HDMI - a useful feature it lacks

When you connect a device to your computer through USB, you may have noticed how the computer “recognizes” the USB device and displays the name of the device in the directory. USB standard must have a provision which allows for easy identification of devices connected to the computer through USB. 

Let’s move over to HDMI. A High Definition television (Plasma or LCD) contains usually a few of those (1-4 ports). Now, usually multiple HDMI ports are in use simultaneously e.g.,

HDMI port 1    connected to   Cable box

HDMI port 2    connected to   DVD/Blue-Ray disc player

HDMI port 3    connected to   Game console (Playstation/X-Box)

....

The trouble comes when you have to switch the input to the TV from one HDMI port to another. Since HDMI standard very likely does not have provision of device identification, my TV just displays “HDMI port 1, HDMI port 2,....” leaving me to guess which port is connected to which device.

I wish HDMI had device identification built-in in which case the TV could have displayed “HDMI-1: Cable,  HDMI-2: DVD,...” or something like that making it really convenient to change the inputs.

Israel War

Every war has its beginning. This war probably had its beginning in Jan 2006 when Hamas defeated its only rival Fatah in the Parliamentary Elections of 2006; Palestine people were ready to give Hamas a chance to resolve the Israel-Palestine situation. It is notable that both political parties -- Hamas and Fatah -- have militant factions, though only Hamas has been declared as a terrorist organization by several countries. Fights between the two militant groups are quite common, however the situation took a different turn in Jun 2007 when Hamas successfully rebelled against the Fatah party and took control of the Gaza strip. After that war, Palestine Authority took control over West Bank, a distinct part of Palestine and Hamas took over Gaza. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Palestine_Map_2007.gif

Since the power shift after Jun 2007 conflict, Hamas has fired rockets into Israel territory essentially trying to escalate the bigger Palestine-Israel conflict. To stop the rocket attacks and very likely to disengage the Hamas, Israel attacked Gaza in Jan 2009. The war still continues with no hope of ending; UN resolution on ending the war continues to be stalled with key members in UN Security Council not backing such a move.

The war will however end one day. I suspect that with the kind of terror civilians in Gaza have seen will further fuel Hamas's purpose.  Maybe Israel needs to fight this battle differently by turning the civilians against Hamas. May be during this ongoing conflict, Israel can show a humanitarian approach by offering to take care of injured civilians women and children. Such a move will not only help in saving lives, it will also help Israel tremendosuly in gaining civilians vote of confidence.

Middle East Mayhem

World is divided between right and wrong. Someone's right could be someone's wrong. 

In the case of middle-east conflict, the root cause of the matter seems to be that Hamas (an organization that publicly uses terrorism as a means to achieve its goals) is leading Palestine (vs. a much more diplomatic Palestine National Authority). However, Hamas came into power through democratically held elections. In that sense, one would suppose Israel's real issue is with Palestine people and not Hamas. 

If at all Israel needs to amend the situation, it needs to wage public opinion against Hamas.  Lets face it, no one wants to see their homes getting bombed and their children, women and youth being killed. By attacking Palestine, it could be prompting more civilian Palestines to think or be like Hamas. A moderate individual from Palestine could now very well decide to become a revolutinary now. What good can it do for Israel? 

Instead, Israel should have focused first on diplomatic means to resolve the issue. With "new" US government support, they could have possibly gone quite far with it. As any able statesman would agree, there are subtle ways of turning people opinion against a Government that uses means of terror to rule. At the end of the day, a civilian living in Palestine cares no less for peace than a civilian living in Israel.

Another thing that this conflict brings out is a template for other countries to follow in future. UN clearly seems to be an ineffective organization, sadly, yet again. [after its failure in Darfur and continued failure for improving situation in Zimbabwe]. In near memory, UN has never been able to take any concrete steps for benefit of people; they always seem to be bound by the diplomacy of the Security Council. UN , for all practical purposes, has been reduced to a red-tape organization. As regards US, they have officially endorsed Israel attack. The other day, I was watching an interview of Dick Cheney. He responded that Israel did not seek"US okay" before starting the aggression. 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052558.html

I wonder why anyone needs to take an okay from US before trying to solve their international disputes. They should be going to UN; but oh well, I just mentioned earlier how efficient UN is in solving such problems, so never mind.  Coming back to response from US, does that mean that US will now endorse any such similar actions by other countries as well. Does it mean that any country can now attack Somalia if their vessels have been attacked by Somalian pirates? How about Pakistan and India situation? Routinely, terrorists from Pakistan (whether they are State sponsored or endorsed is disputed though) cross the border into Indian territory and rage a proxy war there. If India attacks Pakistan, will US or World react similarly as it has done in recent Israel-Palestine conflict.

When will we stop this hyprocrisy? When will our leaders actually start caring about the people who do not want war, but to be able to live peacefully? Why cant diplomacy be in vogue again?

I am definitely not pro-war and I firmly believe that any sort of aggression should be used only as a last resort. 

Chicago Circus

May be Roland Burris really reserves the Senate seat. However, I fail to understand how any self-respecting man would want to be elected to the Senate by an alleged (though very clearly) corrupt Governor. If Burris thought he was the rightful candidate for the job, why he did not wait for allegations against Blagojevich to be cleared or the next Governor to be elected.

CNN quotes "Burris, 71, is a lifelong Illinoisan and one of the state's most accomplished African-American politicians."

However, Burris recent actions seem to point at his desire for the post of Senator more than anything else. And that clearly does not seem to an action of a deserving leader.

The Ad they should show in MBA schools

ShamWow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwRISkyV_B8

ShamWow is  a paper towel substitute that can soak tremendous amount of water. The guy in the ad does an awesome job in selling the product in the ad. Both content and delivery are quite admirable. 

Search for email on iPhone

Problem:

Yesterday, I spent roughly 25 mins to look for an email on my iPhone. I needed to call a friend and his phone number was in that email. 

Workaround:

Even though it should be obvious by now, email interface on iPhone should provide an interface for searching through email. Considering that IMAP4 (the standard protocol that is used to download emails from the email server to any device) provides search capability, it shouldn't be hard to implement this feature. I hope to see this in new release of software on iPhone.

Product Analysis

Google chrome

Problem:

Actually this issue is all browsers supporting tabbed browsing, but I was hoping Google Chrome would fix it (or may be it is in their todo list). Often times, I feel the need for seeing content of web-pages from multiple tabs "at the same time"... the only alternative I have at that time is to CTRL-TAB b/w the tabs which is a painful process. I feel that this problem is a generic one and could be faced by many others.

Suggestion:

A similar feature has been implemented in editors used in UNIX... I know of at least "vim" that has this feature (:vsp  #short for vertical split). For internet browsers, my suggestion is following:

1) For each tab associate a number (I believe it is already done), that will be displayed along with the tab (new feature) so that one does not need to count to find the exact tab number (espeically if you have multiple tabs open).

2) For displaying multiple tabs together, user enters CTRL-S (lets say), then enters the tab number for all tabs that need to be displayed together and then again enters CTRL-S. To go back to individual tab display user could enter CTRL-S in the unified window again.

There are few important things to note here:

a) Zero use of mouse

b) Using same CTRL-character sequence for both starting and ending the unified display. Moreover, since 'S' key is placed very near CTRL key, it is easier to press both keys together.

Course reviews done at universities

Problem:

A 'course review' is more of a process rather than a product but anyways I'll comment on this since I believe the way it is usually conducted does not fulfill its purpose. Considering that the prestige of a school is as good as the quality of education being imparted, it is of utmost importance to get the feedback process right (to be effective, any mechanical or functional system needs a feedback loop!). 

Course reviews are typically done in last class in last 5/10 mins of the course. I'd suppose this is the time, when a student is either thinking about rushing to the next class for final presentation or exam or getting back to home. The problem here is that the student's motivation in filling out the form is minimal at the time reviews are done. That needs to be fixed.

Suggestion:

I'd suggest using _first_ 20/30 mins (lets say) of last class for review. Now, if I think of myself as a student staring at a paper for next 30 mins, however much I am disinterested in the process, I'd put at least some information there. Moreover, students who are genuinely interested in providing feedback would utilize the time to provide a more thoughtful review.

After that,  I'd suggest to have the feedback be read by a third party who reviews the comments and provides summary to the Head of the Department and the professor.

And, after all this, I'd have the summary (% of students who thought that the course contents were good and that it was well-taught) be put on course website for future students reference. Considering the amount of money that is spent on college tuition, I'd think it makes sense to provide past-students feedback of a course, so that students can then make a better decision about which course elective to take. 

Gmail

Problem:

IMHO Gmail's UI is an example of how UI should not be designed (it is indeed more surprising that the product is from Google known for its simplistic yet powerful UIs). 

Issue#1: Too many mouse movements

When you are logging, mouse is towards right side of the screen (that's where user/password need to be entered). However, after logging in, mouse travels towards left, as you would start going over the emails (because the sender of the email is displayed on left). Once you find email of your interest, you would click on it. If you would like to reply, you would need to travel mouse pointer to right again (i.e., 3 left-right mouse movements so far!). If you are thinking whats the big deal with this, think about people with RSI/tendonitis/Carpel Tunnel (which is BTW an increasing % of computer users).

Moreover, if you need to forward the email, it is tricky. First, you would realize quickly that there is no button on screen which says "forward". After that you'd guess that it will probably be under drop down menu under "Reply" button. Now to do this, one has to put the mouse pointer at precisely the drop down arrow and then click.  This could be cumbsersome especially for people with hand injuries with repeated use of keyoard.

Lightreading.com message boards

Problem:

Oftentimes, I am looking to read the messages in a "single" page and not clicking every time for every response I am interested in which is quite a painful thing to do (and time consuming as well).

Suggestion:

There should be a "view all" kinda option where in one single web page you can read everything.

Temperature controllers at home

Problem:

Dont know about other folks but even though I am an engineer, I have not been able to figure out with much ease how to control various knobs on the thermostat - e.g., lets say I want to make sure that at night when I sleep the AC should run for only 1 hr and then shut off and then start again at 7am and then shut off an hr later - I am sure it is possible to do this just that it is not fairly obvious how to do that. On top of that when you need the product manual you wont find it! (murphy's law).

Suggestion

In such devices, make a slot to hold the documentation - there is no better place to shelf the documentation manual then in the product itself. Actually this can be extended to other similar products e.g., water-controller device that regulates water for backyard.

Bluetooth Car Device

Oftentimes, products miss to address the very basic problem that they are supposed to address.

I came across such a product recently - Roadmasters VR3 bluetooth speaker for cars (http://www.roadmasterusa.com/vr3_bluetooth.html). I bought this from Costco for roughly $40.

One basic problem is the sound is not loud enough! (its natural to assume that with traffic and ambient noise, the volume really needs to be loud). I wonder how such basic tests are missed in product design.

Other problemI found was that LEDs are not bright enough - it is not clear whether the product is on or off.

So no matter whether the product purports voice-dialing or having a built-in DSP chip for cancelling echo, I am going to return the product to Costco and look at alternatives.