Color Decoder Reviewed

Color Decoder 1.0 by Stray Cat Technology

"Colors" are not just the theme of a mediocre 1980s gang movie starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. We mammals perceive the world in color, including our computer screens. However, a significant portion of the population experience color vision deficiency (popularly and somewhat inaccurately known as "color blindness") where certain shades of color are unable to be properly perceived. Given that this is a fairly common phenomenon, and given how important color is in the Apple user interface, it seems rather surprising that Apple has neglected to handle color vision deficiency in their otherwise thorough Universal Access preferences. Luckily, Stray Cat Technologies has stepped up to fill this gap with their initial software release of Color Decoder.

Color Decoder is a simple application that does one thing - it tells you what color the screen is displaying underneath the mouse pointer. Color Decoder does this one of three ways; via a pop-up bubble the displays the color name, by speaking the color name out loud using Apple's voice technology, or by flashing all pixels on the screen that share that specific color. Any of these three methods of color notification can be used by themselves or combined, so for example you could have the computer speak the color's name and display it's name in a bubble, but skip the flashing, or vice-versa. These preferences are controlled from a small palette on the screen which is the application's entire user interface. Color Decoder's recognition system can be turned off or on entirely via a hot key in case you only need it on occasions. The only other user interface option is the ability to turn on a magnifying glass to see exactly where the mouse pointer is pointing, which can be very useful when trying to find a single colored pixel in a huge image.



In actual use, Color Decoder works exactly as advertised. After launching, the palette opens where you can select your settings (you can hide this window once you have things set up as you wish). I tried out all three of the methods for communicating color in turn. The color name display only is a very minimalist method of showing the color, and is very useful when you have images on the screen where color is important, especially things like charts, graphs and other documents which use color to communicate data. The "flash colors" feature works well on images that are more complex with many colors mixed together such as gradients, weather radar displays and similar items. For most daily use, naming colors, supplemented by flashing colors works well. Magnification is usually not needed, although it is nice when you are looking at very complex images where there may only be a few pixels you need to track down or see (in these cases, the flashing feature is excellent as well).

I wasn't as excited with the speak color name feature, where Color Decoder uses Apple's speech synthesis to actually say the color names out loud. I can see this be very useful to someone with severe vision deficiency, but in actual use, having this feature on resulted in a continuous stuttering stream of half-spoken color names as I moved the mouse around the screen. I think this feature would be much more useful if there was a longer delay between mouse movements and the color being spoken, or even better if you could assign a separate hot key to speak color names on demand without having to leave the feature on all the time.

This minor quibble aside, I found Color Decoder to be a very functional and useful piece of software. Those with color vision deficiency will absolutely want to check this program out, but I would also recommend that anyone who works with color on a regular basis give Color Decoder a test drive. It fills an important hole in Apple's OS and makes using a Mac easier for a large segment of the population, in a clean and elegant way.

Plusses: A great way for those with color vision deficiency to recognize and differentiate colors on the Mac; useful for designers and other users to find all examples of a particular color on a busy screen

Minuses: The spoken color feature could use some polishing

Summary: Color Decoder fills a gaping hole in Apple's otherwise fairly complete Universal Access accessibility preferences and is definitely worth a download for those with color vision deficiency or who work with colors.

Color Decoder by Stray Cat Technology.
Price: $21.95; fully-functional demo version works for 1 week
Requires MacOS 10.5 or higher

Two months later: Toyota Camry experiences

So you may remember that a couple months ago I got a new (well new to me) 2007 Camry (the 4 cylinder SE model), and in the past couple months I have put a few thousand miles on it, both in the city and one long driving trip, and have definitely formed a few impressions of the car. The early verdict is mostly good, and a definite improvement over my old car, but it is not perfect either and has some flaws.

So, really briefly...

The good:

Style: I do not get tired of looking at the thing. It is stylish enough to stay interesting but not outrageous enough to get tired quickly, the way I did of the ridges on my old Grand Am.

Handling: The car handles well. The steering feels really tight, and I feel very in control of the road when I drive. Recently when I was in the Ozarks region I traveled on an incredibly twisty county road for a few miles and the car proved its mettle here. It doesn't feel like a boring sedan.

Suspension: Well-tuned...you can feel the road and you are not isolated, but at the same time it doesn't jar you to pieces like an economy car.

Interior storage: Lots of it. Compared to the single storage area in my Grand Am, it feels like I have moved into a larger house or something; there are numerous storage areas as well as two cup holders. And extra credit for Toyota's ability to put lids on everything, which will keep things like the cup and coin holders from turning into grimy messes as the years wear on.

"Solidity": Not sure how to qualify this, but the car just feels very mature and solid, almost dignified, at least in comparison to what I have driven before. I have no idea if this will be ephemeral or not, but for now that is my impression.

Built-in aux. audio input: Why this isn't standard on every car built, I do not know.

The neutral:

Power: It's a four-cylinder so I am not expecting the acceleration of my old Grand Am, but generally, the car has been OK but not spectacular here. I feel I have plenty of power for most tasks, but sometimes I miss the old power when trying to accelerate up a hill. Still, nothing to really complain about.

Mileage: It has been good. About 30+ on the highway and 25 or so in the city. About spec. The big (18 gallon) tank is nice, as I can drive it forever between fillups.

Air conditioning: The AC seems a bit weaker then I would expect, but not enough to really be a negative. My car has black cloth seats, which probably make it work harder then it has to.

The bad:

Cruise control: The cruise control is very fussy, constantly downshifting and upshifting to try to maintain the exact speed on even the tiniest hills. I think this may have something to do with the drive-by-wire throttle system, as it is entirely computer controlled and way too fussy about keeping the exact speed, causing all the shifting around rather then smoothly anticipating change like a human driver or an analog system with some "give" to it would do.

Transmission: This is the Camry's one real flaw: the Camry automatic transmission simply sucks. There's no way around it. 95% of the time it works normally, but those other 5% of the time annoy a conscientious driver. The tranny is computer-controlled and sometimes it just shifts in bizarre ways, especially when going down hills, or when you gradually reduce throttle as you start to coast or use engine braking. When this happens you may get unexpected shifting and at its worst it feels like you are a passenger in a car being driven by someone learning to drive a stick for the first time. At least that is my impression -- Dave drove it and didn't feel a thing, so this may be more of a perception issue for drivers who are in tune with the mechanical feel of a car.

Overall:

A very good car. It looks decent, it drives decent, it is comfortable, and can occasionally even be exciting. I don't know if I would call it a car of the year like Motor Trend magazine, but it is clearly a solid car.