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    This is appoulsen.dk.
    From time to time I'll post here, but this is only one corner of my digital life. If you're looking to get to know me better, make sure to drop by my Twitter and Flickr accounts.

Trippin over players…

By appoulsen | Published: July 6, 2010

Video players, that is.

Where I work, we – amongst other things, thank God – design and develop videoplayers.

And it just struck me – or actually my man Christian just pointed out, that there is something inherently illogical to the conventions surrounding player-design. It revolves around the ‘play/pause’ and ‘mute/unmute’ buttons.

Why the hell is it, that when a video is playing you see the pause icon on the ‘play/pause’ button (meaning ‘this is what will happen if you press the button’) whereas when the sound is on you see the ‘unmuted’ icon on the mute/unmute button (meaning ‘this is the current state of the video). Is that not hellacounterintuitive?

Video is paused, sound is on

Video is paused, sound is off

Video is playing, sound is on

Can someone explain the logic to me?

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The iPad experiment part 2: Communications tools

By appoulsen | Published: July 2, 2010

One thing is being able to work on the iPad, another (although greatly overlapping) thing is being able to do all of the other stuff that normally goes on on the laptop or phone. Here are a few tool that make talking to the rest of the world a tiny bit easier:

Twitterific

Since ‘Twitter’ (the artist formerly known as Tweetie) is not out as an iPad app yet, I was pretty sure I would be using Tweetdeck as my app of choice for tweeting. However, after installing it and having it crash on me more times than I care to mention, I decided to give Twitterific a go. The app works just fine, but I really would have liked for it to make better use of the screen real estate. After all, we’re talking about a 10″ screen, and for someone who runs multiple accounts I would have like to be able to get a better overview of my activities. The app is well worth the relatively low price, though.

WordPress

For years, WordPress has been my tool of choice for blogging. Therefore I was thrilled to see an iPad app for blogging viaWordPress (both hosted and non-hosted blogs).It works like a charm, syncs new posts and comments quickly and is highly recommended. One feature I would just love to see added in the future is WYSIWYG editing, as having to type in html is kind of a drag. Especially on the iPad. But kudos to the developers, and awesome that the app is free (I would actually have paid good money for it).


IM+

I don’t use IM a whole helluva lot any more, but from time to time it makes sense to be able communicate suncronously (is that even a word?) and for that purpose, IM+ gets the job done. But until real multitasking hits the iPad, IMing will probably mostly be an office activity for me.

I am yet to try Skype on the pad, but it could be a healthy adition to the communications tools. I still think it needs to run in the background to make sense, though.

Any other suggestions for good communications apps?

Coming to you in a blog post soon: Entertainment apps and apps for kids!

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For your passport, try to look as criminal as possible, please

By appoulsen | Published: July 2, 2010

It’s that time of the year. Holidays are coming up and this year there is the off chance that I might be leaving the country for a bit. So I got out my passport and realised it expired last year (when there was no chance of me going abroad – unless you count Sweden, Amager and Jutland).

So I went to get it renewed.

Well, actually. First I went to get a hair cut. After all, I’ll be using the same passport for the next ten years, so I wanted to look my best in the photo (vain, I know) and getting a hair cut kinda boosts the old ego – that is, when it doesn’t leave me feeling old.

Next I went to have my picture taken.

There has always been a ton of rules when it comes to passport photos (no head gear, eyes must be visible etc.), but they’ve added a new – and very strange – one since the last time I went through the same manouvre. You cannot freaking smile!

Now I had my picture taken in a booth, and the voice in the booth offered no explanation of why smiling is off limits (I asked), but it had the rather ironic effect that I actually sat grinning for the first two trys, and had to do it over again working hard not to bust out laughing.

Anyway, I’ve since found out, that smiling in the picture makes it harder for biometric scanners in airports to match you to your passport, and while the explanation makes some sense, I still think it kind of sucks that I’ll be looking at a (relatively well groomed) criminal every time I open my passport for the next decade!

A couple of links on the matter:

BBC

BoingBoing

And a google search that I mostly like for the images

Oh, and in case you were wondering, this is what I ended up looking like.

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Happy birthday, blog!

By appoulsen | Published: June 30, 2010

Turns out this blog’s turned 6 years yesterday (on it’s current platform, anyway). Well happy b-day to you, blog. I guess my forgetting the actual day is kind of symptomatic of our relationship these days ;)

Posted in Blogging | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The iPad experiment part 1: office stuff

By appoulsen | Published: June 30, 2010

Spurred on by Ernst putting me on a list of web communications bloggers, my own guilty conscience for not blogging nearly enough and an experiment I’m conducting at the moment, it’s time to revive the blog. I’ll do so, with a post on a *cough* game changing *cough* device, and what it means to me on a day to day basis.

For a couple of weeks I’ve been the lucky owner of an Apple iPad. Well, lucky may be a bit of an overstatement since I paid for it in full, but still.

I bought it mainly because I’m sick and tired of hauling my big-ass MBP to and fro the office, and I find myself not using it that much at home, since my phone works wonders when it comes to tweeting, replying to emails and checking Facebook and what not. But there’s still stuff I just can’t do on the phone and I was kinda hoping this was where the iPad would take over. So far, it has.

To test out my idea I decided to park my laptop at the office and only use the iPad and phone at home. Here are some of the apps that allow me to do office-like-stuff on the pad.

Presentations

A lot of what I do revolves around presentations. Whether they be for teaching, pitching, fascilitating workshops. Thus the app I was expected the most from was the Keynote app. There are certain limitations when it comes to importing presentations from your regular machine, and it takes some getting used to, to work efficiently in the app, but now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, I’m absolutely loving it. I actually find that the limitations in some respects are healthy. Nice little restrictions that help keep me on track and to the point.

Downsides: Anxiously awaiting Danish keyboard support (and this goes for practically all use scenarios) and really missing the option of integration (flash) videos in pressos.

Writing

I went through a couple of notepad like apps before deciding to buy the Pages, but now that I have it, I’m glad I did. It feels every bit as intuitive as the Keynote app, and I’m pretty amazed at how easy it is to adapt to writing on the screen.

Downsides: Same as with Keynote. Except for the video-bit :)

Email

I don’t know why, but I actually prefer emailing from a mobile device (iPad/phone) to using the computer. Unless of course it is an email that needs to go on for pages and pages, but I suspect the addition of a bluetooth keyboard will fix this.

Downsides: Since introducing iOS4 for the iPhone, I kinda miss some of the same features on the iPad. Mostly the unified inbox.

Wireframing

At $49.99, the Omnigraffle app is pricy! But for simple wireframing it really gets the job done, and is worth every penny!

Downsides: I would love for it to be simpler to add stencils to the app. It is a bit of a hazzle right now.

Notes:

If you’re not using Evernote (regardless of which platform you’re not using it on) you’re really missing out. It is a beautiful service, and the iPad app does not dissapoint. Syncing notes, voice notes, screenshots (indexed), pictures is as easy as can be, and one of the reasons I can leave the laptop at the office without worrying about missing stuff when I get home.

Cloud storage:

Another service/app that ensures that vital files are with me regardless of which platform I’m on is Drop Box. Being able to effortlessly  up and download files and share selected ones with others is awesome. Just awesome.

There are other good tools for doing some serious work on the iPad (Quick Office and GoodReader to name a couple) but the ones above are the ones that get me through a day of working from home or an early morning or late night work session. One app, that is bound to be just around the corner and that I’m really missing, is a decent, iPad sized Yammer app, for that in-house micro-blogging stuff.

Next up: entertainment and reading apps, communications tools, and good apps for small kids (yes, my two-and-a-half-year-old has a couple of favourites lined up!)

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Holy political correctness, Batman! They’re using my tweets!

By appoulsen | Published: August 31, 2009

So apparently, all it takes to get me blogging is for someone to quote me in a decent blog post. Lars did that, and I felt I needed to give my two cents.

Before I go on, let me disclose. I happen to know Mads, who did a great deal of work on www.pepsimax.dk, so in that respect I’m biased. When that is said, I wouldn’t say or write anything I don’t believe, regardless of who I know.

A bit of background (I’ll keep it brief):

  1. Pepsi launch www.pepsimax.dk, A site that, for the main part, displays content from Youtube, Flickr and Twitter in which Pepsi is mentioned
  2. Users who don’t like the idea unleash a shitstorm of spiteful tweets (because they can. It’s part of the game, I guess. I seem to remember the same thing happening to Skittles a while back) against the site, but as it happens with such things, it quickly settles at a reasonable level
  3. ‘Experts’ (in this case consumer law types and journos) try to conjure up some sort of problem with Pepsi using other people’s tweets (not their pics or vids, though. Just the tweets).

It baffles me. Could we all just take a freaking chill pill and start enjoying the endless possibilities of social media (in whichever form we like) instead of going off on paranoid rants about privacy everytime someone comes up with an idea?

And could we PLEASE be less influenced by whether or not we like the product and look at the solution in itself? I mean, if this had been UNICEF or Barack Obama or even Apple, integrating social media the way Pepsi did, we’d be cheering, joyful to be included in their presence online.

Seriously, if you wanna keep everything to yourself, protect your tweets, it’s easy! And if you don’t wanna advertise for Pepsi, don’t write flattering tweets about the product with the word Pepsi in them!

Sorry, this was too brief and not structured enough, but I just needed to let out a bit of steam.

Posted in Home Field | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Twitter me this

By appoulsen | Published: April 21, 2009

I answered a question on Twitter tonight. The question was something to the effect of ‘how would you like to see politicians use Twitter’ and my answer was something to the effect of ‘whichever way works best for them’.

Now, without an explanation that sounds like a lamo non-answer. What I meant was: There are different ways of using Twitter that work for different people. They are not necessarily dialogue-oriented or personal. But they work in each their own way.

Examples:

  • Barack Obama (@barackobama) used Twitter for fundraising, rallying and link-pushing. NOT for dialogue. It worked for him.
  • Dell Outlet (@delloutlet) use Twitter for a mix of customer service and offers. NOT for personal stuff. It works for them.
  • Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) recently admitted to using ghost writers on Twitter, but he uses them for pushing quality content. It works for him.
  • CNN (@cnnbrk) use twitter for breaking news, and while Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk), who, amongst other things uses twitter for posting pictures of his wife’s ass, beat them to a million followers, it still works for them.

So, while I’m all for figuring out how best to use Twitter, we must start by aknowledging the fact that different people, organisations and companies use different channels in different ways.

We cannot always assume that the way we prefer to use, say, Twitter, is right for everyone.

We cannot assume that all the followers of, say, our new Danish PM, want to speak with him on Twitter. Perhaps they just want to know ‘what he is doing right now’ (the original question posed by Twitter). I personally don’t give a rat’s ass about the quys schedule (the topic for most, if not all his tweets), so I don’t follow him. It’s simple. I don’t know WHAT the guy could tweet that would make me vote for him, so in a sense, why the heck should he waste his time catering to me?

I love the fact that I can have conversations with people on Twitter – if you want, feel free to follow (@appoulsen), but I absolutely respect the fact that those who think I might use Twitter in a ‘wrong’ way will unfollow me.

Anyhoo – that was my two messy cents. Just didn’t know how to cram it in to 140 characters.

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Testing apture plugin

By appoulsen | Published: March 26, 2009

And feeling good about this morning’s declaration of love from drug of choice to me.

Coffee really does love me!

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Copenhagen Twestival

By appoulsen | Published: February 12, 2009

[UPDATE]: scratch the liive-blogging thing. doing a bit of video instead.

I’ve already blogged about Copenhagen Twestival over at Re: but I thought I’d give a shout out to the project and the two great Danes who spearhead the event here at appoulsen.dk as well (nice one guys – you ROCK).

Tonight a bunch of twitter-users all over the world will meet up in a bunch of cities and raise a bunch of Benjamins to secure clean water where it is most needed.While the Copenhagen event is sold out, I still suggest you get out your virtual wallet and give!

While the obvious choice would be to tweet my ass off tonight, I’m considering a bit of light live-blogging instead. Mainly because I miss blogging, and WordPress 2.7 is SO sweet, I feel like looking at it all the time.

The programme for the evening looks good, so there should be plenty of stuff to write about.

See ya there – or here.

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Poets And Plumbers / MySpace

By appoulsen | Published: February 3, 2009


Poets And Plumbers / MySpace.

I just hosted a seminar alongside Poets and Plumbers. It was all about MySpace – where are they at right now, how do they view their position in the Danish market (dominated by Facebook) and finally – and most interestingly – what they future holds for one of the grand old players on the social networking scene.

I must say, I’m pretty impressed by the plans forming at MySpace, and by their aproach when it comes to localisation. As the image shows, MySpace are comitted to a local presence in a host of different markets (Denmark among others), and actually managed to become THE social network in Germany, probably because of a very early localised version.

Anyhoo – watch out for MySpace in 09. There are some very interesting things just around the corner. Especially if you’re into music. Actually, if you can get your hands on an American I.P. adress you can check out some of the new stuff already.

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