August 3rd, 2010 by Duane Jackson
There’s no shortage of technological innovations that existed in the pages of a Science Fiction novel long before they existed in real life.
Augmented reality is straight from the books of William Gibson
Submarines from Jules Verne
Satellites from Arthur C. Clarke
- the list could go on and on.
Anyone that’s read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy would expect their iPhone/iPad to have the words “Don’t Panic” stamped on them.
I’ve just started reading Containment by Christian Cantrell (eBook for $1.16 here, or free here) and came across the concept of ELP’s or End of Life Plans:
[the] concept of “End of Life Plans,” or ELPs, was adopted by most of the industrialized world. ELPs were simply instructions included with absolutely everything bought or sold that explained what should be done with the item and its packaging in order to discard it. There were, of course, strict guidelines as to what constituted a valid ELP, and strict oversight of those guidelines. Legitimate ELPs included things like returning the item to the manufacturer where it could be refurbished, dropping the item off at a local ELP station which specialized in recycling its components, or, if the material were benign enough, the right colored bin to toss it into.
Consumer adherence to ELPs was also strictly enforced. Anyone caught violating an item’s ELP faced fines or community service, and sometimes even very imaginative forms of public punishment involving bright green jumpsuits or yard signs with short shameful slogans. No item could be bought, sold, or imported without a valid and approved ELP which meant that even countries that weren’t particularly interested in saving the world needed to comply in order to have access to markets that did. Consumers started selecting products based on the attractiveness of their ELPs which meant that as much thought and engineering had to go into the disposing of a product as producing it. Products that weren’t easily recyclable, reusable, returnable, renewable, compostable, convertible, or biodegradable languished on shelves beside their more eco-friendly counterparts. People wanted to feel as good about getting rid of something as they did about acquiring it.
It goes on
It was initially feared that ELPs would ruin the already-fragile world economy. The theory was that raising costs associated with research and development would cause the prices of goods to increase beyond what the market could bear. In reality, however, ELPs ushered in an entirely new era of sustainable economic growth and prosperity.
Even the sharpest and best paid economists underestimated the guilt that the media had gradually installed in consumers for buying goods that were designed to exist in landfills for centuries, but only function for anywhere from a few seconds up to maybe a year. It was true that prices rose, but temporarily; costs were more than offset by the dynamics of guilt-free consumption, and by manufacturers’ ability to refurbish and resell end-of-lifed goods. Entirely new industries sprang up around ELP stations.
Manufacturing costs gradually decreased as more recycled components were used and fewer raw materials had to be purchased and converted. Many manufacturers transitioned into what became known as re-manufacturers. The quality of products even increased so that their components could be reused in future versions. It was common for electronics manufacturers to build very fast processors for their devices, but underclock them so that when they found their way back into their factories through their ELPs, the chips’ constraints could simply be removed, and the entire device resold as the next generation, new and improved. ELPs allowed even the biggest and most powerful of multinational corporations to participate in sustainable and responsible manufacturing practices while still feeling like they were being suitably devious.
To me this seems a great idea to help combat global warming. It doesn’t even require any new technology, just political will.
You thoughts?
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Tags: Christian Cantrell, ELPs, ipad, iphone, SciFi, William Gibson
Posted in Ramblings, Technology | 2 Comments »
May 25th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
Last night our KashFlow iPhone App became available in Apples App Store. so if you have a KashFlow account and an iPhone, go get it now. It wont cost you a penny.
Once you’ve downloaded the app you’ll need to enable the API in your account. This is done in Settings -> API Settings.
Using the app you can do everything you’d expect from checking your bank balances, overdue invoices and purchases, adding/emailing new purchases and sales, etc
My favourite feature is the ability to take a photo of a paper receipt and attach it to receipt (”purchase invoice” in accountants lingo) directly from your iPhone. No more lost receipts!
Next version planned already
I expect that over the coming few days we’ll have a whole load of feedback and possibly even some bugs found (the misspelling on the first screen was a deliberate mistake to ensure you were paying attention). So we’re planning to do an update to the App within a week or two once we’ve tweaked it based on the initial feedback.
We don’t have t he skills in house to develop iPhone applications. So we looked for a company we could work with. We selected Pear Computer and we were pleased we did. Ben and Mattias have been brilliant at getting our ideas in to the application and have been very professional throughout the whole process. If you’re looking for someone to develop an app from you then these guys come with a personal recommendation from me.
Download the App – from the App Store
Pear Computers, the developers – website / twitter.
Tags: app, iphone, pearcomp
Posted in Accounting, Technology | 6 Comments »
January 28th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
The thing about cults is they don’t tell you the bad news until you’ve handed over your life savings and moved into the compound. It’s not until your first night in the dorms that they tell you you’re obliged to let the leader have his wicked way with your wife.
The same is true of the Apple cult.
The iPhone is good, but it has its downsides and falls over on some pretty basic functionality. But of course the fanboys don’t talk about it until you’re lured in and deemed to be one of them, and even then it’s in hushed tones.
I’ve been a BlackBerry fan for years and I never thought anything could replace my beloved Curve. The main thing that had put me off moving to the iPhone was the keyboard. I can bash out an email pretty quickly on the curve keyboard and didn’t think I’d be able to achieve the same speed with a touch screen.
Call it a mid-life crisis (at 31), a desire to be cool, maybe the desire for a decent web browser or perhaps even just a case of app-envy – but I decided to give the iPhone a try.
Let me firstly say my concerns about the keyboard were unfounded. Once you get used to it you can be just as fast as you can be with a BlackBerry. I made the mistake of trying to use the keyboard in landscape mode thinking it’d be easier as it’s spread over more space. It doesn’t help though. Your thumbs have to travel a greater distance. If you’re coming from a Blackberry then you’ll find it easier to stick with the familiar narrow keyboard.
It’s a really nice bit of kit but here are some of the limitations I’ve found that might be useful to know if you’re considering the switch yourself.
On a BlackBerry you’re used to being able to configure the ringtone and volume for every little thing independently. So you can have one tone and volume for messages and another for calls. Not so with the iPhone. One volume level for everything.
Being used to select any MP3 for my ringtone, I was disappointed to find I can’t do that with the iPhone. I’m aware you can mess around with a file in iTunes to get your own MP3s as ringtones. But it’s a bit of a kerfuffle.
I can’t remember the last time I had to attach my Blackberry to a computer. There was no need. Email, contacts and calendar synched over the air to our Zimbra mail server and everything else could be done on the phone itself. With the iPhone you really need to have a computer with iTunes on it to set it up and maintain it.
On the Blackberry I had a product called NotifySync that hooked up to my Zimbra server for personal mail and I used the native mail client to monitor support emails. I managed to get a similar arrangement on the iPhone by setting up two email accounts. However, the indicator telling me how many emails I have is now useless as it includes new emails in all accounts. There’s not a way to have it just show the count for selected accounts. The same problem exists with the alert settings for each account – whatever you select applies to all mail accounts.
With the Blackberry, I could set it to have the small LED flashing if there was a new email. No such option with the iPhone. You either have to be audibly alerted to new emails or periodically pick it up and activate it.
The thing I miss about the BlackBerry is it’s “Today” view where you can see immediately your next couple of diary entries and unread emails aty a glance on the main screen. No such option with the iPhone. Just pretty square icons.
I prefer to have a charger in the office and at home so I don’t have to carry one around. I had a docking station at home that charged an iPod so I foolishly assumed this would also charge the iPhone. It doesn’t. Despite having the same physical connection the iPhone complained that the “accessory” wasn’t compatible with it and couldn’t be used to charge it.
I may have missed the options for some of the above – if so please do correct me using the comments section below. I’m aware some of the issues might be resolved by “jailbreaking” the phone too.
There are plenty of good things about the iPhone too – so I will be sticking with it. But the truth needs to be told!
Tags: apple, blackberry, cult, fanboys, iphone
Posted in Ramblings, Technology | 17 Comments »
November 9th, 2009 by Duane Jackson
After executing the plans laid out in my July blog post “Warning – this blog post may radically alter your business” – KashFlow has now been radically altered.
We’re now based in London and I’ve lured the CTO I’ve been after for years.
I’m now not allowed to touch any code myself and the development team, free of my interference, are turning out product enhancements based on your requests at least twice as fast as they were previously.
We’ve now got some pretty cool stuff that needs to be tested by a select group of actual customers before being released into the wild. First up (ready and waiting for you right now) is integration with FreshBooks. Soon our iPhone app will also need testing and I’m sure there will be plenty more to come.
So are you interested in testing some of these new features? We’d give you access to these new features before others get to use them in return for feedback on them, how we can improve it and if you can find any bugs.
If this sounds interesting to you (you sad, sad person!), contact support@kashflow.com with your username and let them know you’re interested in being a beta tester.
Tags: beta testing, freshbooks, iphone
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
