Dave's Whiteboard

As I was saying, I needed to replace my PDA.  Last Saturday, just ahead of 6 or 8 inches of “a light dusting of snow,” my wife and I each got the Verizon HTC Droid Eris.  (She meanwhile received a BlackBerry for work; we now have more smart phones in the house than we do smart people.)

The good news is we were able to make a call on the way home from the store, so the phone part was easy to master.  That was the prelude to four or five hours during which we both tinkered with our phones.

It was a good reminder that people who say “learning is fun” are usually talking about past learning, rather than future.

At a particularly high level of stress, I wrote down some comments we were making:

• I know I came across it at one point…
• How do you…?
• How did I…?
• Where was…?

…which helps explain my original delay in getting the phone in the first place.  Cost was one factor: Verizon’s data plan adds $30 to your monthly phone bill.  On a two-year contract, that’s $720 dollars (in addition to your voice plan, even though ours is relatively cheap).

In retrospect, I think the more important factor for me was transition cost (which a couple of friends might phrase as “resistance to change”).  I see three potential sources of trouble from a shift like the one I’ve made:

• You’ve got to learn some new things.
• You’ve got to learn how to do some things differently.
• You’ve got to leave some things behind.

Of those, I think “differently” is the most troubling.  That’s the real change: to accomplish X, I used to do Y.  I knew how to do Y.  I was good at Y, so much so I didn’t have to think about it, because it had been incorporated into a larger set of behavior, the way I instinctively know when to use “the” and when not to (my sister’s in the hospital, my brother’s in college).

A certain amount of stress (or perhaps challenge) can help foster learning–we’ve got a goal, we’re looking for a way to accomplish it.  Too much, though, and we see the new practice or new technology as not just a change but a hindrance–a word whose roots suggest harm, injury, or impairment.

I’ve also noticed several instances of “intuitive cognitive strategies” (a term van Merriënboer and Kirschner use for “incorrect notions that newbies come up with”).  For example, there are seven home screens–a phrase that confused me, since I thought of the middle one as the home screen.    The other sixe were…I don’t know, helper screen.  Subscreens.  Peripheral screens.

(Why this matters: you only have so much space on the smartphone screen.  By flicking your finger across it, you can switch between the various home screens and have more real estate for applications.)

Part of that confusion might have come from the concept of scenes, which are alternative sets of home screens.  (You swap in a new scene and your home screens are different–like one for work and one for play, maybe.)

Got that?  Me, either, which is why I thought that you had to add a new icon to the “main” home screen (the middle one of the seven) and then drag it wherever you wanted it, like the offspring of the iPhone and a number puzzle.

Going back to transition cost, the highest risk for me was that I’d have to re-enter my contacts and my calendar items if the Eris couldn’t sync with Microsoft Outlook.  I didn’t want to have to switch to Google’s contacts and calendar (see above, “learn some new things” and “leave some things behind”).

Cooperative learning came into play.  I don’t recall what I was doing at the time (probably trying to create a clear path for app-dragging), but my wife made a very specific search and found a description of how to get the Eris to sync directly with Outlook on my desktop.

It was a little bumpy, but I got it done–and that payoff boosted my sense of competence on the new tool.  Now I’m having fun playing with applications, and I’m more prone to see difficulties as puzzles rather than setbacks.  I just hope that the next time I’m trying to breeze someone else through “change management,” I remember how frustrated I felt when my own change was getting managed.

Here’s a video from  Lisa Gade’s look at the Eris (at Mobile Tech Review). You can see a demonstration of those seven home screens at about the 3:00 mark in the video:

Biggest mystery about the phone so far?  It turns out that your purchase doesn’t include the 238 page user guide (PDF).  (To be fair, it’s 238 5 x 5 pages, but still…)  Perhaps Verizon has a goal to encourage discovery learning.

Peculiar mystery: if you visit Android Market (the Google source for Android applications) with a computer rather than a smartphone, there’s no search function.

[Here are] some of the more popular applications and games available in Android Market. For a comprehensive, up-to-date list of the thousands of titles that are available, you will need to view Android Market on a handset.

No search?  From Google?

Onetime English major mystery:  Eris was the goddess of strife.  At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, she lobbed a golden apple inscribed “to the fairest.”  Squabbling among goddesses led to the Trojan War, an event somewhat more frustrating than switching to a smart(er) phone.

I try not to let January 25th pass without a nod to Robert Burns.  Lately I find good counsel in his Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous

My Son, these maxims make a rule,
An’ lump them aye thegither;
The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither:
The cleanest corn that ere was dight (sifted)
May hae some pyles o’ caff in; (bits of chaff)
So ne’er a fellow-creature slight
For random fits o’ daffin. (folly)
— Solomon: Eccles. ch. vii. verse 16.

O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’,
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours’ fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,  (nicely running mill)
Supplied wi’ store o’ water;
The heaped happer’s ebbing still, (even though the hopper is ebbing)
An’ still the clap plays clatter.  (it’s making lots of noise)

Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s door  (sober Wisdom’s)
For glaikit Folly’s portals:  (thoughtless)
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences-
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,  (stupid tricks)
Their failings and mischances.

Ye see your state wi’ theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer;  (contrast)
But cast a moment’s fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;  (what accounts for the difference)
Discount what scant occasion gave,  (take away your luck)
That purity ye pride in;
And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave),  (often more than all the risk)
Your better art o’ hidin.  (your greater skill at concealment)

Think, when your castigated pulse  (If even your often-punished pulse)
Gies now and then a wallop!  (still jumps at times)
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail,  (with the wind and current in your favor)
Right on ye scud your sea-way;  (you glide over the waves)
But in the teeth o’ baith to sail,  (sailing against both)
It maks a unco lee-way.  (makes for an uncommonly offcourse voyage)

See Social Life and Glee sit down,  (sit down, as in to drink)
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, they’re grown  (they’ve turn into)
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate  (oh, if only they’d wait and figure)
Th’ eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,  (what you fear worse)
Damnation of expenses!  (the cost)

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o’ cases;
A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,
A treach’rous inclination-
But let me whisper i’ your lug,  (in your ear)
Ye’re aiblins nae temptation.  (maybe you’re no temptation)

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang,  (a little wrong)
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark, -
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.

Harold Jarche posted a great set of slides on complexity, the web, and business.  I’ll get out of the way and let him explain:

The New York Times reports on an analysis of 32 million user passwords.  Someone stole them from RockYou, which helps people use sites like Facebook and MySpace; the list was posted online.  As one researcher commented, a list this size is “the mother lode” for examining user habits.

Imperva, a data security firm, has published highlights of its  analysis of the passwords.   The chart on the right is taken from Imperva’s analysis.

Remember, the group was roughly 32,000,000 — which means that nearly 1% (290,731 individuals) used “123456″ for their password.

If you add up all the “123-” variations in the top 10, you have 488,878 people who chose consecutive numbers starting with 1 as a password.

The Times article notes that 20% of the account holders–6.4 million people–used only 5,000 different passwords.  (Number 5,000 in terms of popularity was “tigger123.”  That’ll keep the hackers away.)

I’m writing this on Thursday night, following a #lrnchat discussion on workgroups with little connectivity or tech-savvy.  Granted, the RockYou account holders probably had personal rather than workplace goals in mind.  At the same time, I’ll argue that their password selections reflect some of their own tech-savvy… or at least their actual performance, regardless of any theoretical savvy.

Which means that “strong password training” probably won’t solve on-the-job security shortcomings.  People might still use weak passwords because:

• They don’t have an easy way to generate strong ones (like this one that includes a mnemonic).
• They have too many different passwords to recall.
• Nothing bad happens immediately after they choose a weak password.

In a work setting, imagine combining the third and first points: a system or website tells you (politely but candidly) that your password isn’t secure, then offers you help in creating one that is.  The result probably won’t be “abc123″ or “qwerty.”  A more practical problem is that the result’s going to be hard to remember, which increases the likelihood that someone will want to write the password down.

I suspect that even the “tech-savvy” are tempted to cycle through maybe five or six pet passwords, in the same way that a lot of people list “regular backups” as part of their digital religion while rarely engaging in the practice.

I’m trying to remember the last time I looked something up in the phone book.  Honestly, I have no idea.  I do remember the last time I tried to remember.  It was a year ago, when the 2009 phone books arrived at my house.

Which means the 2010 books arrived today.

A year ago, I took the new books up to my office, where I kept them.  As I took the old books out, I realized I hadn’t touched them since I’d put them away a year ago.  I simply don’t use the phone book.

Things were different this year — the books go in the built-in desk in the remodeled kitchen.  Looking at new and old editions of the Yellow Pages,  I realized that I’m not the only one who doesn’t use the phone book  (2010 book is on the right):

Nothing remarkable (other than proof that marketing has completely trumped esthetics).  Notice the thickness, though:

First Class Plumbing LLC has stayed true to Verizon, though I have to admit it’s the first time I’ve noticed there was an ad on the bottom edge of the phone book.  For those who prefer hard numbers:

The new Yellow Pages (lower part of the picture) has a page count 13% lower than the old one for stuff that matters–the actual listings, as opposed to filler like seating plans for stadiums.

No real surprise here, just mild bemusement as I observe the Changing of the Phone Book ritual.  I realize that many people still do rely on the phone book–not everyone’s running around with a smartphone.  Many more, though, turn online for their first-choice source of information.  Inertia may keep the books coming for a long time yet, but friction’s going to keep whittling down their size.