Category: Travel

When traveling, I highly recommend bringing along a power strip or a power cube. Yes, we all travel with lots of electronics so this device comes in handy but there are other reasons as well. I use a Monster Outlets To Go Power Strip and its companion option with a USB port in it. The reason I like this device is that it is small, but it also has a power indicator in it. The rear of the male plug glows blue when there is power. In hotel rooms you would be surprised how much this simple feature helps.

The reason I like the power cube or Triple Outlet Adapter is that it helps to offset transformers that cover more than one outlet.

Another thing to consider is that the airplane in seat power outlets often times have a spring switch that needs to be despressed to provide power. I have been very unsuccessful with the typical USB power adapters as they are very light and get pushed out easily. Using the power strip or cube to provide additional mass has helped to keep the switch engaged.

My loyal reader and twitter follower is aware, I just attended the InfoComm2014 convention. I found myself struggling what to do with all these business cards I had acquired. Not only the question of how long should I hang on to them, but how to get all the details into my electronic system. After looking at a few solutions, I have a request for all my readers – make the lock screen on your electronic device your QR business card.

As someone who has some nice Moo.com business cards, with 10 different pictures on the cards, I appreciate and enjoy the statement and symbolism of exchanging business cards. What I do not enjoy is trying to get all the data into my various electronic organization tools. It is time consuming. First was the problem of finding a good tool to scan and then read all the data. Then comes the problem of verifying all the data that just got imported and loaded into the computer. There are pieces of software that can do this for you, but even those are not perfect and require some tweaking.  I have tried CamCard for iPhone but am not totally happy with it. The interface is pretty good, but there are short comings. I do like that one can review and edit them on the web. However one cannot easily export it from the corrected version on the web. One has to give CamCard access to your contacts to load it into your contact information. I probably sound paranoid and stereotypical but giving a Chinese company access to my contacts is not something I feel comfortable with. I do like the batch scanning option though.

I can continue talking about the various options I have used and tried. I am using Evernote Hello for my personal contact management. It does not do as good a job dealing with unique layouts on cards. It also does not include a way to include the address.

The thing I would like for more people to start using is a QR vCard. There is a protocol that allows for embedding contact information directly into a QR code. The protocol does not require actually being connected to the Internet to retrieve the information. It simply requires the receiver to have a QR code reader, many of which are free. The process is fairly simple and painless.

  1. Load a QR Code Reader onto your phone.
  2. Using the camera on your phone ingest the QR code you are interested in
  3. View the results

I have created a QR vCard that is the lock image on my iDevice. (A QR card size of 450 pixels by 450 pixels about 305 pixels from the top of the image for an iPhone 4S works.) I do not even have to unlock the phone to provide the QR code to someone. I also have a QR application (Qrafter Pro) that allows for reading QR codes from pictures. I can take a picture without unlocking my iDevice as well. If you really want to be sneaky smart, take a picture of the person also so you can remember what they look like.

To get you started, here is a sample QR code that I created online. There are also sorts of other tools available, Qrafter Pro also allows for creating the grids.

Trial QR code

Go ahead try out your reader.

Relatively easy? Simple?

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go back to reviewing scanned business cards. I think I will even update my personal cards to have a QR code.

Shout out to Linda Seid-Frembes who gave me this idea years ago – You can read more about it at her blog.

Yes, I now that this topic has been talked about before but I really think it is worth considering.

Also known as “The Disconnected Challenge” or “Offline Challenge”. It has become more of an issue since everything has gone to the “Cloud”. What happens when one cannot connect is something to be considered

Bradford
October 4, 2020

Another blog post written at 32,000 feet as that is when the issue hit me. I have various electronic devices as my dedicated reader knows. I have previously talked about various data access connection challenges. This new challenge is not one of my own doing. It is a poor user experience or use case definition. This problem was illustrated by Amazon and their Kindle applications, but it does not apply to just them. This challenge happens to many applications beyond this example.

I have found a time where the electronic delivery of a book advantages outstrip the disadvantages I previously outlined. This happened with a “for Dummies” book. At work, I am on a software implementation team rolling out a new application package. I wanted the “for Dummies” book for the application. I looked at Amazon and the book was available both in paperback and in Kindle form. The Kindle form was substatianaly less expensive, but the key item was I could get literally instant delivery. While on a conference call I was able to purchase the book, take delivery of it, and reference it during the call. It was very powerful and better than using the Internet search tools as it has high signal to noise and no rabbit trails.

The next day I had a business trip, I had my analog reading material and my electronic versions. On the plane flight I started to truly ready my newly purchased book. It was also the first time I had started to explore some of the Kindle application features. I saw that there were sections of the book that were underlined. Not underlined texted, but a dashed underline. I was not sure what it was at first, but I found out that it meant that other readers had highlighted that passage. The idea of crowd sourced highlighting was intriguing for me; it helps to know what areas one should pay attention to.

I wanted to see what other features were available. My brain needed a little break from thinking about business practices. I was going to use that time to browse through the help file and see what other features were available that I might not be using in the Kindle application. I was airborne when I wanted to do that. I had no Internet access on that flight. As a result of not being connected to the Internet the help file was not available.

That seems very counterintuitive, why would an electronic reading application not include a help file with it? Think about that for a moment. Something that is designed to read document while disconnected from the Intenet is not able to read its own help file while not connected. It is not just Kindle that has this design flaw. Cloudreader, Nook, and iBooks for iPad do not have a help file that is readily available. I am sure that I can continue to list others as well. It also occurs with applications for workstations.

Not all applications are that short sighted. Two applications on my iPad have help that is available offline. iAnnotate and DocsToGo install their help file as a document you can read from within the applications.

Makes perfect sense to me. An application that is designed to be portable, should have supporting documentation that is portable. So for those of you involved in the design and creation of applications, think about the user that is not connected to the Internet. They might want to refer to the supporting documents; you should make it easy for them. The fact that I turned to the help file already means that the application is not intuitive enough. Do not compound the issue by making it difficult to find the help.

Also this concept applies to those of you who are creating custom control interfaces using software created by others. On more occasions than I would care to count I have ended up troubleshooting a control system and having to guess. These guesses could range from what are the IP addresses to connect to the system to what the control system is using for the backend to how to get help.

For the application users, I recommend that you try out your applications before you are traveling with them or disconnected from the Internet to make sure you understand how to use it. The help files might not always be available.

Well the fasten seatbelt sign just came on….

<note this post was recreated after a website crash, good thing I backed it up>