is a taking live project. Sometimes software project seems easy and after some long, you realize it's not as easy as you think. Most venture company lack this.

Programming Usability

2004-09-03T21:05:00.000+09:00

Hate to err. Need trick with high usability in programming.

iMac G5

2004-09-02T22:54:00.000+09:00

I prefer iMac G4. I don't care if the new one much more powerful but it lacks the design beauty. Most of consumer think like that. They like beauty more.

Teenager Doing Business

2004-09-01T19:27:00.000+09:00

Most of venture company is just like teenager. They think that they are cool, smart, unlimited power, genius but at last they will give up. If they don't manage it well, they will fail.

Naming

2004-08-31T22:48:00.000+09:00

Naming is always a hard thing. But we can't avoid naming though. No civilization without naming. Naming is part of invention.

GmailFs

2004-08-30T19:43:00.000+09:00

If reliability is a very very important issue in every filesystem, but not this one.

Human Being Memory

2004-08-29T20:52:00.000+09:00

Human is always the perfect creature in the history of universe, that's why robot development is to imitate human being intelligence. How memory work is important in human intelligence. But I think, human has flaw in shortterm memory. Capacity is prabably only up to 10 slot and in a few second, data will be removed from there. Should robot imitate that? Or try to design robot which is better than human being?

Meme

2004-08-28T19:36:00.000+09:00

The term was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. Meme is analogous to the gene. If you post your idea in your weblog. Your audiences probably replicate it, propagate it, mutate it to result variations, just like gene evolution.

First of All, Venture Company Must Be A Research Company

2004-08-27T11:37:00.000+09:00

There is no one player in free market. If venture company tries to attack big market, there must be big established player there. Venture has to compete with this big company and this venture will be killed right away. Why? venture is knocked down in every aspect. Venture can not win over big capital, big campaign, big salesforce, big management, big human resource, big research center, big customer service, and big name. If venture tries to attack small market, perhaps venture isn't going to be big. It will stay small, boring, and at last rest in peace. :)

Why venture must be a research company? Research can be kept away a little from Big Versus Small issue. Even big company has 10.000 researchers in hand, this isn't a guarantee to discover relativity theory. Single fighter Einstein discovered it. Blog revolution isn't invented by big player. And many other examples those missed by big player. No monopoly in research, innovation. Anybody can be an innovator. Innovation hasn't to be big. Small innovation can also ruin the market.

Backup Dilemma

2004-08-26T09:07:00.000+09:00

You know that you have biological alarm clock in your body. If you want to wake up at 4 o'clock for example, you can set you body alarm clock, and it will wake you up at 4 o'clock. But capitalism era forces you to go work on time, people think that they need artificial alarm clock as backup. And the problem arises when you combine both. It will become your habit to lean on the backup to wake you up, so you will miss alarm coming from your body, and it will become your habit to ignore your artificial alarm clock because your body not ready yet to wake up.

This is dilemma in this digital era. You can not depend on your main resource reliability anylonger, because computer is very unrealible. So you need backup. But combining both probably result in disaster.

Your Habit is Target of Imperialism

2004-08-25T21:58:00.000+09:00

Most of the time I spent is in front of PC. It already created my habit. Therefore, it's a little clumsy when I come to iMac. I am under imperialism now. New kind of imperialism, Digital Imperialism.

News Site RSS Feed

2004-08-24T22:11:00.000+09:00

I subscribe to more than 200 rss feed. My habit is to skip feeds from site that posts a lot like news site. I prefer to read feeds from site that has one or two posts everyday. If my habit prevails to the majority of users, RSS probably not good idea for news site.

Icon Problem

2004-08-23T11:13:00.000+09:00

An icon that shows the palm of an upraised hand indicates "halt" in the United States but signifies "here's excrement in your face" in Greece (Horton 1994).

What The Hell is The Humane Interface Design?

2004-08-22T18:52:00.000+09:00

"You would not design a machine that required one person to simultaneously operate two switches 3 meters apart: We all know that humans are not that large." -- excerpt from the Jef Raskin's book, The Humane Interface

Linguistic Determinism

2004-08-21T20:19:00.000+09:00

Piraha, one of tribes in Brazil, has language that has words only for counting one, two, and many. Piraha people have cognition problem in counting more than three. For example, they can't differentiate four from five. If language limitation shapes thought, we can make early conclusion that C++ programmers have better cognition than Java programmers due to C++ language richer than Java.

Older People Need Blog

2004-08-20T19:45:00.000+09:00

Grandma wrote on her blog "Hi, If you read this post, I'm dead". Older people probably need to write blog to record all their last days. Joke :)

Game vs Non-Game User Interface Design

2004-08-19T18:15:00.000+09:00

Game user interface hides features as much as possible and Non-Game user interface makes features as visible as possible.

Don't Treat Your Thought as Trash

2004-08-18T13:27:00.000+09:00

theBrain,gyronix,mindjet,casesoft. They are some of companies that create tools for thinking. Papers and pencil aren't enough any longer.

UIUnit

2004-08-17T16:44:00.000+09:00

Test Driven Development primary tools is JUnit for Java, NUnit for .Net, and CPPUnit for Cpp. But how about user interface? Developing UIUnit for user interface test is probably a nice idea though.

Future of Enterprise Software

2004-08-16T17:23:00.000+09:00

High cost, complexity, and risk of integration of incumbent enterprise software is probably solved by web services. Grandcentral is one of the leading company in this business. The idea is to move the burden of integration from enterprise to services company. They believe that service will replace software.

Why is Blog Very Revolutionary?

2004-08-15T15:04:00.000+09:00

Who used to have news site? Media companies. Who used to have personal site? Geeks. Now, in a couple of minutes, anybody can create your own personal or even news site. Isn't it revolutionary?

Misdesign Will Blow Your Own Mind

2004-08-14T16:05:00.000+09:00

If your computer in sleep mode, or if you turn off the monitor while the computer still on, and leave the computer. When you back to your computer, sometimes you forget that your computer still on, and push the power button to turn it on and boom, your computer turn off instead.

Personas

2004-08-13T19:07:00.000+09:00

Say, I am developing software. In order to write specification, first I interview endusers (personas) to know how they use current system and what they expect from the software. The main idea is how to design software that is personal to every enduser.

Branding

2004-08-12T13:08:00.000+09:00

If you want to meet a friend, hang out with him or her, and have some light chats, go to Starbuck. If you want to develope low performance application, go to Java. How about .NET? is it faster? From the perspective of brand, .NET is faster, simply due to .NET is not Java (brand for low performance). :)

VoIP in My Closet

2004-08-11T18:49:00.000+09:00

I have problem with kidney, and this morning my doctor called my closet to ask for my disease detail.

OQO

2004-08-10T15:36:00.000+09:00

A full PC that fits in your pocket. Is it the death of PDA? I don't think so. Non-geek will prefer PDA rather than PC. The problem is even simple PDA still scares grandma. :)

ebook

2004-08-09T15:53:00.000+09:00

I have an ebook that i really want to read. It's close to 1000 pages. How can I read that much? ebook innovates over printed book, but it's just like the printed book in a digital form.

My hope in future, ebook can revolutionize book, so we can read it easily and enjoy it just like watching movie perhaps. How could in 2 hours, we read the whole 1000 pages?

Bring Google to Your Desktop

2004-08-08T21:05:00.000+09:00

Lookout, X1, and many other similar softwares bring Google to your desktop. They claim that they have lightning-fast search technology.

How about idea to bring desktop to Google? P2P software have done this, but not that lightning fast.

2004-08-07T19:52:00.000+09:00

Tools for Using Gmail Conversation Concept in 1978

iPod's Video Player

2004-08-06T16:10:00.000+09:00

1. Will be a little bulky, so not enough in a pocket.
2. You cannot put it in your pocket while playing video off course, unless you can not
see the video.
3. iPod 20 GB 5000 Songs turns into iPod 20 GB 30 movies.
4. Battery life will be up to 2 hours.
5. Display 800x600 16 bit colors.
6. Video support mpeg4 and h.264.
7. Size 8.2 by 4.8 by 1.38 inches.
8. Weight 12.4 ounces.

This won't set the world on fire.

We The Media

2004-08-05T21:17:00.000+09:00

Gotcha. You read my blog. I can make my own news here. We all can create oue own. Now, if you have something worth saying, you can be heard.

2004-08-04T13:20:00.000+09:00

Curiosity is Dead

Don't Change The Channel

2004-08-03T23:00:00.000+09:00

Go to icerocket.com, then type anything, and click search. You get the list of results. Choose one result you want to navigate. Click Quick View and then BOOM. Now, you can see the site you want without change the channel. Quite cool idea.

Enjoy the idea.

EmoteMail

2004-08-02T22:09:00.000+09:00

If you send email, there are no tones nor emotions included. Emotemail captures facial expression, typing speed, and etc. These are used to analyze emotions of the sender when writing email.

Enjoy the idea.

Disruptive Incremental Innovation

2004-08-01T17:02:00.000+09:00

When I was having vacation in Kyoto last April, there was small bakery in Gion street. What's special about the bakery is customers can saw the bread machine directly through glass wall. Many people were standing there on a line to buy the bread while watching how the machine works. We also joined the line. Nothing special about the taste. I was sure that all customers were interested on the machine not the bread itself.

Example above told us that with stunningly easy and cheap idea, we can add value to the product.

Enjoy the idea.

Grandma Goes Surfing

2004-07-31T01:06:00.000+09:00

How can you differenciate Apple from PC? Apple is beautiful and PC is ugly, yes off course. :) There are many differences but one that related to this topic is Apple is a computer as a whole but PC is a computer that consists of hardwares, operating system, and softwares. PC and even Apple is fearful for grandma (computer illiterate).

Msntv from microsoft is also targeting grandma to use internet. They sell settop box (bundle with wireless keyboard and remote controller) to make internet accessible from tv, so grandma can surf.

Since the beginning of computer industry, usability experts have been trying to solve this problem. This not finished yet, computer industry still need revolutionary idea to this the problem. It may be you, that solve the problem. :)

Enjoy the idea.

Toilet Programming

2004-07-30T10:15:00.000+09:00

Office room usually consists of cubicles. each employee has one cubicle. I got a little wild idea, why don't we replace cubicles with toilets. In the toilet, we can concentrate and understand easier on things we are dealing with. This is subjective judgement off course. We need more research on that.

And if this is true, why don't we try to write code in the toilet. :))

Enjoy the idea.

Creative Commons

2004-07-29T02:36:00.000+09:00

Full copyright means all rights reserved. Example, all The Innovator's Dilemma's rights belong to Clayton Christensen and his publisher. Meanwhile public domain means no rights reserved. Example, you publish a photograph and anybody can use, modify, or even sell it.

Creative commons define the spectrum of possibilities between these two.

Enjoy the idea.

Collaborative Blog

2004-07-28T09:31:00.000+09:00

More than one person write blog about a specific topic.

Enjoy the idea.

Software Commoditization

2004-07-27T09:13:00.000+09:00

Electricity is a commodity. If you are out of electricity, you can use fuel powered electrical generator instead. How to commoditize software? Softwares have to implement certain standard or API, so customer can easily replace software from one company with others.

Enjoy the idea.

Topical Blog

2004-07-26T23:12:00.000+09:00

You write blog that focuses on a specific topic. An example is gizmodo. This blog focuses on writings about gadget.

Enjoy the idea.

Personal Blog

2004-07-25T22:20:00.000+09:00

You write your experiences, complaints or thoughts. You may also write poems or proses. If blog means online diary, this should be personal.

Enjoy the idea.

Gmail's Conversation Concept

2004-07-24T15:54:00.000+09:00

Conversation View

I am a subscriber of reSIProcate mailing list. Image above shows one of a conversation in the mailing list. Subject of the conversation is "Username as quoted field". It contains 8 emails. Shortcuts are provided to make it easy to navigate through the conversation.

Each email (outgoing or incoming) categorized into one conversation. This conversation view is very helpful, so we can look back and forth e-mail in a conversation easily. I think this is the main innovation in Gmail.

Enjoy the idea.

Meta Mail

2004-07-23T09:32:00.000+09:00

Meta mail, CNET Editor Esther Dyson's term for the extension of e-mail into a broader set of tools that can manage processes and the user's attention, instead of just information and content. With help from many tools, we can track and indentify many objects in e-mail. As an example, we can find that an e-mail is related to certain document, conversation, process, or schedule on calender. E-mail is not just like a regular e-mail any longer. It's connected to a certain process and to a certain user attention. If calculator gave way to the spreedsheet, e-mail may turn into meta mail.

Enjoy the idea.

Disruptive Technology

2004-07-22T08:14:00.000+09:00

VoIP penetration is started now. It was gaining foothold in the geeks and then now it is coming to broadband users. Finally with product improvement and broadband penetration, VoIP will displace incumbent's telephony.

Disruptive technology was coined by Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new, lower performance, but less expensive product. Blog may be disruptive compare to news site, RSS to mailing list.

I hope you got the idea.

P2P VoIP

2004-07-21T09:01:00.000+09:00

If A wants to communicate with B in a Non-P2P Network, there must be C as a router between them. In a P2P Network, there may be no router, so they can communicate directly. Even if the environment requires router between them, this router won't be fixed and may be more than one. Selection of router will be dynamically.

Skype uses P2P Network to provide VoIP. Without router (fixed router), voice quality will be better. In a Non-P2P Network, traffic load will be very high on router and this will reduce the quality of voice.

I hope you got the idea.

Transparent Video Facetop

2004-07-20T09:21:00.000+09:00

I have webcam on my computer and the other party also. I want to share my desktop with the other party. The other party video will appear transparently like ghost on my desktop as though they are on the opposite side of pane glass. The same thing with my video will appear transparently on desktop I share on the other party side. Both of us can control the desktop now.

We can use this technology on distributed pair programming, powerpoint presentation, remote helpdesk, distance learning, etc.

Facetop

I hope you got the idea.

Emotional Design

2004-07-19T03:30:00.000+09:00

If puppy makes a mistake, who can get angry at that? Don Norman's Emotional Design is well described by Aibo robot design. Its soft colors and awkward body language just make us smile when failures come.

Computer comes with many flaws nowadays. Even this simple blog may has many unexpected things. I should ask Don Norman whether this blog has enough beauty, pleasure, and fun to make audiences smile.

I hope you got the idea.

Markets are Conversations

2004-07-18T09:25:00.000+09:00

Say you want to buy a computer. You go to website of Dell. And then you see some spesifications. You don't buy it directly. In this era of networked market, you can ask friend, community, forum about the product. There will be conversations about the product. You can read customer reviews or editorial reviews. At last you can find out the truth about the product and decide to buy or not. It will be a challenge for marketer, public relation to provide this media of conversations. New ways of doing this will be invented.

I hope you got the idea.

Brand Journalism

2004-07-17T00:14:00.000+09:00

I just got my iPod a couple of days ago as a present from my girlfriend, Meylan -- "Meylan Meylan wo ai ni". I like it very much, it's really cool.

front view

back view

Meylan knew that I like iPod, that's why she gave me that as a present. I may be influenced by ad or story about the design of user interface.Others may be influenced by ad or story about the capacity of the storage device. Just like what McDonald's Chief Marketing Officer said, "no single ad tells the whole story" is the idea behind Brand Journalism. Audiences of my blog may be influenced by my story about iPod. Apple should thank me for this.

I hope you got the idea.

Just One More Political CampaignTool

2004-07-16T22:19:00.000+09:00

You write your political blog. It may be informational, social fact, or may contain your opinions politically on issues. You have audiences read it and your blog may result in electoral change.

As a tool for campaign team, it needs good management to succeed. In order to manage it well, you may need to invent another tool, system or even killer apps.

I hope you got the idea.

RKL4 Gets Online

2004-07-15T17:33:00.000+09:00

RKL4 stands for Ruko Lantai 4. It means 4th floor Ruko. I can't find an english word for Ruko. It's a kind of house that also use as a shop. This brings a spirit of startup, enterpreneurship, because for a startup companies, it's quite good if they can rent a Ruko even only one storey.