Outlook Message Display Strangeness

I previously wrote about a strange time zone issue that has plagued Outlook for some time.

In this post, I wanted to share another Outlook issue, and this one is related to displaying certain email messages. I am using Outlook for Office 365, Version 1701 (Build 7766.2060), running on Windows 10. Here's what I see when opening a certain message in Outlook:

As you can see, the right side of the message body is truncated. Here is the same message when viewed through Outlook Web access on a Safari or Firefox browser:

As you can see, everything looks normal. The message also displays correctly on Outlook for iOS (not pictured), so the issue seems to be isolated to Outlook for Office 365 on Windows from what I can tell. The problem may have something to do with the way the email is encoded, since it only happens with messages that I receive from the HIMSS Learning Center.

Anyone else having this issue?

Outlook Time Zone Conversion Strangeness

I have used Microsoft Outlook on a Windows machine for years and am currently running Office 365 with automatic updates. A few months ago I configured my Outlook calendar to show 2 time zones, Pacific and Eastern, which are 3 hours apart. Although it was working as expected for many weeks, earlier this week I noticed an error in which the Eastern time zone was being incorrectly shown as 4 hours ahead of Pacific:

Note that Daylight Saving Time went into effect on Sunday 3/12, and I noticed the error a day later on Monday 3/13. I tried quitting and re-launching Outlook, tweaking the time zone settings from my Outlook Options menu, and even rebooting my Windows virtual machine on Parallels Desktop, but still no luck. I was in the Eastern time zone at the time, and my Outlook for iOS application was showing the correct local time for my calendar appointments, so I think this issue was isolated to Outlook for Windows.

In any case, after starting up my machine the next day, the issue disappeared. I wonder if there was a temporary bug due to Daylight Saving Time that Microsoft had fixed? I do have automatic updates turned on, but the last update was in January 2017. Hmmm...

Google Maps Earth View

I frequently use Google Maps to look up locations and driving directions. Normally I search and browse in Map View, where you are able to grab and move the map along its horizontal and vertical axes. View this map for example:

Earlier this week I switched to Earth View to see the satellite imagery and noticed that Google has made its online maps 3-dimensional. View this map for example (note that I was able to see Earth View in “3D” when using Safari and Firefox on macOS Sierra, but I was not able to see this on any browser using Windows 10, although I'm not sure why):

If you zoom in to locations near the equator, grabbing and rotating the “3D” map seems to move the map in plain horizontal and vertical axes. However, as you move toward the North Pole or South Pole, you can clearly see the earth spinning on its axis. Very cool.

Based on some online forums, I've deduced that most mapping web sites use rectangular map grids which are a good approximation of locations near the equator, but near the poles the longitudinal spacing is exaggerated, making the land area appear larger than reality. I suspect that Google has implemented its “3D” maps by representing grids as trapezoids to account for the curvature of the longitudinal lines when transforming a 3-dimensional globe to a 2-dimensional computer screen.

Does anyone know the proper terminology to describe the “3D” effect or a description of its underlying technology to render its Earth View?

2016 MacBook Pro - Touch Bar and Trackpad

I am the lucky owner of a 15-inch 2016 MacBook Pro which is the first model to have a Touch Bar and also has a Force Touch Trackpad that is much larger than its predecessor. This is the model I'm referring to (photo provided by Apple):

While I think it's a fantastic machine that suits my needs (mostly running Parallels Desktop for work where I use a variety of Windows applications). I have a couple of observations to share after using it extensively for 2 months.

Touch Bar

The Touch Bar looks nice, and since most mobile devices have fully transitioned to touch interfaces, it makes sense for Apple to experiment with a touch experience on their flagship laptop. The Touch Bar is essentially a 2nd screen, albeit a small one. You can even take screen shots of it by pressing command-shift-6. Its appearance and functions can change depending on the app you are using, and here's what it looks like from the Finder:

The first thing I noticed is that instead of the volume-up and volume-down keys, there is a single volume icon which, when pressed, reveals the volume-up and volume-down icons. So to adjust the volume, I had to press more icons. Touching the volume icon also reveals a volume slider which I suppose is nifty, but after 2 months I still haven't gotten used to the slider and still resort to using the volume-up and volume-down icons. Also, when switching apps or after idling, the volume-up and volume-down icons disappear, and you have to do the 2-touch thing all over again next time you want to change the system volume. I did learn that there is a way to force the volume-up and volume-down icons to always display. It is done through the Keyboard system preferences:

Under the "Touch Bar shows" setting, simply change "App Controls with Control Strip" (default) to "Expanded Control Strip" to force the volume-up and volume-down icons to persist. The disadvantage of doing this is that you will no longer see application-specific controls, but I rarely use them anyway so that's the setting I prefer. So here's what my Touch Bar looks like all the time:

Another slight disadvantage of the Touch Bar is that I sometimes press the wrong icon. I like having tactile buttons and have not fully adjusted to the touch interface above the keyboard. To be honest, I would rather go back to the old MacBook Pro keyboard with physical buttons for volume, brightness, etc.

Trackpad

My first impression of the Force Touch trackpad is that it is large--very large. In fact, Apple says that it is 2x as large as its predecessor.

That sounds great, and in fact my actual trackpad is slightly larger than the one pictured by Apple above--the width of the trackpad extends from the left border of the command key to the right border of the option key.

In any case, this is an example of how it is possible to have too much of a good thing because sometimes when I am typing, my wrist accidentally depresses the trackpad. Because of its Force Touch technology, light pressure will register as a click. This results in me highlighting and inadvertently typing over a block of text which results in me having to undo the typing or to fix the accidental changes. Since I use a mouse both when I am at home and when I travel, I really do not benefit from a larger trackpad and wish the trackpad was smaller like its predecessor.

Conclusions

I still love my MacBook Pro and would not trade it for another machine, but I do think that there are some limitations of the Touch Bar and trackpad that hopefully Apple will address in subsequent generations of the MacBook Pro.

Google PhotoScan Review

I’ve undertaken various photo archiving projects with slides, negatives, and prints. One thing they all have in common is that they are time-consuming. Naturally, when Google announced PhotoScan, it looked like they dramatically quickened the process of digitizing prints, but by how much and with what kind of image quality? I decided to try it myself to answer these questions.

Since I have an old 2nd generation iPad that is collecting dust, my first inclination was to install PhotoScan on it to avoid sucking precious battery power from my iPhone. However, I learned that my iPad was not supported, so I installed PhotoScan 1.3.1 (posted 2/21/2017) on my iPhone 6 Plus which currently runs iOS 10.2.1.

After watching a brief tutorial, I found the scanning process to be very intuitive and easy to learn. The flash was turned on by default, and although there is an option to manually disable it, I left it on. A wizard directs you to first capture the entire photo (the “reference frame”) and then move your camera over each of the 4 corners of your photo. This enables PhotoScan to “see” your photo from multiple angles so that it can detect and remove glare from the final composite image. See this video for a quick overview of the computational photography algorithms that PhotoScan uses to remove glare.

One thing I learned through trial and error was that PhotoScan sets the composite image to portrait or landscape orientation based on how you last oriented your mobile device before holding it flat for scanning. With this in mind, you can scan landscape prints in landscape orientation and portrait prints in portrait orientation to maximize the resolution of your final images. Scanning a landscape print in portrait orientation will result in a much smaller final image.

I did receive a “Couldn’t complete scan” error message for 1 of my photos, but it seemed to be a fluke because it successfully scanned on my 2nd attempt.

Regarding image quality, the first thing I noticed was that PhotoScan does a great job of eliminating glare (as advertised). Image resolution was approximately 2000x1400, with JPG files approximately 400K in size. Note that PhotoScan boasts higher resolution scans for iPhone 6S, SE, and 7 starting with version 1.2 on 12/15/2016. One downside of PhotoScan’s image acquisition method is that it allows prints to assume their natural curvature, unlike a flatbed scanner which presses prints flat against the glass bed. In some cases, the curvature can be very noticeable, such as in this image (look closely at the edges):

On the plus side, PhotoScan automatically crops the images, although in some cases I feel like it is a little more aggressive with the cropping than I’d like it to be (eg, some of my old photos have dates imprinted on the white borders, but they were usually cropped out of the final image). PhotoScan also claims to automatically enhance and rotate images, although I am not sure if I noticed the enhancements, and I don’t think automatic rotation fixed many of my problems.

I knew that PhotoScan would consume a lot of battery power, but I was a bit shocked at how quickly my battery drained. I went from 35% to 20% in a matter of minutes. When prompted, I turned on Low Power Mode, which I typically do when my battery hits 20% (if I don’t already have Low Power Mode turned on). I noticed that scanning performance was very sliggish in Low Power Mode (eg, the circles took longer to render and seemed to have difficulty tracking the positioning of the lens) so would not recommend Low Power Mode while scanning. If you’re planning to scan a lot of photos, you may need to plug in your mobile device. While being plugged in solves a power problem, the downside is that you will be tethered to a charging cable which you need to ensure does not obstruct your camera’s view.

Saving images to my iPhone was done with a simple finger tap, and since I also have Google Photos installed on my phone, I was able to immediately backup my scans to Google Photos.

As compared with a flatbed scanner, Google PhotoScan was lightning fast. I scanned 104 prints in about 90 minutes. This includes the time that it took me to remove the photo from its album, scan the photo, and re-insert the photo into its album. I estimate that my digitization workflow with a flatbed scanner (TIFF scans at 600 dpi) and PhotoShop processing (eg, cropping, color correction, saving as JPG) would take around 3-5x as much time.

In summary, Google PhotoScan applies super cool technology to make it quick and easy to digitize old print photos. Tremendous gains in speed are equally offset by compromises in image quality. I personally don’t see a clear winner in the contest between flatbed scanners and PhotoScan. Rather, the decision to use one workflow or another will depend on my needs at the time. For projects in which I value speed and can sacrifice image quality, PhotoScan may do the job sufficiently well. For projects in which I need higher quality images, I will probably stick to my flatbed scanner and manually post-process the images.

What are your impressions of PhotoScan?