mobrec

So
I don't know why they bother. Yahoo continuously overcommits and under delivers when it comes to their web and especially their mobile offerings. After their announcement of Yahoo Go 3 at CES, I thought, 'why not see how they have screwed this up'. The usual amount. My phone, a Nokia N75 is listed as 'compatible', but when I go through the error fraught process of actually trying to download the much lauded version 3, I am rewarded with a slightly newer version of 2 that I already have installed. Lame. No version 3 in sight.

Their insistence on using zero-value Flash laden websites is also bewildering. When I attempted to enter my phone number to receive the download instructions, I was curtly prompted to 'enter a valid phone number'. What? Do these retards pretend to validate your phone number against a database of all mobile phone numbers in the US. Not likely. More of their shoddy production, I would say.

Once again: don't bother with Yahoo NoGo.

Technorati Tags: crap, yahoogo, suckage, yahoo

So
It has been a bit amazing the amount of rending of garments and gnashing of teeth that has gone on around AOL announcing that it is ending support for Netscape Navigator in February. Navigator and Communicator have been dead to me for years. I jumped to the lighter weight and more feature rich Mozilla builds when they first became stable and then made the leap to the even more nimble Firefox when it emerged.

I think back to the early-90s when I was using the nearly unheard of Mosaic browser to access the precious few sites that existed at the time (and creating a corporate site using the not-so-stable NCSA server code). Then there were rumblings on the Usenet forums about this upstart beta of the 'mozilla' browser. Fledgling webmasters were horrified by this new browser because you could set the number of download treads that the browser could use to access your site. Horrors! This would certainly be the end of the Internet — it can't possibly scale! But somehow we survived and the Mozilla Communications Corporation became Netscape and the rest is history.

Technorati Tags: browser, firefox, history, innovation, internet, mozilla, netscape

So
Interesting stuff from a guy who hacked an Amazon Kindle — looks like it is mostly Linux and Java under the covers.

Technorati Tags: amazon, kindle, java, linux, hacks

So
As sort of companion piece to the previous Facts Are Not Enough there is this article from the Guardian that talks about how some widely held beliefs really have no basis in fact. I am sure you will recognize some of this wisdom from your own lives; here are some of the ones I have heard countless times:

Everyone must drink at least eight glasses of water a day (water is in food and other beverages)

We only use 10% of our brains (science still hasn't discovered the 'un-utilized' 90%)

Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight (makes reading difficult, but not damaging)

Shaving causes hair to grow back faster and coarser (I've heard this mostly from women)

Eating turkey makes you especially drowsy (but Swiss cheese has more Tryptophan in it)

The article doesn't cover one of my personal favorites, the all-too-frequently repeated and quite-well-documented-as-false claim that 'Al Gore invented the Internet'. Whenever I hear some repeat this, it just flips the bozo bit for them in my mind. Anyone who would parrot a lie that big is just a sad individual lacking in critical cognitive skills.

All of this goes to show that if you just blatantly make up 'facts' and repeat them enough, people will believe them (and repeat them).

Technorati Tags: ideas, news, facts, science

So
Google search is providing enhanced flight tracking info through the ever more productive search box.

I am sure there is a reason for mouth-eyes pictures, I just don't know what it is. Creepy.

Pretty impressive video of a guy singing a song backwards while performing actions that make it clear that he is not simply rolling the tape in reverse (at least until half way through). My second impression (after amazement) was that this guy has way too much time on his hands.

Technorati Tags: fun, google, humor, random

So
I am becoming convinced that I got a real lemon from Apple a few years back when I purchased an iMac from the online Apple store. I am beginning to wonder if the poor reliability that I have experienced has something to do with timing. I managed to buy a G5-based Mac about a month and a half before Apple announced the switch to Intel. Was it the case that Apple were willing to let quality slide as they were running out their back stock of G5-based systems?

Here is the history of this particular iMac:

It was delivered to me with a defective DVD drive. The drive would read/burn CDs and read DVDs. Burning DVDs resulted in 'buffer under-run' errors. I actually had the tech on the other end of the phone attempt a dump and run on me, by suggesting that I re-install the operating system and see if that fixed the problem. Moron. I made the point that if the OS was factory installed, tested and burned in properly, my re-installing it wasn't going to make a difference — it was clearly a hardware issue. Finally went through Apple's 'depot' replacement process where they express ship the part to me and I send back the defective part in a pre-paid mailer. Worked like a charm. DVD issue fixed.

Within a few months, the system started shutting down at random. Once again, one of the bright sparks on the Apple support line wanted me to re-install the OS to fix this issue (were these guys former Microsoft support techs?). After working through the moron ranks I finally got to someone who elliptically admitted that this was 'a known issue' and that I should take the system into the nearest Apple store for a fix. The guy at the Genius bar looked at the make of the iMac and said 'let me guess, it started randomly shutting down, right?'. About 20 minutes later, he popped out of the back room with the repaired system. When I asked about the root cause, he muttered something about 'logic board' and 'sensor' and kept telling me that there was no charge for the repair. Right. Not exactly confidence inspiring, but at least it was operable again.

The Leopard upgrade killed the system. Life was good until I attempted the seemingly simple task of upgrading the OS to Leopard. This went disastrously wrong. Read about it here and here. In the course of fixing this 'install media' issue, Apple replaced the DVD drive (again!), the hard drive and finally the Apple installed system RAM.

Less than two months later, the new hard drive fails. This was a mystery. One minute it was running the next minute it blanked the screen and kicked the fan on full. Attempts to reboot the system all ended with the iMac displaying the 'I can't find a drive to boot off of' flashing icon. Booting off of the install DVD and running Disk Utility confirmed that the internal drive could not be seen. Because I have an Apple Care extended warranty on this system (thank goodness!) they opted to send a tech out to the house to replace the drive. Five days later(!) he showed up and replaced the drive. Unfortunately, he had no clue what to do next. I showed him how to partition the drive and re-install the OS and made him stay until the install completed successfully (having experienced the previous shenanigans with the Leopard install). All was well and the system is back up and running. Again.

Until next time. In some ways, its bad that that is my attitude. Even when I balance the horrible reliability of this iMac with the fact that I have a nearly eight year old iMac that is chugging right along, no issues. Ever. The other iMacs (some approaching 5 years old) also have had no issues. I would estimate that Apple has more than paid for the original purchase price of the system in parts and labor. I wish that they would just replace it the next time it fails (not likely). My Apple Care plan runs out next summer. I hope I won't need it again, but based on history, I have my doubts.

Technorati Tags: apple, defective, dubious, leopard, mac, osx, suckage, technology, support

So
This has been an amazing year for my photographic efforts getting some recognition. This is all the more amazing because I don't really do anything to promote them other than putting photos on flickr for others to see.

First off, I was approached by an editor who saw one of my Alaska pictures on Flickr and asked for permission to have included in a Anchorage travel guide.

Then I was approached by another online travel agent who wanted to use one of my photos from Istanbul in one of their promotions. Unfortunately, due to travel, I wasn't able to respond in time, but we are still in touch and they are looking for future opportunities to work with me.

Late this summer, I was able to show a few of my photos at a coffee shop on the west side of Cincinnati. This was arranged by a great guy who is one of the members of the Living In Cincinnati group on Flickr. The showing resulted in a woman purchasing a copy of one of my prints. I was blown away and a bit gratified that someone would pay for one of my captures. I donated the proceeds to a local charity as a sort of pay it forward gesture.

Finally, I had one of my shots selected to be included in the Capture Cincinnati photo book. This was a big rush as there are some really great shots in that book. I did think that it was funny that they published the photo without my original title “Hot Frog On Frog Action” as I guess it was a little too racy for prudish Cincinnati.

Thanks to all who have visited my Flickr stream and commented. I am looking forward to learning and sharing more in 2008.

Technorati Tags: book, flickr, fun, photography

So
Nokia finally released an much anticipated update of the operating system for their N800 (and the new 810) Internet Tablet. There is an excellent in-depth review at tabletblog, so I won't re-cover that ground.

Overall, I am liking the improvements and additions that were made. However, two things stick out that really need to be addressed. One is that the web installer is fundamentally broken in that it always attempts to download the install image from the web without first asking (or checking) for an existing image. When I went to download the update from Nokia, the download took something on the order of four and a half hours. By that time, the battery on the N800 had run out and the installer wasn't able to connect to tablet. Install fails. Re-start the installer, wait another four-plus hours (with the N800 on AC power) fails again. Eventually I had to download the image from another source to complete the install. In a way, this is the kind of brain-dead programming style/user experience I would expect from an installer written in the loathsome dot-Not framework.

The second issue is that the Nokia software archives appear to be woefully mismanaged/under managed. Attempts to update software (which is usually seamless) results in far too many 'install file is corrupt' messages from installs hosted on the maemo.org site.

Technorati Tags: development, innovation, mobile, n800, nokia, nseries, os2008

So
On a recent flight, I was reading the Heath brothers excellent Made To Stick. Though the scenario in the book has to do with journalism, the lesson struck a chord with me in my own line of work (Enterprise Architecture).

The journalism professor tells the students that they must write the lead for a newspaper story. He goes on to layout all of the facts:

Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium on new teaching methods. Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, and California governor Edmund 'Pat' Brown.

The students then go on to arrange and rearrange the given facts into a single sentence that would serve as the lead for the story. Then the professor opened their eyes by pointing out the real lead of the story — one that the students had missed by merely dealing with the facts. The real lead was “There will be no school next Thursday”.

Wham! By merely reporting the 'facts' the students missed the real point of what was going to happen. This made me think about how this can happen in my own field. Many a design review meeting is spent documenting and sorting through all of the technical minutiae but it is the architect's job to understand the implications and possible risks/impacts of each of the details and decisions made. While certainly a big component, all of the technical details must be placed into the context of the Enterprise to tell the whole story and to truly understand the 'point'.

I am finding that there is quite a lot in this book that can be applied to Enterprise Architecture (and really any field where you need to get the attention of an audience and keep them engaged in your message — particularly when it is something they consider to be dry and uninteresting).

Technorati Tags: architecture, books, enterprisearchitecture, ideas

So
This video just reminds me of all the people I have met over the years who know the price of everything and the value of nothing — they think that because it costs a lot, it must be good.

In the video they fill bottles of water from a garden hose and get people to pay $6.50USD for some purported water from an exotic locale. They all agree, 'this couldn't possibly be tap water' or 'it has a distinct glacier-y flavor'. Yikes.

Technorati Tags: fun, water, humor, suckage, video