Mid-May Resolution

Why only have new-years resolutions? Why not start with Mid-May resolutions?

so here's mine:

I'll get a second (CPU) core in my home PC before I get it in my smart phone.

Tough one... off to buy a new PC in the next 2 weeks (after 8+ years with the one I currently own).

Cloud rants

With the outage of the Amazon S3 storage about two weeks ago  and the downtime of the Playstation Network (PSN) due to security problems, the cloud sceptics are on the rise again.

The usual “we told you so” and “the cloud is not safe”... etc etc.

Two thoughts on this

1. Show me one internal IT operation that has an availability or up-time like S3.
2. If people would only spend the right amount of money on the cloud services and subscribe to the full package with proper redundancies, etc etc this would probably not happen.
   Well, the single outage at one Amazon site will still happen, but not the same net effect on all the other services.

I guess one of the reasons is, that IT managers or CxOs compare the cheapest price they find on the brochures for the cloud services with their internal (total) cost. And then tend to buy only the cheapest flavor of whatever cloud service they want, without any consideration regarding availability (don't even get me started on security).

Like at least one IT manager who I heard complaining how expansive 1 TB of storage is in an enterprise grade storage box (or even in a SAN) when they can get 1TB for roughly 50€ as a USB disk...

Awesome Thunderbird Plugin

So, the other day I sat down to write myself an add-on that was more than overdue for me... or for the way I use mail and Thunderbird.

At that time I called it Domain Specific Move, and it did exactly that. I took the most domain with the most occurrence in an email (scanning to, from, cc) and suggested a folder for this mail; and you were able to train it.

Through Max's comment I learned about the Nostalgy add-on. It actually is about defining keyboard shortcuts and stuff for Thunderbird:

Adds keyboard shortcuts to change folder, move/copy messages, with folder name auto-completion (using only the keyboard). 

The folder name auto-completion is the really awesome stuff. I just have to hit S (for Save == Move) and an entry field pops up at the bottom of the window and I only need to type two or three letters of the folder name and that's it.

When you really use nested folders like I do - with about 5-6 levels deep, this saves a lot of time.

Same for G as GoTo folder. And there's a nice B (whatever that stands for) that Moves the message to the folder and then goes to the folder (sort of S+G).

Great stuff. Thanks Max, for the hint.

New Google Docs App for Android with OCR

New Google Docs App for Android with OCR

Google release a (nativeff) client of Google Docs for Android. Apart way better editing of documents than the (mobile) web version does, it now also supports OCR. (optical character recognition) images directly from the camera. This feature has been in Google docs for a while, but now it is also directly from the phone. Of course I had to try this. It gives you a kind nf James Bond feeling, when you grep you phone with a hidden camera in it[1], bend over a document and take picture of it
With a click it is uploaded to Google and convened to text. With quite impressive results. The image itself is preserved through the upload and attached to the document, so you can manually correct the results.

Naturally, this post had to be created this way.

[1] ofcourse the camera in my HTC Desire Z is not really “hidden”, but part of the 007 experience

 Ok, so here's the image:

And here's the original text:


New Google Docs App for Android with OCR

Google release a (native?) client of Google Docs for Android. Apart from way better editing of documents than the (mobile) web version does, it now also supports OCR (optical character recognition) from images … directly from the camera.

This feature has been in Google docs for a while, but now it is also available directly from the phone.

Of course I had to try this. It gives you a kind of James Bond feeling, when you grep you phone with a hidden camera in it[1], bend over a document and take picture of it.

With a click it is uploaded to Google and converted to text.

With quite impressive results.

The image itself is preserved through the upload and attached to the document, so you can manually correct the results.

Naturally, this post had to be created this way.

---

[1] of course the camera in my HTC Desire Z is not really “hidden”, but it's part of the 007 experience :)

And yes, the typo ("grep" instead of "grab") was by me, not by google.

Google Calendar Goodie

Have you ever noticed that Google Calender shows the current day (of the month) as the favicon.

Therefore also in the tab (on Firefox), even it the tab is pinned.

Cool. Nice.
Not sure if it is entirely useful, but I like it.

The end of Flock

Flock Official End of Support Notice

Support for Flock browsers will be discontinued as of April 26th, 2011. We would like to thank our loyal users around the world for their support, and we encourage the Flock community to migrate in the coming weeks to one of the recommended web browsers listed below.

Our Recommendations

Since no further security updates will be provided to keep you safe on the web, we encourage all Flock users to upgrade to either Chrome or Firefox. Both are based on the same reliable technologies as Flock, and both are being actively maintained and improved. Also, each of these browsers has a broad selection of add-ons and extensions to customize and extend their capabilities.

For more information (including notes on how to migrate to other browsers), please see our FAQ.

Thanks,

The Flock Team

I de-installed it months ago anyway :(

Thunderbird hack: Domain Specific Move

One of the most frequent actions in Thunderbird is to move a message that I received from a business partner or customer to a message folder for exactly this partner/customer. Same for messages I sent to them.

However, as you communicate with more customers and partners, the folder hierarchy will become more complex and I already need about 6 clicks to select the specific folder.

Sometimes I'm lucky and it is the most recently used folder, then I can do it with the "move again" function directly in the context menu; sometimes, it is at least in the recent folder menu, still 3 clicks.

WIBNI if TB could just remember that I always move messages from domain A to the folder X, lets say from "ibm.com" to folder "/Vendors/IBM" or something like that, and then present me with a one-click option on the menu.

So I wrote an add-on for this and called it "Domain Specific Move".
It does exactly what I described.

I find the most frequently used domain in the email (counting all from sender, recipient, cc-list).
If I already find a setting for this, I create an additional menu item in the move message menu for a move to this folder.

If not, I present a "learn" menu item, that lets you train the extension on where to put mails for this extension (i.e. register a folder for this domain). You pick the destination folder yourself. No magic included there.

Once I thus learned and stored the folder for this domain, I can - next time this domain appears - present the "Move to " menu item as above.

Configuration is stored in the preferences under "extensions.domainmove.".
Currently I have no options page for this, so if you want to change or remove an entry, you have to go to the prefs.js file or the about: dialog.

Yes, I know, filters can do the same; but when I select to manually run the filter, it will not tell me what exactly it is up to... The beauty of my approach (IMHO) is, that I see it on the menu and can decide otherwise, because not always does the folder registered for this domain really match.

In essence this is only a short cut with an educated suggestion. No behind-the-scenes magic.

Todos:

• more flexibility with domains with more than 2 parts (e.g. at.ibm.com should map to ibm.com if there is no at.ibm.com)
• unlearn domains (without going to the about: dialog)
• option for domains-to-ignore; currently I ignore non-specific domains as gmail.com, a1.net, gmx.at, sun.com, oracle.com [1].
• ignore "my" domain (see comment re oracle.com)

Available for TB3+ only.

I will polish the code and implement some of the above todos, then I will post the first beta.

--
[1] well for me as an former Sun and now Oracle employee, all emails contain either an oracle.com or sun.com address and this domain contains no information on where to archive the email.

On podcasts - Not Print

Not only is a podcast not radio, it is also (not too surprisingly) NOT PRINT.

In a newspaper or journal you usually have the so called standfirst right after/below the headline summing the article to follow. Sort of an abstract, if you will.

This is quite convenient, because it allows you to learn what the article is about (not always that obvious from the headline alone), and maybe skip the article itself entirely.
Sometimes - if I know I am interested in the article - I will skip the standfirst... knowing that there is no additional information in it.

Either way, there are options to avoid the repetition.

Not so in a podcast.
In audio it is less easy to skip things.

If you provide a quick intro to a podcast, be very very brief. Only give the topic. Don't summarize the podcast. Especially not if the podcast is short (5-10 minutes). Do not repeat everything from the podcast in the abstract/standfirst.

Just don't.
It's annoying.

WebOS on my Laptop?

I sort of made fun about WebOS on a PC the other day; but after a nice chat with Max, I began to realize that there indeed is a use for WebOS on a PC... on a Laptop to be precise.

• Imagine a regular Laptop (HP in this case here, if it makes it easier for you :-) )
• Imagine also that by some magic means you'd tell it to boot WebOS instead of Windows/Linux when you power it on or de-hibernate it.
• Imagine that you'd have an excellent browser, video player, good-enough email app, good-enough word/excel/powerpoint viewer and editor, ... all that you have on regular iPads or Android-Tablets today.

That'd give you an iPad/Tablet-like instant-on-gadget with a full QWERTY keyboard and excellent battery life.

On the airport, on the train, on your daily commute, ... this sounds a lot easier than Windows for those situations

Some thoughts and pre-reqs on this:

• You'd need something like a "WebOS key" which you hold to "boot" the WebOS mode.
  Windows must not even start to de-hibernate.
• WebOS would need to be already running (hibernated to flash, or something like that), not really booted from scratch
• The laptop would need an extra power-saving mode and maybe clock the CPU down in WebOS mode so save battery life

And if you really need the full enterprisey stuff to create rich corporate boring PowerPoint presentations with pie-charts and everything, you can still boot into Windows, like you used to.

Come to think of it, I might actually want WebOS on my laptopThinkPad.

Numeric HTML Input Field and other HTML5 goodies

Some while ago I've written a little web app at home that
a) needs mainly numeric input
and
b) is used mainly from an iPod touch / iPad / other mobile device.

On all of those devices, numeric input is cumbersome, because you first have to switch the virtual keyboard into numeric mode.

Yesterday I googled around again for this, and finally found a solution.

HTML5 has some more types to INPUT fields:

type="email"	for email addresses
type="url"	for web addresses / URLs
type="number"	for numeric input

All of them have the effect on the iPhone/iPad that they switch to a virtual keyboard layout that is optimized for the input, e.g.

The email-keyboard on the iPhone will have the @-sign there
The url-keyboard on the iPhone will have the ".com" key; also the . and the / key will be placed more prominently.
The number-keyboard on the iPhone will switch the numbers in the top row.

On my Android 2.2 [1]  HTC only the number mode works, but it gives you a numeric block / phone-style keyboard, which is even better for numeric input.

HTML5 defines some more values for the type like "date", "week", "month", "time", ... and "range" for sliders, i.e. for numeric values with clear and narrow boundaries, but those are rarely implemented as of today.

See Dive Into HTML5 for an excellent overview including browser-support.

Since all of the above are defined only starting HTLM5, they are not "supported" on many current browsers, but the good thing is, that all browsers, that do not explicitely support them, revert to type="text" for unknown input-types.

Also there is a new attribute placeholder:
Placeholder text is displayed inside the input field as long as the field is empty and not focused. As soon as you click on (or tab to) the input field, the placeholder text disappears. (from Dive Into HTML)

Sort of like the search box in Firefox.

So back to my initial problem, defaulting to numeric input on mobile devices.
Just replace  input type="text" with input type="number", there is no down-side to this.
It is user-friendly on mobile devices, and works like it used to on all other browsers.

--

[1] I'll check 2.3 and 3.0 once my PC is fast enough for the SDK.

Android SDK and a new PC ?

So now that I finally moved to Android, I installed the Android SDK on my home computer plus the NetBeans plugin.
I seems to work fine, I can get the Hello World sample to compile and package and it shows up in the emulator.

The problem is that my 8 years old (!) PC with only 1.something GHz and 1GB RAM is definitely too slow and weak for this. Booting Android (2.2) in the Emulator takes longer than actually buying, charging and starting a physical Android device ...

So I guess I need a new PC now as well..

OK, I wanted to get a new one anyway, come April, so that my current PC can actually celebrate it's 8th birthday...
So proud...

So long...

So long, Nokia, and thanks for all the fish handsets.
Had a great time and fun with Nokia handsets for the last 14 years or so ... But now I'm leaving.

I'm now proud owner of my own HTC Desire Z (not only the test equipment, thanks again Richie).

WebOS on my PC?

With HP To Include WebOS on Every PC Shipped From 2012 Onward
and that the WebOS Emulator is built on Virtualbox, I assume that I could soon have a copy of WebOS running on my PC?

Book: iWoz - by and about Steve Wozniak

A couple of weeks ago I read iWoz: How I invented the Personal Computer and had fun doing it by and about Steve Wozniak.
Only I forgot to blog about it then. So here you go.


Fascinating book... well, when I say that, it will not win the Nobel prize, but it is so full of memories.
That is,

• if you ever did something in hardware;
• if you ever (like I did at TechU Vienna) designed some chips (integrated circuits - not crisps or fries)[1] 
• if you ever designed a small computer system, with CPU, memory, and all the device controllers
• if you ever had to write BIOS functionality or at the operating system level
• if you ever wanted to do more with some gadget than the manufacturer intended you to do
• if you ever spent[2] days optimizing some machine instructions / assembler programs to use 2 cycles less

If you ever were a geek, if the name Steve Wozniak has any meaning to you... go and read this book.
An experience quite close to time travel

--

[1] by the way my first contact with SunOs

[2] read: wasted

And Nokia?

Nice observation (by my wife, actually), that - until half a year ago - we used to be a pure Nokia family... for years.
Me, her, the twins... only Nokia.
If there is such a thing as a Nokia fan boy - I probably was one.

Now we are pure Android family (2x HTC, 1x Samsung, 1x Sony Ericsson; see here and here).

IMHO, this says a lot about Nokia.

I Became Assimilated...

So, the (Android) Collective got me.
On Wednesday I got a HTC Desire Z to play around with...

Tomorrow I'll finally buy one.

Resistance has never been more futile.

--

btw: Thanks, Richie.
btw2: and that's about the most StarTrek references you'll ever get from me.
btw3: Thanks, max.

Sort order ?

I wonder what the (intended) sort order was here ?

This is the iPhone/iPad app from Austria Airlines...

Is it really that hard ?
How can you sort on the first letter (obviously, because it is sort of grouped by the first letter) but not on the rest ?
The list is neither sorted in English, nor local language, nor the airport codes.

I don't see any sort order here (apart from the initial letter).

Odd.
Stupid.

Dinosaurs mating

So... Nokia and Microsoft seem to mutually feel that they need each other to survive in the mobile / smartphone world.

I guess there is some truth to that, and it will play out to some extent:

• Microsoft needs every hardware manufacturer they can get for their Windows Phone 7.
  In that regard, Nokia is very important and helpful to them: they still do have a huge base of followers, and they do have the operator connections.
• Microsoft will gain a lot by the uni-lateral exclusivity: every Nokia smartphone will come with Windows Phone 7. So if you want Nokia (and a smartphone) you have to go Windows.
• Nokia needs a good OS... Symbian was OK  - years ago, but would never stand up to iOS, Android or Windows Phone.
• On the other hand: there's a good chance that Nokia smart phones will become just another HTC/LG/... phone.

There are still good reasons to choose Nokia:

• They have robust hardware design - even Windows can't take that away.
• They do know a lot more about radio and the phone functionality than Apple and the Android folks combined - but lets see if this can make it into a Windows phone
• If you only want a feature phone, Nokia (with Symbian) is still an excellent choice.

What I'm not really sure about is: Do people explicitely want an iPhone or an Android phone ... or do they "just" want a nifty smart phone, and don't really care about the OS (and app ecosystem). The lackluster 2010 sales of Windows Phone 7 (despite all the push from Microsoft and others) and the decline of Nokia Symbian smartphones indicate that it really is about the OS (iOS, Android).

Let's see.

And one more thought:
Remember that Palm with the Treo once thought the found their salvation by giving up PalmOS and being embraced by Microsoft?

Sad.

On podcasts: Not Radio!

Yesterday I had to explain "podcast" to my in-laws, who are neither very computer nor internet savvy.
We[1] used the radio analogy, since we both are actually listening to a couple of radio shows / podcasts from Ö1 (national radio in Austria) her parents know from the radio.

Now podcasts and radio share many rules like

• audio quality & leveling
• pace of speech
• structure and complexity of sentences.

Still a podcast is not a radio show.

So please:

1. Avoid references to dates like "this Sunday" or "Tomorrow you will hear..."
   because not everyone (I'd even say hardly anyone) listens to your podcast on the day it was published.
2. Also do not use the intro for the next episode as the outro of the one before.
   This might be OK on radio, but it is annoying when you listen to the episodes of one format in sequence.
3. And bear in mind that the level of expertise of your audience is probably better on a podcast than on radio, at least more homogeneous.
   So, know your audience and their knowledge. Don't talk to newbies if your audience are hackers & nerds.
4. Also remember: most (if not all) of your podcast listeners know the internet and how to use it.
   They already managed to subscribe to your podcast! So if you have additional material just mention the URL (or just the domain) where your show resides... This is where you should place all the show notes, episode list, additional presentations or documents or wikis. Your listeners will easily find it.
5. Then again: don't assume they know your show's homepage.
   They might have found your podcast on iTunes or through other aggregating sites/tools... So be sure to mention your home base once in a while.
6. Final one for today: There are no links in podcasts.
   So don't read out or spell long URLs. I can't write them down when listening to a podcast anyway. Consider a rather unique search term and an additional hint for finding said URL in the search results. And provide the link in the show notes.

Thanks for listening; next week on "on podcasts" you will... oops

--
[1] actually my wife did half of the explaing, since it all began by her telling how she is using her Galaxy S to listen to podcasts.

A Geek is Born

via Geek&Poke