Today, it was just like regular day. I went to the office in the morning. Since I’m now in Jakarta, I take taxi almost everyday to reach the office. I like spending my time reading using Flipboard, checking Twitter timeline using Tweetbot, or reading emails. After few hours, I just realised that I didn’t have my iPad with me. I was panic. The first thing I did was remembering the taxi number. Usually, I remember the taxi number, or even taking its picture. But, today I completely forgot about it. The only thing I remembered was taxi company. It was Express Group.

There are many opinions regarding Express Group services. I also have my experiences with this company. In most cases, I have positive experience with them. For today, I have a good and nice service. Thank you, Express Group!

The first thing I did was opening Find my iPhone app on my iPhone. I tried to locate my iPad. And, I found its location. Nice. But, I was not sure whether it was still with the taxi driver, or someone already had it. I located and activated the “Lost Mode” from iCloud website, and created a message asking to contact me. I gave both my cell numbers. I also hit the “Play Sound” button.

Searching…

I called the customer service number, and explained the situation. I told the operator about the situation. After that, I refreshed Find my iPhone on my iPhone. When I was in the taxi, I told the taxi driver — still from the same company — that I left my iPad. When I checked my iPad, it’s not far from my location. I asked the taxi driver to drive me to my iPad location. I was sure that the taxi driver kept it for me. I kept thinking positive. Almost every minute, I always check the latest location. And, it was moving. The “problem” with checking the position from mobile device is that it’s not real-time. So, within 30 seconds, it was moving from one location to another pretty fast. Especially, because the traffic was good.

So, how’s the location history? See the screenshot below.

When I tried to reach a destination, I realised that the taxi (which brought my iPad) was passing. Taking another turn? Way too late. At least I tried. Again, I only hope that: the taxi drive had my iPad, he kept it with him, and — more importantly — he would bring it back to the station and contacted me. I decided to go back to the office after knowing that the taxi went to Sudirman area.

I checked again from my MacBook Pro. It’s still moving. I had to admit that I was amazed with the location report.

I tried to hit the “Play Sound” again. In the next few seconds, I got a phone call. I picked it up. And, he asked me whether I was the one who left something in red case in the taxi. Voila! The taxi driver called me telling that he had my iPad with him!

I talked to him, asking about his position — of course I already knew it from my iPad’s location. I quickly asked him about the taxi number. It was: BC 5713. I told him whether he was able to drive to the office, and I also told him to keep my iPad with him. He agreed to bring it after his lunch.

I was happy. I am happy, of course.

Lessons learned

It was the first time I used Find my iPhone feature — and I hope I don’t need to use it again! — in real case scenario. Here are few things I learned:

• Turning Location Service on the device is useful. Yes, it consumes more battery power.
• Apple Maps did a great job.
• Checking the device location from iPhone does not give you the real-time location info. But, from my MacBook, I have almost real-time respond. That’s what I found. Not sure whether it happens this way, or not.
• Turn Auto-Lock ON.
• I have to be more careful.

When I was in the meeting, the taxi driver called me. I run from the second floor, and met him. He handed me the iPad. I promised myself that I would give him something for his effort and honesty. He said sorry because it took time for him to arrive because of the bad traffic. I said thank you. I gave him some money. He refused to accept it. But, I insisted.

Few minutes later, I texted him to say thank you for his kindness. Then, I called the taxi operator asking for information about the taxi driver’s name, and his station. I also told the operator about the good experience — especially about the kind and honest taxi driver. Thank you Pak Heru!

Happy ending? Yes. Want to be in the same situation again? Definitely not!

I never had problem with my Paypal account and my credit card. Yes, my Visa card could not be used for transaction few months ago, but that didn’t involve Paypal. So, I decided to add a new credit card. In my previous verification, I waited for the credit card billing statement to get my Paypal verification. If you’re not familiar with Paypal, when you verify your card, Paypal will take $1.95 USD from your credit card. But, it will be returned to your Paypal balance once you have your credit card verified.

Rather than waiting for the credit card billing statement from the bank — you should see transaction detail there — to see the verification code, you can see the transaction detail directly from your transaction history in your bank account. My Visa card is issued by Bank BCA, anyway. I simply logged in to my internet banking account, see the credit card transaction history, and found the 4-digit verification code there.

After that, I just need to login to my Paypal account provide the verification code. Easy.

• Square 75 (75 x 75)
• Square 150 (150 x 150)
• Thumbnail (100 x 75)
• Small 240 (240 x 180)
• Small 320 (320 x 240)
• Medium 500 (500 x 375)
• Medium 640 (640 x 480)
• Medium 800 (800 x 600)
• Large 1024 (1024 x 768)
• Large 1600 (1600 x 1200)
• Large 2048 (2048 x 1536)
• Original (3264 x 2448)

Flickr — Yahoo-owned photo-sharing service — offers 3 months free account for its users. Currently, Flickr has two types of accounts: free and Pro ($24.95/year). I’ve been using Filckr Pro for years, and happy with it. Especially, when Flickr released its new version of Flickr for iOS. For the reminder, by having a Flickr Pro account you can get these advanced features:

• Unlimited photo uploads (50MB per photo)
• Unlimited video uploads (90 seconds max, 500MB per video)
• The ability to show HD Video
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Archiving of high-resolution original images
• The ability to replace a photo
• Post any of your photos or videos in up to 60 group pools
• View count and referrer statistics
• Limitation of maximum image size available to others
• Ad-free browsing and sharing

To get Flickr’s Holiday Gift, you only need to visit flickr.com/holidaygift and get your account upgraded. For existing Flickr Pro customers, your accounts will be extended — additional 3 months will be added to your account. For example, my Flickr account previously will be expired on March 16, 2014. Now, it had been extended until June 16th, 2014.

But, I bought more digital books. I subscribed to National Geographics Magazine for iPad, and purchased some other books directly from iBook Store. I have some editions from A Book Apart and Smashing Magazines, too. My reading experience has been shifted.

Recently, I moved some of my books to Readmill. iBooks and Readmill share the similar reading experience. But, after using it for few days, I think I’m falling in love with Readmill. I like the idea that it’s not only about reading. I like its social features, and I love the way the site is designed.

Readmill is a curious community of readers, highlighting and sharing the books they love.
We believe reading should be an open and easily shareable experience. We built Readmill to help fix the somewhat broken world of ebooks, and create the best reading experience imaginable. (source)

In short, it happens like this:

• Buy some books, and you usually you will get them in some formats like PDF or ePub.
• You can easily open them using iBook app (on your iOS devices). If you’re using Readmill, you upload them to your Readmill’s Library.
• Start reading.

While you’re reading, you can take notes, highlights. Readmill has a nice approach about the reading behaviours. Readers can interact each others by sharing highlights. Try to visit a book profile called “Designing for Emotion” by Aaron Walter.

But, what about the reading experience itself? On my iPad, I have a pleasant reading experience. Readmill app offers a simple and key features readers really need: adding highlights, bookmarks, etc. And, not to forget its social features, they’re just great.

It’s easy. Basically, I just need to include my custom .less file, and @import it from bootstrap.less file, so my bootstrap.less file looks like this:

// Components: Misc
@import "thumbnails.less";
@import "media.less";
@import "labels-badges.less";
//@import "progress-bars.less";
//@import "accordion.less";
//@import "carousel.less";
@import "hero-unit.less";
// My custom CSS
@import "custom.less";

I commented some lines there because I don’t need them. It will generate smaller stylesheet file. If you download Bootstrap, you should find many .less files under less directory. Some files are needed for certain components. Using LESS.app is so easy because:

• I can set the output path. My HTML file will call a specific stylesheet file. I have it replaced automatically with a new compiled file.
• After saving my custom.less — I use Coda, anyway — LESS.app will compile it automatically. So, actually I don’t need to look at the LESS.app.
• LESS.app can minify the output.

Nice. What is your favorite compiler?

• We need to do it fast.
• It’s easy to maintain, especially for a collaborative project
• Bootstrap is cool.

There are lots of similar frameworks to choose like Skeleton, 960.gs, Blueprint, Foundation, and more. It didn’t take long discussion to take Bootstrap. Its features and flexibilities are just perfect for our need. The next thing is that we need to do some customisations, for example on the font sizes and colours. Since Bootstrap might release updates in the future, it’s better to leave the core files untouched.

LESS

Basically, it’s easy to customise them by using its own customisation tool. But, I prefer another method by using LESS. And yes, Bootstrap works great with LESS. The installation works straight forward. After downloading less.js file, add these two lines in the <head>

<link rel="stylesheet/less" href="/path/to/bootstrap.less">
<script src="/path/to/less.js"></script>

Inside bootstrap.less file, there is a little note that we can easily modify the font color and size by working on the variables.less file. I decided not to edit it. I created another .less file — for example: mycustom.less — and import it from bootstrap.less file. So, my bootstrap.less file looks like this:

...
@import "accordion.less";
@import "carousel.less";
@import "hero-unit.less";

// My Custom LESS
@import "mycustom.less";
...

And, this is what I have for mycustom.less:

@baseFontSize: 13px;
@tableBorder: #ddd;

@navbarInverseBackground: #faa141;
@navbarInverseBackgroundHighlight: #ec8b22;
@navbarInverseBorder: #d77c1b;

@navbarInverseLinkColor: #fff;

It should just work. But, does it work as expected? No.

Caching

Editing and saving mycustom.less file, and refreshing my page does not load the latest variables. It takes time to refresh/load the latest changes. It’s not good. It happens because less.js caches the .less files called using @import.

I tried to modify the web server setting by adding these lines in my httpd.conf file:

<FilesMatch ".less$">
Header set Cache-Control "no-cache"
</FilesMatch>

But, it didn’t work. After searching for solutions, there is a method offered for this issue. I added this line of code:

<script>localStorage.clear(); </script>

Now, whenever I make some changes on my .less files, reloading the page will give the latest changes. It works.

I’m using Visa.

My last transaction was made on my iPad on October 31, 2012. It went as I expected. So, it had been a week since my last purchase. I use the same billing details since I purchased my first app for my devices (MacBook Pro, iPhone 4, and New iPad).

After asking for confirmations from other friends, they’re all using Visa. I also searched for more details, the problem was solved after changing the credit card to Master Card. I’m not lucky for this since I only have Visa right now. I am sure that I have no problem with my card. After my last purchase, I still make transaction using it.

There’s also a long discussion on this issue at Apple Support Communities, and it seems that Visa users only need to wait to get the problem sorted. Too bad.

But, it has been years. Many services — not only email — come and go. But, when we jump to the internet world, everybody will get an email. Not only about the very basic features (sending and receiving email), but email service should be build better, answering what users need. What internet users really need.

Let’s not forget also about some other services. Google launched its Gmail in April 2004 (so, it has been 8 years). Recently, Microsoft re-launched its Hotmail as Outlook.com. Every service tries to make improvements for its users to deliver the best product and features for them. This is how Yahoo! Mail inbox looks like.

If you have a Yahoo! Mail account, just try to login and see yourself. What do you think? Well, what do I think? And, why I’m writing this post, anyway? If I don’t like it, why should I write about it? Isn’t it easier to just leave it?

Your email service does not work (for me)

There are some reasons (well, lots of reasons) why I think it does not work me. I’m focusing on the web-based email service even I have my Yahoo! email on my iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and also Android. Here are some of my personal thoughts:

1. It’s toooooo busy

I just want to read email. I know that you have many service (I see that on the left sidebar). I just want to focus on the inbox. Having less white spaces will put more elements/contents. But, the readability and reading experience do not meet my taste. I tried to customise the way how my inbox should be displayed, but nothing fits me.

2. Ads

I know that having advertisement (text or banner) is one thing that you should have. They make money, and you need it. But, could you please make it better (in terms of placement and materials). There are three zones there (small text ad on the upper left, banners on the bottom left, and huge sky crapper-size on the right. Yes, I can hide it, or probably simply block it from the browser using browser extensions.

3. Why you put {this} and {that} that have no (clear) functions?

You have menus on the top when reading list of messages, reading a specific message, composing screen, etc. Some of them are working, not some of them are not (by context).

For example, you have “Reply to All”. You want me to be easy to send reply all too senders (from a specific email). Nothing special with this. This is good. But why you also give me this option when I select multiple emails? This might something you actually don’t have it there too. But, why you still give me this? If it only works for a single email, why you have the the option to reply multiple email at the same time?

I know that you want to help me replying my email by doing less clicks from the front. Is it what you want? If so, why not having the “Reply to All” disabled (or hidden) when no actions can’t be done from that menu? This also happens when I try to hit the “Forward” button. Just show me menu(s) that really works.

Another example: If I select an email and it’s marked as “Read”, I can have an option to make it “Unread”. But, why having “Mark as Unread” for email that is already “Unread”?

As the email service creator, I’m sure you know more about every menus/functions found there.

4. Spams

I know that you work hard on this part. But, I think I see many phishing attempts.

Other notes

I have a BIG questions: How do Yahoo! employees think about their Yahoo! Mail? Especially the web-based email? Do they use it on daily basis? Or, is it because they interact with their email messages from an email client most of the time?

I believe that Yahoo! has resources to make improvements here. They how have Marissa Mayer now.

Again, this is my personal perspective, from a user who wants to have a better and great experience in dealing with email. Is it too much?