Wiser Web Wednesday – A nod to 100

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

Is it wrong to celebrate publishing my 100th post with a WWW link post? Hopefully not, given that is exactly what I have done. My son suggested I do something special for this milestone, however in the true style of not really knowing what that “something special” would be – I have decided to simply go with what was coming up next anyway.

Have I anything special to say about reaching 100 posts? Not really, perhaps with the exception of feeling some sense of accomplishment at having stuck it out and made it this far. Beyond that, a post written not so long ago reflects on my progress to date and thoughts on possible future plans.

Otherwise, I will leave it to Matt Gemmell, (one of my favourite writers on the internet), to describe one of the many truths about the process of sending your work out there:

The downside is the vulnerability and culpability, which is what makes people run for the anonymity of pseudonyms, online nicknames, or no names at all. I understand that; truly. I’m a little bit afraid every time I publish an article, and I vividly remember when I was a big bit afraid.

Read the entirety of his post (linked below) on taking credit (and assuming accountability) for the good, the bad, and… well, probably sometimes the ugly.

On with list for this week:

Shawn Blanc
As always an eloquent post from Shawn on the fairly significant update to Flickr for iPhone. I’d give you my own thoughts were it not for the fact that over the past few days I have failed to get past the login screen, changing passwords, Yahoo logins and generally encountering all manner of troubles. I am sure I will resolve these issues however repeatedly have come to the point of “I’ll just do it later”.

In spite of such challenges, from what I can see, given the 1TB storage that has been available on Flickr for some time now, it has the potential to be a very useful auto-uploading off-site photo back up:
Flickr 3.0

CJ Chilvers
Speaking of photos, perhaps given the ongoing boom-bust of many a photo management service, we should simply go back to a nice photo album for displaying those precious memories:
The Best Photo Management Tool

Reckoner
Ask not why tech blog Reckoner published a review of a slimline wallet; ask why they do not do more – James Croft on solving the age-old problem of carrying just a few too many cards. Jettison the ballast!:
Review: Capsule Wallet – The Minimalist

The Brooks Review
Although I derive enjoyment from using pen and paper, were I after a fairly minimalist (and paperless) workflow for my desk – something along the lines of this would be it:
Improving My Workflow: Desk

David Smith
If you are at all interested in how the App Store could be made a more enjoyable and functionally relevant place to visit, there are some compelling ideas in this list of fourteen recommendations:
Towards a Better App Store

The Newsprint
A view on one of my favourite writing apps, with its minimal interface, Markdown support and ability to publish directly to WordPress:
On My Screen: Byword for iPad

Matt Gemmell
A short, highly recommended read from a great writer:
Taking Credit

Pilot Kakuno Fountain Pen – Impressions

/ Pete Denison / 10 Comments

Kakuno SmileyI like to think I set an example and guide my children’s behaviour rather than imposing my will upon them. So, when presenting my son with a Pilot Kaküno fountain pen on his 11th birthday recently, I’d hoped he would be pleasantly surprised rather than think “here we go with more of dad’s pen obsession again”. Thus, with a desire to check out a Pilot (F) nib, what better excuse… um…I mean – with my son’s best interests at heart, I decided to buy the Kaküno.

The pen was purchased on eBay, as finding a stockist in my home town of Brisbane proved fruitless, as did searching the Australian on-line stationery stores (if anyone has had more success I would appreciate hearing about it). In considering the cost ($16.50 rrp) along with P&H, the price was more than reasonable for a pen of this quality. Included in the box were the pen, and a standard Pilot blue ink cartridge. There is also the option of using a Con–50 converter in future for bottled inks.

According to Jet Pens:

…Pilot designed the Kaküno pen, a simple fountain pen that is great for beginners. Thanks to its many features that help ease beginners into the world of fountain pens, kids and adults can experience the joy of writing with these delightful instruments. “Kaküno” means “to write” in Japanese and that’s just what this pen helps you do!

Look and Feel

The design of this pen is spot on in my opinion. A concern was whether my son would like the overall look, colour and shape, however I need not have worried, as he loves it. The pen is constructed of plastic, with a steel nib, and has a hexagonal barrel, clipless contoured cap (with a small ridge at one edge), and a grip area guiding the user toward a preferred hand position. Although the grip section is also hexagonal, alternate sides are longer, creating a more triangular and smoother edged shape overall. I found this approach to grip shaping more subtle and therefore more comfortable than the Lamy ABC grip.

The entire range has a grey barrel, with colour introduced through variations in the cap, with lime green, pink, red, blue, orange and grey available. As you can see from the accompanying images, we chose the blue cap. The nib? Well it has a smily face etched on doesn’t it – a fantastic feature for the target market which also provides a hint as to the correct nib alignment for writing. A great feature which in no way dominates the pen itself – more a sneaky nod and wink to the user.

The size and weight are perfect for both smaller or average sized hands, and can be used equally well by an adult or child, which I see as an advantage over the Lamy, which clearly looks like a “kids pen”. For something I hope my son will use for a few years yet, I think he would have outgrown the “look” of the Lamy sooner rather than later. My other consideration was the Lamy Safari, however when capped, would have been a little tall for his usual writing position. At the current time my son writes with the Kaküno uncapped, however I think this will most likely change as he grows and his hand becomes larger.

Dimensions:
– Diameter – Grip 11.6 mm
– Diameter – Max 13.3 mm
– Length – Capped 13.1 cm
– Length – Posted 15.7 cm
– Length – Uncapped 12.2 cm

Performance

According to other reviews, the feed and nib are the same as those found in a Pilot Prera which I have not had the experience of writing with myself (are there any pens out there not on my shopping list!). I ordered a fine nib to ensure a quick drying, cleaner writing experience and the Kaküno writes flawlessly. I think this is vitally important in a pen such as this, for an introduction to writing with a fountain pen should be enjoyable, not alienate the user due to a scratchy nib, poor ink flow, smudging or just a “messy experience” in general.

As far as a hand written sample is concerned, I will invite the owner of the pen to contribute here. The following are my 11-year-old son’s true responses to the questions I posed (with a Kaweco Ice Sport (M); J. Herbin Orange Indien):

Kakuno Qu1_2Kakuno Qu3_4

 

Kakuno Qu5Kakuno Qu6

Conclusion

Overall, I could not be happier with the choice of the Kaküno as my son’s first fountain pen. My son loves the pen as well, which does make me happy. Whether or not he carries forward the same interest in pens and paper as I do (not sure whether that is a good or bad thing in any event!), at least using the Kaküno has been a faultless, enjoyable experience that opens up many possibilities or perhaps none, depending on his own interests.

Would I recommend the Kaküno to others? Absolutely, it is an ideal beginners (or anyone’s for that matter) pen, rather than simply a kids pen – a key difference in ensuring the pen suits a wide range of users, and has the ability to grow with a younger one. Indeed I (ahem), we (cough), – he will certainly be using this pen often, and for some time to come.

Reviews of the Pilot Kaküno:
– The Pen Addict: Pilot Kakuno Fountain Pen Review
– The Well Appointed Desk: Review: Pilot Kakuno Fine Nib
– My Pen Needs Ink: Review – Pilot Kakuno
– On Fountain Pens: Pilot Kakuno fountain pen – great for kids and beginners

 

Wiser Web Wednesday

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

This week’s links of note I’ve collected from around the web.

Informal Scribble
What’s not to love about a great blood orange fountain pen ink with an equally good drying time:
Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-Gaki

The Newsprint
Do you use the little red badge icon in the Drafts App? It appears there may be a few of us around who track unprocessed notes this way:
On My Screen: Drafts for iPhone

Quartz
Further to my recent post which touched on coffee pods, Nespresso have come to an agreement with French anti-trust authorities to honour the guarantee on its coffee machines for consumers using non-Nespresso branded capsules:
Someone is finally forcing Nespresso to open source it’s coffee pods

CRS Coffeelands Blog
As a coffee consumer, I constantly hear about traceability and farm/roaster relationships. Just what specific grower incentives produce the most reliable results for both the farmer and the consumer? US-based Counter Culture coffee propose a model with what appears to have considerable merit:
Counter Culture’s new approach to quality incentives

Macstories
Federico Viticci outlines the new features in the update of Unread, my favourite RSS Reader for iPhone. The best new feature for me? Mark as read on scrolling – if I’ve scrolled past I’ve seen it. Consider it read unless I say otherwise:
Unread 1.2 Adds Image Viewer, New Gestures and More

I hope you find something of interest in the above.

An Easter Trip Disconnected

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

After a trip to visit my parents in northern NSW (usually about a 2 hour trip south from Brisbane), a particularly appalling traffic jam on returning home highlighted a couple of things to me regarding how I use my phone on journeys like these, and the limitations still presented to us when doing so.

Lets just say I am very pleased for those people who were visiting the town of Byron Bay over the Easter Weekend (our destination was a little further south), however these were not my thoughts when stuck in northbound traffic for close to two hours over a stretch of the Pacific Highway approaching the Byron on-ramp (which we usually cover in 10 minutes), thus making the trip home a leisurely 4 hour drive.

Getting There

So how was my phone involved in all of this? Firstly, the day before I had sent my mother an invitation to share my location in the Find my Friends app on her iPad, allowing her to have a reasonable idea of when we would arrive that morning. All worked well for most of the journey, with the exception of a request by the app for a login which was at the time unknown to my mother. Minor aberration soon fixed upon my arrival. During this trip, I streamed my music collection though iTunes Match for a little over two hours (I have a generous amount of data on my current plan), with the connection dropping out just the once.

Trip rating 9/10

Getting Home

The return journey and technology – not such a great pairing. The almost two-hour traffic jam where we moved only a few kilometres occurred where our 3G signal was fairly poor, leaving us without any connection throughout the entire period we were stuck. A disaster? No, however it did get me thinking about how I tend to use my devices when traveling, and the possible ramifications of this.

Starting with the Find my Friends app. It was all well and good to download this for my mum on her iPad and set things up to enable her to track our journey when we visit. When we lose connectivity? A couple of concerned parents who wonder why the location is showing a position 2 hours into a journey we should have passed in the first half hour. A breakdown? Accident? They were not to know.

Relating to the above, we were also out of range when trying to send messages. For iMessage? Forget about it, and it was difficult even getting standard SMS through. My mother’s attempts to send iMessages (as she often uses her iPad for messaging not her phone) both to myself and my wife were obviously not received either. So, again, from their end – breakdown or accident? This was ultimately resolved by eventually getting an SMS through to my mother’s mobile phone.

Of lesser importance in the connectivity side of things, we were also unable to check maps (Apple, Google or otherwise) to see if any of the side roads afforded an alternate route; check the web traffic updates to confirm if what we expected to be the source of the problem was actually the problem (and hence should be resolved once we passed that particular point); and obviously no music streaming was possible to pass the time (heaven forbid should we all actually talk – kidding, we did plenty of this).

The alternatives? Listen to CD’s (remember those?), albeit the 6 CD’s loaded into the 6-stack in-car stereo afforded a little less choice than the 6000 or so songs in my iTunes match library, however got the job done; the kids watched videos on laptops or listened to music actually on their phones; I could have listened to the podcasts I had downloaded, however didn’t necessarily see the need to subject the rest of the vehicle’s occupants with my own niche interests. As far as knowing what was going on and alternate routes? We did exactly as we used to do 10 years ago, and just waited it out along with the other few thousand motorists doing exactly the same

Return journey rating 6/10 (well we made it didn’t we – there has to be some score for that right?)

Lessons Learned

In summary, although we arrived home safe and sound, the above occurrence did highlight a few shortcomings of this “all connected” world we live in (I do acknowledge those who live in areas who experience these problems every single day). Much of what occurred above I admit were classic “first world problems” and did not really significantly concern me at the time, however when they affect others in your family, you do begin to consider how worthwhile these bits of technology are without 100% reliable coverage to ensure they work all of the time.

In future? Perhaps the case for a fully loaded dedicated car iPod; actually using the phone to call (go figure) my family rather than hopelessly trying to reach the iMessage server or get an SMS through; and resurrecting such classics as I-spy and car cricket.

By the way, had a great day with my great family. Hope your easter weekend was just as good (and fully connected).

Cafes, Bloggers and Reviews

/ Pete Denison / Leave a comment

Whether or not you agree with ratings and crowd sourced or blogger reviews, there is no denying their influence. Enough to make or break a business? Maybe, maybe not, though in an increasingly connected world, where we are all constantly encouraged to “rate” our purchases or experiences, a large amount of data is available for those who wish to look.

Reviews, Ratings and Blogs

Often being on the lookout for quality coffee, one site and app I often consult is Beanhunter, which was created to fulfill this exact need.

James Crawford, Co-founder of Beanhunter in Beanscene magazine:

Beanhunter is about engaging coffee enthusiasts with great coffee shops. It’s a platform for people to know where great coffee is located and expose coffee shops, that’s why it started.

Which then brings us to blogs. Yes, point taken – look at the blogger judging the bloggers! From the same article:

If Catherine has a “mediocre experience”, she says she won’t hesitate to share it with her followers. “Why should I not write about it just because it’s negative? I think of it as a warning to others to keep in mind what they can expect to happen, whether it be bad food or bad service,” she says. “I guess [reviews] do have the potential to hurt a business, but if there are so many negative reviews about a particular venue, then they must be doing something wrong.

Fair enough, however why should I “expect” a negative experience to happen? Or will I simply not go at all, relying on someone else’s opinion (who I know nothing about) that a particular place of business is not worthy of even a second look or the benefit of the doubt. That perhaps they were visited on a day when the senior barista was away at a competition, the boss was off with the flu, and the remaining staff were doing everything in their power just to keep the doors open.

So, much-needed guidance or more confusion? That is for readers to decide, however many a blog with a strong following and sound reader engagement will wield a good deal of influence on consumer behaviour. The downside? In all of the writer and reader interaction, the one left out in the cold is often the proprietor of the establishment being critiqued. The scenario mentioned above? Perhaps enough to warrant a low star review and scathing few words, when a simple word to staff or management may have resolved any particular issue with product or service on the day.

Sometimes it’s a little too easy to judge, and judge in front of a large audience at that.

On a blog or well patronised crowd sourced review site, the particular review in question may sit at the top of the posts for a little or a long time, allowing a great many potential customers to view it. Will they necessarily realise this is an aberration in the generally stellar performance of a particular establishment. Maybe, maybe not. Such a scenario may be where the numbers and the average review rating saves the day.

Of course let’s not forget there are those cases with consistently poor service of an inferior product, which is another matter entirely, and neither numbers nor words will save you here.

Penny Wolff, of Brisbane’s Dandelion and Driftwood on reviews:

“This form of communication can be detrimental because business owners can’t control people’s opinions. In most cases, they don’t have the opportunity to rectify the issue or respond to the review and that’s just frustrating for the business owner.”

Even if the business owner reaches out to the person who was supposedly wronged with an explanation and attempted clarification of a situation (as was the case on Twitter recently by a very well-respected establishment on the Brisbane coffee scene), it can be met with a meaningless response “ok thanks, I’ll be sure to mention that to your competition down the road”.

One expert or a hundred reviewers

At the end of the day, isn’t it all about personal opinion anyway? And if so, should we trust one expert reviewer (however that may be defined) or listen to the collective voice of hundreds of our peers? In many ways this is indeed a double-edged sword, and perhaps the answer lies in whether consumers really understand what they are going to get for their hard-earned cash.

Beyond the fact that the collective voice of our peers can be tainted by personal prejudice which sometimes descends into unruly nonsense, we also must acknowledge we have different levels of experience, tastes and preferences.

Perhaps this is where a specialised review site such as Beanhunter has an advantage over more generalised sites, in being a little more limited to those specifically seeking out a positive coffee experience rather than stretching across the entire restaurant, cafe and bar scene. On the other side of the coin, does this then skew ratings towards the specialist end of the cafe scene? I don’t necessarily think so, as even within a defined review ecosystem such as Beanhunter, tastes and experience do cross a reasonably sized spectrum.

The point here? There will always be differences in knowledge, experience, and preferences of groups at either end of the expert-novice spectrum, as this article on beer tasting from Business Insider demonstrates.

It’s your opinion not mine

The final word? Make up your own mind, because at the end of the day, surely the benefit of the doubt should go to those who have just done their best to serve you, with the resources they have, on the particular day you visit.