No Wonder Research in Motion is Doing Badly
Research in Mition, the maker of Blackberry phones is not doing well according to this on the BBC. Unless of course, you consider a $125million loss to be doing well.
But after trying one of their products for free, which O2 were kind enough to give me I can understand why sales are falling.
For a start the keyboard has been designed by someone, who gives the impression he’s never done any substantial typing on a proper computer. Good design always builds on what your customers expect. As an example, supposing a car manufacturer proved that left-hand-drive cars were safer and then said it wouldn’t make right hand drive ones for the UK. Would they sell any?
As an example here, I wanted to enter the @ sign, which is above the P. Which in itself, is a pretty strange place to put it! But then with a small keyboard that might have been the only place they have left.
So you’d think that you would use Shift followed by P to enter it! But no, it’s Alt followed by P. If that is logical to someone with forty-plus years experience of a computer and sixty years of typing starting on a sit-up-and-beg Imperial, then I’m a Chinaman. (By the way, is it allowed to use that phrase today from the past. It is only descriptive and I could have used the alternative form of Dutchman!)
If I taken the trouble to check that the keyboard was so strange, I wouldn’t have had one. No wonder they aren’t selling to well. Perhaps this keyboard means that new users aren’t impressed. I’m not!
In the day I used it, I never managed to send a text message, although I did receive a few and read them. On my Nokia 6310i, I just hit one button, choose Reply and I’m replying.
Others may like their Blackberries, but it is definitely not for me, so I’ll stick with the Nokia 6310i.
I know that doesn’t take pictures, but I have a little and battered Nikon Coolpix in my pocket to do that and also act as a visual aide-memoire.
I’ve Got Myself A Blackberry
Not a fruit, but one of those new-fangled phones.
Quite frankly I’m not impressed!
Typing With One Hand
I’ve now acquired a new Sony VAIO laptop with a wide 17.3 inch screen. I mainly bought it, as my old HP machine is getting rather tired and I was fimding I made the odd mistakes on the keyboard. As the keys were more widely spaced on the Sony, I thought this might improve my typing and a brief test showed that it appeared to be better.
I’ve now got the new Sony and this video shows me typing.
Not how I span with my right hand to work the shift and control keys.
It is my left arm and hand that is bad, as I said here. But the computer would probably work equally well with someone, who had right hand problems.
Allergic To Corned Beef
In the repeat of Dad’s Army this evening, Private Fraser.said that he got out of sevig in the vArmy, because he was allergic to corned beef.
This must be one of the first references to allergies in fiction.
I wonder why it was included
Call That A Bin?
I was watching the Apprentice on BBC1 and one team came up with a bin design.
It may be arrogant to say it, but my bin design of a couple of years ago is better.
The Olympic Legacy
Everybody seems to be complaining that there won’t be any Olympic Legacy. I’ve just had this e-mail read out on Radio 5.
Just compare Manchester after the Commonwealth Games, Sheffield after the World Student Games and Liverpool after the City of Culture with Athens after the Olympics and Montreal after the Olympics.
You can’t say we don’t do legacy. We do it very well!
I could have added, where’s the legacy in Atlanta and my physio from Queensland, doesn’t think there was much legacy after Sydney.
London’s biggest legacy will be the Olympic Park. And no-one who’s ever been over just a few of the UK’s big parks, could not agree that we do parks well. So just as Victoria Park and Hampstead Heath became London’s lungs nearly two centuries ago, the Olympic Park will be London’s park for the 22nd Century.
It’s a pity though London has got no superlambananas or equivalent. They may be rather trivial, but Liverpudlians love them.
I’m Now on Lasix
Or a generic form of furosemide, which is the drug known as Lasix. As it helps stop racehorses from nose-bleeding, I wonder if it will affect my nose-bleeds. But then I haven’t had any in the last week or so.
Lasix is banned for racehorses in the UK, but it is allowed freely in a lot of states in the US.
Let’s hope it helps me go a bit faster and further.
Decimalisation
On Drive on BBC Radio 5 Live, they got talking about decimalisation. I sent them my four pennies-worth
My eldest son was in the births in The Times for the 20th July 1969, the day Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Incidentally, that day the paper carried a report on decimalisation, which would happen on February 15th 1971 and metrication, which was to be completed by 1984. The first happened on time and I’m still waiting for the second.
I suspect I’ll be long dead before we do the sane and sensible thing and metricate.
The Moon and the Planets
I was standing outside Carluccio’s in Upper Street tonight, watching a glorious moon with the planet Venus alongside.
A few minutes later, I was outside my house and they had been joined by Jupiter lower down.
Never in my life have I seen all of these heavenly bodies together.
Bank Transfers Not Happening
I tried a couple of times make a couple of on-line payments this morning and my son also tried to send me something. But nothing went through.
My only thoughts is that they are setting up so many ISAs, that the system is creaking.
The Anonymous Widower 