Asides

Android Keyboards in India

Google English Keyboard
Google Indic Keyboard – with support for multiple Indian languages

Why don’t Android phones sold in India come with Google’s Indic keyboard set up as default?

Specially for phones that don’t ship with proprietary/3rd-party keyboards, doesn’t it make a lot of sense to pre-install Indic keyboard over the default English keyboard?

It’s such a small step, yet can be quite a big enabler for the users (and, even, possibly a differentiator) – using the power of defaults to deliver a better user experience!

Quick-tip: Moving multiple tabs to a new window in Chrome

Just discovered this by trial (requires tabs to be consecutively located):

  • Open the first tab (click to it)
  • Press shift and mouse-down on last tab to move
  • Drag out of the current window and release mouse

Voila!

All the selected tabs in the range are moved into a new Window.

Star vs Heart – Twitter update

twitter-heart-star

What Twitter got right:

‘Star’ is used for a variety of reasons, most with nothing to do than to mark a tweet as favourite.

What they missed:

‘Star’ is also used as read notifier, a bookmark, and a reply-later reminder.

‘Heart’ just doesn’t cut it for these uses.
‘Like’ doesn’t work either.
‘Star’, by accident, was almost perfect.

Update: Using bright, colourful hearts, may be a good start to bringing back some positivity to Twitter.

(Dis)Honesty in pricing communication

(Dis)Honesty in pricing communication

 

Fuel prices at the pump go up as crude recovers.

 

Fuel prices at pump hold high as crude drops. Oil companies explain it being due to long-term contracts / futures.

 

Newspaper increases prices, explains increase due to rising cost of newsprint and logistics.

 

Newspaper offers digital-only subscription at same price as print-only subscription.

 

Airlines add-on surcharges as crude hovers over $100/bbl.

 

Airlines record unprecedented profits on base of crude prices dropping by half. Surcharges remain as at peak.

 

Fret over what you fret over …

Just because a thing can be noticed, or compared, or fretted over doesn’t mean it’s important, or even relevant.

– Seth Godin

Accompaniment to another of Seth’s quotes:

If you measure it, it will improve

I strongly recommend everyone read the full post.

A big reason behind why I removed most of in-app analytics from my Chrome projects.

Fiscally conservative, socially liberal, politically deceased

New Labour - Lib Dems
Fiscally conservative, socially liberal, politically deceased

Fiscally conservative, socially liberal – the political space where new Labour resided, and where Lib Dems should be.

In my opinion, it’s the best choice for a prosperous, yet fair society. Yet, the hardest option to sell. Specially to an ageing population, in a hyperbole-driven, politicised media landscape.

The opposite – social conservatism (Tories & UKIP), and fiscal liberalism (old Labour) are both much easier to sell.

We’ve managed to elect a government that the media, both on the right and the left, have found wanting.

What would it take to get elected a government that the media, both on the left and right of centre, find able.

Text screenshots on Twitter are a desire path across the wall gardens around content in apps and platforms, and Twitter’s text-dominant streams.

Twitter cards, though a handicap on pure, free sharing of content, provide a way through the content wall gardens. But even the cards don’t provide the break through text clutter that images do. Specially, on 3rd party Twitter clients.