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876

Living Room / Re: Has SEO ruined the web?

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 10, 2010, 06:55 PM »

No, that's much closer to plagiarism or backlinking. (and Google penalizes both although the latter gets a slow fix that anyone can SEO it much longer)

Scraping from my understanding is just that. Taking content and posting it to another website as a collection or set or link collection. (The amount, the quantity, the content is really up to the person's taste)

or the hundreds of software review sites that list tons and tons of software, with generic descriptions that are generated automatically somehow.  And they don't help the user at all in finding what he is looking for.  The categories for the are not consistent.  Often times, you are looking for a particluar kind of video software, for example, but it just lists all the software that has anything to do with video, and no matter what VLC will be at the top.  Stuff like that is what I'm talking about.  It's ruining the web because it's impossible to find anything good.

See, the problem with that definition is that it relies on your opinion of generic.

Albeit, the low quality sites are pretty obvious but how do you differentiate The Superior Software List with Download.com with Fileforum at the generic categorical level that search engine spiders play at?

From a personal user level or even a review level, it's very easy. However from a grand macro level of search value, it's almost similar.

You could for example take two different contents talking about the same program but at the generic level, the end result is just to convince the searcher, that you are among the hundred of software reviewers who praise this specific program name.

Sure, the content can be unique in the sense that you wrote it but if the general theme is the same from every other positive reviewer over the internet, it's really no more generic as having someone's spidered definition praising the very same program.

...And it gets more generic as the program becomes more popular.

Let's use simplespark.com as a more concrete example to reference with.

Is Simple Spark useful or useless?

Well before that, does it fit your definition of a scraping site with generic descriptions? The answer would be yes.

But is it useful?

The answer is also yes especially earlier on.

Why?

Because there aren't that much copies of Web 2.0 search engine services even today.

It's easy to spot the popular services but the rarer ones like ProtoPage, you often get much earlier before the blogs start reviewing them and scraping them into "Alternative services to Netvibes".

It is only ruining the web via SEO in the sense that there have been lots of copycats.

...but in those copycats, there are still sites who aim for a much more useful goal like your site does.

The question is, how do you separate the fluff from the value when the value of a search engine ranking is also very much vague?

Albeit Google could do a better manual job of fixing things but generally it's not just Google. It's DuckDuckGo. It's Bing. It's even pseudo-human powered search engines like Mahalo.

At the end of the day though, if there isn't even at least "1" semi-credible scrape site, it ruins the web more because it's much harder to discover these cool quality lesser known apps.

By that very same token, these scrape sites are no more ruining the web than malware sites are or even less because they're the easiest to filter out. Sure, they are still suckering and annoying casual surfers but...it's also much easier to discover that...now... sites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller, Delicious, Diigo, Twitter, Facebook...even Wikipedia... are slightly less bogged down scraping sites to discover things because the idea of a scraping site evolved. The idea of a scraping site became added with up or down buttons or Wiki-like possibilities that anyone can improved upon or individually filled public bookmarks.

In the grand scheme of things, they don't go so far as to ruin the web precisely because they are scraping sites where all the crap is littered into one url instead of all those marketing and SEO dominant crap sites with tons of backlinks towards their own self-made little information Twitter/Facebook/Squidoo/Hubpage/Youtube/Linkbait set of channels.

877

Living Room / Re: Second Wind - beautiful student animation

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 10, 2010, 06:14 PM »

I'm generally poor with interpreting these things and the comment did allude to God giving life to man but to me, the story represents the tale of rebellion, regret and reassurance.

The cat was the man's daughter growing up and the early events were the man taking care of his daughter as they both grew out of their experience with each other.

Eventually the time came when the daughter grew old enough to take care of herself and the man grew much older that both lost their innocence.

The ball which represented innocence or fun or wonder starts growing glimmer for the man as he chased it through old age while the daughter moves on with her life. Not leaving her father necessarily but both grew distant to their earlier interactions as both developed further into their age.

Eventually the man rediscovers his youth while at the same time realizing that he has become old.

The little electric pod thing symbolized both the man's avatar, old age and his desire to bring back time he has lost. A time of fun. A time of being with his daughter. A time of wonder.

The daughter though, while still loving her father, grew distant and yet more possessive. On one hand, she loved her father enough to cling to that image of her father and on the other hand, she wanted to push away the man that asks of her to re-kindle her simpler more wonderful past.

Eventually the man dies and the daughter regrets not having one last wonderful moment with her father and the windmill which represents the wind of memories both shared turns to pain and regret and sorrow and the daughter tries to push the memories away while still clinging to the image of the man as she remembers him as a child.

Eventually the daughter "settles" as time moves on and merely cherishes the image of wonder with her father from her youth. Time having dulled her regret and love having forced her to simply hope that her father was in a better place.

In the end, the daughter would like and probably deludes or hope (depending on your world view) that the man has moved on to a better place and all she can do now to cherish his father and pay him back was to remember her in her memories. Remembering the image and the desire and the hope for re-kindling with her daughter that the man expressed to her before he passed away.

The windmill on the man's back thus represents the brain process of when the daughter thinks of her deceased father (a combination of his earlier days with her, his old self and the dying man she wanted to repressed and keep from living with prior to his death) and the cat's blow is like the daughter's wavering focus and desire of remembering her father through her memories. It begs the question, how long until the cat (the daughter) gets tired of being inspired by her past and clinging to it and how long until she moves on...and how often will she remember to go back to the windmilled old man and blow him back to life again.

878

Living Room / Re: Has SEO ruined the web?

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 10, 2010, 03:38 PM »

Wikipedia is a poor example because it's automatically given precedence over anything else.

To understand how badly Wikipedia is over-ranked, test it on a pop culture entry with a more detailed Wikia entry. Wikipedia still wins out.

Imagine if these were more scholar level entries. You'd have to dissect the searches between Scholar and the main search to narrow down the content to the simplified but educated link most of the time to even get a casual understanding of a topic you know nothing about hence Wikipedia is the easy cop-out.

Any other personal page who copies Wikipedia's model is bound to fail simply for the very reason that they don't have as much leverage on the copping out issue. Example: Hubpages and Squidoo pages etc. etc.

In the end, it goes back to authority + fame. In that sense, it's much easier to work around a model of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube model than it is to copy Wikipedia's model because any new player in the SEO arena isn't going to usurp any tried and true reputation of an encyclopedia like Wikipedia did no matter the quality of their content. Even highly respected and well written websites can't match up with the Wikipedia model unless they are already linked to someone or some concept with prestige like a Web service, dictionary, professional magazine, online newspaper, etc. etc.

@superboyac,

I don't really follow your conclusion.

The Superior Software List (for Windows) is in itself a scraping site. The only questionable area is how much is being copied.

Still you're still copying the content of a software's title or the theme of a general review site. How then can you conclude that scraping is worst at ruining SEO when that is only slightly different from what your site is doing?

I can understand if you say blatant plagiarism is bad but scraping?

Not only does that get penalized by Google if it's a blatant copy but scraping helps people better gauge the notability and quality of anything that's on the web as you yourself tried to demonstrate with your site.

879

Living Room / Re: [HELP REQUEST] Please quickly review my new Twitter client

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 08, 2010, 10:55 PM »

I don't really know what you mean. I made the font slightly larger (although it is configurable) in order to give it visibility and readability on larger screen resolutions. It's 12pt Segoe UI.

Oh, I wasn't referring to your program but the Adobe Air programs. Compared to everyday other programs, most of them have small fonts and buttons.

The problem I found was that they take up too much screen real estate and weren't "Always on top". I wanted something that I could tweet quickly and just leave there without any real effort.

I'm not sure what you mean here. .NET? Something else? It's meant to simply sit there unobtrusively and let you tweet quickly and easily. Not more. Not less. I don't know how it's not a simple infrastructure.

.NET 4.0 was unnecessary. I could have easily done it in .NET 2.0, but I wanted to just play around with .NET 4.0 and have a quick look at it. If I were to take the program very seriously, I would have done it in .NET 2.0, and that would be invisible to virtually everyone as .NET penetration there is extremely high.

Basically, it was me just killing 2 birds with 1 stone to save time.

The .Net issue is basically summed up as a question of why does a simple program need another additional component to install.

For the most part, people tolerate Adobe Air clients because they were the early entries if not the preferred model for complex "simple" Web 2.0 services.

The simplicity issue is connected with this post:

At the end of the day though, the program fails because it doesn't simplify the process for Twitter users.

Twitter users especially the busy ones are primarily discussion seekers. They are not as much bothered by how to broadcast a tweet as much as they fear missing out on a participating in a popular discussion or finding an interesting link and commenting on it while it's hot.

This isn't to say they want an all-in-one complex as molasses product but it is like designing a program around the mindset of Facebook users but doing it for Twitter instead when most of the needs of those using Twitter are different.

-Paul Keith (June 08, 2010, 12:57 PM)

I think you have different expectations than what the program sets out to do.

The program is not supposed to be for "Twitter users" at all. It's for "people that want to tweet", but couldn't be bothered to put in any effort.

It's a subtle difference, but an important one. Twitter users will tweet anyways. This isn't for them. This is for the guy that would like to tweet, but just can't be bothered to fart around with a browser and clicking and signing in and tabbing, and clicking in input fields and clicking a Submit button. This is for the guy that wants to type and tweet, and not anything more than that.

I don't think it's different expectations and no, Twitter is one of the few things that doesn't have users that will necessarily tweet. For the top submitters this is true but for the middle of the road Twitters, it's based on incentive. That's why lots of sites still have re-tweet and follow me on Twitter buttons.

It's more the dilemma of a review of an application claiming to be a Twitter client.

Now if your client allows for Twitter users to filter and find posts and reply to them while maintaining the same level in everything else, it all fits.

When you remove a component of what makes Twitter function though, it's more like a Twitter broadcaster but it can only be considered a client in the barest sense of the word.

As you say, it's a subtle but important distinction. The issue though is really where the line is set forth.

Even for guys who just want to type and tweet, there has to be an understanding of where their goal lies or how their needs might evolve.

Without a way to at least discover @replies and respond to DMs, this program can't fully fulfill the qualities of a "client" and so as a reviewer, it's a hard line that needs to be drawn somewhere in order to at least be a review.

It's not really my expectations as I'm one of those guys who fall under "guys that just want to tweet and type". That said, there are many different examples even under that minimal category. Category number 1 would be communicating with people in those rare times. Category #2 would be typing in reply to others or as a retweet.

Very rare is it for Twitter users to stick to one area. A person who just broadcasts for example may still participate heavily in DMs.

A client is not always technically known as equivalent to a browser but a Twitter client holds a unique goal of keeping users from a site by fulfilling the basic needs using said client.

Even your client aims to alleviate the screen estate and mouse clicks of other clients and site extensions of Twitter.

But that's the chasm a review has to cross: Between two perspectives, the goal of the developer and the needs of the userbase, how do you connect and communicate the fact that you at least understand both sides but the premise is just insufficient currently?

It's much easier to err on trying to explain the basic needs of the user and let the developer decide whether what the review writes is warrant of a change.

It's also very easy nowadays to right click on Google Chrome and create an application shortcut to send you right into a Twitter page and sure you may lose the power of url shorteners but it's not like the program auto-converts the url for you and some of us don't use Bit.Ly when there are even shorter url shorteners out there.

Browsers are cumbersome and take up screen real estate. I wanted to avoid a browser at all costs as they are just slow. Using a mouse is also very slow, and using TAB to get into the right input field in a browser is extremely time consuming.

But it does convert URLs if you want it to. I thought it would be presumptuous to have it do it automatically. (CTRL + ALT + U)

-Paul Keith (June 08, 2010, 12:57 PM)

True but since you have a url shortener built in, you are kind of sending a message that a browser still has to be opened.

This is setting aside the differences between a application shortcut Twitter page that is more meant to be quickly closed to the point that the screen real estate is only bothersome as the user is typing a tweet and the issue that there are still many compact ways to tweet. Obviously not as compact as this program is but the browser is directly connected to link sharing unless you assume all users are also heavy copy pasters who store or memorize urls within non-browser applications.

As far as automatic url shortening, I feel that's intrusive too because they often don't mesh well with text but there's really no sense in not auto-shortening a url aside from not wanting to use a specific url shortening service.

There's no inherent benefit from having less free text space to type on Twitter's already small character limit.

Not at all.

If I'm guessing right, I think that what you were sort of expecting would be best done as a browser plug-in.

No, not really. As a guy who rarely tweets on Twitter and fall into the realm of just typing to tweet, I do desire an application like this and I like to think I have a close understanding for why people would want this because I want this too.

Does Plurk have many users? This is the first I've heard of it.

As for Gmail, it would be drop dead simple to do, but I don't really see a point to it as it's using Gmail for what amounts to a highly-specialized, odd use for it. There are better ways to store notes.

True. The whole post it to Gmail is more of a specialized hack for people wanting a fully backed up easy to search for taggable note collection which can also easily support reminders.

Plurk's story is pretty much cut and dry nowadays. Back then when the fail whale came, people moved to Plurk and it got a boost.

Some stayed because Plurk was a better way to monitor and have conversations. It wasn't as big as Twitter but there were many users and there were many hopefuls that it would eventually have a client. Instead all they got was a variation with Plurk mobile's ui which is not only bad looking but doesn't represent the Plurk nor the Twitter feel that well.

For the tl;dr version, see Plurk's problems in this post: http://plurkable.com...urk-not-growing-why/

What Plurk is notable though is that due to the design, it mainly caters to either broadcasters or conversation seekers. It's not like Twitter where you draw the line between re-tweets, DMs and tweets.

In Plurk, people are very evident both ways. For the most part, the broadcasters don't need to worry about failing to monitor a @reply or DM because Plurk works more like a micro-threaded forum where you can just check up on the main site and people will still be notified if any new replies exists under a Plurk you make.

The name is meant to be long and humorous as a contrast to the shortness and ease of the program itself.

At the end of the day, it's a very small program, with a specialized purpose, and not a major product. I don't plan on putting any real marketing effort into it. It will never be massively popular, and will never make me rich or famous.

To frame the program in a different perspective, it solves a specific "pain-point". Take for example my DNN Keep Alive program; it solves a very specific problem on a small scale.

In planning software, my approach is to find a pain-point, then solve it. Very little of what I actually write ever gets released (most of my pain-points are extremely esoteric and have no broad consumer/corporate appeal). The pain-point that T3 solves is specific, and obviously not for everyone. I decided to make it available as I figured that there would be enough people like me with that specific concern to make it worthwhile.

To be honest, I simply wouldn't tweet at all without it. Other clients were simply too large or complicated, and I refuse to use a browser for it. (I find browsers are rather clunky things -- they try to be everything to everyone and fall short quite often.)

True but to refer to your statements of website design as an analogy, there's a difference between marketing and ergonomics.

In this case, even if you don't market it, it may help if people can re-discover or find it via Google in a much easier manner.

It's not like you couldn't keep the long version of the name as long as it has a shortened nickname.

880

Living Room / Re: Death and the net: How to log off gracefully for the very last time

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 08, 2010, 03:13 PM »

Well...I don't know if these are appropriate to the topic but I felt the theme needed some of these:

Link NSFW: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/An_hero

Apologies if these are inappropriate.

881

Living Room / Re: [HELP REQUEST] Please quickly review my new Twitter client

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 08, 2010, 12:57 PM »

Ok, first off, my apologies if this is coming off very harsh.

This is less about insulting the quality of the program and more about in comparison to the expectations set forth by other clients prior to Triple T.

I understand that the client is trying to go the opposite direction of more complicated clients but the problem is that the other clients weren't really complicated programs.

Second, the infrastructure of the whole program go against the claim of simplicity.

I personally hate the text size and icon size of the Adobe Air programs and the way they need to be configured out of a certain background but the advantage coming from those programs are that they often make the application cross-platform and that they are "discovery" clients which helps give a different feel to actually visiting Twitter.

I don't know if this falls under .Net hate and frankly I was never concerned much about that requirement to begin with but a simple program like this begs the question whether the .Net requirement is really necessary or even if it's detrimental to the image of simplicity this program claims to be.

After all, it's an extra step to a very under-powered client.

It's also very easy nowadays to right click on Google Chrome and create an application shortcut to send you right into a Twitter page and sure you may lose the power of url shorteners but it's not like the program auto-converts the url for you and some of us don't use Bit.Ly when there are even shorter url shorteners out there.

At the end of the day though, the program fails because it doesn't simplify the process for Twitter users.

Twitter users especially the busy ones are primarily discussion seekers. They are not as much bothered by how to broadcast a tweet as much as they fear missing out on a participating in a popular discussion or finding an interesting link and commenting on it while it's hot.

This isn't to say they want an all-in-one complex as molasses product but it is like designing a program around the mindset of Facebook users but doing it for Twitter instead when most of the needs of those using Twitter are different.

Again, I hope this isn't interpreted as an attack and I'm not saying no one will find this useful at all. I'm just mostly sharing this as a "quick review" and I have no personal agenda against a Twitter client but even more so, I'm actually very interested in another free competing Twitter client since I'm not totally satisfied by Seesmic/Tweetdeck/Twitwhirl or whatever new leader in Twitter clients I haven't heard of that mostly copies the feature of the previous programs.

That said, I don't think the program as is is a lost cause.

I think there are many people out there who is precisely looking for a program like this only for Gmail. (Post notes - sent to GMAIL) and even though this isn't what Plurk users fully want, the lack of Twitter like ui for Plurk and Plurk clients may make a similar program for Plurk appealing.

Finally a seemingly shallow quirk but I think an equally important one: The name needs to be simpler. It's going to be very hard to search for that Twitter client at the tip of your tongue if you're thinking and getting Alice in Wonderland results from Google.

882

Living Room / Re: Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer??

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 08, 2010, 12:26 PM »

Even all you haters...I know you've walked into an Apple store and had fun trying out the gadgets.  Don't lie!!

-superboyac (June 06, 2010, 11:51 PM)

I have never been in an Apple store. I have never even seen one in the real world. I have seen photos of them and they don't look like some place my sensible frugal self belongs.

You KNOW most people care about the UI, so put some effort into it!  Geez, I mean seriously.  Even if I were SOny's CEO and I was a poweruser, it would stupid of me to keep seeing apple succeed because of UI, and Sony keep failing because of UI (or other similar issues).  if there's a problem, fix it!  If you can improve yourself, then do so!

-superboyac (June 06, 2010, 11:51 PM)

My daughter replaced her iPod with a Sony MP3 player and now she is a very happy girl.

She hated iTunes so much that she loaded all her favorite music onto her iPod and uninstalled iTunes (and all the other useless crap it came bundled with), and never changed the music on the iPod for about 3 years.

She isn't a computer geek. She gets easily frustrated when software goes and makes changes on her system without asking, that she doesn't know how to undo. That's what iTunes did to her PC. It forced her to install Quicktime which hijacked her preferences for handling certain media file types in her browser. It made it rather difficult for her to download music because Quicktime would end up playing it in her browser instead of letting her save the file.

I walked her through fixing the issue not once, not twice, but at least 3 times, because various updates from Apple would just end up messing up her settings again.

Now I didn't know she went and uninstalled all of that stuff after the last time I helped her, so when I set up her laptop for her again after she kept getting hit with malware and it trashed her system (Thank you, Sun!), I installed iTunes along with all her other software. She completely freaked out when she saw the iTunes icon on her taskbar and demanded I get that malware off her laptop.

When she went shopping for a replacement for her iPod, she had 2 requirements:

• long battery life
• no crazy software needed to put music onto it

The Sony she bought fit both of those and had a decent amount of storage space too.

-app103 (June 07, 2010, 01:14 AM)

Thanks for providing the opposite perspective.

I don't mean this as offense towards superboyac's post but sometimes I feel a criticism goes the opposite way in that I am left scratching where the "extreme" perspective comes from.

Maybe it's because of the lack of details but whenever I hear of the opposite application criticism, it makes me scratch my head where it is primarily coming from.

The Apple Store is alright and even good at being one of the components that makes some people want to be part of the Apple culture but from the screenshots I've seen (I haven't been inside one either) it makes me wonder if these people (not specifically targetting superboyac) have even gone inside an internet cafe before since the effect isn't really that far off.

It's a pedicure'd store but come on, some of the hyperbole makes it sound like it's Disneyland for casual consumers when it's not.

Similarly, I'm left wondering if superboyac is referring to a specific model of Sony product when he is talking of user interface design. I know it's important and Sony is not as well respected as Apple in that department but if you take away the shinier control extensions of Apple and the black and white, Sony is up there with developing one of the prettier interfaces out there especially when compared to other lesser known companies like Cowon.

I'm not claiming all Sony products are perfect but neither are Apple products. If they were truly that high ranking in the category of user interfaces, Apple would have beaten out Windows a long time ago or eat a bigger portion of the marketshare especially internationally.

I know we're not really trying to narrow down and do a side by side detailed comparison of each companies but we can't go overboard and say it is just user interface or it is just "bad" rather than "mediocre" quality especially if the end conclusion is that "Apple can do no wrong in the non-techie department when the reality is FAR FAR not even close."

The appeal of the I-Pad is primarily in the concept. The user interface helps but it is hardly made up for by what the I-Pad actually is to consumers. Something new. Something cool. Something revolutionary.

Similarly, the I-Pod is not heralded as a popular mp3 player because people primarily oogled at the interface. They oogled at the scroll wheel more. They oogled at the culture who is so in love with the I-Pod.

Even the Iphone if you took away the availability of the app store, it was oogled not because of it's interface which isn't really that perfect but because of it's touch screen capability mixed with a modern look that many phone companies at the time just weren't focusing on.

It's just head scratching to read a conclusion like this:

You KNOW most people care about the UI, so put some effort into it!  Geez, I mean seriously.  Even if I were SOny's CEO and I was a poweruser, it would stupid of me to keep seeing apple succeed because of UI, and Sony keep failing because of UI (or other similar issues).  if there's a problem, fix it!  If you can improve yourself, then do so!

only to be mixed with this:

Take for example any ecommerce web site or site that you must provide personal details when you sign up. How many can actually process a phone number properly? Or a postal code? Like, if I enter "+61-123-456-789", and I get an error telling me that I can only use numbers, i.e. the expected input is "61123456789", just how pathetic is that?

The same goes for credit card numbers. If you input "4567 8901 2345 6789" and you get an error telling you spaces aren't allowed... Wow. To me that is just the height of incompetence. Why not just remove the spaces and make the user's life easy? Like, on the credit card, it has a space, right? So entering the space makes sense... or is at least plausible enough to warrant attention by the developer.

I'm no website designer although I understand the severity of this issue and I can see why the analogy works BUT!...at the same time, if I'm an ignorant user, I'm given the wrong impression with this post.

I'm given the impression that Sony doesn't put effort on their user interface but when I open something like the PSP, I don't see a perfect user interface but I certainly see a pretty enough one in enough areas that such posts leave me with the impression that the posters, while possessing knowledge of user interfaces, are vastly informed by their biases too much to the point that they come off more like they don't understand the perspective of a consumer as far as gadget interfaces go or they have gone too far with their hyperbole.

883

Living Room / Re: Has SEO ruined the web?

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 06, 2010, 07:43 AM »

Not sure if this is any more enlightening but IMO this seems like the simplest standard implement of SEO right now:



http://www.lancescoular.com/smTPo4.html

884

Living Room / Re: Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer??

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 06, 2010, 04:44 AM »

They do but they have a different image from Apple and often times it involves understanding the culture as much as making it sexy.

I think Renegade's post shows exactly why the Chrome analogy is fitting. Was Chrome fitting? Was Chrome revolutionary?

From a power user or developer perspective it's not but from a casual user perspective, it showed what Opera fans wanted Opera's marketing direction to go for a long time and it showed how many fans often expressed how powerful a lite version of Opera is even though Opera's memory consumption is lighter than Firefox despite the added native features.

Similarly, the I-Pad was precisely a tablet which no power user/developer wanted to mass release/pay attention to except for TechCrunch before they lost their rights and Apple.

Even for Apple, the legion of fans prior to the release weren't as hyped about this as say the Iphone or the Ipod.

As a culture there is notably some noise but for the most part the noise from the I-Pad was "will it sell outside of the hardcore base?".

Compared to the Ipod and the Iphone, this time it was the casual consumer market who mostly flocked towards the I-pad. It was this same casual consumer market who don't know how major the I-Pad's flaws where because they were looking for that specific design no matter how outdated.

Basically compared to other products Apple made, few developers saw the I-Pad as revolutionary and that's true but this time it's also true that there's a huge perspective gap between the casual consumer culture and power user culture because unlike the Iphone and Ipod, there really wasn't a revolutionary feature that would attract a borderline Apple user and it was prior to the release perceived as for the hardcore Apple consumers only.

As far as Cowon, the support and firmware for Cowon were very questionable especially early on. This is based on anecdotal accounts I have found over the internet back then.

More importantly, from my perspective, the earlier Cowon were exactly what I wanted but Cowon never built upon that.

Instead like many post-Ipod mp3 manufacturers, they went with sexy and extra features that in the end, lost me compared to what their earlier products were all about. I'm not saying I've personally tried it but similarly I'm also speaking from a guy who wasn't impressed by the Ipod in the first place.

One thing I could respect Apple in that area though was that they built upon the image of the Ipod. For every "sequel" of Ipods, they catered to different needs while staying true to what appeals to the Ipod. They didn't suddenly add touch screen for touch screen's sake. They didn't make a shuffle when people wanted a Nano. In that sense as a casual consumer, they were still the "safest" and most consistent mp3 product releaser despite not being ahead of many opponents.

It's not even that the manufacturers are getting it right now.

Let me refer to this recent review ofthe Cowon V5 HD:

http://www.anythingb...won-v5-hd-review.php

What do you get when you pair decent quality audio/video hardware with a head-scratchingly bad user interface, backwards usability, and disregard for anything that makes sense to the average user? Well, a Cowon PMP, of course. While this was true for the Cowon O2 I reviewed a bit over a year ago, I’ve taken it upon me to go through the same pain again, this time with the Cowon V5.

Grahm already wrote a short preview article about the V5. While I agree with his evaluation that the V5 is a nice upgrade to the O2 on the surface, the mess that is hidden beneath when one tries to use the V5 on a daily basis is even worse.

Cowon had a legitimate niche here.

Even as these reviews were written, people understood that Cowon represented quality music. Slowly but surely.

It's for the same reason Creative is respected despite problems with the Zen firmware earlier on or Sandisk Sansa Fuze/Clip (I think) getting a late resurgence.

...but what does Cowon do?

Cowon goes "sexy".

Here are just some red marks:

but Cowon never made much sense with their naming/numbering scheme, so calling the V5 “O3” would have been too logical.

Why? Companies often build products on image. Apple builds image on their product.

The end result is that companies often try to rename a product to appeal to an audience where Apple just stays consistent. They're far from perfect but it's almost possible to separate the image of I-products from Mac-products because of this and it feels less threatening to purchase an Ipod without owning a Mac compared to switching from Windows Mobile to Palm OS.

Casual consumers kind of want that. They want stereotypical labels to comfort their taste and it doesn't hurt that Apple creates the delusion of cool which helps alleviate peer pressure but for the most part it's consistency of labels.

What is an Iphone? An Apple cell phone. What is an Ipod Touch? An Apple mp3 player with touch screen. What is a Nano? A mini-Ipod.

The worst or best part is that they have culture on their side. When Apple messes up with naming their fanbase is there to pick up the slack.

Other companies for the most part don't have that. That's where Apple and Google gets majority of their appeal. They bring their products back to the image of the company rather than the product.

Cowon never seem to care for logical, natural improvements of their housing designs, they appear to rather go at it trial-and-error-style and make every new player iteration slightly different than the last one – for no apparent reason other than for the sake of being different.

Another frustration. Cowon doesn't have a single image like Apple's scroll wheel so it's not that bad of a choice but it is annoying if you found an item that has potential and you're just waiting for the more stable upgrade and what does the company do? Kill your expectations or make do with an upgraded sexier and more expensive item that feels like Vista to 7 when said companies aren't household names yet.

It also comes with yet another unique proprietary USB cable, as is the usual modus operandi of Cowon. Barely any two of their players use the same cables. Comparing that to the standardized world of iPod or Sony Walkman connectors, Cowon’s topsy-turvy approach of seemingly randomly picking their players’ plugs and jacks is very inconvenient. Currently I have five Cowon players in my collection, and I need five different cables to connect them to my PC.

Other companies just don't want to beat the leading product it seems. They want to "imitate" them while adding their extra frustration.

Why Cowon why?! You're so damn close to being the best mp3 player and you pull a stunt like this especially when you're finally getting recognition!!!

The firmware is extremely bad, even by Cowon standards. Mind you, I haven’t tested the infamous Q5W, but I doubt it can have that much lower usability than the V5. The following chapter is about firmware version 1.08, which is already the 8th upgrade since December 2009 – but it doesn’t feel like there was anything of importance fixed since the initial 1.00 firmware.

Windows CE 6 is the underlying operating system on which Cowon superimposed their counterintuitive user interface. Those familiar with ancient Pocket PCs and Windows-powered phones know that Windows CE 6 is an outdated mobile OS resembling Windows 95, with barely working touch screen controls and finger-(un-)friendliness duct-taped on as an afterthought. I assume Win CE is part of the problem the V5 feels rather sluggish and unresponsive at times. It’s just not specialized enough for the V5’s main tasks, audio and video playback, it burns too many cycles on irrelevant background processes and the like. Every time one starts the V5, one sees the Win CE desktop for a few seconds before Cowon’s UI starts. This looks amateurish and not well integrated at all. Not to mention the boot procedure is quite lengthy, despite the V5 not having to build a tag database for its files, as other, faster, players do. It’s borderline amazing that the V5 manages to play 720p videos – since Win CE takes almost a minute to display a folder with about 100 files in Explorer. In that aspect the Cowon O2’s embedded Linux firmware certainly appears to be more polished.

Firmware! Firmware! Firmware!

It'd be nice if every mp3 player comes with "in case we screw this up, you can install Rockbox on this" but no...

Rockbox runs on this:

   * Apple: iPod 1g through 5.5g, iPod Mini and iPod Nano 1g
    * Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
    * Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5, M5L, M3 and M3L
    * iriver: iHP100 series, H100 series, H300 series and H10 series
    * Olympus: M:Robe 100
    * Packard Bell: Vibe 500
    * SanDisk: Sansa c200 series (not v2), e200 series (all models), and Fuze v1 (not v2)
    * Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series

or unstably at this:

Cowon: D2

...and guess what?

Cowon releases D2+ with minor upgrades, but why?

http://asia.cnet.com...post.htm?id=63009116

Cowon seems to have made a great move with its latest models, the Cowon S9 and O2, in the current economic situation where consumers are not spending much money on buying gadget stuff. Local media have reported that Cowon is having a tough time with demand for the Cowon S9, which lets us know that sales for the player is going well here.

All of a sudden, Cowon released the Cowon D2+ with a few upgrades like JetEffect (BBE+ from BBE), GUI and colors. These three features are the only differences I can spot from the specifications.

I guess most of us were expecting the Cowon D3 and not the D2+ since we saw what kind of performance Cowon can create from its devices lately

After Win CE finishes booting, the unsuspecting user is slapped in the face by the visual insult that is the main screen of the V5. It’s basically the color-scheme equivalent of a Disneyland parade, paired with the cheerfulness of an episode of the TV show Pokémon. It would fit perfectly as the main screen of a Nintendo game, but for a portable video player it’s rather inappropriate in its gut-wrenching tackiness. I can’t even imagine what target demographic the designers had in mind when they created that stuff – but I probably wouldn’t want to know that anyway. Somehow I can’t imagine 12 year old Korean girls having much use for a player that sports a 5-band semi-parametric audio EQ or handles 720p Matroska containers. While the Cowon O2 looks antiquated like a ten years old Linux distro, the V5 overshoots the mark by trying to be “funny” and “cute” – yet only results in giving me stomach cramps when I look at it.

Ones step forward, two steps back. I’m very disappointed by the Cowon V5 as a whole. One would think Cowon would have used the last year or two to rethink their PMP plans and improve on the botched O2. Yet the V5 has just a better screen, working 720p playback, and better battery life – but most of the usability shortcomings of the O2 are still here, and a few new, aggravating flaws have been added. Oh, and the V5’s kitschy interface design is just too insulting to even mention.

Story of other companies' inability to beat out Apple products despite their none-revolutionary flaws.

The worse part is that there's always something justifiably right about the companies action.

Example: assuming what this commentor said is true:

This is a... well a review. I feel obligated to speak up for Cowon. (well a little) I don't think this is a replacement or upgrade of the O2, instead I think it's the replacement for the Q5W. I say this because this is how the player is being marketed. Also, the Q5W (which I own) has a LOT of the same flaws. but the user interface is much easier to use and actually makes sense. Also the Q5W has a pretty good implementation of CE-5 and WiFi so I can actually use it to play music off of my laptop when both devices are on on my network. It kind of works like a netbook. The Q5W even has a mini version of windows media player that can be used to play videos that the Cowon media player won't play. It is also a USB host so I can add a mouse and keyboard (kind of needed to get the most out of windows media player), or a usb drive for additional storage. It has little word processor (word pad I think) that can be handy for taking notes. The Q5W also has a mobile version of internet explorer so it can be used to surf the web, I have actually done online banking on it, and even ordered a Domino's pizza with it. It boots up MUCH faster than my windows machine so quick browsing to simple sites like gmail or google are pretty easy. The browser has flaws a plenty but when used as intended its kind of cool. The Q5W also has a digital output that works with both music and video, and it uses a common USB cable for connection to a PC. From what I read on the Cowon Korean site there is a P5 that is pretty much the Q5w with a slightly modified body. After reading this I guess I might have helped make the reviewers point the V5 isn't a replacement for anything in the Cowon line. The Q5W has it's issues, but because of it's better implementation of CE and WiFi, Bluetooth (stereo!) and USB host feature. it has some virtues that sort of redeem it from it's lousy audio player features. the V5 doesn't seem to have any of the Q5W's virtues but has all of it's flaws. Kind of a mess of a player, but oddly, I still kind of want one....

The big problem? They never convey that to their buyers and sometimes it's not about what Apple polishes as a turd but Apple simply being more open to the media about their turd assuming what they're releasing are turds.

885

Living Room / Only take a NO from someone who can say YES

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 06, 2010, 12:56 AM »

Common knowledge but I still have a hard time learning to develop this tough skin. That's why I decided to post this article even if it's light on examples because someone might want to think about this and haven't.

http://manylogue.com...he-power-to-say-yes/

Finding the right person to say the ultimate NO is the only way to be sure that a deal will not happen.  Until you get to that person, a rejection by somebody else along the way may be for all the wrong reasons: he has his own agenda, he doesn’t understand the value of what you are selling, he doesn’t want to bother, etc.  It is certainly not easy to do, but the bottom line is that you should not accept a NO from somebody who does not have the power to say YES.

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Living Room / Re: Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer??

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 06, 2010, 12:51 AM »

I'm starting to lean less towards the hyperbole nowadays.

To me, lately, Apple products have been less like turds and it's the other companies who make turds but can't polish them.

I-Pad for example was a huge gamble. Even the Iphone was. Only the Ipod was the safe entry and even there it can be said at that point few had foreseen the power of music collection prior to that.

Iphone though was particularly gutsy since Nokia was a major player on par with Microsoft and the Palm was planning it's last hurrah at the market.

Still... a phone is a phone.

But I-Pad... no one really gave it a chance until Apple stuck to it's stubborness. I'm not saying it was pure genius or it doesn't have lots of flaws but let's refer to Google for another reference:

https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=22968.0

Bookmarks are managed in a humane and sane way now with a simple file manager/folder view.

Single sentence but for a brief moment this sentence made me search for the new version of Chrome without realizing I already had the latest version of Chrome.

Why?

Cause the bookmark manager didn't really feel like a humane and sane way of organizing bookmarks compared to what Opera offered and to some extent, people who are used to IE may also prefer Firefox's right click context menu bookmark options.

Yet Chrome even if it's software rather than hardware has the same criticism prior to it's entry and can we say the major players weren't trying to make a useful product?

They were but Chrome caused the major players to shift to their uglier minimal interface. In the same way, the Ipod, the Iphone, the I-pad succeeded so far because they always brought something "shiny" like scroll wheel, touch screen/power, screen size/touch screen when the pragmatic view of useful at the time didn't respect these features enough.

If these were turds, then every other offer at the time would be smellier turds from a consumer perspective.

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Living Room / Re: Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer??

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 11:22 PM »

Sometimes that's the case but sometimes it's the opposite.

I could recall reading a Lenovo article where Apple beat them to the Mac Air.

I also wouldn't call it pushing the envelope. More of making an interface for the casual user to drool upon.

Eventually the interface wears off and these companies jump at the chance to "improve" the product with features rather than interfaces. Sometimes they add features but they make it buggy. Other times it's a mere case of cynical marketing.

With regards to the Apple I-Pad in particular. I think after that Techcrunch project fell into pieces, companies realized that unless they had Apple's marketing, no one was going to touch that kind of gadget pre-Apple. If they pre-release it, Apple marketing would just override their first entry and at the same time, if they wait for Apple, they can better test the consumers' reaction to the product.

It's really a case of marketing and acceptance IMO. Many companies don't create cultures, they create common products. Then there's the fact that many companies don't attempt to create user interfaces beyond functional (and often times not so functional). Even for freeware developers, many of them are very wary of adding rounded corners or large buttons and if they have a mac look, they copy the brushed look rather than invent any new skin that combines functionality, simplicity and aesthetic.

In the end it's like asking why citizen journalism don't push the envelope to beat out Fox/CNN/MSNBC/etc. Some of it is cost but sometimes it's the simple issue of how you tell your culture what twitter news entry you got and making it more appeal-able to watch. It's a double edged gambit though.

Eventually people will move on to something other than Windows OS or be satisfied with the current Windows version. Eventually people will get sick of all the white. Eventually someone will come and make a better but cheaper alternative to fill the niche. Eventually the Apple culture will die out and prompting a new culture who will swoon over someone other than Steve Jobs.

888

Living Room / Re: one a/b test shows that downloadable apps are less profitable than webapps

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 02:05 PM »

One of the interesting issue I found with this is that he writes this at a time when webapps are slowing down.

There was a surgence of this especially the heydays of the commercial blogs but nowadays unless your app is in Facebook or Apple's App Store, it barely gets any attention compared to a desktop app.

Mostly the search appears to be on which next gadget/web service or browser appear to support the most modifications and extensions and then you throw all your ideas there and hope some of it gets recognized.

Even simple webapps, how many are being released nowadays and how many are being widely recognized?

Meanwhile cloud style desktop/mobile apps are getting all the Web 2.0 buzz. I'm almost worried that a major web service/web app might be abandoned eventually. Some have been bothered by Ning's decision to remove free networks while many predict the demise of Digg and the lack of updates beyond social network like features. The day of webapps might be dying faster than web 1.0 sites.

It's not directly related to the article but right now with the way things are going but equally with the way services encourage less content creation, the web may either enter a Renaissance, a Dark Age or a Silver Age depending on what issues and what concepts gets monopolized. (Net Neutrality, Walled Garden, Mobile Gadgets and Desktop Webapps reliance following Chrome OS.)

889

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a perfect blog editor? Does anyone care if there is?

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 12:57 PM »

I am not one of those who might care too much about other people's blogging or blog editor problems (my Firefox spelling editor didn't know "blog" or "blogging" right now!), because I have not yet started a blog myself. But of course one day I just might, so I am curious how to maybe do it via Firefox. Did you try ScribeFire (or maybe you don't use Firefox or Chrome?) which some of the posts spoke so highly about?

-Curt (June 05, 2010, 06:54 AM)

Well, like I said, I wasn't really looking for a blog editor.

As far as Scribefire goes, I haven't used it long enough to encounter the formatting problems but for the most part I find blog editors to be slow compared to gmail and their cramped spaces don't allow for the length of blog posts I write compared to full screen/pop-up gmail textbox.

They're also for the most part "worrisome" to save drafts into and they still have options that get in the way compared to an e-mail box. I compare it to using Word over notepad.

In the end it's different purposes though. Blog editors are for backups while gmail is for me, ease of editing/typing over other editors with minimum fluff except what gmail offers.

890

Living Room / Re: A warning from History

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 08:37 AM »

How does that relate to book writing though?

891

Living Room / The Pill that can Wipe out Painful Memories

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 07:42 AM »

Source: http://www.dailymail...mories.html?ITO=1490

To test the effectiveness of the drug, researchers created bad memories by giving mice electric shocks while a loud noise was played.

Over time, the creatures learned to associate the sound with the shock, and hearing the noise alone was enough to make them freeze.

But when they were given a drug called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, they lost their fear, the journal Science reports.

The effect of the drug was similar to a psychological technique called extinction training, in which phobia sufferers are repeatedly exposed to their nemesis in a bid to desensitise them to it.

The U.S. government-funded researchers believe that, as in extinction training, the drug did not erase the bad memory completely, but created a sense of safety and positivity that made it easier to cope with.

892

Living Room / The Ever-Evolving Question of Privacy

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 07:35 AM »

Source: http://www.dailymail...-homes.html?ITO=1490

Google has again been accused of invading privacy after secretly collecting details of millions of home wi-fi connections to help it sell adverts.

The search engine giant mapped every wireless internet connection in the country and now uses the data to make money.

Google staff in specially adapted cars collected the signals from inside residents' homes as they toured the country for the company's Street View project.

They were able to record the location of every router and wireless network without telling anyone because wi-fi signals spill out from inside homes on to the street.

The company has admitted it should have been more 'transparent' but played down the significance of the wi-fi mapping. Spokesman Peter Barron said: 'Many other companies have been collecting data like this for as long as if not longer than, Google.

We don't collect any information about householders, we can't identify an individual from the location data Google collects via Street View cars and we don't publish this information.

This is publicly broadcast information which is accessible to anyone with a wi-fi enabled device, but we accept in hindsight it would have been better to be more transparent about what we collect.' But human rights group Privacy International has called for a 'full-scale audit' of Google.

Comment:

I can't believe you're making such a big deal out of this. Sure, it's surprising and shocking that they have personal info, but the information that was collected is open for anyone to view, and therefore there should be no problems.

The photo's taken for Street View are no different than walking down a street by yourself, or taking photographs of strangers houses.

The wi-fi hotspots and signals can easily be found by anyone walking down a street with a laptop, mobile phone or handheld games console.

And the data taken (ie, emails, forms etc) from people's wi-fi signals can also easily be picked up due to the fact that the data collected was from routers that hadn't been set up to have security settings.

If people don't like any of this, maybe they should just live somewhere where people can't see their houses (?), use wired connections, or set up wireless security.

It's not hard.

893

Living Room / Re: A warning from History

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 07:09 AM »

It's the implementation that's the problem; not the ideas.

Could you elaborate?

894

Living Room / Saturn's moon Titan could host Aliens

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 07:08 AM »

Source: http://www.dailymail...n-moon.html?ITO=1490

Scientists have found evidence that there is life on Saturn's biggest moon, Titan.

They have discovered clues that primitive aliens are breathing in Titan's atmosphere and feeding on fuel at the surface.

The startling discoveries, made using an orbiting spacecraft, are revealed in two separate reports.

The first paper, in the journal Icarus, shows that hydrogen gas flowing down through Titan's atmosphere disappears at the surface, suggesting it could be being breathed by alien bugs.
 
The second paper, in the Journal of Geophysical Research, reports there is a lack of a certain chemical on the surface, leading scientists to believe it may be being consumed by life.

Experts warn that there could be other explanations for the results.

895

Living Room / A Programming Language for Genetic Engineering of Living Cells

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 05:45 AM »

Via Popurls: http://research.micr.../en-us/projects/gec/

While current limitations on available data prevent full use of the language in practical applications, the language can be used to develop formal models of synthetic systems, which are otherwise often presented by informal notations. The language can also serve as a concrete proposal on which future language designs can be discussed, and can help to guide the emerging standard of biological parts which so far has focused on biological, rather than logical, properties of parts.

896

General Software Discussion / Is there a perfect blog editor? Does anyone care if there is?

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 04:03 AM »

Anyone who's seen my profile knows I'm biased towards gmail and posterous and I never found a better blog editor than that but these topics are such a rare mention that it's always interesting to hear what people think:

Source: http://trishussey.co...+Isle+by+Tris+Hussey)

Very soon after I started blogging, I started using a blog editor to power up my blogging (and prevent the “aiiigghhh I lost my connection and my post!!!!” which was very common at conferences, still is actually). In those days I was using Qumana for the most part, which makes sense since I was a part of the company and helping guide the growth of the app.

For its time, Qumana was a fantastic blogging app. It was almost perfect (I was always pushing for more and better refinement), but Qumana has long dropped from my toolkit as it hasn’t really been updated in a long time. After Qumana, I used Windows Live Writer. Again, almost perfect and probably one of the few apps I miss since switching to a Mac.

Right now my app of choice is Blogo and it’s good enough, but maybe not as great as I’d like. I have ecto, and while it’s good, it lacks a few refinements and doesn’t seem to have any active development going on, which always concerns me when choosing (and paying for) an app. Yesterday I bought the MacHeist nano bundle and it comes with MacJournal, which has a post to blog function. All of which has made me wonder if there is a perfect (Mac) blog editor, and if there is does anyone care?

The key here is the writing part of the blogging problem. I have now three apps for writing and note taking. Between Scrivener, where I do most of my book writing and a lot of other writing as well, Yojimbo, where I gather a lot of the links and such researching for books, etc., and MacJournal, which I haven’t really tried yet, I have a lot of potential blogging firepower, but little practical connections.

I can easily gather a ton of stuff in Yojimbo (I love it’s drop-tab area), but I can’t pull it together and publish from there (easily). I can write my brains out in Scrivener (which I do), and I can pull in a lot of stuff into it, but not as easily as Yojimbo, but I can’t publish directly to any of my blogs. The best I’ve been able to do is write it and copy and paste. I still have to add links and images to finish off the posts. MacJournal … well it might be able to post to my blog (I haven’t tried yet), but the whole collecting of stuff part is lacking.

Then comes the critical question—does anyone really care?

897

Living Room / Re: Linux based E-book reader with two touchscreens about to be released.

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 03:46 AM »

This may turn some people off:

The Kno is heavy, and it probably has not much future as a luxury item, but for students it may well be what they need. Replacing a backpack filled with heavy books this could prevent anybody from taking the wrong books to school

http://www.handlewit...reen-e-reader-tablet

898

Living Room / Re: Is a college education worth the money?

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 03:07 AM »

True and I didn't find the article very compelling but his last paragraph did sum it up:

Indeed, if even a professionally oriented college degree is no longer a guarantee of easily found employment, an argument might be made in favor of a student’s pursuing an education that is less, rather than more, pragmatic. (More theology, less accounting.) That way, regardless of each graduate’s ultimate path, all might be qualified to be carriers of arts and letters, of which the nation can never have too many.

It's also strangely popular on twitter and I got it from ycombinator's tweets so...there must be something to it.

As a person who lives in the Philippines, I could certainly understand and appreciate the necessity of the last paragraph.

With that said, I'm also speaking from the perspective of someone who has not gone to college but have witnessed the lack of influence intellectuals have on this country or if they do get farther in life, they use this as an opportunity to move away from the country (while just supporting their parents over here) rather than improve the country directly. That said there are many other factors related to their decision but I'm just saying...

899

Living Room / Is a college education worth the money?

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 01:30 AM »

Source: http://www.newyorker...100607taco_talk_mead

Professor Robert I. Lerman, of American University (Ph.D., M.I.T.), told the Times that high schools, rather than readying all students for college, should focus on the acquisition of skills appropriate to the workplace. According to the Times, these include the ability to “solve problems and make decisions,” “resolve conflict and negotiate,” “coöperate with others,” and “listen actively.”

900

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Advantages of Chrome's Session Saving Extensions over other browsers

« Last post by Paul Keith on June 05, 2010, 01:18 AM »

I take back what I said, after reading the comments here, I found out that there is a skin to fix this issue:

http://my.opera.com/.../skins/info/?id=9491

Now the real wallbanger is why this isn't set up by default since it was shown that all it needs is a skin lift. I mean how many people would search for top tab gap skin to fix this issue? /rant