Ineffablicious

iPhone apps I can't live without

2010-11-14T19:37:00.001-08:00

Time for a post on apps that I've found to be super helpful ever since I got my shiny iPhone 4—the apple of my eye (other than my sweetpea)!

Remember the Milk—I absolutely adore lists. To-do lists, lists of books I should read, music I like—pretty much anything I can put in a list format. This app has revolutionalized my list obsession. With it, I can set up email reminders for events, from Google Calendar, my Chrome browser or my iPhone. And I can get the warm fuzzy feeling every time I check off something on my list. If lists are your thing, you need RTM. Full stop.

Evernote—Along with my list obsession, I love taking random notes on my multiple devices, often resorting to Notepad on the PC, and Notes on the iPhone. I've just discovered the answer to organizing these notes into a searchable format and for syncing these random bits and bobs across my devices.

TripIt—Email all your travel plans—hotels, car rentals and most importantly, plane information to TripIt and it creates an itinerary with maps, departure and arrival information as well as confirmation numbers for you. All the information is presented in a nice easy to read format that's accessible via the web and the iPhone.

Remote—Want to change the music in iTunes from anywhere in your house using your iPhone? Remote has finally enabled music wars in our household. Thank you Apple.

Sunrise, Sunset—For planning activities during daylight hours, whether it's a run or a hike, or for finding out when that glorious sunset or sunrise is going to hit, this app is awesome, simple and free!

There are also other freebies that I highly recommend but don't deserve center stage. For example, the Yelp! app is a must for checking out restaurant options when you're in a foreign city. And, the DropBox app is great for syncing up photos with your dropbox and accessing pdfs on the iPhone.

That's it for now, I'll update this list as I find more apps that make my heart swell. Did I mention I love my iPhone?

Superstitious pigeons: An example of designing for cultural relevance

2010-09-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting example of designing for cultural relevance in the most mundane place—paying for parking tickets. I've noticed that since parking lot ticket machines were first introduced into South Africa, a strange practice emerged. This practice is reminiscent of Skinner's superstitious pigeons (see this article for a layman's summary).

Essentially said practice unfolds like this:

1. A South African goes to pay for their parking ticket at the machine

2. They insert coins for the amount specified

3. One or more coins are rejected from the machine for no apparent reason

The superstition part comes in here. South African's believe that scratching the coin against the ticket machine somehow will make the machine accept the coin. So the next part of the process goes something like:

4. The South African rubs the rejected coin against the metal of the machine several times, re-inserts the rejected coin and hopes it gets accepted

5. If it is rejected again, the procedure is to repeat Step 4 until there is success.

Should Step 5 fail, the solution is to find other coins, use notes or in some cases, yell expletives and give up exasperated.

Now this process in itself has mostly just amused me but the other day, I noticed that the ticket machine designers take this superstitious practice very seriously. Case in point, to the left, this is a photo I took of a ticket machine at a major shopping center, Canal Walk, a few days ago. Notice the "Scratch Plate" which looks like it has seen good use and wear from users rubbing the coins, frantically trying to get the machine to accept their money offerings.

What I find fascinating is that this scratch pad serves no functional purpose, and may be totally based on superstition. Or perhaps, rubbing those coins does make the machine gods happy and I'm just not in the know.

In all, this example, warmed my HCI heart to see that sometimes, design really is about fitting the system to the local situation and not only about ease of use.

Qualitative research tools

2010-09-01T02:29:00.000-07:00

As a somewhat seasoned qualitative researcher, I am always on the lookout for tools to improve the coding process for going through interview transcripts, particularly since I'm a fan of grounded theory. (As an aside, read this book to find out more about grounded theory or read my advisors take on the theory, noting that the strong-point of this approach is how operationalizable the steps are). I've used everything from MS Excel, to the open source tool Weft QDA to track codes for quotes and for open and axial coding.

Weft QDA was several steps up from Excel, allowing you to digitally annotate documents with codes and categorize them into higher level codes. However, using Weft, all documents have to be converted to plain text and the software is a little buggy. But on the other hand, given the unforgiving graduate student budget, this makes for a good option if you want to manage your codes digitally.

Recently, I started using Atlas.ti with a student licence and I am utterly pleased. The tool allows for easy open coding (or creating new codes), and you can also select from codes you've already created. I'm especially a big fan of the keyboard shortcuts for the coding process. What's better is that you can easily group codes into "Families" for axial coding. The tool also gives you counts of how many times a code has occurred and makes it easy to view quotes associated with a particular code, or family of codes, both in the editor or for printing purposes.

So for me, I'll look no further than Atlas.ti for now and I highly recommend investing in it if you can spare the change and you're a fan of having a digital copy of a qualitative analysis (even though its still nice to shift pieces of paper and post-its around!).

Seeing a new side of South Africa and Cape Town

2010-08-30T10:50:00.001-07:00

I've decided to resurrect my failed attempt at blogging while on internship in my home town, gorgeous Cape Town in South Africa. This is a quick summary of the country's atmosphere as I am experiencing it since my arrival in mid-August.

So let's start with the bad news down here include the crippling public servants strike, causing education and healthcare to grind to a halt. Final year high school students' matric exams are being affected as as teachers lay down their chalk, and more sadly, patients and young babies are dying as nurses all over the country elect to stay away from work during wage negotiations. Coupled with that there's much hype over a proposed bill, The Protection of Information Bill, geared at censoring the South African media.

But as always, on to the good news. I've had somewhat of a nice barometer on the South African climate, visiting here once a year for the past 5 years. After seeing a particular slump in the country's morale in 2007, I'm glad to report that after the world cup, the country is in a positive upswing. Several months after the event is over, flags are still flying brightly all over the place. Never before, since our transition to a democratic government after our 1994 elections, have I seen such positivity or pride in the nation, or our colorful flag adorning cars and attire and flying high from Franschhoek to Salt River.

And because of this continuous positive energy, encompassed by one of our favorite phrases, "'n boer maak 'n plan" or "we'll make a plan", which generally means in any situation, that we will be alright and we will figure it out, this country continues to amaze me. I am soaking up, with delight, it's diversity as I research home internet use, interacting with lovely people of different economic, racial and class backgrounds, each with their own accents and cultural nuances. What a great place to be and how lucky I am to enjoy this rich experience in my life as a researcher :). And on that ending note, I hope this post inspires me to write more on my adventures down here in my latest attempt at blogging.

i heart lolcats

2008-04-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

Omg this is so cute!!!

see more crazy cat pics

Sicko: Towards universal health care...

2008-04-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

Watched Michael Moore's latest movie Sicko about the US health care system and how its primarily managed by private health care organizations like Kaiser Permanente, Humana and so forth. It was really interesting to see the comparison to countries with national health care systems like France and the UK. Also, it was kind of scary to be reminded that the health care system here is pretty odd - I myself have taken to avoiding regular dental check-ups because its so hard to find an affordable health care plan that covers dental expenses for graduate students - my teeth haven't fallen out yet and this year I caved and shelled out $800+ for a check-up and some fillings. Maybe I should move to Canada...

Anyways, I highly recommend the movie if you like Moore's style :) It's also a timely and interesting documentary to watch given that health care is one of the main issues that comes up in Obama and Clinton debates.

Food security: Drought. Rice. Unrest.

2008-04-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

At first bet, food and security don't seem to belong in the same sentence but...climate change is slowly causing disruptions to the global food supply, resulting in national security concerns. The NYTimes has cool article on how a 6 year drought in Australia is causing havoc with rice prices, and subsequent unrest in countries dependent on rice exports for their staples.

Looks like environmental concerns, and subsequent effects on food/water supplies will to continue to creep into international affairs - for example the article mentions how the use of crops like corn for biofuels is contentious because its pushing up food prices, with developing countries being mostly affected by these price increases. This affects policies on renewable energies, etc.

Reminds me of a recent Colbert Report on how potential water shortages may cause future political unrest. So food/water, climate change and security may be keywords in many discussions to come...arguably with developing countries suffering the most from shortages and price hikes.

An addition: South African trade union workers are marching against rising food prices...

NY Times, Cell phones and global poverty...

2008-04-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

The NY Times has finally caught on that cell phones are a good platform for communication and connectivity in developing countries...

The title of the article is "Can the cell phone help end global poverty?" which seems like an overstatement... but it's a fairly nice article on an anthropologist from Nokia who does user research in Africa and other developing parts of the world...his mission is to harvest information on people, their cell phone needs and subsequently inform the design of Nokia cell phones...they must be doing a good job because I'm a total Nokia junkie :)

Thumbs up for thumbs up

2008-04-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

Another addition to my brunch list which may be my new favorite place - just came from Thumbs Up Diner on Edgewood road - had an absolutely delicious salmon and cream cheese omelette -the portions are insanely big and the prices are good $6-$10 for a huge breakfast - I highly recommend it, but get there early or you're in for a 30 minute wait or longer (as with most brunch places in the ATL).

Jungle Fever

2008-04-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

Jill pointed me to Jungle Disk - a cool back up tool - its only $20 for the software and it uses Amazon's S3 storage service. You can configure automatic backups and worry less about hard drives failing and losing precious data...oh my precious...

I've been burned enough times with bad disc drives to fall in love with this solution. Ok, so now I'm locked into the business model and will be paying my monthly fee for storing important documents but at least now I can feel "safer" that its accessible from anywhere on the web and that I'm ok even if my external hard drive/laptop/etc fails.

A small price to pay in my mind...along with my annual flickr bill amongst other things...aah such is life :)

Loafing Creatively in the ATL

2008-04-06T19:49:00.000-07:00

Movie, Arts and Theatre:
1. Shakespeare's tavern - go for a meal and a play downtown
(http://www.shakespearetavern.com/)
2. The High Museum - its free on the first Saturday of the month for Fulton county residents
-also has symphony concerts on Thursdays where you can get student tickets and jazz nights on Fridays. Also, occasionally shows movies.
3. Martinis and Imax at Fernbank - really cool atrium here with big dinosaur bones, didn't get to watch a show 'cause they were sold out when I went but I'll be back

4. Midtown Art Cinema for more arty films

5. Tara for more arty films

6. The Plaza on Ponce - old school theater, nice retro way to catch a flick

Coffee Shops:
1. Octane on Marietta street (my-out-of-office office, great sandwiches, excellent vibe, good music)
2. Inman Perk - nice coffee shop in Inman park
3. Dr bombay in candler park - cute tiny coffee shop with lots of second hand books for sale for cheap, no wifi though if I recall correctly
4. Java vino on north highland road

5. The Bake Shop on Peachtree and 8th

Music venues:
1. The Earl in East Atlanta
2. Smithe's old bar on Monroe
3. Northside Tavern on Howell Mill for Blues
4. Vinyl/The Loft/Center Stage - smaller intimate venues
5. Tabernacle - watched a few good shows here, nice seating arrangement makes it easy to see bands
6. Masquerade on ponce de leon
7. Variety playhouse in little 5 points

Decent Bars/Pubs:
1. The Highlander (next to Apres Diem)
2. Corner Tavern in Little 5 points
3. The Independent (has poker on Sundays and pool tables)
4. The Spotted Dog on North Avenue
5. Cypress street on 6th street in midtown
6. The local on ponce de leon
7. Righteous room on Ponce de leon
8. Gilberts - standard pub on 10th street - has music, bar and the food is not bad

Nicer bars:
1. Tap on Peachtreet and 14th street - very nice upmarket pub
2. The Graveyard in East Atlanta - has couches, pool tables, nice vibe
3. Brickstore in Decatur - best selection of imported beers
4. Atkins park in highlands
5. Top flr - hidden slice of cool down on the end of Myrtle Street in Midtown, next to Papi's - had a pizza with duck on it that was really tasty, this is a little pricer food wise but the food is worth it, good spot for easy drinks
6. P'Cheen (on highland avenue) - nice swanky but laid back bar in highland with some outside seating
7. The Porter in little 5 points, rivals Brickstore for the beer menu

8. Bookhouse on ponce - nice, place for drinks

Breweries:
1. Sweetwater brewery - great place to hang out in over summer :), sometimes have live music, buy a glass and have 4-5 beers
2. Gordon Biersch (on peachtree in midtown) - nice small brewery - I love their hefeweizen or however you spell it - tasty!!!

Clubs and Dancing:
1. Sutra - hip hop club on Crescent street in Midtown
2. Halo - nice bar/club hidden away on 6th street
3. MJQ - excellent underground club on ponce

4. El Bar - good for dancing but can get crowded
5. Noni's on Edgewood

6. SoundTable on Edgewood

Hikes:
1. Blood mountain, near Dahlonega is cool, 7 mi loop trail
2. Neels Gap, not as interesting as blood mountain, on appalachian trail
3. Tallulah gorge - nice to hike but need to get there early to get one of the limited permits, better to do in summer I'm told because of wading in water
4. Amicolola falls - nice water falls
5. Desoto falls - too short for me and not such a sight to see
6. Stone Mountain - 30-40 min walk up if I recall correctly

Feed me Seymour

2008-04-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here's my growing list of places to eat in Atlanta:

Cheap Eats:
1. Canton House - Check out for affordable and tasty dim sum on Buford highway. Its a ways from Midtown but worth the drive. Service is friendly and quick.
2. Eats - on Ponce de leon for cheap, big portions, pasta/meat and sides
3. Ru Sans on Monroe - for cheap sushi, there's also one in Little 5 points

Brunch spots:
1. Flying Biscuit on 10th and Piedmont - my all time favourite for brunch/lunch or dinner - I love their oatmeal pancakes and biscuits
2. Ria's Bluebird cafe (http://riasbluebird.com/) - another great Sunday morning brunch spot
3. Gato Bizco in Candler park (opposite Flying biscuit) - another great brunch spot
4. Radial - on dekalb ave - good decent brunches
5. West Egg Cafe - howell mill road.
6. Thumbs up diner on Edgewood - excellent omelettes and now my new favorite place, good prices for huge tasty portions - what more can a grad student ask for?
7. Cafe 458 - a volunteer based service - all the servers and cooks are volunteers and proceeds from weekend brunch go towards helping homeless people become self-sufficient - tasty brunches too
8. My favorite place in ATL for brunch at the moment - Sun in My Belly (http://www.suninmybelly.com/)

Asian:
1. Spoon on Marietta Road is not too bad for Thai
2. Surin of Thailand in virginia highlands

Desserts:
1. Apres Diem - great atmosphere for doing drinks/dinner/or dessert (on Monroe)
2. Cafe Intermezzo (http://www.cafeintermezzo.com/) - dessert heaven

Italian:
1. Fritte - had good pizza here
2. Pasta di Pulchinella - cute place tucked away on Peachtree Walk - had a decent lunch here, I'd say its comparable to Figo at least for lunch and the prices were not too bad
3. Figo on Howell Mill, good healthy portions for a decent price, and quick service if you want a bite fast

Cuban:
1. Kool Korner - 349 14th Street, Atlanta, GA, 30318 - for great cuban sandwiches [This has closed down]
2. Las Palmeros - 368 5th street in Midtown - great affordable cuban place hidden away
3. Papis - on Myrtle Street in Midtown, good sandwiches

Tapas:
1. Sweet Devil moon - nice tapas place with live music on Piedmont, near 10th street, $3 tapas on Mon/Tue [this has closed down]
2. Fuego on Crescent street

Mexican:
1. Rosa Mexican at Atlantic station - my favourite mexican place
2. Nuevo Laredo Cantina - also really nice mexican place
3. anywhere on buford
4. Pozole - cute place in highlands

Burgers and pub fare:
1. Vortex on Peachtree Street and 8th
2. Atkins park in Virginia highlands

3. Flip on Howell Mill

Cupcakes:
1. Belly in virginia highlands

Indian/Pakistan
1. Panahar - excellent, intimate, byob place, great service and food
2. Madras Saravana Bhavan - excellent vegetarian in decatur
3. Bhojanic in Decatur - very tasty food
4. Choppati - cheap indian

Greek:
1. Taverna Plaka - expensive tapas like greek place, also with bellydancing, food was good

Mediterranean:
1. Ali Baba Mediterranean delights - cool gyro/pita place next to Variety playhouse in little 5 points

Lebanese:
1. Nicolas - has belly dancing and atmosphere, food is not the best

24 Hours and Organic:
1. R Thomas on Peachtree street - good for brunch/lunch/dinner, not too cheap but has organic food and freshly squeezed fruit juices

More upmarket:

1. Shauns on Edgewood

Play on...

2008-04-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

I've discovered two cool music stations, one just yesterday and the other a while ago.

For a mix of indie and electronic beats, check out:
http://somafm.com/

For indie music and a host of other music, check out:
http://kexp.org

This station is great for indie music fans, they're always playing new and fresh sounds.

Both sites have playlists updating in real time so you can see the track you're listening to :)