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As users of products we are baffled every day by things that should just be. Every company needs a suggestion box on their home page so we can point out the obvious.

Examples:

1. Why doesn't every car radio have an audio-in jack? One in 5 Americans over the age of 12 has an MP3 player. Is that not enough to add a 10 cent part?

2. RIM the maker of the Blackberry who's killer app is email. Hello, how about a spell checker.

3. Microsoft, why are there 100 versions of VISTA?

4. Creationists, it's 2007, not 1507.

5. Why is George Bush still in office?

Are these not obvious? Don't you think heads should role?

Please add your anonymous suggestion box today!

German cars and radios

2007-11-12T15:09:00.000-05:00

What is it with German Auto companies and their radios? They make the best driving cars (and the most expensive) in the world but they can't offer an audio in jack. How stupid is that?

Who makes these kinds of decisions? I can just see the product managers saying:

"There just aren't enough MP3 players to warrant a 5 cent part" or
"This will add 5c to to the price of our cars, we can't do that"

Even the NA autos have it.

I bought a BMW recently and had to buy the $300 iPod interface (which is crap). I don't want to use the BMW interface because it horrible. Just give me an audio in that it, that's all.

Apple iTablet almost here!

2007-11-08T17:12:00.001-05:00

I predict as of this writing Apple will introduce a Touch screen tablet (iTablet) and finally make tablet computing usable. Everything is in place for Apple to do it. Just make bigger versions of the iPod Touch and iPhone. I'm not the first to predict this (see iTablet) but after using it - WOW.

I bought the iPod Touch recently. It is absolutely fantastic - the best mobile computing device I've ever used. Everything about it is fantastic. Hats off to the Apple team. Everything is right. The challenges of introducing a new type of interface (touch) and nailing it requires tremendous leadership.

There is one little issue - data input. Typing on a screen keyboard sucks and I've not gotten used to it! For the iTablet you need voice recognition for data input. I touch the URL and say the url, not type it in. That would be sweet. All the technology exists for that.

Wait, don't patent that invention!

2007-11-07T21:13:00.000-05:00

You have a great idea and think if you just file a patent, you can make millions. Think again. The patent ecosystem is very lucrative for patent agents, the patent office, patent litigators – everyone (except you) makes a lot of money filing and defending your patents. That's why you see so many Google ads when you search for the word patent. The ecosystem wants to help you get your patent because its highly profitable for them.

Yes, as the owner of the patent you get a monopoly. You have the sole right to exclude others from making, selling, using or importing your invention. So the question is what are you going to do with your monopoly? Build a product, license it, sell it? Perhaps you want to become an entrepreneur. Well the probability of succeeding is exceedingly low.

So unless you have a plan for your invention and some big money behind it then you better think again. You could do nothing about it. But then you'll probably kick yourself when you see someone else profiting from the idea. How many times have you said "I had that idea". There is another option.

Give it away. What does that mean and how do I profit from that? What I mean is publish the idea on a web site called Wikinvents.com and give the invention away to anyone who wants to implement it. No, you don't profit from it. Yes, it's altruistic. But at the same time it levels the playing field for everyone. You see, by publishing it you prevent everyone from that point on from getting a patent. The benefit is that if the invention is used in the industry there will be no monopoly and thus cheaper for you and me. It's like the open source, your willing to contribute the idea for everyone's benefit – no monopolies!

So the next time you get a brain wave for a great idea and don't plan to monetize it then publish it. Don't just file a patent. Odds are that the only people profiting from the idea is the patent agent, the patent office and patent litigators (if you get that far). You will likely burn through a lot of cash for nothing.

See Wikinvents for more information.

Public transporation in Ottawa

2007-11-03T18:42:00.001-05:00

I read the Ottawa Citizen every day. The city seems to be stumped when it comes to public transportation. The debates about light rail rage on but nothing is ever done.

Yet, there is never any debate when it comes to roads and highways. We seem to have an unlimited budget for that. Why is that? As of this writing, the 417 is under construction in the west end. It looks like they can add at least four more lanes if they wanted to. Why can't we put tracks down the middle (like Chicago does) while its under construction?

I guess Ottawa city politicians are too focused on trying to keep their jobs rather than doing something productive.

Wikinvents

2007-10-19T16:21:00.000-05:00

I launched (made live) a web site called Wikinvents today.

Wikinvents is a free open collective of original inventions that can be used by anyone. Inspired by Wikipedia, inventions are written collaboratively by volunteers. As a collective Wikinventions are free for public use and commentary and more importantly protected against any future patent attempts. All submissions and edits are protected by trusted timestamps and can be proven by any third party. We plan to make trusted timestamps available for anyone to use for personal documents absolutely free. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I have not attempted to market this site yet because the trusted timestamps (digital signatures) is not live yet. And, the site needs a little more work.

Are Canadians paying higher prices for vehicles than Americans?

2007-10-06T17:27:00.001-05:00

I was reading an article in the Globe and Mail Vehicle sales hit skids in September and was astonished by comments made Dennis DesRosiers an automotive consultant. He said "There's a common perception [among consumers] that the vehicle companies are ripping them off, pure and simple. They're not"

Can you believe the nerve of this guy? It's not a perception, its a fact and its been a fact for years. Mr. DesRosiers offers no back up for his statement. He actually supports the fact that they are ripping off consumers by saying "manufactures are returning some of their dollar windfall to Canadians in the form of higher rebates and subsidized leases and other incentives. Mr. DesRosiers is an automotive analyst and is paid by guess who? The automotive companies. He will never say anything negative about the automotive companies.

A number of automotive analysts say that Canadians are willing to pay the higher pricing. The true fact is that Canadians who try to buy cars from the US are blocked every step of the way. Most dealers in the US won't sell a Canadian a car because this would create channel conflict meaning the Canadian dealers will complain to the manufacture that the US dealer is stealing business away. This is now the subject of a class action law suite in Toronto.

Funny how auto manufactures are beginning to lower the prices now in light of the law suite. Send a strong message to the auto industry. Resist buying now and the prices will equalize. If you need to buy, find a dealer in the US who will ship you a car.

Mountain Bike Trails in Ottawa

2007-09-06T21:07:00.000-05:00

I was searching for a MTB trip in the US for this November and its really hard to find good rides say in Northern California. I guess MTB riders like to keep the trails secret to minimize traffic.

Anyway here are my favorite rides in Ottawa. Actually the rides are in Gatineau Park, very close to Ottawa. I found a map of the park. My favorite trails start at the O'Brien parking lot near Meech Lake. Your riding trail 36 and trail 50 on the map. My ride ends at Herridge (and goes back to the parking lot) but you can ride as far as you want as shown on the map. The trail is best described as a roller coaster. It has a bit of everything and the views along the lake are beautiful. The ride has some technical sections and I don't think I would recommend it for beginners, its more for intermediates. You can easily walk the harder bits though. Nice thing about the trail is you can't get lost. You can do this ride comfortably in about 1.5 to 2 hrs.

The second ride also leaves from O'Brien but for this one take Meech Lake road to P12 (McKinstry). You ride up trail 40 to 24 to 1. And I mean up. It's a pretty hard steep ride up that takes at least 30-45 mins. Make sure you turn left at trail 1. Your headed to Champlain Lookout for a beautiful view of Ottawa across the river. You can go left on trail 1 to McKinstry but its a boring ride on a fire road (with no view at the end). After a break at Champlain Lookout go back into trail 1 but go left. Trail 1 is an easy, very fun trail that is mostly down hill through the woods. Take that and you will cross Lac-Fortune Pkwy. Stay on trail 1 until you hit trail 4. Go left on 4 for a really fun down hill where you pop out at Camp Fortune. From there you can take the road down where it meets up with Lac-Fortune Pkwy (turn right) That goes down to Meech Lake road. You turn left and ride back to the O'Brien parking lot. I would say this ride is a bit shorter and easier (except for the painful clime in the beginning). A beginner can do this ride - it's not very technical but you've got to be in good shape for climbing. And you can very this ride depending how far you want to go.

Gatineau park is a treasure in the Ottawa area for biking. Road biking is also fantastic on the parkway. I'll write about that next.

After your ride head into Old Chelsea. Great little town for food and drinks!

Enjoy

You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet

2007-03-04T16:23:00.000-05:00

A read about Al Gore’s personal expenses .

They point out that his mansion’s annual natural gas and electricity bills cost about $30,000 per year. I wouldn’t be surprised if the energy used to carry him all over the world to deliver his Inconvenient Truth message tops his home energy consumption.

Anyway, the point of the article is walk the walk, not just talk the talk – I hate that expression btw.

I would say to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson so what? At least Al Gore has the balls to work on this problem. My message to Al Gore – enjoy your mansion, but you may want to invest in some insulation and compact fluorescents.

I would, however, pick on the movie stars who buy a a Toyota Prius to go along with their 20,000 sq ft mansions. I think they are being a little hypocritical, don’t you?

Canadian vs US Passport

2007-02-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

Why is the validity period of a Canadian passport 5 years when a US Passport is valid for 10 years? It such a pain in the ass to get a new passport. Every 5 years you've got to give up your passport, fill out the exact same documents as last time and pay $100. While you wait you can't travel outside the country.

What is so special about Canada that they have to change your passport every 5 years while in the US it's 10 years. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the $100 bucks you pay every time you renew. Let's say 10 million Canadians have to change their passports in a 5 year period (I bet that number is low). Hey that's an additional $1B in revenue to the Canadian Government. I got it.

So I finally got the passport application in. Some interesting observations:

1. First I tried to fill out the application on line. I spent about 1 hour doing that. The theory is that it saves you time when you go to the passport office. The problem is that you have to print the application out with the top and bottom margin set to zero. I have a pretty decent HP laser printer and guess what? It won't accept a zero margin on the top or bottom. So I had to go back and fill out an application manually. You think they would have tested that on more than one printer. After all HP laser printers aren't very popular.

2. Even though you have a valid passport, it doesn't count as ID. Yes, the passport office does not accept their own ID? You have to show other ID which is trivial to forge (as if you were applying for the first time again). She looked at my ID for about 1 second. I don't even think she looked at me. Wouldn't you think they would change the process slightly for those who already have a valid passport that is about to expire? Wouldn't that save time and money?

3. I asked if I could pay some money to expedite the passport since I travel a lot for business. (I heard that you could do that). She said no. Just so you understand I am volunteering to pay the Government more money and they said no. Hey Gov, why wouldn't you take the money?

BTW I got my passport after 3 weeks - not bad Gov. Looks almost exactly like the last passport, except for the new expiry date. I would certainly be willing to pay more for a 10 year passport. Hint.

iPod Frustrations

2006-04-15T11:26:00.000-05:00

I absolutely love the iPod and iTunes but I am really frustrated with quality and customer service. Our family owns a 1 40G, 3 4G mini’s and 1 4G nano. The main frustration are with batteries, hard disks and Apples customer service. I know a little bit about these things because I am an electronics engineer and have been in this business for the last 20 years.

The trouble really began with the mini’s. My son has a mini where the bottom face plate (where the connector is) fell off. That face plat is glued on. So I called customer service and asked if they would replace it within warrantee. They said yes so I sent it in. I got it back after about 10 days with a letter that said they were not willing to fix it because it was somehow my fault that the face plate fell off. So I called back and explained that the plat simply fell off because I assume there wasn’t enough glue or something and would they please glue another one on. You have to understand, we are talking about a 3c plastic part here. The customer service rep was somehow flabbergasted with my request and passed me onto a supper customer service rep who said “no problem sir, we will take care of it” I was happy and sent it back again. Guess what after 10 days I got it back NOT fixed with the same fucking message as before. My concern really was dirt getting in there and potentially damaging the circuit. I basically put some electrical tape on it and hoped for the best. So lets review this for Steve Jobs. Apple probably spent about $50 in shipping and processing (RMA etc.) And at the same time they pissed off a customer for life because they couldn’t replace a 3c part. Hello? Earth to Apple, does this make sense?

After the warrantee ran out, about one year, two mini’s died, the one with the tape on it and another. The problem is that you can’t tell what the problem is, the hard disk or the battery. Now do you think I was going to call Apple? No No No. I took apart both broken mini’s with the help of certain web sites I found that one had a dead battery and one had a crashed hard disk. In the end I made one mini that worked. I found 4G hard disks on ebay but didn’t think it was worth fixing. After all I have a missing bottom face plate that Apple can’t fix. I now have one working mini and one mini for spare parts.

Moving onto my 40G iPod, now three years old. It died recently for no apparent reason. Probably battery but again can’t be sure with Apples troubleshooting guides. I followed Apples troubleshooting guide and there is really no way to tell exactly what is wrong. So now I have a $500 paper weight and as you can tell I’m afraid to send it to Apple.

Finally, I bought a flash-based nano and am happy there is no hard dish in it. The screen is all scratched up – that happed in about two weeks but apparently Apple knows about that. I assume when it dies (right after the warrantee expires) it will be battery.

The problem is that these iPods should work for 10 years don’t you think? I’ happy that Apple is making a fortune on iPods but they have to work past one year. Also, note that I don’t abuse these iPods. I travel on business so the pod mostly stays in my brief case.

Apple you need to seriously work on these issues. You’ve got to know these tiny hard disks and batteries suck and won’t last. You should at least have some return policy for these useless dead products. You actually might learn something. I really don’t want to own an iPod museum.

I know why Apple won’t open up iTunes. It’s because people will flock to other MP3 players. Apple, you make great product. Please get your shit together!

Are you going to Vote?

2005-12-12T15:57:00.000-05:00

If you live in Canada you probably know there is an election going on. Elections in most western countries are the same – it’s a big open job position and someone is trying to get it. Unfortunately the person who gets the job isn’t always the most qualified.

Just like any job interview, these guys will tell you exactly what you want to hear. I’m pretty sure the candidates don’t even believe half of what they tell us. The problem in this world is that smart people are too smart to want to be a politician so we often end up with a looser (just look south of the boarder). I said often, not always. Every country elects the occasional dud!

I like most people don’t believe in one specific platform. I’m conservative on some things and liberal on others and I would be willing to guess most people are. I’m sick of hearing Canadians want this and Canadians want that. They never seem to be talking about me and I’m Canadian. So for the candidates, here is my short list of issues. Who is going to step up?

Taxes – necessary evil, keep them as low as possible and declining

Separation of church and state – Yes Please!

Health care – keep a public system, but offer some private services to off load the public system. That doesn’t threaten anything. In fact it keeps everyone honest!

Marijuana – legalize it and tax it. Look at the Netherlands.

Same sex marriage – Who cares? Please lets move on.

Scientific Research – spend as much as possible –we have big environmental & energy problems. File patents and license other countries!

Quebec separation – who cares? Let them go if they want.

Unions – we don’t need them anymore, hello. Especially in Government - what's that about?

Defence - like taxes a neccessary evil but protection only please.

Guns - that gun registry thing was the bigest waist of tax payers money ever. Its hard to get a gun in this country - leave it that way. Don't fix something that aint broken.

Foreign aid - give, but not money. Money goes to corrupt governments.

In general don’t listen to special interest groups – all you whiners with nothing better to do.

Run it like a sucessful business - if you can't afford it, don't spend it. We have quite enough debt already.

What's with all the public libraries in Ottawa?

2005-09-28T14:54:00.000-05:00

I’m from Ottawa, Canada’s Capital and wondered if other Cities are facing the issue of public libraries bloat. Why must we have so many public libraries? Is this the best use of public funds? I’ve heard arguments of community center, geographical issues etc. Are we using these libraries or do we just think this is a good idea? Let’s look at the facts.

We have a total of 33 physical locations (public libraries) plus a bookmobile. I’m not exactly sure what a bookmobile does – library on wheels? We also have 202 elementary schools, 59 high schools, 2 community colleges, 3 universities – I’m guessing these 266 physical institutions have libraries for the students (or am I off base here?). So who is the target market for the 33 public libraries? Students? Pretty sure most students use the school library and generally avoid any library like the plague. Adults? Possibly, but adults have more resources at there disposal including the internet as well as 4 major bookstores in town.

I used to go to the Nepean library (one of the cities largest public libraries) but now with Internet access I can look up just about anything, any time. Over the last few years I just stopped going. Just about everyone I survey on this issue has the same view.

I’m not totally against libraries. I do think they serve the public but I’m willing to consider trade-offs especially in light of future trends. I for one am willing to consider a few big libraries (like 3 – one central, one east and one west) and look at improving Internet access for Ottawa citizens. Why? Because there is a lot more value in a large library then there is in a small library with limited selection. I actually might go to the library if the chances of finding what I want was high. Secondly with good internet access you will be able to find just about anything you want and wouldn’t it be nice if the Ottawa Public Library built a website where you can search for a book on line and reserve it? So invest in the right library search engine for Ottawa citizens instead of more brick and mortar. The city could give rebates for internet access to encourage using that medium. There are a lot of ideas here.

Ottawa is supposed to be the high tech capital and yet we keep throwing up public libraries like Tim Horton franchises – the difference is that City doesn’t make any money on public libraries. Is anyone in the City thinking about this?

By the way, the greater Toronto area has 5 million people versus one million in Ottawa. By that logic Toronto should have 5 times 33 or 165 libraries. Well they actually have 99 physical public libraries (I still think too much) and a great web site with a real library portal where you can actually search for a book – what a thought?

Please no more library bricks and mortar, it’s the 21 century.

World's Largest Solar Thermal Power Station

2005-02-26T13:10:00.000-05:00

Austrailia continues to amaze me with projects like this Solar Thermal Power Station. Scientists have talked about harnessing the SUN's energy for a long time. Finally someone is doing something about it. I wish Canada and the US start projects like this. To be fair the US has been toying with large wind farms in California - an amazing site if you ever get a chance to drive through it. We need more of this to reduce our dependance of oil!