NaN error on weather forecast in place of date?

 

Looking at the weather forecast for next 10 days, indicates the NaN (not a Number) error on page

Interesting … is there some testing going on the production or is just that the data not available and the computing or rendering made it as NaN?

Ah! my favorite icon on this application…

What does it mean when a speaker presenting a tool says “ this part of the feature is my favorite” pointing to the help/report problems icon and goes on saying “it reports all the required information and I have seen a lot of people using this feature on this product”

Does it mean:
1. This product is so clever and collects all the relevant information to troubleshoot further?

OR

2. Tool isn’t intuitive enough that makes users to seek help often?

Would I still buy that product?

hmm….

Windows Live Movie Maker

Playing with Windows Live Movie Maker – a movie feature that I am using after a long time. I used to love Photo Story, i don’t know if it is still available. I was going through some of the photo movies I had made long time ago, and realized, something that I haven’t tried again in a long time and need to take a look again.

Before looking for photo story to install, I stumbled on WIndowsLive Movie Maker which is part of windows live essentials, and liked it a lot. I am yet to explore several features and have just installed it to create a sample out of handful of pictures

you can download Movie maker from http://download.live.com  / http://download.live.com/moviemaker

there is also a great video resource available up on windows live blog – http://windowslivewire.spaces.live.com/blog 
[The new Windows Live Movie Maker – available today!] 
[ url: http://windowslivewire.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2F7EB29B42641D59!41357.entry ]

bing, google the synonym of Search?

Interesting video on college humor site, on googl(search)ing with Bing.com 🙂

watch here http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1915736

Movies and violence …

I was at the Movie Transformer 2, 2 days ago. Apparently, this time, I made it at about the right time. Most movies I go, although, it is very rare, would have the house almost empty, and it is easier to find the last row, that i usually prefer. Or perhaps, we usually go earlier than this time. Anyways, although it was on time, it was not really on time for the movie to start, but just on time before the trailers began. Managed to find a seat on row 5 from the last, I never prefer to go to the front to watch move, although i see some people prefer to sit on row 3 or 4 from the front and some at row1. When you go to the Sony Digital screen which is about 45 to 50 ft tall, and sit at the front, I can’t imagine the stiff neck you would have when you get out of the theatre.

Anyways, being right on time for trailers, sometimes, I like the those trailers being a great preview. But at times, it makes me think whether all movies made these days are of violence in nature? Or do trailers follow the path the main movie is labeled as? in this case it was Transformers. Following trailers were shown:

9.9.09 – some sort of violence
The airbender – about destroying one individual (but appears to have lots of stunts)
Search: 2010 –> about world ending in 2010
Gamer: – about army and slayers – though a video game, but the players are real
<and few more>

I probably feel it this way because of not watching many movies, and me going to a theatre is once or twice a year. or well, I am not sure if such movies has made me not to go watch them.

well, I am also aware, that at the end of the day, me talking about violence movie doesn’t mean anything in general.

Now, coming to the part of Movie I watched : “Transformers 2: the raise of the fallen” –> it was a great movie. Great graphics, great direction. Although, I personally felt, if I missed the sequel part of it for not watching the part1 of the movie. but yesterday, one of my colleagues, said: not necessarily – as they are not completely connected or disconnected. so even without watching part1, you should still be able to grasp the theme. I guess my understanding was very isolated to part2 alone.

Overall, the movie was entertaining, funny, though some violence, but not in a way that living characters get hurt. I know some viewers have that kind of notion that as long as living characters are not hurt in the movie, it is entertaining. So movie characters involving into violence were mostly autobots. I liked the movie, and it was also interesting to note the movie was for over 140minutes, it is is not that often that we notice English movies being that long.

Rounding Currency…

It is often interesting how the UI screen validation goes, and not all the scenarios completely thought of when the applications are released to public.  Here is an example, although my screenshot was taken a long time ago, it was misplaced and couldn’t get to it back then. Anyways, The minimum payment due on my account was $3/- while my statement balance due was $2.59/- Why should I pay $3/- when I owe less.

 

Agreed there are three options and I could choose to pay what I owe with the 2nd option and proceed further, but it is apparently misleading the customer saying “your minimum payment exceeds the amount you owe!”

another observation: why should the default be at the minimum payment Due when the statement balance is less. Agreed, there is a note “payment must be at least $1.00 and cannot exceed your current balance” , however it would be a better user experience if the default was set to statement balance when it is less than the Minimum payment due. I don’t know how MinimumPaymentDue calculated, it is probably at least $3.00 or percentage of the balance due. But this assumption conflicts with the note of “at least $1/-“

just a thought! There is an opportunity to improve in the way we communicate to the customers. The way build the relationship with customers. The way me make the life simpler to the customers and not complicate with unnecessary ambiguous messages we provide on our sites.

Technorati Tags: Software User Experience

Did We Miss It?

… There is always this notion in software/application development, that if a defect found in a phase after the previous phase, people in current phase are always looked as if something bad has really happened already, in a way, even before the complete analysis, we tend to take a decision as, “Did we miss it?” and several follow up questions pop up;

“Did we miss it?”
“Why did we miss this scenario? “
” How did we miss this scenario?”

and pretty much all “Wh” questions are posed and pointing the finger at you, essentially.

if there was something missed out in Functional document and defect passed down to Design/Coding phase, then it was missed by an analyst capturing the required information. Similarly, if a defect was found in User Acceptance or during the application deployment, then a test team has missed it – so they are the victims.

I think it is the question of Attitude and their Thought Process? Why would they always think that way? Why not look at the problem first and see WHAT can be done in that situation and then further analyze if the scenario or the defect was really missed or if it was due to something else? I think we need to grow up and stop blaming or pointing figures. We need to learn to be Pro-Active, we need to really Respond to the situation in hand rather React to it. 

Can you hear me… hellooo…

… I work with regional teams at work and obviously tele-conf calls have been a routine. Most people would tend to dial in from their computers which makes perfect for VOIP conference calls, however, I think there is still a lot of room for improvement in VOIP space, in terms of call quality, noise reduction, latency, etc. I have noticed that we often spend 10 to 15 percent of our 45minute conference call in –
> “Can you hear me?”,
> “you are breaking up”,
> ” you need to speak a bit louder please” ,
> “it is feeble” and so on…

and most funnier of all “Oh! sorry, I was on mute and the VOIP conf call window was lost on my computer” .. —> talk about multi-tasking going for mute/unmute option, conf call application gets hidden in bunch of other open applications on the computer.

Technorati Tags: VOIP,Communication technology

GM/Segway innovative PUMA

While driving from work this evening I heard this on Radio that GM is partnering with Segway to come up with a 2-passenger vehicle on Segway’s model and would run on the battery. Following are the facts I heard :
1. moves at 35mph
2. looks elegant but a modified version of Segway
3. GM is probably looking to produce this starting 2012
4. No comments about pricing yet
5. PUMA would have sensor ability to keep away from the vehicles and the pedestrians, making it safer to ride.

few questions posed:
1. would it be safer on our roads?
2. It is very small and not safe to be on road with other vehicles; but it is quite bigger to use on sidewalks
3. What are the designated places this device is intended to be used?
4. cities’ infrastructure department might think of constructing separate lanes for these models like (like the bicycle lane)

see a video here on this blog [picture snapshot from one of these videos]

PUMA stands for: Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility

more on huffingtonpost [link]

see more on Segway website:  http://www.segway.com/puma/ ; http://www.segway.com/blog/20090406introducing-project-puma-329.html

How ’bout a virtual personal assistant…

… for our everyday routine tasks? The one who can recognize us and be there to get routine electronic stuffs for us? Noticed a write-up on Seattle-PI – [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/401934_msftintel02.html] that mentions about a potential software product that acts as a virtual personal assistant and helps us in our tasks. That would be great. Few excerpts from the article:

“ability to make sophisticated decisions about the people in front of her, judging things such as their attire, whether they seem impatient, their importance and their preferred times for appointments“

“Intel is working to bring similar levels of processing power down to tiny chips that can fit into just about any device“

“elevator that senses when you are in the midst of a conversation and keeps its doors open until you are done talking” –> that’s a great idea, however, i wonder if other people waiting for elevator would get annoyed with this approach.

finally, what is exciting was
“… this as a $10 billion potential market that will give rise to 15 billion brainy devices by 2015“

more … http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/401934_msftintel02.html