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

Last Friday I finally had my surgery to remove the pylonidal cyst that had been bugging me since February.
The doctor had warned me that post-op would hurt...and it would be a quite literal pain in the butt.
I went into surgery fearing the worst...anesthesia takes care of pain during surgery...but what about after?

Well...it darned sure is quite a literal pain in the butt...and I've gotten tired of resting on my belly and my side (because I can't really sit on my posterior just yet). The pain medication does take care of the pain, but it's percoset, which makes me a bit woozy. I hope I can sit normally again...sometime soon!

Tags: medicine, surgery, pain

With the unfortunate breakdown of my mac, despite the fact that I can still get online with it, and accomplish much (if not all) of the work that I need to accomplish with my computer, the last four years I've been completely wireless. I've been using WiFi to get online, thus the notion that I would go and seclude myself to another room every time that I want to check out something on IMDb (or something else online) seems rather foreign.

I spend far too much time everyday looking things up, checking forums, responding to email - making it inefficient to have have to seclude myself when I need to do one of these things. I was thus considering buying a Nokia N800 internet tablet. I can browse, have my RSS, my email, my internet life all at the palm of my hand. There are a few things though that I don't like about it though:

1. No PIM! I know that it is not meant to be a PDA, but a device of such size, and abilities, should have both a robust addressbook and calendar application! I know that there are a number of open source programs that can be installed, but some of these utilities should be pre-installed on such a device.

2. Apparent lack of mac compatibility. I would like to easily import and sync addressbook, calendar, notes, music, videos, and bookmarks with my Mac. Even though this device is mean to be used by itself, without the need for a computer and synchronization, it would be nice to be able to accomplish these tasks!

3. No TomTom! I would love to get a software navigation package for North America. I already have a bluetooth GPS unit, but no software is available (just software)

Tags: Nokia, N800, internet, purchases, wifi, technology

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 Amazing!

Tags: apple, microsoft, windows, vista, functionality

The World Wide Newton Conference for this year takes place in Tokyo next month. Last year Paul Guynot announced updates to his Newton emulator for the MacOS and for Linux devices (Zaurus and Nokia N800). The future of the platform was also discussed, things like getting color for the Newton, getting the OS onto another platform, and so on. This got me really interested, and happy, that the Newton is moving on, despite Apple's abandonment of the platform about ten years ago.

I have not used my Newton regularly for about four years now, however I am considering bringing it back from retirement for day to day note taking, GTD, project management usage. I am eager to download conference presentation notes, powerpoint (or keynote) slides, and to follow developments in the Newton community.

I had thought of selling off my Newton quite a few times...but I am currently more optimistic about platform improvements

Tags: Newton, emulation, NewtonOS, Conference, development

I've been spending a lot of time lately reading various management books, how to cope with a difficult work place, crazy bosses, assholes, and a bunch of workplace etiquette books. I've been thinking of things, from quite some time ago, that really rubbed me the wrong way, and one of them was relating to the outlook calendar.

I generally use iCal on my mac (at home) to keep track of personal things like appointments, doctor's visits, people's birthdays, and so on. I synchronize my phone with iCal so that I can have this information on the go. Generally I do not use Outlook (at work) to keep track of appointments because the great majority of appointments are personal. My job is not one of those jobs where I have meeting after meeting and I need to keep track of it all in outlook.

Back when I had a PocketPC device, for some reason it synched with outlook and all of the daily events synchronized with outlook (and made me look unavailable for the day). These were events like birthdays, name days, national holidays, saint feasts etc. The department secretary (false title used to protect the not-so-innocent) attempted to determine a good time for a meeting between a number of parties at the library, including me. When she peeked at my outlook availability it looked like I was unavailable for the whole day. She then called my boss, who talked to me and we wasted a whole ten minutes on the issue.

Could this have been avoided? Of course! Instead of assuming that everyone schedules their time in outlook, just email the people you need to schedule a meeting with, and see what their availability is! If we all spent time making sure our Outlook calendar was up-to-date with up-to-the-minute information, we would get very little work done. Also, just because no meeting is scheduled in my calendar, it doesn't mean I am free.

Don't assume that just because party A uses technology X, that all parties use technology X.

Tags: technology, outlook, annoying

It appears that TUAW (the unofficial apple weblog) has gone ahead to claim that the release of leopard does not mean the end of support of G4 PowerPC machines (like my dysfunctional powerbook). Well that's good to know, even though I think I will be buying a new MacBook Pro in January....6 months to go!!!

Tags: apple, leopard, technology, powerbook

I followed Steve Jobs' keynote address, and (like the rest of the world) learned more about leopards secret features.
Some things I liked, and others I could care less about. One thing really did stand out though: leopard being full 64-bit.
It got me thinking...could this be the end of the line for G4 based machines like all powerbooks, and later iBooks?
Of course G5 Powermac and G5 based iMacs are 64-bit machines, so leopard would run on those machines.
We'll just have to wait and see...

Tags: apple, leopard, speculation, powerbook

Well... This is really annoying!
I thought that the problem with my Mac was a result of some driver, or program which foobared my mac.
So I backed up my mac, important files and folders (although I forgot my iPhoto photos folder!!!) and I did a Backup with Apple's backup utility.
I specified that the utility should also backup iPhoto, so I thought all would be OK (since I also though that I manually backed up that folder as well).

I did a complete format of my hard drive (zeroed out the disk), and did a fresh install of the operating system.
This did not fix the problem, but at least I can boot with safe mode. Now I decided to restore my important files (word docs, excel, photos, music, etc).
Everything was there...everything except my photos!!! WTF? I looked left, I looked right...nothing..no photos!

This is frikkin' annoying! Now I had saved and shared some of my favorites with the world (on my site and on flickr) so not all is lost forever. However, I did lose photos, and I did lose the higher resolution equivalents of what is on my site and on flickr! This did teach me one thing though...I won't be trusting Apple's backup utility in the future for photos. It works well for calendar and addressbook and a few other things...but not photos or music.

I think I will start saving up for a new mac now...

Tags: macintosh, FUBAR, backup, iPhoto, headache

Okie Dokie!
About three days ago my computer refused to wake up from sleep.
OK...so I just shut it down as it had been on for a number of days without 'rest'.
I turn it back on, but no finder! WTF? OK...don't panic, I thought to myself - just zap the PRAM! Done! but...problem not fixed.
I ran diskwarrior...fixed a few things. Fixed a few permission errors with the disk utility. I thought all was OK.
Well...apparently not! What to do? I booted in safe mode. All was OK. My computer was running a bit slow, there was no WiFi available, and not many multimedia functions...but at least all my files were OK. I ran the apple hardware check, to see if there was some other part of my laptop that was not functioning properly, but all came back normal!
Next up? The format and reinstall! I did a backup...although it appears my photos were not backed up , formatted and reinstalled the OS.
STILL...the darned thing only works when booted in safe boot mode....oy! WTF is going on?

At least Rapidweaver is working in Safe Mode!

Tags: headache, annoying, macintosh, FUBAR, weird, malfunction, WTF

Some of my friends always bring up the fact that other mobile technologies, not just GSM, have SIM cards!
They are of course correct! CDMA (verizon, sprint, telus, bell, KTF,KDDI, etc.), iDEN (nextel), PHS (willcom) all either already use SIM cards, or have the ability to use them. Of course there are a few things to note about each technology (and why I stay away from it).

CDMA - CDMA has the RUIM, which is CDMA's equivalent to the SIM. In North America at this point, CDMA has quite a lot of coverage, however RUIM is not implemented, and companies are staying away from the RUIM because it endangers their walled garden business model. What would be the point of the RUIM if you cannot get unbranded phones to work on the network? There are a number of CDMA phones available, but they are generally not unbranded and not in numerous, like their GSM counterparts. CDMA is also not as global as GSM. The only CDMA networks using RUIM are the rural CDMA450 networks in eastern europe and russia, and Three in Hong Kong (with only two phones in their line up.

iDEN - iDEN has been using SIMs since day one on their system. There is only one carrier (nextel) in the US, so the number of phones are limited. There also aren't that many global carriers for iDEN, so it's not like you can go abroad and get a prepaid SIM for your iDEN phone . Motorola had made a couple of iDEN/GSM hybrids, but they haven't made any recently. It would be cool if all iDEN phones were iDEN/GSM hybrids

PHS - well...PHS is not available here It's also rarer than iDEN globally


So, yes! Other technologies have

Tags: CDMA, iDEN, GSM, PHS, SIM, RUIM, choice, technology, mobile phones

A few days back Amalia, a greek blogger and cancer patient who blogged her experiences with hospitals and doctors in Greece, passed away. The fakelaki* has been around for a while, I remember it growing up in Greece, and I am sad to say that it still exists in Greece, in 2007, in an EU country.

Read more about it here





*Fakelaki (n) A cash bribe given to doctors, nurses and other hospital staff in order for a doctor to actually see you, despite the fact that Greece has a nationalize social medicine system. Literally: small envelope.

Tags: medicine, injustice, Greece, bribes

Some of my friends and family here in the US really scratch their head and wonder why I have such an insistence on using a GSM carrier. There are a number of reasons, but I think that the main reason is the SIM card. SIM is an acronym for Subscriber Information Module and its job is to keep your information on it; so your phone number and account number is on the card, no matter what phone the card is in! If you break your phone, you can buy a cheap phone, stick your SIM in it, and you're good to go! No need to go to the at&t (or t-mobile) store, get charged activation fees, and waste your time (and money) for nothing.
Way back when (in 1996) the SIM only had 8 kilobytes of memory, these days they come in 64k and 128k varieties which allow the use to store short messages on the SIM, store their phonebook, and they provide SIM application toolkits. SIM toolkits allow for certain value added applications, like mobile banking and on demand news by SMS, to be included in the SIM card itself. In short, this means that no matter what phone you put in your SIM in, you will have your addressbook, your provider's applications and your saved SMS messages.

Conversely, you can put any SIM in your phone. If you are traveling abroad, and you don't want to use your home provider with roaming (due to the insane roaming costs), you can easily get SIM-only prepaid packages. This gives you a SIM with a local number for that country. Take a country like Greece for example. You can get SIMs from eight different providers, this means that you can pick and choose which company you want to give your money to, based on the service they provide and costs associated.

Tags: GSM, UMTS, SIM, technology, mobile phones