Innovative Products for Seniors

A Hong Kong based design and innovative firm that creates products specifically for the seniors and anyone who is physically challenged.

It is great to find innovative and originally designed products from Hong Kong. The parent company of this product line, Daka Research Inc., fully demonstrates that great products and innovative solutions can come from Hong Kong.

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Movie Review: Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

Poster
My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie “Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix” at UA IMAX Theater, MegaBox, Kowloon Bay.

The most amazing part of the movie is the IMAX experience. If you live in a city where this movie is shown on IMAX you MUST choose it. I think it gives a good preview of what HD or digital projection theater movies will be like in the near future, when it becomes more prevalent.

I thought with the price of the IMAX version (almost doubled the normal ticket price in Hong Kong), there would not be so many young kids in the audience as there was. Apparently kids of a certain age did not have to pay and they were allow to sit on their parents’ laps for the movie. This definitely was not good when we have to pay such a high price for the experience.

I never finished this episode of the Harry Potter book series, even though I started the book five times over the past 5 years. For those who are not familiar with this book, it is one of the thicker one in the series, but that is not my only excuse. I cannot say that I am those who read the book before the movie, but with Harry Potter, it had been the exception to my rule until now.

This movie skipped over many parts of the book like the previous adaptations; at least for what I’ve read. Within minutes it already reached the part where I had left off (chapter eight) in the book this past 5 attempts. I guess a picture does equate to a thousand of words, and if the screenplay had stayed any closer to the book the movie would have been much longer than 130 minutes.

As with the previous Harry Potter movies, I assume it was also a very accurate adaption. The visual effects were great as usual. The plot at times were a bit slow and I found myself noticing the number of kids around me talking loudly.

The last 20 minutes of the movie was in IMAX 3D. They definitely chosen the correct part of the movie for the 3D effect.

Aside from the interruptions of the “other people’s” kids, this movie was “okay”. like the previous movie, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire“, I found this movie mostly occupied with beautiful sceneries and special effects rather than an intriguing plot. In this particular case, I cannot say if it was due to the original book or the fault of the screenplay. May be I should finish the book and find out.

Of course, trying to top the book is also a difficult thing for the director, when he has to consider the fact that majority of his audiences will have read the book, hence familiar with the plot, and would be looking for other stimuli when they watch the movie.

So, if you are a Harry Potter fan, this is definitely a movie for you, but if you had yet to read the first book in the series, you may want to consider the IMAX experience as a reason to see the movie. Then again the DVD will come out very soon.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

Movie Review: Next

Poster
My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie “Next” at UA Time Square, Causeway Bay.

This movie is amazing. It is the first movie I’ve seen that did not require an ending.

The writer and producer Gary Goldman co-authored the screenplay with Jonathan Hensleigh and Paul Bernbaum, who based the story on Philip K. Dick’s novel, “The Golden Man“.

The movie has enough suspense and action to keep you on the edge of your seat with twists and turns to keep you guessing until the “end”. Although, if it wasn’t yet another terrorist-against-the-United-States movie, I would have given it the 5 penguins rating that it deserves.

Without giving away the plot, I do have one advice before going into the movie; this movie can easily be classified as a “Sci-fi Thriller”. So don’t over analyze it and just sit back and enjoy.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

[Repost] Usability

Repost from: Vinko’s Satellite Blog

Usability is very wide spread concept that not enough designer pay attention to.

I am not only referring to software design, industrial design, or architect. Of course the concept is much more prominent in these profession now a days, but there are still life threatening design professions that still do not put enough emphasis on usability.

Case in point are the designers for the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Yesterday an Airbus 320 ran off the runway killing all 189 people on board.

This airport is the busiest airport in Brazil with international flights on jumbo jets landing every few minutes.

Now they reports there had always been complaints fro airline pilots, claiming the runway to be too short for landing. These complaints suppose to have existed for years.

What I don’t understand is how an international airport can operate for so long with such alledged defect.

The most surprising part of the accident, was the fact that everyone died. As many knows there had been many incidents where airliners ran off runways for various reasons. Including the incident in Hong Kong where the Chinese airline pilot ran off the runway of the old Kai Tak International Airport and crashed into the Victoria Harbour.

so why did these passengers die? That is because the plane ran into the airport’s fuel tanks when it ran off the runway and burst into flames; with temperatures of over 1000C. Who in their right minds would put suchdangerous harzards at the end of a runway? Of course we do not expect planes will run off runways, but accidents will happen, and placing dangerous flamable fuel tanks at the end of a runway definitely did not take into account of usability.

Usability

Usability is very wide spread concept that not enough designer pay attention to.

I am not only referring to software design, industrial design, or architect. Of course the concept is much more prominent in these profession now a days, but there are still life threatening design professions that still do not put enough emphasis on usability.

Case in point are the designers for the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Yesterday an Airbus 320 ran off the runway killing all 189 people on board.

This airport is the busiest airport in Brazil with international flights on jumbo jets landing every few minutes.

Now they reports there had always been complaints fro airline pilots, claiming the runway to be too short for landing. These complaints suppose to have existed for years.

What I don't understand is how an international airport can operate for so long with such alledged defect.

The most surprising part of the accident, was the fact that everyone died. As many knows there had been many incidents where airliners ran off runways for various reasons. Including the incident in Hong Kong where the Chinese airline pilot ran off the runway of the old Kai Tak International Airport and crashed into the Victoria Harbour.

so why did these passengers die? That is because the plane ran into the airport's fuel tanks when it ran off the runway and burst into flames; with temperatures of over 1000C. Who in their right minds would put suchdangerous harzards at the end of a runway? Of course we do not expect planes will run off runways, but accidents will happen, and placing dangerous flamable fuel tanks at the end of a runway definitely did not take into account of usability.

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Problem with Mozy [July 19 Update]

Mozy Error Message

When the set up and scanning of my Mac went some what smoothly I thought Mozy has finally corrected all the problems for this “Alpha class” software for the Mac.

After numerous attempts of the background Mozy application trying to back up my 2.2GB of data to Mozy server. I spent some time looking at the mozy.log (/var/log/) file that Mozy support and pointed me to previously. What I found was very disturbing. I see many many occurance of error:

2007-08-19 05:12:41.651 MozyBackup[7590] (triton) NSCFInputStream error: NSError “POSIX error: Operation timed out” Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=60
2007-08-19 05:12:41.651 MozyBackup[7590] (triton) disconnecting…
2007-08-19 05:12:41.653 MozyBackup[7590] (send) Batch failed: NSError “Error com.berkeleydata.Backup.ErrorDomain -2147483648? Domain=com.berkeleydata.Backup.ErrorDomain Code=-2147483648 UserInfo={
ErrorCodeNameKey = ConnectionError0;
ErrorMessageKey = “Unable to connect to backup servers”;
}

Over the 2 hours that the backup had ran so far, it encountered this error 8 times. The most disturbing part is that after each occurrence the backup would continue from an arbitrary spot.

Although, I have yet to find out from Mozy support what these errors means, but it is not making me feel secure that Mozy is a reliable backup mechanism.

My recommendation is still… DO NOT RELY ON Mozy on the Mac at the current version.

Hopefully more to come after I receive some responds from Mozy support.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 19 Update]

Mozy Error Message

When the set up and scanning of my Mac went some what smoothly I thought Mozy has finally corrected all the problems for this “Alpha class” software for the Mac.

After numerous attempts of the background Mozy application trying to back up my 2.2GB of data to Mozy server. I spent some time looking at the mozy.log (/var/log/) file that Mozy support and pointed me to previously. What I found was very disturbing. I see many many occurance of error:

2007-08-19 05:12:41.651 MozyBackup[7590] (triton) NSCFInputStream error: NSError “POSIX error: Operation timed out” Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=60
2007-08-19 05:12:41.651 MozyBackup[7590] (triton) disconnecting…
2007-08-19 05:12:41.653 MozyBackup[7590] (send) Batch failed: NSError “Error com.berkeleydata.Backup.ErrorDomain -2147483648? Domain=com.berkeleydata.Backup.ErrorDomain Code=-2147483648 UserInfo={
ErrorCodeNameKey = ConnectionError0;
ErrorMessageKey = “Unable to connect to backup servers”;
}

Over the 2 hours that the backup had ran so far, it encountered this error 8 times. The most disturbing part is that after each occurrence the backup would continue from an arbitrary spot.

Although, I have yet to find out from Mozy support what these errors means, but it is not making me feel secure that Mozy is a reliable backup mechanism.

My recommendation is still… DO NOT RELY ON Mozy on the Mac at the current version.

Hopefully more to come after I receive some responds from Mozy support.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 17 Update]

Mozy Error Message

I finally have time to try Mozy again. So I installed it again, followed the setup and allowed it to run in the background. After Mozy ran for 2.5 hours an error dialog appeared with the following message:

Unable to connect to backup server (ConnectionError0)

The dialog has a hyperlink on the error message, when I clicked on it, it brought me to a web page on Mozy’s site telling me that this is a rare error and that I should send the following information to Mozy (support@mozy.com):

  1. The operating system you use (i.e. Windows XP)
  2. The version of Mozy you are using. (Right click on the orange “M” icon in the bottom right by the clock and click “status.” When that window opens you should see a version like 1.8.2.3)
  3. Do you have any firewalls on your computer?
  4. Who is your Internet service provider?
  5. Do you have any anti-virus or spyware software?
  6. Which error code is displayed? (i.e. MozyClientError2, ConnectionError1)

Of course I again reported this to Mozy Technical support (macsupport@mozy.com). So now I just have to wait for Mozy to reply.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 17 Update]

Mozy Error Message

I finally have time to try Mozy again. So I installed it again, followed the setup and allowed it to run in the background. After Mozy ran for 2.5 hours an error dialog appeared with the following message:

Unable to connect to backup server (ConnectionError0)

The dialog has a hyperlink on the error message, when I clicked on it, it brought me to a web page on Mozy’s site telling me that this is a rare error and that I should send the following information to Mozy (support@mozy.com):

  1. The operating system you use (i.e. Windows XP)
  2. The version of Mozy you are using. (Right click on the orange “M” icon in the bottom right by the clock and click “status.” When that window opens you should see a version like 1.8.2.3)
  3. Do you have any firewalls on your computer?
  4. Who is your Internet service provider?
  5. Do you have any anti-virus or spyware software?
  6. Which error code is displayed? (i.e. MozyClientError2, ConnectionError1)

Of course I again reported this to Mozy Technical support (macsupport@mozy.com). So now I just have to wait for Mozy to reply.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.