April 2006

Digged

by Volker Weber

What happens if your site makes the front page of digg.com?

Congratulations, Cem!

And here are some of the more interesting incoming links:

interesting link

interesting link

interesting link

Come Take A Seat on my 1957 Chevy Style Couch

by Cem Basman

Chevy 57

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Explorer Destroyer - A silly idea

by Volker Weber

Since Simon just mentioned it , I think Explorer Destroyer (Switch to Firefox, Make money from Adsense Referral) is a pretty silly idea. What do you gain by alienating your visitors? $1 per switcher? There must be better ways to make money. I know that Simon does not think about the money, but I don't think it works if you tell your visitors they are being inconvenienced since they are using "the wrong browser". It certainly does not work for me.

I had a gentle reminder in the sidebar until I found it too annoying. This is the top of the statistic I am seeing right now:

browserstats060430.png

So I like to think that I have smart readers. :-)

What's your favorite?

by Volker Weber

inswiration

85 and counting >

Bill lost 3 billion in one day

by Cem Basman

Benjamin J. Romano reports at The Seattle Times:

Microsoft's stock took its biggest one-day fall in more than five years Friday, shaving about $32 billion off the company's market value.

That's enough to buy Starbucks, with plenty left over to treat everyone in China to a tall cafe Americano. Or maybe buy Costco and Getty Images and get back about $2 billion in pocket change.

It's almost as much as the United States spends every three months in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The endowment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest charity, is a few billion less.

Microsoft's stock closed at $24.15, down $3.10 a share, or 11.4 percent, after the Redmond software company indicated plans Thursday to invest more in its businesses — including a battle for the Internet with Google and Yahoo! — at the expense of higher short-term profits.

That's capitalism. Watch MSFT at Nasdaq.

[via digg]

HOWTO mount a Pez dispenser on a camera's hot-shoe

by Volker Weber

This must be one of the best ideas to grab attention from kids.

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[via boingboing]

Ten days with the Nokia N70

by Volker Weber

nokia n70

I have used the N70 extensively for 10 days, and it has earned a vowe's choice award. I can recommend it to anybody who does not need a Blackberry. If you rely heavily on skimming your mail and answering a substantial part of them, then this phone is not for you, for two reasons: the screen resolution is too small to read a lot of text and predictive text is no substitute for a full keyboard.

Other than that it was pure joy. As you would expect from Nokia, handling phone calls was perfect. The camera takes nice pictures with up to two megapixel in bright daylight. Indoor shots were dull, but every single picture taken outside was good. The mail client can connect to IMAP servers with idle support, so you will be alerted of incoming mail as soon as it arrives. Once of the things I particularly like is that I can download and subsequently play the voice messages in my inbox. Blackberry won't let me do this. I also have not encountered a single malformed message the mail software would not read.

Since the N70 is 2nd generation Series 60 phone there is a ton of software available, much of it as freeware. The only things I have installed so far are the screenshot utility and Google Maps though.

Top 10 Lies of Engineers

by Volker Weber

Guy Kawasaki continues his list of Top 10 Lies. This time it is Engineers. I liked this one best:

9. "Our beta sites loved the software." In twenty five years of working in technology, I've never heard a company report that its beta sites didn't like its software. There are three reasons for this: first, many beta sites are so honored to get pre-release software that they don't want say anything negative. Second, most beta sites haven't used the software very much. Third, most beta sites don't want to seem cruel by criticizing a company's new product. Doing so is as socially unacceptable as telling someone that his baby is ugly.

Other "Top 10 Lies" lists: Entrepeneurs and VCs

The thread that won't die

by Volker Weber

If you do not subscribe to the comments feed, you should. You might be missing out on gems like these.

Tracking a Lufthansa flight on the Internet

by Cem Basman

Todd Underwood, Chief Operations and Security Officer of Renesys Corporation, an internet routing and market intelligence firm, describes in detail in his company blog:

I just saw my plane cross the mid-Atlantic, not by looking out the window, but by watching routing updates cascade across the Internet. I'm writing from a Lufthansa jet right now, travelling from Munich to Boston. This plane offers the (relatively) new Connexion by Boeing wifi + satellite Internet service.

Pretty smart. But in these days this is a bit scary too. Not only the air control will watch you ... This is how Lufthansa presents their in-flight service which is available since 2003.

YouTube is now bigger than Flickr

by Cem Basman

AlexaYouTubeFlickr

People have more fun watching TV than a photo album.

Addendum: Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo compares ten video sharing services. Good reading. And there are 30+ service reviews here and a list of 40 services here. [2006-04-30]

Notes "Hannover" provisioning

by Volker Weber

This was one of the enlightening slides of Chip Carter's presentation. It shows what Thomas Gumz is working on: Making Domino an Eclipse update site. You see two Notes databases that currently enable a Domino 7 (!) server to provision a Hannover client. One holds the descriptions of composite applications, the other contains the components themselves. The update manager in the client polls for new features or layouts in composite.nsf. A Notes NRPC handler in the client then makes it possible to pull new or updated components from the Domino server without HTTP support.

I apologize for the bad picture but I did not bring a real camera.

Das ewige Beta und der deutsche Perfektionismus

by Cem Basman

Ja geht denn das überhaupt zusammen? Das ist eine Frage, die ich bei der ersten Sitzung der Dezentrale gerne noch gestellt hätte. Nun, für die Szenekenner des Web 2.0 ist das obligatorische Beta-Etikett auf neuen Sites und Services sicher mittlerweile ein eher abgegriffener Marketingbegriff. Aus dem Ausdruck aus dem Versions- und Releasemanagement ist ein weltweiter Meme geworden. Alles ist Beta. Alles ist im Entstehen. Nichts ist fertig. Der profesionelle Unperfektionismus.

Die Dichter und Denker der Nation, die vielgerühmten deutschen Ingenieure, Tüftler und Bastler, die Gründer und Industriekapitäne des Wirtschaftwunders würden sich im Grabe umdrehen. Oder etwa nicht? Der Hang in deutschen Grossunternehmen Projekte und Vorhaben sich totzuplanen und zu meeten, die zögernde Haltung vieler im mittleren Management, die Angst der Ressortfürsten vor dem Scheitern, der Unmut in den grauen Fluren vor dem Experiment, endlose Entwicklungszeiten und Abstimmungsrunden... Mein Rat: Werfen Sie einfach Ihren Betablocker in den Müll! Vereinfachen und beschleunigen Sie die Dinge! Free your mind!

Das Schlimmste, was dabei passieren könnte, ist, dass Sie im Museum of Modern Betas ("This site is in early alpha, I still need to figure a few things out") landen oder auf dem Friedhof von Michael Arlingtons TechCrunch Index.

Übrigens, Dr. Heribert Adamsky hat die Sitzung in den ehrwürdigen Hallen der Bibliothek des Handelsblatts live protokolliert. In Beta natürlich. Perfekt.

Nachtrag: Der offizielle Artikel in Handelsblatt.com zum Event. Meine Wenigkeit ist auch mit Bild und text vertreten: Alles Beta oder was?

Amazing

by Volker Weber

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Man in the mirror

by Volker Weber

Going home

by Volker Weber

Sperrmüll

by Volker Weber

Darmstadt (ots) - Zwei Netzwerkmessgeräte im Wert von achttausend Euro hat ein Unbekannter von der Mauer eines Hauses mitgehen lassen. Der Geschädigte, der diese Geräte beruflich nutzt, hatte am Dienstagabend gegen 22.30 Uhr diese in einem Karton beim Ausladen seines Pkw in der Osannstraße auf die Umzäunung gestellt und - weil er noch andere Dinge in das Haus transportierte - vegessen. Am Mittwochmorgen gegen 09.30 Uhr stellte er den Diebstahl fest. Der Karton stand noch auf der Mauer - allerdings leer. Hinweise werden an die Polizei, Telefon (06151) 969 3030, erbeten.

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Wo bin ich hier gelandet?

by Volker Weber


Photo: Stefan Rubner

vowe on tour

by Volker Weber

Yes, I am still alive. :-)

This week I am travelling a lot. I went to Cologne Monday and on towards Oberhausen, where we had dinner with speakers of the 6th Admin&Developer conference. The conference ran Tuesday and Wednesday and there were some great presentations. The venue was really nice and the atmosphere at the conference was just great. I so enjoy talking to the other attendees and we had some great conversations. Unfortunately H&T Verlag has been merged with another company of the same group and they stopped publishing Groupware Magazin, and there won't be any more conferences in this space from this company.

Wednesday I travelled to Munich in preparation of the Heise Securitiy conference. This is a single track event with independent speakers. No vendor presentations. We started today in Munich and will continue next week in Düsseldorf, and then Leipzig and Hamburg. I think my presentation about Mobile Device Security today was well received and I am looking forward to the other conference locations. Hamburg will be the nicest location of this year's events, and I am also looking forward to meet with Björn, Cem and Katharina.

Two hints for travellers: I have two interesting pages on this site, that are not linked: One is /ota.php with a few links I use, and the second one is /spiegelbb.php, which contains only headlines with links to pages without ads. Please use at your discretion.

Google Maps und Google Maps Mobile

by Volker Weber

Was lange währt ...

Date: 27. April 2006 16:15:12 MESZ
To: Googlegramverteiler@google.com
Subject: Googlegram: Google launcht Google Maps in Deutschland

Nun auch offiziell :-)

Guten Tag,
ich freue mich sehr, Sie darüber informieren zu können, dass wir mit Google Maps soeben die Beta-Version der lokalen Suche in Deutschland gestartet haben: *http://maps.google.de/*
Google Maps ist der schnelle Weg zu lokalen Informationen - am Schreibtisch und übers Handy.

Und was noch besser ist: Google Maps Mobile geht auch. Aber Vorsicht: Das erzeugt enorm Traffic.

Mash up!

by Ragnar Schierholz

Recently, many new services and products have been made available which all follow the same kind of logic. Content and services already available somewhere on the net are being woven together to create a new service or product. If I'm not mistaken, this is often referred to as mesh up mashup [thanks, Jeff, for the correction].

Example: All the photos I publish on FlickR are available under the "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs"-license from the CreativeCommons license set. That means that anyone may take my pictures as they are and reuse them in non-commercial products as long as he references me as the source. A company called Schmap has recently asked me for permission to include some of my pictures in their free, digital travel guide for Hawaii which they released today. I don't think that I'm an extraordinary phtotographer, but I'm lucky sometimes with my shots. And even more: I look through my lense as a genuine tourist.

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Direct Journalism

by Cem Basman

Michael J. Totten has made an experiment in journalism:

I decided to try a little experiment. Instead of lining up an assignment from an editor to cover Northern Iraqi Kurdistan, I struck out on my own without asking permission from anyone. Almost all my material was posted directly to this Web site. I wanted to see if the amount of money I can raise from readers competes with the industry’s going rate.


It does.

I call it "Direct Journalism".

Automatic Marketing

by Cem Basman

amazon.de schreibt mir heute:

Liebe Kundin, lieber Kunde! Amazon-Kunden, die Managing Successful IT Outsourcing Relationships von Petter Gottschalk gekauft haben, interessieren sich auch für Bücher von Michael A. Hallett. Daher möchten wir Sie darüber informieren, dass Private Prisons in America: A Critical Race Perspective (Critical Perspectives in Criminology) von Michael A. Hallett soeben erschienen ist. Bestellen Sie jetzt Ihr Exemplar!

Also den Zusammenhang zwischen "IT Outsourcing" und "Private Prisons" sehe ich noch nicht so ganz ... aber ich vermute mal wie das semantisch zustande gekommen sein mag. Das sind eben die Tücken des automatic marketing.

Trashpeople

by Volker Weber

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Perpetual Beta?

by Cem Basman

Mario Sixtus, hat mich zur "1. Sitzung des Dezentralkomitees" von Handelsblatt.com in Düsseldorf eingeladen. Benannt nach seinem Blog im Blatt, soll dabei eine Gesprächsrunde, ein Debattierclub, eine Denkfabrik - bestehend aus Entwicklern, Forschern, Firmenlenkern und Journalisten - etabliert werden. Die Treffen werden in wechselnder Besetzung stattfinden. Themenschwerpunkt ist generell das Internet bzw. Web X.0. Das Motto des ersten Treffens am 26. April lautet:

"Perpetual beta" - Reißbrett und Planungsstab waren gestern. Die Farbe der Saison ist beta. Web-Entwicklungen entstehen in der freien Wildbahn, Nutzer oszillieren zwischen Versuchskaninchen und Mit-Entwickler. Wo hat dieses System seine Grenzen? Füttert man nicht die Konkurrenz mit Ideen? Lässt es sich auch außerhalb des Netzes praktizieren? Open-Source-Marketing? BMW-Cabrio-beta?

Eine Betaphase dient auch als ein Proof-of-Concept. Das gilt nicht nur für technische Entwicklungen sondern für jede Art von Neukonzeption. Beispielsweise auch für grössere oder wichtige Organisationsänderungen. Etwas, das ich seit vielen Jahren beruflich in meinen eigenen Organisationen praktiziere. Die beste Planung ist nichts gegen die geballte Realität, in der sie bestehen muss. In so einer Betaphase können schnell und flexibel alle Anregungen und Verbesserungsvorschläge konzentriert bewertet und und eingepflegt werden. Am Ende dieser Betaphasen ist das "Commitment" zu Organisationsänderungen auch viel höher. Wichtig ist dabei, das die Betaphasen vor dem Start auch offiziell allen angekündigt werden - mit dem Hinweis, dass die endgültige Organisation erst am Ende dieser Phase verabschiedet wird und damit zur festen Regel für alle Mitarbeiter für längere Zeit wird.

Ein recht illustrer Kreis u.a. mit Rainer Wasserfuhr, auf den mich sehr freue, Felix Petersen von Plazes, Dr. Dirk Lewandowski von der Uni Düsseldorf und einem weiteren Dutzend interessanter Leute hat zum Treffen in den Räumen des Handelsblatts schon zugesagt. Ausser Mario Sixtus werden von der Handelsblatt Onlineredaktion dabei sein: Julius Endert, Frank Niebisch und Dr. Heribert Adamsky. Ich freue mich auf einen anregenden Abend und gute Gespräche.

Hanse Marathon 2006

by Cem Basman

hamburgmarathon2006

Der bisherige dreimalige Sieger, amtierende Vize-Weltmeister, Streckenrekordhalter und Hamburger Lokalmatador Julio Rey aus Spanien noch an zweiter Position - hinter seinem "Hasen" Robert Cheboror aus Kenia ... [Foto Handycam Nokia]

Direkt vor meiner Haustür unter meinem Balkon bei km 37,2. Angenehme Lauftemperaturen um die 14° Celsius bei grauem Himmel. Dieses Jahr heisst die Veranstaltung übrigens Conergy Marathon.

Es ist immer wieder ein schönes Erlebnis, wenn die Karawane durch Hamburg-Eppendorf an der engsten Stelle der Strecke durch die Stadt zieht. Die Zuschauer hier begrüssen vom allerersten Handbiker kurz nach 9:00, über die Rollis und Skater bis zum letzten müden Läufer bis 15:00 alle Teilnehmer mit lautem Gejohle, mit Tröten und ganzen Trommelbatterien mit Namen und Applaus. Das liebe ich an Hamburg und an meinem Stadtteil.

Update: Der Titelverteidiger Julio Rey (34) hat tatsächlich in Hamburg zum vierten Mal gewonnen. Und zwar mit erneutem Streckenrekord unter der 2:07 Marke in 2:06:52. Ich glaube, zur Ehrenbürgerschaft in Hamburg fehlt nicht mehr viel. Wir drücken ihm die Daumen zur EM 2006 am 16.-23. August in Göteborg.

Refreshingly blunt

by Volker Weber

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel visit Amazon for some cheerleading about blogging. Amazon CTO asks tough questions:

Welcome to life at Amazon, we set a very high bar for our own works and we expect anyone that comes to sell us an approach to actually be prepared to really defend their ideas. Just because blogs are cool and everybody is doing them does not automatically mean that we should institutionalize them at Amazon. We have a long history of promoting customers to use their voice about our products and our operations, so if you come to Amazon to tell us our business is going to really suffer if we do not blog, you better be prepared to defend your ideas with very strong arguments and hard evidence.

Apparently Scoble and Israel were not prepared:

I wanted them abandon their fuzzy group hug approach, and counter me with hard arguments why they were right and I was wrong. Instead they appeared shell-shocked that anyone actually had the guts to challenge the golden wonder boys of blogging and not accept their religion instantly. I have been a promoter of weblogging for a long time, so I didn't feel particularly bad to challenge these two authors to tell me why customers would get a better Amazon product ... In my mind they had no solid data-driven answers to these challenges, which I would have expected from two seasoned evangelists. I myself actually knew some of the answers to my questions, but I was surprised to see that these guys were not prepared enough to slap me around with solid answers.

This is a must read for all "Chief Blogging Consultants" out there.

More >

[via Robert]

User Interface Madness

by Volker Weber

Do you remember when I told you that I could not find an unread indicator in the N70 mail application? There you have it. And this is how the icon is rendered on screen:

n70mailindicator.png

Madness.

Printing from iTunes

by Volker Weber

I hardly ever use paper, so today was the first time I printed from iTunes. The results are amazing. If you have never looked at this feature, do try.

Nokia N70 standby and email

by Volker Weber

200420060001.png 200420060002.png

The software supplied with Symbian Series 60 has improved quite a bit since I last looked in 2005. I like the new "Active standby" screen which shows today's calendar and five application icons. I hooked up the email client to my IMAP server. When you open it, it asks you if you want to connect. In this online mode, the phone will alert you incoming messages immediately. The only issue I have is that I do not see any indicator whether a message is read or not.

200420060003.png 200420060004.png

This is no device to browse the web, but Opera makes a good effort. You can even do away with the controls and go full screen. But for serious browsing you need a bigger screen. A much bigger screen.

Google publishes calendar API

by Volker Weber

Google is making all the right moves. First they build the coolest web calendar ever and make it understand iCal files so you can subscribe to the brazillions of public calendars out here. Then they integrate the calendar into GMail which lets you set up appointments with other users. They also offer Atom/RSS support which lets you syndicate your calendar into anything that can consume this format. And now they are publishing an API so you can talk to the calendar from your own service.

I bet that pretty soon this will start to run rings around all proprietary offerings from traditional ISVs.

Kam eben rein

by Volker Weber

Guten Tag,
ich freue mich sehr, Sie heute darüber informieren zu können, dass wir soeben Google Scholar in deutscher Sprache gelauncht haben: www.scholar.google.de

Gelauncht. In deutscher Sprache. :-) Und dann wäre da noch ein kleines 404-Problem. Die richtige Adresse lautet: scholar.google.de

Aber fix reagiert, und das auch am späten Abend:

Date: 20. April 2006 21:02:01 MESZ
To: Volker Weber
Subject: Re: Googlegram: Google launcht Google Scholar auf Deutsch

OHJEEEE - Sie haben vollkommen Recht.
So ein Mist. DANKE für den Hinweis

Mal gespannt. Berichtigung oder DNS-Eintrag?

Update: Berichtigung.

Responsibilities

by Volker Weber

Scott finds his job description on Basecamp.

Place photos on your desktop

by Volker Weber

Neat little tool to place photos on your desktop backdrop.

What is wrong with Dilbert?

by Volker Weber

The Pointy Haired Boss acts out of character and gets it.

First look at the Nokia N70

by Volker Weber

The Nokia N70 which I won last week arrived today in a nice standard Nokia box. On first look this is a pretty neat device -- Nokia went back to a clean design. The phone has a slider on the back which protects the lens and the little LED photo light. When you slide it back, the camera application is loaded and you can take pictures either holding the camera sideways and using the button at the right side, or holding it up using the center of the 4-way-button. The camera knows which side is up, so it autorotates the pictures you are taking. Interestingly enough you are taking landscape photos when holding it up and portraits when holding it sideways.

nokia n70

Once I had charged the battery and inserted a SIM I was ready to sync the phone with the iBook. Load the Bluetooth assistant, add device, mobile device, switch on Bluetooth on the N70, and I was home free:

ibook_snap_512.png

Other than the 9300 the N70 was supported right off the mark in iSync 2.2. 10 Minutes later it was holding all of my contacts and the calendars. And there was no software to install. The rest of the phone was very predictable from my experience with the 6630. Symbian with Series 60 UI. The N70 comes with Opera, which is a much better browser than the 6630 had.

One thing that continues to bother me with Nokia devices is their interfaces. Although the N70 is advertized as a music phone, you cannot plug in standard headphones. You have to use the crappy ones that come with the phone or buy some dongle to translate from the proprietary nonsense to a 3.5mm plug. You cannot charge the device over a USB cable, you have to use the one Nokia sells you with the device. And yes, they changed the tip of the charger cable again. The charger that came with the N70 wasn't even functioning well. I had to use the one with the bigger tip supplied with the 9300 and an adapter to fit the N70.

Can we get over this nonsense and move to standard jacks and chargers?

Pulitzer gallery

by Ragnar Schierholz

Mike Luckovich has published some of his Pulitzer-winning cartoons online. Of course, hoping he can sell some more prints. But you may as well enjoy them on screen if you pass a commercial message in the beginning.

[via idiotworld]

Three is enough

by Volker Weber

I have three messages like this today:

xzy started a Friend Map on Frappr so your friends can all see each other on a map. Come put yourself on the map!

To see xyz's Friend Map, click below or paste the url into a browser:

Can I continue to be your friend without adding myself to your map? Here is the problem: This does not scale. I don't want to add myself to brazillions of maps. My whereabouts are well known. Just check out plazes.com. If you need a mash-up of where your friends are, start right there. If you ask, I can send you an invite which earns me worthless karma point. The handy plazes launcher for Windows even lets you set mood messages on Skype so that I can remove you from my buddylist. Latest casualties: John H. and Bill B. Boys, I can look you up on plazes if I need to know whether you are currently in your living room or on the loo crappr.

[Ben Rose seems to have a similar problem]

Remove yourself from openBC

by Volker Weber

Somebody asked me this morning how he could remove his profile from openBC. The option is not obvious, but you have to cancel your membership:

http://www.openbc.com/cgi-bin/user.fpl?op=cancel

Longest 404 page ever

by Volker Weber


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The advert enforcer

by Volker Weber

If a new idea from Philips catches on, the company may not be very popular with TV viewers. The company's labs in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, has been cooking up a way to stop people changing channels to avoid adverts or fast forwarding through ads they have recorded along with their target programme.

vowe says: Fcuking the customer is not good for your business. File under "stupid ideas". If your business model does not work any more, invent a better one.

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[via /.]

Sony Ericsson W810 Plugin for iSync

by Volker Weber

w810

The Sony Ericsscon W810 is currently not supported by Apple. Feisar has written a free plugin which adds this digicam phone to iSync.

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Repeat after me: DRM is bad for the customer

by Volker Weber

P. has been travelling a lot recently. He has shot quite a few photos and wants to show them in a slideshow made with iPhoto on his iMac. Here is what happens when he takes this slideshow to a friend's house:

I first try to play the video by double clicking on the icon: Quicktime starts but also a window pops up, coming from iTunes I guess, asking me to authorize the music relevant to that video with my ID and password.

I am starting to scratch my head but I just happened to remember that I had indeed purchased some music to check out iTMS when it started, so I dutifully typed in my ID and password. I got the "go-ahead" after that but I also got a reminder thanking me and warning me that I had used my music so far on a total of four different computers and one more was left...

Suddenly all your ranting came to my mind and it all started to make sense...

The music I had purchased and paid for, was not mine but still "theirs" and using it for something as innocent as a sound track for a home made slideshow was to be paid for again and again. No one else could benefit from it without one of my own computers.

Of course there are ways around, I know that however, I fully understand now that this is plain ridiculous, and whe are only at the beginning of this problem as the whole idea of DRM is still fairly new. Can you immagine ten years from now?

Well, I thought I just wanted to let you now, it is all starting to make more sense and I will stop supporting iTMS unless something changes in the strategy.

This would not have happened, if he had ripped one of his very own CDs. But by purchasing a track crippled by DRM he clearly received an inferior product. The only person hurt in this process is the paying customer. Whatever is bad for the customer, will be bad for the business. It just takes a while to understand.

Merkwürdig

by Volker Weber

mischanaggisch.png

Heute schon 141 Referrer von Google für Mischa naggisch. Der Mann ist gefragt.

Hannover and Citrix

by Volker Weber

Yesterday I talked to a friend about the difficulties of running Lotus Notes in multiuser environments. Traditionally Notes has installed in a directory /Notes directly off the root directory with a directory /Notes/Data to hold its data. The directory moved around, first to /Lotus/Notes, then to the /Programs tree. If you tried to run multiple user you moved the ./Data directory to the user' home directory, still sharing the program directory. You just needed to make sure that you were calling the correct notes.ini.

If you install the Notes Plugin for the Workplace Managed Client (WMC) on Linux, you will find that it wants to install to the user's home directory, thus allowing you to run more than one instance on the same machine. At first look this seems to violate the policy of installing shared components outside of the home directory. You will find however that only a minor part of the Rich Client Platform is shared. All the plugins are provisioned for each individual users according to policies on the management server. They are data.

This leads us to an often overlooked issue with the WMC. As you may be aware of, the WMC runs inside a Java Virtual Machine. This VM runs in the user space and from the outside it looks like 'all data'. This is not a problem as long as you are running a single instance of a WMC. As soon as you run more than one instance, you need to load each of them into a separate memory space. There are only data segments and no code segments that could be shared. At this point you can kiss your plans to run WMC or "Hannover" on Citrix goodbye.

There you have it: A good reason why Lotus will continue to deliver "Notes Classic".

Mitch Kapor has a blog

by Volker Weber

What a wonderful tagline:

lipstick on a pig in the python

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BlackBerry Connect for the Palm Treo 650 available

by Volker Weber

Joint Press Release:

Singapore and Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 12 April 2006 – SingTel, Palm Inc. and Research In Motion today announced the first availability of BlackBerry Connect for the Palm Treo 650 smartphone. ... The BlackBerry Connect functionality is available today for existing and new SingTel Treo 650 customers through SingTel business representatives.

So who knows any Singtel business representatives? ;-)

What I can find out so far is that it only seems to work with BES and Domino or Exchange, not with Groupwise or BIS. Pushmail, plus calendar, plus remote address lookup but not address book. Palm says:

Certain BlackBerry Connect features not supported, including BlackBerry Internet Service. Available for use with Treo 650 smartphones with approved mobile service providers only.

Setup and User Guide available as PDF.

It looks like I don't have to wait for this software to come out since it is pretty useless for me. What a pity, Palm.

Update: A little birdie tells me: Blackberry Connect is not available for GPRS devices, only CDMA devices at the moment. I find this highly unlikely since Singtel sells the GSM/GPRS Treo.

Going Nuclear

by Volker Weber

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

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Snail Mail

by Cem Basman

Mark Baartse, The Holistic Web, moved house:

The landlord, who used to live in the house, said “careful when it rains. Snails will crawl up into your letter box and eat your mail. Best put a handful of snail pellets in there to keep them out.”

Still on Safari :-)

by Volker Weber

Happy Easter

by Volker Weber

Alles neu bei it&w

by Volker Weber

Diesmal kein neuer Provider, sondern ganz neu:

Und jetzt das dicke Ende: ihr müsst euch alle neu registrieren. Ausnahmslos, alle. Aber erst nach Ostern, heute und morgen ist Baustellentag. Das Blog läuft wie gesagt auf einer niegelnagelneuen Datenbank, und wenn ich die alten Daten übernommen hätte, würde der Schlamassel bald wieder von vorne losgehen.

Erinnert mich an Daten weg, aber dafür Server schneller.

Manchmal

by Volker Weber

... geht die Diskussion erst los, wenn das Thema "unten durch" ist.

Passed

by Volker Weber

sdexpert.png

Would you have known what the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of a typical CD is? The rest was pretty simple. And why take the test? Well, it opens up more Sonos forums.

Another victim

by Volker Weber

... of my "You are not important enough to pollute my buddylist with mood messages" policy. ;-)

Keyboard Contest: And the winner is...

by Ragnar Schierholz

There are all kinds of keyboard variations for desktop use already (not to mention all the mobile keyboard/keyboard replacements). Some of them are actually quite... well, at least extraordinary, if not plain weird. The guys over at fosfor gadgets have put together The top 10 weirdest keyboards ever.

The third rank wasn't new to me, I want to try one of these for years already but never could get a hand on one (in the most literal sense of the word!). I wonder what it feels like to be typing by just sliding two dome-shaped objects (or pushing, squeezing them, whatever you actually do). Must have been somewhat of a male idea, I suppose.

Überschrift des Tages

by Volker Weber

Prodi bleibt Sieger - Berlusconi bleibt stur

Quelle: tagesschau.de

It's "Make your own caption" time

by Volker Weber

cola

Opfer oder Täter?

by Volker Weber

Spon berichtet:

Ein Polizist hat am Freitag bei einem Einsatz in Dortmund einen Mann erschossen. Das Opfer, ein 23-jähriger Mann, hatte den Beamten mit einem Messer angegriffen, wie Polizei und Staatsanwaltschaft mitteilten. Der Mann hatte zuvor einen Kioskbesitzer bedroht, um ihn zu berauben.

Man könnte das auch so erzählen:

Ein 23-jähriger Mann griff am Freitag einen Polizisten mit einem Messer an und wurde daraufhin von diesem erschossen, wie Polizei und Staatsanwaltschaft mitteilten. Der Mann hatte zuvor einen Kioskbesitzer bedroht, um ihn zu berauben.

Two-faced Boss of JBoss

by Cem Basman

Once stuff is out, it is archived, cached, indexed in many services that you might never be aware of. And somebody is going to digg your old shit to the surface and republish it. You can be sure of this ...

Marc Fleury, Founder, still Chairman and CEO of JBoss, is quite two-faced. The Register revealed that he sanitized his blog before aquisition through Red Hat. Before the deal he had written a lot of Red-Hat-bashing. Here are some quotations from his September 2004 postings:

Neither Marc Fleury nor Red Hat has made a comment on this yet. You see, Open Source is a business like any other when it comes to money and fame. However, I still think the deal is the right move, it is a significant one on the market and the new constellation is gaining a lot of momentum through this.

[News via Wolfgang Sommergut]

New blog on my radar

by Volker Weber

Thomas Meyer of Sonos told me about Bob Lefsetz, who has been publishing a newsletter about music for 19 years. Holy cow. Read these three postings:

Subscribed.

Thank you, Jef! Thank you, all.

by Volker Weber

vowe: My Flickr Pro account ... is going to lapse one week from now.
Jef: Not anymore it is ;-) Enjoy.
Flickr: Jef Reynders has just purchased a Flickr Pro Account for you!

I am putting a lot of work into this site. And in return I am receiving your positive feedback, your insightful comments, people like Cem, Esther and Ragnar started to contribute their content. Kitty sends an iPod sock. John surprises me with a bottle of finest Whisky. And once in a while somebody like Jef steps forward and votes with his pocket. Thank you, Jef! Thank you, all.

Introducing The Blackberry Helmet

by Volker Weber

[Thanks, Ed]

Not everybody is online, yet

by Esther Schindler

A friend of ours, whom we know through the model railroad club, owns an Indian goods store. While anglos can go into there to buy jewelry, books, etc., most of Drumbeat's customers are Indians. Many of them order their craft materials here, or buy religious items (particularly the customers who are in jail, Bob tells us). He stocks 6,000 (count 'em six thousand) CDs of Indian music, one of which we gave vowe and Ute as a gift (I'm not sure they knew what to think of it).

Although the store is fun to explore, the business is largely catalog and mail-based, since whole swaths of the reservations have no telephone service.

Bob told us last night that Drumbeat finally got around to upgrading its web site because, after all, not every customer is on the res. When Bob sent out the new catalog, he included the URL and a short message, something like "Check out our new web site!"

And he got over a hundred requests, by postal mail, asking Drumbeat to send information about the web site.

Samsung to ship Origami UMPC

by Volker Weber

According to the The Register the Samsung "Origami" UMPC goes on sale next week for around $1400. At this price point they only need to make four of them: One for President Lee to show around, one for Billg to ignore while he is using a yellow pad, one for Steve Ballmer to throw at Google, and one for Robert Scoble.

Does size matter? Try Flashbag.

by Cem Basman

flashbag

USB Flash Drive with micro pump. The size of the device changes depending on the amount of data it holds. I don't want one and I don't need one. But it would make a cool gift. Happy eastern to you all!

BTW, do you think this is real? I couldn't find a price anywhere ...

Marketing bei der Arbeit

by Volker Weber

Sehr geehrter Herr Weber,

Wir wünschen Ihnen ein frohes Osterfest und viel Spaß beim Netzwerken!

Oh wie toll. Ein Serienosterbrief.

Machen Sie Ihren Freunden zu Ostern eine Freude. Einfach auf den Link klicken, Ihre Lieblingskarte auswählen und abschicken.

http://www.openbc.com/go/ecard_new/easter

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Ihr openBC-Team

Da bin ich aber mal gespannt, wer diesen Quatsch mitmacht.

Flickr Backup

by Volker Weber

[Do not click (on more), if you don't want your browser to load 280 images into one window. :-)]

My Flickr Pro account that Bruce Alex's wife Simone gave me last year is going to lapse one week from now. This means you can only see the last 200 images uploaded to my account. The photos are not deleted but they will no longer show up on my page. There is simple workaround: Create links to the existing photos. This is the only purpose of this post.

More >

Erbsen zählen

by Volker Weber

Ich verfolge die mobile-macs mit großem Wohlwollen. Dass sich ein Mobilfunkanbieter auch mal um Macs, statt nur um die Masse kümmert, ist eine tolle Sache. Hier experimentiert der Vertrieb außerdem mit aktuellen "2.0"-Trends.

Nun hat eine neue aufgesetzte Website natürlich zwei Probleme: Keine Inhalte und keine Leser. Aus mir unverständlichen Gründen hat mobile-macs versucht, erst die Leser zu gewinnen, um dann später einmal auch Inhalte zu haben. Ich sehe das nicht zum ersten Mal, und ich sehe das auch nicht zum ersten Mal scheitern.

Um Leser zu bekommen, hat sich mobile-macs einen Wettbewerb ausgedacht, der andere Webseiten dafür belohnt, Leser zu schicken. Gemessen wird der Erfolg an der Anzahl von Referrern. Das hat gewisse technische Schwierigkeiten, die dazu führen, dass viele Besucher gar nicht, dafür andere mehrfach gezählt werden. Wie auch immer, um nicht jede Woche Preise an die gleichen Preisträger vergeben zu müssen, darf jeder nur einmal gewinnen. Darin ist die Hoffnung ausgedrückt, dass auch kleine engagierte Websites, die vielleicht mal ein paar Dutzend Referrer produzieren können, was gewinnen können.

Womit mobile-macs nicht gerechnet hat, sind die bereits gestern erwähnten Communities. Wenn etwa der Betreiber eines frequentierten Diskussionsforums schreibt "Mischa naggisch auf dem Eisbärenfell", dann kassiert er dafür mal geschwind 1000 Clicks. Nun werden die Regeln nachgebessert:

Bei der Referrer Top 10 kann jede Website teilnehmen, die für mobile-macs relevante Themen behandelt (Apple, Mobilfunk, Gadgets, Blogging etc.). Im Umfeld des Links zu mobile-macs auf der teilnehmenden Site muss klar darauf hingewiesen werden, wohin der User bei Klicken auf den Link gelangt. Teilnehmen können im übrigen nur solche Websites, die bereits vor dem 28. März 2006 bestanden haben und keine reinen Diskussionforen sind.

Wollen wir wetten, dass das nächste Woche auf ganz andere Weise spektakulär in die Hose geht? Zum Beispiel mit einem Forum, das auch ein Blog und ein Wiki hat. Ich hoffe, die mobile-macs finden noch den ultimativen Trick, Leser zu gewinnen: Richtig gute Inhalte. Die kann man dann belohnen. Zum Beispiel mit den Transfer-Rubeln der Mobilfunker: Minuten oder SMS-Guthaben.

If you build a better mousetrap ...

by Volker Weber

Google published a better webmail last year, and quickly gained quite a market share. The interface was snappy, had some interesting innovation and provided all the functionality people needed 95% of the time. The competition tried to match the 1GB mailbox, and Google was quick to let their mailbox grow faster than people were receiving mail. My usage quota is actually falling:

You are currently using 372 MB (14%) of your 2713 MB.

Today Google opened another cornerstone in their collaborative platform: A calendar. And my migration from the proprietary Notes database to the standard iCal format quickly pays off. I can subscribe to my own desktop calendar, incorporate other public calendars, again in a very snappy web interface.

This is a wake-up call: If your calendar still lives inside a proprietary format and you cannot even display a public calendar published in a standard format, you may soon be left behind. Take a look inside the Christian Holidays calendar. This is no rocket science.

And if you think the Google collaboration platform is done now, ask yourself why they bought Writely.

Wanna buy a thumb drive?

by Volker Weber

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- A computer drive sold openly Wednesday at a bazaar outside the U.S. air base here holds what appears to be a trove of potentially sensitive American intelligence data, including the names, photographs and telephone numbers of Afghan spies informing on the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The flash memory drive, which a teenager sold for $40, holds scores of military documents marked "secret," describing intelligence-gathering methods and information -- including escape routes into Pakistan and the location of a suspected safe house there, and the payment of $50 bounties for each Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter apprehended based on the source's intelligence.

More >

Nokia Series 80 Plugin for iSync 2.2

by Volker Weber

Rui Carmo tells me, he has updated his Series 80 plugin:

Yes, my 9300 plugin has just been updated - it now works not only with the 9300 and 9300i but also with the 9500, which means you can now use iSync 2.2 with your Communicator for free.

More >

Pimp Your Screen Backdrop

by Volker Weber

lv

Auch eine Anrede ...

by Volker Weber

Verehrtes rundes Wesen, großer IT-Buddha,

Old Thinkpad in the house

by Volker Weber

I have an IBM Thinkpad T21 called Charlie which I bought 2000ish. A very good machine upgraded with a larger disk and more memory, it has served me well until 2004 when I bought my iBook. Still, once in a while I need a Windows notebook, so I kept it around. Charlie has had its ups and downs. It is on the third battery, has had a broken screen inverter and similar quirks. But it was still going strong.

t21

Old Thinkpads are great. They have excellent keyboards, they don't easily break when abused, so Charlie made for a good companion in times where I needed a Windows machine. Would you believe there are customers who want to scan a computer for virus and malware, and since they cannot scan a Mac, they want you to use a Windows computer? Or security people who need to see a Windows screen to make sure this is indeed a computer? You are starting to get my need for a Windows machine once in a while.

And then it happened. A couple of months ago Charlie started to fall into a coma. Sometimes after 10 seconds of use, sometimes after an hour, it would shut off, tried to come back up, only to fail again. I talked to somebody who fixes notebooks for a living and he suspected it is something this side of the power supply. Fixing this old machine was not a good option, and neither was buying a new one. So I did without Charlie.

Last week I told a few people about my predicament. And asked whether anybody had an old Thinkpad sitting around collecting dust. Some people promised to look, but it was Marco who found a T22. Last Friday he told me about it, and today it arrived. It is even a better machine than I had. Now at 1000 MHz instead of 866, and 512 MB instead of 384, the screen is 1400 instead of 1024 px wide. I took Charlie's disk and stuck it into Marco's machine, and I was up and running in a minute.

The T22 has taken a beating. The screen looks like somebody stepped on it, one of the hooks that keep the lid closed is missing. But the keyboard is still stiffer than Charlie's. And the keycaps look less worn off. So I am pretty sure that it has been used less, but travelled much harder. From the looks, I think I call him Scooter. :-)

Thank you, Marco!

Similarities

by Volker Weber

I only have second hand knowledge about the political situation in Italy, so I cannot really comment on the election there. There are some striking similarities to the US election however. The country is divided, the results are very close, and Berlusconi takes a lesson from his friends: He wants a recount.

Thank you

by Volker Weber

Last week I told you about a new site for Mac users. It is sponsored by O2 and wants to cover everything around Macs and mobile communications. Since you clicked through, vowe.net won last week's competition with the highest number of referrers. There were a number of of prices to draw from and I selected a Nokia N70 smartphone with Symbian Series 60. More stuff to write about soon.

No, this is no bait to click again. You can only win once.

Interesting observation: Tightly knit communities have a much bigger impact than weblogs. The operator of one such community asked his members to click on a link to mobile-macs and raked in hundreds and hundreds of visits in the first few hours. An order of magnitude more traffic than I can generate even when placing an ad on all pages of vowe.net (adverts on thousands of pages draw more than a single blog post). This has immediately sparked a click fraud discussion on mobile-macs since this drawing power is quite impressive. I took a closer look at the community yesterday and found that one discussion thread there created more than 15,000 page impressions in a few hours. Very, very impressive.

Unvollständig

by Volker Weber

Kam eben als Pressemitteilung:

München, 12. April 2006 – Vom 15. bis 17. Mai finden im Kongresszentrum Stadthalle Karlsruhe und im Dorint Novotel Karlsruhe die diesjährigen DNUG-Konferenzen statt.

Das ist nur zum Teil richtig. Die diesjährigen DNUG-Konferenzen finden nämlich auch in Karlsruhe statt:

DNUG Conferences: IBM Lotus Technical Forum 2006
15.-17. Mai 2006
Stadthalle Karlsruhe

WCC WebSphere Community Conference 2006
21.-22. September 2006
Dorint Novotel Am Main Taunus Zentrum Frankfurt/Main

DNUG-Herbstkonferenz 2006 (25. Konferenz)
13.-15. November 2006
KongressPalais Stadthalle Kassel

Sonos - the Wife Acceptance Factor

by Volker Weber

The Sonos sound system has one soft factor playing for it, that you do not notice until you have it: It has an excellent WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). I am now at four ZonePlayers and Ute loves it. She hardly needed any instructions and really "gets" it.

I pay a lot of attention to the way she adopts technology. There are a number of things that clicked immediately. One of them was digital photography. It was very liberating to practice without incurring additional cost. Hard disk recorder for TV, an automatic transmission in the car, heated seats, all of those were used immediately. Other things just fell to the wayside. Like the video recorder, the MP3 streamer, an iPod (!). But now the Sonos: She "got" it the first minute. Without looking twice she accepted the Controller, and unlike me, never looked at the Mac or PC client. For her it is always showing this screen:

controller

Instead of asking what's playing she can immediately see it at a glance. There are only three buttons used most of the time: Play/Pause plus Volume Up and Down. She has no trouble locating what she wants to hear. High up on the list is Internet radio. Currently our favorite station is SKY.fm, or more specifically the Smooth Jazz program.

My usage pattern is different. I often use the Desktop Controller since it is much easier to quickly select a few tracks to play and put them on the queue. Not as easy as iTunes, but OK for now. It takes a lot of screen estate though:

There still is some room for improvement. My biggest complaint is the scroll wheel on the Controller. Other than the one on the iPod or any trackpad, it does not accelerate. The sensitivity is too high to pick a single item in a list, and too low if you quickly want to jump to a different position in the long list. This needs to be fixed in a software update. The other small wish has to do with moving between zones. While it is quite easy to link zones, so that all players in a zone play the same music -- perfectly in sync btw -- transferring your currently playing queue (playlist) to a different zone could be easier. If you want to move from one room to another and take your music with you, you need two steps. Example: Moving from Office to Living Room requires two steps: Link Office to Living Room (as pictured above), then drop Office.

A nice touch: The Controller has a motion sensor so it springs to life as you pick it up. If you rest it on the table it goes to sleep and then shuts itself completely off after a few hours to conserve battery life. If you place it on the cradle it does not need to switch off, but you can set all this to your own preferences.

I contemplated a bit about the reasons Sonos was accepted so easily. I believe it "feels" like an iPod and not like a computer. You don't have to peek at a screen meters away while picking a track from thousands with a fugly remote. Instead you pick up the Controller, select the zone you want the music to play in and then select your music. You never look at the ZonePlayers, so you might as well tug them away once the novelty wears off. It feels like the controller is playing the music.

This concludes my ten part review of the Sonos system. Executive summary: Cool technology developed and built with great care. Think Apple, not Dell. Great WAF. :-)

Let the music play. I will keep you posted with news about Sonos as it happens.

Sonos - first impressions
Sonos - second look
Sonos - the controller
Sonos - music from the iTunes Music Store
Sonos - now we are talking
Sonos - getting into the zone
Sonos - the mesh network
Sonos - inside the ZonePlayer
Sonos - April 10 and the ZP80 is already here
Sonos - the Wife Acceptance Factor

At this age you either get smart or you don't

by Volker Weber

kids

Red Hat buys JBoss!

by Cem Basman

Red Hat, the world's leading open source and Linux provider, announced today on their corporate homepage:

Red Hat will acquire JBoss for approximately $350 million in initial consideration, plus approximately $70 million subject to the achievement of certain future performance metrics. The transaction consideration is composed of approximately 40% in cash and 60% in Red Hat common stock.

JBoss, the global leader in open source middleware software, explains the rationale behind the deal:

Together, JBoss and Red Hat will form the industry’s largest independent open source provider that provides additional customer value through wider open source technology choice, trusted services from a single provider, a large and vibrant developer community, and an expansive partner eco-system.

Red Hat quotes Gartner, the application integration and middleware and portal (AIM) markets for license revenue is according to them preliminarily estimated to more than $6.5 billion in 2006.

This is going to be real tough for Oracle, WebSphere, BEA and other majors - The "Red Boss" has made it clear ...

Links & Voices:

Gillmor on the deal in a 26 minutes podcast. Good analyze.

A true software expert, Dave Dargo, analyzes the deal:

However, keeping JBoss out of the hands of Oracle was a service to the entire IT industry and Red Hat deserves many thanks for that.

Blogs from inside JBoss:

Investors perspective:

ITIL Spam

by Volker Weber

10 leere Pressemitteilungen mit ollen Kamellen. An einem Tag! Die sind jetzt endgültig auf Spam gesetzt.

One press release I'm not going to cover

by Esther Schindler

It's hard to believe that this is for real. But it is.

Ecclesiastical Home Makeover: People are purchasing religious furniture to create sacred space in their homes for Church-On-Demand.

KAYSVILLE, UT (PRWEB) April 10, 2006 -- People have home offices, home gyms, and home entertainment centers, now they can have home chapels. Church-on-demand is becoming a new trend among congregants who want to fit religion into their fast-paced lifestyles.

If you simply must know... More >

Sonos - April 10 and the ZP80 is already here

by Volker Weber

I had no idea what the UPS guy was bringing. Another box from Sonos. Speakers? No. Another ZP100? Wrong. The spanking new ZP80. That was quick. I was expecting the ZP80 in May, or in late April earliest.

Unpack the beast. Small. Incredibly small. Smaller than a stack of CDs. Compare it to the iPod Mk. V 60 GB above. I quickly shot a few photos and then hooked it up. As expected, installation was a breeze. It was up and running in 3 minutes. Take a look at the back:

Sonos ZP80 and ZP100

The subwoofer out and two Ethernet ports are gone. As are the speaker terminals, since the ZP80 does not have an amplifier. But it packs digital outs, both optical and coax.

Sonos is announcing the new player in London today. A single player sells for 399 €, and there is also a bundle with two players and one controller for 1149 € which saves you 108 €. I'd advise to spend these savings on the ridiculously priced cradle and a good cable to connect to your amplifier. Here is the complete price sheet:

SonosEuroPrices.png

What I have here is a seed unit. The new ZP80 will be shipping to Europe at the end of April.

Sonos - first impressions
Sonos - second look
Sonos - the controller
Sonos - music from the iTunes Music Store
Sonos - now we are talking
Sonos - getting into the zone
Sonos - the mesh network
Sonos - inside the ZonePlayer
Sonos - April 10 and the ZP80 is already here
Sonos - the Wife Acceptance Factor

Spiegelnd, aber fassungslos

by Volker Weber

Heute habe ich die Kamera im Handy vermisst.

Da standen heute am verkaufsoffenen Sonntag drei Cabrios vor der Deutschen Bank: Ein Mini, ein Z4, und ein konkret krasser Dreier. Das wäre eine gute Gelegenheit gewesen, um den Kofferraum des Z4 auf Birdy-Tauglichkeit zu prüfen.

Die Frage "Dürfte ich bitte einmal den Kofferraum sehen?" entlockte dem BMW-Verkäufer mit der Spiegelbrille und dem schlecht sitzenden Jackett nur ein "Hab' keinen Schlüssel". Ob er wohl jemanden kenne, der einen habe? "Ja, der da drüben". Ob der gelangweilte Herr wohl mal? Er geruhte zu klicken. "Bitte sehr", meinte die Spiegelbrille. Ein Blick in den Kofferraum sah bis auf das Gerümpel darin ganz viel versprechend aus. Als ich dann begann, das Birdy zusammenzulegen, war es um seine blasierte Fassung geschehen. Das ginge ja nicht.

Und ich hätte so gerne ein Bild gemacht. Von ihm.

Update: Heute mit dem Z4 von Thomas' Freundin probiert. Birdy passt locker rein. Allerdings hat der ausreichend schmutzige Lieder abgesungen, um meine Meinung über BMW zu festigen.

Zitat des Tages

by Volker Weber

Hal Faber:

... erinnert uns alle daran, dass es Frühling wird, wenn man weit genug vom jährlichen Jahrhunderthochwasser entfernt wohnt.

Jährliches Jahrhunderthochwasser. Die ganze Sensationsberichterstattung in zwei Worten versenkt.

How to pour ketchup

by Cem Basman

The full technical explanation.

Die sterben nie aus

by Volker Weber

dummestelefonwidget.png

Aha, es gibt also eine neue Version. Werde ich mir bestimmt auch gleich herunter laden und installieren. Aber wie wäre es, wenn ich erst einmal eine Telefonauskunft haben könnte, bevor ich diese ganz bestimmt tolle neue Version installiere?

Wer immer sich so was ausgedacht hat, der hat bestimmt früher Anträge auf Telefonanschlüsse bearbeitet liegen lassen.

Ed Brill goes 3d 8r1ll

by Volker Weber

Check it out here >

Buzzphrase du Jour: User-Generated Content

by Cem Basman

Derek Powazek asks us all to stop using the phrase "user-generated content" and originates it from here:

User: One who uses. Like, you know, a junkie.
Generated: Like a generator, engine. Like, you know, a robot.
Content: Something that fills a box. Like, you know, packing peanuts.
So what's user-generated content? Junkies robotically filling boxes with packing peanuts. Lovely.

I love this guy.

Numero Uno: Jens Lehmann

by Cem Basman

lehmann

Klinsmann hat sich für Lehmann entschieden. Hier und hier und anderswo heute ... Nur Oliver und die Bayern scheinen überrascht.

40 minutes for nothing

by Volker Weber

cheaplaborinpoland.png

I know, labor is cheap in Poland. And you have a full Class C subnet at 62.233.222.0. But I am sorry to say that those 40 minutes of work were gone in a few seconds. Why don't you get back in the ... whatever business you failed in before? Don't try to make "Ed Fisher" redundant. It's his job to post comments to be removed from vowe.net.

Show. Don't tell.

by Cem Basman

Now, this is pretty cool. How a 17-year old girl, Melody, caused a rise in Logitech’s sales on Amazon.com by simply showing (and explaining) her webcam’s features to the world out there. An amazing example for viral marketing:

Track her story in ClickZ, The Guardian, C|Net and others. Sure Melody has a blog too.

A quick look into the Ogo future

by Volker Weber

I have played with a beta version of the Ogo system software today. This one did not only have email and web browser, but also instant messaging, an RSS reader and SyncML synchronisation.

Instant messaging was limited to MSN, which is a contractual issue and not a technical one. You need to have an agreement with the IM providers. In Europe an agreement exists with MSN, while in the US other networks are also available. Since you are not receiving any ads, you are paying for this service in those countries where IM clients are available on the Ogo. However, those tariffs are flat and far lower than any SMS services.

The RSS reader worked without any problems. You select existing feeds from a list, or you can add your own. Both of my feeds worked without any problems. The device can automatically refresh feeds or you can do so manually.

PIM Synchronization Connected to SyncML server

The SyncML solution is in development. Currently you can sync over USB, Bluetooth or with a SyncML server over the phone network. I downloaded most of my contacts from Mobical, but there were still some small issues that need to be resolved. As I said, this is work in progress and Ixi yet has to deliver calendar syncing with the SyncML server (which is much harder), but they will be getting there.

These are capabilities Ixi is working on. Whether you will be able to use them is up to your provider.

Socialtext releases Wiki optimized for mobile devices

by Volker Weber

Socialtext released Miki, a wiki platform optimized for mobile devices, such as the RIM BlackBerry.

More >

Was denn jetzt? Cash, gratis Handy oder gratis Laptop?

by Volker Weber

cashfreehandytop.png

Out of the blue

by Volker Weber

Bootcamp was a big surprise, right? Finally you can catch up with the Jones and their shiny new Mac. Without leaving the comfort of Windows. Yeah, right.

Did you really think it was the hardware?

Apple Introduces Boot Camp, Enables Intel-based Macs to Run Windows XP

by Volker Weber

AppleBootCampbeta

CUPERTINO, California—April 5, 2006—Apple® today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP. Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac®, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS® X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in “Leopard,” Apple’s next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in August.

I see some Domino developers in the Apple Online Store. :-)

And the stock market reacts:

aapl060405.png
Frankfurt Xchange in €

More >

Notes 7 and mobile devices

by Volker Weber

Which software do you use to sync your mobile device PIM data with your Notes address book and calendar?

A friend just asked me for a recommendation to sync his Nokia 9300. As it turns out, the software Nokia supplies only works with Notes 5 and 6, but not with 7. What do you use? Please name the software, your Notes version and the device you are using.

Palimpalim

by Volker Weber

Irgendwo tönte es soeben Palimpalim, und ich habe nicht die geringste Ahnung, welches der kleinen Helferlein gerne meine Aufmerksamkeit haben möchte. Ich geh jetzt mal ein paar von den Biestern ausschalten. Motto: Weniger ist mehr.

Blogger gesucht

by Volker Weber

English summary: O2 is looking for a blogger to take over a site that has already been built. Whoever scores the site will never be short on gadgets. :-)

Während sich mancher erst mal ein Blog einrichtet, sich ein Thema sucht und dann anfängt, zunächst einmal nur für die engsten Freunde zu schreiben, geht es bei mobile-macs.de direkt ab ins gemachte Bett. Die Website steht schon inklusive Blog-CMS, ein Wiki folgt dieser Tage. Dann lockt O2 auch noch Leser mit ausgelobten Preisen an, verspricht ein paar Euro aus Affiliate-Verkäufen und ein Thema gibt es auch schon: Wie geht der Mac-User mit dem Mobilfunk um. Das gibt jede Menge Stoff zum Schreiben, denn bisher werden Mac-Benutzer von den Mobilfunkbetreibern eher stiefmütterlich behandelt.

Ich bin gespannt, wie das weitergeht. O2 will nicht nur die Plattform finanzieren, sondern auch mit eigenem Knowhow beitragen. Wer immer sich diese Website als Blog angelt, wird sicher nie unter einem Mangel an Gadgets leiden. Bewerben kann man sich hier.

Die zweite deutsche Einheit

by Cem Basman

Heribert Prantl in der Süddeutschen:

Es gibt zehn Regeln, an die man sich halten muss, um den Ausländern in Deutschland den Weg zur Integration erfolgreich zu verbauen. Der Politik ist es seit dem Aufruhr über die Zustände an der Rütli-Schule in Berlin gelungen, viele dieser Regeln zu beherzigen.

und ferner:

Es geht um viel, es geht um die zweite deutsche Einheit: um die zwischen Alt- und Neubürgern, also zwischen Bürgern deutscher und ausländischer Herkunft.

Mehr >

[via Haiko Hebig]

Update: Wie die Konservativen die zweite deutsche Einheit verspielen [via Spreeblick]

Probleme mit Microsoft Word nach Update auf Mac OS X 10.4.6

by Volker Weber

Leo Becker berichtet, dass Word nach dem Betriebssystem-Update beim Öffnen einiger Dokumente abschmiert. Wie sich jetzt herausstellt, sind dies Dokumente, die mit aktivierter deutschen Silbentrennung gespeichert wurden. Als Abhilfe muss man 'German Hyph Dict (post-reform)', 'German Hyph Dict (pre-reform)' und 'German Hyphenation' vorübergehend aus Microsoft Office 2004/Gemeinsame Anwendungen/Korrekturhilfen entfernen. Dann kann man die Dokumente wieder öffnen und die Silbentrennung ausschalten.

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Honey, I'm home

by Volker Weber

parking

"In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit"

by Volker Weber

In a rare discussion about the severity of the Windows malware scourge, a Microsoft security official said businesses should consider investing in an automated process to wipe hard drives and reinstall operating systems as a practical way to recover from malware infestation.

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Passt

by Volker Weber

In Kürze werden die drei börsennotierten Unternehmen Group Technologies, TJ Group und GedysIntraware fusionieren. Vorstand Jürgen Wege verlässt nach etwa 20 Jahren das Unternehmen.

Was zu dieser Branche passt: Der Tipp kam von einem "Gerd Müller" aus der Region Stuttgart, um es nicht genauer zu beschreiben.

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Seilchen springen

by Volker Weber

IBM Lotus Technical Forum 2006

by Volker Weber

On May 15th, IBM Lotus Technical Forum 2006 will host FUTUREINSIGHT. This unique event will feature exciting and comprehensive information, presented by top IBM executives and staff. Keynote presenters include General Manager Mike Rhodin, Vice-President Development & Technical Support, Craig Hayman, and Senior Technical Consultant, Ron Sebastian.

This premier event is FREE for all registered DNUG Conference delegates. So, come for the FREE FUTUREINSIGHT event on May 15th, or come for the entire knowledge-packed DNUG Conferences: IBM Lotus Technical Forum 2006, on May 16th through the 17th. Either way, it will truly be time well spent.

Felix Binsack of DNUG explains that there are six parallel tracks in the conference, at least two of which are in english. So the conference will also be suited of an international audience. There are more than 30 speakers from the US and the UK, the conference will feature a huge lab with 20 info points and an exhibition. Registration is now open.

Looking forward to seeing you there. I will have to make a quick exit on the 17th though, since I have another event in Hamburg coming up the same week.

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Nokia 9300 and iSync 2.2

by Volker Weber

Novamedia has an iSync 2.2 plugin which adds support for

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VMware opens disk format

by Volker Weber

VMware is taking another step to try to maintain its market dominance. VMware announced today that it is opening its virtual machine disk format specification to allow other vendors to use it in their products.

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Apple releases Mac OS X 10.4.6

by Volker Weber

Before you upgrade your computer, make sure you read the instructions regarding iSync 2.2.

Aus der Reihe: Kommt 'ne Frau beim Arzt

by Volker Weber

ibook_snap_498.png

[Danke, Jörg-Stefan]

Finally

by Volker Weber

Last week I dropped a few hints that something interesting was going to happen on April 1st. Alas, it didn't. We had to wait until today. But now that Steve Castledine has announced that he is has joined IBM, I have one secret less to keep. :-) Steve never knew that I knew what he was up to. And actually nobody ever told me at any time.

There were some obvious vectors: At Lotusphere Kevin Cavanaugh mentioned that later this year, Domino 7 would have standard out-of-the-box RSS feed support as well as blog template support. Steve announced he had a very busy month ahead with April being much easier for him. This was a sure sign that he was finishing his ongoing projects by March 31st. The next vector was that OpenNTF had no clue where this template was coming from. I did not need more to start digging. And now it is official:

IBM is going to integrate the DominoBlog software into Domino. Congratulations, Steve.

Inside the ogo

by Volker Weber

Just picked up my first ogo. Installation was a breeze: Insert the SIM and the battery. Power up. Enter email address and password. Done. This is exactly the device that 1&1 will ship to its customers as the 1&1 PocketWeb. Only works with mail residing on 1&1, gmx and web.de. Since vowe.de is hosted by &1 I could enter my regular mail address. However, since this mail is not filtered by my mail server, the first mail that arrived was a spam message. :-)

The device is a bit bulky, but feels solid. The screen is not very good but serves the purpose. This ogo has a mail client and web browser, no instant messaging. It also has a calendar and contacts but does not sync those with the server. The keyboard feels very well. I may be the best I have on a mobile device this size so far. There is a couple of extra keys that take you to the inbox, the home screen, the sms and the mail editor. So far I have not run into any difficulties operating the device, although I don't even have a manual.

One thing puzzles me: 1&1 advertises the device as push mail. Still my mail server outruns it although it checks mail only every 5 minutes. This may have something to do with sort of special setup. I am not running one of the 1&1 SIM cards and I am using a different APN for that matter. Maybe that I am missing the notifications. I also cannot setup a refresh period for the device to check for mail.

Update: Ixi tells me that the push infrastructure for 1&1 is not launched yet. I am too quick. :-)

Update: This information was not accurate. I am not registered on the push service since I am not a regular Pocketweb customer.

A minor nuisance is the blinking LED. I was under the impression that it would signal new messages. But apparently it is signaling GPRS coverage. Hmm. Don't need to know that.

I will keep you posted what my experience is.

The Wonderful World of Social Networking Tools

by Cem Basman

Galore! Here is a link list with reviews of current social bookmarks, social bookmark managers, semi-public social bookmarks, search-engines with bookmarking, public bookmarks, listing and cataloging, social communities, annotation services, Ajax personal start pages, specialized bookmarking, and diverse tools ... and more. Music, video and maps bookmarking is even not included in this list.

You can't escape that social thing anymore. It's inflationary. For every social networking problem you've got a billion overlapping solutions. There is no end in sight.

Lifetime lease of a square foot of Islay

by Volker Weber

Does this establish a permanent address, so I can open a bank account?

Karten fürs Endspiel

by Volker Weber

Johannes Quabach, Entwickler der wunderbaren Buchhaltungssoftware QBU (vowe's choice), schreibt mir:

Gestern wurde im TV nochmal das WM-Endspiel 1982, Deutschland-Italien in Madrid gezeigt. Da habe ich doch direkt mal die Eintrittskarten von damals heraus gekramt. Der Originalpreis war 800 Pesetas, ca. 6 EURO! War zwar nur ein Stehplatz, aber Finale. Was die wohl heute kosten würden?

So sah das damals aus:

Und heute?

Die Ticketpreise liegen zwischen 35 (Vorrunde) und 600 Euro (Finale).

I can imagine

by Volker Weber

But during one of those last long nights of working to finish-up DOS 2.0, something happened. I have heard this story from two people, each of whom was a friend of Allen's and in a position to know. Each told me the same story the same way. I am not staking my reputation on the accuracy of the story, but I am saying I have it from two good sources. Paul Allen certainly won't confirm or deny it, so I'll just throw it out for you to consider.

During one of those last long nights working to deliver DOS 2.0 in early 1983, I am told that Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares back if Allen were to die.

Maybe that's just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have, but it didn't go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft.

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Sonos - inside the ZonePlayer

by Volker Weber

After asking permission from Sonos, I cracked open the defective ZonePlayer. We were suspecting an unseated Wifi card. As it turned out the card was well connected. Since the diagnostics say that the HAL for the Samsung card is not loading, I am now suspecting a faulty card. If I can borrow a replacement from Samsung, I will test this theory.

It's fairly easy to get into the player. However you have to break seals to do that, so you are voiding your warranty. This is the procedure I followed:

  1. Remove the top cover.
  2. Turn the player upside down.
  3. Remove the blue feet.
  4. Break the seal and remove the four screws from under the feet.
  5. Take the bottom off. Be careful not to harm the two Wifi antennas that are sticking out of the chassis.
  6. Remove the four screws in the corner of the bottom plate.
  7. Turn the player over and place it carefully on the white bottom. Again watch out for the antennas.
  8. Remove the seal on the top of the player and the three screws underneath it.
  9. You can now take off the aluminum enclosure.

The ZonePlayer now sits on the white bottom and can be inspected. Here is the player and the three pieces which build its shell, as well as the feet and the 11 screws I removed.

Inside the Sonos ZonePlayer ZP100

As I said, don't try this at home, kids.

Sonos - first impressions
Sonos - second look
Sonos - the controller
Sonos - music from the iTunes Music Store
Sonos - now we are talking
Sonos - getting into the zone
Sonos - the mesh network
Sonos - inside the ZonePlayer
Sonos - April 10 and the ZP80 is already here
Sonos - the Wife Acceptance Factor

Life has its surprises

by Volker Weber

I was not expecting any deliveries today, so I was surprised to see the DHL man ringing at my door. Oh, what a surprise. A bottle with a note:

vowe,

you should have know better to open the flood gates of whisky opinions, so here is some evidence or rather collateral to back mine up!

Enjoy J.

Thank you, John! Yes, it indeed is very tasty. Since I am more of a sipper than a drinker, this bottle will last a long time.

Everybody has a new job

by Volker Weber

Damien joins Google, Brian and Stephan join IBM, Richard goes to HP. And the announcements are not over for today.

Old vowe.net archive pages

I explain difficult concepts in simple ways. For free, and for money. Clue procurement and bullshit detection.

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