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?

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!

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.

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!)