mobrec

So
The DSLR camera that I shoot with has been selected to go on the next Space Shuttle mission. Well, not, my camera, but the same model camera that I use, the Olympus E3. Take that, Canikon buying robots!

The E3 was chosen because Olympus' flagship model was created “to survive the toughest shooting environments”, although its splash- and dust-proof magnesium alloy body is unlikely to be tested on the ISS (unless astronauts are particularly sloppy about their house-keeping).

Technorati Tags: cameras, e3, olympus, photography, spaceshuttle, technology

So
Every found the need to get a group of people together online somewhat spontaneously? If so, then you see the obvious utility of tinychat . I can see this being an awesome tool to use in conjunction with twitter to facilitate group interaction without losing one side of the conversation.

Technorati Tags: chat, tinychat, twitter, webtools

So
I wanted to riff a bit on a theme that a collegue of mine touched on earlier in the year regarding the relative importance that some people place on ultimately arbitrary dates. Why do people put so much emphasis on making resolutions at the start of a new year? or a new month for that matter? Is it simply the need for a 'clean' boundary to demarcate things?

The interesting thing is, people seem to find these significant dates all over the place. Recently, there was a modicum of apocryphal hysteria in the tech community because the representation of time in computers was going to be 1234567890 last week. And, to add surety to that, that same day was Friday the 13th, that assuredly unlucky day for all. *GASP*. Yet, somehow, the date passed without incident (as far as I am aware).

What of other dates that are supposed to have such significance? As was previously pointed out, even the concept of 'what day it is' is a bit of a made up construct depending upon which calendar system you happen to choose (Gregorian, Julian, Islamic, Hebrew, or Chinese, etc).

What of these 'special' dates themselves? It appears that over the years they have just multiplied (seemingly at the whim of the greeting card industry). We now how Teacher's Day, Grandparent's Day, Student's Day, Administrative Assistant's Day, Valentines Day, Earth Day, Groundhog Day, Arbor Day and the list goes on and on. In many cases these 'holidays' are celebrated on different days in different countries; in some cases they aren't celebrated at all. My point is, why can't you be nice to these people on every day? Why is a 'special' day needed to take action? Is something that happened (or didn't) on Earth Day, really more special than if it happened (or didn't) on any other day?

I fear that such relative value placed on arbitrary days can be the source of resentment and disappointment for some. For sure, some dates, such as anniversaries should be noted and commemorated accordingly (birthday and wedding celebrations and more solemn remembrances of those no longer with us). These are tied to actual events on actual days and (if one chooses) have actual significance. No need to wait for the first of the month to celebrate or for the next greeting card holiday.

I recently rediscovered these quotes; both of which relate back to this whole theme:

“I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates that they have made of the value of things.” — Benjamin Franklin

and

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.” — Oscar Wilde

I guess this is my long, rattling way to say “make the best of every day, express your gratitude and recognize, that, after all, good or bad, it is just another day”.

Technorati Tags: holidays, ideas, time

So
Finally, Google have delivered a (task) list that is basic but usable and includes the option for mobile access and annotation. If you have an existing gmail account, you just need to go into the 'labs' options to enable it.

While on the go, you can reference your list (and add to it) by going to http://gmail.com/tasks . And most importantly of all, it gets two thumbs up from my wife who has been wanting a usable mobile list for some time now. It fact, the new google task list was declared the best thing since fish grew legs!

Technorati Tags: gmail, google, googletasks, tasks, webtools

So
I have previously stated a desire to have what I term ubiquitous data; that is my data available wherever I need it. Having tried various tools, it was starting to look like Google Notebook was shaping up to be the best option at freeing up my data as I could capture and view info in a desktop and mobile browser. Well, unfortunately, Google have recently chosen to stop development on Notebook.

By chance, I had recently come across Evernote and my first impressions of it is that it is a strong contender to finally deliver on my desire for ubiquitous data. Evernote provides a full featured desktop app (goodbye SOHO Notes), a slightly less featured browser-based interface and (at least for now) a rather minimal mobile interface that is also browser-based (at least on the Nokia N95 — Evernote does not yet have a native S60 mobile client).

Evernote also goes beyond simple web clipping, tagging and categorization with features that allow you to upload photos/scans and do OCR on them. This is pretty cool — you can take an iSight image of a plane ticket or itinerary, place it in Evernote and it will not only be available through all the channels, but you will be able to search for information that is in the image (flight number, airline, arrival/departure city).

Evernote also addresses the link-rot concern by making a copy of the web content in addition to noting the URL. So if the original site goes away, you still have the data you were interested in. One consequence of this is that the page you capture doesn't always look like the original because some styling information may be lost. I have also found that it doesn't do a great job if you clip something out of Google Reader or Gmail — the resulting clip tends to lose most all of it's formatting and just run together into one long ugly string.

Evernote is not without it's pitfalls though. I rather quickly discovered that the sync mechanism needs some work. For example, if I clip something from the browser it goes into the default notebook. If I then create a new folder via the desktop client and move the recently uploaded note into it, the new notebook shows up in the browser but the new note still shows up in the default notebook. No amount of forced syncs or logging in/out seem to fix this. I have noticed that after a day or so, the notebooks seem to somehow get back in sync. An extremely useful addition to the browser clipping bookmarklet would be to allow the user to create a new notebook at the time that they are submitting the clipping.

The lack of a native S60 client really limits the usefulness of the mobile client for me as there are plenty of opportunities to snap an image of something I want to note and upload it rather than peck out a note manually. Instead I have to download the image to the Mac and upload it via the desktop client. I see there is an opportunity to use MMS to send an image via email from the phone. I'll give this a shot and see how it goes. Otherwise, I would be happy to help Evernote alpha/beta test an S60 client when they develop one.

Overall, I am hugely encouraged by Evernote and will continue to explore it's features and functionality. If only Evernote would create an easy migration tool for Google Notebook (and perhaps even SOHO Notes) users that would be a huge adoption aid.

Technorati Tags: evernote, google, googlenotebook, n95, nokia, tools, ubiquitousdata, webtools

So
I came across some video of the US Airways 1539 crash. With as zoomed back as this camera is, you actually barely notice the plane hit the water and probably wouldn't notice at all if you weren't looking for it. The other thing that is pretty amazing is the zoom ratio and resolution of that video camera.

Still find it amazing that everyone walked away from that.

Technorati Tags: crash, usairways, video

So
I wonder how long it will be before someone decides this site needs to go away simply because the words 'bomb', 'gun', 'pistol' and 'grenade' have 'how-to's associated with them. Yikes!

Technorati Tags: dubious, fun, howto, webtools

So
I finally got around to updating to wordpress 2.7. Once again, dreamhost's one-click upgrade made this a near effortless task. While I was at it, I installed a fresh new theme for the new year.

Apologies for any disruptions you may have experienced during the upgrade.

Technorati Tags: blogging, webtools

So
As an unlikely response to my previous blog posting, Apple has seen the light and is now offering (or will soon, it is hard to tell) all of it's music DRM free. Oh, and thanks for the 30 cent vig on each tune to re-buy a DRM-free version of what I already have and paid for once.

Apple also announced individual track prices as low as 69 cents — we'll see how many tracks actually are priced at that level. Overall, I think that I will still look to Amazon first for my music download needs.

Technorati Tags: apple, ideas, itunes, music

So
I recently blogged about how I decided to ditch my long-held mobileme email address from Apple. It just so happens that that email address is the one that I had used with the Apple on line store (duh). Apple, in their infinite wisdom decided to make it very difficult for you to change from using a .mac email ID to a non-Apple one. Impossible in fact.

When I went to the Apple online store to order a new copy of iLife, I wanted to make sure I changed my email address (which is what Apple also uses as your ID) to my new address. No can do. Here is the completely lame message that I was presented:

This change is not allowed. This account name was originally set up as a .Mac account and upgraded to MobileMe. An Apple ID has already been automatically set up for use with this member name. You can access this Apple ID by using either .Mac or MobileMe addresses (e.g. membername@mac.com or membername@me.com), but you cannot change the Apple ID. If you would like to use a new account name, please create a new Apple ID.

That is swell, but when you leave .Mac, you can't change your email address and have to create a new account. As an added bonus, there is no 'logout' functionality on the Apple store site. So you have to start another browser, create a new account (re-keying all of your info), then go place the items you want to order in your cart again, then, finally, check out. Very, very crappy user experience Apple.

Technorati Tags: apple, badideas, shopping, suckage, webtools