Peer pressure
After many years of resistance I finally caved in to peer pressure and I took the theoretical exam for my drivers license.*sigh*
And to make things worse I passed, so now I'm expected to go for the practical exam also ... hmmm...
It's an internet victory though: For all Belgian people: just read this site a few hours before the theoretical exam and you'll do fine. Brilliant site ! All (Tip Ex) marked passages are literally questions on the exam. Geef je reactie (0)
Clever tricks keep popping up
2 wauw application today.Finally Google succeeds again in amazing me!
Today they launched version 2 of their mobile "Google maps" with a "My location" option.
It uses some info on the cellular tower you're connected with to pinpoint your location on a map. and
WAUW
This is simply amazing. It works extremely well.Offcourse not as accurate as GPS, but still very usable.
Now I want that geo-info embedded in every picture I take with my mobile phone. Why isn't that allready happening? (Or should I wait for the Gphone for that ?)
The second Wauw today came from IdesktopTV. a Very nice way to search and watch youtube video.
Actually it allready implements much of the functionality I had in mind for my YADDFA project. (but luckily I have still several more ideas for YADDFA-improvements)
(AND I discovered another Paul Yanez mashup I had missed: Digg/Youtube - particularly interesting because you can retrieve the playlists of a certain user)
Sigh ... if only a day had 144 hours ...
(which suddenly makes me wonder: probably there's a planet in the galaxy that has just that :-) ) Geef je reactie (1)
Vasarely whas a visionary indeed ...
Speaking of maps ...
Look at this picture: the left part you get when you go to the starting point of the yahoo map service and zoom in.
It's an ariel view of a (BIG !) piece of farmers land in the US.
The right part is a painting done by vasarely done in the 70's.
OK, the scale is a bit different, the part on the left measures about 320 kmē, but still ... Vaserley obviously was first and if he had bothered to file some pattents ... those farmers would be in serious trouble !
But seriously, what's the purpose of these round fields? must be some kind of automated machinery running around 24/7 in expanding circles. Some quick match shows that you loose 21,5 percent of your surface though.
Certainly some clever mind has come up with automated farmer machines that can do squares too?
Jeez ... that big circle is 1800 meters across ... BIG ! Geef je reactie (0)
Photoshop Elements 6
Yesterday I tried the new Photoshop Elements 6.For several years Photoshop Elements Organiser is my favourite Picture Management Program.
The "Editor" and the "Share" parts of it are not bad and not really good either, but the Organiser really is excellent.
Much of that is because it uses a clearly structured Access database in the backend, which made it a breeze to develop an online Picture Album/Archive that interfaces directly with Photoshop Elements: Change some tags/properties/appearance in Photoshop Elements, and in real time you online Picture Album is updated.
Nice!
The first impression of the PSE6 interface is a shock: its dark and "clean" - which is not a compliment: the versions - especially 4 - had a really smooth and polished UI - much like photoshop. Now it looks more like Adobe Lightroom, but without the polish and mithout the smoothness.
Hmm - well, at least its clean and functional ...
The organiser part is mostly left the same - which is good.
The best addition is that the "put your picture on a map" function now actually works for people outside the US.
While in version 5 only a US map was available - now Adobe has partnered with Yahoo and uses it's world map services to display the map.
After pinpointing the correct location, the GPS coordinates are stored in the EXIF data, so you can stil load you picures into Google earth or whatever geo-service you like.
Nice!
Surprisingly enough, the map export function from Photoshop Elements is execellent!
It prerenders your pictures in all kinds of scales and ties it all together on the Yahoo flash based scrollable and zoomable world map.
it's actually very smart: when you zoom out, groups of pinpoints that are located next to one other get combined so you don't end up with several impossible-to-click pinpoints stacked on top of each other.
Actually, it's the best flash based world-map-picture-viewer I have ever seen!
One of these days I will have to decompile it and see if I can integrate it in some of my projects.
All in all, it's probably the most value you'll ever find for your 84 euro's! (or at least some piece of mind that your version is legit, which for 84 euro's is also a bargain) Geef je reactie (0)
Oh Yeah? YAWBOC yourself!
The concept of an online operating system, or a webbased office system, is almost a decade old. The first half of that decade, I was convinced that it was inevitable - and that it would happen fast. Those where the years that I wrote my own online word-processors and my first CMS systems.
The last years however, after I got to know the drawbacks of that approach, I changed my opinion: maybe an online office is inevitably, but if it is, it will take many many years to get there.
Once in a while - a new incarnation of an online office application turns up - and the media starts shouting that this will soon be the end of the Microsoft Office suite.
This week - it was Live documents - shout - shout - shout.
(a little late though .. this thing is over a year old ...)
I don't get it: correct me if I'm wrong, but Live documents is an ADDON to MS office, right?
How can a service that builds an top of another service can ever compete with it?
Heck, it's in their own press release: -that embraces and extends Microsoft Office to the browser -
If this Live Document thing will catch on, undoubtly Microsoft will just copy it and integrate it into its own office suite - Just like it has been doing for its entire existence.
Be honest for a moment? Is there any real competition for MS Office?
No
And why?
Because MS Office is a really good product!
The past years I have found my perfect online workspace - it has been around for years, its free, it's from Microsoft and it's installed on any windows machine.
It's called "Remote Desktop"
Simple as that: my main workstation is a computer that I'v never even seen physically.
I always carry around a mini-PC , and a windows mobile phone, and all the applications I ever need are installed on my remote desktop.
If I'm at a client and I need Flash, or Dreamweaver, or I have to edit a video?
No problem - connect to my remote desktop and start working.
The next day at home - just relog and all your documents are there, waiting for you - just as you left them.
As a developer - Online office application still carry away my interest - and maybe I'll even start using them ... but at this moment - I have absolutely no need for them - and I do have switched to an completely online way of working. The big caveat of all those platforms: user lockdown !
surprisingly enough - CNET has an insightfull article on the online office application concept: YAWBOC (Yet Another Web-based Office Competitor) with some decent comments of the live-document creators themselves.
Their bottomline?
The future isn't web-based document creation. If anything, it's an email client (like Zimbra) that does away with the need for "documents" at all and makes the focus on collaboration and distribution, not creation.
The future of the desktop is not an online desktop. It's getting rid of the desktop metaphor altogether. The future of an office suite is to dump the office and focus where people spend their time: email, IM, SMS, blogs, etc. We increasingly collaborate as we create rather than create so that we can then collaborate on what we've already done.
This is a vision of the future - but today - most office users I come across aren't looking for collaboration: They just want to edit and layout their documents in a simple way.
If real time collaboration is your thing: do try out the online office suites, but don't expect to be able to quickly edit a 50 page document with pictures, graphs and visual styles ...
All the online office apps have 2 major issues: SPEED and USABILITY.
One example: Show me one (1!) online word-processor that doesn't use any browser-plugins like java that can scale a table cell of an arbitrary table like you would expect it to work: by simply dragging the cellborder ...
Sounds simple enough, no ? Forget it: it doesn't exist.
It's stuff like that that really matters if you expect non technical people to use it on a regular basis.
MS office will generate 20 billion dollar revenue this year, and trust me: the next 5 years, that won't change. Geef je reactie (4)
Never rely on 3rth party services
Never rely on 3rth party services! Especially when they are free.
This week, my picture moblog at Proximus vanished ... Luckily I cached all the images on my own server, but this proves yet again that the only way you can be sure that your online ecosystem is running smoothly, is to keep as much elements as possible under your own control.
This is why I've written my own blog-software, host it on my own server, and host most files on my own webspace.
Not that my blogging software is remotely as feature-complete, or safe, or powerfull than others, but I can be sure that the same software will be available as long as I'm around, and it certainly is more flexible and open then any 3rth party software can ever be ... (and unlike some other companies that can't deliver this slogan: it simply works !)
So: if you plan to keep your online data for a looooong time: make sure you don't lock it down in one service! (like Flickr , or Gmail, or Itunes ...)
Is there a way to retrieve your original source image from Flickr, including all EXIF data? I think not.
Is there a way to download the original video you uploaded to Youtube? I think not.
Do you think Flickr and Youtube will be around forever? I think not.
Keeping your data in the cloud is obviously the way to go, but do make sure it's a piece of the cloud that you can somewhat control ...
P.S. Boy .. do I need a spellchecker in my blogging software or what ? :-) Geef je reactie (2)
Look what the cat dragged in: Mathew 4
Our cat brings back some more or less dead things on a regular basis, but this time he really has outdone himself: another Matthew !Tasty !! Tags: Graphics, in EnglishGeef je reactie (0)
Mobile video
Once you've made the step to an all-you-can-eat mobile dataplan, the same always-on switch gets flipped as when desktop computers got a permanent internet connection several years ago: suddenly your mobile device becomes 4 times as usefull: IM in your pocket, push mail, mobile blogging ... and offcourse the same urge for everybody's favorite online passtime: streaming video.I'm surprised to find that mobile streaming video isn't nailed down yet. It still is very troublesome to get a decent mobile video experience. Offcourse there are bandwith restrictions, but bandwidth usually is not the problem: it's the website design and technology that isn't optimized for mobile devices. Even the sites that have a mobile version often get it wrong, and only provide a stripped down crippled version.
e.g. youtube: the mobile version is awfull: only a tiny fragment of video's are available, and all in a tiny blurry 3GP version, while the current generation of mobile devices is perfectly capable of displaying full screen flash or mp4 video.
The worst part is: you can't even acces the full version of youtube: as soon as the site detects you're using a mobile browser, it sends you straight to the mobile page with no way around it.
Other applications do a far better job but even they are lacking in features: Google reader mobile works really well, only ... you can't add subscriptions ... a feature I sorely miss.
Twitter mobile is simple and nice, only you can't add friends you want to follow.
The discussion whether a site should have a mobile version, or if mobile devices should catch up with their big browser-brothers, will never be settled, but in my opinion a mobile version of a site makes perfect sense: a well executed mobile version creates a huge additional value.
In fact, I find myself usng the lightweigt version of a site even on a desktop. The main version of tweakers, for example, loads and renders slowly. the lightweigt version is superfast. If you want a fast overview of all the topic, the KISS approach can't beat.
The state of mobile video sites still is far below par, allthough some clever solutions work around it and stream flash video direct to your device.
One little gem though: http://www.yamgo.tv/ shows that streamng flash video works perfectly on mobile devices: you just have to make sure that the player is backwards compatible with Flash 7 (The latest version for windows mobile). There's nothing more to it: smooth streaming video, right in your mobile browser ... now was that so hard?
And for Symbian based mobiles that don't have flash (Nokia etc ...), there's an ultra light version at http://yamgo.mobi that streams fullsceen realvideo, tailored to your conection speed. There! satisfaction at last ! :-) Geef je reactie (0)
Cross domain javascript communication
Hey!A neat trick I was completely unaware of (shame on me): How to do communicate between pages residing on different domains using pure javascipt.Very smart! I'm using this into a super-smooth file upload system I'm building. (upload a file from 1 domain to another server, with a progress bar, without page refreshes.)
That Dojo toolkit seems to be worth a close inspection: Note to myself :-) Geef je reactie (0)
Conversational dreams
Last night a dream woke me up because it was talking directly to me. Like when you are watching a movie and suddenly the main character turns around, eyes directly in the camera and speaks to you. Very out of place.It was an asian woman, dressed in black, and she was stacking wooden shelves, keeping them appart by placing green apples between them.
Suddenly she stops and says to me
"You should write code like a conversation."
Hmmm ... so now what. Clearly this was meant as a direct message to me ...
Maybe I should investigate my coding skills? Maybe I should get to know more asian woman because they say profound things?
Maybe I should stop eating green apples?
Most peculiar.
Maybe I should ask that codinghoror guy what's his approach to writing code as a coversation.
Or maybe I was handed the key to world salvation because if conversations would be more like code then most world problems would be solvable by some basic debugging skills: flaws in the logic would become painfully clear, vague or ambiguous statements would not be usable untill they were properly defined and clarified.
Writing code as a conversation could improve communication drastically.
I'll digest a green apple to that !
Thanks asian stranger!
Only next time, watch your timing: 4AM really isn't my favorite time to wake up. Geef je reactie (0)
Dodentocht 2007
My third Dodentocht, blogged live using 2 mobile phones and an extra battery17:45
I collected my starting badge and I'm eating a spaghetti.
18:52
I'm off to the start. A long wait, but everybody wants to get a good starting position. We're all sitting or lying down.
And the first thing we get is an invitation for next-years edition: 08-08-08. lots of people here allready. i'm participating in a testcase of the next generation scanning techniques: I have a chip attached to my shoe that gets automatically scanned at each post. If this goes well there will be no more manual barcode scanning next year.
20:31
Everybody is on their feet. The side-animation is fully in action. It's going to be a cold but dry night.
21:00
And we're off!
Lot's of pushing, everybody eager to start.
Only 99.5 km to go ...
22:10
Wow . the first post flashed by before I noticed. I'm at 9 km now. Going fast !!!
22:50u
We loop to pass Bornem a second time. a huge crowd!
23:21u
Food and drinks at Nutricia. I'm at 17 km.
0:25u
Just past wintam. I'm at 24 km.
1:11
A band is playing the blues all night long.
1:32u
I'm in Ruisbroek. 30km.
Coffee time !
I wasn't planning to take a break but I have to listen to my body: Stomach pain, nausea ... I'm going to lower my tempo, so the 2PM schedule is out on the street.
It's not going as well as I hoped and the next part is traditionally the toughest ... We'll see :-)
3:22u
Damn ... I have to take another break. That's not good. I'm at "Den Duvel" - 39 km. There's a big party here. There's free Duvel for anyone so offcourse there's a big part :-).
I don't remember much of the past 90 minutes but I'm here so I must have been sleepwalking.
4:32u
I'm in Londerzeel. 45 km. There's free Aquarius, coffee and Mars here so it's the perfect spot for a break. Geee ... I'm tired. I'm not in good shape.
5:50u
The 50 km sign: I'm halfway !
6:24u
Arrived at Palm: 53km. There's a warm mael here but I can't eat anything right now.
Switch lugage here: It's not going to rain so I'll leave my rainstuff here.
7:55u
Arrived in Merchtem: 61 km.
I'm dying ... (OK, maybe that's why its called ... hmm)
9:39u
I'm at Buggenhout: 69km.
All schedules are of the table. Just "Getting there" seems like the best possible goal at the moment.
10:43u
Passed Opdorp: 73km. The posts follow each other quickly now. good !
11:10u
The 75km sign!
11:48u
Arrived at Lippelo: 77,5 km.
There's a lovely sunny sloped meadow here so I think I'll stay here for 10 minutes.
14:09u
Arrived at Oppuurs: 85.5 km.
At Puurs Petra and the kids arrived with fresh clothing and some great foot-salvation. (Just in time because its getting hot !) I'll probable will make it to the finish, but it's going to cost me. ETA for Branst is 16:30 - 17:00
14:45u
There's this guy walking on "Klompen": wooden shoes. That's insane !!!!
15:22u
Arrived at sint amands: 90,5 km. only 9.5 to go.
16:45u
Just past the last post, Branst. 6km. to go ...
17:23u
3...2...1... km to go ... nearly there!
18:29u
OK. It was hell but I made it. at 17.48 I crossed the finishline. 100km in 20,5 hours. Now I'm going to sleep for 20,5 hours.
Thanks for all the numerous SMS messages, blog reaction, phone calls and people supporting at the track. Without those I probably wouldn't have made it.
Signing off , Steffezzzzzzzzzzzzzz Geef je reactie (17)
