[comic] Under stress ?

via geek&poke

New tupalo search plugin

Since the guys at tupalo.com seem to have changed their search URL/syntax, I had to update the mycroft/opensearch plugin for Firefox accordingly.

The plugin is still limited to Vienna, because the search URL/syntax at tupalo.com is... once they change that, I'll follow suit.

Btw: the Tupalo Tools & Widgets page links to the search plugin, too.

Geek And Poke: Business-IT Alignment

via Geek And Poke: Business-IT Alignment

Search is not about wisdom, ...

... it's about mankind's stupidity.

Or how else can you explain that a Google search for the term "indiduell" yields 20 million results, about 14 million only in German.

Results 1 - 10 of about 13,700,000 German pages for indiduell. (0.18 seconds)

The word does not exist.
Its a misspelling and mispronunciation of "individuell" (=individual [leo]) - which interestingly only has "...13,800,000 German pages for individuell. (0.11 seconds) " on Google...

--
I know, those figures are not accurate, but still...

Bloggers Anonymous

from Non Sequitur — Gocomics.com: Comics, editorial cartoons, email comics, comic strips
via M3 - thanks, Martin

Flickr GreaseMonkey script

For the flickr users amongst you:
if you are/were using the GreaseMonkey script for icon replies (the one where you place an icon of the person you reply to next to your text) has been updated to v3.5; the old version did not work anymore.
For details see here.

VirtualBox networking on Windows

I guess this was the third time I fell into this trap, so I document it here (mainly for myself):

As long as you have any kind of LAN type interface/adapter active under Windows VirtualBox will try to use this[1] to do its networking (NAT in my case). This is true for LAN/Ethernet as well as WLAN/Wifi.
This also happens quietly, so you don't get an error message (from VBox), just the errors from the guest OS, usually DNS errors, because thats likely the first thing to fail.

In my case I frequently run on 3G/HSPDA only, but still have an active (yet disconnected) LAN and WiFi interface. In order for VirtualBox to work properly, those two have to be disabled.

Annoying...
Hope I remember it next time.

-----
[1] or so it seems.

Will the money scam emails ever stop??

Now even in German... (although I received it on a .net address).
Will this ever stop ?
Will people ever stop falling for this ?

Anyway, I consider this great fun...

Whenever you receive such a nigerian/african/russian/whatever money scam, please, please, please listen to Ze Franks rendering of those scams at TED.
You cant help but laugh at this, then.


Guten Tag,

Ich habe Ihre Kontaktadresse nach eigenen Nachforschungen erhalten.
Ich mochte Ihnen ein, fur Sie profitables geschaftliches Angebot
unterbreiten. Es handelt sich hierbei um den Transfer von 20.5
Millionen US Dollar . Wie Sie sicher verstehen werden, mochte
ich Sie hier um ausserste Diskretion bitten.

Meine Name ist Mrs.Diana Meier Vandrift. Ich bin die Witwe von Herr.
Peter Vandrift.Ich wurde in Sudafrika geboren, meine Grosseltern sind
jedoch Deutscher Herkunft.

Mein verstorbener Mann hat das Familien Unternehmen seiner Eltern
geerbt, darunter mehrere Hotels in Sudafrika, Warenhauser und einige
Landwirtschaftliche Betriebe. Ich habe diese zusammen mit meinem
Mann,bis zu seinem Tod, am 25. April 2002, gefuhrt und verwaltet.
Die Vandrift Familie (Familie meines Mannes ) war beteiligt an der
Politik in Sud Afrika, zu Zeiten der Apartheid. Mein Schwiegervater
war Mitglied und ranghoher Offizier der Apartheidsregierung unter
Premierminister Hendrik Verwoerd.

mein schwiegervater war nicht verantwortlich fur menschenrechtsver-
letzungen.Jedoch ist es schlimm genug, das er fur das damalige
innenministerium gearbeitet hat.

Er beendete seine Laufbahn als Offizier mit dem Ende der Apartheid
und begann sein Kariere als Geschaftsmann. Er investierte und
erwirtschaftete in kurzester Zeit ein betrachtliches Vermogen.
Nach unserer Hochzeit, ubernahm mein Mann die Geschafte seines
Vaters. Sein grosser Traum war es jedoch, Politiker zu werden. Er
wurde Mitglied der Oppositionspartei, Demokratic Alliance ( DA ) und
unterstutzte diese auch finanziell.

Die regierende Partei ANC ( Nelson Mandela ) war nicht glucklich uber
diese Situation,trat an meinen Mann heran und forderte ihn auf,
jede finanzielle Unterstutzung einzustellen. Er gab jedoch nicht nach.
Im Marz 2002 , erschien ein Artikel in der Guardian Newspaper, in dem
die Familie meines Mannes, der Zusammenarbeit mit der
Apartheidsregierung beschuldigt wurde. Offenbar eine Aktion des ANC,
gegen meinen Mann.

Am 25. April 2002, um 4 Uhr Morgens , versammelte sich eine Gruppe
von Schwarzen vor unserem Haus und versuchte auf das Grundstuck zu
gelangen. Wir riefen die Polizei, die jedoch sehr lange auf sich
warten liess. Als mein Mann am Fenster stand wurde er von funf
Gewehrkugeln todlich getroffen.

Er starb noch in meinen Armen,bevor die Polizei und der Krankenwagen
unser Haus erreicht hatten.

Fast Sieben Jahre nach dem schrecklichen Ereignis, bin ich immer noch
depressiv, mein Herz ist gebrochen und mein Leben schein zerstort.
Ich habe sehr viel Angst. Aus diesem Grund habe ich mich entschlossen,
das Land, das mir so viel Kummer und Leid gebracht hat zu verlassen.
Ich werde gehen und nie wieder zuruckkehren. Ich habe das gesamte Erbe
meines Mannes veraussert und verfuge nun uber eine betrachtliche
Summe von 20.5 Millionen US Dollar. Diese Geld mochte ich nach Europa
senden.

Hierfur bitte ich um Ihre freundliche Unterstutzung. Ich mochte das
Geld investieren und wurde auch hierfur um Ihre Hilfe bitten. Fur
diese freundliche Unterstutzung mochte ich Ihnen 10% des Geldes
zukommen lassen.

Bitte senden Sie etwaige Antworten auf meine unten angegebene Email
Adresse.

Ich hoffe auf Ihre baldige Antwort und verbleibe hoflichst

Mrs.Diana Meier Vandrift

Function Follows Platform

With a bit of hands on experience with the most recent generation of mobile phones (or smartphones, I guess I should say; iPhone/iPod touch, E71/S60, X1/Windows mobile), I noticed that it is more and more the platform that dictates what and how the phone does things.

E.g. my rant about the X1/Windows not being able to handle an alarm like every other phone on this planet.
Or that with some functions I feel that the E71/S60 is - as a phone - way behind my previous Nokia 6233/S40: Can't schedule a call on the S60, I could on the S40 (which is supposed to be inferior).

I haven't had any experience with the G1/Android so far, but from what I saw with those other phones, it will most probably be the same:

Function Follows Platform.

The (downward) stack now dictates the (upward) user experience.

As much as I like open platforms with easy and open developer access and app distribution, I hate what it sometimes does to user experience.

Sad, somehow.

Johnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote

Wonderful TED presentation that demos the power of open systems, open minds and innovative people who want to achieve something

RTFM 2.0

Just learned of a cool web service that totally replaces the good old RTFM [1].

It's called "Let me Google that for you" ... and does exactly that.

You enter a term in letmegooglethatforyou, get a link in return and send this link to your RTFMee [2].
Who, will get animated instructions on how he/she should have used Google in the first place.

I guess those RTFMees will get the message, then!

And no, in the spirit of this tool, I wont post the URL of this service.

Enjoy.
--
[1] RTFM = "Read the f*cking manual"... something you tell people who ask stupid questions that could be answered by simply looking it up in the manual. A bit outdated... Kind of nineties...
[2] I like that term ... even though I just made it up.

Media mess up

Odd how "old" media drives behavious in/with new media.

1. when there is nothing on TV, I usually watch The Daily Show online - or The Colbert Report (same same).
   - or -
2. I get inspired by the TV program - like yesterday with P.T. Anderson's wonderful Boogie Nights - and watch exactly the same movie, just on DVD, because I get the original version then, not the crappy German translation.
   
   
3. I totally give up on movies and watch some TED talks on my iPod.

Either way, the TV is more and more becoming just the trigger, not the media itself.

Skype for S60

Finally there is a (beta) Skype for Symbian/S60 (or more importantly: my E71).
It is a JavaMobile app, and can be found here.
Looks promising and - from the first glimpse - a bit easier to use than Fring. [1]

Let us all rejoice...

--
[1] not sure if it will really make my life easier...

SMS delivery report problem confirmed

Finally got confirmation that the broken delivery reports are indeed a problem on mobilkom's SMSC and they are working on a fix.
And I already blamed my poor little innocent E71... how could I?

Hope they won't charge for those broken message ...
(I know they will charge, but I never give up hope).

More on the SMS report problem

Seems that the SMS delivery report problem (by hint of Max) that this is not a E71/S60 problem, because it happens with other handsets (SE K580i in his case), too. The problem started to surface for him at exactly the same time as it did here.
The only commonality is the operator, hence the SMSC...

So, dear mobilkom austria, kindly look into this.
Looks like you are loosing the DLR flag or whatever it is...(software change 2-3 weeks ago ??)

Problem on E71/S60 with SMS delivery receipts

For the last 2 weeks or so I noticed that on my E71 SMS [1] delivery receipts (or reports) quite frequently (~50% of the time) are displayed as plain text SMS, instead of hidden and just used to update the delivery status of the message.

Such a report then looks like this:

id:0010520070 sub:001 dlvrd:001 submit date:0812311708 done date:0812311708 stat:DELIVRD err:000 text:Test

This is
a) not very readable
and
b) totally useless (since the message will stay as "Pending"...)

Most annoying is, that my operator (A1) charges for the delivery receipt (equivalent of 1 SMS).

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[1] "texting" for the native speaker amongst my readers.

Why Microsoft should not do phones

1. See today's news about the dying Zunes (they are not phones - I know - but the same category of devices)

2. A coworker and friend just got an Sony Xperia X1 ... cool phone, if it were not for the Windows Mobile inside. What he (a long time Nokia user) discovered was, that you should not switch off the phone when you rely on the alarm to go off in the morning, because it then wont.

Yes. True.
With Winodws Mobile, the d*** phone is stays switched off and the alarm just wont sound.

The ipod did it again

Just a couple of days ago, my iPod touch put me in panic mode, because the downloaded apps would not start.
The solution was to install one (any) additional app from the store (a free one, preferably).

Yesterday, he's done it again [1].

Again I had to install a free app.
First time it was the cool (but pointless) "Night Stand".
Yesterday it was the "WiFinder"...

This is getting annoying...

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[1] speaking of "he's done it again" - reminds me of the good old Pepsi ad.

My new iPod touch

So – for about 3 weeks now, I'm proud owner of an iPod Touch. I was not unhappy with my old iPod nano, but it was a good chance and a good deal.

In brief:

1. The Nokia E71 is most definitely the better input device. With anything you have to write (no matter what), you are better off on the E71.

2. The iPod (touch) is the superior reading or consumation device. Emails, web pages, feeds, ... everything. Just better.... and cooler.

3. iPod (and iPhone) are the first mobile devices, that display an email primarily in its HTML alternative (if there is one), and not just in plain text. I know that the verdict is still not out on whether HTML emails are a good idea, but the display on the iPod is excellent... more fun to read emails this way, than on the Nokia. Then E71 is able to display the HTML part, but only if you open the “attachment.html”.... cumbersome.

4. The lack of running programs in the background or in parallel on the iPod/iPhone is annoying. The E71 is far superior in that respect. E.g. having Gmail, Twing (=Skype) and Twitter client run in the background – can't do that on the iPod.

5. The lack of a clipboard has already been widely ranted about, so I will restrain myself from joining in. Since I use the clipboard on the E71 about once every 2 weeks or so, I don't really miss it on the iPod

6. Ah, yes, and the nano was easier to carry around - as his Steveness already demonstrated years ago.
   

Still a great device. Especially to watch TED through iTunes.

Weird iPod touch behaviour

Proud owner of an iPod touch that I am for about a month now (more on that later), I noticed something odd today:
All of my downloaded apps (twitterific, facebook, rememberthemilk, ...) stopped working. They would sort-of-start but immediately return to the home screen before doing anything. The build in apps did all work nicely.

I googled for this, and found that I actually had to install an additional application from the app store, and lo and behold this did solve the problem. Whatever the reason...