Google takes a swipe at OOXML

So - according to El Reg - Google finally takes side in the ODF vs OOXML war.
And - personall I'd like to add - the right side.
Details at Google takes a swipe at OOXML | The Register

Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design

Watch this great presentation by Jeff Han at TED 2006 about multi-touch interfaces...
This makes the iPhone multi-touch just a kindergarden prototype ;-)

TED | Talks | Jeff Han: Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design (video)

Most missing feature on my Nokia

The last parade of Nokia mobiles I had [1](and still have) lacked one important feature:

If I go to the calendar „application“ I can schedule a call with a person from my contacts list or any phone number I choose to enter. At the given time I will get a reminder and - by simply pressing the green „call“ button - I call this person.

Nice.

Comfortable.

Good.

Why, then, can't I create this entry from a person/contact context. E.g. I am in the address book / contact list, or I am in the missed/received calls list... most of the time I want to schedule a call (or call back) from there. I saw that someone called e.g. whilst I was in a meeting, and I want to call him back after the meeting, say in 30 min. Or I just called someone, got on their voicebox and want to try again in an hour.

Why didn't anyone think of this use case?

Why doesn't any mobile support his ?

I just checked: not even the iPhone...

[1] 6310i, 6230i, 6233

When did Google acquire FeedBurner?

Strange, I never noticed that Google has acquired FeedBurner.

Tracing back the news, it must have been late May last year...

Finally last.fm, too

Just to let you know - in case you care - that I'm now on last.fm as well.
What is last.fm ?
Hm, I guess best decribed as social network (and recommendation engine, ...) around music, with really everything you can imagine around this meme.

Find me here.

What a humble error message

This came up when I wanted to update my nightly build of Lightning:



I just like the wording...

Want to have...X300

My current laptop is a ThinkPad T43p... love it.
But what I crave for is the Lenovo X300.... the Mac Air equivalent on the non-Mac-World.

Mozilla Messaging is out

Finally Mozilla Messaging is "out".

"Out" as in "out in the wild", i.e. spun off of Mozilla.

And they announced the plans for Thunderbird3.

"Current plans for Thunderbird 3 include:

* Integrated calendaring (based on the existing Lightning extension)
* Radically improving search
* Many other user interface improvements such as faster workflow, improved feed reading, simpler user interface, automatic configuration, and more."

So, not a lot:

• Lightning (Calendar project) integration was to be expected,
• "radically improving search" is still not a lot if you think of the current search non-capabilities...
• and the items under bullet 3 I don't care for a lot.

Guys, what about a proper address book and social network integration ??

Now on Twitter

Just signed up for Twitter.

If you haven't yet heard of twitter, it is probably best described with their own words:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I'd say, it's very related to IM, but more broad-casting then the 1:1 dialog you usually see on IM. Also it is a bit less about conversation.

But then again, how should I know, I just started...
Follow me here .

(Of course I added a twitter gadget/widget/thingy to this blog over there ->)

m³: Silver Bullet Wiki?

Martin has interesting observations (and rants) on Wikis as tools for building/negotiating an agenda for a meeting.

m3s online Pamphlet :: y2008 : m02 : Silver Bullet Wiki:

Instead of emailing a meeting agenda, put it on a wiki page and email people a link to that page. If changes need to be made, anyone on your team can do so and everyone will have immediate access to the same, up-to-date version
[...]
And how does that differ from a Word file on a fileshare, a Sharepoint place, an Exchange shared folder or a Lotus Quicker?
A fool with a tool is still a fool. If people are not used to working on ONE copy of a document – no matter what technology – they will still end up with several versions of the document. Either by printing it to PDF, copying into the calendar-entry, etc.
[some typos corrected]

But Martin, why so strict ?
I'd understand "wiki" as a pars-pro-toto for all of the options you suggested.
I strictly oppose to the Word file (or ODT file for that matter;-)) on a whatever server.

Cool would be:

1. A "document" (not word) on a server -> then you get the single copy property.
2. directly editable through web and an API -> allows for easy and direct access from all possible tools
3. obviously you want the author/editor of a change/addition/suggestion to the agenda visible and identifiable
4. And then you'd want both an RSS/Atom feed from that document as well as an iCal/webcal/caldav access to this document. (And others: you might want to generate your PDF directory out of it for archival and print).
   
5. It should of course carry the whole event/appointment data as well.

That's what I'd want to see... If that's then implemented in Exchange, SharePoint, Domino/Notes or on a Wiki - I couldn't care less.

BUZZER

Wrong, sorry. I do care.
By my nature I'd prefer the Wiki or Notes approach over any Exchange/SharePoint approach... not so much religiously, but they tend to guarantee more open access - meaning both users, and APIs.

Sun about to buy Innotek

In case you are into reading corporate press releases (yuck):
Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire innotek, Expanding Sun xVM Reach to the Developer Desktop

There is also - of course - the usually witty El Reg version of it.

Yahoo Officially Rejects Microsoft Offer

Yahoo Officially Rejects Microsoft Offer:

"As expected, Yahoo has officially rejected Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid to acquire the company. In a brief press release issued ..."

End of act #1.
Brief intermission.

Let's see how this will continue.

OpenSolaris and the System z

OpenSolaris and the System z:

"Sun Microsystems and Sine Nomine Associates have demonstrated the OpenSolaris code base running on an IBM System z mainframe. [...] The Solaris demonstration included support for powerful Solaris features including Solaris ZFS, and Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), which help customers improve uptime, cut costs, and speed time to market."

So the MVS, no OS/390, no z/OS, whatever, guys who still refer to files as "members" can work with ZFS...
(or would that be z/FS then ;-))

Nicholas Carr: The Big Switch

I just finished Nicholas Carr's new book The Big Switch: Our New Digital Destiny
a couple of days ago.

I fully agree with his main observation, that IT (equipment, installation, development, operation) will move from in-house data centers to some IT utility providers, like we saw a century ago with electricity. No one will manage and operate their own CRM, ERP, Mail, ... in the future.

And just for the fact that with his book he brought this very idea to a broader audience, I applaud him.

Then again, I don't really like the rest of the book. Instead of describing what some players in the IT industry (IBM, Sun, ...) are doing with respect to this development, Carr just expresses his love with Google and its founders.

A missed opportunity.

Nevertheless, ... well, see my first point.

Google, IBM, Yahoo, Verisign, Microsoft to join OpenID

From OpenID.net:

"This morning the OpenID Foundation announced that Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign, and Yahoo! have joined the board."

Good.
Very good.

Great Fun with Amazon images

Abusing Amazon images:

"Amazon.com feeds out a lot of product images, putting out the same book cover (say) in a variety of sizes and formats. By experimentation, I found that they don't actually have all the sizes and formats stored. Instead, they have a system that generates each requested image. The details of size and format are built into the image's URL."

great details on the URL structure of Amazon images.

Read it, learn it, live it.

Firefox share up over 20% in Europe, mostly at expense of IE

Great news via Ars Technica: Firefox share up over 20% in Europe, mostly at expense of IE:



In the country breakdown Austria is reported at good 31,9%

Please don't

Microsoft bids for Yahoo | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone:

"Microsoft went public Friday with a $44.6 billion cash-and-stock bid to acquire Yahoo.

In its response, Yahoo called the Microsoft bid 'unsolicited' but did not reject it."

Now that I finally became a flickr, del.icio.us and upcoming addict, ... PLEASE DONT.

My notebook on a 2x2 SunRay

For a customer demo we setup a 2x2 SunRay Thinclient configuration, i.e. 4 physical screens connected through 4 SunRay units but building one large logical screen. Then I RDP'd against my Windows XP laptop on my ThinkPad T43p.

Cool.

Yes, I'm a freak. So what...

Dopplr's Raumzeitgeist - if only they had proper data

From the Dopplr blog:

While we’re busy working on new stuff for 2008, we thought it would be fun to look back at the first year of Dopplr in our inaugural “Raumzeitgeist” round-up.

Zeitgeist of course means “Spirit of the times”. You’re probably familiar with Google’s wonderful ‘zeitgeist’ report they publish annually, reflecting culture in what people were searching for that year.

“Raumzeitgeist” translates literally as “Space Time Spirit” and that’s precisely what we’ve got here. It’s about where we, the users of Dopplr, travelled through space and time on our little planet last year…

Cool stuff. Unfortunately, they still lack many cities in their database.