If only I had ...

(today's episode) ... known twitter 6 years ago.

At that time I was working for a mobile operator in Austria, and my department (SW development) was separated from the rest of the company (that included being separated from the IT operations group) into a building 5-10 minutes away - by car!

We had to commute with taxi about 2-3 times a day from our office to the main campus and back again.
More often then not two or more people would not know about each other taking the same trip and therefore take 2-3 cars at the very same time for the very same trip ... instead of just one.

So I came up with the idea for a little SMS application, where I'd advertise my planned from from our building to the main office by sending a text message to this service.
Everyone in my group who - here location comes in - is currently in the off-site building would get this notification and could reply with e.g. "join" or some other keyword, and I'd then get the summary who would like to join me.

We never created this application, although it would have been quite simple and fast to develop.

Should've built it.

Today, I'd probably do this with twitter.

Flickr mobile soo different from (full) flickr

Why is this ?

Look at the regular Flickr home page:

You have a clear structure there.

1. upload
2. your photos / recent-activity / comments
3. photos from contacts
4. everyone else
5. your groups

On Flickr mobile you have

1. recent activity
2. photos from contacts
3. comments
4. upload
5. your photos
6. everyone else
7. explore
8. your contacts

or, if I use the numbers from full flickr.
2b. 3. 2c. 1. 2a. 4. na na


But why ?

I understand that options 7 and 8 are added, because in the full flickr interface they are in the javascript drop down menus. Hard to do on a mobile.
But why change the order and structure of the other items ? Why not keep them in sync ?

And most importantly: why do I care ?

Can't say, but just annoys me.

Safari for Windows - again

Just when I almost forgot about Safari - the Mac web browser - on Windows , Apple brought it back to my attention, by including it in the Apple Software Update...

Just why ?

If anyone has a good reason for me to install Safari, please post it in the comment. And no, I don't need a reason to convert to Mac (I'm almost there), but a reason to install Safari on Windows !

Joel Spolsky on closures

Joel Spolsky has an excellent explanation on why you'd want closures ... without using the term "closure" at all.

Can Your Programming Language Do This? - Joel on Software

Sun IM in Firefox

Sometimes it takes someone "from outside" to point out the obvious...

I knew that the Sun instant messaging service (IM) was XMPP capable (or "uses XMPP"), I also knew that there is an IM/XMPP plugin for Firefox called SamePlace ... I actually had it installed on my Firefox for a couple of weeks.

But it took a customer to point out to me, that I could use SamePlace to connect to our IM server!
Today I tried, and of course it works...

So, thank you.

Software Simian

The always omniscient Dilbert must have heard of my role change within Sun...

from Dilbert Comic Strip Archive - Dilbert.com - The Official Dilbert Website by Scott Adams - Dilbert, Dogbert and Coworkers!

Google takes a swipe at OOXML

So - according to El Reg - Google finally takes side in the ODF vs OOXML war.
And - personall I'd like to add - the right side.
Details at Google takes a swipe at OOXML | The Register

Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design

Watch this great presentation by Jeff Han at TED 2006 about multi-touch interfaces...
This makes the iPhone multi-touch just a kindergarden prototype ;-)

TED | Talks | Jeff Han: Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design (video)

Most missing feature on my Nokia

The last parade of Nokia mobiles I had [1](and still have) lacked one important feature:

If I go to the calendar „application“ I can schedule a call with a person from my contacts list or any phone number I choose to enter. At the given time I will get a reminder and - by simply pressing the green „call“ button - I call this person.

Nice.

Comfortable.

Good.

Why, then, can't I create this entry from a person/contact context. E.g. I am in the address book / contact list, or I am in the missed/received calls list... most of the time I want to schedule a call (or call back) from there. I saw that someone called e.g. whilst I was in a meeting, and I want to call him back after the meeting, say in 30 min. Or I just called someone, got on their voicebox and want to try again in an hour.

Why didn't anyone think of this use case?

Why doesn't any mobile support his ?

I just checked: not even the iPhone...

[1] 6310i, 6230i, 6233

When did Google acquire FeedBurner?

Strange, I never noticed that Google has acquired FeedBurner.

Tracing back the news, it must have been late May last year...

Finally last.fm, too

Just to let you know - in case you care - that I'm now on last.fm as well.
What is last.fm ?
Hm, I guess best decribed as social network (and recommendation engine, ...) around music, with really everything you can imagine around this meme.

Find me here.

What a humble error message

This came up when I wanted to update my nightly build of Lightning:



I just like the wording...

Want to have...X300

My current laptop is a ThinkPad T43p... love it.
But what I crave for is the Lenovo X300.... the Mac Air equivalent on the non-Mac-World.

Mozilla Messaging is out

Finally Mozilla Messaging is "out".

"Out" as in "out in the wild", i.e. spun off of Mozilla.

And they announced the plans for Thunderbird3.

"Current plans for Thunderbird 3 include:

* Integrated calendaring (based on the existing Lightning extension)
* Radically improving search
* Many other user interface improvements such as faster workflow, improved feed reading, simpler user interface, automatic configuration, and more."

So, not a lot:

• Lightning (Calendar project) integration was to be expected,
• "radically improving search" is still not a lot if you think of the current search non-capabilities...
• and the items under bullet 3 I don't care for a lot.

Guys, what about a proper address book and social network integration ??

Now on Twitter

Just signed up for Twitter.

If you haven't yet heard of twitter, it is probably best described with their own words:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I'd say, it's very related to IM, but more broad-casting then the 1:1 dialog you usually see on IM. Also it is a bit less about conversation.

But then again, how should I know, I just started...
Follow me here .

(Of course I added a twitter gadget/widget/thingy to this blog over there ->)

m³: Silver Bullet Wiki?

Martin has interesting observations (and rants) on Wikis as tools for building/negotiating an agenda for a meeting.

m3s online Pamphlet :: y2008 : m02 : Silver Bullet Wiki:

Instead of emailing a meeting agenda, put it on a wiki page and email people a link to that page. If changes need to be made, anyone on your team can do so and everyone will have immediate access to the same, up-to-date version
[...]
And how does that differ from a Word file on a fileshare, a Sharepoint place, an Exchange shared folder or a Lotus Quicker?
A fool with a tool is still a fool. If people are not used to working on ONE copy of a document – no matter what technology – they will still end up with several versions of the document. Either by printing it to PDF, copying into the calendar-entry, etc.
[some typos corrected]

But Martin, why so strict ?
I'd understand "wiki" as a pars-pro-toto for all of the options you suggested.
I strictly oppose to the Word file (or ODT file for that matter;-)) on a whatever server.

Cool would be:

1. A "document" (not word) on a server -> then you get the single copy property.
2. directly editable through web and an API -> allows for easy and direct access from all possible tools
3. obviously you want the author/editor of a change/addition/suggestion to the agenda visible and identifiable
4. And then you'd want both an RSS/Atom feed from that document as well as an iCal/webcal/caldav access to this document. (And others: you might want to generate your PDF directory out of it for archival and print).
   
5. It should of course carry the whole event/appointment data as well.

That's what I'd want to see... If that's then implemented in Exchange, SharePoint, Domino/Notes or on a Wiki - I couldn't care less.

BUZZER

Wrong, sorry. I do care.
By my nature I'd prefer the Wiki or Notes approach over any Exchange/SharePoint approach... not so much religiously, but they tend to guarantee more open access - meaning both users, and APIs.

Sun about to buy Innotek

In case you are into reading corporate press releases (yuck):
Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire innotek, Expanding Sun xVM Reach to the Developer Desktop

There is also - of course - the usually witty El Reg version of it.

Yahoo Officially Rejects Microsoft Offer

Yahoo Officially Rejects Microsoft Offer:

"As expected, Yahoo has officially rejected Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid to acquire the company. In a brief press release issued ..."

End of act #1.
Brief intermission.

Let's see how this will continue.

OpenSolaris and the System z

OpenSolaris and the System z:

"Sun Microsystems and Sine Nomine Associates have demonstrated the OpenSolaris code base running on an IBM System z mainframe. [...] The Solaris demonstration included support for powerful Solaris features including Solaris ZFS, and Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), which help customers improve uptime, cut costs, and speed time to market."

So the MVS, no OS/390, no z/OS, whatever, guys who still refer to files as "members" can work with ZFS...
(or would that be z/FS then ;-))

Nicholas Carr: The Big Switch

I just finished Nicholas Carr's new book The Big Switch: Our New Digital Destiny
a couple of days ago.

I fully agree with his main observation, that IT (equipment, installation, development, operation) will move from in-house data centers to some IT utility providers, like we saw a century ago with electricity. No one will manage and operate their own CRM, ERP, Mail, ... in the future.

And just for the fact that with his book he brought this very idea to a broader audience, I applaud him.

Then again, I don't really like the rest of the book. Instead of describing what some players in the IT industry (IBM, Sun, ...) are doing with respect to this development, Carr just expresses his love with Google and its founders.

A missed opportunity.

Nevertheless, ... well, see my first point.