Monthly Archives: March 2011

development, user experience

loaded words matter, so listen up

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John Welch pointed out an article from Justin Williams, an independent Mac/iOS developer, about how ‘Useless’ Is a Loaded Word.  Williams opens up with this:

Here is a tip for all the non-developers out there. When you email your favorite developer with a feature request or bug report never, ever, ever use the word useless to describe their product. Useless is kryptonite to developers and puts us on the defensive instantly.

I cannot disagree enough with this assertion.  Feedback is love.  Your user, or at least a potential user, took the time out of their day to write to you to tell you something that you could do that might help you win their time, their loyalty, and their money.  Feedback is a gift, a priceless gift.  The wrapping paper might be an unattractive shade of brown, but the gift inside is one that you should never ignore.

People use hyperbole.  They’re prone to using it when excited or upset.  People are most likely to offer feedback when they’re excited or upset.  As a result, you’re likely to that hyperbole in action when you receive unsolicited feedback.  Yes, they’re probably using loaded words.  But those loaded words matter.

When you get any piece of feedback, you’ve got to figure out what to do about it.  Marco Arment said this:

If you call my app “useless”, I stop reading right there and either hit Delete or keep scrolling.

Well, I suppose that’s one way to make your decision.  Making decisions about your applications based solely on an emotional response might not be the right way to go about it, but everyone gets to do their own thing.  Instead, I think you should step back a bit and try to determine what’s caused such a response.  It behooves you to do this for both positive hyperbole (“OMG YOUR APP IS THE BEST APP EVAR!!!!!!”) and negative hyperbole (“OMG YOUR APP KILLS USELESS KITTENS DEAD!!!!!!!”).  This isn’t to say that you’ll necessarily act on the feedback, but you do need to at least understand it.

Determining what gift is hidden behind that ugly brown wrapping paper is a hard-won skill.  It’s not about “developing a thicker skin”.  It’s about learning how to hear what someone is really saying, not just the words that are coming out of their mouth.  In fact, Williams himself says nearly the same thing in another post about edge cases:

Any developer worth his salt hears about [edge case] issues like this and their skin starts to crawl.

Yes!  That’s it, right there!  You hear someone describe an issue, and your skin crawls because you know that there’s something more going on than what they’re saying.  So you take the time to consider what their feedback indicates about your application, and you decide what to do about it.  Of course, Williams had said earlier in that post that his “nerd ego” had been boosted a bit, which makes it psychologically easier to try to tease apart the feedback to determine if there’s something to be done.

It’s tempting to only listen to the feedback that tells you what you want to hear, or is offered without any kind of (real or perceived) judgement.  Don’t just pay attention to what your nerd ego wants to hear.  Listen to it all.  Accept the love, accept the hate, and continue striving to make your apps better based on what you learn from both the lovers and the haters.

VMware

data recovery after the earthquake

I stumbled across a blog post today from Christopher Well’s vSamurai blog titled Real Life DR & BC, with VMware SRM.  The title isn’t nearly descriptive enough: he gives details about how he used VMware Site Recovery Manager after the 9.0 earthquake in Japan to move their data centre operations from one site to another.  Their data recovery efforts in their virtual infrastructure were successful.

Now that I’m thinking about disaster recovery, I should go check on my own earthquake-preparedness kit at home …

VMware

VMworld call for papers deadline is looming

VMworld 2011 is coming: August 29 – September 1 in Las Vegas, and October 18-20 in Copenhagen.  If you’re interested in presenting, the submission deadline is April 5.  You’ve got a little less than a week to get your submission ready!

Looking at the list of the top sessions from last year, it looks like there’s a lot of interest in real-world examples of architecture and best practices.  Don’t let that limit you, there’s plenty of other types of sessions that will be popular and beneficial too.

See you in Vegas!

user experience, VMware

this is why I tweet

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I was asked recently why I’m on Twitter.  It’s all about serendipity.

The metaphor that I use to describe Twitter is that it’s a neverending cocktail party that’s full of people I like.  Just like a large cocktail party, there’s lots of different conversations going on at once.  You can participate in them, or not, as the mood strikes.  And, just like a cocktail party, the topics of the conversations vary widely.  There’s always someone talking politics, there’s always someone sharing something banal about their life, and there’s always someone talking shop.

Likewise, as at a cocktail party, it’s okay to leave to go get some fresh air.  I don’t think that anyone expects that you’ll read every single tweet.  I certainly don’t expect it, nor do I read everything.  I ignore Twitter with aplomb and have no guilt whatsoever.  After I’ve gotten my fresh air, I can come back into the cocktail party, and it will have continued on just fine without me.

Twitter is great for serendipity.  I’ve randomly learned that a friend is nearby, so we’ve taken advantage of the proximity to grab a coffee and catch up.  I’ve helped answer questions that I’ve noticed, helping someone else out.  I’ve had someone find me at a conference to thank me for my assistance.  It’s all good.

I had another example of that kind of serendipity late last week.  One of my VMware colleagues, who I haven’t yet met, tweeted that he was out in the field helping out with a vCloud Director installation.  This is perfect timing: I’m in the midst of some longitudinal research, and wanted to add a vCloud Director customer to that effort.  I sent off an email, and received a lightning-fast response from him.  He’s happy that someone in the company saw his tweet and reached out to him, I’m happy that it looks like I’m going to fill a need (and improve my research too!).

And this, this is why I tweet.  Yes, I admit, I’ve tweeted about cats, cocktails, and the coast.  I’ve also tweeted about projects I’m working on, like Horizon.  It all comes together in one big tweetstream that represents who I am, and hopefully will continue to create serendipity.

iPad, vSphere

VMware vSphere Client for iPad available now!

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Did I mention that we’ve got more coming for the iPad? Oh, yes, I did!

We’ve now released the VMware vSphere Client for iPad. It joins our VMware View for iPad release earlier this month. Both apps are free.1 The vSphere Client for iPad allows you to monitor your vSphere hosts and VMs, as well as do some management tasks. Srinivas Krishnamurti, our Senior Director for Mobile Solutions, has written a blog post for its release: VMware vSphere Client for iPad has left the building. Also, as with our previous iPad app release, boche.net has a detailed write-up of it.

As ever, a demo is worth a thousand words, so check out part one:

And part two:

It’s available in the App Store today.  Go forth and download!  After you’ve downloaded it, check out our community for VMware vSphere Client for iPad if you’d like to discuss this app or let us know what you think about it.

  1. And, as of this writing, both are doing very well in the list of most-downloaded business apps. ↩
iPad

why the “wife says no” story is apocryphal

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I keep on seeing a link to the “wife says no” story.  I’m appalled that anyone could be gullible enough to believe it.  This just doesn’t pass the smell test.  Here’s the story, as quoted by MacRumors:

[Apple’s] focus this week has been to troubleshoot all the iPad 2s that customers are returning to the stores. One iPad came back with a post it note on it that said “Wife said no.” It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it. They sent the guy an iPad 2 with a note on it that said “Apple said yes.”

Apple’s return policy states the following:

[I]f you are not satisfied with your Apple purchase, return it with the original receipt and original packaging within fourteen (14) calendar days of the date of purchase. If the item is returned unopened, in the original box, we will exchange it or offer a refund based only on the original payment method.

For an unopened iPad, it would go straight back onto the shelves (or, more accurately, it would get sold within approximately four seconds after its return), and thus no-one beyond the staff at the particular Apple Store would know the guy’s reason for returning it.

Even if you argue that the Apple Store stretched its return policies to accept an opened iPad (and there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that they do), there’s still no reason for them to ship the iPad anywhere outside the store. They can simply verify that it’s in new condition and shrink-wrap it again. This probably increases the time until it gets resold from 4 seconds to 20 seconds.

If the iPad was returned, wasn’t in new condition (and thus couldn’t be put back on the store shelves immediately), and was still accepted for a return, then it does get shipped somewhere. Returned devices are returned to the factory to be refurbished. Barring repeated reports of physical issues, it’s likely that the only people who touch a returned iPad are the Apple Store employee who accepts the return, the person who boxes it up for return to a central facility, and the person at the central facility who then returns them to the factory.

If the original owner returned it, why would he put a sticky note on it to explain his reason for returning it? He has to know that he’s going to have to talk to someone at the Apple Store to complete the return, so attaching a sticky note will do nothing to help him. The manager of the Apple Store is going to talk to the guy (assuming that it’s an open-box return; otherwise, it’s just the employee at the Apple Store who talks to him), not just look at a sticky note and accept the return wordlessly. If it’s unopened, the guy might have a laugh with the employee who’s taking the return, but there’s still no sticky note.

I suppose it’s possible that it’s someone at the Apple Store who put the sticky note on it, but then it makes no sense for Apple to send the guy a new iPad with the note “Apple says yes” on it. The other alternative for the “wife says no” notation is that the Apple Store employee entered that into the “why is this being returned?” field in their return form. In either case, the “wife says no” notation didn’t originate from the owner, so he’s not going to understand the returned “Apple says yes” sticky note. I trust that Apple VPs are smart enough to realise that.

Finally, the story comes from MacRumors. Not just MacRumors, but their Page 2 list, which makes the story much less believable. I actually like MacRumors quite a lot, and have spent a fair amount of time on their forums, but their stories are often inaccurate. This is doubly true for their Page 2 stories. It must be noted that a story about some guy getting a free iPad with a funny note on it is a great way to drive traffic.

I understand why the story has caught people’s imagination. It’s funny, and it matches up with what we want to believe about Apple.  Mails from Steve Jobs always grab headlines in the Mac geek blogosphere, even though the vast majority of these emails are unconfirmed.  Anyone can claim that they’ve received email from sjobs@apple, and I have only rarely seen anyone try to verify the headers of one of these reported emails.  Stories about about Apple going above and beyond in making a customer happy, albeit again without much in the way of verification.

I get why we want to believe the story, but let’s apply some judicious thought to it before we take it as fact and forward it around indiscriminately. Doing so is no better than forwarding around the rumour that asparagus cures cancer.

Nadyne

my first computer: “small black box of computing desire”

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I remember my first computer.  It was a Timex-Sinclair 1000 (known as a ZX-81 overseas).  My dad bought it, and he and I learned about computers and programming together on it.

Last week, the BBC called it a small black box of computing desire1.  They observed that it “created a generation of software developers”, and I’m one of them.

I remember storing files on the cassette tape, as well as buying Frogger on cassette to play it on the computer.  There was the RAM pack that you had to put on the back of it to do anything beyond the 1-KB of onboard memory, which didn’t have a great connector and thus would fall off occasionally.  Magazines published source code, which wasn’t always entirely accurate, and which you had to type in.

All of these problems were surmountable, and they didn’t keep me from using it.  I learned quickly that you could only reuse a cassette tape a few times before it got too warped to save files.  The RAM pack problem was solved with a couple of well-placed rubber bands.  I got good at reading the magazine code and figuring out where they might have made a typo or a logical error.  There was also the machine’s propensity for overheating, which I solved by precariously balancing a glass of ice water on the top of the machine.  At least the keyboard was flat, so a spilled glass wouldn’t spell complete destruction.

I wonder how much different my life would be if we hadn’t picked up that computer.

  1. I can’t tell you how hard that made me laugh.  The “that’s what she said” jokes just make themselves sometimes ↩
Nadyne

why are spambots female?

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If my experience is any indication, Twitter has seen an uptick in spam lately. The Twitter spam that I see most frequently are keyword spam. The keyword that I’ve seen generate the most spam lately is “iPad”, although that’s obviously indicative of what I and my friends talk about.

I got a lot of iPad-spambot activity earlier this week.  At first, I was annoyed, since the pattern was easy to detect.  But then I noticed another pattern about the accounts themselves: of the 28 spam replies that I received, all but one of them had female names.

This is in stark contrast to the email spam sitting in my junk folder.  Looking at the first 50, only two have female names.  The rest are a mix of male names and company or product names (“Online Doctorate”, “Peak Performance”, etc).

Why do Twitter spambots apparently overwhelmingly choose female names?

iPad, View, VMware

VMware View for iPad available now!

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Today’s a great day for VMware.  We’ve launched View Client for iPad today, and it’s available in iTunes right now.  This app allows you to connect to your View desktop quickly over either wifi or 3G.  Engadget has a nice write-up which mentions my favourite feature: the virtual trackpad.  Boche.net has a great discussion of it too, which goes into a fair number of features (as well as some roadmap questions, such as Android versions).

But don’t just read about it, check out the demo:

And while you’re checking things out, you can see how the Children’s Hospital of Central California has been using it:

If you want to let us know what you think and discuss this cool new app, check out our community for VMware View for iPad.

Stay tuned, because there’s more iOS goodness coming soon …

Nadyne

5 ways to identify a program manager

With practice, you can identify a program manager in the wild.  This is a useful skill to have.

  1. They have a BlackBerry1in a belt holster.  They often use their BlackBerry while walking down the hall, which occasionally results in them walking into someone else or into the wall.  The former is annoying (especially when it’s you), the latter is entertaining.
  2. Every PowerPoint presentation that they touch instantly uses the corporate template.  It doesn’t matter the audience, it doesn’t matter the topic.  Somehow, just by a deck passing through their hands, the corporate template is applied, as if by magic.  As a corollary, they’re appalled when someone doesn’t use the corporate template, even if it’s just a presentation for an internal team of four people.
  3. They’re buzzword complaint in ways that mere mortals can’t dream of.  It’s no fun playing a game of buzzword bingo when during a PM’s presentation, because someone will win within the first five minutes2.
  4. Everything reduces to a feature set. User interface? Totally a feature. Bugs? Features in need of some love. Anything the customer says? Features-to-be. Anything that a competitor says? Features that aren’t nearly as good as our features.
  5. They will never ever commit to anything. Deadline? Won’t commit. Feature list? Won’t commit. Timeframe for fixing something? Won’t commit.

I really don’t want to know what a PM would write about how to identify a researcher …

  1. Maybe an iPhone instead, but the BlackBerry is still the winner here. ↩
  2. One day, I had a conversation with some co-workers about the worst PM-speak we’d heard. The winner was “decisioning” ↩