Tweaking my Apple Magic Mouse
by kelvin.kang on Jan.02, 2010, under Gizmodoodats
One of the biggest change in my technology profile after working for Zoocasa is that I’ve now started to become quite a Macbook fan boy. When the Apple Magic Mouse was released, I opted to get one because one of the things that I really like about the new Macbook’s is that I really like the gesture concept on the trackpad. I was hoping that the Apple Magic Mouse would offer the same. However, I was quickly disappointed with the minimal amount of gestures offered by the Magic Mouse out of the box. It really offered no more features than any other mouse in the market.
Enter three handy utilities that extend the functionality of the Magic Mouse: MouseWizard, MagicPrefs and BetterTouchTool (BTT). MouseWizard is not free but it’s relatively cheap to obtain – it’s only $2.50 to purchase it. MouseWizard actually doesn’t come with many additional gesture support – all in all, I count 5 new gestures but the one cool thing it can do which I like is that you could do your whole hand to call the screensaver which I use to lock my Macbook. That is neat. MagicPrefs is free and definitely more extensive at least in terms of available gestures that you could invoke. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get most of them to work for me. My favorite is BetterTouchTool so far because it allows you to not only configure the gestures on your mouse but also on the multitouch touchpad of your Macbook.
For the time being, I have programmed my mouse to activate Spaces on a two-finger tap, Show Desktop on a two-figer swipe up and Application Expose on a two finger swipe down for the mouse. For my mouse, I have the five finger tap setup to show the login screen.
Happy 2010
by kelvin.kang on Jan.01, 2010, under This-and-That
Happy 2010 or specifically, Happy Twenty Ten. Apparently, this is the proper way of calling this year. It IS simpler to say admittedly. 2009 went by really fast but with some major changes in my life both personally and professionally.
Process and Structure
by kelvin.kang on Nov.07, 2009, under People-Engineering, This-and-That
- Understand the business problem and ensure that the process solves the business problem
This really is not very different from developing a technology solution for any business. Like all solutions, they need to resolve a business problems. In this particular case, there were multiple stakeholders and each of their needs were different. The stakeholders comprised of the client’s business management team, the client’s technology management team, Deloitte’s management team and the Deloitte’s support team. The client’s business management team required to receive adequate support in a timely and consistent manner. They had a business to run and their own clients to support. The client’s technology management team required to be able to justify that outsourcing was a viable solution to provide similar levels of support to the business while drastically cutting their ongoing technology costs. The Deloitte management team required to be able to report the support team’s ability to meet the agreed to Service Level Agreement by quantifying quality, identify issues and react to them accordingly. The Deloitte support team required to be able to do their job without being caught up in the process. The process should be a by-product of the support process and should not take up more than 10% of a support resources total day. - Involve the people who are going to participate in the process
This often sounds simple but it often isn’t done well because it is time consuming. We had the luxury of developing and implementing the process in about 3 months. This was reasonable and acceptable to all stakeholders because this was a major change for the client. There was a lot of negotiation between the client business, technical and Deloitte teams to come to a process that was acceptable to all. The solution was compromise for all parties but the reality, like most development projects, is that most good solutions is a result of compromise. What makes them good solutions is that is the solution is acceptable by all parties albeit grudgingly. I had a Project Manager who once taught me that a sign of a good negotiation is when all parties come out as though they have given up more than they should. It means true compromised has happened. - Make conscious effort to improve the process
Knowing that my team was going to find any kind of process burdensome, I entrusted the ownership of improving any processes back to the team. It gave them ownership of something that they found cumbersome but they were also the ones that would be the group that would most likely be able to suggest relevant improvements. Doing this indicated to the team that the promise made at the start of the project that we would be making process improvements more than just lip service. My role in improving these processes was to understand the change, ensure they met the business objectives and then negotiate the changes with the rest of the stakeholders. The key was to make this a living process. The process had to be relevant to all stakeholders. - Accept that documented processes are best used as a communications tool not a problem solving tool.
It is useful to help communicate to new members joining a team what is typically expected of them. It is also useful to communicate expectations of when and where other parties are interacting within the same workflow. I’m a big believer that processes should not solve all problems; they should provide the general guide and not meant to resolve every question or issue that the team will face. You have to trust that the team you have is talented and intelligent and the process has to be flexible enough to allow team members to make appropriate decisions to resolve issues creatively without ignoring the process.. It is much better to replace a resources that isn’t performing than to try modify a process to deal with a small number of members that aren’t performing. - Keep the process simple
The reality of complex processes is that they will fail. Complex processes are cumbersome and are difficult to maintain. A process should enable the team, not restrict them. Complex processes are generally very restrictive.
- It’s difficult to properly handle the growth of more than 8 individuals
This is speaking mostly from personal experience. It’s hard to help mature and grow the talents, skill and professional maturity of any individual. Each individual requires an investment of certain amount of time and energy in order to do it well. And all this has to be done in conjunction to the other responsibilities that you have as a manager. My magic number is 8. This number is derived from me taking about an hour of the morning or afternoon for each individual. 4 days a week allows me to focus on 8 resources leaving Friday to catch up with my own needs or issues. - Democracy is ineffective in team management
Democracy is great in politics but has no place in technology management. I’m personally a believer in hiring the right team and that often means hiring a lot of smart people. The biggest benefit of having a really smart team is that they are going to have a lot of great ideas. The biggest detriment of having a really smart team is that they are going to have really good ideas that are going to contradict each others and chaos typically ensues in a flat structure. Technology decisions should be driven by purpose. You need someone to make the decision that aligns to the technology vision of the company otherwise the result is a fragmented solution that becomes difficult to support and extend over a period of time. - Nobody is an expert in everything
Beyond accountability, there also is the issue of expertise. You want to pick the best solution/technology for the problem on hand. When developers are stuck on an issue, they have the tendency to not want to go for help. Creating functional responsibilities around areas of expertise helps you as a manager. You need to have go-to individuals for expertise when you have to make a decision. The team is no different. The team should have go-to people to accelerate the solution of certain problems. - Roles and Responsibilities are the minimum requirements for individuals
Most people look at formalized roles and responsibilities as limits to what they can do. In most consulting organizations, fulfilling your prescribed roles and responsibilities guarantees that you don’t get fired only in the good years. In lean years, most consulting organizations will look at individual performers and keep anyone who is performing above and beyond what is expected of them. Roles and responsibilities should be used as the MINIMUM requirement for any individual. To be eligible for additional reward, you have to perform above and beyond what is expected of you. - Responsibilities is not a reflection of value
A manager has different responsibility from a developer but it doesn’t in any way reflect the developer is more valuable than the manager. A good manager cultivates that culture by fostering the growth and mutual respect for every member of the team regardless of responsibility and title. In certain organizations, I’ve created lead responsibilities within a team that are meant to rotate from member to member. I’ve also created special teams where in those projects I would function as a business analyst reporting to team members who would otherwise be reporting to me in the overall project.
Sucking down
by kelvin.kang on Oct.12, 2009, under People-Engineering, This-and-That
People Engineering
by kelvin.kang on Oct.11, 2009, under People-Engineering
There have been a number of different events in my life right now that have caused me to start to looking back in my career. One of the biggest changes for me is the switch from having a very technical role to non-technical roles. Looking back, the change wasn’t as revolutionary in my career as I first thought; it was merely evolutionary. The main reason why technology development appealed to me is because it is one of the few ways that I can actually be creative in the way I solve a particular problem. When I first started out in development, much of the problem solving and creativity was isolated in the sense that both the problems and solutions were constrained to technology. The nice thing about technology is that it is binary. Things either work or don’t work for the most part. As my career evolved, my problem solving involved a mixture of business and technology; I was now using technology to focus on solving business problems. The business problems were interesting because the answers were not as concrete. There were a lot more variables to consider. In the past few years, my career has been more about building technology teams by setting up people, process and tools.
Customer Experience Required in Canada’s Wireless industry
by kelvin.kang on Oct.10, 2009, under TechnoFrazzle, This-and-That
One of the worst kept secrets in the Canadian Mobile industry is that both Telus and Bell are going to be launching their W-CDMA network in 2009. The launch is now imminent with the announcement that both Bell and Telus will soon be launching with iPhones on their networks in the not so distant future. Competition for wireless in Canada is about to get really hot in the next few months and maybe even years.
I won’t claim to be an expert on wireless; I’m more of an observer. My sense tell me that when the dust settles in a few years, price points would remain about the same as they are today. We will get more features due to the evolution of technology but they will eventually stay about here. A large reason for that will have to do with our Canadian geography, the lack of population density and lack of population mass making this business a relatively expensive venture to undertake in comparison to other countries. Companies like Rogers and Bell might be in better shape to provide content delivery by leveraging their media divisions but in general, every other company will have very similar risks, costs and revenue opportunity.
The one factor that every company has control over is the customer experience. Being someone who is very interested in mobile, one of the Twitter searches I follow is “#telus #bell #rogers” and with a medium like Twitter, they can be vocal about how they feel. One thing in common is that people are extremely frustrated and are looking for alternatives from the big 3 today.
Good customer service is the tip of the iceberg for a great customer experience. This starts all the way from the start of a sale all the way through the time a customer chooses to leave a service. I can’t speak for any other service as I’ve been solely a Rogers customer for about 8 years now. Rogers has vastly improved its customer service from when I started using them. It used to be a pain to call them because customer service reps (CSR) could be extremely rude and unhelpful. Today the fear of calling 611 is no longer there and Rogers has gone as far as to hire a Social Media team to help deal with issues on Twitter. It’s still early on but I have high hopes of its success.
Beyond customer service, this is where Rogers falls down and needs to seriously shore up the organization to stem the tide of negative comments. It’s frustrating to call a CSR to know more about plans, features and products of the company that the CSR is representing. It’s also frustrating that there is more knowledge of Rogers on sites like HowardForums.com then in Rogers itself. This problem also extends to the technical side too. One such incident that sticks out in my mind is right after Rogers announced that they too were now able to send and receive Tweets via SMS. The transition was rocky at best. For myself, it took almost 5 days for it to work. One particular person on Twitter had an iPhone and the technical support rep insisted that the problem was with the iPhone and had the individual call Apple multiple times for support. It was pretty clear that if the person was receiving other SMS messages that the iPhone was not the issue. The resolution for the issue ended up being an issue with Twitter not entering all area codes needed to send via SMS. CSRs and Tech Support reps need to be armed with information and knowledge that will make them effective in their job especially when it comes to new high profile features. The truth is that things go awry and customers can accept that. What customers don’t expect is incompetence.
Microsoft Courier – Potential Paper Notebook replacement
by kelvin.kang on Oct.04, 2009, under Gizmodoodats, Perfect-isimo

I’m really excited about the Microsoft Courier. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, I have reluctantly gone back to using my Asus R1F tablet and have indirectly given up on my Macbook Pro. Don’t get me wrong – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the Macbook Pro or OSX. It’s still my desktop OS of choice. Everything just seems to work on the Mac.
Given then I’m no longer a developer, a lot of my work life is involved in meetings with the business team or the dev team to discuss new ideas, work out issues or discuss design. In meetings, I often find it a lot easier to use a notepad instead of typing on a computer to communicate or describe ideas. The tablet is both the happy medium and extension of these two solutions. It has the flexibility of a notepad and the ability to store and distribute digitally. The downside of my current tablet is that it is extremely heavy weighing at almost 7 lbs. The weight isn’t bad if all I’m doing is lugging it from home and to work. It’s a bit weighty to be lugging it around the office and sometimes across the street. The weight is not bad if you consider what it does but today, it is more powerful than what I need it to be today.
Here’s where I think Microsoft Courier comes in. From the demos on Gizmodo, the product looks more like a paper notebook or portfolio which I take to my meetings right now. It has two “pages” and the way it is designed to work is that one page is used for searching and research while the other is used to work on. The form factor is ideal and I love the idea of having both stylus and finger touch. The really interesting thing about the product is that most of the function that is being displayed here already exists within the Microsoft realm of products. The note writing, embedding of images, handwriting recognition, OCR and concept of pages is embeded in a combination of OneNote and Windows 7. If you’ve never tried, the tablet function in Windows 7 is phenomenal. The gesture support is already used in the Microsoft Surface products.
Courier User Interface from Gizmodo on Vimeo.
As there are still a number of things that are unknown about the product, there are also a number of things that I’d love to see incorporated into the device. Synchronization to a central service is key. Notebooks are really good to start ideas however at some point, most ideas need to be finished on a computer. Also for me I tend to work on multiple computers and other peripherals so inter-device accessibility is key. I’m not sure I would install a lot of different applications on the device but the additional applications that I would use on this device are instant messaging, email and multimedia player. Bluetooth integration would be a nice touch to connect to a wireless headset. While having the ability to do both multi-touch and stylus is really nice, I hope that the hardware is able to differentiate the two as when writing, my hand tends to touch the paper and could cause the device to go awry. The biggest unknown about the product is hardware. For me to be able to use it, it would need to weigh at 2 lbs or less. It also can’t be too big or too thin as this would be a device to supplement my MacBook, not replace it. Given that I’m usually moving around for meetings, it will need to last at least 4 hours and have the ability to change batteries.
Zoompass – Zoom me please
by kelvin.kang on Sep.17, 2009, under Perfect-isimo
While I’ve had a Zoompass account for a few months now, I haven’t really had a chance to use it. I like the idea of it and just as importantly, it is a Canadian venture that as far as I can tell is based out of Toronto. This blog fits more under the ‘perfectissimo’ category rather than a review since I am writing based on how I think I will use it rather than the experience of using it.
First off, a little bit about me to understand why I am excited about it. In general, I don’t like dealing with cash but even less with debit cards. Too often have my friends been victims of debit card fraud. At the same time, the issue with using credit cards is that unless I’m checking constantly, it can sometimes be a surprise at the end of the month how much I have spent on miscelaneous expenses. Not sure about other countries, but there are quite a few services that offer “no fee” banking but one of the issues with that is the one I use in particular does not offer the ability email money transfer.
Looking at the services offered, I think that Zoompass offers a service that bridges the gaps in the financial services provided to me by the providers of my choosing. Here are some of the reasons why I am attracted to Zoompass
Transfer money to another person at a reasonable cost
Zoompass offers the everyday person the ability to securely transfer money from one person to another via money in their Zoompass account or a credit card attached to their Zoompass account. Zoompass to Zoompass transfers cost very little money. We have Email Money Transfer in Canada but for those of us who aren’t banking with the big 5 banks, the cost per transaction is quite high and quite inconvenient. Zoompass assists with this.
Act as a cash account that is integrated with PayPass and Mastercard
One of the things that I thought was very useful was the ability to use my “octopus” card (equivalent of TTC Metropass) in HK to pay for transit fares and other miscellaenous purchases. PayPass brings the same concept to Canada. It is also integrated with a Mastercard giving me maximum flexibility of payment. What I like best about this concept though is that it is truely a cash card. I like the fact that I can limit how much money is on the card. If the card is ever stolen, there’s a bit of a cap on how much money there is on the card. Also, it’s a good way to manage my incidental expenses. My issue with using cash is there its not tackable and the issue with using a credit card is that I don’t check for how much I spend until the end of the month.
A couple of things that I would like to see is the ability to transfer money to and from my credit card to Zoompass. I know that the reason why they don’t do it is for fraud prevention but it would be a nice feature nonetheless. In general, I’m paranoid attaching my personal bank account to any thing on the web and it is one of the reasons preventing me from using this more. Another thing that would be interesting and perhaps it’s just a matter of time is to use a service like Zoompass to facilitate micro financial transactions. I personally think there is a huge market opportunity there. Right now the only way you can transfer money via your mobile device is via an installed app or via the mobile app. SMS money transfer would also be an awesome service although I would be quite curious to see how they would deal with stolen phones or wrongful access of your phone.
I love the potential of Zoompass and definitely hope that it lives up to its promise.
