SMS - It's been great but ...

According to various sources, it's clear that SMS/text messages are very popular: "SMS revenue to ring up $50bn by 2010". I accept that they can be convenient and good value, but every time I send one I'm reminded of how frustrating they can be, especially when compared to e-mail.

Here's a list of some of my grievances:

• Entering the text is a pain on a standard phone. True, T9 (predictive text entry) is cool, but it depends on how good your dictionary is, and sometimes I want to use a different language. I'm sure I can change the appropriate setting, but that takes time. Also, I hate how my mobile uses T9 by default in some places, and multi-tap in others (e.g. phone book search).


• You don't get (free) notifications of receipt/failures.


• They're limited, not so much in length, but in content. E-mail is obviously much richer. And don't even talk to me about MMS! I hope ubiquitous mobile net access finally renders MMS redundant.


• Messages can only be stored on the mobile (either on the SIM card or the phone's memory). So I have to constantly vet the messages to free up space. E-mail messages need not be stored on the device, and messages stored on a server can be accessed by other devices.


• Messages can (ordinarily) only be read on mobile phones. (Yes, I'm aware that you can jump through hoops to use a PC to send/receive messages, but these techniques are not as simple and widely-known as e-mail).


• They cost money. Sure, it's only 25 cents in Australia, but e-mail is free.

Another silly thing with my phone is that it doesn't filter phone numbers to prevent accidentally sending messages to a non-mobile number.

SMS messaging hearkens back to a time when internet access was tied to desktops. It's been a great technology, but I can't wait to see e-mail usurp its role.

[Yet another day of extreme heat in Adelaide. Today's maximum temperature was 43.1 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit)! I hope the above 40C heatwave ends soon, otherwise I'll run out of things to complain about.]

Inefficient Medicare Cheque Payment Process

In Australia we are lucky to have a universal health system. You can go to any doctor and the government will cover the scheduled fee. Many doctors "bulk-bill", that is, they send the bill directly to the government and charge only the scheduled fee. The government will pay the doctor directly. Very cool.

However, sometimes a co-payment is necessary. Ok, this is understandable to cover doctor's admin costs and prevent abuse of the system. But an extra hassle is introduced for the patient. He or she pays the co-payment to the practice, then the practice makes an application for payment to Medicare for the scheduled fee. A few days pass, then the patient (yes the patient), receives a cheque made out in the doctor’s name. So then the patient has to forward the cheque onto the doctor! Why involve the patient again? Also, in the modern era of electronic funds transfer, the use of cheques sounds arcane.

And here's something I just found out while researching this post: if the patient doesn't forward the cheque within 90 days, the doctor can apply to Medicare to get the money owing via EFT! So obviously Medicare is willing and able to use EFT, so why not skip the cheque-handling and 90-day provision?

If you're unfamiliar with Australia's Medicare system, check out this page: "How does Medicare work?"

[Another day of extreme heat in Adelaide. Today's maximum temperature was 43.4 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit)!]

.docx Considered Stupid

Recently I received an email with a ".docx" file attached. This is the new format for Microsoft Word 2007 documents. I won't even start about how annoying it is to get Word documents attached to emails. Unfortunately it's something you have to put up with.

Being a Mac user and not having the latest and *cough* greatest word processor from Microsoft, I had to figure out how to read this document. I found out the .docx file format is actually a zipped directory tree containing xml files.

Ok, first step was to unzip the .docx file via the command line. This resulted in eleven files in a handful of directories. So far, so good.

Next step was to find which file contains the actual text of the document and not just metadata. Looking through the filenames, I found one called "document.xml" which appeared promising. So I opened it up in my trusty text editor, TextMate. Suddenly my computer began grinding to a crawl as the file was loaded. It turned out that the entire file consists of two lines: the first line containing the xml version, and the second line contained the entire xml markup for the document! No wonder TextMate struggled, since it dutifully created a 70,000+ character line for the document. Why couldn't the xml file have newlines to make it more manageable? Anyway, on to the final step...

My plan was to write a regexp search-and-replace to strip out all the xml markup so I could read the content of the document. But then I discovered that the markup is peppered with <w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/> tags around almost every single word! I should mention that the contents of the document were in a foreign language, hence all the spelling "errors". For some bizarre reason, Microsoft Word marks up spelling mistakes in docx files, not just on-screen. Why? Shouldn't it be left to the individual application (and platform) loading the document to decide whether or not words are misspelled? I can accept all the other hassles with the docx format: zipped xml files and incredibly long lines, but the encoding of spelling errors is crazy stuff.

After all that I gave up trying cleaning up the xml to read the file. Luckily, I found a web site that offers free conversion of docx files: zamzar.com.

PS: It turns out that Word documents created using MS Office 2007 do not conform with their own OOXML standard!:

OOXML and Office 2007 Conformance: a Smoke Test

Mobile Phone Blues, Episodes 451 and 452

Last week, before recharging my mobile phone (A Sony Ericsson 310), I notice the battery had become rather swollen. Since the phone was getting on a bit (I got it in mid-2003) I decided to get a replacement battery and not to risk leaking, a fire or even an explosion.

This lead to a series of disappointments (not surprising since I've been generally disappointed by my phone, which I'll identify shortly). First, finding someone in Adelaide that sells replacement batteries for Sony Ericsson phones is not easy. Next, when I found a place stocking batteries for my phone, the price was $40! Each! Yes, I know there are places online that provide batteries for much less, but I'm a bricks-and-mortar kind of shopper when it comes to electronics.

Ok, did I want to spend $40 on a new battery for a phone I'm not overly happy with (Plan A)? Or should I buy a brand new phone (Plan B)?

Before discussing the options, I'll list the grievances I have with my current phone:
* Loooong startup time
* Silly joystick navigation
* Unresponsive user interface
* Battery compartment opens too easily when phone falls

I had hoped that getting a new phone would at least solve some of these issues. So Plan B looked like a goer, until I actually started shopping around. This triggered another series of disappointments ...
1. Mobile phone salespeople are pushy, and want to sell you things you don't want
2. There are so many models to choose from
3. Not all vendors stock all the models
4. Phones come with all sorts of stuff that I don't want: cameras, radios, GPS, younameit
5. Basic phones exist but are often tied to plans (which are confusing)
6. Generally buying phones outright is still too expensive
7. Most importantly, you don't get the opportunity to try out a phone's user interface before you buy it

The last point was the main source of disappointment with my current phone. Had I been able to use it beforehand I would probably have chosen another model.

Some people think all this choice is great for consumers. But I would argue that is not the case. Anyone who has read "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less" by Barry Schwartz, will be well aware of the problems with too much choice. I've ranted about this before in "Too Much Choice Considered Harmful" and written about the book in another blog, so I won't repeat myself here.

Another nagging concern is that all this "choice" is illusory because vendors and telcos seem to select particular combinations of plans and models, making it difficult to compare. Looks like there are opportunities for cartel-like behaviour to me.

So, after pounding the concrete for a few days, and getting increasingly frustrated with the ordeal of buying a new phone, I decided to go for Plan A. I bought a replacement battery for my existing phone. I resented having to pay such an an exorbitant price, but at least ...
* I won't risk the "buyer's remorse" of getting something that fails to satisfy
* I won't have been responsible for the waste caused by manufacturing a brand new phone
* I save some money, at least in the short term

I'll probably get a new phone eventually, but at least I will have had time to prepare a little in advance. I can ask to try out the user interfaces of other people's phones. Technology can only improve (right?), and who knows, Apple may release an iPhone mini in Australia by then :)

Finally, some advice: Check your mobile phone battery often before you recharge it.

Time Out of Joint

We're surrounded by appliances that tell us the time: VCRs, stereos, ovens, clock radios, etc. Unfortunately, the times displayed often get out of touch with reality.

Power outages will leave appliances flashing 12:00 (or 0:00). And switching to/from daylight saving can be a pain twice a year. A third problem is that the timing mechanisms in the devices have varying degrees of accuracy. So from time to time you will have to go around setting the correct time on various appliances.

Battery backups help solve the power outage problem. But batteries eventually go flat and cost money to replace. And they won't help much if you want to totally power down appliances to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

After all these years, and the production of millions of appliances, you'd think manufacturers could have come up with a solution. Why haven't they taken some cues from the computer and telecommunication industries, which make use of time services and protocols (e.g. Network Time Protocol) to allow automatic time synchronisation. Appliance manufacturers could add some simple circuitry to perform a similar function over power lines. The cost of the circuitry would eventually become negligible thanks to economies of scale. In fact, manufacturers could save money by removing batteries and other parts.

Of course, this solution would require power companies to transmit a time signal over the power lines. Surely this couldn't be a huge cost? Telephone companies transmit the time and date as part of Caller ID information.

PS I don't claim to have come up with the phrase "time out of joint". Philip K. Dick used it for the title of a novel, and William Shakespeare used it in Hamlet.