I was using Microsoft Excel the other day and had that Eureka moment. I typed in a simple formula that had a closing parenthesis but forgot to put an opening parenthesis. An error message popped up and I realized that I have been getting that same error message, for doing the same mistake, ever since I have been using Excel. And even though Microsoft has released several Excel versions along these years, this specific problem has been carried from version to version without getting an elegant solution.
I am pretty sure that the same exact error happens to millions of users every day, and many of them are clueless and do the same thing – they get frustrated, delete the formula that has a minor error and start over.
So, here’s my suggestion to a very simple killer feature – AutoParenth. Excel should automatically add an opening parenthesis whenever it detects that a cell: (a) has a function (first character inside the cell is minus, plus or the equal signs) and (b) it has a closing parenthesis. This feature should be built similar to the AutoCorrect feature to give the users greater control.
If that’s too difficult to implement, Excel should at least provide an informative error message, just like Apple Numbers and Google Docs do. This is such a common error that a specific error message with clear instructions is necessary.
Apple Numbers informative error message.
Google Docs also provides enough information to guide the user.
I hope that someone at the Microsoft Office team will read this post and add this request to their todo list.
Big buzz today around the revamped Flickr mobile site (see TC, RWW, Mashable), their “universal access point for all device types.”, but a simple test that I did on my iPhone shows that the folks at Sunnyvale have missed one important and frustrating issue that mobile users experience daily when accessing Flickr urls.
This is not the first time I write about the fact that a direct link to an image does not load in its mobile version. The solution is so simple, that I am amazed no one at Flickr caught this while building the new version. All they have to do is detect the UserAgent and in the case it is of a mobile browser, change “www.flickr.com” to “m.flickr.com”. A simple manual test proves it is working.
So from now and until it gets fixed by the Flickr folks, you can use this manual hack and edit the url in safari’s address bar whenever you get a link (via email or twitter) to a Flickr image.
flickr-on-iphone-manual-hack
It seems like there are mixed feelings about this new feature. I like it though. Why? Because it allows a video viewer to avoid the need of visiting YouTube.com to search for videos, and it keeps that users for a longer session on the sites he is on. Just like Snap Shots!
I just discovered Navigaya and I like it a lot.
What is it? Well, if you read their about page you will find something like “an innovative open multimedia platform”. But to me it is hybrid between the Mac widgets experience and a innovative start page, built using Flash and running inside your browser. Yourminis (R.I.P) was probably the closest one to Navigaya in term of rich user experience. All other start pages (iGoogle, Netvibes, etc.) are not even close. Something in it also reminds me the very cool open source media center – Boxee.
Get a feel for it and give it a try.
Kudos to my friend, Issac Barel, who is not just a great guitar player but also a gifted designer for creating this innovative product.
More photos: Playlists, Overview, Music, Calculator, Music and Top Stories.
I am trying out a new service called PodiPodi, a command line interface for a website inspired by Enso from Humanized. Not sure yet how valuable it is, and how frequent it will be used, but I like the concept & interaction.
To try it press Shift+Space to start. Then, type a command and watch the results. For list of commands, type “Help”
Like? Dislike? Leave your feedback in the comments section.
According to Flickr Camera Finder, the iPhone is the most popular cameraphone users use to post photos to their Flickr accounts. Not that a surprise given the iPhone’s popularity and how easy it is to upload photos direct to a flickr account via email or one of the native iPhone application.
So, if Flickr is so popular among iPhone users, how come Flickr has not optimized their site for the iPhone? It is really annoying to recieve direct links to Flickr images (I get those mainly via Twitter) and see that they resolve to non-optimized pages.
In case Flickr is looking for inspiration, they should take a look at Picasa’s optimized interface for the iPhone. One thing I wish Picasa would take from Flickr is the ability to upload via email. Picasa could only benefit from this feature and see a spike in photo uploads, just like Flickr saw.
Gmail users need a simpler & quicker way to attach files to a message. The current process requires too many clicks and is ’99ish.
Just like many file upload and photo sharing services (Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery), I should be able to drag multiple files into the body of the message (or into a special attachments dropbox) and then, using Ajax, the upload process should start automatically and asynchronously as I continue to compose the email.
I wish this would be added soon by the Gmail team as part of their Labs program. IMHO, this feature is more useful and important than (useless) features like Superstars, Old Snakey, Random Signiture and others.
But until this is going to happen, you might want to try dragdropupload, a useful Firefox Add-On which partially solves this problem.
I really wanted to try Yahoo Mobile on the iPhone. I swear I did. So as soon I saw this invite to upgrade to the best mobile experience for the iPhone, I hit the Download link.
But then I got this message that my phone is not currently supported…
Confused? Me too.
I guess I will have to keep using the Yahoo Mobile Web version, a poor client, that has no way to select & delete emails without opening the email and scrolling all the way to the bottom!
Good thing that I’ve migrated most of my email accounts to GMAIL (with IMAP support) which works great on the iPhone.
LinkedIn seems to be releasing a lot of new products lately. Yesterday they released their iPhone version. Today, I noticed a new feature – Company News (still in beta) are displayed at the top of the member’s dashboard. This feature, built similar to Facebook’s news feed, presents the recent news about the companies I have worked at (and their competitors/industry) based on my LinkedIn profile.
To make this feature useful and intriguing enough to interact with, I think that the sorting algorithm needs to get improved. Don’t just sort the stories by their popularity (strong bias toward large companies such as AOL in my case) or release date but factor in the employment dates and penalize stories from/about companies I worked at long ago. After all, I care very little about a place I worked at 5 years ago but I am very interested to learn what is written about my current company or the one I recently left.
I have the feeling that for many start-up employees who used to work at big companies this is going to be a common issue, which could affect the user engagement and adoption of the “Company News” feature . I am curious to see how this feature is going to evolve over time and I hope to see some end user’s controls being added to help fine tune the experience.
I like the new “Recent Readers” widget MyBlogLog released. The glossy design shaped as an iPhone, the simple configuration process (less is more) and the ‘flyouts’ – those little nuggest of information about a reader that appear when you point to a member, very much like Snap Shots.
Check out the new widget on the right sidebar of this blog.
I am pretty sure that the same exact error happens to millions of users every day, and many of them are clueless and do the same thing – they get frustrated, delete the formula that has a minor error and start over.
