October 2006
Und wann soll ich das alles lesen?
by Volker Weber
Gestern kam ein Überraschungspaket. Und ich war nicht zu Hause. Mein Nachbar auch nicht. Also durfte ich heute zur Post und fand dort ein Paket von Hartmut Wiehr, ZAZAmedia. Ich kenne und schätze Hartmut seit fast zehn Jahren. Er gehört zu den Autoren, die den gleichen Fehler haben wie ich: Die Welt so zu sehen, wie sie ist, und nicht so, wie sie sein sollte. Von Hartmut bekomme ich zum zweiten Mal Post. Im ersten Paket waren viele Exemplare seines project 57. In diesem nun zwei Bücher:
- Hendrik Leitner, Hartmut Wiehr, Die andere Seite der IT, Business-Transformation durch Services und dynamische Infrastruktur, ZAZAmedia, ISBN 3-924943-47-8, 268 Seiten, 35 Euro
- Hartmut Wiehr (Hrsg.), Storage Compendium, Das Jahrbuch 2006/2007, ZAZAmedia, ISBN 3-924943-48-6, 242 Seiten, 48 Euro
Beide Bücher sehen auf Anhieb sehr interessant aus, und ich hoffe, dass ich die Zeit finden werde, sie auch zu lesen. Speziell das erste Buch ist absolut am Puls der Zeit, weil es so ziemlich alle Themen beleuchtet, die IT-Leiter (neudeutsch: CIOs) derzeit beschäftigen. Ute hat sich jedenfalls sofort drauf gestürzt. Und ich krieg's dann hoffentlich auch bald.
Letzte Woche kam ein Buch von Tom Alby: Web 2.0, Konzepte, Anwendungen und Technologien, Hanser, ISBN 3-446-40931-9, 229 Seiten, 19,90 Euro. Dieses Buch bietet einen Streifzug durch das Thema Web 2.0. Mein Problem: Alles, was da drin steht, kenne ich schon. Das bremst ein wenig die Neugier und führt dazu, dass ich alles mit kritischem Auge lese im Sinne von "stimmt das denn auch?". Nach kurzer Durchsicht würde ich sagen: Das gibt man seinem Chef, damit der versteht, was dieses Web-Zweinull-Dingens ist.
Ach ja, die c't will auch noch gelesen werden. :-)
From my inbox
by Volker Weber
Gregg was at the Apple store:
And when I left, all of the MacBooks and several iMacs had vowe.net on their web pages. :-)
Nice try. But that does not really scale. :-)
Rätsel
by Volker Weber
Stephan hat mir heute dieses schöne Rätsel geschickt:
Vor der Stadt steht ein Wächter am Stadttor, der die Besucher nur nach Beantwortung einer Frage einläßt. Ein Spion, der in die Stadt will, sitzt hinter einem Busch und beobachtet die Leute, die in die Stadt wollen:
Ein Mönch kommt. Der Wächter sagt "Acht". Der Mönch antwortet "Vier". Er darf rein. Ein junges Mädchen kommt. Der Wächter: "Achtundzwanzig". Das Mädchen: "Vierzehn". Es darf rein. Ein Bauer kommt. Der Wächter: "Sechzehn". Der Bauer: "Acht". Er darf rein.
"Aha," denkt der Spion. "Den Code habe ich geknackt". Er geht zum Wächter. Der sagt "Zwölf". Der Spion "Sechs" und wird verhaftet.
Was hätte der Spion antworten müssen?
Bitte keine Spielverderber. Wer das Rätsel schon kennt, bitte nicht kommentieren.
Royale Noir theme
by Volker Weber
Download here. Unpack and copy to "c:\windows\resources\themes\royale noir". Then click on luna.msstyles. Go to the Appearance tab and you will see that you have two choices under “Color Scheme.” Select Royale Noir.
Windows XP no longer has to look like Playmobil. :-)
[via bink.nu]
Von wegen 199 Dollar
by Volker Weber
Palm-Chef Ed Colligan hatte in einem Interview einen Kampfpreis ab 199 US-Dollar für den Treo 680 in Aussicht gestellt. Vorstellbar war dieser Preis aber nur mit einem Mobilfunkvertrag. Amazon.de listet das Gerät nun mit knapp 450 Euro, kann aber nicht liefern. Derzeit erwarte ich nicht, dass irgendeiner der deutschen Carrier das Palm-OS-Gerät anbieten wird.
Das wird eine ganz knappe Sache, denn Vodafone liefert den 750v je nach Vertrag ab 300 Euro.
Blocking automatic print dialogs
by Volker Weber
Most of the times, print versions of web pages are much better to read. No attention-grabbing ads, just clean text on a neutral background.
These pages often come with one downside. Web designers put some Javascript into the page to open the print dialog, which you then have to close if you want to read the page.
In Firefox it is pretty easy to block this behavior. Just create user.js in your profile directory and enter this:
// block print popups from Javascript
user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.print", "noAccess");
No more print popups.
New toy: Celluon Laserkey CL800BT
by Volker Weber
The Laserkey is a virtual keyboard which claims to work with Windows Mobile, Pocket PC & Smart Phone edition, Palm OS, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows 2000/XP or higher. The problem is, there are no drivers for Blackberry and Symbian devices.
I was able to get it working with a Palm Lifedrive. Sort of. It projects a keyboard on any flat surface, so that you know where to type. Then it checks where an obstacle like your finger appears within two millimeters of the surface. You have to carefully hold your fingers high enough and then hunt and peck your characters. And that works about as good as the handwriting recognition in an Apple Newton.
There is a second product on the market: the I-Tech Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB). It is somewhat cheaper, actually has drivers for Symbian and Blackberry. And it works exactly the same.
Great toy to attract some attention. But for real use it is complete rubbish.
What? A gizmo that vowe doesn't own yet?
by Esther Schindler
By now, I'm sure that everybody is convinced that vowe gets any cool new phone that's announced. So I'm sure we'll all soon see him sporting this one from Bang & Olufsen, maker of expensive, hyperstylish stereos and cordless phones.
The phone is called Serene. It's a radical departure from any cell phone you've ever used before, mostly in a good way. One of the bad ways, alas, is the price. Promise you won't stop reading when you find out? It's $1,275.
More >
Kurzweilig
by Volker Weber
Gestern Abend gelernt:
- Sebastian Hämer versucht wie Xavier Naidoo zu singen. Versucht. Ich nehme an, dass Moses Pelham an Sebastian eine etwas festere Kette angebracht hat als an Xavier.
- Es gibt Hunger in Deutschland. Man schaue sich nur Sabrina Setlur an.
- Henni Nachtsheim ist extrem kurzweilig. Ich hätte ihm gerne noch länger zugehört.
- Höhepunkte des Abends: Sabrina Setlur verließ die Bühne, "Papa was a rolling stone" mit Ron Williams und Ron White, Olaf Mill mit "Wir waren nur Hippies in Hessen" (zur Melodie von Stairway to Heaven), Rodgau Monotones (mit Henni Nachtsheim): "Mein Freund Harvey".
Ach ja, und Goethe soll nicht gesagt haben "Mehr Licht" sondern "mer lischt hier so schlescht". :-)
Fair game
by Volker Weber
FairGame will convert the songs you bought on the iTunes Store to an unprotected format (using iTunes default encoder) and keep all the original metadata, lyrics and artwork
No more burning to CD and re-ripping to MP3.
Search queries of the day
by Volker Weber
- welches make -up steht mir? — Wasser und Seife. Jedenfalls in Deinem Alter.
- vowe hates microsoft — Well, he doesn't.
- sc101 mac driver — Netgear is looking for them as well. For more than a year.
- have you been a good boy this year? — Ab-so-lu-te-ly.
- ich volker bin ein depp — Ähemm.
Loads of pump&dump spam
by Volker Weber
A week ago I started receiving loads of pump&dump spam. An all-html message with a large gif file which contains the payload. Do you have any suggestions how to tweak SpamAssassin to trap these mails?
BlackBerry Pearl in Deutschland
by Volker Weber
Bei T-Mobile und Vodafone jetzt verfügbar. Bei E-Plus und O2 tut sich nichts.
Sanity test
by Volker Weber
During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the principal factors were which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.
"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."
"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."
"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"
[Thanks, Schweppes]
Apple updates Macbook firmware
by Volker Weber
The SMC Update improves the MacBook's internal monitoring system and addresses issues with unexpected shutdowns. This update is recommended for all MacBook systems, including those that received warranty repair. The updater application will be installed in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Please follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the process.
Available through Software Update.
Update: This screenshot takes the cake:
Gooood morning
by Volker Weber
Download as Quicktime, Flash or Windows media.
Online meetings and free phone calls
by Volker Weber
I was attending a WebEx conference yesterday, and I was really surprised how well this works. Having tried numerous Sametime conferences across firewalls I was delighted by the very unobtrusive setup. I connected from my Macbook with Safari, WebEx installed a plugin and I was ready to go. Went to the meeting URL, the plugin loaded the meeting client and I was in. Pretty simple. Along the way my local firewall asked me whether I would allow an outgoing connection on port 443, which was the only thing that Webex needed.
Adam Gartenberg was so nice to try the same with me on Sametime 7.5 later, and I had good success as well. The only thing I could not do was to share my screen with him, since Sametime needs ActiveX to do that. ActiveX is not available on Linux and Mac, but I have only tried the Mac. It may work on Linux, and if it does, I would wonder why it doesn't on the Mac. While I was joining the Sametime conference, I could not help but notice how much longer it takes to load the meeting client. On Safari it did not load at all, on Firefox 2 it worked. This time, my firewall asked me to connect through port 1533:
This might actually be a good indication why Sametime meetings over firewalls can be tricky. Some companies just use transparent proxies on port 80 and 443, while closing everything else. In this scenario WebEx just works, while software on other ports hits the wall.
Anyway, while the online meeting with live demos was living inside the meeting client, our voice conversation was connected through POTS. I was to call an 800 number, which is toll-free from the US, but an international call from Germany. It used to impossible to make these calls, but a few years ago they were made possible — you only have to pay for them at international rates.
Having to pay for something that is supposed to be free wakes up the engineer inside me. There has to be a way. And there is. You have to use VoIP. Free World Dialup lets you call 800 and 866 numbers in the US from anywhere in the world. I have had an account there for years, but hardly ever used it. The only thing you need is a softphone (or an IP phone, or a Fritzbox, or Asterisk, or ...) to connect to the service. While everybody seems to recommend X-Ten, I prefer SJphone:
SJphone works on Linux, Mac, Windows and PocketPC 2003. And it's free. A simple interface that does not try to look like a phone. Highly recommended.
One thing you may want to do when you set up your softphone, is to register for a free dial-in number. Free World Dialup gives you a SIP URI (like the one @fwd.pulver.com you see above), but in order to receive phone calls from POTS you need to register with a service like IPkall. While signing up, I asked for a number in the Redmond area. There you go: 425-606-3900. It's not working yet, and you need to ask me to start my softphone, but after that: local calls from Redmond.
Ms. Dewey
by Volker Weber
Looking for something? Just ask Ms. Dewey. She does not tell you though that she is working for Microsoft. And thus she has all the annoying attributes you would expect: well designed but demanding and slow.
[Thanks, Kristian]
From my inbox
by Volker Weber
We are writing to you because you are an opinion leader in your industry. There are a lot of people who read your blog and follow your recommendations.
We want you to consider offering your readers an opportunity to ask you any question for 25c at our site ...
Asking questions is absolutely free. It's the answers which cost considerably more than a quarter.
openBC fun
by Volker Weber
Looks like somebody needs to set some priorities.
Ubuntu 6.10 released
by Volker Weber
London - 26th October 2006 - Canonical ... today announced its latest desktop and server version. ... Ubuntu 6.10 offers a cleaner, sharper design, together with new and enhanced desktop applications and advances in security. Significantly faster boot up times and the best in leading edge free software technologies make the latest Ubuntu the first choice for many new and existing Linux users.
The upgrade is pretty easy, as Christian Heindel wrote. Just enter this command:
sudo update-manager -c -d
It will ask you for your password, and the fun begins:
Lords of the logistics
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Heiko]
DNA Evidence Frees Man After 15 Years Of Marriage
by Volker Weber
JACKSONVILLE, FL — Henry "Hank" Doswell, 42, was released from his marriage Wednesday, after DNA tests conclusively proved his innocence in the July 1991 fathering of Spencer Doswell, the solitary charge that has kept him committed for 15 years.
[Thanks, Rob]
One for the ladies
by Volker Weber
Warning: The content on this site may offend women under 35. But you don't want to miss the side effects.
[via Robert]
Search queries of the day
by Volker Weber
- schwul im dampfbad — Seite 12, da will es einer wissen.
- kommen sie nackt australien — Klassiker!
- systems freikarte — einfach c't kaufen. Macht 'nen schlanken Huf. :-)
- conet ag — ein paar nette Kommentare ...
- blonde pole dancers — yes, we are #1.
- lights when you close your eyes — and on the way home from the pub some idiot stepped on your hands?
- the best blonde jokes ever — indeed ;-)
Housekeeping
by Volker Weber
One of the things I do in the morning is to clean out the comments from people who cannot follow simple instructions or who do not understand the FAQ. This morning I had a real gem: a comment that did not add anything to the discussion with a fake email address and a link to a site. I do understand that people do not trust me with an email address. In that case nobody forces them to comment. But to provide a fake address and then publish a masthead on their own site, which looks like the one below the fold, is truly schizo.
Pressemeldung des Tages
by Volker Weber
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
wir bitten um Beachtung der nachfolgenden Pressemeldung:
*** Open-trullalla bietet Collaboration-Lösung zum Download an
Uneingeschränkte Version von führender Open Source-Groupware jetzt 30 Tage
lang testen
Entenhausen, 25.10.2006 – Interessenten steht auf www.open-trullalla.de ab sofort
eine kostenlose Vollversion des Open-Trullalla Servers 5 zur Verfügung.
Zusätzlich kann auch die Anbindung von MS Outlook getestet werden.
Hui. Eine zeitlich eingeschränkte Testversion eines Produktes in der Version 5. Das muss auf die Titelseite.
VoIP phone plugin for Sametime available
by Volker Weber
Zurich, October 24th, 2006 – The new integrated softphone product line is-phone wins the VoIPGermany Award 2006 in the category "Applications". This is the 4th award for iscoord and underlines iscoord's leading position for integrated IP telephony softphone clients. The first product of the is-phone product line - is-phone 7.0 for IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5 plug-in - is now available for download as a free 60-days trial.
There is no IBM Lotus Sametime server installation needed to install the application. Only the IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5 client (IBM free trial download link) and the is-phone plug-in are needed to make phone calls between Sametime/is-phone users or to make calls to any phone number by using a SIP service from a local provider/carrier.
Registration is required for the download. You will then discover that the plugin only installs on Windows. I don't know if it can only run on Windows, but the installer is an .exe file.
Businesskasper
by Volker Weber
Sehr sehenswert: Zweite Hälfte dieses Videos.
[Danke, Schweppes]
New Apple gear
by Volker Weber
Apple updates the MacBook Pros to the Merom (a.k.a. Core 2 Duo) processor, where due duo probably sounds very funny to Italians. :-) The update was long overdue. What I find interesting is that the battery life actually goes down by 30 minutes for the 15" model. Same old design.
An interesting accessory is the Magsafe Airline Power Adapter, which unfortunately does not work in a car. I want one.
Skype 2 for Mac comes out of beta
by Volker Weber
The change log lists only two items:
- Resolution of outgoing Video calls on PowerPC reduced to 160x120
- Updated Video Engine codecs
Drei zwo eins
by Volker Weber
In Deutschland gibt's drei zwei eine Sportarten:
- Fußball
Boris BeckerMichael Schumacher
Mal gespannt, was den Plaudertaschen bei RTL nächstes Jahr einfällt.
Wer hat's erfunden?
by Volker Weber
Nuggiweg finde ich etwas brutal, Flügellicht zu gefährlich, aber der Schatzihalter hat was.
Netgear Skype phone: Disappointing battery life
by Volker Weber
Netgear claims the Skype phone has 50 hours of standby and up to three hours of talk time. I have not talked more than one hour so far — and I was kicked out of one call because the battery died on me.
I am getting exactly ten hours of standby (and no talk time in those ten hours). I tried this both yesterday and today, with a complete recharge in between. The on screen indicator shows a full charge for seven hours or so, and then you start to see it go down to 80%. Two to three hours later it sends a warning beep that it needs to be recharged. The behaviour is pretty much like the RAZR: Show a full charge and then die off quickly.
Update: The US site has different specifications: Up to 2 hours talk time, and up to 20 hours standby. These numbers look much better. Yesterday I have not been able to run down the battery in 12 hours and I will see how it does today.
Nur in Gegenwart des Führers. Jawoll.
by Volker Weber
Citizendium
by Volker Weber
A month ago I wrote that Wikipedia is going to fork, and I also said "I'd be surprised if this works". Hartmut took me to task, and I have not answered his concerns.
Here is a very thoughtful piece about Citizendium, what they are up to, and why it may or may not work. After reading it, I'd still say I will be surprised if this works. Pleasantly surprised, but still surprised.
[via Ned]
Not a terribly good idea
by Volker Weber
Truth in advertising
by Volker Weber
"Bad" is the german word for "bath". Reminds me of a Lufthansa SNAFU, when they translated "Die Erste Klasse" to "Die First Class" and put up signs in their planes.
Search queries of the day
by Volker Weber
- IBM Domino screenshot — Black background, scrolling white text.
- Got a laptop, now what? — Charge the battery.
- vowe sex — Yes. Now what?
Valencia
by Volker Weber
This is SOMEbody's dream job
by Esther Schindler
Now, if it was for beer or wine, I might be interested.
The makers of Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky are looking for two Global Ambassadors to represent the brand in the Search for The Chivas Life. Applicants will work together to identify one-of-a-kind extraordinary experiences and record them for an online travelogue, representing Chivas Regal in their travels and activities, which may include mentoring consumers on the brand and interacting with members of the media.
Applicants should be passionate and intelligent with strong writing and media skills. Compensation for the pair, including travel stipend, is $200,000. Prospective candidates must be at least 25 years old and apply in pairs, and can download application materials at www.chivaslifeambassador.com starting Monday, October 16th and apply in person on Saturday, October 28 at The Chivas Studio, 174 Hudson Street in New York City from 10am to 4pm . Pernod Ricard USA is an EOE.
And yes, this is a real gig: More >
Mobile Skype: Room for improvement
by Volker Weber
Just reading the specs does not show you the weak parts of a solution. One of those is WLAN support in mobile devices. If you run Skype on a regular smartphone, you want to use WLAN access, because unlike "cellular" data it is free. So Skype on a Windows mobile with WLAN support sounds like a really great idea. The only problem is battery life. As soon as you switch on WLAN, and then load a Skype client, it will not only run in standby, but it will suck your battery dry really quickly. This means, you probably will only run it, if you want to call somebody else.
The Netgear Skype phone is a different matter. You can leave it on all day. But there is a catch. You are logged in to Skype, although your PC may not. Then, if somebody wants to send you an instant message, he will get this error message:
What it should say is: "The other party uses a Skype client without instant messaging. Please call." I hope this is in the upgrade plan for the PC clients. After all Skype owns both ends of the conversation and should know which clients they are talking to. This is actually where a Windows Mobile Skype client has its advantages. It does support instant messaging.
If I may make a wish for the Netgear phone: you have an update capability built in. Please send some decent ring tones. Neither Bubbly, Sing-a-long nor Medley cut it. How about "Ring"?
Cool down your MacBook or MacBook Pro
by Bruce Elgort
For those of you Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro users out there who find the amount of heat generated by the CPU is too much for your lap (or your furniture), you may want to try out smcFanControl Version 1.2. smFanControl allows you to easily crank up the speed (and volume) of the fans.
smcFanControl is open source and licensed under the GPL.
Marketing battle
by Ragnar Schierholz
This is what happens if marketing teams get a little picky on each other:
- BMW is proud winner of an award.
- So is Audi.
- Subaru thinks it plays in the same league.
- Only the Brits from Bentley practice the proverbial reserve.
[Thanks, Ritschie!]
Netgear SPH101 Skype WLAN Phone
by Volker Weber
On hour ago, the Netgear Skype phone finally arrived. It feels like I have been waiting for it a hundred days or so. Well, I actually did, because it was supposed to ship mid year. This is what you get: the phone, a charger and 30 minutes of SkypeOut. At 220 Euros, that is not a steal.
Paying for the phone is only a short pain, but the gain is quite rewarding. First thing you notice is that this looks pretty much like a SonyEricsson 810. It is a little bit thicker, but it feels rather nice when you hold it in your hand. They keyboard works well, and you will notice that it charges over a mini-USB plug. I connected it to my Mac and it started charging right away. Disclaimer: I have USB drivers for the Pearl installed, so it may or may not work out of the box. Here is a little side-by-side comparison with a Treo 750v and a BlackBerry Pearl:
Installation was a breeze. When you switch it on, the phone looks for open networks. If it does not find any it asks you which encrypted network it should join. I entered my WPA key, and I was connected. Next step is to log into Skype. Enter user and password and it logs in. It will also download your contacts, and then you are ready to go.
Or so you think. Although the contacts show up immediately, it did not want to place a call, but was asking me to wait a few minutes until it downloaded all contacts. I have no idea what is going on, but there seems to be a substantial delay after login, where the phone is unable to place a call. If all else fails, read the manual. This happens only, if (a) the phone has been reset or (b) you have logged in as a different users.
My first call was with Ben for 15 minutes. Sound quality was identical if not better to a normal phone, but Ben was using a headset. It will be less ideal if the other person is just "talking to the computer". It feels much more natural if you hold a normal phone than if you are talking through your computers. The headsets gets a little bit warm, much like a mobile phone during conversation though.
The bad news is that I just had a crash when I pressed the left softkey to open the menu to check the call time with Ben. The screen went blank and the phone rebooted. It rejoined the WLAN, logged in automatically and played the loud Swooosh sound. Need to find out how to turn this off.
What you don't see in the pictures above is that the phone is quite chunky. I have another photo which shows all three of them from a side angle — yes I know, only the Netgear is in focus :-):
Stay tuned. I will have more things to say about this gem.
Making Glasgow more colorful
by Volker Weber
In San Francisco they used 250,000 superballs. Now it's 70,000 litres of paint, 358 single bottle bombs, 33 sextuple air cluster bombs, 22 triple hung cluster bombs, 268 mortars, 33 triple mortars, 22 double mortars, 358 meters of weld, 330 meters of steel pipe, 57 km of copper wire.
I still like the superballs better. Especially the music.
[Thanks, Boudewijn]
Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 7
by Volker Weber
Please download and test my site, so I don't have to. :-) I am already getting a bunch of hits like these:
Windows-RSS-Platform/1.0 (MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
It is kind of ironic, that within one day the first security hole has already been detected. Even more ironic: this vulnerability has been know to exist in IE 6 for half a year now.
Fonera Router jetzt kostenlos in D/A
by Volker Weber
FON will es wissen. Jetzt gibt es La Fonera Wireless Router kostenlos in Deutschland und Österreich. Am Nutzungsmodell ändert sich nichts. Wer einen Fon-Hotspot betreibt, kann alle Fon-Hotspots kostenlos nutzen (Linus). Oder er kann sich an den Gebühren beteiligen lassen (Bill), die andere (Aliens) zahlen müssen.
New BlackBerry 8100 Pearl firmware available from O2
by Volker Weber
BlackBerry™ 8100
Wireless Handheld (EDGE)
v4.2.0.64 (Platform 2.2.0.37)
Cryptographic Kernel v3.8.4.28
MicroEdition Configuration: CLDC-1.1
MicroEdition Profile: MIDP-2.0
MicroEdition JTWI Version: 1.0
MicroEdition Media Version: 1.1
MicroEdition PIM Version: 1.0
MicroEdition File Version: 1.0
Museu de les Ciències
by Volker Weber
Suchanfrage des Tages
by Volker Weber
Wer so fragt, wählt bestimmt national befreit.
Vrooom
by Volker Weber
I'll take the chase car.
Idokorro BlackBerry Viewer
by Volker Weber
Courtesy of the Idokorro BlackBerry Viewer I can now show you the Vodafone Today Theme on the BlackBerry Pearl.
(347) 438-3116
by Volker Weber
I have just received a phishing mail with the standard money laundering proposal. Receive funds, transfer the money, report ... You know the drift. The mail was in German, and this time they did not use a web address but a phone number.
You can find the phone number on this defunct site: Hudson Investments Inc.
The number is still functional and points to a voice mail/fax box. However:
Area code 347 is a New York City area code used as an overlay to area code 718 and area code 917. It is used in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City. 347 is used for cell phones/pagers/mobile devices, and more recently for other non-geographic numbers such as those offered by Skype and other VoIP services, however all of the other area codes in the city can be used for such services.
The other number on this webpage points to area code 917:
Area code 917 is a New York City telephone area code; it is the standard cellular/pager/voicemail phone area code for all of the city's boroughs and is an overlay to 212, 347, 646 and 718. Currently, 917 is also being assigned to land lines.
Which is probably also not a landline. Does anybody want to call the FBI?
Browser stats
by Volker Weber
Firefox is the browser I am seeing most often here on vowe's magic flying circus. IE continues to decline but this picture may change when Firefox 2 and IE 7 come out. Safari has a sizeable chunk, and interestingly enough Opera is still used by quite a few visitors here. I hope the design is working for you since I have not tested in Opera.
The Mac continues to hold an 18% share, so one third of the Mac users must be on Firefox instead of Safari. I have tested the last two RCs of Firefox 2 and it is really fast. Still, I am a Safari user.
How are the stats for your site?
Just testing
by Volker Weber
Music: Thievery Corporation, DC 3000, Wired Creative Commons CD
T-Home Classic Complete Basic Plus Ballaballa
by Volker Weber
Ein übersichtliches Angebot mit nur 20 Fußnoten. Thomas Knüwer erklärt, warum das in die Hose geht.
7777
by Volker Weber
Only 13 years ago
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Alper]
New toy coming up
by Volker Weber
I was expecting it today, but I just learned I need to wait another two days. If all goes well, then starting tomorrow Thursday I will be testing the Netgear Skype phone. Tomorrow might be a good day to chat with me. :-)
The reason for the delay is actually a bonus. I was expecting a pre-production unit, but now I will be looking at the real thing.
Icons. Lots of icons.
by Volker Weber
Alan presents a a set of calendar icons which may or may not be in "Hannover". My first reaction was "My First Lotus". The second reaction was: They confuse the hell out of me. I dragged them off the web page and did a slideshow. For more than half of them I had no idea what they mean.
Then I checked Apple's iCal which hardly has any icons at all. Just some small hints that show if it is a repeating event. When you add an event, you hit a plus sign. There is no need to decide whether you add a meeting, an appointment, an anniversary, an all day event or a reminder. You just add an event. Then you can say, hey, this is all day long, and the time fields get disabled. Or you add attendees, which might turn this into a meeting. If you want a reminder, you turn on an alarm. If you want a "Notes Reminder" then the start and end time might be the same. It is actually pretty simple.
As I said, the icons confuse me. What I can live with is something like this in a web browser:
Back, forward, make text smaller/larger, reload. Period. There are more icons I could choose from. But then I would get more confused than necessary.
This was the beauty of the original Hannover designs. Hardly any icons at all.
Q: Who designed some of the most famous icons?
A: Susan Kare.
Madrid Barajas
by Volker Weber
This is one of the longest Airport terminals I ever walked from one end to the other. If you arrive at the red pillars and have to walk down to the blue ones — they are colored like a rainbow — that is quite a distance. Look here on Google Maps.
Notes S/MIME and signed CD mails
by Volker Weber
You may remember that I was having difficulties receiving S/MIME message signed by Notes on the BlackBerry Internet Service. This has now been resolved. BIS 2.1 can read the format that Notes creates.
While testing this we have found an interesting situation. Depending on your setup, Notes will notify you that your message is being signed, but in fact it is not delivered as an S/MIME message. In the comments to my post Things that annoy me about Lotus Notes, part 4328 we have worked out that there are two ways to convert from Notes Rich Text to MIME: One option is to do it in the Notes client, and you will end up with the ugly HTML that was annoying me. The other option is to let the server convert from CD format to MIME and that will render the message in decent HTML code. Now we have determined that this option strips you from your ability to clear sign your messages with your X.509 private key.
Actually this is not even surprising since the message travels to the server and is converted there to MIME. As the server does not have your private key, it cannot sign this MIME-encoded message. The status notification in Notes says, the message is being signed. This information is correct, but at the same time completely useless, since the message is signed with your Notes private key, which is then stripped at the server when the message is converted to MIME.
Need some help with understanding the BlackBerry infrastructure
by Volker Weber
I am confused by the BlackBerry Internet Service registration process, and maybe you can help me understand. You will never read about this in the press, since RIM very carefully procures devices for review which have been registered to a BIS account and come with a SIM, so a reviewer will not notice these difficulties.
When you first register your handheld, or when you switch handhelds, then you have to enter the device PIN and the IMEI. Since I have a lot of SIM cards and BIS accounts, I often hit a wall when the BIS tells me that it will not accept the device, because it believes I am using the wrong website/device combination. Obviously either the device PIN, or the IMEI, or both are tied to the mobile carrier.
First question: Where is this information stored, and how can it be changed, and by whom?
Since the BIS is hosted by RIM and there is only a thin layer of branding on top of it, this is a very artificial barrier. Whom does it serve, and why is it in place? I can perfectly register a device on the Vodafone BIS, and then use an O2 SIM card to access it, but I cannot register the same device on the O2 BIS. If a device is registered on an O2 BIS, I can also access it with a Vodafone SIM.
Second question: Why are the devices locked to a particular carrier?
You cannot always use a different SIM with your BlackBerry handheld. T-Mobile for instance seems to have two device types. One for "prosumers" and one for enterprise customers. They have different APNs branded into the device, and therefore you have another barrier. You cannot use your "prosumer" BlackBerry by registering it with your BES. Which is another customer lock-in, since you need to buy a different device. This limitation does not seem to apply for O2 or Vodafone.
With the Vodafone 8707v exclusive device I found another limitation. It does not work with any other SIM (UMTS- and BlackBerry-enabled). I will always get a "Network Acccess Denied" error message.
Third question: How is the access to a BlackBerry APN limited by device PIN or IMEI?
The Beekeeper
by Volker Weber
You have seen the honey. Here is the brave beekeeper. I could not imagine doing that myself.
BlackBerry Indigo & Crimson
by Volker Weber
Most of you have seen the images or partial product preview of the upcoming 8800 series, both with and without the camera. As yet another exclusive to TBGR ... here are the upcoming BlackBerry devices, codenamed Indigo (without camera) and Crimson (with camera).
Berlin
by Volker Weber
Skype and Asterisk
by Volker Weber
Do you want to make SkypeOut calls from your Asterisk box? Would you like to have a Skype buddy on your regular phone's speed dial? Do you think it would be nice to be able to use the Skype network from your mobile phone, or even a telephone booth?
Look no further. We are proud to announce ChanSkype, the world's first Skype channel driver for the Asterisk Open Source PBX.
[Thanks, Richard]
Site news: Making it easier to subscribe
by Volker Weber
I noticed quite a few visitors coming in through Bloglines. And there are only 500 something subscribers to my feeds on this service. Bloglines has a button to let visitors easily add your feed:
I have taken this one step further. There is a new Subscribe page linked from the sidebar to the right. There you can add vowe.net to a number of services.
Delicious
by Volker Weber
What a huge glass of honey. Thank you, PJ ! You want some honey for yourself? Check his out!
T-Mobile und Vodafone haben neue BIS-Server
by Volker Weber
T-Mobile und Vodafone haben ihre Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) endlich auf Version 2.x umgestellt. Damit sind sie bereit für die Markteinführung der Blackberry Pearls. Nächsten Montagabend ist der offizielle Launch in Deutschland.
Mit dem neuen BIS funktioniert nun auch die Reconciliation, das heisst auf dem Gerät gelesene oder gelöschte Nachrichten werden auf dem BIS genauso behandelt. Das ist auch bitter nötig, denn nun kann ich mich mit dem Mac überhaupt nicht mehr dort anmelden. Das liegt anscheinend an einer Weiche, mit der die Provider zwischen bestehenden und neuen Accounts unterscheiden wollen.
Die bestehenden Accounts werden derzeit nämlich nicht automatisch umgestellt. Man muss seinen alten Account löschen lassen und kann dann mit dem Gerät einen neuen einrichten. Problem: Es gibt keine Funktion, den Account selbst zu löschen. Dazu muss man die Hotline anrufen, die das dann veranlasst.
O2 ist derzeit der einzige Carrier in Deutschland mit alten Servern. E-Plus, T-Mobile und Vodafone haben aufgerüstet. Als O2-Kunde täte ich mal eine Anfrage stellen. :-)
Private Internetnutzung am Arbeitsplatz
by Volker Weber
Ist eine Kündigung wegen einer privaten Internetnutzung am Arbeitsplatz gerechtfertigt oder nicht? Lange war das unklar. Mal las man ein arbeitsgerichtliches Urteil, dass die Nutzung in Maßen in Ordnung sei. Dann gibt es wieder Entscheidungen, die eine Nutzung mit erheblichen Rechtsfolgen sanktionieren.
Das Bundesarbeitsgericht schuf jetzt Klarheit: Auch wenn kein ausdrückliches Verbot durch eine Klausel im Arbeitsvertrag oder durch eine Betriebsvereinbarung besteht, dürfen Arbeitnehmer das Internet zu privaten Zwecken grundsätzlich nicht nutzen.
Und wieder einmal bin ich froh, dass ich weder verbieten noch um Erlaubnis fragen muss.
Palm releases Treo 680 with Palm OS
by Volker Weber
Same body as the 750v, 320x320 screen as the Treo 650, a VGA camera (where do they buy these antiques?), quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, but no UMTS modem, no WiFi, Bluetooth 1.2.
This would have been one killer device two years ago.
Parallels Desktop for Mac
by Bruce Elgort
Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 1940 is now available for Intel based Macs. New features include support for Mac Pros, Windows Vista and OS X Leopard and improved suppoort for USB devices including webcams and Windows Mobile 2005.
I have been running Parallels Desktop on a Macbook Pro with 2GB of RAM since May 2006 and it has performed extremely well. Windows XP, Domino Designer, Domino Administrator and Visual Studio run very well.
The Third Man Behind YouTube
by Cem Basman
Jawed Karim is the third of the three founders of YouTube, which Google has agreed to buy for $1.65 billion. In 2002 he hit already a jackpot when PayPal was bought by eBay. He was than an early employee of PayPal. Sometimes the lightning strikes twice.
Jawed was born and raised in Germany. He is of Bangladeshi and German descent. A humble guy working on his master's degree at Stanford to become a professor. Not a clown like the other two. I'm impressed.
Things I like about Skype
by Volker Weber
You drop a file on the chat window and Skype just transfers it. No matter behind what router the other guy sits. Every. Single. Time.
Cheap labor
by Volker Weber
This is the latest comment spam fad:
Post a positive, but empty comment, trying to scoop up some Google juice. Usually done with cheap labor, in this case from the Ukraine:
Last login: Wed Oct 11 09:06:45 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
Raven:~ vowe$ whois 82.207.51.35
...
inetnum: 82.207.50.0 - 82.207.51.255
netname: UKRTELNET
Since I do not want to deal with those spammers again, I am excluding their ISP from access to the site:
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^82\.207\.5[0-1]\. [OR]
I had a much larger network just this morning. 6 Class-B networks:
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^218\.1[3-8]\. [OR]
That is almost 100 million IP-addresses. Goodbye, Chinanet Guangdong province network.
Lamborghini on china
by Volker Weber
No, not in China. On china.
Shiny
by Volker Weber
Something remarkable happened yesterday. A waiter in a restaurant asked me what brand of mobile phone I was using. He had spotted it when I set the ringer to mute. He obviously liked the looks of the Pearl. I guess this has never happened before with any handheld from RIM.
Feeling much better now
by Volker Weber
There was something that bothered my about last week's Microsoft presentations. I could not really name it, but now I figured it out: you don't have to tell me that you are leading in market share every few minutes. You are Microsoft. Hey, we know you. Just tell us what you have been up to lately. What is new, what is exciting?
And also don't try to paint weak points into strong points. It is not a good thing that you don't have any middleware between your Exchange server and the handheld. You are missing tons of useful features. For instance an attachment server, that transcodes huge Powerpoint files into something that can be consumed on a handheld without scaling it down. This not only saves on transfer cost, but also on processor, device memory, battery life and what not. You also have to poll your server time and again, since nobody knows your handheld's IP address. It really is kind of hard to "push" stuff to somebody who is invisible. RIM did not really invent all this stuff, because nobody needs it.
Case in point: ActiveSync drained the battery of the Treo 750v from 100% in the morning to 51% in the evening. BlackBerry Connect only wore it down to 76%.
From my inbox
by Volker Weber
Did brill yank you off of his blogroll?
Indeed.
I want to buy an argument
by Volker Weber
Cliff Reeves makes a good point in his post "Is it dangerous to criticise Lotus Notes?":
Rod made a case that could be argued. Like most arguments, his wasn't watertight, and smart people could (and do) differ. However, the reaction was over the top. Can we get to an online environment where it's OK to disagree and, instead of attacking people, it's the quality of our arguments that speak for us?
Well said, Cliff.
CalDAV now a proposed IETF standard
by Volker Weber
This document specifies a set of methods, headers, message bodies, properties, and reports that define calendar access extensions to the WebDAV protocol. The new protocol elements are intended to make WebDAV-based calendaring and scheduling an interoperable standard that supports calendar access, calendar management, calendar sharing, and calendar publishing.
iPod as a service
by Volker Weber
Shoot yourself in the foot... with your favorite programming language
by Esther Schindler
I'm so glad to see that someone has updated the list...
C
You shoot yourself in the foot.
C++
You accidentally create a dozen clones of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."
JAVA
After importing java.awt.right.foot.* and java.awt.gun.right.hand.*, and writing the classes and methods of those classes needed, you've forgotten what the hell you're doing.
Ruby
Your foot is ready to be shot in roughly five minutes, but you just can't find anywhere to shoot it.
PHP
You shoot yourself in the foot with a gun made with pieces from 300 other guns.
ASP.NET
Find a gun, it falls apart. Put it back together, it falls apart again. You try using the .GUN Framework, it falls apart. You stab yourself in the foot instead.
vowe on TV
by Volker Weber
In "heute", wenn ich das richtig mitgeschnitten habe. :-)
BlackBerry Connect for Treo 750v
by Volker Weber
BlackBerry Connect for the Treo 750v is out. This time you can also use it with BlackBerry Internet Service. Go get the German version here. From what I gather, it only syncs Mail, and for BES users also calendar and processes invitations. No address book sync over the air though. You need to do this with your local PC over ActiveSync.
Getting this screenshot done took more time than it was worth. For a simple reason: Windows Mobiles and Macs don't match. If you want a Windows Mobile, make sure you have a PC with Windows around.
Gutes Beispiel
by Volker Weber
Unter dem Titel "Radikales Sparprogramm bei T-Systems" schreibt die Computerwoche:
Mitarbeiter sollen weniger mit dem Handy telefonieren und die Nutzung von WLAN-Hotspots vermeiden.
Was dem Einen seine Kosten, sind dem Anderen sein Umsatz. Na, das wird die T-Mobile sicher freuen. So kommt der Ricke aber auch nicht wirklich weiter.
Veranstaltungshinweis: Informatiktag 2006 in Darmstadt
by Volker Weber
Quote of the day
by Volker Weber
Der Tor spricht, der Feige schweigt, der Weise hört zu.
— Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Der Schatten des Windes
How cool is this?
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Alex]
What a beautiful day
by Volker Weber
Won two match races out of three. OK, it wasn't exactly us who won the races, but rather our skipper Matti. I have never been on a 42 ft yacht as fast as this one. The sails make all the difference. What a beautiful day.
Quote of the day
by Volker Weber
What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
— Bob Dylan
Squiggly
by Volker Weber
It looks like Notes will get the squiggly line in Hannover. Everybody seems to be quite excited.
Actually, I have been a big fan of this kind of spell checking ever since it was introduced in Microsoft Word in, was that Office 95? Mac OS X has this feature on the operating system level, so you can even use it when posting in a web interface. Tip: Use the Multilingual setting, if you write in more than one language.
Lotus Notizen
by Volker Weber
Podcast on Lotus Notes and Domino 7.0.2
by Bruce Elgort
In this episode of The Taking Notes podcast Julian Robichaux and I talk about the new 7.0.2 release of Lotus Notes and Domino. We review the RSS Feed Generator template, the IBM Blog template (with Steve Castledine), iCalendar support, Nomad and other new features.
John Roling also gives us an OpenNTF update and Mac Guidera has a one minute tip on using CGI variables in your Domino applications.
Dowload it here or find it on the Apple iTunes Music Store podcast directory under "Lotus Notes".
Gone fishing
by Volker Weber
Photo Manel
I am taking a few days off to learn about Exchange 2007 and Hosted Exchange.
Before I go, I want so say this: something has started in the last two weeks, and it has not stopped yet. I am not naming any names, but guys, you are on the wrong track. If you want to play a GWB-style "with us or against us" game, you are going to lose big time.
vowe is a good mother. A Grizzly mother.
Branding is the hardest part
by Volker Weber
Microsoft Corp. market researchers in Quebec found themselves in a potential linguistic pickle when they conducted consumer test-runs of the digital music player Zune, which the company officially announced on Thursday will be competing by Christmas with Apple's hugely successful iPod.
A Microsoft spokeswoman in Montreal told CanWest News Service that "it was pointed out to us" during focus groups in the province that the proposed brand name sounded much like a French-Canadian term used as a euphemism for penis or vagina.
Doubling the effort
by Volker Weber
In July I asked How many pages must a man read. I was referring to the WebSphere Portal installation guide. The page count at that time was 1754 pages, where chapter 5 was only a duplicate of the following chapters. The problem was rectified and that brought the page count down to around 1000 pages.
The guide has now been revised. This time all the other chapters are duplicated in chapter 1, bringing the page count to 2264 pages.
Does anybody read these manuals before they are being published?
What is IBM's internal usage of the new Domino blog template?
by Volker Weber
I recently attended an IBM press event, where they claimed leadership in Web 2.0 technologies, especially in the social networking space. There was some interesting data, for instance that IBM has been using blogs for 3 years now, and that there currently are 2500 IBM blogs, most of them internal.
Now I was wondering how many of these blogs already tested the new IBM blog template for Domino 7.0.2 and how many are going to convert to it in the next 3 month. Does anybody have any data on that?
Skype on Mac needs a fix
by Volker Weber
Check your version number. You need .80 or .3 beta. If you are not on these versions, update.
Call Recorder for Skype V1.0.5
by Bruce Elgort
eCamm Network has released version 1.0.5 of their Call Recorder for Skype. V1.0.5 fixes a problem whereby extremely large file sizes were being uncessarily created. I use this product to record my podcast and it works perfectly. I have officially removed Audio Hijack Pro from my machine since I was always wrestling with it. I also experienced Audio Hijack Pro randomly dropping bits here and there which made the recording sound like crap.
Oh and did I mention that Call Recorder is Mac only?
IBM blog template in Domino 7.0.2
by Volker Weber
Paul tries the new template. This is the default layout. Looks ... blue.
Another screenshot which shows where the stylesheet needs help after the fold.
BlackBerry Pearl as Bluetooth modem
by Volker Weber
Big surprise again. The BlackBerry Pearl exposes the Dial-Up Networking (DUN) profile over Bluetooth. Therefore you can use it as a Bluetooth modem for your PC or Mac without any additional software. Setup is still a bitch, but it can be done, as explained in this post.
Now what?
by Volker Weber
A number of things that happened today got me thinking about the future of Notes. Some of them happened at a customer, so I cannot talk about them, but another one came in as an advert with the subject "So You've Decided to Migrate Your Notes Apps to Microsoft - Now What?":
CASAHL ecKnowledge makes it easy to:
- Migrate data and applications from Lotus Notes/Domino, QuickPlace, and Domino.Doc to Microsoft collaboration products (such as SharePoint, InfoPath and Groove)
- Synchronize data for coexistence between Lotus Notes/Domino and Microsoft collaboration products (such as SharePoint, Exchange, and .NET)
- Integrate Lotus Notes/Domino applications with virtually any enterprise content (including Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, SAP R/3, and more)
This is the second vendor to offer a product like this - the other one being Binary Tree. Both products probably claim more than they deliver. But if we can assume for a moment that no such product exists without a market, I would like to touch on one and only one aspect: What is the driving force behind the urge to move away from Notes? Some say, it is management decisions, like a new CIO who pushes what he has had before. But this would cut both ways, if we assume that CIOs with Notes backgrounds do not die off. This "new CIO" scenario happens, but I do not believe it is the driving force.
I believe it is the users.
I will try to make my case, and I might fail to convince you. If I can convince you, we can get to the more interesting question: What can be done about it?
The interesting case is a novice Notes user, who has been using other clients before. Sometimes it is the small things that throw them off. Here is a very simple example. Big company acquires small company. Big company has Notes, small company has Outlook. They both are almost 100% knowledge workers. Users at the small company have organized their work around file servers and directories. They produce lots of files, and if they want to document an email, they just drag it to the file server and rename it appropriately. The default action in Outlook creates an .msg file with the subject as the filename. The file has a binary format and contains the email:
If you click this file, it will be opened in Outlook and you can read it as if it were received in your inbox. Users are happy with this approach and they don't want to change their process. Since you cannot do the same in Notes, and since Notes cannot read the files they have stored so far, people cannot replace Outlook with Notes. IT management at the large company now is in the position to defend the corporate Notes environment, or to "make" the small company use Notes. For now they let them stick with Outlook and Exchange, since their work is much more important than their tools. Of course you can win this battle, but you won't win the hearts and minds easily.
The real problem lies elsewhere. Management at the big company is getting tired of advocating Notes to users who don't want it. They start reassessing their investment. How can me move things out of Notes into browsers? How can we move applications to other platforms? What would be best of breed? Can we mix other messaging solutions? The focus is not necessarily switching everything to a Microsoft platform. It is more about being less dependent on getting users on Notes.
Again, the interesting question is: What can be done about it?
I believe you have to start at the users. If Notes can reinvent itself as a tool that users want to use, then it will succeed. It does not matter if IT likes it, or if management likes it. The users need to want it. If they don't, we are going to see more of those "Now what?" questions.
Notes advocates will say that "Hannover" is going to solve this problem. I would say: It has to. I have this gut feeling that Hannover will be the make-or-break release of Notes. It has to convince right off the bat. It would be better to delay it by half a year than to make it look half-baked.
There is a lot of focus in Hannover on the integration space. Make Notes applications work with other stuff. There is innovation in the activities space. These are all good things. But I am afraid, the future of Notes depends on one thing: Users need to want it.
Faites vos jeux, medames, mademoiselles et messieurs!
PocketMac 4 relased
by Volker Weber
Go get it in the Download section on blackberry.com.
There are some minor restrictions, e.g. it does not sync contact pictures to the Pearl. I also found it does not handle exceptions to recurring entries (every monday, except 4th of July) well. But overall, I am quite pleased. Hey, it even comes with Notes support. :-)
Question of the day
by Volker Weber
How come you don't have a separate RSS feed for comments?
Well, I do. :-)
iCalendar support in Notes 7.0.2
by Bruce Elgort
Notes 7.0.2 now lets you import and export iCalendars to and from your calendar. Notes users can import calendars by dragging and dropping a URL or a file into their Notes Inbox or calendar, or they can import a file by using the menu item File > Import. Prior to importing a calendar, you can preview the calendar in a dialog box.
Adding iCalendar support allows you to import calendar information from other products and web sites that support iCalendar such as Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, Apple iCal as well as many others. Subscription/synchronization type functionality is not included with this implementation. Microsoft Outlook 2003 includes this same type of feature and is also limited to simple import and export functionality.
I will show you how this feature is implemented in Notes 7.0.2.
The Pearl reviewed
by Volker Weber
The Register also seems to like the Pearl:
Think of everything you'd like when you're out and about, then squeeze it all into a super slinky handset and you've got the Pearl. ....
Pearl is the best BlackBerry yet. Full stop. It does everything RIM is famous for - seamless email and communication - and packs it into the same space as a normal mobile phone. Throw in the easy-to-use roller ball navigation and a built-in camera and it covers all the bases. If you want everything on the go, and want it now then the Pearl is currently the only handset on the market that ticks all the boxes.
How to geocode your photos without a GPS track
by Volker Weber
Recently I wrote how to geocode your photos using a track from your GPS receiver. But what do you do without this track?
Here is a great solution which utilizes Google Earth. You center the desired location in Google Earth, and then you drag the photos on Geotagger:
Geotagger is a droplet for inserting GPS coordinates into your photos.
Simply position Google Earth (version 4 only) over the location you wish to insert into your images, then drag your images (jpegs only) onto the Geotagger icon. Once the images are tagged the information stays with them so you can import them to iPhoto, upload them to Flickr or Panoramio or any number of other things. If you choose iPhoto you may want to check out a plugin I wrote that will export your photos to a KMZ file that you can open in Google Earth and see your photos on the globe.
2BE/NOT2B
by Volker Weber
Looks fake'ish, but still ...
[via Robert]
Eye exam
by Volker Weber
Can you see the iBook in this picture?