Just as I was reminiscing about the good ol' times of Web 1.0, Yahoo Chat, my email pen pals, and all the new people I met online as I entered college, here's another service that is biting the dust: Geocities.

Way back when, before I paid for my own website, I designed and published my website on Geocities. The URL was somewhat obscure like geocities.com/starTrek/Sector/7440/username. You essentially picked a town, a neighborhood and a street address and that's how your URL was determined (sadly I can't find backups of my website on archive.org)

As...the good ol' days of Club Admiralty version 1.0...

I haven't used Geocities since I got my own web hosting, but the service will be missed.

Tags: technology, personal, yahoo, geocities

Here's an interesting thought. Back in the early days of the internet, when Joe Shmoe wanted to have an internet presence, he needed to code in HTML, get some web space and have his website hosted. As that average Joe, I created my site first with Geocities's site builder, then through HTML, and eventually through RapidWeaver.

Of course the question now is do we need to spend money on a hosting service? Blogs can be had freely through services like blogger, wordpress, and vox. Without much fuss you can share your photos for free on flickr, you can share your files for free on Box.net, and you can add your microblogging status on your blog's page through twitter.

Was there something else I didn't cover? Now granted, having a provider that gives me a free domain, wordpress, plus PHP/MySQL webspace for $180/3 years is a pretty good deal, but it just dawned on me that I could give it all up, pay $20/year for a domain, and have my wordpress blog be the "homepage" and links on the sidebar can contain the rest of my content. I guess it's easier than ever for the layman to express himself online these days.

Tags: random, technology

I saw this on slashdot the other day

It's more than 10 years since people started making a living writing web page markup, yet the job title (and role) has yet to settle down. Not only that, but there are different types of people who write markup: those that approach the craft as essentially an integration task, and those that see it as part of UI design overall. The situation is further complicated by the existence of other roles in the workplace such as graphic designer and information architect. This is making recruitment for this role a real headache. So, how do you describe people who 'do HTML' (and CSS and maybe a bit of JavaScript and graphics manipulation)? Some job titles I've seen include: Design Technologist, Web Developer, Front-end Developer, HTML/CSS Developer, Client-side Developer and UI Engineer. Do you have any favourite job titles for this role?

So what do you call someone who does this? I always called them web developers simply because about ten (eleven? twelve?) years ago was when I first started this website and I didn't have a title (well I wasn't getting paid either). I called myself a geek, a web-enthusiast and a webmaster (since I mastered my own website I guess). But what do you call it when you do it for other people and you don't dabble in .NET or PHP, when you do old school HTML?

Tags: technology, work, HTML, coding

(ή αλλιώς Backup FAIL)

Όπως γνωρίζεται το Pownce, μια υπηρεσία microblogging έκλεισε τον περασμένο Δεκέμβρη. Ως υπηρεσία ήταν αρκετά μικρή σε ηλικία, μόνο ενάμιση χρόνο ζωής πριν την κλείσουν.

Τέλος πάντων, όπως και να έχει το θέμα, είχα λογαριασμό και έκανα backup τις καταχωρίσεις μου. Το Pownce είχε μερικά themes που μου άρεσαν, και ένα από αυτά ήταν αυτό που είχα επιλέξει για το προφίλ μου. Έτσι λοιπόν έκανα μια αποθήκευσή της σελίδας μου με αρχείο webarchive στο Safari για να σώσω τις εικόνες και το CSS. Έκανα το ίδιο και με άλλα themes που εν περιπτώσει που ήθελα να τα χρησιμοποιήσω στο μέλλον όταν το Pownce δεν ήταν πια «μαζί μας».

Τις προάλλες λοιπόν πάω στα webarchive και τι βλέπω; Βλέπω σελίδες με ερωτηματικά εκεί που ήταν εικόνες και δεν υπάρχει κανένα background image. Κερατά! Ψάχνω στο goolge για τις εικόνες και τίποτα! Τι σπάσιμο!

Μετά από αρκετή ώρα κοίταξα ένα φάκελο με εικόνες που σώζω από το ίντερνετ και τι βρήκα; Βρήκα μια εικόνα από ένα από τα themes που ήθελα! Τα webarchive με άφησαν απογοητευμένο αλλά το ένστικτό μου να σώσω την εικόνα από μόνη της με έβγαλε ασπροπρόσωπο!

Tags: safari, webarchive, backup, FAIL

I was reading an article on Engadget a while back that said that the Sony MYLO is only available in refurbished form. I am wondering is Sony is going to just axe the line, or if they are going to really put some umph behind it, rework the OS, make it more developer friendly and add GSM/HSPA in it!


There is certainly precedent for this. Nokia is taking their Internet Tablet and it adding cell radios in them and reworking their capabilities. Microsoft is working on their SidekickOS now, and Apple is moving a step closer to the internet tablet model. Not to mention that things don't seem to be honkey dorey with Sony and Ericsson's partnership!


So does this mean the emergence of the PSP phone? Might be!!!!

Tags: technology, sony, mylo, Phones

I love old formats, but unfortunately data rot does set in

I guess I am an archivist at heart

CD's are only reliable up to 5 years? I guess I need to get some external Hard Drives!



Watch CBS Videos Online

Tags: technology, media, preservation

Well, a week or so ago Apple had their special event (sans-steve) to announce iPhone 3.0 OS. The good news is that this software release bring the iPhone up to speed, where it should have been on launch day!

Yes, some of these features like copy/paste, MMS, and push notifications have been asked for by the community, but others like GPS, peer-to-peer connectivity landscape keyboard and voice-memos seem like a "d'uh" to me.

So the good news is that we are now where we should have been to begin with (with the exception of full bluetooth, but anyway). Some people may bemoan that fact that as a platform the iPhone is behind other platforms. I personally don't think so - and that's the other set of good news.

Windows Mobile is aging. It's going to be a while before Windows Mobile 7 comes out to blow us all away.

WebOS and the Palm Pre are still being developed, nothing is on the market yet.

Blackberry is trying to figure out where it's going on the consumer front. Applications aren't completely there, and the Storm is a bit of a flop

The Symbian foundation has yet to launch their OS, and Nokia is trying to figure out S60 Touch.

Microsoft with Sidekick...well, I am not sure where that's going (I am wishing for some interesting developments though).

So that leaves us with a level playing field. Right now it's a mad dash to the next big thing with integrated mobile chat and unified messengers, and integration with the could (see the iphone blog link).

Keep your eyes peeled, this should be an interesting race to watch.




For more commentary, if you haven't seen it yet:

TUAW: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/03/17/iphone-3-0-feature-roundup/
The iPhone Blog: http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/03/17/iphone-os-30/

Tags: technology, apple, iPhone

at&t announced this week that they will be selling contract free iPhones,s o people can pay full fare ($700 for a 16GB iPhone) to get it without a two year commitment.

Seriously though, what's the point? You can't unlock it for use with other carriers and you still have to pay at&t the mandatory $30/month for data. The reasons to buy an iPhone SIM-free (or contract-free) are essentially nullified.

Way to make something out of nothing

Tags: technology, apple, att

Well, Nokia decided to pull the plug on MOSH. I can't say I blame them, the name was kinda silly to begin with (Mobilize and Share?! Seriously?) and from all reports it was littered with pr0n and w@rez.

I have a MOSH account but I got it to mostly check things out. There were a number of interesting games on there, free, but I guess they were warez and I didn't really catch on to that fact.

I think that with Ovi being launched, it provides Nokia with a better environment to not only provide new services, but also encapsulate the youtube/flickr/box.net aspect of MOSH into Ovi into one unified service.

Tags: technology, defunct

Well, another venerable web 2.0 service has bitten the dust.

I got an email this week that furl is being absorbed by diigo.

Honestly I didn't use furl that often. I signed up to test it out and then decided to go with delicious instead.

Oh well...

Tags: technology, defunct

I was catching up on news the other day, listening to the Engadget podcast, and I heard a reference to the eee Keyboard (or eeek! keyboard - OK bad pun). Anyway. I saw this and it reminded me of those all-in-one Amiga and Atari computer of the mid-to-late nineties. You remember the ones, the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 1200 that you just plugged into your television and off you went.


Those were the days... of course there is no floppy disk drive in the eee Keyboard, unlike those Amiga models, but everything else is there


I wonder if I can run a full speed amiga emulator on this computer and relive the days of Impossible Mission, The Chaos Engine and Eye of the Beholder

http://gizmodo.com/5124985/eee-keyboard-an-entire-touchscreen-home-theater-pc

Tags: technology, amiga, keyboard, eeePC

Ναι!

Είναι αλήθεια!


Μετά από τόσες δωρεάν εφαρμογές ήρθε επιτέλους και κάτι επί πληρωμής!


Το φετινό πακέτο MacHeist εντυπωσιάζει όπως και τα περασμένα πακέτα όχι μόνο για την καταπληκτική του τιμή, αλλά και για το περιεχόμενο του!



Η τιμή του είναι $39 και οι εφαρμογές που συμπεριλαμβάνονται είναι πολύ συνδεδεμένες με multimedia. Προσωπικά εδώ και κάτι μήνες ήθελα το Little Snapper, εφαργμογή από τους Realmac Software, τους τύπους που δημιούργησαν το Rapidweaver, και το WireTap Studio αφού όλο και πιο κοντά έρχομαι στο να δημιουργήσω ένα podcast.



Υπάρχουν φυσικά προγράμματα για βίντεο και την μορφοποίησή εικόνων και αν ξεκλειδώνουν όλα έρχεται μαζί και ένας website editor. Αν και μου αρέσει το Rapidweaver και δεν θα αλάξω website development platform μου αρέσει να παίζω και με κώδικα και με νέες εφαρμογές, οπότε δεν θα πάει χαμένο.



Όπως είπαμε, η τιμή είναι μόνο $39 και 25% των εσόδων πάνε για φιλανθρωπικούς σκοπούς!


Η διεύθυνση στο διαδύκτυο για τους νέους μεταξύ μας είναι: http://www.macheist.com

Tags: macos, software, macheist

In the past I've experimented with many blogging platforms. I've used blogger for a long time, and wordpress too! I've experiemented with LiveJournal which isn't really my cup of tea, and recently I've tried Vox, which is nice but can't really import my posts from other platforms.

I've been looking to consolidate some of my blogs where I don't post as frequently with my main CA blog (what you are reading now), but I've been experiencing some issues.

I would like to be able :
to easily intergrate the blog with my rapidweaver site,
to easily take my categories and tags and easily import them
to easily take my existing posts and import them
to maintain images and formatting of my current posts

I know that there is a WordPress way of integrating a WP blog with Rapidweaver but it seems like it's too much work. The blogger plugin for Rapidweaver only takes categories and not tags.

I guess this is more or less a summer project (or a project for when I graduate and have more time).


Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Tags: blogs, technology, opinion

I enjoy finding cool mods for computers, be they Mac or PC.


I cam across this mod a few weeks back. Having used Apple ][ and Apple IIgs computers back in the day I thought that this was pretty cool!


There is just one problem with it, no access to ports! The mac mini appears to just be stuffed in the casing on an Apple ][ disk drive. There appears to be no effort in making the ports in the back of the Mac (USB and Firewire ports for instance) usable.


Good try though!


Now if we could only cram an iMac into an Apple IIgs casing...or into the 20th Anniversary Mac casing

Tags: technology, apple, appleII, macintosh, modification

I've added a number of podcasts to my RSS reader in iTunes. When possible, I try to get enhanced podcasts so that I can get the 'chapter' option that enhanced podcasts offer.

In the past five years I've grown to really like to listen to a number of people because of the news, insights and opinions that they provide. Of course, just like a newspaper, I don't want to listen to every topic that someone podcasts about, like things in the "news" section of podcasts because chances are that I've already listened to straight news about that industry that week.

One of my frustrations on the 2 hour long podcasts is that I don't have the option to look at the chapters, see the topics and then pick which chapter I would like to listen to based on the chapter's topic.

Most of these podcasts are post processed by audio engineers so why not create an AAC edition with chapters? This would be useful not only for joe-average, but also for people in education that want to use podcasts but want to skip to a particular section.

Tags: technology, podcasts, entertainment, education

One of my RSS feeds deals with all of the free apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Initially I looked at every app just in case there was something I wanted, but now this whole "FREE" and "LITE" bullcrap is driving me nuts.

Apple claims that there are a gazzilion apps on the app store. OK smartypants, how many of those apps are "FREE" or "LITE"...in other words DEMO versions of full apps? How many of them are useless fart apps?

When I see "FREE" next to an app, I ASSUME that it is free, as in "a free, fully featured app" not "a free demo".

I would seriously like to see *real* free apps, not just a boatload of //free demos//

Thus ends my rant for today

Tags: technology, apple, itunes, applications, rant, iPhone

A lot of people will consider what I am writing as heresy, but I do think that people should retire some of their blogs if they have multiple blogs going. In the past month a retired my two year old blog called Ενα μηλο την ημέρα (an apple a day) which is a Greek blog on Apple related news and tech. I also retired my first Greek blog called Είμαι φοβερός και το ξέρεις which I've had for five years now.

Now why retire those blogs? or any blog for that matter. For me it was both a maintenance issue, and and issue of inspiration. While I still do like (almost) all things Apple, I have neither the necessary income to buy cool new things, nor the time to test them out. Therefore the lack of content really killed this blog. Of course there's opinion and conjecture, but then you're a person on a soap box. This doesn't always build community, and one of the reasons to have a blog (other than telling people your opinion about things) is to find like minded individuals.

On the maintenance side, having four fully fledged blogs means a lot of writing, and when inspiration is an issue, maintenance becomes an issue too. One of the things that brings people back to your blogs (in addition to quality content) is the concepts of συνέχεια and συνέπια as an acquaintance of mine says. I guess I would explain these two words as continuity (συνέχεια )- do you add blog posts, and frequency (συνέπια ) - how often are these posts available. Do you post once a day? Once a week? Once a month?

With this blog, there is no issue of either. I write about video games, movies, television, school, books, personal stuff and work sometimes. There is always something to say. Both of my now retired blogs were thematic in nature and thus even though there was continuity, there wasn't always frequency - thus the audience isn't always there. So why throw out your opinion if you are not going to have someone respond back to you every now and then?

So using the rubrics of συνέχεια and συνέπια, blogs should eventually be pruned. Don't delete them, keep them in your archives, but do make it a point to retire them. Like a book, a thematic blog can have a good end.

Tags: technology, blog, opinion, thoughts

Here's and interesting (short) animated documentary on the history of the internet.

For most geeks among us this is common knowledge, but it's a good video to get those among us who don't know much about the origins of the internet up to speed

Tags: technology, history, internet, video

One more service to bite the dust - Yahoo! Briefcase

I started using it when it first came out but in recent years it's taken a back seat and I started using box.net, iDisk and google docs for the various cloud-drive requirements.

Tags: technology, yahoo, rip

It's funny to think that my PowerBook G4 is now obsolete...or vintage as TUAW puts it.

Amazingly, my PowerBook runs with few problems, and I can still do (almost) everything I need to do on it - if you exclude the brain aneurism it had a few years back and it can do WiFi, Accelerated Video and Audio.


I post this from my obsolete Mac. The funny thing is that an obsolete Mac is still better than an Obsolete Dell

Tags: technology, apple, computer, powerbook, obsolete

Not the iPhone 3G (meaning that it runs on HSPA),
but the 3rd Generation (3G) iPhone...in other words the third iteration of the phone.


I know it's just a model, but it's pretty cool.

Make the Camera a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and I'm game

Tags: technology, apple, iPhone, concepts

I had this realization the other day: Nokia is missing out on using Ovi on its lineup of internet tablets.

I've written in the past that I really don't like the fact that the internet tablets don't have any PIM functionality out of the box. Well, OK, you've got your GoogleIM contacts, but if you don't use Google as your contact manager you're out of luck (well the contact management on the device needs improvement too).

Of course the lack of a notebook, todo, and calendar apps just adds to the lack of PIM goodness on a device that could really use it. After all, you get emails with invites, why not be able to schedule them on your internet tablet and have it sync to the could?

Ovi has been available for a while now with S60 clients and S40 coming out now (if I am not mistaken). It would make absolute sense to have robust calendar, todo, and contact management apps on the Internet Tablet that allow you to sync up to the Ovi cloud!

As an added bonus, the Comes With Music should be extended to the NIT. It's got the storage, it's got the media playback capability, and it's becoming mobile with GSM/UMTS being added to it for the future iterations.

Tags: technology, Nokia, PIM, cloud, ovi

There are many services out there that offer you cloud based PIM+ (plus email, photos, storage, etc.) Some are free, some are for pay. I think that 2009 will be the year that we see more competition for consumer mindshare.

Yahoo has been in the game for quite some time. They've got Yahoo Mail, which has free 'push' to Apple's iPhone/iPod touch platform (last I checked anyway). They've got an OK addressbook, calendar, notebook, and photo management through Flickr. The problem is that they haven't put it all together. They do have Yahoo! Go but results do vary from smartphone to smartphone and it's not available for all platforms.

Google provides superior email service (in my experience) and their calendar is pretty useful - although lack of iCal sync (for free) makes it less useful for me. Their addressbook stinks - big time! I really wish they would fix it. They too have photo management through picassa. The one problem with the google verse is that is only available on Android devices -although I guess separate apps could be available on other platforms.

MobileMe is Apple's paid service (and sometimes I feel like a sucker for using it, but I can use my nokia phone and my ipod, and my mac to use it, so I guess it's valuable).

Ovi is Nokia's platform for all things PIM+ - haven't used it much, and the sync times out on my Nokia N80, so I guess I won't be fully using it until I get a new S60 phone.

Finally Microsoft has announced SkyBox, it's own version of PIM+ that is set to be unveiled sometime this month.

There is of course the Danger sidekick PIM+, but I am not sure if this is sticking around for very long (I think it would be better to integrate it with SkyBox...but what do I know?)

The one problem I've got with all of these services is that they don't play nice with one another. On my Mac I can sync my contact data with Google and Yahoo. Awesome! What about my ToDo and Calendar? What about an Ovi plug in? I don't mind having a different cloud provider for my PIM data, however it's imperative for this data to be interoperable with each other.

So what will happen in 2009? I think we will probably see an improvement of services in order to gain mindshare. I don't think we will see much cross-sync compatibility - as much as I would love to see this happen.

Tags: technology, PIM, Nokia, windows, apple, cloud

MFP, for the uninitiated, stands for Multifunction printer. It's one of those thingymabobs that is a printer, a scanner, a copier and sometimes a FAX machine. I have one at home, a USB more, and it's pretty convenient.

I've seen WiFi enabled ones on the market now. The marketing pitch: no cables! We are all laptop people these days, so you can send your print jobs to the next room wirelessly, and you can scan wirelessly as well (wow!)

Well OK, no cables is all good and nice (after all I do have a wireless mouse and keyboard), but how convenient is it? If you never (or almost never) scan, then it's somewhat convenient, especially if you've got lots of users in the house.

If you have to scan a lot on the other hand, it's not convenient at all! You have to get up each time you want to change the image. If you are scanning a magazine or book page you need to be next to the unit anyway to hold the lid down. On top of that WiFi speeds for scanning aren't comparable to USB 2 or firewire (from what I hear).

So why have an MFP that's wireless? Why not just have a wireless printer?

Tags: technology, printers, wireless

We've got a tech-gram from 1981.

I was simply amazed! It took about 20 years to make the internet newspaper more of a mainstream thing, but they got there. Now we just have to struggle with the stupid ads

Tags: technology, future, futurology, newspapers

This was the question posed in PHONE magazine earlier this month with the announcement of Samsung's 12MP phone.

My answer: Yes, we do need a 12MP phone, provided that its got appropriate optics and optical zoom. I do own a digital camera (although it's 3 years old and it's only 5MP), but I still use my 3.2MP Nokia N80 to take most of my photos.

Why?

Simple, the phone is always with me. The camera I only take with me when I consciously remember to do so. After all, does one expect to snap something awesome when doing something as mundane as waiting for the bus?

By having a good (enough) quality camera in your phone you are almost guaranteed to not miss out on any of those great moments that pass you by, and it ensures that those great moments can be printed, unpixelated, on a respectable sized photo.

Tags: technology, Phones, camera

It seems like Apple is going down the non-removable battery route.

Their iPods, iPhones and now the new MacBook Pro do not have removable batteries.

This is illegal in some countries that require it to be easy to recycle old batteries, but beyond that, does the non-removable battery really matter?


I've had a PowerBook for five years. Never bought second battery.

I had an iPod (original click wheel) for five years. Never replaced the battery.

I've had many cellphones. I never had backup batteries.


While I have a problem with non-removable batteries in theory, in practice in the last 10 years I've never had a need for another battery.

Tags: technology, apple, battery

Recently I came across and article called the right to read

It's not long, and it's a short sci-fi story.

With all the talk about ebooks this year being the in thing for 2009, and my own experiences with ebooks, I think that it's worth while to read.

Now while this story is rather bleak and it points to a possibility, an unintended consequence of DRM on our media and its effects on education.


Excerpt:

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.

And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.


To continue reading click here

Tags: technology, ebooks, DRM, education

Here's a third post in a series of reposts of interests from the NewtonTalk list. My commends are in Code format

Joe Riley Wrote:
This is a continuation of the iPod touch talk from the "[NTLK] [ADMIN] This is only a test" thread.

I just got a 1st Gen refurb iPod Touch from apple (looked brand new!) and I've been very amazed with it. I'm not a newton power user in terms of the calendar/contacts and the info linking the newt can do so I could see me using the touch as its replacement for those functions. I also can do without the HWR since I usually end up using the onscreen keyboard on my newt because most of my data to enter doesn't like the HWR (gear charts for race cars, web addresses, etc.). If you use blackberry, treo, winmo, etc, getting the hang of the touch's keyboard shouldn't be too hard. The first data entry might be a pain if you do it manually but the touch can sync with address book and ical.

I synced everything with my MobileMe account and al info was there. I found the only problem to be the iPod's auto-correct. I write in Greeklish (Greek in latin characters) on twitter and it keeps wanting to correct everything. English typing was no problem, even from the get-go.

Someone also mentioned the small screen, which I do agree is a little annoying but scrolling is easy with the touch screen and it keeps the device small. The multimedia and web on the touch is awesome compared to the newt. Some of the interface touches even remind me of the newt, like how the keyboard and some other boxes glide on/off the display and the clicky sounds it makes when you type (although it doesn't have the overall interface sounds the newt has).

It does have some serious flaws though. First and most important to me is the lack of a good notes app. The built-in notes app looks similar to the newts but lacks folders. I'm going to try some 3rd party apps but reviews I've read so far don't give me hope.

This is a serious problem (as is note sync). I've written about this in a previous post.
Second is battery life. The battery life of the touch really sucks if your punishing it with lots of web surfing, app downloading, or worse online gaming. It seems to do ok if you've got the wifi off but its still no where near the newt, you need to charge it atleast every night if not sooner. Maybe if they made it as thick as the iphone 3g we'd be set.

You know, I don't think that battery life is a problem. Yes if you keep using the web and playing games it's going to drain your battery fast. It's a cost balancing situation. I use my iPod mostly for media playback, and I keep it charged while at work. I never run out of battery. I also don't hop on the net with all the time. I check my email, check my twitter and facebook, and turn the WiFi off. You can't compare the newton battery life-span to that of the iPod. The Newton does not go online, and it doesn't do media playback. I know people have created apps to let you do just that, but if you do this, your battery will drain equally fast as the iPod Touch.


Third is the lack of copy and paste. This one really bugs me because I use C&P on my blackberry and newt all the time. And last it lacks the Agent and overall search funtions of the newt although it does have in-app searches for some apps. Lack of HWR may be a deal breaker depending on if you are really fond of it.


If the notes and copy & paste problems are solved this may be a decent 'new newt' for some. It does the web, multimedia, mail, contacts and calendar, its not a brick, it syncs easily with modern apps and its easy to use IMHO. I do wish it had a green backlight and could be put into greyscale mode, maybe an app could be made to give all the white on screen a green tint and switch the rest of the colors to greyscale? I guess I'm saying it needs theme support too

LOL, a green backlight and a Newton theme would be awesome (maybe the jailbreak community can help out). The fact that the iPod is not a brick and can accomplish so much (despite its limitations) is why I choose it over the newton for my needs. Lets not forget that the newton is 14 years old and it's been more than 10 years without official support!

Do you have an IPod Touch/iPhone? What do you think?

Tags: technology, Newton, NewtonOS, Nokia, N800, ipod, touch

In the last week, I've had many unknown people try to follow me on twitter.

Yes, my twitter feed is protected, so I don't know why people are trying to follow me. It's not like I've had a lot of people @admiralak me, and my club-admiralty analytics (the only other twitter link that comes to mind) doesn't show a ton of activity happening.

I wish twitter would allow people to put a description in the follow box - sort of how one adds a friend on facebook. This way I know how you found me. Most people's blogs don't tell me anything about why they are trying to follow me.

Tags: technology, microblogging, twitter, weird

Continuing my series of reposts of mailings that I find interesting about the future of the newton from the NewtonTalk list, here's one from Carlos Santiago. I've added some comments and personal views in code format

Carlo's Post:
I was prompted by the 2010 timeframe barrier I'd heard about but I made the switch after v2.0 of the system software which had abilities much better in regards to email than the earlier version; at 1.x it most mostly an ipod but the 2.0 software brought it close to a pda but 100% and no where, anywhere close near a Newton.But I then sold off my iPAQ and BT GPS unit as we also gotten a Garmin GPS which made the switchover possible.

It took a while for me to make the switch, mentally, everything important I had on my 2100 and PDA. Key apps there I vitally needed and used.

• cut-n-paste! poor man's inter-app messaging
• Newton notes; still no clear replacement
• Newton calendar; Pocket Informant on the PDA made that platform a good transition but the Newton was the gold standard so it'll be tough to replace
• Newton inter-app slip messaging; but things are slowly improving within key apps
• PDA Pocket Informant; a PIM that's coming this month!

I'm not a twenty something wanting a gaming only device (but not that there's anything wrong with that! - these folks in part fueled Apple in recent months and this platform after all) but needed a PDA which approched Newton status. My iPod isn't a Newton but I'm finding less is more in some areas.

What I like:

• speed; I now juggle 6 email accounts; evan google and yahoo along with work, etc.
• apps availability; I often buy apps I like hoping support will spur further advances; most feature 'free' subset versions which is vital since all sales are final - and tied to you; you can't resell.
• web browsing - full screen and fast; however in recent months some sites take to dumming down their site when then see an iPOD; wrong approach; some offer a choice of classic or iPod site view; much better
• GREAT - f-n-GREAT (so far) app s/w provider support; I think they see the future ahead of most users and are running in droves to the unit; I can only hope some exNewton titles make it here.

I have all of my email accounts (except for my Hotmail account) on my iPod Touch and it's great! On my N800 I don't have everything. The again, I purchased the device for web browsing, not email handling. I only have my mobile me account on the N800 since I can't use the browser to check the mail. Hotmail, yahoo and gmail are all easily accessible on the maemo browser.

What I dis-like

• small sceen resolution with BIG UI interface controls means display real estate is an absolute premium; most apps either waste space or feature too much whitespace. There are some PDA style apps which try to cram too much info but I think within the next year the UI and developers will come to terms and deliver great apps - my hope anyway.
• poor apps sometimes crash the unit; recent I took to emailing one developer on their latest update and was totally floored at the response; *GREAT* had a new, fixed, app in a few days. Oh, and this app was *FREE*

I really would like to see some category for gag apps. I don't care that people are making fart or bouncing boob apps, but it really makes it hard to look for good apps when the gag apps are taking up so much space.

And neutral items...

• it's not a PDA let alone Newton. In the 2.1 s/w release Apple heard first hand that some folks actualy rely on their units for something other than on demand music purchase and play. Given the wider, non-game app availability, I suggested they spend a bit more time in QA; they appear to be.
• yes there's no stylus; it's up to the app the make the UI transition to gesture based input. it's funny to see HWR attempts etc. on this unit. IMHO those apps just don't get it (aka those don't dogs won't hunt It's hard but you do need to rethink things from scratch.

Would like to see items

• Newton notes; folders, outlines, todo, style sheets, etc. partridge in a pear tree...
• universal platform issues; cut-n-paste, messaging, 'back' ability. Each app execution replaces rather than pushes current apps. You can return to the former app after pressing the home button and navigating to it but I'd like to see a 'go back' button or gesture to do this. That would go a long way to addressing inter-app slip passing as app design all feature a fast save state ability you pick up just where you left off.
• built-in camera
• speaker (2nd gen unit already has this)
• dump AT&T in favor of generic provider support; this is part of larger soap box to have all cell phone carriers compete by using a U.S. then world-wide cell phone network topology and technology; we'd then see real competition vs. the fiefdoms we have now.
• overall h/w improvements; 3rd party storage & batter upgrades - don't try this yourself

Overall I'm happy I made the switch; but miss my 2100.

I agree. I still have my 2100, I don't use it and I miss it. But I am happy to be using an iPod Touch and N800 instead

Tags: technology, Newton, NewtonOS, N800, Nokia, ipod, touch

Well, along with the Y2K10 issues, there's been a lot of discussion about redefining the Newton. I came across this post by Michael, and I have to say I agree with a lof of his comments.

This is very interesting because this is exactly what I have been thinking for a while.I have long thought, the future of the Newton was in becoming a series of enhancements and applications to assist a chosen platform to provide those features which the Newton had (and differentiated it) which no longer seem to exist. (Keep in mind that different users will see this as a different mix of items)

I agree. The features that the Newton had that differentiated it for me (beyond the Apple Geek factor) were the addressbook, calendar, mobile office suite and my multilingual dictionaries. Oh, the large screen too.

In my case, I have recently purchased an iPod Touch to use as my basis for this.

I went with a Nokia Internet Tablet (N800 Model), plus an iPod Touch more recently.

My reasoning for this is pretty simple:1. The iPhone / iPod Touch SDK is FREE!

I don't care about developing, so this isn't a factor for me

2. The Developer community is alive and kicking and considering the size of the user base I have a good chance that something will be developed which may deliver what I am after or that something I develop will be useful for other users and therefore make the development effort pay off.

This is true for both maemo on N800 and the Mobile OS X on the iPod Touch. I have almost more functionality than I had on my Newton!

3. It's from Apple and syncs well with my iTunes Library on my Mac ( and the Address book and iCal and MobileMe).

This was, and is, the most important thing to me. My Media syncs perfectly with my iPod Touch, and all my calendars and contacts are synced. Yes, even the ones in Greek! My major problem with the Newton was the lack of Greek support, even though the OS was fully unicode. Initially this was not a problem since most of my contacts were non-Greek. I could literally count on two hands who my Greek contacts were. With the rise of the internet and social networks I've reconnected with many of my old friends, and it is easier to keep in contact with new ones making Greek support all that much more important.

4. It already had FMTouch which is a 3rd party Filemaker Database Engine so I can take my existing Databases and Sync them to "MyTouch" ( yes I was lame enough to call it that and you can guess my iMac is called) and carry them with me. Something I always wanted for my Newton but never quite had

.

Now, I am far from 100% satisfied with the platform.I have some minor annoyances with the following:1. Address book:  It doesn't support Custom Fields ( which I'm not sure was a Newton feature out of the box or an extension ) so all my Custom Fields from the Newton were lost

The iTouch does not fully support Greek, so even though I can get my contacts on there, I can't easily get to them! The system is built for latin based alphabets
Custom fields don't bother me as much as I don't use them

2. Calendar: Seems to be missing a few things as well. I'm not sure I actually need them but I guess time will tell.

Having used iCal for the last 3 years, whatever is missing, I haven't missed

3. Notes:  This has to be the most useless Notes App ever made! You cannot set the title of the Note it is simply the first line of your Note so I am forever having to put the title there. There is no Landscape Mode. It doesn't support Checklists or allow you to put them in Folders ( or at least Groups like in Address book ) and I cannot seem to Sync them only Email them!

This IS a major annoyance. The Notes app is useless. I used my newton to take many, many notes. In meetings, in the classroom, at work. It was great! My iPod Touch is awful at taking notes. The N800 has a program that is somewhat comparable to the Notes app on the Newton, but it's slow.

There are of course features missing:1. HWR - There is a program called WritePad which gives you HWR via finger which works really well and I would love to work out if they are using Inkwell or a Home-spun HWR Engine; they are producing apps for this as well and their Notes App looks interesting but it is missing Checklists which I feel is a must.

You know, I would love HWR on the iPod Touch, but truth be told, I almost never used it. Initially I used it a lot, and it was great on the Newton. However as I met and recommended with my friends from Greece, I started taking notes in a mixture of Greek, English and something in between. The Newton did not recognize this. In class, I would take notes of words in German and Italian, but the dictionaries would not always recognize the words. The notes app on the newton worked well for monolingual people, but in my case it didn't fit my needs. Ink-notes were more useful.

2. Find - There is no Search feature so I can't simply search on a Clients Name and get a list of all my Visits from the Calendar and the Address book entry which I used quite a lot on the Newton.

Ditto!

3. Copy and Paste - Such a simply feature which could be implemented just like the Newton is missing. But I have yet to have missed it.There is probably a lot more that could be said.

I have missed copy/paste on the iPod Touch, but I always have my N800 to fall back on, so if I need to copy something to/from the web browser into/from another app, I use the N800

At this point I have gotten the touch to the point that for the first time since I owned a Newton it is actually sitting on my desk at home and not being carried to and from work each day. I think the potential is there but it will need some Apps built to provide the "missing" bits. For me, the first step will be the Notes App. I hope to start working on building such an App in the next few months.

One thing that I really miss from the notes app on the Newton, that I wish were implemented on the iPod Touch OS is the different kinds of notes. I want to-do lists (and have the synced with mail/ical). I was graph paper. I want plain paper to draw on. I want shapes and different size marker tips. Yes I can get all those in three separate apps (kinda), but the notes app on the Newton did all this.

Tags: technology, apple, Newton, opinion

Along with the Y2K10 bug I saw a lot of people playing the blame game concerning the cancellation of the Newton platform, and thus leaving this Y2K10 time bomb unfixed.

People are quick to blame Steve Jobs because the Newton was not his creation. Valerio Mitritsakis has a great answer to the steve-blame (and I agree with it):

A bit off topic here, still I've had a thought I want to share with  
you. Most people attribute the decision to kill the Newton to a  
revenge of Steve Jobs against Sculley.

However "colorful" (to put it mildly) Steve\s character is (from what  
we read here and there) he is no fool. What I believe happened with  
the Newton was that when Apple faced bankruptcy and called back
Steve Jobs in 1997 as a CEO it needed a few things in order to move on.
1st and foremost to focus on the key areas it was best at which were Creative
Pros (DTP, Design. Prepress) and Education. The next important thing it
needed was a commitment for the development of one of the most
renown application suites, Microsoft Office.

However the deal was something more than that as it included a patent
cross licensing plus some serious cash and more stuff.

This brings us to what I think happened with the Newton. Apple agreed  
with Microsoft to kill the Newton so that they would have the handheld  
marked to them selves.

In the light of saving the company, killing the Newton was a small  
price to pay and kept Apple out of the market for a decade until 2007  
when they introduced the
iPhone...

Of course it is totally possible that all of this exists only in my  
mind as I do not have any connection whatsoever to Apple and I could  
not have any insight on this matter.

Tags: apple, technology, Newton

Well, the NewtonTalk list has been buzzing lately about the Y2K10 bug that is going to plague Newtons come next year. So what is it? It's similar to the Y2K bug (or oversight depending how you look at it) that was a headache on our computers not so long ago.

Here is an explanation from Andrei:



The basic issue is that the time calculations that deal with time containing
seconds work with integers, and as of January 5th, 2010 the number of
secondsthat have gone by since January 1, 1993 is greater than an integer
canhandle.

The Newton uses two formats for dates, number of minutes since January 1,
1904 and the number of seconds since 1993. It appears that the problem lies
with the functions dealing with the date in seconds, the date functions that
deal with years, months, and days have plenty of space left.  It looks like
the value is stored in a 29 bit value. All hell should break loose at second
2**29 which would be January 5, 2010 at 18:48:31.

The system routine TimeInSecondsToTime() returns an unexpected value.
If you give it the largest 29 bit value it gives a correct answer, but if you give
it a 30 bit number it screws up.
But the routines that handle date conversions handle the later dates.

Tags: technology, Newton, NewtonOS, bug

Earlier this month I went to visit my dad, and per chance I picked up a box with old memorabilia which included old apple ads from magazines like MacUser, MacWorld and MacAddict (as well as a few full issues!)

I found this ad for an Apple Newton 2100 which is awesome (and it made me want a Newton even more, even though as a high school students I could not afford one).




for a larger image click here

Tags: technology, ads, Newton, apple, PDA, macaddict

I found this the other day in my RSS inbox - interesting read:

The UNIX shell has been around for more than 35 years now—through evolution and enhancements—and is still going strong! It all began in 1971, when Ken Thompson of AT&T Bell Laboratories created the first UNIX shell named (appropriately) the Thompson shell. Fundamentals of the Thompson shell, such as redirection of data, exists in shells used today, although the shell lacked some important built-in functions that UNIX users use every day, such as pipes (|), the ability to write shell scripts, and if conditional statements.

As a result, the Thompson shell was replaced with the Bourne shell, or sh, in 1977. The Bourne shell, created by Stephen Bourne of AT&T Bell Laboratories, became the default shell for UNIX version 7 (V7). The shell took a huge leap into the future for UNIX. Now, users could write shell scripts; store and export information in variables; control file descriptors; control signal handling, for loops, and case statements; and so much more. Even though the Bourne shell was created more than 30 years ago, it is still widely used by many current UNIX systems and is the default shell for the superuser—root—on many UNIX systems today.

Over the past three decades, there have been changes and improvements to the UNIX shell. As a result, several different shells have been created. Figure 1 illustrates the family tree of a few of the UNIX shells. This figure is by no means complete, but it shows the major shells from which other, minor shells have been derived.




Read more here

Tags: technology, unix, shell, history

Here's another time waster... Here's mine foverocity.myminicity.com - click to join my city

Picture of my mini city with 114 residents

Tags: technology, waste

Here's a funny Joy of Tech comic strip that goes into the subject

Tags: technology, humor, att, SMS, telephony

I saw the following mockup recently on a number of websites.

Of course it's a fake, but it's rather interesting.

What I like about it is the front facing camera for video conferencing, the keyboard and joypad buttons, and what looks to be a higher resolution camera with good optiocs on in.

Would I buy one of these? Well, if I didn't have to buy a data plan, sure!

As I've said before I agree that the iphone needs some game controls (a pad and buttons) because the touch screen + tilt control aren't always convenient (anyone try playing Cube?)

Tags: apple, iPhone, technology, telephony, gaming

We've seen SNL spoofs of Mac products, but how often do you see a BBC spoof?

Here is the Mactini - the smallest mac in existence

Tags: technology, humor, BBC, apple, macintosh

One of the reasons I didn't buy an iPhone is that I don't need wireless broadband, at least I don't need it at $30/month. I have WiFi at home. I have WiFi at work. I have WiFi around town (believe it or not) in most areas that I frequent (thank you OpenNet!).

The only place I didn't have WiFi was while I was commuting to and from work. Well now that seems to be taken care of. By the end of the summer my 25 minute commute to work will be WiFi enabled! This means I can check up on Facebook and LinkedIn, perhaps even my Google Reader while commuting!

Now all I need is free WiFi at North Station for when I wait...but then again do I REALLY need to be that connected?





Here's the service announcement:

Wi-Fi Commuter Rail Connect
Based on our successful pilot program on the Framingham/Worcester Line, the MBTA is proud to offer its commuter rail customers first in the nation FREE Wi-Fi service via the MBTA′s Commuter Rail Connect initiative.  Beginning December 2008, wireless routers will be installed on coaches throughout the entire commuter rail network.  Once completed, all 13 lines will feature at least two coaches on each train set that will be Wi-Fi enabled.  The program is expected to be completed by the end of Spring of 2009.  Until then, approximately 30 coaches per month will be installed.  These coaches will be “turned on” as soon as they installed allowing riders to access the Internet via a laptop or other wireless device.  The newly Wi-Fi enabled coaches will be distributed throughout the commuter rail net work based on operational needs.
We hope you enjoy this FREE service.

Tags: transportation, MBTA, wifi, networks, free

Well, decided to take some of that birthday money and get myself a new iPod, so I went and bought a new iPod Touch. This device is amazing. I like to call it "PDA 2.0" because it does a lot of stuff that PDAs did way back when, but also is a great media player (which is what I use it for, mostly).

So what would I change about the iPod touch? Some things are software based, and others hardware based. Here's a quick rundown.

1. Need a built-in iSight and Camera, and give us iChat
The form factor is great, and the ubiquity of WiFi means that you can use your iPod touch as both a text-chat communicator for various services like AIM, Yahoo and MSN, and as a voice/video chat communicator for the aforementioned services. In addition, if a microphone is included we can finally use Skype on our iPods

2. Bluetooth with A2DP
Bluetooth is a great technology. You can transfer files back and forth between many different devices, you can attach devices to your iPod and build around those additional services. A2DP is also great for wireless headphones (which I would really love to get)

3. GPS
OK, GPS is not a *must* but it is definitely a want. The Nokia Internet Tablet has it, and it has preloaded maps with the possibility of turn by turn directions. A built-in GPS and collaboration with Garmin and TomTom would make the iPod not only more useful, but also compete with GPS-only units. With Apple's DRM what this means is that TomTom and Co. can work on better versions of their product for PDAs but still get paid for their effort (apparently S60 and WinMo versions are highly pirated)

4. Camera
Now this would be cool. Apple isn't into the digital camera business, but think of all the uses that such a device could see if there were a camera in it.

5. FM receiver + Transmitter
I listen to FM radio - I do! I think that the FM receiver, with RDS, would be a good addition to the iPod Touch. In addition, an FM transmitter would be nice to be able to listen to our audio through FM (no need to shell out another $50 for an iTrip)

6. HWR!
I know that the current software has handwriting recognition for asian languages (Chinese and Japanese if I am not mistaken). I would love to see HWR for English (and other languages). The HWR on the Newton was legendary. It's time to get this on the iPod/iPhone software!

7. Copy/Paste
This is a sore point with some users. I think it's important to include this functionality so you can copy some info from a browser, let's say an address, and paste it into another program...let's say the addressbook!

8. Flash & Java
I know that Flash isn't really optimized for the mac, and even less so on the iPod/iPhone, but this is something that is necessary. A lot of streaming sites exist, other than YouTube, and there is no access to that content unless you've got Flash and/or Java. My blackboard (Learning Management System) is almost useless on the iPod because I don't have java, so I can't check my class discussions on the iPhone (which is OK because I do that on my N800 when I am on the go...but it would be nice to have it on the iPod)

9. iPod-wide search & the assistant
This is something from the Newton world. This would be a search that searches all the local content (and the internet if you are connected) for particular info. So if I want to search for Bob Jones, it will go through the addressbook, calendar, to-dos (oh yeah, I want a good todo list too), podcasts, songs, videos, etc. and give me all the info about Bob Jones that I have. The assistant would be something like the newton assistant where you would be able to write "appointment with John Johnson at 2" and this would create a new appointment for you, with John as the participant and it would ask you for additional info if it needs it (like day, end time, etc). Linked data is a good idea!

10. iOffice
Just because I like decimals, this will be the last one. Any good PDA 2.0 needs office support. Something to open and edit word, excel, powerpoint and PDF documents (as well as common open office formats and other formats). This could be a paid app, but we need to have it

PS: Yes, I would love themes, but sadly I think those were buried along with MacOS 9

Tags: ipod, touch, apple, improvement

I don't know if this is the same as 'ratified' but at least it means that people can start implementing it! This will mean more competition in our Market. In the US verizon will really compete with AT&T and T-Mobile because devices will be portable. Sprint is still doing their WiMAX thing - which isn't bad, but I won't be going to Sprint to my mobile needs.

In Canada this means that all carriers will be using the same technology, so Bell, Telus and Rogers will now see real competition because the handsets will have the potential to be unlock and brought with you to another carrier

The future looks bright! (now if data package prices were to fall...)

Tags: LTE, technology, GSM, telephony

I gotta say, this is pretty cool (although possibly useless).

The first MacOS that I used, on an iPhone is pretty cool.
On the the desktop I can play games of yesteryear.
On the iPhone...I don't know...

This feat is compliments of vMac Mini

Tags: iPhone, ipod, classic, emulator, cool

Maybe this isn't that exciting to people using Windows, but I just got my invite to participate in the Boxee alpha for MacOS.
I've played with it for a couple of days now and it seems pretty interesting! I wonder how I can get hulu on it...

Tags: apple, boxee, beta, test

Now in general, I don't follow etiquette books. I feel that some of the rules are antiquated. Maybe I am going through my rebellion stage. Anyway. I ran across this article on social media etiquette. I skimmed through it, and surpassingly I agree!

Have a look for yourself. My three biggest pet peeves:

Facebook
Using a fake name as your Facebook name.  I can’t tell you how many people have added me and their last name is “Com” or “Seo.”  I’m not adding you unless you can be honest about who you are.  Once upon a time, Facebook deleted all of the accounts that portrayed people as business entities or things.  I wish Facebook would employ the same tactics yet again, because I’m not adding a fake identity as a friend.

Tagging individuals in unflattering pictures that may end up costing your friends their jobs.  Avoid the unnecessary commentary also, especially on your childhood pictures that portray your tagged friends as chubby and not so popular.  Further, if your friends request to be untagged, don’t make a stink of it.

I don't want anyone posting photos of me - period. Doesn't matter if they are just me sitting and having a coffee. If I want that particular photo of me on facebook, I will post it myself.


Twitter:
Streaming only your blog’s RSS feed on Twitter.

Tags: technology, etiquette, annoying

I know, this news is a week or two old, but wow!
I was thinking that my next phone would be an iPhone but...Nokia REALLY upped the anti with this one! IF this phone has Triband HSPA (or even better quadband) I may go for it if I have the money.

I wish that people start working on S60 touch apps now so we can get all those iPhone like apps out . There is no capacitive touch display on the N97 (so no multifinger gestures) but that's OK. Maybe someone can get me one for my birthday

Tags: technology, Nokia, telephony, s60

Recently I started creating a wiki for a project I am working on. I looked over some of the wiki providers and ended up settling on using wikispaces. Now one of the things that I like about wikispaces is that it has both a WYSIWYG interface for people to use once I make it public, and I can use the wiki markup when I am going my own work.

This past weekend wikispaces started supporting Safari for the WYSIWYG so I decided to give it a try (again), and I remembered why I dislike the WYSIWYG so much: it creates unreadable code!

When I went to the plain text editor, after I had created some content with the WYSIWYG editor I was face with many silly and superfluous tags. I spent some time getting rid of these span tags and cleaning up the code, but wow!

I know that a WYSIWYG editor is easier for the lay person, but have you ever tried to troubleshoot something like this type of problem: "this font looks a little different than this one, I wonder why..."

No WYSIWYG until I make this puppy public...

Tags: technology, wikipedia, syntax

I waited 'till the 13th to post this even though I got the email on December 1st.

In two days, December 15th, one microblogging service is bitting the dust, Powce.

I liked Pownce, I liked it a lot. You could do things with it that you can't with other services, like attach media, show calendar events.

To the right are some of the last Pownce messages created on the service.


Here are a few thoughts on it from the Financial Times

Pownce, a social media service that has failed to gain traction, is to close down this month after its team and technology were acquired by the blogging company Six Apart.

Pownce caused an initial flurry of excitement among Web 2.0 aficionados when it launched in June 2007. It was given a certain cachet by Kevin Rose, who co-founded it and had already co-founded the popular Digg news site.
As recently as August, Leah Culver, another co-founder, was featured on the cover of MIT’s Technology Review, which said Pownce was one of 10 web start-ups to watch.

Six Apart said it would be merging the Pownce team with its Vox blogging service. The main Pownce website will close down on December 15.
The service allowed private messaging among friends and file-sharing. It was compared to the micro-blogging service Twitter, but was harder to grasp than Twitter’s simpler 140-characters-or-less messaging concept.

Om Malik, the well-known tech blogger, told The New York Times in July last year: “I love [Pownce] and use it constantly, I like it because it lets me share a lot of different things with the networks of people I really care about.”
Yesterday, he blogged on GigaOm: “I used the service for a few months but then lost interest, and so did many of my friends.”

It seems Pownce was just one service among many micro-blogging ones and lacked distinct features that could have helped it become mainstream, or even hold the attention of dedicated social networkers.

Commenters on another service, Friendfeed, pointed out on Monday that Kevin Rose himself had spent more of his time on Twitter than his Pownce creation.
“That’s like the CEO of Pepsi being seen drinking Coke, if you can’t stand behind your product, how do you expect us to?” said one.




Personally, I wans't sure about this, but I tranfered all my content to Vox for the time being...
Goodbye Pownce, you were a good service.

Tags: technology, pownce, rip

Well Linux is now on the iPhone (woohoo!)
I am not a crazy linux fan, but I think this is cool!
Now I wonder how long it will take to port android to the iPhone



iPhone Linux Demonstration Video from planetbeing on Vimeo.

Tags: technology, linux, apple, iPhone, android

So now that Microsoft has acquired danger, what will they do with the device and its OS? Well yours truly has a suggestion for Microsoft (not that they listen), as to how to best exploit and expand the platform!

Section 1: Device Hardware

Hardware needs to be improved, no doubt about it. First thing that Microsoft needs to do is to make quadband GSM and quadband HSPA a standard in all danger devices so that they have a global reach.

Secondly they finally need to add WiFi to all of their devices. WiFi is now a staple of pretty much all smartphones, and if Microsoft wants to capture the younger users AND maintain them and not see the SK as juvenile, they need to add wifi.

Third, they need a touch screen on the device. Dialing the device is a pain in the butt. With a touch screen this is taken care of, and it opens the door for more innovation.

Fourth: add GPS. Location based services are a must have for an always on-device like the sidekick

Fifth: use dedicated media/video chips to improve media playback and battery life.

Sixth: Number of devices - just have two, the classical form factor and the Slide form factor. No need to dilute your market. Special editions are OK.

Finally, add a front camera for video chat and video calling.


Section 2: Software


The first step for Microsoft would be to make a more generic OS similar to what other smartphone operating systems do and then add themes and customizations to the device, but make it so a customization does not impede the customer's ability to take this device from one carrier to another

The second thing they need to work on is full unicode input and localization of the OS. While the sidekick is available in English, German and probably Dutch, it needs more local support to be rolled out globally.

The third thing is Exchange support. In the mail client support exchange fully, just as if it were a windows mobile device. This will make it attractive to the enterprise.

Add a bit of social flair to it: social networks are all the rage today, from facebook and myspace to linkedin and friendfeed. How about being able to log into your social networks, and microblogs and get a feed of what your contacts are up to?

Add a blogging client: Do you use blogger? LiveSpaces? Live Journal? Wordpress? No matter what you use, a blogging client should be available to use out of the box.

Add better media capability: video and music playback, as well as youtube, vimeo and hulu (just a thought) should be standard on this device.


Section 3: Services

One of the great things about the sidekick in the early days was that the internet and IM was patched through a danger server which optimized websites for the sidekick browser and kept a messaging service running, so if you were offline with your sidekick (a dead-spot or something) people could still IM you and you would get the IMs when you came back into service. This is something apple is trying to do today (with the IM bit).

This is a good idea, but it is implemented poorly. At the moment the carrier has control of that service, not Microsoft, which means I can only use my sidekick on T-mobile, not at&t, not rogers, not on cosmote when I travel to Greece.

Microsoft needs to decouple this from the carrier so a sidekick can run on any carrier, but still sees the benefits of messaging services (and possibly streamlined websites, although I prefer the real web experience of an iPhone to that of the blackberry and sidekick).

The other function of this server is to keep your contacts, emails, photos and PIM data backed up on the cloud. Again, when this came out in 2001 it was revolutionary, these days Apple and Google have joined the game in the consumer arena. Microsoft should decouple this PIM/media functionality from the carrier and tie it into their Live services (and if they feel up to it support syncing to google and yahoo). This means that now anyone can purchase a sidekick, and a plain jane data plan and with their live account they can use the device to its full capability.


Section 4: PR

The sidekick and the danger OS suffer from juvenile disorder. A grown man (even if the software were available) could not be caught with a sidekick because it's deemed to be a kid phone. Microsoft needs to fix this in order to make the device accessible to to a wider demographic.

Tags: opinion, microsoft, dangeros, sidekick

A while back I was reading this article over at the Internet Tablet School

It's been a while since I initially read it, so I went back to re-read since I had been thinking of the topic lately. The author's thesis is that Nokia doesn't want to compete with itself by offering two devices that do the same thing: the Nokia S60 touch interface phones (such as the Nokia 5800 pictured to the right) and the Nokia Internet Tablets.

The author further goes on to day that Nokia should put create subnotebooks like the Eee PC and put maemo on, abandoning the tablet factor, and that Nokia should focus on improving the functionality of maemo with regard to functions such as word processing and other office apps.


Now, I agree with two things:
1. You don't want to cannibalize sales of your flagship products (phones).
2. You should focus on adding functionality.

I disagree on the notion of getting rid of the tablet factor and making something like the Eee PC. Sub-notebooks are a pain to carry around. A tablet fits comfortably in your coat pocket, a sub-notebook does not. You don't need to put maemo on a laptop to clearly show who the intended audience is.


What should Nokia do?
Software wise:
1. Add a good PIM suite to your internet tablets. Contacts, Calendar, To-do and memos are a must and by doing this you will get people from the PDA market to switch over. While you're at it, make this PIM suite compatible with iSync and synv with Yahoo and Google as well.

2. Make office applications more accessible on Maemo. Word, Excel and PowerPoint are documents that people want to open and edit on the go.

3. Make mail for exchange available on maemo and integrate IM functionality into the OS (yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL). Pidgin does a good job, but this also adds one more app you need to run.

4. Get more support for web based clients, like the iPhone.

5. Get SMS, MMS, and phone applications on Maemo.

6. Make media playback easier on the device. Video podcasts don't play well on Maemo - fix this. Look at Canola for PMP inspiration (or support canola actively)


Hardware wise:
1. Integrate quadband GSM/Quadband UMTS (and if you're up to it, WiMAX as well). Will this cannibalize your S60 touch sales? To a small extent yes, but most people buy a phone for most phone related activities, and a tablet for extended internet activities. The tablets have more screen real-estate, and better processing power which makes browsing more pleasurable than on any phone.

2. Integrate your phone like and tablet lines. Make it easy to compose, send, and sync MMS, SMS from your tablet to your phone

3. Bring back the FM radio with RDS

4. Make tablets easy to connect to monitors and TVs for more real estate.

5. Take the N810 body and add some external buttons, so people don't have to slide out the keyboard to use basic navigation buttons

6. Throw in a 3.2 or 5MP camera.

7. Yes, do make wireless keyboard and mouse an viable option for maemo. There's nothing cooler than taking your tablet out, brining out a wireless keyboard and sitting and taking notes!



Nokia posits the N-series devices a multimedia computers. In my opinion it doesn't matter if you are running symbian or maemo. While current tablets can go online by tethering them to a phone, it's better and easier to keep the same form factor and add cell radios in them.

Tags: maemo, symbian, Nokia, future, opinion

So, recently I got a new computer at work. It's not really new - the hardware is a year old, but it's new to me. I asked for Vista on it since I was using Vista before on my aging Dell GX270. All I have to say is WOW. It makes such a difference to run Vista on capable hardware. I had no problems with vista on my aging GX270, even though boot-up was slow so I was not a hater.

Thinking about Vista's problems, here is what I think Microsoft should do with Windows 7

1. Vista is partly a PR problem. People think it sucks because people are running it on inferior hardware. Those people talk, and influence the thought of others. The stupid "I am a PC ads" don't work. They are...well...stupid! I think the Seinfeld+Gates ads were AWESOME! Get some better ads, bring back Seinfeld.


2. Get rid of legacy shit and let people know that you are doing so! Look at Apple. They buried MacOS 9. They made a mostly compatible layer called classic and shipped it with all PowerPC machines. Now with the Intel transition MacOS 9 is gone. Microsoft needs to get rid of Windows 3.x and 9x underpinnings. Make a separate sandbox for the old 3.x and 9x based apps, and let people know, given them a firm date on when you are stopping support. Work with your developers to make the transition smooth. People who need those old apps will still run XP but at least they won't badmouth your product.


3. Be more ridgid on what runs windows! Again, look at what Apple does. No need to support a million configurations, and no need to support el cheapo $500 PCs with Vista. Force manufacturers to get rid of those crapola cheap PCs and design an experience just like apple does. There is no need for experience and utility to be separate and mutually exclusive entities.


4. If you REALLY need to have cheap PCs and webtops running Vista,build a microPC version of Windows that runs MOST programs. Dont taint windows's name my trying to make it all things to all people. Look at the various linux webtops like the eeePC. Their version of the OS is not the same as one you would find on the desktop and for good reason. Maybe you could assist your developers to create those webtop versions and have a way of marketing that it works with Windows-the-desktop-version and Windows-the-webtop-version.

5. Other people have said this, maybe this time you will listen. Get rid of those stupid and artificial distinctions between home basic, home premium, business and ultimate. Your BASIC BASIC sucks and it's more expensive than MacOS X (os x being $129 and home basic being $200). Just give everyone the Ultimate experience at the same Apple price of $129! If everyone has the same experience, everyone has the same basis for comparison. There should only be three versions of Windows: Server, Desktop (aka Vista/7 Ultimate) and Webtop.


Thus concludes my advice to Microsoft. Now go forth and stop shooting yourselves on the foot!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx

Tags: technology, microsoft, windows, opinion, vista

OK, now I know that it's easy for people who don't code to be sofa commentators on what they would like to see in software packages, but I will do so anyway

I've been using canola a lot in the past few weeks as my media player of choice when I am using my N800 as a PMP and not as a tablet for browsing. Canola is a great piece of software that's missing some user interface elements, or some functionality that would make it event better. I've created some categories for improvements:


Radio
Internet Radio Directory - Inputting addresses for internet radio stations is a royal pain in the butt with Canola. What canola needs is an interface for a directory of internet radio station so that you can just add your favorites to a quick access list

More format support: Now this may be something that's out of reach, but I would love to see windows media, real and quicktime streaming formats supported (maybe work with VLC?)

FM Radio - The N800 sports a built-in FM radio (sadly no RDS support). Why can't I access the radio from Canola?


Podcasts
Podcast Directory integration - This is the same problem as the Internet Radio. Adding a podcast is a royal pain. Even when I export an XML file from iTunes Canola doesn't import it! Maybe Canola can work with podcastalley or podcaster to have a built-in directory for easy subscription and podcast exploration

Support for Video Podcasts - This is one of my bigger problems with the tablet. I am not sure if the N800 supports video podcasts that work on iPods (my tablet has played videos a bit choppy), there should be video podcast support in Canola.

Better TVersity support - Recently I discovered TVersity, and supposedly this work with Canola, but when I try to get G4's TVersity channel added to canola I run into problem.

Photos
Photo service Support - I know that there is a third party Flickr plugin (which doesn't work with the recent beta), but I would like to see Picassa support as well - officially


Television
IP TV support - I guess the model for this is Equinux's Media Central for the Mac. I would like to be able to see television from the channels available on Media Central, but I would also like to be able to access my Hulu and Joost accounts and view video from there, as well as CBS, ABC, and BBC websites. This would be pretty cool

Imagine how great of a PMP the internet tablet could be with these canola modifications!

Tags: N800, maemo, canola, media, player, suggestions, wishes

With Apple's removal of FIrewire 400 from all laptops, and complete removal of the port from the MacBook line, I am wondering if the firewire port is going the way of the dodo. I hope not because it's an technology!

Tags: technology, apple, SCSI, firewire, extinction

Thinking of retro operating systems, I had a bizarre realization the other day: out of all of the original PDA operating systems, Windows CE is the only one still evolving! If you think about it, the original PDA operating systems were these:


Apple's NewtonOS
Palm's PalmOS
Sharp's Synergy OS
Sony's MagicCap OS
Microsoft's Windows CE


Now Apple, Sony and Sharp came out of the PDA market and killed off their operating systems. Now I know that the Newton community still keeps the Newton current, but there is only so much enthusiasts can do with what they are given as building blocks. Palm is pulling a Commodore on us and keeps messing with the release dates and updates to the PalmOS. For all intents and purposes the PalmOS is dead.


Now Windows CE is really the only one that has endured! Sure the first versions were awful, but ten years later, it doesn't stink as much, and some people like it! (well some people like S&M too but anyway).


I find it interesting that Microsoft and Windows CE is the 'old school' that won the "PDA OS wars" and Apple and Google are the new guys entering the market.

Tags: technology, windows, Newton, palm, magiccap, PDA

I stumbled upon this article about a month ago, and I just had the opportunity to read it (my google reader starred items is backed up to the wazzoo).

Anyway, the article talks about alternative operating systems to MacOS, Windows, Linux, and the various popular UNIX variants (BSD, Solaris). I think that alternative operating systems should be encouraged, but at the moment they are of limited utility.

Looking at this list I see THREE amiga OS based/inspired operating systems. AmigaOS 4.1, AROS, and MorphOS. While I would love to use these operating systems. AmigaOS and MorphOS (the two commercially sponsored operating systems) do not work on x86! So I am not able to install on my mac under bootcamp or parallels! An AROS is more of a hobby project so useful applications aren't available in large number.

The remaining operating systems are nice attempts, and I hope they gain more support, but at the moment I feel like they aren't ready to replace my main OS - just like I thought linux wasn't going to replace my main OS five years ago.

With a little community support - and having them run on x86 - these operating systems can flourish. If you see a free one that you are curious about, I encourage you to download it an try it out.

Tags: technology, operating, system, amiga, BeOS

With the arrival of Nokia chat (beta), nokia created a conduit for the N800/N810 internet tablet devices which allows you to use your Nokia chat account with the internet tablet. Pretty good idea think I!

Now I know that it's easier to create a conduit for Nokia Chat for the N800 because nokia chat works on the XMPP/Jabber which the internet tablet already supports, BUT nokia should really create some conduits for other popular IM platforms like ICQ, AIM, Yahoo and MSN so people can use the built-in chat client to chat and video/voice chat! (and exchange files).

I've got nothing against Pidgin. It's a great app! But... I would liketo see some alternatives!

Tags: Nokia, chat, N800, applications, beta, IM

OK, Life on Mars, the US version, started recently and MUCH to my disappointment the role of Gene Hunt is NOT played by Colm Meany but by Harvey Keitel. Now I had read the previews and I did not care much about the series because I felt that it could not do justice to the original BBC production. In addition, originally there wasn't an Annie in the story (a main character in the BBC version) - this was fixed.

I was willing to give the series a try because Meany was going to be Hunt but now that they've gotten rid of him and replaced him with Keitel - thanks but no thanks! There's a lot of other TV to be had and I don't plan on wasting my time with the US version of Life on Mars. Since I never say never...I may give it a try next summer on hulu (or the network's site) when there is generally nothing much on TV.

Bad decision ABC, bad decision!

Tags: television, WTF, BBC, ABC

I've been thinking of the OS space lately and I thought of the poorly supported AmigaOS. Yes my friends, AmigaOS still exists, and it is still mismanaged! So what does the Amiga holding company need to do? It's quite simple - get off the PowerPC platform and get on with Intel already!!!

Now at home I've got a Mac Mini. On this Mac Mini I've got MacOS 10.5. I also have Parallels and Windows Vista installed (I know, I am crazy). On this Mini I can also play around with BeOS, and various linuxes and BSDs. Thinking of the OS space, there are three serious contenders for our desktops.

1. Apple with MacOS X
2. Microsoft with Windows Vista (and soonish Windows 7)
3. Linux (with Ubuntu being my personal preference)

Amiga still develops an OS. Amiga still puts effort and innovation into the OS. The OS doesn't run on hardware commonly available to consumers and businesses. Thus the OS will not be used. Here's some food for thought.

1. Port AmigaOS 4 to Intel.

2. Create a 'classic' layer that uses common graphics cards and the powerful multicore processesors we've got in our machines these days to dot JIT translation of special chip code and motorola 68k code to have older apps run on new machines.

3. Create a VMware/Parallels easy install for people on Windows and Macs to easily try out your product and to easily have it as a second environment!

4. Make it consumer friendly, not geek friendly (but keep us geeks in mind)

Amiga needs to finally make a comeback!

Tags: amiga, technology, intel, macintosh

OK, so I wrote about why Palm needs Android. Now I am going to help them with their overall strategy while I'm at it.

I listened to an episode of the 1src podcast a few months back, and it was mentioned that Palms strategy is to have three tiers of devices:

1. Entry level - running PalmOS Classic. These devices will be cheap smartphones to get people into the smartphone word from the feature-phone world. These devices would be devices like the Palm Centro. They may even retain the Centro naming convention for these devices.

2. Mid Level - running PalmOS II (Nova) and focused toward a more advanced user group, but not quite up to the enterprise level.

3. Enterprise Level - Running Windows Mobile. These devices will be like the Palm Pro and aimed at businesses and super-duper-uber users.

Now is a previous post I had mentioned how Palm should go for android and halt development of PalmOS II. In addition to that, Palm should also completely eliminate PalmOS Classic and get in bed with Symbian.

If Palm continues to court Windows Mobile, they've got the business user. If they go with Android, as I said in a previous post, they gain from the many apps that will be developed, and they can tailor the android experience with their palm know how.

Where does Symbian fit in?

Well, symbian is the largest mobile OS in the world. It has a lot of apps already available! Palm is not a known brand in Europe, but if they run Symbian they can make a bigger splash in the market over there. Palm is a well known name in North America, so running symbian benefits them because they will be building upon the great library of apps already available for symbian AND moving forward.

PalmOS classic at the moment is stagnant and has no future. Why invest in an entry level line that runs an obsolete OS?

Palm should look into making symbian phones both for entry and mid level clients.

Tags: palm, symbian, technology, opinion

I was reading this article recently about why Palm needs Android. I know, my google reader starred items list is a little backed up, so the article is not very fresh - but I do believe that it is quite relevant.

I do agree that Palm needs Android, but for somewhat different reasons than the article points out. The article does have some interesting points to make - like the OS market is crowded and making one that you control more doesn't guarantee you success.

My reasons for Palm ditching Palm OS II (Nova) are simple:

First, Palm has a piss poor record on OS development in recent years.
Palm was supposed to release PalmOS 6 - Cobalt... but they messed that up and the OS was essentially dead on arrival. No manufacturers, not even palm themselves used it!

Then palm decides to buy out a chinese linux manufacturer and merge their Cobalt OS with the linux they purchased to make a new OS. What happened? PalmSource was bought off by a Japanese company. The company then completed the OS (or is nearly completing it) and Palm is not using this OS, THEIR OWN brain child on new devices. Instead they opt to build something from scratch and call it Palm OS II.

Now Palm OS II has been delayed, and I think it will be delayed again, and again. I think it will be DOA just like Cobalt was.


Second, Palm needs to cut off the deadwood called Palm OS 5.x (aka palm OS classic). Palm needs to pull an Apple here. They've been supporting their classic OS for a long time, grafting on more and more functionality. Good for them! It really shows ingenuity on their part. Time has come though to make the symbolic gesture of putting PalmOS classic to rest.

By going with Android not only do they have the benefit of an open source OS, they also have the benefit of getting all those nifty apps that are coming down the road on Android. This is also an incentive for all those PalmOS developers to upgrade their apps from PalmOS classic to Android - there is going to be a bigger market!

What about all those legacy apps you ask? Well, they can be put out to pasture as well! It's time for them to retire. Palm has said that they will maintain the centro line for entry level consumers, so developers can still make apps for PalmOS classic if they want. People in the mid-tiers using Android Palm products can maybe use an Access provided Palm emulator to run most of the apps that they paid for in the past while they transition to newer apps.


Palm needs to stop wasting money on PalmOS II (Nova) and start developing some android apps to make their phones stand out!

Tags: opinion, palm, android, linux, symbiosis

Not much to say about this one.

It's an appstore rejection timeline using a cool web 2.0 tool

I just found it interesting (both the tool and the timeline)

Tags: apple, iPhone, appstore, applications, NDA, rejection

I've been experimenting with many web 2.0 services lately. Each one of them requires its own username and password. Admittedly using something like Hellotxt allows one to setup a service and then blog/update from hellotxt, so updating isn't that problematic - even though you aren't fully utilizing the service you signed up for because services like hellotxt and ping.fm allow you to use the lowest common denominator of services (i.e. text)

I've been thinking that I have way to many logins for all these services. I really wish that I could use openID for all these services - it would make life so much simpler!

Tags: social, netwoking, networks, web2, login, openID

Well, SonyEricsson wasn't that enthusiastic about UIQ recently when it announced that UIQ failed to meet expectations. Recently motorola - the other major backer of UIQ, called it a day for UIQ when it announced that it was stopping development on UIQ and MOTOMAGX (their linux based OS).


I have to say that I still love my P800 and I won't be giving it up any time soon. It's going to my personal gadget museum (along with my Newton). I also have to say that that it wasn't UIQ that failed to meet expectations, but rather SonyEricsson and Motorola. They never put their full weight behind the platform to support it so as a consequence:

1. Not enough phones running UIQ (compared to Nokia's S60)

2. Some phones were problematic and said companies never fixed them creating a problem in the brand image and customer loyalty

3. No binary compatibility with other Symbian platforms! This seems like a no brainer, especially since S60 apps were plentiful!

4. The phones that came our were feature deprived: one glaring example is the complete lack of quadband GSM and US 3G bands! by omitting such a large market SE kept the UIQ out of the hands of willing users.

Oh well, UIQ - another footnote in tech history. Long live Symbian!

Tags: UIQ, symbian, s60, sony, ericsson, Phones, telephony

This is a screenshot from my google reader.
It just goes to show that our priorities are a bit messed up....

Tags: weird, technology, google, zeitgeist

Interesting question!

I've been reading recently of all the apps that are getting the axe from apple, and I've been reading all the commentaries on sites like Engadget and I can say with certainty that this is yet one more reason why I stay away from the iPhone.

Many defenders of Apple's actions either use incorrect logic or write off apple's action as something normal for a phone. People who use incorrect facts claim that it's apple's prerogative to protect their source of revenue because they created xyz - in the case of the podcaster application it was that Apple created and hosts all podcasts. What? really? Is this what you believe? Apple neither created podcasts, nor hosts them!

In the case of 'the iPhone is just a phone and you can't run whatever you like on your Moto RAZR"...well, no. Apple is positing the iPhone as a smartphone for the rest of us. Smartphones, no matter what brand - symbian, palm, windows, blackberry, have a wealth of apps and their distribution is not controlled by the maker of the device.

I can get a lot of apps for my Nokia N80, just as I could for my HTC Blue Angel. Neither Nokia nor Microsoft could tell me what to run on my device, and they could not tell their devs what not to make for those phones.

Now what IF apple took the same stance with the MacOS as they do with the iPhone? Well - quite simple, we would all pretty much give Apple the finger and tell them off. Application of value would be few and far between.

We would not have great applications like Rapidweaver because those would "replicate" the features of iWeb.

We would not have MailPlane because those features "replicate" the features of Mail.

We would not have Textmate because textmate "replicates" the features of SimpleText.

We would not have Transmission because that would be a bandwidth hog.

We wouldn't have open source apps, or apps ported over from Linux because those would violate the NDA agreements.

In other words, what we love about the Mac would cease to exist.

It's time for Apple to stop stifling the iPhone and the iPod Touch and it's time to let the Mac community do what they do best - support the platform!

Tags: WTF, apple, iPhone, applications, technology, critique, unforseen

A while back I got a free license for Nova Media's FoneLink. This software allows you to connect your phone to your Mac running MacOS X and it allows you to transfer files, perform backups of your phone, and synchronize PIM and SMS data.

The software is quite admirable in terms of its compatibility list. The phones include phones running Symbian S60, UIQ, Nokia S40 and whatever OS regular samsung and SonyEricsson phones run. Click here to see for yourself!

My phone, with which I have been testing this software, is a Nokia N80 purchased two years ago, with firmware version 4.0623.0.42. In general I like the software, however it does have some features missing which I would love to see in a future version.

I was planning on doing a looooonger review - but I decided to keep it short and sweet. Essentially the application does what it advertises which is pretty cool!

One of the features of FoneLink is Mobile Finder. This feature does what you think it does. It provides a finder interface to your phone's memory and to the attached SD card (if your phone supports removable memory). The mobile finder allows you to look at your music, photos, video and other multimedia, and transfer files between your computer and the phone.

One of the features that I really liked was the ringtone creator that is part of this media center interface. You can drag and drop any MP3 file, and cut it down to create a ringtone for your phone. I should mention that the MP3 file you are trying to cut down should be of reasonable size. I tried cutting a 64MB podcast down to get a small clip as a ringtone and the program crashed.

Another feature is called the Organizer and it allows you to view the notes, calendar events, tasks, the contacts and the SMS on your phone. It also allows you to send SMS messages and add notes in your phone's notes app right from the desktop - pretty convenient if you ask me. The application supports Growl (awesome, awesome app!), so when new SMS messages come in, you get to see them on your desktop.

Contacts and calendar events can't be changed from the app, but you can sync to make changes between your addressbook/ical and your phone - which brings me to the next feature - synchronization. The application is a replacement for iSync and it allows you to sync your phone's PIM data with your computer's. Personally I did not use the sync functionality because quite honestly iSync works perfectly fine for me.

Finally, there is a feature called Time Tunnel and obviously it is a play on Apple's Time machine. It allows you to go back to a previous backed up version of the phone's software to collect data. I used this a few times. As a matter of fact the default behavior of the app was to try to create a backup as soon as you connect your phone to it. I didn't use this feature a lot.

The backup seemed to take quite some time (although I think it's a differential backup so it should get shorter as you use it more), and it made my phone reboot. The backups seemed to be there when I checked them out, but I did not like having my phone reboot and the app being unresponsive - maybe it had crashed.

The one last thing about this app is that updates to the app seem to be fairly regular, so if you do end up buying it, you will probably get good support!


Now, here are some things I would like to have in future version of this app:

MMS import - Just like there is an SMS app, I would like to be able to see my MMS messages on the desktop, and I would like to send MMS messages right from the desktop.


Phone log - I would love to be able to see my phone log on the desktop, like I see who's SMSd me, who I SMSd and when.

Called ID flash on screen when someone calls - This is a feature of BluePhoneElite and I think that FoneLink would really benefit from the implementation. When someone calls, their name and number show on my desktop. Often at the office (and at home) my phone is on silent - I just don't like to have the ringer on - it annoys me - but I would like to know if someone is calling. Implementing this functionality would be great. It can be a growl message for all I care.


Growl for voicemails - A growl notification when you have a new voicemail would be nice.




All things considered, this isn't a bad app!

Tags: review, technology, macintosh, macos, Nokia, N80, fonelink, software

OK I was thinking about this the other day.

Nokia bought all of the shares of Symbian, and turned it to the Symbian foundation, with a roadmap to open source the OS. The features of MOAP and of UIQ will make their way to S60, essentially creating one platform. We've already seen Nokia experiment with touch screen S60 (the so called Nokia Tube) so we're partly there.

There was also scuttlebutt (although disputed) of Nokia and Google cooperating. Hmmm...

For those that don't remember, Nokia owns the maemo linux platform that runs on the Nxxx series internet tablets, and acquired trolltech earlier this year, which may mean a lot of the maemo platform.

Now with all this consolidation, cooperation, and merging, are we seeing an "all roads lead to symbian" situation?



for full size graphic see here.



Just a thought...

Tags: symbian, android, Nokia, prediction, linux

I remember a while back listening to the Digital Campus podcast and there was a mention of how Wikipedia moderators have been cracking down on uncited articles.

While searching for my name on cuil.com, I found a few copies on the MacAst article that I had contributed to.


**flashback**
Before MP3 playing software was given away with the Operating System (or as Freeware on the internet), you actually had to buy the software (circa 1998). I had purchased a program called MacAmp which was later renamed MacAst.

The program was nice, working under MacOS 9, it had a small footprint and the nice thing about it was that it had an extensible architecture which allowed people to create localization files called Phrasebooks. I had created and submitted those phrasebooks to the MacAst people for Greek, Italian and French (available in the download section and through archive.org).

Years later, when I stumbled upon the wikipedia entry for MacAst, I added some information about it, namely about it's extensible Phrasebook architecture, I mentioned the localizations that were available, and gave myself credit for the three that I had done.


**flash forward**

I clicked on the wikipedia link to go to the main article for MacAst and the article was not there!!! What had happened?

Well, There were two articles, one on MacAst (which seemed to me pretty balanced, despite the lack of references), and one for MacAmp (which the wiki people thought was one sided).

The wikipedia people merged the two articles and kept the one sided one, and edited the heck out of it. Now, I can go ahead, and cite archive.org and a few news released from various mac websites of the time to give the article a bit more meat on its bones, but this lead me down a thinking path: What happens when you don't have citations? How do you cite that?

There is another wikipedia entry that I contribute to, the entry for the village I grew up in Greece. Most of the knowledge I have of that place is either first hand - I grew up there, I roamed about, I know of the places, or second or third hand - my grandmother, or neighbor told me a history of the village, or told me of a story that has been passed down in the oral tradition from one generation to the other.

In these instances what do you do? Do you record these things on your blog or website before you contribute to the wiki entry or what? It dawned on me that what wikipedia is trying to leverage is the knowledge that is within all of us, and some of that knowledge is tacit. You know it's true, you just don't remember what the source was, or there is no written record, or you can't admit to knowing about it because you got just happened to find a 'beta' of an unreleased piece of software that never made it to market that you weren't supposed to have anyway...

Going heavy handed with the editing seems to be a detracting feature of current day wikipedia...

Just my two cents...

Tags: wikipedia, technology, citations, oddity

One of my problems with the iPhone is that it lacks an MMS client. Now I don't send MMS messages often, and I don't receive them often. Having unlimited data on the iPhone would encourage me to send out more MMS messages. Sadly, the iPhone does not support this feature.


Many fanboys will says that MMS is antiquated, we not have email so we can send photos over email - hooray for email! What these fanboys are failing to see if that MMS is so much more than just a simple photo sending application. The applications of email and MMS are different and are aimed at a different demographic.


To claim that you can do with email what you do with MMS, and you can do it better is to claim that can do with a mallet what you can do with a jewel's hammer. I suppose you can, but the end result is not the same.


An email is built for text, and attachments come second. There is no presentation layer with email, and there is no streamlining of the data for mobile phones. If you send a 5MP photo over email, it's going to be 5MP - overkill. In addition, there is no notification of whether you have email unless you constantly poll your email server, and even today not all phones come with email clients.


MMS on the other hand is available on all handsets, from the cheap handset you get for free when you sign a contract, to the most advanced smartphones (with the exception of the iPhone of course), so there is a layer of compatibility there.


MMS messages allow you to create slides with content, almost like powerpoint, but as a message platform. The MMS application takes that huge picture you took and scales it down for you to make sending and receiving faster and easier. When you send a picture message (MMS) to someone, the point is not that you want them to have the photo, you just want to show them something.


Finally, with MMS messages you get a notification that you have a new MMS, over the network. You don't have to poll a server to do this - it's just pushed to you.


I wish the fanboys would quiet down already about the superiority of email because they obviously don't get the difference.

Tags: technology, iPhone, apple, MMS, telephony, annoying, settingTheRecordStraight, rant

My second attempt to use what I have as an iPod replacement is my Nokia N800. On the surface it kind of looks like an iPod touch, so it should work, no? Well, yes and no. Compared to my N80 and the PSP the N800 requires the least amount of investment. It came with 4GB worth of SD memory, and I had 2GB from my now defunct HTC Blue Angel, so I have a total of 6GB to play with. It has been a bumpy road, but I am working with it.

So what are the tools of the trade? I use the built-in media player to play back my music and podcasts, I use gpodder to subscribe and download podcasts and the USB cable to connect the N800 to my PowerBook whenever I want to load more music on it. Just like most things, it's got its good, its bad and its ugly.

The good: I can play my MP3s, I can listen to my podcasts. The volume is acceptable - it compares equally to my 4.5 year old iPod but when I am on the train I sometimes have trouble hearing. I like that I can download podcasts directly to my N800, so if I run out of podcasts during the day, I can hop on to a hotspot and download a few more for my commute home.

The bad: gppodder lags a bit. There are times that the application is simply non-responsive and you need to just let it do its thing. This can be *very* frustrating. Another frustrating thing is that you can't do a partial keylock. You can either lock the touchscreen and all keys, or you can leave it unlocked. This is frustrating because there are times that I simply want to increase or decrease the volume and I have to remove the unit from my bad, unlock all keys, adjust the volume, re-lock, and put it back in my bag. The device is not very media friendly in this way.

The ugly: Well, there aren't many ugly things about it. The one thing that I would shoehorn in this category is the lack of adequate video support. I was looking forward to downloading video podcasts again and viewing them during my commute. Unfortunately the video lags A LOT, it's badly out of sync when it does start working and it's choppy. So much for video podcasts...

Now I know that it is an Internet Tablet, and not a media player, but the N800 is a great device! I really wish that Nokia had pumped up the video processing on this unit device and that they had created a media profile where the screen locks automatically after X time, the wifi/BT are turned off automatically and certain keys are mapped for media functions (next song/previous song/volume up/volume down)

All things considered, the N800 is a great media player IF you don't watch video podcasts AND you don't have the urge to keep skipping to the next track.

Tags: apple, ipod, Nokia, internet, tablet, N800, technology

I read this article last week posted on the UIQ blog, and it was titled "Why UIQ failed to meet the expectations". I caution those that want to read this article: it is horribly written! Nevertheless it does provide some insight as to why the UIQ never became popular.

The article talks mostly about software, and I think that software is quite a valid reason for the failure to meet expectations. Lack of flash, memory issues, and not a lot of apps (compared to S60, Palm and Windows Mobile) are definite contributors to the lack of success of the platform. I however disagree that the software, and SonyEricsson's support policies, are the root of the problem.

My diagnosis: It's the phones, stupid!
I bought my P800 on the day it came out. I was a happy camper even after two years after it came out! Yes there were issues, but I was content with the phone. Other models succeeded it: the P900, P910 and P990. None of these phones enticed me to spend another $600-$1000 to upgrade!

When Nokia, and HTC were coming out with phones that were Quadband GSM, UMTS, had GPS and WiFi built-in, and had cameras that were 3 or 5 Megapixel, why would I spend my hard earned money to buy a P9xx phone that had a limited camera, no GPS, no WiFi *and* was only triband GSM?

Nokia did a smart thing, it put S60 on a boatload of phones, and gave consumers choice! SonyEricsson on the other hand gave you one P-model (Professional), on W-model (Walkman) and one M-model (mid range?) Why lower your expectations with SonyEricsson when you can have more options with Nokia? This lack of hardware probably discouraged a lot of developers, and deprived the UIQ from a user base that would ultimately support it.

I am interested in seeing how the UIQ will be folded into the open symbian platform. Will it survive in some fashion? or will it bite the dust?

Tags: Phones, telephony, sony, ericsson, UIQ

I was recently in the public transport system, and I pulled out my internet tablet, fired up the GarnetVM (PalmOS virtual machine), and looked up the times of the upcoming trains to get back home. At this point I recalled that someone had been able to get a developer's build of Android to run on Maemo and I started pondering: is there anything this device can't do?

The folks over at OpenEinstein are working at getting the Newton emulator (called Einstein) to run on the newest Maemo (diablo), I can run PalmOS applications through GarnetVM, I can install ubuntu on the tablet (the first OS hacked to run on the NIT), and now Android.

Pretty slick I must say! Now if only it had a more powerful A/V processor!

Tags: Nokia, internet, tablet, N800, operating, system

When my iPod bit the dust, I immediately wanted to get another one (more on that in a later post), but for the time being I wanted to use what I had in order to get on my day to day business. There are three options: My PSP, my N80 or my N800 Internet Tablet (NIT).

I don't have that much external memory for my PSP, so unless I wanted to invest in memory stick DUOs, I am a bit out of luck. Also, the PSP is a bit bulky, and in order to carry it around I would need some sort of case, which I don't have, so I decided to give up on that idea.

The N80 was the next contender. My usual listening habits include podcasts. Lots and lots of podcasts. I exported my podcast subscriptions in the form of an OPML file from iTunes. I installed the podcasting client on my N80, and sent the OPML file via bluetooth. Seamless. I can connect my headphones to my N80, I can download podcasts over the air, and listen to them.

Well, I hit a snag. My removable memory is only 128MB, so I would need to invest in a miniSD card (or more if I wanted music). Considering that my N80 is 2 years old and newer phones take microSD (damned formats!), it seems idiotic to waste money on miniSD cards, thus I can only download one or two podcasts. I am OK with that. I am usually within a WiFi hotspot near work, and at home so I can always keep my podlist fresh.

I tried downloading a podcast (1 podcast), and I could not! My connection (at home) kept stalling! I finally gave up. Granted I haven't tried since to see if I can get podcasts on my N80, but I've sort of written it off for now.

N80 as an iPod replacement, I give you a C+

Tags: ipod, PSP, Nokia, N80

I've been looking at phones lately (no thanks to the iPhone!) and I must say that I am seeing some absurdities with the selection of bands. GSM had five bands (frequencies), although only four are used. THe original band was 900Mhz, then 1800Mhz rolled out in Europe, 1900Mhz and 850Mhz followed suit in the Americas and 450Mhz was tested but never deployed. This was a 2G technology

Now we've got 3G rolling out. We started with 2100Mhz and we rejoiced! This would be the one band to unify the world! Well, no! at&t came in and decided to use 1900Mhz and 850Mhz as well! OK, phones are triband 3G now (well some anyway), and T-Mobile US comes out with 1700Mhz, and some carriers in Europe are experimenting with 900Mhz...that's five bands!

Nokia phones aren't triband (the iPhone and some HTC handsets are). With nokia handsets you get 2100, or 1900/850, or 2100/900 or 2100/850... Just make a quintband 3G chip already! I wonder what LTE is going to bring...

This sort of reminds me of a recent Hollowmen episode I watched. The think tank had a 6-point plan for the Prime Minister, but they could not implement it. So... they came up with a 4-point plan, to make the 6-point plan a 2-point plan. Hillarious, until you think about it!

Tags: GSM, frequencies, UMTS, Phones, telephony

Well, Helio is going the way of the dodo! It’s being acquired by Virgin Mobile, and the brand will eventually merge into the Virgin brand. When Helio came out, I thought that their focus was a little too narrow. When they first came out they were going after Korean ex-pats, and people who wanted advanced Korean features on their phones. While the company did well (170,000 subscribers is nothing to scoff at), and their phones were pretty cool and had a great user interface, they just could not compete.

My problem with Helio was that it was not GSM. While I don’t change phones that often these days, I still like to pull out my SIM and put it in a different phone for the day or the weekend. CDMA phones just don’t have that and I just never got to use Helio because of it. Now if their network piggybacked off AT&T and T-Mobile for GSM/UMTS, I would most likely have given them a try. I keep hoping that Virgin will jump onto the UMTS bandwagon, but given that 40% is the company is owned by Sprint, that is most likely not happening.

Adios to Helio!

Tags: helio, technology, Phones, telephony, defunct

Recently Nokia announced that they intended to buy the rest of Symbian, and then open up the platform. This should lead to some sort of consolidation of the platform. Nokia has done its part by merging the Series90 and Series80 platforms into Series60, but then there is also the question of UIQ and MOAP(S).

One of the reasons I went with Symbian originally (with the original SonyEricsson P800) was the promise of Over-the-air updates! Before my P800, I had used a number of feature phones, including the Ericsson T28w, and the Nokia 8890. I liked those phones, but in order to get another language pack, or to get a firmware upgrade that fixed problems with the phone’s existing firmware, I need to send the phone off to a professional (or service center) that flashed the new firmware to the phone, and sent it back to me. This cost me $50 each time I did it.
With the P800, I expected to be able to upgrade my OS from my desktop computer. I would just plug in my phone to my computer with USB, a downloader would download the new firmware and flash it to my phone. NOPE! It wasn’t like that! I still needed to send it into a service center. It didn’t really matter to me that much because I had the time to mess with my phone and reinstall all my apps.

Fast forward to the Nokia N80. I thought I was able to do OTA! NOPE! I got the ability to download and flash firmware on my desktop, so I did not have to send it out and pay money for the flash, but that still meant that all my data got whipped, so I needed to resync my PIM data and reinstall all my apps because installing on an SD card was not always dependable.

Now, all other smartphones are the same, palm, blackberry, windows mobile, and the iphone. You want new firmware? Erase and Install! Should I be bothered that symbian is the same way? Yes! I should be, because OTA and user upgradable firmware was something that was promised quite a while ago. While some features have trickled down, it’s taken a long time! I hope the new Symbian Foundation makes a batter OS and a better upgrade procedure.

Tags: symbian, UIQ, s60, OTA, updates, opinion

I was recently reading some commentary about the new iPhone. Some users (or perspective buyers) were commenting that they were really bummed about the new iPhone. Now granted, this is probably a figure of speech and it doesn’t really reflect their mental state, but when I read things like these I have to take a step back.

There are people out there that are genuinely bummed about ford not having X in their cars, or Dell not throwing in Y in their laptops, or Apple not including features A, B, C in the new iPhone, but my response to them is “get a grip!” Seriously! Think about it, it’s just a consumer product! If it doesn’t do what you want it to do, then don’t buy it! Wait for version x.x when they will incorporate what you want it to have!
If you want to be bummed about the financial crisis, food shortage, health crises around the world, the by all means be bummed, but don’t be bummed about something as insignificant as “no MMS on the iPhone!” Jeez!

Tags: technology, apple, iPhone, forums

While coming back from work a few days ago my iPod froze. It just stopped playing music! It was also quite an inopportune moment because my train had just come and I was trying to squeeze in. I reset the unit, and I got the folder icon. Darn!

I reset the unit again! Got the folder icon again. Darn! I reset it a third time and I got it working! Yay! I started listening merrily to my songs again.

Three songs later, freeze – no sounds coming out of my earbuds. Couldn’t fast forward or change song. I reset the unit again! Got the folder icon again. I waited until I got home.

I looked at the knowledge base, since the battery was full, and I was still getting the folder icon, I decided to do a restore. Plugged it into my mac, started a restore and went to get some food. When I came back there was an error, the restoration failed. Tried resetting the unit – sad pod, and that sound, that horrible, horrible sound – click, click, click. It’s dead Jim!

Tags: ipod, click, death, technology

Recently I started listening to Retrocity, a retro gaming podcast, and Sega and the game gear were mentioned. Back when the Game Gear was released, I already owned a Gameboy (which I had bought with my own money), and I was vacationing with my dad. My ‘goal’ was to own an Atari Lynx, a Gameboy and a Game Gear. In order to get a day closer to the goal I asked my dad to buy me a Game Gear for my name day that summer.

The unit, as far as I remember, cost about $150. I was absolutely in love with the device! I only had two or three games for it, but by the time I donated it, I had amassed a whopping 7 games! The love goggles did muddy up my perception of the unit by a lot! While the colors were great, something that the Gameboy did not have, the thing ate up battery power like there was no tomorrow! The unit took six AA batteries, and that would give you an hour and a half to two hours of play time.

In order to make the unit worth while you needed to get a power adapter to hood directly into the car’s cigarette lighter port, or your home’s electrical outlet. The Game Gear went mostly unplayed before I bought the adapter (3 years after I got the unit!!!) simply because batteries were an expensive proposition, and in retrospect not environmentally safe. In the end I donated my Game Gear so it could find a good home with people who would play it a lot.

The Game Gear did have several different attachments one could buy, like a television tuner (I craved one of these since I did not have a TV in my bedroom – but never got one), and a Master System cartridge converter (also cool but in those days there was no ebay, so I could not get my hands on any cheap games)

In retrospect, for the money I paid for the Game Gear, Adapter, and all the batteries I went through, I maybe should have bought some more Gameboy games, and one of those magnifier/illuminator gadgets to play games in the dark. Oh well! This is what happens to early adopters, sometimes!

Tags: video, games, video games, sega, gamegear

I upgraded my Nokia N800 to the newest firmware a while back, and I have to say that I am pretty pleased! Initially I was not going to upgrade because I was really not looking forward to reinstalling my applications. Thankfully, the backup that I did also captured most of my config files so I did not have to configure more of my upgraded apps.

My overall impression of Diablo is favorable. I am really liking the new email client, and the browser seems snappier than before but maybe it’s just new-OS-it is that I am experiencing, so we’ll see how that goes.

I decided to upgrade the firmware on the N800 for one reason: Over-the-Air upgrades! (OTA). This means that in the future, when there are new OS upgrades, I can just download them over the Wifi network and install them without needing a PC, and without needing to reinstall all my apps again – which is something I hate to do. I just want my device to work, not to make me work in order for it to work.

Tags: maemo, diablo, Nokia, N800, updates, upgrade

I’ve been using Firefox 3.0 for a couple of weeks now on my Vista machine at work, and I can say that I really like this version, much better than the 2.x that I used to use up to now. I am not really into micro-analyzing what renders on my screen. All I know, from an end user perspective, is that the application is snappy, and what is displayed on the screen looks normal.

I think I need to spend some more time though testing the new stuff, and how all my plug-ins work.

Tags: firefox, internet

Many of my friends know I am a technology geek, and of course their first question to me, after Jobs’ announcement of the iPhone 3G is to ask me whether or not I am getting a 3G iPhone. The answer at this point is ‘no’ and this perplexes very many people who consider me an Apple fanboy. There is quite a logical reason to my denial of the “jesusphone 2.0” and it has (almost) nothing to do with features.

Does the lack of a front facing camera, lack of copy/paste and lack of MMS bug me? Well to some extent yes, but not enough to deter me from buying the phone. What deters me is cold hard pragmatism.

My iPod (20GB click wheel) still works! I’ve never had any problems with it, never replaced the battery, it’s all original issue, it works, and I am still not using the entire capacity (I’ve got 6GB available). My Nokia N80 still works and it has a kickass camera on it, when compared to the iPhone’s camera anyway. I do take the train to work, but I still have schoolwork to do, so I read on the train, I don’t need the iPhone to keep me company. On top of that at&t’s $30/month data plans are too expensive for my tastes. I know that business folk pay that much for their windows mobile, palmos and blackberry plans, but they can also write it off, or their company pays for the device. $20/month for data+ SMS with the iPhone 1.0 was something that would entice me to get the iPhone and the data package but $30 and no SMS, gimme a break.

So when would I buy an iPhone? Probably around the third generation of iPhone when they add more features, if my current phone is busted, if my iPod is busted, if I have no other readings to do while commuting and if I am still commuting (although with gasoline going up up up, this is probably a given)

Tags: apple, iPhone, technology

I’ve been using Expose since Tiger came out, it is a nifty function of the MacOS. When Leopard came out I did not use Expose at all because I did not have to experiment with the functionality, and quite honestly I couldn’t be bothered. I had gotten my workflow to a point where I was happy, and I did not want to change. That all changed this week!

I started experimenting with Expose on my Leopard machines, and all I have to say is WOW! Why did I shun this feature before? It’s really quite useful! I used to hide applications, and minimize things to the dock in order to keep an uncluttered screen. With Expose, this is no more! I setup my application to open in certain spaces, and BAM! Uncluttered desktop! Simply awesome!

Tags: macintosh, macos, spaces, experimentation

…but I don’t know exactly what to do!

I need to do some RapidWeaver cleaning out. I’ve got some obsolete themes from the RapidWeaver 3.1 era that I downloaded a while back, and that have been orphaned by their creators. I like the themes, and I wanted to update them for rapidweaver 3.6 and 4.0 and redistribute them (for free of course), but I simply have not had the time.

I think my quest will start with pulling these themes out of my rapidweaver folder so that I no longer get the obsolete themes warning, and them slowly decide which themes I may want to use in the future, and which ones I probably won’t. I think I need to create a visual catalog of each theme, that way I can safely put them out to pasture, but still keep them the catalog around in case I need to pull them out of retirement.

The other dilemma is the whole 2.0 thing. I’ve created accounts on various 2.0 sites, and I am debating whether or not to create links on this page, and if I do create links, what is the best design to do this?

Gotta think about it…

Tags: rapidweaver, website, dilemma

Over the past few weeks I’ve been debating the purchase of a new laptop. No, my PowerBook G4 is still chugging along, but there is something to be said about doing your homework and research on your sofa, wirelessly, rather than being tethered to an Ethernet cable near your router.

I’ve been looking at the Eee PC, and the ubuntu subnotebooks because my N800 experiences this far have been quite positive and I am willing to give linux a try (again). No, I am not giving up on the Mac, but spending $1700 on a tricked out MacBook is quite a lot compared to spending that money on a $500 subnotebook. My needs are simple: web browsing, office applications, IM, video (youtube, divx, etc) and RapidWeaver! I can’t see myself going back to another website creation tool having used rapidweaver for the past few years, and unfortunately it’s only a Mac product.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for a Mac subnotebook for the masses. The MacBook Air is nice, but I don’t want a second computer, and I don’t want to spend more than $700.

Tags: rapidweaver, macintosh, eeePC, asus, linux

I am surprised at how many people do not know of The Tick. The Tick is a comic book, that became an animated series, and then became a live action television show with Patrick Warburton (also known as Putty from Seinfeld). The series takes place in “the city” where anyone can become a superhero, provided that they get their superhero’s license. The tick is superhuman strong, but doesn’t remember much of his past, and is so into fighting crime that he sounds developmentally challenged when interacting with non-hero types.

Sadly, the live action TV series only lasted for a season, but it was a good one! It is available on Hulu (and on DVD). The animates series is not on Hulu, but both seasons are available on DVD.

Here is the first episode on hulu:

Tags: television, amazon, DVD, hulu, tick, entertainment, comedy

A few weeks ago I saw Apple’s new promotion. Get a new Mac, get a free 8GB iPod Touch! The offer is for college students, but since I am a graduate student, the offer still stands for me.

OK, I thought to myself, an iPod touch is a nice little web browsing device, I can put on it my most listened to music and podcasts, and use my older, four year old, iPod for more heavy duty tasks (such as outdoor entertainment while doing yard work). I also thought, OK, maybe this is an opportunity to get a MacBook. We’ll leave the MacBook rant for another time, this one is solely for the free iPod Touch.

The iPod is indeed free, but the caveat is that you need to buy it ($300), and then submit rebate forms in order to get that $300 back. Seriously, WTF? Just give me a free iPod touch, with the purchase of MacBook, and let’s forego the filling out of forms, getting receipt copies, mailing them to a rebate center, waiting six to eight weeks to get a check, and then deposit that check. My purchase is going to be electronic anyway, so why not let those internet electrons do all the work and save me from paying $300 that is just going to come back to me anyway!

I know that there are people out there that neglect to fill out their forms, so that is profit for Apple, but let’s get serious now!

Tags: ipod, touch, macintosh, apple, deals, opinion

Garnet VM beta 2 was released last week for the Nokia Internet Tablets. I decided to give it a try and see what’s new since beta 1. I do not have that many apps for palm since I was never really a user of the palm platform. I have the local commuter rail map and schedule application, google maps, and some freeware games that I downloaded a while back to test the virtual machine.

The first thing I did was to check the hotsync. As you know, the N800 does not come with a PIM suite, and I would really love to sync my mac with the addressbook, calendar, and notes of the garnet VM PIM apps. Nope, you can still only sync over the air, not over cable, so that leaves iSync out of the picture.

The second thing I checked was the control panel. I wanted to see if there are any changes (or improvements) there. Nope, same old stuff. I know that the VM allows you to use the N800’s wifi connection, so google maps just works, but what about Bluetooth? Can I send and receive stuff using the VM?

The last thing I checked, and it wasn’t there, was the inclusion of new apps. When someone gets a palm PDA, there are usually a number of useful apps such as blazer, versamail, and documents-to-go. I know that the N800 comes with a web browser and a mail client, but why not package those in with the VM (at least as alternatives)

I look forward to beta 3, maybe things will improve

Tags: garnetVM, Nokia, N800, sync, PIM

Well, I spent most of my computing weekend trying to get my PowerBook G4 updated to leopard. My first attempt was to just do a straight update. I did this because I felt a bit lazy. Well that seemed to work, initially, but I could not do safe boot (and as you may remember, safe boot is the only way my mac works these days). This took two to three hours start to finish.

My second attempt was to do an archive an install. A lot of message boards kept saying that people had the same problems as I did (on well functioning computers), and an archive and install solved their problems. This process took a couple of hours start to finish and still did not solve my problem! I still could not boot in safe boot mode.

I then ended up putting my mac aside while I contemplated my next move...

Finally I decided to go back to Tiger. I reinstalled it in an hour or so, and restored my data from my .Mac backups. With the exception of having to register some apps, nothing was lost in the botched upgrade process. I guess I won't be using rapidweaver 4 anytime soon...

Tags: leopard, tiger, macintosh, macos, updates, frustration, rapidweaver

Well, rapidweaver, the wonderful piece of software that I use to maintain this website, is now in version 4.0 and it is only leopard compatible! I tried it out on the family computer (a Mac Mini running Leopard), and it looks GREAT!

The one fly in the ointment is that my “development” machine is my decrepit PowerBook G4 that runs Tiger. I know that it can run Leopard, but since I can only boot it into safe mode, I did not bother upgrading it. Now I am having second thoughts. This weekend may be a “upgrade this old mac” type of weekend so that I can play with the new RW!

For those interested in RW, check it out here:

Tags: software, rapidweaver, updates

I was reading Mac.sis recently, and they had a promo running. They had obtained a few free licenses for FoneLink, and they were giving them away (provided of courses that you do a review of the product, which I will do at some point next week once I’ve sufficiently tested the product). I played around a little bit with it yesterday, but not enough to have a complete view of the program.

FoneLink is a piece of software that allows you to synchronize your contacts, calendar, to-do and SMS messages between your phone and your Mac. It also allows you to browse your phone for video, photos, music and ringtones and to transfer data to and from the phone. It also has a nifty feature (which I have not tried yet) that backs up the contents of your phone on your Mac (looks similar to Time Machine, or at least the name does).

I look forward to giving this a try at home.

Tags: software, macintosh, Nokia, s60, sync, isync, multimedia

Just for kicks I was looking at the Sony Mylo 2 the other day.

Don't ask me why, I don't know why. I was just looking.

Anyway, I was looking at the specs, and at the video demonstration bellow, and the device did impress me, even though it still lacks a lot of features.

I started thinking that this device might make a great SonyEricsson Phone. The OS seems to be refined at every iteration, it had widgets, it has an RSS reader and podcatcher (which need improvement), and it has skype (therefore it has a microphone and a speaker). This device would make a great phone, and a good competitor to the Danger Sidekick, the Helio Ocean and possibly to the Nokia N8xx and iPhone devices.

If you added Quadband HSPA, Quadband EDGE, opened up development so that people could write apps (such as games) for the device, included a good PIm suite, and tidied up the existing collection of apps that the device comes with. It could make SonyEricsson money.

Tags: mylo, sony, Phones, MID, internet, tablet, N800, Nokia, iPhone, competition

Windows Status report... The thing decided that I am a valid, non-pirated-version, user.

Thank you Microsoft!

Tags: windows, vista, weird, microsoft

Since the semester is over, and the customer traffic has died down for this week, I decided to do some spring cleaning on my Vista machine. Over the semester I had installed many applications that were one-use apps, or used them a few times when the same patron came back multiple times. Since the summer usually has different students coming in, and there is no guarantee that the Fall will bring the same students back, it’s time to speed up this old windows PC.

One of the applications that I uninstalled was Netscape Navigator. I used to use this browser since version 2.0 on my 68k Mac (and 96k modem!). Since Netscape killed it off last February, there was really no point to leaving it on my hard drive. If a patron calls and has a problem with the browser, the answer is simple: Upgrade.

Tags: technology, netscape, navigator, uninstall, vista, windows

In the past, my gripe about US cellular technologies has been that there is no standardization, so I can’t just buy a phone and go to any carrier (like I can in the rest of the world). The US used GSM, iDEN, CDMA, TDMA and AMPS. Luckily in recent years it’s really just come down to GSM and CDMA since the rest of the technologies are already laid to rest (AMPS and TDMA) or have one foot in the grace (iDEN). Most phones are Quadband GSM, so I can use my Phone with AT&T, T-Mobile, or any of the MVNOs that are on GSM.

3G is a bit of a quagmire. Most of the word uses the 1900/2100Mhz frequency pair for UMTS (3G GSM). The US on the other hand uses the 850Mhz, 1900Mhz and 1700/2100 pair for 3G. There are no Quadband 3G phones (yet). This is somewhat problematic for a ‘one phone for any carrier’ type of person…and CDMA is still holding in there, which means that I can’t just take my AT&T phone to Verizon, Sprint or AllTel (or Bell and Telus in Canada).

Here comes 4G. Of course 4G is 3 years (or so) into the future. All existing GSM/UMTS carriers around the world have decided that they are going with LTE for the 4G technology. Verizon announced that they are going to LTE, recently so did AllTel. Cool! This means, that when the time comes, I can have one phone that will work around the world, with any carrier! Just swap out the SIM! If I get sick of AT&T, I can go to Verizon, or T-Mobile, or AllTel. Sprint on the other hand…who knows! They might be bought by Deutche Telekom in the next few years, so they may be part of T-Mobile

Tags: GSM, CDMA, LTE, UMTS, telephony

OK it doesn’t exist yet, but that would be a cool app for phones and the Nokia Internet Tablet to have. Hellotxt is a web interface that allows you to log into your favorite microblogging services (if you have more than one), such as twitter, jaiku, pownce, facebook and so on, and it allows you to send the same status update to all of them.

The next level to this is the app. It’s local to your machine, you can log into all these services (just like a multiclient IM program), and you can not only send status updates to all your services, you can also receive status updates on your network from this client.

I wonder if they will ever make this app

Tags: twitter, technology, suggestions, hellotxt, pownce, jaiku

My twitter feed are protected (a friends and family sort of deal, or people I follow). As such when people want to follow me I need to authorize them. Recently I had a couple of people make a request for authorization but for the life of me I could not recognize them! I did the obligatory Google search, but the results were not enlightening.

So here is a suggestions for the guys at twitter (not that they are listening), add a little box for people to write a small tweet in identifying themselves, because their profile might not tell people enough.

Tags: twitter, suggestions, ideas

For the last year or so I’ve been keeping a personal blog, things that happen in everyday life. The range of topics is quite large, from the cure puppy I may have seen on my way to the library, to the more serious type like cursing that the idiot that cut me off this morning.

On Blogger, your blog can be public, which means anyone can view it - obviously I don’t want that, I just want close friends and family to read it so they know what it going on in my behind the scenes world. The next level is “only blog authors”, again I don’t want this because only I want to be writing on my blog. The final option is “only invited guests”, whereby I can invite (and authorize) people to view and comment on my blog posts.

This is a nice stop gap measure for the people whose emails I’ve got. The truth is that I do not have all of my family’s email addresses and some don’t even use email due to generational or technological issues. The killer feature here would be something like twitter’s “request to follow”. My twitter feed is also protected, and if anyone wants to follow me they can make a request and I can approve or deny. I would like this functionality in Blogger – it would make life so much easier!

Tags: personal, blogger, google, features, thoughts

The best of the Sidekick, iPhone, Sony Cybershot, and PSP, all rolled into one!

I don’t quite know how I would call someone with this big boy – maybe a hand’s free device like those old Tungsten W’s from Palm, but I think it is a pretty cool concept. It doesn’t really fit the pocketability test though…

Now if they could run OpenEinstein on that puppy…

Tags: iwish, sidekick, hiptop, PSP, iPhone, camera, spoof, mockup, Phones

How’s this for a lovely Monday Morning Surprise?
I come into work, boot up my Vista machine, go get some water, and when I come back I get a little notice on the bottom right of my screen that says “This copy of Windows is not genuine.”

Microsoft is really screwed up! (not that you did not know that). Our campus has a Microsoft site license that covers Windows. I got the install CD and code from our IT department. For 10 months no problems, now I am no longer genuine? WTF? Microsoft, get your act together!

Tags: microsoft, technology, annoying

I was reading an article about Steve Ballmer the other day and I got the “developers” tune stuck in a loop in my head…

Here’s a blast from the past for you .

The original:



And the song version:

Tags: steve, ballmer, humor, video, youtube, developers, psych

I do not know how this escaped me last week, but it did!
I saw this on TUAW and it blew my mind! The IIgs has a special place in my computer usage history, it being the machine I learned to code on in high school. Some of the specs for this laptop are:

Large 15″ color screen. Much bigger than the ones on my other 8-bit computer projects (thus far)
Uses an original Apple IIgs motherboard with RAM expansion.
Custom acrylic keyboard. It uses the original keyboard PCB, but the buttons were custom made for a cool modern look.
CompactFlash adapter inside unit functions as an original equipment hard drive.
Glowing backlit “][” logo. Blue for on, with a bit of yellow during disk access.
Built-in stereo speakers.
Side port access for floppy drive, joystick and mouse.
Can play all your classic games


Now if they can figure out how to add in WiFi, a browser and email, we’re all set to go! Move over MacBook Air!




More info here: http://benheck.com/04-14-2008/apple-iigs-original-hardware-laptop

Tags: geeky, IIgs, apple, laptop, hack, modification

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the whole social network thing (yeah, I know, Mr. Technology here should have been an early adopter, but anyway&hellip

Friendster bit the dust for me earlier this year (I think). I decided to unsubscribe because I only had a handful of friends on there, and I never used it. Hi5 I used more than Friendster and I had about 20-30 friends on there, so I decided to keep my account during the first social purge. In recent weeks I kept getting invites from people I did not know (sorry, I don’t connect with strangers), far worse was that most of these strangers were not legitimate users, they were spam bots! Since more of my friends are on Facebook anyway, I decided to kill my Hi5 account and move on.

Ciao Hi5!

Tags: social, networks, hi5, quit, fedup

This is pretty retarded!
I started using my N800 with the “Open” network on campus (the one authorized users are supposed to use – more ports are open). While I can connect, and browse the web, nothing else works!

The mail client can’t connect (I guess IMAP is blocked)

Pidgin cannot connect to ANY service – I use it to tell me if there is new mail on Yahoo and Hotmail (I guess they’ve blocked all IM protocols)

The built-in GTalk client does not connect (see above)

Frustrating!
I don’t want to browse the net, I just want my mail pulled!

Interestingly enough, vagalume (last.fm client) still works.

I understand why it’s important to block certain ports, but gimme a break! Let us use our own email clients, not some PITA web interface!

Tags: technology, wifi, port block, port, firewall, IM, mail

The Parallels MUpromo is now all unlocked!
Get your parallels for $65! (at mupromo.com)

Tags: technology, promotion, mupromo, parallels

But I cannot use it! My main machine is still my PowerBook 15” (yes the one with the brain aneurism) and it doesn’t run Leopard. My Mac Mini is more of a “family” computer so I can’t really blog and update my site from it (it’s just weird having people see what I am doing on a 37” HDTV).

I guess I will have to wait until I get myself a new MacBook (or MacBook Pro) in 2009.

Tags: software, rapidweaver, new, version, leopard, powerbook

11 days left in the MacUpdate promo (mupromo.com) featuring parallels.

Just like MacHeist, this is a bundle which contains a number of shareware and commercial applications for an instanely low price ($65). The catch? More expensive applications, such as Parallels are locked, and will only get unlocked provided that a certain number of bundles are sold.

The applications that are currently locked are:

Sound Studio

Banner Zest

Parallels

Quite honestly, I think that I will get the most use out of Parallels, so I think I will be buying a bundle (and hope that others buy in too, so we can all get the low low price of $65 for all these apps).

Parallels retains for $80, so this bundle is worth it just for parallels

Tags: macintosh, software, promotion, cheap, macupdate, parallels, virtualization

I saw on the (RSS) wires recently that there is a new version of ITOS2008 available (or is going to be available soon) for the Nokia N800 and N810 tablets. I am debating whether or not to upgrade now, or wait for future upgrades. I haven't seen any compeling (for me) reasons to upgrade, and the hassle of reinstalling all my applications after an upgrade is too great for "stability improvements"...considering that I already find my N800 stable for my tastes.

Now if a good PIM with iSync (SyncML) support were part of the upgrade...then I would upgrade in a jiff!

Tags: ITOS2008, Nokia, N800, updates, upgrade, debate

For a while now we’ve been hearing about Nokia’s answer to the touch-screen craze, trying to compete with models such as the iPhone, the LG Prada, the HTC Touch, and the LG Voyager. Some details were leaked today, along with some spyshots, and I have to say that I am impressed.

I was thinking that my next phone was probably going to be an iPhone (I will not go back to windows mobile, at least not for another five to ten years, it just sucks), but the spyshots have me impressed.

Imagine an N96 type phone (16GB flash, GPS, 5MP camera, DVB-H, WiFi, Quadband GSM, Bluetooth) with a touchscreen interface! (and hopefully triband HSDPA!). This sounds better than an iPhone to me

Tags: Nokia, touch, technology, Phones

I was reading one of my RSS feeds this afternoon and I saw that Samsung has come up with a Dual SIM phone that can receive calls/data/messages from both SIMs simultaneously. Pretty cool, huh? I could use one of these phones as my main phone, pop in my AT&T SIM and my Cosmote SIM and have access to both my Greek and US number at the same time! Of course there is only one problem, the phone is triband GSM (900/1800/1900).

Come on! It’s 2008 already! The 850Mhz frequency has been in use for at least 4 years now, and Quadband GSM chips are everywhere, even in Nokia phones! I don’t get why companies bring out phones that are not Quadband. Quadband GSM should be the minimum requirement for all GSM phones.

Of course the best solution would be to have all phones be Quandband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) and Quintband HSPA (850/900/1900/1700/2100) so you can access high speed 3G speeds around the globe.

I am not the globe trotter I used to be, so in theory I should not care as much for the non-US frequencies, but it makes me feel nice to know that if I wanted to go to France tomorrow I could access their 3G networks, and when I came back and wanted to switch from AT&T to T-Mobile I could have access to that 3G network as well!

Tags: GSM, Phones, triband, WTF, samsung

For a while now I have been exporting my contact information from LinkedIn (in vCard format) and I have been importing this information into my MacOS X addressbook, which for all intents and purposes is my main repository of contact information. LinkedIn makes it easy. One vCard download, import into addresbook, and voila! There is your information, which can be easily synched with Google contacts, Yahoo contacts, my phone, my PDA, DotMac, heck even Plaxo with Plaxo’s plug-in.

Recently I have been discovering a lot of old friends on facebook, people who are now on my Friend’s list. I spent some time looking around facebook to see if there is a way to download vCard files of my friends (for easier access), but there is none.

Thus the only way to get all this info is go to through my 200 friends, family and acquaintances and manually get all their info (phones, AIM, email, and so on)… I wish there were a plug-in that created a group in your addressbook called ‘facebook’, and the contact information in that group were automatically updated with all the current information of your facebook contacts. For that matter, I wish that LinkedIn offered that functionality too

Tags: social, networks, facebook, myspace, frustration

Yesterday I stumbled upon the world’s best social network.
Is it facebook? No!
Is it MySpace? No!
Is it Hi5? No!
Is it LinkedIn? No!

The new kid on the block is called ncludr (get it? Includer!) and it can be found at http://ncludr.com/

Go on, have a look! You will instantly be able to connect to many individuals just like you (and other ones not so much like you)

Yes this is a joke!

Tags: social, networks, parody

It's been a month or so that I've had my upgraded N800 and I must say that it sees a lot of use throughout the day.
It has become the de-facto e-mail client for my .Mac account.
It has replaced my laptop as the instrument with which I browse the internet on my sofa.
It's great for Last.fm

This weekend I saw that the GPE PIM has been updated to work with ITOS2008...but unfortunately it still does not scratch my PIM itch.
Nokia can't you integrate PIM functionality that is SyncML (iSync) compatible? please?

Tags: N800, Nokia, ITOS2008, PIM

I used to have a friendster account, my first social network. I had about ten friends and after a few years a closed my account because I never went there and didn’t feel like hassling my friends who were already on facebook, myspace, orkut, or any of the other social networks to join Friendster. I joined other social networks, where most of my friends were, and I created a ‘ring’. I use linkedIn for my professional social profile, and I use facebook for my general social profile. Because I have friends on Hi5 and MySpace I decided to join those two as well and provide links to the my two main social profiles so that I don’t have to repeat information. My cardinal rule: Try the service, if you have less than 30 friends after a year – quit the service.

Now I get invites to other social networks, but why bother (other than geeky curiosity of course)? I will just have to re-invite all my friends from other networks, or search for new ones on the ‘new’ service, and then I will just put a pointer to my facebook and linkedIn accounts. What we need is a mesh service that allows us to join as many social network sites we want, manage our info from one central location, and not have to go to ten different sites! It would also be nice if our friends from one social network can connect with our friends from other social networks without the need to join that competing social.

I hope the DataPortability thing catches on…

Tags: social, networks, technology, overload, fatigue

I was going to write a lengthy review of my N800 experiences, but why bother? The device is not really new, I am not an early adopter (for this device anyway), and there have been many, many, reviews of the unit. So, in lieu of a review I decided to write (mostly) about what I like about the N800, since I have already aired some of my criticisms (or recommendations for improvement) in previous blog posts.


Hardware

When it comes to hardware, I really like the form factor. It fits easily in my coat pocket, it is sort of like a slimmed down Newton 2100. It has a nice desk stand, which I thought I would not like, but I do! It’s rather convenient for when I want to listen to music, or just keep at eye level to see incoming email notifications.

The battery is nothing spectacular, but it is nothing to whine about. I generally (for my usage) recharge the unit once a day, and it sees a full day’s use, usually email, IM, and some last.fm

The 0.3MP Camera is a novelty (for me at least) since Pidgin does not support A/V chat, and I do not have many contacts on GTalk that would video conference.

The FM Radio is a nice addition. Granted I do not often listen to the radio these days, but there have been moments of sheer boredom (caused by silence in the room, in an area without WiFi), and the FM radio has championed the anti-boredom cause!

Of course the reason I picked an N800 instead of an N810 are the two SD Card Slots! These are great! There is one internally (under the battery cover) and one ‘external’ which can be accesses normally like other SD cards. This option gives my N800 almost endless storage (someone quoted 16GB can be had by two 8GB SDHC cards in the N800), my storage is three standard SD cards, 2GB each (non HC). Thus far it has not disappointed me!



Software

The software component of the N800 has two dimensions, the ITOS2007 dimension and the ITOS2008 dimension. I spent about two weeks with ITOS2007 before I upgraded. Generally I feel like the upgrade to ITOS2008 was worth it. The OS is more finger friendly, the RSS application handles embedded HTML in a better fashion, and the browser…well the browser is a mixed bag. I liked Opera (ITOS2007 browser) but it did not render everything correctly. Firefox Minimo (ITOS2008 browser) is much better at rendering pages that I visit, however it is slow to start, and it generally takes more time to accomplish tasks.


What I like
Applets – I love the applets on the main screen. It is so convenient to access information using applets. My only ‘gripe’ is that there aren’t more applets available! My wish list for applets would be: a stocks applet, a gmail applet (similar to the MacOS X widget), an applet that tells you what new mail has come into your mailbox (similar to the RSS applet). Finally a ‘current coordinates’ applet that would tie in with a Bluetooth GPS unit to let you know approximately where you are (based of course on the map application or maemo mapper)

RSS Reader & Mail - Great applications, they have really untied me from my desktop and my laptop! I have written in previous blog postings that I wish that the Mail app supported Google Threaded emails, and that the RSS reader had some sort of podcatcher feature so you could subscribe to audio and video podcasts.

Application Manager – I have used linux machines in the past, and installing apps was a royal pain in the (you know what). Granted I haven’t used linux in the last year or two so I may be out of date but the Application Manager kicks butt! I like that I can easily install applications from a repository, that I can easily remove applications, and that I don’t have to worry about dependencies (at least this has not been an issue up to now).

Vagalume – a Last.fm client. This app is single handedly responsible for my usage of Last.fm. Simply great!

Skype/Gizmo – Crystal clear (and cheap!) calling! Now there is no excuse to not call my grandmother (in Greece) more often. Now, I only wish that Skype supported video conferencing on the N800 just like on the

Pidgin – I have Pidgin running all the time on my N800. It’s a great IM application that integrates well with the ITOS2008 dock/status area. My only ‘gripe’ is that video and audio conferencing (and doc sharing) is not available as a feature. Otherwise, I’ve gotten back to the IM world that I had put aside for such a long time due to my inability to use IM on my regular computers.

Video Center – A nice application that allows you to subscribe and download video podcasts. Videos from some RSS feeds are choppy, but if you get your podcasts from ‘video center approved’ feeds, the videos play just fine.

Maemo Mapper – A nice free map application that I haven’t played a ton with. Supposedly you can get door-to-door directions. Need to play more with it.

Transmission – I don’t download torrents on my N800, but just the fact that a fully functional version of Transmission is available is incredible!


What I don’t like as much:
Input & Localization – I am a bit torn on the input front. I haven’t used the handwriting recognition (I suppose I should). I generally rely on the virtual thumb board for typing which in my experience (thus far) has been a little slow. Additionally, as I have mentioned in a previous blog post), there is no way to input asian scripts such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean. I know that there are people outside of Nokia working on it, but it’s at best a third party solution, and it could de-stabilize the system. Localization also falls a bit short for my tastes. You can input text in a number of different European languages but the OS (and applications) are not localized for all of those languages. There is no Greek localization for instance.

Web Browser – As I mentioned in the introduction, the Minimo browser needs some work. It is a bit slow to start up and sometimes it is a bit unresponsive (you need to wait, it hasn’t actually crashed). It does render pages better than Opera (ITOS2007) but it does need some speed improvements. Additionally, since it is based on the Firefox code, I would love to see some plug-ins that are available for Firefox to be available for Minimo.

Control Panel – The control panel is great, however the ‘lock’ function is not. I bought my unit third hand, and somewhere along the way the default lock code was changed. There is no way to know what this lock code is (in order to reset it), so I have to send my unit to Nokia for a complete reflashing (or something) in order to get it back to factory settings. This also means that I probably won’t be able to use my backups as a restore file because the old lock code is in there somewhere in that restore file. I wish there were something like a ‘pin 2’ or ‘puk’ that allowed you to reset that lock code without needing to reconstitute your data!

Contacts – I am not going to speak much about the contacts application since I have written about it in one of the N800 improvements blog posts. I think that PIM functionality is woefully under-developed in OS2008.

Notes & Sketch – Nice apps, but they really should be integrated. I think the Newton Notepad model is the model that I think Nokia should be striving for. MaemoPad+ is a good substitute but it’s still not a Newton Notepad.

Maps – I haven’t had much use of the Maps application. Mostly because it is a pain in the butt to download maps! The maps for USA East is about 700MB. I have started to download these maps, but my N800 ALWAYS crashes! Luckily after some googling and searching I found a work-around, but if you offer an option to download maps to your device over the air, you better make sure it works!

Canola – I recently discovered canola, an application which allows you to make your N800 into a personal media player. I really (really) like the user interface of canola, however the way it operates leaves something to be desired. You can use it as a podcatcher, but you must manually add in each address (PITA!) and this only works for audio podcasts. It supports photocasts, but again – no easy way to subscribe. It supports internet radio, but it doesn’t incorporate a shoutcast (or others) directories to easily add radio stations or browse them. It does not support the built-in FM Tuner in any capacity

Joost – Where’s my joost client?

GarnetVM – Recently Access, Inc. released a virtual machine for its legacy Garnet OS (formerly PalmOS 5). I think that this is great, but it is missing a considerable amount of functionality. I installed a few palm apps, and it borked the VM. I had to uninstall it an reinstall it again. There is no way to do USB or Bluetooth hotsync. It does not offer features found in Palm handhelds like the SMS app, the world clock app, a full control panel (with BT and WiFi options), Blazer, and so on. I know it’s still in beta – so I am patient. I can’t wait until the final version.

MS Office doc viewer – or the lack thereof. I receive emails with excel, word and powerpoint files attached to them. It would be nice for an internet tablet to include some sort of viewer for these files.


Final Thoughts
It may sound like I do not like the N800 based on what I have written, but in actuality I really do like my device, despite my complaining and its shortcomings I think that it is actually quite a nice device to own and use! I would recommend it to anyone who just wants to browse the internet, chat and check mail in the living room (or on the go) without wanting to whip out the laptop.

Tags: review, N800, Nokia, hardware, software

One of the things that bugs me in my internet tablet is the lack of (what I consider to be) important scripts. Nokia has not included Chinese, Japanese or Korean (CJK) in ITOS2008 (and it was not available in ITOS2007 either). Now, my knowledge of these languages is limited, but I am learning, and it would be helpful if I could go to websites that have text in CJK to be able to have it legible. It would also be nice to type in CJK scripts - quite useful for last.fm or looking up something in a dictionary.

On a related note, no Hebrew or Arabic is supported by the internet tablet OS. Why? I know that a lot of people speak English, but there are websites out there that use these scripts, and it would be nice if they rendered properly for the people who can read those scripts!

Tags: maemo, Nokia, N800, internet, tablet, ITOS2008

Having used my internet tablet with OS2008 for about a week now, I wanted to sing a little to the choir and echo some of the community’s comments regarding applications that one would expect to be included in the Internet Tablet, but are not.

PIM Suite:
PIM suites used to be the bread and butter of the PDA, not any more. PIM suites exist on desktop computers (Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.) on smartphones of all sorts, and even good ol’ regular cellphones. IT behooves anyone to think that an Internet Tablet does not have a good addressbook (that includes snailmail addresses!), a good calendar, and a good to-do list. These are almost a necessity these days, and Nokia should have included them as part of the product. They have experience with PIM suites (look at their S60 phones, they all have PIM).
A PIM is not only useful for referencing information, or reminding you of an appointment, it’s important because it can tie into your IM client and identify your contacts, it can tie into your mail and you can have easy access to all of your contact’s information. If you receive an email invitation it can go directly into your calendar, and so on.
On top of the PIM suite, I would say that there should have also been synchronization (USB, Bluetooth, and/or wireless) capability via SyncML to synchronize this PIM data with your computer, nokia mobile phone, and/or online services like Google and Yahoo (sort of like what the iPhone does).


Mail:
I like the mail application, I won’t write much, but there are three things that I would like to see implemented: Hotmail support, Exchange Support, Yahoo IMAP support (like the iPhone). Other than that, I am a happy camper thus far


IM:
Pidgin is a great app, I really wish that it were part of the package and not a separate download. I wish this were the case because then it would be integrated with the status indicators on the top of the screen, and I could set my accounts in the control panel. On thing that I would like to see implemented in Pigdin (or if the built-in IM supports all of the protocols that Pidgin supports) is to have both video and audio chat. There is a built-in camera in both the N800 and N810, why not use it? It seems kinda silly to ask my friends on Yahoo to fire up Skype or GTalk in order for us to voicechat.

Tags: N800, Nokia, ITOS2008, improvement, suggestions

Our recent internet lives have been inundated with social this, and social that. We all have a LinkedIn, Facebook, mySpace (or whatever) account to keep in touch with our buddies, our colleagues and our family. Given the abundance of these services that we are part of, here are some suggestions for apps (or integration) that would make Maemo even better.


Blogging Client:
It would be nice to have a robust, blogging client so that you can blog without going to the webpage of your blogging service to do so. Off the bat, I would say that Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Twitter, and Tumblr should be supported. You can sync up your x-recent posts, you can create new ones, edit old ones, and so on. I tried using WordPress on the browser that is supplied with ITOS2007, and I was having issues. A blogging client would side-step these issues and provides greater functionality.

Social Network Client:
Facebook has made a special interface for the iPhone, and MySpace is a downloadable application on the Sidekick/Hiptop. It seems like a great idea to create a Social Network Client that supports the top 5-10 networking sites and allows you to at least do some rudimentary stuff like accept/reject connection requests, see who recently joined (example: new classmates or colleagues in LinkedIn), check your email, change your status, browse through your friends list, send messages, and so on.


Podcast Client:
The RSS reader (with the exception of aforementioned improvements) does a good job for text and image based RSS feeds. It would be nice if a podcast/vidcast client were available for the ITOS2008 platform. You could subscribe to your favorite podcasts, choose which ones to download, and have seamless integration with the media player for the playback of those podcasts. I know that canola offers this kind of functionality, but it would be nice to have the functionality of a podcast client as a separate app. I don’t use my tablet as a media center, and therefore don’t want to fire-up my media center app when I want to browse or listen to a podcast.

Flickr/Picassa Manager:
Many people store their images online these days, either as a backup, a way to share with friends, or a way to easily post them on their blogs and websites. It would be a great if a Flickr (and/or Picassa) manager type application were available for this platform. You could browse through your photos, add or change tags, create and add to collections, and have the ability to upload from your device. I know that the neither the N810 nor the N800 have great cameras, but with Bluetooth you can always transfer images taken from phones or cameras that have built-in Bluetooth or SD slots.

YouTube Manager:
In similar fashion to the Flickr Manager, the YouTube Manager would allow you to browse and play through videos that you have marked as your favorite, it would allow you to change your account preferences and information, search for videos (like the iPhone YouTube client) and finally allow you to upload videos to YouTube (taken with a phone or other device, or videos available in your SD card)

Bookmark Manager:
The built-in bookmark manager is OK, I generally don’t get thrilled about things such as bookmarks, however there would be a nice killer feature that this app can have: Integration with del.icio.us (and/or other bookmark repository sites such as Yahoo and Google). You can save new bookmarks locally to your tablet; you can save them on the network on your preferred service(s); and you can access bookmarks already saved on those services without needing to fire-up the browser and navigate to those sites!

Tags: N800, Nokia, improvement, suggestions

I installed Internet Tablet OS 2008 on my N800. It’s only been a few hours, but thus far things seem to be working OK. Thus far things seem to be better than ITOS2008. Pidgin seems better on ITOS2008 than 2007 (in terms of the integration with the OS)

Tags: N800, Nokia, upgrade

I've been using my new N800 for a couple of weeks now. I've been thinking of what software features and improvements can make the tablet an even better tool. Now I know that I am using Internet Tablet OS 2007 (I may be upgrading in a little while), so some of the ideas may be integrated in ITOS 2008, and I know that I am late to the party, so some ideas may not be completely original. Having said this - don't get bored if you've read something before.

I will be addressing improvements in chunks - today I will write about two 'small' things, the RSS reader and the Webmail notifier.

The RSS reader:
I really like this program. I've imported my OPML file from Google Reader, and I keep up with my RSS feeds on the go, or when I don't have access to my computer. There are two things that I think would make the RSS reader even better. First I think that Google reader (and/or Bloglines) integration would be great. Sure you can read your feeds on the device, but it would be great if I could star and share news stories of interest within the reader, and if I've read something it will automatically be marked on google as being read, so when I go to my computer, I don't have to go through articles I've already read. Now before you say "well, why don't you just use Google reader through the browser?" - first off, that's not the point, and secondly I have tried - it's too slow and it doesn't work well with Opera on the Tablet (I don't know if ITOS 2008 is any better).


The Webmail Notifier:
This is a great extension that is hindered by only being able to check one account. I don't know about other people, but I have a couple of Google mail accounts, as well as Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail accounts. It would be nice if the notifier were able to check multiple accounts, and if it were able to check Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail accounts as well. I know that Pidgin allows you to do this, but why run a full fledged app to do this?


More suggestions to come

Tags: ITOS2007, N800, Nokia, improvement, suggestions, RSS

I had been looking around in the past month or so for something that would allow me to browse the internet wirelessly for those times that I was in the living room and feeling the need to look up some factoid about some movie or television show.

My laptop became an 'ethernet-only' device last summer when it started malfunctioning, and while I could just go out an buy a new laptop, my current laptop - despite its state, can still do 90% of what I need it to do - word processing, presentations, spreadsheets and browse the internet - the old fashioned way. I was thus trying to decide whether to get the older N800, or the newer N810. After a period of reviews and contemplation I got the N800, 'like-new' plus four gigs of SD memory off eBay for about $260. Why go with 'older tech'? Quite a few reasons actually:

1. Not much changed under the hood
WHen one looks at the N770 and the N800, you can see quite a few differences of importance. The same cannot be said about the N800 and the N810. Yes the built-in GPS, Keyboard and 2 GB of storage are nice...but not for double the price (amazon.com quotes)

2. No need for GPS
A couple of years back I bought an external bluetooth GPS unit. The built-in GPS unit of the N810 seemed a bit reduntant considering I already have a GPS unit which can work with the N800 (provided that I get some software).

3. Skeptical of the Keyboard
I've had a number of portable devices in recent years with built-in keyboards, and quite honestly none of them left me completely satisfied. I did not think that the built-in keyboard on the N810 was really worth the extra money (or that I would use it all that much).

4. Need for SD, not mini SD
The N810 comes with one mini-SD slot, which is not for people who haven't used SD cards before, but over the years I have accumulated a number of SD cards from older PDAs (that are no longer with me). The Mini-SD slot would require me to scrap my existing SD cards, and pay yet more to get mini-SD cards. The N800 on the other hand has two standard SD slots so I can reuse my existing cards.

5. FM Tuner
Not a major deal considering that I do not listen to FM radio much these days, but the N800 comes with an FM tuner, the N810 does not.

6. Price Difference
As stated earlier, the price of the N810 is about double the price of an N800. Given the perceived expandability of the N800 (compared to the N810), I did not think that the features warranted it. Also, since the N800 can be upgraded to the Internet Tablet 2008 OS (the same as the N810)...the N800 seems like a better purchase (for my needs). All things considered, I thought (and still do) that the N800 was a better value for the money.

Tags: internet, tablet, Nokia, N800, N810, purchases

Black Friday has come and gone... no worthwhile deals were found.
I checked on Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City and Apple.com.... some deals were OK, but nothing spectacular such as the $101 off MacBooks at Apple.com. I wasn't really interested in getting a MacBook, and MacBook Pros had no deals. On top of that, my educational discount probably gets me more of a discount than the black friday deals. Best Buy, Circuit City and Amazon really had no deals that were of interest. Sure, if you want to buy stuff just because they are cheap, you could buy a lot of things, but nothing I really wanted.

So what did I want, but no deals?
1. MacBook Pro
2. Nokia N810
3. Nintendo Wii
4. Good deals on PSP games
5. Great deals on LCD HDTVs

Oh well, maybe next year.....

Tags: purchases, black, friday, technology, disappointment

I never really cared about Black Friday, as a matter of fact I always thought there was something wrong with individuals that spent the previous evening staying up late and celebrating, and the very next morning crowding shopping malls at three in the morning for those hard to beat deals. I always prefered to sleep late and enjoy my day off, or when I had to work, go into the office and be free to work without distractions.

This year may be different, I am actually looking forward to black friday! Why do you ask? Well, it's no secret that my aging powerbook (4 years, 1 month old) has been acting up and I have been waiting to get a new MacBook Pro. Now new models may come out in January, but if the deals are great during black friday....well why not just buy one then? I wish Nokia would hurry up and release the N810...so that can go on black friday sales as well.

I wonder if any PSP games will be on sale...

Oh...yeah, I am not crazy to get up a two AM so that I can get in line at some mall entrance...all my shopping will be online, probably on amazon and the apple store (unless my local apple store has a compelling reason for me to go into groupie mode...like $1000 off the price of a MacBook Pro)

Tags: macintosh, apple, purchases, Nokia, N810, internet, tablet, computer, PSP, amazon

Lately Apple has been showing ads on television for their iPhone product. I really like the iPhone, even though I don't own one, but I really dislike the ads. The ads are reminiscent of the 'switcher' ads that ran in the 90's, with one major difference. The switcher ads were funny, and in some cases the stories they told were real stories of frustration with using Windows (even if they were exaggerated a tiny bit sometimes).

The iPhone ads lack that wit that the switcher ads have, and sometimes, dare I say, they are even dumb!
Take this for example: you see a guy showcasing his iPhone and he says that it replaced four devices. Before he used to carry his iPod, a digital camera, a cell phone, and a communications device to send email and text messages. The iPhone took care of all of that! My first reaction to this was 'huh?' what are you smoking? OK you can indeed have your iPod and your phone in one device, this is a valid observation, however
1. If you REALLY want a good camera, you won't settle for what is available on the iPhone.
2. Most cell phones already have a 1.3 or 2.0 megapixel camera on them, so if you don't really care about the photo quality (as is evident from point 1), why carry a camera?
3. You carried a 'communicator' device with you for email and text messages? Why? Why not get a blackberry, windows mobile, palmOS or symbian device that has a built in keyboard, and camera and is also a phone? Where have you been living?

The premise of the switcher ads in the 90's was that the Macintosh 'just worked', it didn't eat your homework, it didn't give you cryptic error messages, you didn't have to worry about dip switches. While the iPhone is revolutionary in it's own terms, there are cell phones out there that do what the iPhone did before the iPhone did it, and they worked!

The one ad that is an exception to my disapproval of this new batch of iPhone ads is the 'visual voicemail' one. This one I really like.

This ad is the one I dislike the most:

Tags: iPhone, advertizing, apple, switcher

Well, if you have a GSM SIM (that's active) and you are able to survive without being constantly connected at GPRS/EDGE or UMTS speeds...well...I've got some cool old tech for you! Sure you won't be able to get MMS messages, and you won't be able to receive email as fast as you can with your ultra modern blackberry, but your berry has nothing on these following devices of yesteryear when it comes to retro coolness. What's best, even though they are old by technology standards, if you just pop your SIM in, they work!


Nokia 9000i: The Nokia 9000i was the first of the Communicator line of smartphones that Nokia made. It is now a ten-year old machine, having been released in 1998. With a whoping 24Mhz 386 Intel chip and 8MB or memory, this beast of a machine ran GEOS 3.0 It has an HTML browser, email and Fax capabilities, on top of standard SMS. This retrocool toy surfs the net at a blazing 9.6kbps over CSD. It comes with full PIM, telnet, and a terminal application
The North American version (9000il) is GSM 1900, and the European version is GSM 900. Fun fact: it was used in the movie the saint, its over 300 grams (!), and of course sports a cool monochrome display. All subsequent models of the 9xxx series used Symbian with the Series80 User Interface.

Ericsson R380w: Circa 2000, this world phone (GSM 900/1900), nay, world communicator, gives you a nice touch screen with a flip down numeric key pad (sort of like later UIQ phones), you can surf the world of WAP sites at blazing CSD speeds, you can read/send email, and of course send and receive SMS. It runs on EPOC, and of course sports the obligatory Infrared port. Size-wize, it is about half the size of the Nokia 9000i. This was Ericsson's first, and last, smartphone before going into the Symbian UIQ market as SonyEricsson.

Tags: retro, smartphone, Nokia, ericsson, psion

When I was a MacOS 9 user, I really did not pay much attention to uptime. When I left home, I turned the machine off, when I was home, it was on. I never had the need to turn the computer off in order to perform system cleanup as a regular task. When MacOS X came out, 'uptime' was all the rage on the forums that I frequented. People just jumped into the Terminal application and with the uptime command they could see how long their Mac was running without a shut down. Various forum members thus had contests to see how long their Mac worked without a reboot (or a Kernel Panic). This is where I entered the uptime craze.

When I got my powerbook - the same one that isn't functioning properly today - I kept it running for a long long time without reboot. I think my personal record was three or four months without a reboot. All this time, I did not really have any performance problems because I think that the cleanup processes were happening automatically. I later got some utilities to run the cleanup processes on demand, but that is another matter.

Anyway, since my Mac started not working properly, I generally turned it on when I needed to do some work, like type a paper, input data in an excel sheet, surf the net, and so on. About ten days ago I got lazy. I did not turn my computer off, I just put it to sleep. Today it started being slow and it took quite some time to switch applications and move from tab to tab in my browser. I decided to restart my Mac to clean it up, but before doing so, I checked my uptime...it was 10 days!

Now this is quite phenomenal considering the fact that my Mac is running in Safe Boot mode! Also, comparing my somewhat broken Mac in Safe Boot to a Dell GX280 with Vista: my Vista machine takes about 2 to 3 days uptime before it becomes as unresponsive as my Mac became today. Amazing!

Tags: apple, safe boot, uptime, performance, powerbook

Since my computer went kaboom (in a manner of speaking), I haven't been able to do some things that require multimedia.
One of these things is watching youTube...or rather fully enjoying the various antics people post on youTube because in order to fully appreciate the video you are watching, you need to hear what is being said, or have some sort of closed captions be part of the video (at least if you have a hearing impairment). This lead made the little gray cells think about other web 2.0 destinations and how accommodating they are for users who have some sort of auditory or visual disability - or rather the complete lack of it.

I am sure that I am not the only one who has thought of this, so I am wondering why more work isn't done to provide some accommodations.

Tags: ADA, youtube, web2, accommodations

The laptop-style battery I've had in my vintage Newton 2100 has finally kicked the bucket - it no longer holds a charge! Even though I can send it out and have it re-celled, I don't really know how much longer Newton accessories and services will be available. Despite the active newton community, the device is about ten years old! I searched on eBay last week and I found a functional battery holder, so that I can use regular (or rechargeable) AA batteries with my Newton. I just received it today and it works like a charm!

Now if only there were an X-Port version for MacOS X!

Tags: Newton, battery, purchases

It has been about ten days since my Mac went all wacky on me and it only functions in Safe Boot mode.
I've since been using it daily for almost everything that I used it before it started acting all wacky in normal mode. I surf the internet, I open and edit all popular Microsoft office formats, I use RapidWeaver to publish on my blog and I download my podcasts on iTunes.

The only limitations are that I cannot use WiFi, I need to be plugged into an ethernet cable, and I don't have any audio. This lead me to think back...back to last January when I upgraded my Dell GX280 from Windows XP to Windows Vista (and office 2007). I must say that my older Mac running in safe boot is actually faster and more usable than a newer Windows PC running Vista! Simply