Mobile retailing has exploded in the past year, with almost one third of shoppers having used an m-commerce site, and the number of people completing a transaction quadrupling.

However, while mobile payments have become an important part of Japan’s economy since it was introduced in 1999, the rest of the world is yet to widely embrace m-commerce. With the 2012 London Olympics looming, the major mobile operators are planning to introduce NFC (near filed communication) widely to make purchasing transport and tickets easier.

One to One Insight has conducted independent research, surveying almost 1,000 people to understand customers’ attitudes towards mobile payments and ultimately their propensity to use mobile payments. Dr. Philip Rhodes is your host for this second episode of OneToOne.tv. We invite you to join him as he discusses consumer concerns about mobile payments and addresses whether m-commerce is the future of payments.

The waves of change in how we communicate with each other means that brand relationships are becoming deeply entwined with human relationships. Your invited to enjoy OnetoOne.tv’s first episode, titled Human-Centric Marketing, and  listen to our firm’s thought leaders discuss how this new paradigm in marketing-communications is changing the way we will all be introduced and form relationships with brands.

Almost everyone is familiar with Facebook Pages. What  is not so obvious is that Facebook really has several page types. Each has a specialized purpose, with strengths and weaknesses. Understanding them will help you increase your exposure and engagement.

• Fan Pages – These are the most commonly known Pages, they reside within the Facebook.com interface, and are fantastic vehicles for promoting, acquiring and nurturing Facebook users. They allow Facebook users to Like the Page and as a result will see Posts from the Page in their News Feeds. Many brands are using a single Page,but we are seeing a trend toward multiple Page use. This allows the brand to segment content much the way an email marketer segments their different lists, based on interests or subscriptions.
  
• Place Pages – Place Pages, also reside within the Facebook.com interface and are a type of page that result from someone checking in via Facebook’s geo-location service, with a focus on promoting a physical location of a brand. These types of pages differ from Fan Pages because they contain a Map of the place location, friends who are currently at the location or have visited and checked into the Place, plus the ability to utilize the Deals functionality. Deals allow brands to promote their services with rewards for checking into Places. These pages are also good for disseminating Job openings for each location and events that are happening in one Place vs another.
  
• Open Graph Pages – This is probably the hardest page to understand. The Like button is placed on a page external to Facebook and when Liked the same content subscription as Fan Pages occurs. This allows Page Administrators the ability to post information that is displayed within the News feeds of the people who liked it, just like Fan Pages. However the big difference here is that there is no landing page on Facebook to visit. The Posts will appear in the News Feed but when clicked the consumer of the content will be taken to the original page where the Like Button resides (on a site external from Facebook). As indicated above Page Administrators have a publishing interface that allows them to create Posts and have those posts published to the News Feeds of anyone who has liked the page. See the below image for an example of the Administrative interface.
  
  
  These types of Pages have one large capability that other Pages do not and that is the ability to create them without using the Facebook’s Page creation tool. All you have to do is provide some Facebook specific meta tags in the header.
• Application Profile Pages – When a brand maintains a Facebook Application that application has an associated Profile Page that contains many of the same features as the other pages such Likes, a Wall, Posts and discussions. These Profile Pages are often neglected since the Brand usually is focusing more on their Fan Pages, however Application Profile Pages allow for very targeted content to an audience that is using your application and solutions on a regular basis.
  

Here at One to One Connect we have provided an ability to manage, message and report on all of these Page types via MessageMaker Social. Whether your using a tool or handling these pages within the Facebook interface it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each page type and how to utilize them to their fullest extent.

A couple weeks ago I was in New York City with my daughter visiting the Editions\Artists Book Fair and the IFPDA Print Fair. We yelped our way over to an excellent Szechuan restaurant where I found myself washing up and waving idly at a grey box on the wall. After a bit I realized that paper towels weren’t going to dispense, and closer inspection revealed I was waving at the soap dispenser. I tried waving at another grey box, but realized that it would only dispense towels after twisting the recessed knob. When did using a restroom become so complicated?

Behavior that used to be simple and habitual now requires option-navigating decisions.I don’t think I’m alone in this. On other recent occasions I’ve found the water pouring in public facility sinks. I don’t think that’s because the recent hand-washer was wasteful, but rather because their office sink worked when you waved at it, but these sinks had knobs. In our office we have both handled and waved sinks; you have to think about how to use the particular sink you’re at. Behavior that used to be simple and habitual now requires option-navigating decisions.

So Simple It’s Complicated

Perversely this has come about because companies are working hard to make our lives easier, business more profitable and less wasteful. Automated faucets and towel dispensers use fewer supplies and are more hygienic; public spaces and businesses want to make their facilities easier to use. And yet every innovation adds to complexity. It’s not as if all faucets get upgraded at once; old styles, newer styles and competing styles are all in market at the same time. Simple has become complicated in the name of convenience.

We see this same situation in the digital realm. In the good old days we sent messages to each other by email, and it was good. Then we got to Instant Message each other, and that was good too, we then combined instant messaging and mobile messaging and that was even better! We could tell each other where were going to eat, or how much we liked a book, or where to get a good deal – practically in real time. Now of course we have multiple separate apps for each of those activities, and thousands more besides.

But for the consumer convenience has again come at the cost of complexity, where once email or text would suffice, now people are sending, leaving and reading messages everywhere through email, social media messaging like Facebook, Twitter and other services like Foursquare that also message through Facebook and Twitter. The more messaging components a consumer integrates into their day the harder it is to make their use habitual – there are a limited number of daily habits we are willing to incorporate.

How Much Time Do You Have For Something New?

So inevitably balkanization is occurring, with different groups favoring different clusters of services. Facebook has an increasingly wide demographic base in contrast to Twitter and Foursquare, which are much more limited. The divide has become less about digital/nondigital, and more about personal investment. How much time are you willing to invest in incorporating a new service into our personal digital ecosystem? What social environmental forces will it take to get an individual to adopt a new digital social app?

For brands the challenge is even more daunting. Marketers are consumers too, with limited time to play with new platforms. Yet it’s hard to market effectively on a platform you are not fluent in. And as consumer communications become more multi-channeled it has become exponentially harder to message to them effectively. Email relationship marketing was complex and challenging on it’s own. Email/Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/SMS/Apps relationship marketing is far more daunting. But the rewards are there for marketers who devote the energy and resources needed to communicate in this, the era of wave, poke, pull and twist.

OTOinsights presents our latest customer experience research findings for several of the most downloaded iPad magazine applications including Wired, PopSci, GQ, Dwell, and Time.

“Digital publishing has changed consumer magazine consumption; in the past three years over 1,000 have ceased publication,” said webinar presenter Dr. Philip Rhodes, Managing Director for OTOinsights. “The iPad offers magazines a new digital publishing platform that allows them to better present, control and monetize their content.”

OTOinsights’ task-based analysis focuses on the homescreen, navigation, layout, advertisement placement and overall user satisfaction based on these criteria:

• How does the layout impact user experience
• How intuitive is navigation
• What is the nature and quality of the content
• How efficient is it to use
• How likely are users to revisit the iPad magazine
• Does the application engender trust in the user

This webinar will help brands and publishers participating, or planning on participating, in iPad magazine applications as developers, advertisers or content authors.

Join us for this free webinar where we discuss this latest customer experience research and conclude with a best practice guide on how you can create the best experience for your customers. Webinar attendees will also receive copy of this presentation free of charge.

Presenter:
Dr. Philip Rhodes, Managing Director and Director of Research for OTOinsights

When/Where:
Thursday, July 29 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time

Click Here to Register for Free

Dr. Philip Rhodes, Ph.D.

Philip holds a Ph.D. in Information Design from the University of Portsmouth. He has extensive research and teaching experience in hypermedia design and information architecture. He speaks fluent Portuguese, having lived and worked in Brazil. Before joining OTOinsights, he worked with US solution providers Rare Medium and Sapient, as Director of Information Architecture. Specializing in offering user-centric online solutions within the banking, education, and telecommunications sectors. He also taught at several universities in Brazil and the UK, and has been widely published. Philip is both the Managing Director and the Director of Customer Experience Research & Design at OTOinsights, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

OTOinsights Overview

Technology innovation continues to create increasingly sophisticated and complex interaction touch points between brands and their customers. A customer’s experience with these touch points define what a brand means to them and their continuing engagement with the product or service. OTOinsights helps brands succeed in today’s rapidly evolving landscape by providing customer experience research, brand research, neuromarketing research and user-centered design.

With one in four people looking to spend less on their travel by as much as fifty percent this year, travelers are flocking online to find the best deals. More than ever, it’s imperative that travel companies capture the growing online bookings market by providing an optimum online customer experience.

Join us for this free webinar where we discuss this latest customer experience research and conclude with a best practice guide on how you can create the best customer experience for your customers. Webinar attendees will also receive a copy of this report free of charge.

When/Where:
Session 1: Europe & USA east coast
Time: 11:00am EST (16.00 hrs GMT)
Date: Thursday 25th February
Join this webinar @ https://get.netviewer.com/meet/join.php?sinr=769828885&sipw=nv64

If you already have Netviewer, simply enter the session number: 769828885

When/Where:
Session 2: USA & Latin America
Time: 11:00am PST (16.00 hrs EST)
Date: Thursday 25th February
Join this webinar @ https://get.netviewer.com/meet/join.php?sinr=907061072&sipw=nv64
If you already have Netviewer, simply enter the session number: 907061072

Audio: Netviewer presents with VOIP, however, if you are on a Mac or are on a slow connection, please use this audio dial in option:

Toll free: +1 (800) 605-5167 passcode 759450 | International direct: +1 (719) 457-0339 passcode 759450

If you have any trouble registering for this webinar please contact marketing@fhios.com or call 0207 886 8245.

Nobody can get forms right.  Some fare better than others, and some are downright awful.  I am a very critical person, and I could probably nit-pick about a problem in just about any form you present to me.  Usually I just shrug off minor problems or annoyances, but this morning I came across one of my biggest pet peeves: bad validation.  In this case, they were asking for a phone number, and for some reason required a very specific format – but didn’t bother making it clear what that format should be.  And this was not for some mom & pop contact form on their MySpace page; this was an MSDN subscription activation.  See for yourself:

I am not sure who coded the validation for this form, but “Phone is invalid” is clearly not enough information for me to fix the problem.  I use xxx.xxx.xxxx notation successfully on a lot of forms; why isn’t it accepted here?  Next, I tried (xxx) xxx-xxxx.  This was rejected as well.  Why?  For fear of being ostracized, I will not tell you how many tries it took before I guessed right, and passed the validation.  As it turned out, they were expecting numbers and dashes with no spaces: xxx-xxx-xxxx.  When I finally got it right, I was very surprised to not see a hateful message along the lines of, “Way to go, moron!  It only took you n tries.  Welcome to step 2!”

So MSDN (and anyone else who codes validation this way): Why do you require a specific format in the first place?  Is it because you blindly pass the string value back to your database, and the check constraint on that column kicks out anything else?  Why can’t you massage the data on the way in?  In all honesty, if you are collecting North American data only, you should be able to accept ANY format that contains 10 numeric digits, and simply strip away the rest.  (And if you are more international, you can clearly perform conditional stripping and check for the relevant number of digits.)  The punctuation is not important, and whether or not I can guess the format you’re expecting should not impede my ability to give you my information.

More importantly, if you are unwilling to write more lenient validation routines, at least make your error messages more friendly (it is not hard to add “; expected format: xxx-xxx-xxxx” to the above error message).  Or even go so far as to make the label next to the text field read something like, “Phone (xxx-xxx-xxxx)” instead of just “Phone.”

This is a big and growing problem with web forms, in my humble opinion.  You can’t expect and demand very rigid formats while allowing people to fill in free text data, and then scold them for not guessing right… which is what they have to do when you don’t provide enough information.  While right now it is often taking a back seat, it seems only a matter of time before usability will not even be invited along for the ride.

As a SQL Server professional, I use Management Studio (SSMS) every day.  Several of my colleagues use this tool as well; developers and DBAs alike.  I have seen a lot of complaints that SSMS takes an excruciatingly long time to load, and I have seen a lot of little tidbits and so-called solutions scattered about the Internet, but I have yet to see a collective post that lists all of them together.  So I felt kind of obligated to fill that gap.

Note that some of these ideas are my own, some are very general, and not all have been tested.  My intentions are to comment on all of them (if not now, then eventually).

General, and probably obvious…

Add more resources.

If you are running within a virtual machine, give it more memory.  And for the better enjoyment of your computing experience as a whole, if your machine is capable of being upgraded in the real physical RAM department, then by all means, do so.  Last year I upgraded my crappy OptiPlex at work from 3GB to 8GB of RAM, and it has a new lease on life.  Of course you need to be running an x64 flavor of Windows in order to take full advantage of more than 3GB RAM.  But if youre currently

Don’t open and close the application so often.

One thread on a newsgroup recently talked about a guy whose boss was complaining multiple times throughout the day that SSMS was taking too long to load.  My immediate reaction was, why was he opening and closing the application so often?  Maybe to save on resources, but I would think that opening and closing the app so often would be far more frustrating than whatever pain it caused by staying open the whole time.  I always leave a copy of SSMS open, and simply minimize it when I’m working on something else.

Exclude the application from virus scanners and spyware programs.

Several of these applications are running in real time, “protecting” you from yourself – though several have options to exclude certain files or programs.  I think it is safe to say that you do not need to protect yourself from Management Studio.  If your software has an exclusion list, add the instance of ssms.exe (SQL Server 2008) and/or SqlWb.exe that you know is the one you installed (who knows, some clever trojan writer might take this post as a cue to proliferate some bastardized version of that executable to slip past your radar).

Do not expect too much from your system.

Your operating system can only handle so many tasks and applications running simultaneously.  If you are using Photoshop and Word and Outlook and TweetDeck and Firefox and Internet Explorer and Minesweeper and <on and on and on> … take a break from a few of those while you are “working.”  Outlook is probably the biggest bang for your buck… not only will you save those heavy resources, you will also not be interrupted by pesky e-mails while you are making those schema changes.

Experiment with local vs. remote

While it is probably never a good idea to run SSMS within a remote desktop session in the data center, this might provide temporary relief from frustration if your workstation is acting up.  Since the server probably has gobs of resources compared to your own machine, it will likely respond better.  However, there are two gotchas: (1) you are trading off local response delays for network video-related delays, and (2) it could backfire completely; if the server is pegged, the remote copy of SSMS might actually have *less* resources to work with.

Specific startup recommendations…

Add the /nosplash switch to your shortcut.

The /nosplash argument prevents SSMS from loading the “splash” screen with the logo and copyright message.  For a long time, this was about the only recommended way to get SSMS to start faster.  In my opinion, it is 100% placebo effect.  You don’t feel like SSMS is taking as long because you are not staring at the splash screen.  I have yet to see any evidence that this actually helps, but a lot of people swear by it, so I guess it can’t hurt.  Within your start menu or quick launch bar, right-click your shortcut to ssms.exe or SqlWB.exe, and select Properties.  Then add /nosplash as follows:

Turn off certificate revocation checking from within IE.

One of the things SSMS does when it starts up is it checks for certificate revocation (since it uses a lot of managed code).  I am hoping that someday they add the ability to turn this check off from within SSMS, but until then, one way you can turn this off is within Internet Explorer’s Tools / Internet Options / Advanced tab.  You can uncheck these two options way down under Security:

• Check for publisher’s certificate revocation
• Check for server certificate revocation

This affects one user but affects everything they do with certificates, so I don’t really agree that it is a good idea.  It seems to be most effective, though.  And Euan Garden has talked about it for a long time, starting here.

Block certificate revocation checking via your hosts file.

You can send all requests to crl.microsoft.com by modifying your hosts file.  Open Notepad, use File|Open, and browse to this folder:

%WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc\

You may need to go into Windows Explorer’s Tools | Folder Options | View tab and turn off the “Hide protected operating system files” setting in order to see the file called “hosts” (no extension).  Open this file and add the following line:

127.0.0.1     crl.microsoft.com

This affects all users and again affects everything you do with certificates.  Use with caution, as this could create unnecessary exposure to real certificate problems.  You can accomplish something similar enterprise-wide if you are using your own internal DNS.  Again, use with caution.

Allow certificate revocation through firewall.

In a lot of cases, crl.microsoft.com is probably blocked by your firewall or not proxied correctly, and this can add to the delay if you are still allowing revocation checking through.  I am far from a firewall guy, so I would talk to your NOC personnel if you want to pursue this route.

Turn off online Help content.

By default, SSMS enables options to search online, both in Books Online and community web sites, when searching for help on specific issues.  You can turn this off in Tools | Options | Help | Online.  I tell it to “Try local only, not online” and uncheck all the checkboxes below except “Local Help.”

Check your registered servers.

I have not proven this, but I have a feeling that if you have several registered servers, they may be polled “on your behalf” for reachability and status.  So periodically it might be a good idea to test your registered servers and make sure they are current by either deleting inactive ones or updating the credentials.

Turn off error usage and reporting.

I am not convinced this will affect startup time, but it may help avoid inexplicable stutters during your usage of SSMS.  Open your Start menu’s program directory and navigate to SQL Server > Configuration Tools > SQL Server Error Usage and Reporting.  Turn off the options as follows:

Open an empty environment.

By default, SSMS is set to launch both Object Explorer and a query window when it starts up.  When this setting is on, it also sits there with a connection dialog, prompting you to give the okay to connect to the most recently-connected server.  It will not do anything else until you dismiss this prompt.  Well, you can change this to avoid this overhead when SSMS starts up.  Under Tools | Options | Environment | General, change the “At startup:” dropdown to read “Open empty environment.”

What if SSMS hangs?

Funny, I just wrote about this earlier today over on sqlblog.com.

If you’ve read any of my material on sqlblog.com or follow me on twitter (@aaronbertrand), you have probably already painted a clear picture that I’m a Windows-based database guy; more recently, though, I have been (at least indirectly) branded a crazy Apple fanboy… and deservedly so.  Here’s my story…

A few short years ago, the only Mac experience I had was with a 17″ iMac G5 (the first pretty iMac, not the UFO or the fishbowl), which I bought for web design and compatibility testing in my own personal projects.  (I did have the fishbowl-based  MacAquarium fish tank at work for a while, until I dismantled it when a snively and overbearing co-worker complained that the filter made too much noise.  Yeah, exactly.)  We had some G4s in the office back when we were still in Newport (we’re talking late 90′s, early 2000′s here, I can’t even remember if they were OS8 or OS9), but I had played with them barely enough to know that I preferred Windows.  At least at the time.

About two years ago, I realized that if I wanted to seriously start speaking out in the community, I would need to learn how to use a laptop.  Not that I expected such a transition to be difficult, but I was convinced that a small screen would annoy the crap out of me.  I shopped around, and while I could have gone with a piece of junk from Dell or HP (which probably wouldn’t even still be working as I write this), I decided to go all out and procured a 17″ MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM.  I have to say that I fell in love with OS X almost immediately, and man, what a beautiful screen.  There were some little learning curve issues, like the location of the applications’ minimize/close buttons top left, the way the dock differs from the taskbar, and how closing a window doesn’t really close the application.  But these were easy to overcome, and I continued to use the laptop for web, e-mail, presentations, blogging… you know, not work stuff, but the reasons your mom needs a computer.

Then my company was bought and we were assimilated into a Boston office – translating to the fact that I would be working from home quite a bit, and would be expected to punch the clock during my commute (mobile broadband is great for checking in, getting a head start on diagnosing problems, and so on).  For starters, I needed to get my aging Dell Precision in my home office up to speed (or replace it), and find a way to do work from my laptop while on the commuter rail.  Remember, I am a Windows / database guy, so most of my work is done in Visual Studio and/or Management Studio – neither of which, of course, are available for Mac OS, one of the reasons not many of my colleagues have a Mac at all.  I was surprised at the media table at PASS last year, when I sat down next to Brent Ozar, who was sporting a MacBook Pro not unlike the one I had just pulled out of my ultra-rare SQL Server 2008 computer bag.  We didn’t really think much of it at the time (and I’m sure we both get our share of ribbing at such events), but it has been a running topic on twitter whenever anything Mac comes up within our collective circles.

Back to my work problem.  As it turned out, I found that I was most productive if I did not maintain a working environment at home, but rather kept all my critical files and projects in a single location on my workstation in the office.  This was partly because I got sick of transferring files between machines on flash drives, and partly because SourceSafe and other important shared resources could, at certain times, be excruciatingly slow and painful over the VPN – making it frustrating, if not impossible, to perform several tasks remotely.  So all I really needed was a Remote Desktop session on my workstation at work, which meant my machine at home simply became a dumb terminal.  In turn this meant that it didn’t matter what kind of machine it was, as long as it could connect to the VPN and support RDC.  For a while I tried to stick with a Windows machine (and used RDC on the Mac if I needed to be away from the desk), but as you might imagine from the tone of this post, I became increasingly more frustrated with Windows (and PC hardware in general) as time went on. 

Right now I have 4 Dells (3 Precisions and 1 OptiPlex)… the Precisions were $3,000 or more (one was nearly $5,000 at the time of purchase), and the OptiPlex was $600 (+ an inexpensive upgrade earlier this year – a better video card which doesn’t fit in the case, and 8GB RAM).  The OptiPlex is the only machine that is usable, and barely so; it is running the release candidate of Windows Server 2008 R2 (which you can download, however note that it is x64 only!).  Ironically that was by far the cheapest machine I have ever been involved in purchasing; the other three, while much more expensive, are either dead, gutted or both.  (And that iMac I mentioned above?  I donated that to work as a test machine, and it is still running stronger than many PCs purchased more recently have bitten the dust!)  Between crappy motherboards, bad power supplies and an utterly horrible experience with Windows Update/Microsoft Update, I had just had enough with Windows, and felt much more confident in Mac hardware.  I started to use only my laptop at home and on the train, and contemplated what I would do about having a workstation in my home office that might display a little bit of longevity for a change.

I had no interest in getting another machine that would run an x86 version of Windows… the Windows world is definitely moving toward 64-bit, and I am fine with this.  The trouble is, many vendors are not, and do not update their software and/or drivers to work on x64.  (So while you would have a hard time buying a machine that didn’t support x64, you would be wasting your money on RAM above 3GB if you couldn’t actually run x64.)  For most of my hardware this hasn’t been an issue, and by the time Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 hit the streets, I think the hardware and drivers situation will be well under control.  However, my main problem has been trying to connect to work from a Windows x64 box at home – and I did try for a while, believe me.  Cisco has furiously refused to provide a 64-bit VPN client for their older gear; and even if you wanted to try installing the 32-bit client, installation is blocked.  You can use AnyConnect if you have newer stuff (which we don’t), or you can pay for a 3rd party product like NCP’s SecureEntry Client (the demo of which I couldn’t get to work), but otherwise you are out of luck.

With all of these things in mind, when it finally came time to face the fact that I needed more than a 17″ screen to be productive at home, I opted for a Mac.  “You’re crazy!” was the most common response, when talking about it with friends and colleagues.  “How could a SQL Server dork use a Mac as their workstation?”  In reality, it would not be that much different than what I was already doing with my MacBook Pro.  I could establish a VPN connection (oh and Cisco *is* maintaining a VPN client for the Mac, which continues to work with their old gear), then start a Remote Desktop Connection to my workstation at work, and voila, except for the fact that I am limited to one screen, it is just like I am at work. 

So, I went ahead and bought myself the ultimate Christmas present:  A Mac Pro with two quad core processors.  I filled the three empty hard drive bays with three Western Digital 1TB drives, then added 16GB of RAM from OWC.  Shortly after that I filled up the rest of the memory slots with another 16GB of RAM from MemoryToGo (if you are buying a Mac, and Steve Jobs may have me killed for saying this, but I strongly urge you to buy it configured with the least amount of RAM possible, and add it after market, even if it means you have two or more sets of warranties to deal with … this RAM upgrade would have been over $9,000 had I purchased the machine that way through Apple, but only drained me of a bit over $1,000).  I’m not going to tell you about my displays, because I’d like to help you avoid getting drool on your keyboard.  If you haven’t already.  My motto is, why get something that is adequate, when you can spend a little more on something that will last longer and keep you happier in the meantime?  I’m not talking about a computer for a hobbyist, or your mom, but rather for those of you who spend many hours in front of one both at work and at play.

A few things are a little slower when I VPN and work remotely, of course; but this has more to do with the VPN and the network traffic in and out of the office, than the fact that I am using a Mac.  One common symptom is typing a query within Management Studio, inside the RDC window, and then watching the cursor slowly catch up.  But there are other options.  To summarize, if you are considering using a Mac even if everyone around you thinks you need Windows, you can:

1. Do what I do most of the time: run a Remote Desktop Connection session against the workstation at the office, and work inside of it.  Several tasks I do in the host rather than within the RDC; for example, Word for Mac is just as capable as the Windows version on my office PC, and Entourage works just great for e-mail (just make sure you buy the right version of Office for the Mac; the home and student edition, for example, does not have Exchange support).  For Excel I still find the Windows-based version easier to use, but your mileage may vary. 
2. Use development tools inside of a local Windows virtual machine.  You see, as long as I have a VPN up and running on the Mac (the host), I can set up any virtual machine to just piggyback on the host’s connection, and then work from there.  I shift the slowness factor from typing and display issues (which can be annoying) to pulling results over the VPN and local host (which can be a different kind of annoying).  Some people swear by VMWare Fusion, some use Parallels, and still others use the free VirtualBox (though I don’t know if it supports x64 guests).  You should try all three and see what works best for you… for me it is VMWare Fusion.  Also, I install Windows within Boot Camp, so if I really, really, really need to boot into Windows (e.g. to test Hyper-V stuff), I can.  Of course as long as I continue to be stubborn, and insist on running an x64 OS, in that case I won’t be able to connect to work. 
3. Run a Management Studio-like tool within Mac OS, in many scenarios obliterating the need for a VM or a Remote Desktop Connection.  I started using Aqua Data Studio 7.0 last year, and initially was very impressed, but ran into some stability issues – one where I actually lost work (I want to stress that these were related to Apple’s Java VM and were not the fault of the vendor).  I just installed version 7.5 today, and am giving it a whirl again.  There are other tools you might try, such as RazorSQL.  If you have experience with these or other tools, connecting to SQL Server databases from Mac OS, I’d love to hear about them so I can continue to spread the word.

My single biggest problem with using both platforms: I use the same slim Apple keyboard both at work (with a PC) and at home (with a Mac), which for most typing is fantastic, as there is no shift in finger movements depending on where I am… with one exception.  The CMD key at home becomes the CTRL key at work for operations I perform A LOT: copy & paste.  This is extremely frustrating, and while I have found several key re-mappers that claim they can help fix this problem, none of them work for these specific keys, since both are essential for core functionality (primarily re-assigning Ctrl+Alt+Del on Windows is the fix that I haven’t yet managed to get working).  After a few miscues I end up right-clicking and using the context menu.  So, watch out for that one, and if I get around to dealing with it in a satisfactory way, I’ll try to get the word out.

The only other compatibility problem I’ve had (which @mike_walsh was quick to remind me of, thanks Mike!) was the last time I spoke at the New England SQL Server User Group, we had a real problem convincing the projector to correctly display the virtual machine, making my demos horrible.  The next time I speak (June 13th at CTDOTNET) I will bring both the MBP and a 15″ MacBook unibody, running the virtual machine demos off the latter.  I am banking on the fact that switching between Mac and Windows mid-stream caused the problem, but hopefully their projector can handle multiple inputs.

Next on my shopping list is the new 17″ MacBook Pro with its awesome alleged 8-hour battery life.  I will probably splurge on the SSD if, for no other reason, than to lessen the effects of hot laptop meeting white, computer-dork thighs.  But first, I need a good excuse to replace my “aging” MBP.  It just doesn’t need replacing; for the most part, it is still operating as it did on day one.  (With the notable exception of a video card problem last year, which was common across the entire line, and which was fixed quickly and happily out of warranty.)  Maybe I can push it down the stairs or “forget” it somewhere.  Anybody in the market for one? Bueller?

Anyway, after all of that verbal diarrhea, I hope I have illuminated some of the reasons I have chosen to use a Mac where I can, and how I have worked around some minor issues that have come up.  If you have any questions I haven’t covered, please feel free to comment below, or contact me directly (via twitter: @aaronbertrand or e-mail: abertrand@otolabs.com).

And when people call you crazy, ignore them.  Even though they’re probably right.

One to One Interactive’s OTOinsights research division is happy to announce its latest research white paper titled “Implications of User Engagement with Search Result Pages“. 

It is well established that rankings on a Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) have much to do with whether a user is likely to click on a given result and higher rankings can actually have a positive effect on a brand’s perception and ‘likeability’ (MarketingSherpa, 2009). With the onset of Universal Search, this study sought to measure the user impact of this new generation of search engine result pages that include multimedia elements such as images and videos.  Specifically, we wanted to understand if there was a difference in emotional engagement with the results and if that would impact click propensity in Paid and Natural Search.  The study compared user engagement with Universal search results vs. traditional text-only results by recording the users’ eye tracking, physiological & emotional reactions, and click tracking behavior. 

Our research uncovered two significant insights.

Insight 1:

SERPs which include Universal Search results reinforce eyeballs to stay focused on the first page’s top paid and natural search results

Implications:

• The advent of Universal Search demands that companies optimize not only their text, but also their media (images, videos, etc)
• Image and video results may anchor users to stay at the top of the SERP
• Images and videos will begin to impact what users will click on first in a SERP

Insight 2:

The inclusion of Universal Search results increase emotional engagement during interactions with a SERP

Implications:

• Users will get an ‘instant gratification’ from images – perhaps more so from branded images
• Higher engagement with Universal results may stop users from exploring the rest of the SERP

OTOinsight’s “Implications of User Engagement with Search Result Pages” white paper is free and available to download here. 

Below is a PowerPoint presentation of the research findings that Dan Berlin and I shared earlier this week at the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Boston’s Annual Conference at Bentley University.

We welcome your comments, feedback, and suggestions.