Wrapping development work of Finger 2.0 this evening… (or morning). Finally submitted it to Apple for review.
It’s a long over due upgrade for existing user. Finger 2.0 provides support:
We have updated the underlying network protocol in Finger to make it more robust for Mac user as well.
It’s late now… will make a official announcement in Finger’s site.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Eric Schmidt | ||||
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Eric Schmidt was in The Colbert Report earlier this week and mentioned about Hong Kong in the conversation 
“Basically, there’s Hong Kong and mainland China. One country and two systems. We like the Hong Kong system better.”
Keep going Hong Kong people! Take advantage of our flavored system and do some good to people in China and in the world!
comGateway is a freight forwarding service. You can manage your freight completely through the web interface. (well, you can call it freight forwarding 2.0) I have registered an account for quite awhile but only recently I use their service to send some items I ordered from amazon and owc.
The overall experience is pleasant. But, as a first-time user (and someone who has never used any freight forward service in his life), certain part of the system does look odd to me. I’ll explain that in a moment.
Let me walk you through my scenario here:
As a novice user, I first checked the How It Works section of the site. The content there is pretty easy to understand to me. I think I grabbed the idea in less than 1 minute.
Then, I registered the service and never bother it again… (that’s about 6 months ago)
A month ago, I saw the promotion of OWC SSD drive – 40GB for only 99 USD. That’s freaking awesome. I wanna add a 2nd hard drive to my MacBook Pro for quite a while. I ordered the hard drive from owc and, separately, ordered a hacker drive tray from MCE – the OptiBay for late 2008 MacBook Pro. The ordering process of these two separate sites both went well. (got delivery problem later on with MCE though)
Here’s the problem. After ordering the stuff, I was supposed to enter the order information to Comgateway. But how? Well, I know I have to enter the info to them because the How It Works section told me to (step 2 of How it works). But there’s no mention (nor reference link) telling me how.
My very first reaction was panic. “My stuff is shipping there! Where the hell will it go if they don’t know I am sending items to them? Will they dump it?” Luckily, I’m a software developer. I quickly switch my mental state from panic to “read the f—ing manual”. Skimming to the right side of the screen, you will see some help items. The most relevant one to me is the first item under “Help: Orders”. It says “My Orders”.
That didn’t render useful to me. The information following that link says:
“We list both your BuyForMe and DIY orders here. For BuyForMe orders, click on the order number to view the details of your order with us. For DIY orders, please refer to the invoice sent to you by the merchant.”
Cool, that didn’t help. I was looking for “the f—ing add order button”. The help there is f—ing telling me nothing. What’s can I do next? I decided to click the “How it works” link at the top of the navigation as I thought I might have missed something when I first read it.
Going through point 1, 2…. Damn, it’s the same crap I read before. I didn’t seem to have missed anything critical from the text.
I told myself one last try… There’s a Quick Start Guide callout on the right column of the site. I would give one last shot. Things looked better this time. I found a section called “Place your order”
It says…
“If you want to shop online in the U.S., we make everything possible, easy and economical.
You can start by typing the store you want to visit into the bar above. If you want some inspiration follow the links in Start Shopping…”
After reading this, I still couldn’t get it. I was trying to find where exactly is the “add order” button. The help says, “You can start by typing the store you want to visit into the bar above“. In the first glance, that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the “add order” button that I was looking for. Where’s that f—ing “bar above“? Where’s my f—ing “add order” button?
Ok… I calm down myself a bit. And saw the screen capture on the help page with the bar… Though the image in the screen shot was not the same as the bar actually on the page, I gave a try.
Turns out you have to enter the URL of the site which you do the shopping to the “I want to shop at:” text box in the home page. comGateway will then prompt a “add new order” window along side the a new browser window opening up the site you entered previously.
In my case, since I’d ordered the items from those sites. I had to stupidly enter the URL those two sites which I shopped so as to get the “add new order” window to enter the order information. Sounds so dumb.
I am not quite sure why they do not put a “Add order” button in the order management interface. This seems to be the most straightforward way to user. I guess they probably wanna keep track of where exactly people shop and keep its “shopping panel” on the screen so that user can use other value added service accessible from that panel making user feels like comGateway is part of the shopping experience.
My personally unbiased recommendation would be “put the damn add order button in my order management page”! But, if business strategy is put into consideration, they may probably wanna keep the current paradigm. In that case, I Comgateway should refine the “I want to shop at” address bar more. Their way of doing thing is totally strange to newcomer. The help instruction should be more specific as well. Don’t put “You can start by typing the store you want to visit into the bar above”. That sounds vague and optional. Make it more definitive and motivate people to type things there.
Seriously, I’ve got so close to give up! See how many steps I went through:
I was originally looking for the “Add Order” button (maybe because I am a geek… I always think of Add/Edit/Select/Delete when I see a table interface). After trying out several help file (which probably wasted me 30 min), started feel that things may not work the way I want. Experiment a bit on the “unique” paradigm to finally get it!
This scenario is particular problematic to me, maybe, because my first problem is “where is the add order button?”. My whole journey was all about finding the “Add” button. However, the system doesn’t work the way I think and I had to change the problem from “where is the add button” to “how to add an order”. That’s when I started to experiment the “I want to shop at” address bar which subsequently led me to solve my problem.
Also, go to a website using an “address” bar in another site is definitely strange to any user. Who the hell will think they should go to Amazon to shop not by entering the URL to your browser’s own address? (instead, enter the address in their site)
Hm… not sure how many users have got deterred by this? Time for them to check the funneling stats in Google Analytics 
This is my story trying to order a Mac Pro from Apple Asia Online Store.
I ordered a Mac Pro from Apple’s online store. There’s an interest-free 12 months installment payment option available in Hong Kong store. But the thing is, you have to call the sales hotline to arrange that.
They sent me the installment application form on 31 August. Filled it, emailed it and wait… Days passed and I hear nothing from Apple acknowledging that they received the form or whatever…
Since this Monday (6 Sept), I’ve been calling Apple Asia (900-908-988) to check my order status. But I got either busy tone or a recorded voice saying the number is busy.
Today (10 Sept), over 7 business days since I placed the order, I finally get in touch with the customer service. (well, after waiting 1 hour plus in line) The response from Apple is… they didn’t receive my application.
WTF?!
Since when Apple Asia becomes i-Cable?
If you don’t have the resources to process those installment application, don’t offer that to your customer, Apple.
Apple is live streaming its September music-themed event tonight. You will have to stay up at 1:00 am though.
There are tons of sites covering the rumors. I am not writing to repeat that…
Just hoping Apple will have announce a new iTunes app which is speedy like Chrome! (well, give me, at least, the Safari level of performance) Freaking hate syncing stuff with USB!! Hm… not sure if it’s part of Apple’s deal with music label when they make iTunes that music can only be copied over wired medium…
Well, still, at least, they can make a snappy iTunes. While Apple bashes Flash for its performance and security issues, what about your own iTunes? It is like Flash, started off as a quick, easy to use jukebox software. It grows into a hugh giant app iteration by iteration. Damn!
Fix iTunes Apple!
Bill So - iPhone / Mac Developer in Hong Kong. His products include Clip It! and Finger and Numbric. They are distributed under his company Headnix. Bill is also the host of CocoaHeads Hong Kong. You can hire him for programming, consultancy and training.
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This work by Bill So is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Hong Kong License.
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