Category: usability

I’ve been a happy Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 owner for a couple of months. It is running Windows Mobile 6.1 (with all it’s pro’s and con’s). Windows Mobile comes packed with a lot of useful apps but it is missing a useful dictaphone app. A dictaphone is very useful to record guitar riffs and musical ideas in general, so I went on a hunt for one on the Internet.

Whenever I’m about to do a mid-size or large project I prefer using some type of wireframing and/or prototyping software. I like wireframes a lot because they take just a fraction of time to do compared to full designs. Wireframes are also easy to talk abount with clients and fellow workers without them making fuss about design elements. Most people do understand that wireframes are not the finished product because they’re so simple. That usually makes it easier for all involved parts to focus on things like usability, functionality and basic layout.

I recently bought Cubase 4 Essential. As I’ve been running both Cubase LE and Cubase SX 3 before I got quite confused when I only got one single stereo output from ezDrummer when loaded as a VST instrument. A single stereo output is very limiting when working with drums and the internal mixer in ezDrummer is also quite limited. So I started to scratch my head, thinking that it maybe was a limitation in Essential. That would had been strange though, as even the smallest guy in the Cubase family, LE, has support for multiple outputs for VST’s.