So This article sheds a bit of light on the true nature of Microsoft revisionist history innovation. The final bit sums it up nicely:
The PC world might have looked very different today had Kildall's Digital Research prevailed as the operating system of choice for personal computers. DRI offered manufacturers the same low-cost licensing model which Bill Gates is today credited with inventing by sloppy journalists – only with far superior technology. DRI's roadmap showed a smooth migration to reliable multi-tasking, and in GEM, a portable graphical environment which would undoubtedly have brought the GUI to the low-cost PC desktop years before Microsoft's Windows finally emerged as a standard.
But then Kildall was motivated by technical excellence, not by the need to dominate his fellow man.
So
Last summer I purchased a copy of Handy Weather from Epocware to have a weather app on my Nokia smartphone. I chose Handy Weather because it was relatively cheap and didn't carry a 'subscription plan' like Mobimate did. However, I was recently informed by Epocware that I essentially needed to re-purchase the software because it was now under a 'subscription service'. First off this kind of bait-and-switch stuff is just annoying; made even further annoying by the fact that Epocware has decent software. Second off, the 'subscription' is the entire price of the software. I could see paying $5USD or so but not being forced to re-buy the $15USD software.
I was left thinking, 'surely there must be some mistake'. I contacted Epocware support and was flatly told to pay the re-purchase gouge or stop using the app (the latter option being sort of amusing because they disabled the app sometime in early July before they even sent me an email about the subscription).
The irony of this is that Mobimate is now offering a version of their software for free that includes weather, world map, world clocks and currency conversion. You can upgrade Mobimate to the 'pro' version which gives you access to live flight schedules and arrival/departure info (which I suppose if you traveled a lot would be quiet handy and worth the annual fee). I also note that Psiloc is now offering a completely free weather app as well. On top of this, there is always the mobile version of the Accuweather site which provides access to current conditions, multi-day forecast and even animated radar images.
My suggestion to those looking for mobile apps, beware of Epocware because apparently there is no telling when an app that you purchased free and clear will suddenly become a 'subscription service'. I myself would not buy another app from Epocware and recommend that others don't as well to keep from being burned by these dubious sales tactics.
So
It comes as no surprise that Duke's network issues were ultimately found to lie with Cisco and not with the Apple iPhone. After all, if this was a general issue with the iPhone, every open wifi connection in San Francisco (and other me-too gadget locales) would have been crashing just like Duke's.
Other than applying a patch from Cisco, the root-cause remains a bit murky:
“Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke's network and the problem has not occurred since,” the statement read. Cisco did not describe what the source of the problem was. Late on June 20, Duke released a statement elaborating on the problem and how it was resolved. “The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service,” said Tracy Futhey, the university's chief information officer, in a statement. “Those conditions involve our deployment of a very large Cisco-based wireless network that supports multiple network protocols. Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue,” the statement said.
Sounds like one of those political non-apologies where 'mistakes have been made' but no admission of guilt or responsibility is offered.
So
Apparently Apple didn't tell the world about it's handy iDDOS feature of the iPhone; places like Duke University had to find out about it for themselves.
The built-in 802.11b/g adapters on several iPhones periodically flood sections of the Durham, N.C. school’s pervasive wireless LAN with MAC address requests, temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Campus network staff are talking with Cisco, the main WLAN provider, and have opened a help desk ticket with Apple. But so far, the precise cause of the problem remains unknown.
That’s because the misbehaving iPhones flood the access points with up to 18,000 address requests per second, nearly 10Mbps of bandwidth, and monopolizing the AP’s airtime.
Stellar. I suppose for added comic effect, you could 'pronounce' iDDOS like adios...
This would probably make an amusing party question/activity: determining your porn star name. A quick survey via email yielded these gems from some friends: “Fuzzy Boxwood”, “Bituminous Pineglen”(!) and “Buffy Maple”. Based on those results, I could see this really working for someone 'in the biz'.
So Nokia Media Transfer was quietly released earlier in June but it is good that Mac owners are finally getting some Nokia love with regard to supporting software. From the NMT site:
The Nokia Media Transfer application enables you to transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac.
Of course, this will do nothing to stem the feeding frenzy of people buying iPhones on Friday, but it is nice to have the additional synch features available for the N75 and other N-series phones from Nokia.
It's worth pointing out that you can get the N75 on Amazon for less than $25USD (with an activation plan) versus the $600USD that the iPhone will set you back.
So Taggraph is a wonderful time waster that lets you explore photos on Flickr by searching on keywords then clicking a graph of the resulting images. Harder to explain than it is to do; try it out and see.
So An interesting perspective on spam that takes the point of view that internet email systems are like an immune system and spam like a virus — as measures are put in place to deal with spam, the spam simply mutates to attempt to sidestep the new defenses.
So Altsearchengines is proposing that today (Tuesday, 12 June 2007) be a day without Google and encourages you to use any one of the hundreds of alternate search engines on the inter-webs.
Some ground rules:
1. All day Tuesday, June 12th, don’t use any of the 5 major search engines.
2. Avoid Meta search engines, since most of them include the major search engines. (for this day only! Meta search engines are important; see the Great Debate Tuesday night!)
3. Likewise, the specialized vertical search engines may be too narrowly focused. (for this day only. It’s the vertical search engines that usually search the best; within their niche.)
4. Consider changing your homepage or downloading their toolbar. You can always uninstall everything and change back on Wednesday.
5. On Wednesday, leave a detailed comment under this post and share your experience with the rest of us. Which alt search engine did you chose? How would you rate the experience?
Of course, the sheer irony of this is that anyone who might read this blog post probably found it using one of the 'major' search engines.