October 2009

Aus der Reihe "Das ist ja cool"

by Volker Weber

Windows 7 Ultimate bietet mir zusätzliche Sprachpakete an. OK, beim Mac muss ich nicht mal fragen ...

Windows 7 on Snow Leopard

by Volker Weber

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This has to be the most simple way to install Windows 7. Insert DVD, launch VMware Fusion, tell it to create a new VM, user name, password, product code. Walk away. Result:

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Had a new package in the mail today with Windows 7 Ultimate. Now lives in a box. ;-)

Be the first to review this product

by Volker Weber

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Avatar

by Volker Weber

That is going to be my next movie to watch on the big screen.

Can you improve the Bold? You bet.

by Volker Weber

BlackBerry Bold 9000 and 9700

The BlackBerry Bold is the best BlackBerry ever. That used to be true for what was the only Bold available. Now there is a new kid on the block, and it's again the best ever, relegating its older brother to second best. We are going to write lengthy reviews with loads of details, but it's very simple: if you like the Bold, you will love the new Bold. It took me 10 seconds with the new trackpad to never want to go back to the trackball. Smooth, that's how you can best describe it.

BlackBerry Bold 9000 and 9700

The 9700 is smaller than the 9000, in a big way. It's like a Bold in a Curve skin, but feels a lot more solid. And it sheds some weight going from 138 g to 120 g.

BlackBerry Bold 9000 and 9700

Apart from the original iPhone, there has never been a device that went from zero to editor-refuses-to-give-it-back in 30 seconds.

Apple TV gets new user interface. It was about time.

by Volker Weber

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CUPERTINO, Calif., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced new Apple TV® 3.0 software featuring a redesigned main menu that makes navigating your favorite content simpler and faster, and makes enjoying the largest selection of on-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes® Store even better on your TV. You can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system. The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners ...

This looks just so much better than the old clunky text interface. I spent quite some time yesterday watching movie trailers and Flickr slideshows.

Samsung NC10 upgraded to Windows 7

by Volker Weber

Windows 7 Desktop

Yesterday night my neighbor showed up at my door with a package he had received for me while I was in London. It contained a Not For Resale copy of Windows 7 Premium Home. Time for an upgrade on the netbook.

When Vista came out I only tried it in a virtual machine, and I did not feel tempted to install it on any machine as an operating system. Windows 7 is different. I have used a few beta versions and did not find anything that would keep me from using it full time. So there was no question that it had to go on the Samsung.

Windows 7 ships on two DVDs: 32bit and 64bit. You need to boot from the medium to install it. So how was I going to get this on the netbook without a drive? Microsoft should consider selling it on a bootable USB thumbdrive. Since they don't you have to make one yourself. What you need is a 4 GB stick - the distribution is slightly larger than 2 GB. You have to wipe the memory key, create a primary partition, make it active, format it as FAT32, assign a drive letter, and make it bootable. That last part is missing from most of the instructions. Then you just copy everything from the DVD to the drive. Drag and drop will do. All of that took about 10 minutes in a VMware machine on Jumbotron, the iMac.

Installation was pretty straightforward. I only had to download and install a lot of packages from Samsung to make all the FN keys work. Once Windows 7 was up and running, I installed Microsoft Security Essentials, Chrome, Sonos controller, Skype and finally Office 2007. That took probably another two hours.

Have not done any work with it, but from what I am seeing so far, this is a very worthy upgrade from XP. And yes, it's fast. Even with some of the eye candy turned on, on a small netbook no less. Nice work, Microsoft.

Wo ist die Killer-App für den Palm Pre?

by Volker Weber

Schon drin, sagt Felix.

Want to update phone software but can't

by Volker Weber

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Nokia apparently has released a new version of the N97 device software, calling it "2.0" where the official release number is "20.0.019", If I install the Nokia Updater from the device software update site, it tells me my device is current as of "12.0.2.26". I assume I have to wait for a special version crippled by German operators. There are substantial upgrades in the software, so I don't really want to wait. Any workarounds?

Also available should be the device software 5.0 for the BlackBerry Storm. BlackBerry Desktop Manager updates itself but then only offers 4.7. What is the official release number for GSM/3G (not Verizon) devices, and is there a leak somewhere?

What a great way to assign gate numbers

by Volker Weber

Stackoverflow DevDays in London

by Volker Weber

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The Stackoverflow DevDays was the other event I attended in London. This was not on my original schedule, I learned about it just last weekend. Since I was in London anyway and was able to finish my SEE visit on the first day, I made the most of my visit and also attended the DevDays. The event was in part sponsored by Microsoft and Nokia, so there was another fragment of Nokia's plan to learn there.

DevDays is an ultimate geek-out. It very much reminded me of this joke: "There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who get laid". I was badly hung-over from Lotusbeer the night before so I had to pass on Joel Spolsky's keynote. When I finally arrived, Michael Sparks was presenting on Python. I did not learn much, but was very impressed anyway. He was presenting with code. Talking and typing at the same time.

Next up was Reto Meier of Google about Android (he wrote the book on it), and Joel Spolsky on Fogbugz 7. Both talks were more of a product demonstration. Remy Sharp's talk on jQuery was very enlightening. Excellent presentation and content.

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror fame was up next after lunch and told the story about how he and Joel started Stackoverflow.com. Notable quote of Pekka Kosonen's talk about Qt: "we used to suck in so many ways I did not think possible - but with Qt and WRT we are getting our act together". Yes, this deliberately links to the other conference. ;-) Next up was Phil Nash for an iPhone development 101, including a simple "start from zero" project live on stage. It probably inspired quite a few developers to give iPhone development a try. Jon Skeet, who works on Google Sync, delivered an interesting talk "Humanity: Epic Fail", explaining the difficulties we have understanding the most basic principles of numbers, strings and date/time. Quite a few horror stories about time zones and daylight savings.

Great talks, awful logistics (try to serve coffee for 850 people from a single queue). The room was packed, and rightfully so. There is another event in Cambridge and one in Amsterdam. Different speakers though. If you have a chance, stop by. If you can't get a ticket, go anyway. In London they weren't able to tell the difference. ;-)

A few quick remarks about Symbian Exchange and Expo

by Volker Weber

see2009

I am very tired but I still want to write down a few remarks about Symbian Exchange and Expo 2009.

Kensington. I think I would want to live in Kensington.

by Volker Weber

I mean, if I had to live in London.

Watch this video if you have bandwidth to burn

by Volker Weber

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[Thanks, Hajo]

Sonos kaufen?

by Volker Weber

In gut zwei Wochen kommt der S5 in Deutschland auf den Markt und ich bekomme immer mehr Anfragen, ob ich Sonos vielleicht günstiger besorgen kann. Kann ich nicht, und ich bin auch nicht gewerblich tätig.

Aber ich bin mit einem Freund in Verhandlung, der diese Wünsche kanalisieren wird. Er kann die Geräte auch nicht zu anderen Preisen anbieten als alle anderen Händler. Aber wir können natürlich eine Aktion für vowe.net-Leser machen. Sozusagen unsere eigene Community. ;-)

Also, Füße stillhalten. Ich habe demnächst Neuigkeiten.

New MacBook lives in Belkin sleeve

by Volker Weber

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At least until the novelty wears off a little. For now I am overprotective.

Still the best smartphone Nokia ever built

by Volker Weber

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Since I am going to attend Symbian Exchange and Expo next week, I decided to switch to a Nokia device for a week. The N97 had me frustrated in no time. There is an update looming which was announced at Nokia World and should hit us next month, but as it is, the device is pretty much useless to me. Not enough space on the c: drive, no kinetic scrolling on the touchscreen. Plus, the SEE2009 widget was disappearing from the front page anyway.

E71 to the rescue. This is still the best device Nokia ever made. Durable, dependable, and instead of bringing a charger, I will just use all the BP-4L batteries I have. I have upgraded Maps to 3.0, pre-installed the England map, installed one of the free pedestrian navigation codes and now it's all set to travel. And no, I won't leave the BlackBerry Bold behind. ;-)

[Disclaimer: I have not tried the E72 yet.]

I just doubled the value of the new MacBook Pro

by Volker Weber

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Or at least, I tried to. I have a perfectly legal copy that can be activated on two computers. However, I forgot to deactivate it on the old black MacBook before I wiped the disk. Now Adobe won't let me activate it again on the new MacBook Pro. The other copy is on the iMac, which I don't want to deactivate as well.

Now I am sitting on my 30 day trial period while I try to resolve this matter with Adobe.

Did I mention I hate activations? It's wonderful that Apple does not require any of this for Mac OS X, iLife or iWork. It just works.

Hot

by Volker Weber

The music is not so hot. The video is.

Beds are burning

by Volker Weber

Download the song >

The MacBook Pro it is

by Volker Weber

macbook

Today I looked at the new 13" MacBook, and it is a wonderful machine. And yet, I bought the MacBook Pro. Why? No good reason. I like both. Last time I bought a black MacBook, just because I wanted to. This time it was the Pro. Only upgrade: I swapped the 160 GB drive against a 320 GB Samsung I already had.

The Big Rip is over

by Volker Weber

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This is the bottom of the pit. All done. :-)

Nokia sues Apple in Delaware District Court for infringement of Nokia GSM, UMTS and WLAN patents

by Volker Weber

Espoo, Finland - Nokia announced that it has today filed a complaint against Apple with the Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that Apple's iPhone infringes Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards.

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The Big Rip - Album Art

by Volker Weber

The Big Rip - Album Art

I am making good progress with The Big Rip. Tomorrow should be the final day, and then I have completed a task that was sitting on my to do list for a couple of years. :-)

What I have learned is that the Gracenote DB is now pretty good. I have not had one CD it would not recognize, even very odd ones like promotion CDs. What takes a little bit more time is the album art. Picking covers from Amazon does not give you good results. They have a lot of bad JPEGs there. It's better to search via Google Images.

However, in a comment to my last post, Miguel Augusto told me about CoverScout. I contacted Equinux and they let me try it out. All I can say is that it works a treat:

The Big Rip - Album Art

CoverScout scans multiple sources and ranks the results. You hit "Apply" and all tracks in an album are tagged. This is exactly what I wanted. Equinux also told me about another product that complements CoverScout: SongGenie works like Shazam and tries to identify mis-labelled tags. Have not tried that yet, because all the CDs I am ripping are carefully tagged.

Voilà: nicely tagged and with decent cover art.

The Big Rip - Album Art

A Bold Curve

by Volker Weber

bb9700

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Oct. 21, 2009) - Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced the sleek and powerful BlackBerry(R) Bold(TM) 9700 smartphone. ... with support for 3G HSDPA networks around the world, a next-generation (624 MHz) processor, 256 MB Flash memory, built-in GPS and Wi-Fi(R), a 3.2MP camera and a sharp, dazzling display.

Looks like a Bold in a Curve's skin, minus Trackball, plus Trackpad. This should be the BlackBerry to get.

Wie langweilig

by Volker Weber

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21.10.09 11:29:00 DSL ist verfügbar (DSL-Synchronisierung besteht mit 51384/10080 kbit/s). (R007)
21.10.09 11:28:29 DSL-Synchronisierung beginnt (Training). (R008)
21.10.09 11:05:59 DSL antwortet nicht (Keine DSL-Synchronisierung). (R006)

I think I found my new MacBook

by Volker Weber

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Lots of news from Apple today. Faster Mac mini - that was about time, Mac mini server - kind of expensive for the hardware, new iMacs - Jumbrotron does not look too old, and a new Macbook - for a little bit less in Euros.

I was going to buy a MacBook Pro, but the new MacBook actually has more power than the entry level Pro (250 GB vs. 160 HD), for less money. Polycarbonate unibody should be strong. And it has something I have been waiting for quite a while: a non-slip bottom in a notebook without using rubber feet that can get lost. A round edge means it can be carried easily, and the white bezel means that it does not have the reflective black surface around the screen. LED backlight sounds good. If it only had a matte display, but you can't have it all.

It's all but ordered. I think I also want this mouse:

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The Big Rip

by Volker Weber

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Started to rip all my last century's CD collection to MP3 today. 6 GB down, with at least another 60 GB coming up.

I, Cringely: No Joy in Mudville

by Volker Weber

I have no idea whether IBM senior vice-president Bob Moffat is guilty of insider trading or not, though that’s what he was arrested for yesterday. What I do know is that Moffat’s job since 2005 has been as the architect of IBM’s project called LEAN, which is intended to adjust Big Blue’s global labor force to maximize profitability. I’ve written quite a bit about LEAN, much to the consternation of IBM, characterizing it in large part as a way to replace expensive older American workers with younger and cheaper workers in India and Argentina while cleverly dodging U.S. age discrimination and possibly other civil rights laws.  Whatever the legality of LEAN it is downright mean and shows little respect for the people who made IBM what it is today.

What does it say, then, when the architect of LEAN is arrested for alleged insider trading?

I sense some rejoicing amongst those laid off, err resource actioned.

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Palm App Catalog kommt in die Puschen

by Volker Weber

Heute sind mir ein paar neue Anwendungen im App Catalog aufgefallen, etwa Spiegel Online, die studiVZ Netzwerke und Wetter.com. So langsam trudeln die Anwendungen ein:

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Tweed - a user interface I like

by Volker Weber

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Team Germany wins Solar Decathlon 2009

by Volker Weber

Team Germany from the Technical University Darmstadt won the Solar Decathlon in 2007, and they did it again this year. Congratulations.

Notes 8.5.1 looking good on Snow Leopard

by Volker Weber

Currently testing the 8.5.1 code as shipped by IBM on Mac OS X 10.6.2 build 10c527f, which is a developer beta, and some of the issues seem to be gone. So it looks like it is indeed Apple who has to fix them. Still can't see which documents are selected though.

Pulp Wave Fiction

by Volker Weber

Unknown found, Unknown expected

by Volker Weber

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Ben found an unknown and unexpected Lotus Notes error message.

Nokia 3Q09 Quarterly Earnings

by Volker Weber

Interesting tidbit from the Nokia earnings.

Nokia’s share of the converged mobile device market was an estimated 35% in the third quarter 2009, at the same level as in the third quarter 2008 and down from 41% in the second quarter 2009. We shipped 4.5 million Nokia Nseries and 4.4 million Nokia Eseries devices during the third quarter 2009, down from the combined 9.3 million Nseries and Eseries devices we shipped in the second quarter 2009.

Market share for smartphones down from 41% to 35%. Nokia sold 8.9 million of those devices compared to 9.3 in the third quarter of 2008. That's down 5% in units. RIM just added 3.8 million net new subscribers in the quarter and shipped approximately 8.3 million devices. Apple numbers aren't out yet.

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IBM 3Q09 Quarterly Earnings

by Volker Weber

ARMONK, N.Y., October 15, 2009 . . . IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced third-quarter 2009 diluted earnings of $2.40 per share compared with diluted earnings of $2.04 per share in the third quarter of 2008, an increase of 18 percent. ... Revenues from the WebSphere family of software products, which facilitate customers’ ability to manage a wide variety of business processes using open standards to interconnect applications, data and operating systems, increased 14 percent year over year. ... and revenues from Lotus software, which allows collaborating and messaging by clients in real-time communication and knowledge management, decreased 9 percent.

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I was waiting for IBM's quarterly results because that is the only chance to get some hard data on Lotus. I am being told that Lotus is winning on all fronts. Notes customers on maintenance up up up. Connections being the fastest growing business ever. Portal very very successful.

And yet, the numbers are down. Again. Not all numbers. Just the Lotus numbers. And with extraordinary growth in the Lotus portfolio other products must be suffering even more than the aggregate numbers are showing.

The only bright side I can see is that in the second quarter Lotus was down 14% and now it's only 9%. On the other hand, last quarter Websphere grew 8% and this time 14%.

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Tom Waits has free tracks for you

by Volker Weber

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You have to surrender a working email address. Mailinator.com is fine.

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Buch macht kluch

by Volker Weber

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Danke, Jan-Piet. Hallo IBM, das gibt es hier. :-)

Sonos S5

by Volker Weber

Sonos_S5

This, my dear friends, is not a speaker. It's five speakers, five amplifiers, and a ZonePlayer. Sonos calls it the S5. It will be available at the end of the month in the US, and on Nov 10 in Europe. For 399. Euros or Dollars.

I can't write a review yet, since the machine I have had for a couple of months was handcrafted by elves in a country far far away. But trust me on this: you don't want one. You want half a dozen.

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There is a good (promotional) video on YouTube which explains how it all works.

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Vote of confidence for the Pre

by Volker Weber

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I briefly switched to an iPhone today since I needed to try out a few things. It's a wonderful device and I have no complaints about it, besides the Apple & carrier chain. And still, I was happy to be back on the Pre. I just love the most elegant way to run several apps at the same time.

Uh, this could be a problem

by Volker Weber

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Help me find this Notes screenshot

by Volker Weber

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I have this screenshot on file, but cannot find the source. Can you point me to the page where it was published?

Free Domino Designer available for download

by Volker Weber

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No, I have no issue with the IBM ID. ;-)

Download here, err here, or better there >

Snow Leopard adoption rate

by Volker Weber

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According to my logs, visitors in October. These can be complete skewed, but it's the only data I have. Why are two slices blue? Those are the ones who can run Notes (edit: Standard 8.5.1). PowerPPC is not supported, 10.6 not yet. There are some unresolved issues, and it's not entirely clear who has to fix them: Lotus or Apple.

Pressemitteilung des Tages

by Volker Weber

Dr. Christoph Gummerbach ... ist von Google mit dem Zertifikat "Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ)" ausgezeichnet worden. Die entsprechende Prüfung bestand er mit 96 von 100 möglichen Punkten.

Demnächst geben wir hier die Ergebnisse der Gesellenprüfungen der Fleischereifachverkäuferinnen durch. Dafür muss man immerhin zwei Jahre die Schulbank drücken.

Quote of the day

by Volker Weber

Buying a Winmo or Blackberry device for browsing the web is like buying a canoe to go deep sea fishing.

Comment here. Thanks @benpoole for spotting it.

Installing Notes - a reality check

by Volker Weber

My Notes 8.5.1 upgrade failed. So I removed it, all its data and preferences for a clean slate. Since I wanted to attempt a fresh start, I went down an unusual route: install without a Domino server.

One of the popular ideas of the Lotus Knows IdeaJam was to provide a free Notes client for private use. This has been done before, with the Notes R5 Private Edition in Germany. The world has changed since, but Notes hasn't. Here are the steps to setup Google Mail on the Mac. I spare you the "wizard" that Notes uses to ask you all the technicalities of Google Mail. IMAP or POP3, which ingoing server, use SSL, which account name, the password twice, the outgoing server, never asked for a password or SSL here. This is the result:

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Just imagine for a second it had worked, and I would have opened the mail file. Or clicked on calendar. Or attempted to send a mail.

If you want to find new Notes users, you have to do it through the CEO, not the end user. They would kill you.

Handelsblatt: Google gewinnt Großkunden für Bürosoftware

by Volker Weber

Der internationale Dienstleistungskonzern Rentokil Initial wird bis Ende 2010 mehr als 35.000 Arbeitsplätze mit der Online-Bürosoftware "Google Apps Professional" ausrüsten. Das bestätigte ein Google-Sprecher auf Anfrage des Handelsblatts. Dies ist der bislang größte Firmenvertrag weltweit für Googles Businesssoftware.

Interessant der nächste Absatz:

Der Neuling aus Mountain View wirft damit Wettbewerber wie Marktführer Microsoft (MS Office, Outlook) und IBM (Lotus Symphony) aus dem Rennen.

Anscheinend hat Symphony nun schon Notes ersetzt. Dolles Marketing. ;-)

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Where is Notes 8.5.1?

by Volker Weber

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This is the last thing I see, and then it is gone.

Google Search Options for mobile

by Volker Weber

Finding the exact information you need sometimes requires filtering and refining your search results. Earlier in the year, we launched a collection of tools called Search Options which enable you to easily and quickly do this from a computer. Today in the US, we are making Search Options available on Android/iPhone/Palm WebOS devices so that you can slice and dice your mobile search results as well.

Take note: Android, iPhone, WebOS have a decent browser.

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Notes/Domino 8.5.1 available for download

by Volker Weber

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Gentlemen, start your engines. Notice the long file name? Thanks, Ed.

[Thanks, Denys]

Donut (Android 1.6) has some nice touches

by Volker Weber

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I have recently installed Donut on a Goggle Dev Phone G1. It should soon become available. There is a detailed list of the enhancements. What I find most useful is universal search. And of course the screenshots in the Android Market:

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Although it is missing a few vital features, for instance a 3.5mm audio jack, the G1 has become one of my favorite phones.

iPhone night stand

by Volker Weber

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For a while I used Nightstand (iTunes link) an application that used to be free. Kensington has just come up with a better solution: Rise & Shine (iTunes link). Not only does it give you three different clock displays in portrait or landscape, but also the local weather:

riseshine2

Kensington wants to sell you a dock, but it works with any iPhone dock. You can also make your own.

[via Nico]

Danger is probably a good name

by Volker Weber

This could be another major setback for cloud services:

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger's latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device - such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos - that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.

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Heartless

by Volker Weber

Simply Red

by Volker Weber

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Bob Picciano interviewed at UKLUG Edinburgh

by Volker Weber

The Fun Theory

by Volker Weber

We believe that the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do. We call it The fun theory.

I want a small car that is more fun.

More videos >

BlackBerry Messenger 5 is here

by Volker Weber

With BlackBerry® Messenger on your BlackBerry smartphone, your friends are only a message away. Ask a quick question, make plans with your group of friends, even share stories and pictures—all in real-time. Express yourself and stay in touch your way with BlackBerry Messenger.

This is the one piece of BlackBerry software I don't get. This is device to device IM, not person to person, the way it is meant to be.

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iPhone software update 3.1.2

by Volker Weber

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These look like pretty nasty bugs.

DNUG in Fulda

by Volker Weber

Kam heute:

Jena, 28. September 2009 - Die Herbstkonferenz der DNUG findet am 17. und 18. November 2009 im Hotel Esperanto in Fulda statt. Schwerpunkt-Themen sind die IBM Unified Communication und Collaboration Plattform Sametime sowie Social Software. Darüber hinaus gehören Einsatzerfahrungen in Industrie und Verwaltung, einschlägige technische Sessions und Workshops zur Agenda der beiden Konferenztage und der Vorveranstaltungen. Mit dem integrierten University Day 2009 und der Preisverleihung im Diplomarbeiten-Wettbewerb setzt die Lotus Anwendervereinigung ihre Hochschulaktivitäten fort.

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Notstopfen

by Volker Weber

handsonN900

Die PR-Profis von Nokia twittern über das N900. Das ist eine Notlösung, weil sie noch nicht genug Geräte haben, um sie zu verteilen. Immerhin geben sie auch mal eine Schwäche zu. Ein Normalo würde sicher schreiben "der Akku ist viel zu klein", aber das kriegt ein PRler so nicht rausgequetscht.

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Confluence or JIRA for just $10

by Volker Weber

This is a great deal. Bugtracker JIRA, enterprise wiki Confluence, or any other Atlassian tool for just $10, and they are donating the proceeds:

Our best tools are just $10 per product. Perfect for startups and small teams. Give your team the best tools for $10 and give the gift of reading via Room to Read.

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Nokia’s Imaging Satellite Launch Tomorrow

by Volker Weber

Boeing will launch Digital Globe’s WorldView-2 satellite aboard a Delta II rocket procured from United Launch Alliance (ULA) tomorrow i.e. Thursday 8th October in California. ... WorldView-2 is the first high-resolution 8-band multispectral satellite commercially available. The new bands support greater levels of feature identification and extraction, more accurate change detection, and a realistic mirror image of the world’s natural colors.

If you are wondering what does any of this have to do with Nokia, then read on. In Feburary this year Nokia and Digital Globe had entered into an agreement to bring the real-world perspective of high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery to Ovi Maps in order to improve the global driving, hiking and walking navigation capabilities for consumers who use these applications.

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It's hard to be agile

by Volker Weber

... especially if you have lots of processes. When Lotus announced 8.5.1 yesterday, there was supposed to be a link to developer.lotus.com. Since the link did not work for me, I asked around:

developerlotuscom.png

Jan-Piet, who wrote a book on DNS, quickly spotted the error. Stefan followed up. IBM knew immediately that this was a problem. More than a day later it has not been fixed.

It's easy to be agile in PowerPoint (or whatever presentation software you prefer) but not in real life. It takes a hero to replace IBM's infamous eight letter filenames with long file names. We are not using DOS any more, right? Whenever you question progress at IBM and wonder why things are moving so slowly, you have to remember that it is almost impossible to get anything done.

The question is: can IBM help you be more productive?

What a cop-out

by Volker Weber

[via Michael]

Autumn is here

by Volker Weber

Love those colors in the morning

A week with the Palm Pre, GSM version

by Volker Weber

palmpre500

I have added a new phone to my favorites. So far I had three (plus one retired): iPhone, Android Dev Phone (a.k.a. G1), BlackBerry Bold and the Nokia E71 (retired). The new entry of course is the Palm Pre. Let me explain the other ones before I get to the Pre:

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Congratulations Slideshare for a new member from Afghanistan

by Volker Weber

I had to download a presentation about Cloud Computing from Slideshare yesterday, which does not work without a sign-up. Which in turn requires a valid mail address.

Today I received my first Slideshare spam. Based on what I downloaded yesterday they recommended:

There Is No Me Without You: One Womans Odyssey to Rescue Africas Children by Melissa Fay Greene
There Is No Me Without You: One Womans Odyssey to Rescue Africas Children by Melissa Fay Greene
There Is No Me Without You: One Womans Odyssey to Rescue Her Countrys Children by Melissa Fay Greene
No Progress without Ideas
The CIO Innovation Toolkit | G2iX
Flex Belt - Best Lower Ab Workout

So I went to their site to stop this nonsense. When I wanted to set up my preferences to "Under no circumstances send any mail", I had to complete my profile with a couple of mandatory fields first. And thus Slideshare now has a new member in Afghanistan.

To other marketing people around the world: my profile is as follows. I am a grandma with a PhD from said country, an annual income of less than $10,000, a purchasing budget of more than a billion. Per year. My company has more than 100,000 employees. And you never heard of it.

Google Wave for Dummies

by Volker Weber

[via Konstantin]

vowe.net wirkt

by Volker Weber

Da musste ich dann doch lachen:

Hallo Volker, nachdem ich schon fast 5 Jahre täglich Deinen Blog lese und Du Dich anhand Deiner Produktempfehlungen bei mir zu Hause auch wohl fühlen würdest, füge ich Dich heute zu meinen Kontakten zu.

Aber sehr gerne.

Palm: Free Apps For The Web, Free Development For Open Source, And Free Phones

by Volker Weber

Techcrunch reports from San Francisco:

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Lotus drops separate license for Domino Designer

by Volker Weber

Ed Brill says:

In fact, in some ways, making Domino Designer available to all Notes users is a return to the product's roots. - When Lotus Notes was introduced, all Notes users had the application development tools as part of the Notes license and product. - At some point, we changed to selling Domino Designer (originally Notes Designer) separately, and in my mind, that has been a real barrier to bringing new developers into the Notes/Domino community.

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RIM announces BlackBerry Widget SDK

by Volker Weber

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Oct. 6, 2009) - Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced the BlackBerry Widget Software Development Kit (SDK) to enable third party application developers to build rich, integrated applications for BlackBerry(R) smartphones using common web technologies. With the new BlackBerry Widget SDK, developers can build web-based applications for BlackBerry smartphones with advanced features and functionality, a capability only previously available for BlackBerry applications written in Java(R).

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T-Systems betreibt Microsoft Cloud Services für Großkunden

by Volker Weber

T-Systems und Microsoft haben einen Vertrag geschlossen, um gemeinsam Business Software für Unternehmen mit mehr als 5000 Nutzern aus dem Netz anzubieten. T-Systems ist der einzige deutsche Vertriebspartner solcher Cloud-Services von Microsoft-Produkten. Großkunden können künftig ein auf ihre Anforderungen zugeschnittenes Software-Paket zusammenstellen und bedarfsgerecht übers Netz nutzen. Das neue Angebot heißt BPOS-D (Business Productivity Online Suite - dedicated)*. Statt Lizenzen zu kaufen, können Unternehmen jetzt die einzelnen Leistungen zu einer Pauschale pro Arbeitplatz und Monat direkt aus dem Netz beziehen.

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Autumn is coming - cherry tree turns red

by Volker Weber

Quote of the day

by Volker Weber

Cloud hype is damaging the industry
— Rakesh Kumar, Gartner

Apple seeks a patent for cutting you off your cellphone features

by Volker Weber

Systems and methods for provisioning computing devices are provided. Carrier provisioning profiles are distributed to computing devices via an activation service during the provisioning process. The carrier provisioning profiles specify access limitations to certain device resources which may otherwise be available to users of the device.

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BlackBerry to get Flash support

by Volker Weber

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA--(Marketwire - Oct. 5, 2009) - At Adobe MAX, Adobe's worldwide developer conference, Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced they are working together to bring Adobe(R) Flash(R) Player support to the BlackBerry(R) platform.

Nobody should belittle LotusLive iNotes as enterprise class

by Volker Weber

Announced shortly before Lotusphere, IBM bough the messaging assets of the Chinese service provider Outblaze:

On April 16, 2009, IBM officially closed the Outblaze Ltd. Asset acquisition establishing the first cloud computing laboratory in Hong Kong, China. The new facility will provide a global hub for Web-based messaging services to support IBM’s emerging (www.lotuslive.com) cloud service portfolio, which offers company-to-company social networking and online collaboration tools at affordable, multi-tenant rates. The Outblaze asset purchase adds web-based email to the growing portfolio of online collaboration tools.

On their site, they explain their business model:

outblazebusinessmodel.jpg

Outblaze has been serving their email solutions under numerous labels, totaling 70 million mailboxes. That is a lot larger than enterprise messaging systems. IBM is trying to avoid the consumer label to set themselves apart from Google Mail, but in fact they should be proud of the fact, that Outblaze scales to much larger dimensions. I don't have any public numbers available, but both Hotmail and Yahoo should have more than 250 million users and Google well over 100 million.

If it can run the "Hello Kitty" mail platform it should be able to handle yours, right?

Get started with Google Wave

by Volker Weber

publicwaves.jpg

Once you got your Wave account, you are going to be pretty lonely. Your best chance to get going is to enter "with:public" into the search field and you will have tons of waves to join. Thanks to @stoiniger for this hint. You may also want to watch this movie:

Google Wave (almost) on the iPhone

by Volker Weber

googlewaveiphone1

The iPhone does a pretty good job of displaying Google Wave, but it currently isn't able to run the application. So, how is Google Wave? Not ready, not even nearly ready. I invited a few people, but they only get "nominated", whatever that means. Don't think one of them has received a real invitation yet. And without people I need to collaborate with, you are not getting past the "how cool" phase.

RIM posts BlackBerry Desktop Manager for the Mac

by Volker Weber

blackberrydesktopmanagermac.png

Key features:

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What Works: The Web Way vs. The Wave Way

by Volker Weber

Anil Dash writes:

Google Wave is an impressive set of technologies, the kind of stunningly slick application that literally makes developers stand up and cheer. ... So the big question is whether Wave will succeed overall in becoming a popular standard for communications on the web ... I think the answer is no, and the reason is because the Wave way is not compatible with the Web way.

His reasons are actually true for other projects and products as well, so listen up.

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Keine Nummer unter diesem Anschluss

by Volker Weber

Habe hier aktuell eine SIM-Karte zum Test von Geräten, die vorher mal an einen Schauspieler ausgeliehen war. Und unter dieser Nummer rufen nun alle möglichen Leute an oder schicken SMS. Sehr witzig.

Wie kommt es dazu? Die Gerätehersteller geben Geräte raus für Tests, für TV- oder Filmproduktionen, etc. Im Grunde genommen für alles, was die Sichtbarkeit erhöht. Damit die dann funktionieren, steckt da häufig eine SIM drin. Nach der Produktion geht das Gerät wieder zurück und an den Nächsten, der es brauchen kann.

In diesem Fall war das Telefon wohl länger in Benutzung und besagter Schauspieler hat die Nummer allen seinen Bekannten gegeben. Und die rufen jetzt mich an und nicht ihn. Ich schreibe dann schon mal zurück, und kriege manchmal ziemlich dumme Antworten. So wie diese hier (von unten lesen), auf die Ansage "Unter dieser Nummer gibt es keinen xxx. Echt nicht.":

keinenummerunterdiesemanschluss.png

Ich glaube, ich lasse sie dumm sterben.

Why OVI store will have a hard time catching on

by Volker Weber

ovistoree71fail1

ovistoree71fail2

I propose a new standard for mobile phones: survive at least one day

by Volker Weber

E71_14_lowres

It's been more than a year since I first played with a Nokia E71. I returned after a while, when I did not need it anymore. But it has always been my favorite Nokia smartphone.

If you have one, keep it. There are other, shinier phones. But the E71 delivers on a simple promise: you never need to worry if it survives a full day without a charge. It has a huge battery, it does not need a lot of juice, and it's both a great phone and a great messaging device.

The iPhone was my first smartphone which did not always survive one day on a full charge. And since then I have seen worse. This is a crucial capability. What use is a mobile if you need to carry a charger and are hunting for wall outlets?

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

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