Feet up! :

2008-11-17 links

C++0x – Wikipedia
- Tags reference c++ standards
Nokia Friend View – rukapedia
- Tags nokia geolocation im
Nokia Chat + Robot + Plazes
- Tags mobile nokia geolocation Jabber
Inside Nokia Chat’s XMPP
- Tags nokia geolocation Jabber im

Saving Mobuzz

You probably already know that the daily buzz is one of my favourite vlogs. However the bad news is that the global financial downturn seems to have caught the Mobuzz folks in a cashflow crisis.

To the best of my knowledge Mobuzz are the only major European video blogging organisation producing shows in more than one language. I follow the English show and a couple of the Spanish shows, but not the French one which is a little strange because my French is far better than my Spanish, and Osiris is a babe.

But I digress, Mobuzz's content is far more pertinent to us Europeans than similar shows from the US, and they really are worth saving as a business. Details of how to do so can be found here, the easiest route being to go to paypal.com and send some funds to paypal@mobuzz.com I'm sure they wouldn't mind receiving envelopes stuffed full of used tenners either though...

Lets hope that thermometer gets hot quickly!

2008-10-23 links

The Tao of Mac – Skyhook Wireless
- Tags geolocation wifi web tools
Christophe Berger : Py S60
- Tags mobile python symbian nokia wifi gsm software geolocation

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

2008-09-12 links

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

2008-09-10 links

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

Using TTYtter with Identi.ca

Since Twitter gave up on providing IM and sms access to their service, leaving most people stuck with web and api access there's been a variety of apps surfacing. Personally I use TTYtter a Perl command line app, nothing pretty, but it works for me.

Interestingly since the microblogging service identi.ca - which uses the open source tool Laconi.ca - started offering a Twitter compatible api you can now use TTYtter with identi.ca

To do so you need to edit the .ttytterrc file in your home directory so that you replace http://twitter.com/ with http://identi.ca/api for any urls, and disable polling for direct messages as identi.ca does not support these yet. The changes are as below:


url=http://identi.ca/api/statuses/friends_timeline.json
rurl=http://identi.ca/api/statuses/replies.json
uurl=http://identi.ca/api/statuses/user_timeline
wurl=http://identi.ca/api/users/show
update=http://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.json
dmurl=http://identi.ca/api/direct_messages.json
frurl=http://identi.ca/api/friendships/exists.json
dmpause=0

2008-09-03 links

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

Chrome not so shiny?

Think of this as a grumpy old man's first-thoughts on Google's Chrome browser. I'm torn between a few feelings on this, I'd like it to be good, but I don't know if we need yet another browser, and I don't want to be forced to support Google's world domination plans. I'll drop my first thoughts into three traditional categories.

Good

It's "open-source", and uses Webkit. However, with the closed/restricted source track record of Android, I'm a little sceptical, and the source code is not yet available at Chromium.org, plus the Google build "is based on" Chromium, so the Google build is still effectively closed source.

Anecdotal performance and memory usage tests are comparable with most of the other top browsers, which for a beta is a very good start.

Bad

First off, the Comic, so I've got poor dress sense, and mediocre social-skills, but I'm not 9 years old any more, please don't insult your audience completely. A cynic might think that Google had presented the info in graphical rather than textual form so that it was harder to archive and compare if Google ever decided to re-write history.

Google's EULA, maybe it won't stand up in court, but they can buy better lawyers than you or me. A EULA where you "let Google use any of your copyrighted material posted to the web via Chrome" is not good. You'd expect a hastily drafted, poorly written EULA from a startup, not so Google. So much for "do no evil".

Carpet bombing, oops, it's a beta so there's going to be problems, but I'd have thought security should have been further up Google's priority list.

Crashing? Not a problem according to the comic, each tab is an isolated process, if one crashes then you carry on with all the others running happily. Not so, in my experience, and all the reports I've heard are of the whole browser going ka-boom.

Google's apparent attempt at rebuilding the Austro-Hungarian empire, you may wonder how far Google's world-domination plans extend, but I think we can file this under satire, can't we?

Extensions and plugins? Not supported as yet, the infamous comic mentions these, but's who's going to bet on Adblock Plus being available on Chrome any time before hell freezes over?

Windows only? Surreal, but as one of my colleagues pointed out, it's only a small step from running a "browser" as a seperate process in a tab to running any type of process you want "in a tab". The whole compartmentalising of each tab, with a security model and controlled access to external resources like storage is very much like an operating system. What's to say that the role of the "shell" that currently runs and supports the individual browser tab processes can't be extended enough to make the premise of "what OS does this browser run on?" entirely redundant.

Ugly

Hard-coded Vista theme for the shell, which looks OK on "standard" Vista, and looks like a turd on XP or XP-themed Vista. I can only assume no UI experts were used in the making of this product.

Summary

I'm still sceptical about Google's good intent, but I can't fail to be impressed by how good a product this is for a version zero browser. Charles Nutter's thoughts on Chrome aren't that dissimilar to mine, the "why didn't you just help Firefox" question and the "ship beta, release code later" approach stick in my craw. I'm going to give Chrome a miss for another six months or so, perhaps the time to use Chrome is when it becomes the standard browser on Ubuntu. Which would either be a statement of faith by Ubuntu in Chrome's quality and Google's good intent, or a sign of Ubuntu selling out...

Wiki changes

Nothing major, just an update on a few things I’ve changed recently on the wiki. First off, I’ve added details of the various operator specific S60 devices that were announced a few months back. Initially I wasn’t going to cover these, but after seeing a fair bit of traffic looking for these I decided they were worth covering (it is hard to find details of China Mobile’s 6122 in English).

Nokia 6122 – for China Mobile
Nokia 6124 – for Vodafone
Nokia 6650 – for T-Mobile

Also new is a stub page for The Symbian Smartphone Show 2008 with basic venue details and links to the show’s site and a venue map, but no details on the All About Symbian pub meet, or much else yet.

I’m starting to find that I’m getting buried under the sheer numbers of S60 and UIQ phones on the market, so I’ve moved the older S60 devices off the specific phones page. For a more eclectic view of the most interesting devices, I’ve added the Latest and Greatest page, which has a brief list of the S60 and UIQ phones that I’m most excited about. Some of these aren’t officially announced yet, whilst others are old stagers that still appeal strongly.

Talking of exciting, I still need to complete the page covering the very interesting Samsung INNOV8 – Samsung finally seem to be taking S60 seriously, and this phone shows their intent. Watch this page with interest!

Identica badges

There's been a lot written about Identi.ca a micro-blogging service based on the Free Software Laconica software. Whilst some view it as a Twitter-clone in many ways it's very different, with a primary focus on open software and federated servers, rather than relying on one closed-source central server. Much like the advantages of Jabber/XMPP over the monolithic, closed systems of MSN/AOL in many ways.

One area that Identica/Laconica currently lags Twitter is in the plethora of 3rd tools. However with a Twitter compatible API the list of apps is growing rapidly, some being simple ports of existing Twitter apps, others being entirely new.

The primary reason for this post is Kent Brewster's cuddly little identica badge, which although still a prototype is plenty functional enough for many people. Below is how my Identica content looks like on the badge.

Nice, simple and with a bit of tarting up/visual bling, it'll be quite pretty too. Click on an author's name in a post, to explore his or her friends' posts. To see my identi.ca page, click the top link on the badge.

2008-07-10 links

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

African solutions

African leaders keep claiming that they need "African solutions to African problems", however their response to the Zimbabwe "problem" is fence-sitting inactivity to a degree beyond which even the Liberal Democrats aspire.

This is shameful, irresponsible, gravely unfair to the oppressed Zimbabwean people and a disgrace to the leaders' own people. Were they really elected to do so little?

In response, my personal "European solution to African stupidity" is quite simple; African goods will join those of China and Burma, and remain on the shelves of the shops I frequent. This small gesture in itself may do little, but I encourage others to do the same.

2008-07-08 links

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

2008-07-07 links

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

2008-07-02 links

Openatownrisk
- Tags nokia virus
- Others linking to this item
Using AVG linkscanner against itself
- Tags apache web malware
- Others linking to this item

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links

And we have a winner...

The winner of the ticket for Mobile 2.0 Europe is Moof! Very apt as he's the only English guy I know who can speak fluent Catalan (and a host of other languages). I'm sure he'll enjoy Mobile 2.0 Europe

So thanks again to Rudy for the ticket, looks like it's going to be a great event.

Up, up and away

Following Saturday's mention of the Orange Animals Balloonacy I've now signed up for my own balloon, you can follow its travails/travels here. If you seee it come past your site, please give it a wave!

I ought to file this under "Odd, but strangely compelling".

Mobile 2.0 Europe; Do you want to go?

Courtesy of Rudy De Waele I'm in the exceedingly lucky position to have a ticket for Mobile 2.0 Europe to give away (value € 299 + VAT).

If you want this ticket you can win it here. In the best tradition of online quizes I'll make this nice and easy, send me the names of two of the people speaking at Mobile 2.0 Europe, and I'll put your name in the hat. Last entry by 18:00 UTC tomorrow and I'll announce the winner shortly afterwards.

Valid entry methods: XMPP/Jabber/GTalk: jimh@jabber.org.uk Email: jim@feetup.org Twitter/Jaiku: JimH SMS: If you've got my number :-)

Background

The Mobile 2.0 Conference is coming to Europe on July 4 in Barcelona, Spain. This one-day event focusing on the Mobile Web and Disruptive Mobile Innovation, is brought to you by dotopen and the Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee: Daniel Appelquist, Gregory Gorman, Mike Rowehl, Peter Vesterbacka, and Rudy De Waele in partnership with ESADE.

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including startups, investors, mobilecarriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers and web technologists. The conference is an opportunity for companies to connect to industry leadership and startup innovation and broaden your C-level relationships.

The event will be held at the Espacio ESADE FORUM, Barcelona and will run from 9:00am to 6:00pm with a reception at the Espacio ESADE FORUM afterwards.

Balloon Racing

So I'm balloon racing for Orange, if you look at the bottom right of the page you should see a small orange balloon bobbing around (click on it if you dare), tip of the hat to Tom's site for pointing me towards this balloonacy.

What does this mean? Possibly some more traffic to the site, and it's something suitably silly so I like it. So, for the newcomers, welcome (have you seen the wiki?), and for the regulars, yeah I've sold out (again) don't panic, it's short term and normal (shoddy) service will remain in place. Enjoy!

2008-06-19 links

Taken from Jim’s del.icio.us links