Archive for August 4th, 2005

Posted on August 4, 2005 - by jono

Irking out

Been a hectic week this week as usual, and I am not entirely convinced I am recovered from What The Hack. I have been feeling pretty tired all week.

Finally got GStreamer 0.9 compiled. After getting the base system up and running I attempted to compile gst-python but it failed. Edward has since fixed it and it now works. Woo! I have had a fiddle with some of the examples in there and it looks cool. I also discovered Diva – another project to build an easy to use NL video editor. It is good to see some fresh development going into this area. I look forward to the day I can do all my video editing on Linux for good.

You know, I tend to find myself constantly asking questions of the world. The other day I drove to work in Sooz’s car. I got in, plugged her CD player fascia plate in and looked for a play button. Now, virtually all playback devices and tools have the play symbol ( |> ) and stop ( [] ) symbols. On this particular player there was neither. I sat there for a few minutes looking for other obvious choices and none were there. After about 10 minutes of looking and poking random buttons, I gave up and drove in silence. Argh! When I saw Sooz later that day I asked her which button to press and she said “Well its obvious, press the Source button”. It seems that in the context of this player you don’t play something, you select the source to play – either the radio or the CD player.

There are numerous problems with this sorry story. Firstly, why doesn’t it start playing the last source that was playing before the power went off. Secondly, the Source button does not use the well recognised |> symbol, and thirdly, dual function buttons make little sense – always try to keep a single function on a single button, or at least make an effort to make it clear the button has dual uses. The thing I find most surprising is that their product usability tests did not pull out this defect straight away. Oh, then again, maybe they did not have any tests…no…surely not…

Oh, and never let your better half order shopping from Tesco.com. Sooz was responsible for this little lot arriving:

It also appears the devil is in my inbox:

That can’t be good.

Finally, one and all, go to the UKUUG conference in Swansea tomorrow and come and say hi. I will be talking about that odd radio show I co-founded…