Improve your joypad...

The 'Joypad' 'SixAxis' controller that comes with the first Sony PlayStation 3 models improved the L2 and R2 buttons from the 'Dual Shock2' PS2 controller. In fact, they turned from buttons into trigger-style controls as found in slot-car racing controllers - so instead of just moving inwards, they rotate slightly. This improves the control over how much pressure you apply, which then translates into better control over the speed, thrust, power etc in the game.

The more recently released 'Dual Shock III' controller adds vibration, and there are differing opinions as to whether or not the L2 and R2 buttons have changed: slightly softer/grippier plastic, or slightly rougher surface finish, slightly harder to press versus slightly easier to press. I'm not sure if manufacturing tolerances, different moulds or mould wear, account for the these differences in perception. They feel the same to me...

But the triggers do have one problem. They are convex (rounded outwards) rather than concave (dished inwards) and so it is quite easy for your fingers to slip off them, particularly when the trigger is used as the throttle/accelerator control in a driving game. Although the surface of the trigger is textured, this only partially helps.

So I was intrigued to hear about add-on accessories ('non-slip trigger enhancements' is how the manufacturer describes them!) for the PS3 controller that turn the convex surface into concave by adding little bits of extra plastic. The 'real triggers for PS3' just clip onto the existing trigger, and can be removed if required. The mechanical design is very good - once clipped on they are stable and it takes quite a bit of enthusiastic trigger pressing to cause them to come off in the middle of game play. Best of all, there's no glue and no drilling required, and once removed, the controller is as it was beforehand.

All in all, a bit of an unfair advantage!

The picture compares a PS3 'SixAxis' controller fitted the the 'Real triggers' on the left, with a plain PS3 'SixAxis' controller on the right.

The 'Real tiggers for PS3' are made by GioTeck. I got mine from Amazon.

Quotes that resonate with me. Number 1

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

-Albert Einstein

Beans and Sauce...

Baked beans enjoy huge popularity at UK mealtimes. And yes, the name IS slightly misleading - the beans are actually 'simmered' rather than 'baked'. The familiar dark cyan can has been part of my pantry/larder experience since my age was expressed in single figures, many years ago. But recently, something strange and mysterious has happened...

It is one of those things that you notice once, dismiss as insignificant, but then with each successive instance, you gradually promote it in terms of importance. I'm now at the point where I'm intrigued enough to see if anyone else has noticed it.

Noticed what? Well, when you have opened a tin/can of beans, you then empty the tin/can into a pan or into a microwavable container (usually a pyrex bowl) and then heat them up (but not boiling them, since this allegedly 'impairs' the flavour - actually I love the flavour of overly enthusiastically-boiled 'beans that have gone mushy', but that's another story). And it is here, at the point of emtying them out, that the change has occurred. Previously, the beans and the sauce were one, and could be emptied out merely by inverting the tin/can - but recently, the sauce and beans are separate, with the sauce on top, and the beans in a lump ('en masse') underneath. Vigorous shaking is now required in order to remove the beans from the nether end of the tin/can.

I've tried opening brand new tins/cans, as well as those nearer the 'sell by' date, and the effect seems to be consistent. Once homogeneous beans and sauce have been replaced with sauce over beans 'en masse'. Now I know this is not the end of civilisation as we know it (although it comes a close second!), but I'd still like to know why this momentous change has happened, hence this blog post!

Great Mind 2009

Sometimes, you are surprised by recognition from an unexpected source. It provides a very warm and welcome feeling when your efforts are rewarded, and I was recently the recipient of just such an acknowledgement.

It was from the Advertising Research Foundation, and I was given a certificate of distinction as part of their 'Great Mind 2009' award for my work on advertising technology at Real Time Content (my day job). You can read more about it on the Real Time Content blog.

What is interesting about the award is that my work is all about disruptive change. I work with a highly skilled and hugely knowledgeable team of colleagues (who should really all be mentioned on the 'Great Mind' award) on changing the way that media is created and delivered. We are making media that is flexible and malleable, rather than a fixed 'recording' that can only be played back. Instead, we want to make the media of the future something which can change in length, rating, presentation, style, and more.

Turning media into something that is not constrained to a single 'instance' turns it into a form that is more like a live performance, where what happens next is not pre-determined, but is controlled by the reaction of the audience. Adaptive media might be one way of describing it, and the word 'adaptive' is very significant...

The great advances in technology are often based on a generic version of more specific solutions. The wheel turns a lever, from a one-shot method of moving a heavy load forwards, into a continuous form. The computer is a general purpose information processing device that can be used whenever you want to manipulate data. Perhaps making media adaptive is another of these fundamental changes...

Trains, Tube and Blobs

Some weeks ago, I sent a twitter 'tweet' pondering the reason behind the closure of Blackfriars tube station in London for three years, and got a fascinating tweet back that told me that there was no such tube station, and never had been. Nuff said, it seemed.

But I was recently able to talk to someone who is in the 'Trains' specialist group (known as a 'professional network') of the IET, the Institute of Engineering and Technology. The IET are the people who you talk to in order to reach the cream of the engineering profession - so you get straight answers from people who know. So I asked two obvious questions: why was Blackfriars closed?; and why do trains always seem to be replaced by buses at weekends?

Actually, the answers are pretty obvious once you think about them in the right way... This is probably because engineering is often about completely understanding the problem first...

Trying to completely rebuild a busy Tube station in situ in these days of very protective safety legislation seems like a recipe for accidents, or else is going to increase the duration of the work. With this in mind, then a few years seems less unreasonable.

Weekend 'rail replacement' buses seem strange given the apparent increases in the number of people who seem to want to use the train at weekends in our 24-7 'world in recession'. But given that the alternative is either closing down the rail network earlier at might, or doing the work during the week, then the weekend seems like the logical time to do it. But then, when you think deeper, you wonder why there's so much maintenance needed? Maybe the answer is to look beyond fixing the immediate symptoms and fix the underlying problem...

All of which wonderfully illustrates what I think engineering is really all about. It isn't necessarily about getting your hands dirty, or making the tallest, widest or longest something. Instead, it is more about thinking about how and why things work the way they do (or don't), and particularly about understanding how and why things interact (or don't interact) in the ways they do. Try searching for 'IET: Beware of the Monkeys' on YouTube for another example...

Which brings me to my final engineering question of this blog posting: Why do chefs always make the blobs of fruit coulis different sizes?

Apple do Care!

Despite the fact that I have AppleCare on my main G5 Quad Mac, I've never needed to us it so far. But recently, the hard drive on one of my offspring's MacBook decided that it had become a mere lump of metal rather than a useful piece of storage, and so AppleCare was used for the first time.

After a quick phonecall where it was quickly established that I had done all the things that one could reasonably be expected to do (check the PSU, check the battery, check if it boots with various keys held down, reset the PRAM, reset the power management, etc.), things moved rapidly to an appointment at the Apple Store on Regent Street in London.

The Genius Bar runs a queuing system even though you have timed appointments, and so I joined the set of people sitting on the wooden benches at the top of the stairs. After about twenty minutes I was called, and the Apple Genius rapidly established that the MacBook hard drive was indeed as dead as I had described. Once a repair form was filled in and signed, I left, expecting a 7 to 10 day repair time...

On my way back home (trains will be the subject of a forthcoming blog posting, so I'll say nothing now) my mobile phone took a message from the Apple Store telling me that the MacBook had been repaired and was ready for collection. Total elapsed time from leaving the MacBook to receiving the phonecall was less than three hours. Needless to say, I couldn't turn around, but I was still hugely impressed at being able to get such a rapid and relatively painless repair.

So, the MacBook is well again and I have a happy offspring once more. The experience was far less painful and much faster than I was expecting, and I have to give Apple 9/10 for a job well done. I deduct one point for the long queuing time at the Genius Bar, and for not having anything on the web-site that says that you don't need an appointment to pick up a repair...

iPhone Photos won't download...

I'm delighted with my iPhone, but there are a few little problems, as with any piece of hi-tech gear. The biggest for me is downloading photos. For some time now, I have not been able to download recent photos from my iPhone 3G. The Apple Discussion Forums have those usual annoying 'answered' topics where the question isn't really answered, or else they simply haven't been answered at all!(There's plenty of room for improvement on this part of Apple's web-site!). There seem to be a lot of people who have similar ongoing problems - sometimes you just can't download photos from an iPhone.

I've been researching this in depth for some time now, driven by a need to get the photos off my iPhone! Here's what I've discovered, presented here is the hope that it will help others who have similar difficulties with an iPhone that takes photos but then won't let them out!

Things to try to get photos off an iPhone!

Symptoms:
- can't download photos (all or most recent)
- no photo thumbnails in iPhoto or Image Capture download dialogue boxes

Possible solutions (try them in this order):

1 Eject the iPhone
Close all applications
Reboot Mac (Apple menu > Restart)
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

2 Reboot (reset) iPhone (hold square plus power)
You can reboot/reset the iPhone by holding two buttons at the same time:
- the sleep/wake/'power' button at the top right of the iPhone
- the square/home button in the middle of the lower part of the front of the iPhone.
Hold both of these buttons down until the screen goes black and the white Apple logo appears.
(You may get a red slider at the top of the screen - just hold those buttons!)
When the Apple logo appears, then you can let go of the buttons - the iPhone is now rebooting/restarting.

Note: Rebooting/setting the iPhone should not normally remove or delete any of your photos, settings, applications, or other information. In fact, it is good practice to reboot/restart the iPhone after installing any new applications on an iPhone.

Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

3 Try using Image Capture to import images (look in Applications/Utilities folder)
(Optionally, you can set Image Capture to start when iPhone is connected in future)
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start Image Capture
Import

(You can also use Thorsten Lemke's enduringly excellent Graphic Converter to download photos as well, although if Image Capture doesn't work, then GC seems to have the same problem.)

4 Rebuild iPhoto internal database
Close iPhoto
Duplicate your /user_name/Pictures/iPhoto Library folder first so you have a back-up/recovery folder
(right-click on the 'iPhoto Library' folder and choose the 'Duplicate' option)
Hold alt plus apple, and then click on iPhoto icon
In the dialogue box (pictured) choose the top three options, press 'Rebuild', and wait...
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import



5 Close iPhoto
Disk Utility -> Verify Mac HD
Disk Utility -> Repair Mac HD (2x)
Delete /library/preferences/com.apple.preview.plist
Delete /library/preferences/com.apple.iphoto.plist
Delete /library/preferences/com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist
Reboot
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

Finally, if all else fails:
6 Delete all photos on phone (you will lose them!)
Take a few photos with camera
(You may need to do 1,2,3,4...)
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

Caveat: As with anything that is beyond my control, you do any of the above at your own risk, and I cannot be held responsible for any loss of photos, data, etc.