Tag - technology

Leopard fun

October 28, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Saw this surprisingly accurate and funny description of a common Mac OS X problem that is now fixed in Leopard:

Another noticeable reason for everything being slightly faster is Leopard is that a lot of secondary tasks are delegated to their own thread, allowing more to be done in parallel rather than having the interface held up until a task is completed. One example is network servers in the Finder. If you’ve ever disconnected the network before ejecting a file share, you’ve no doubt felt the pain of having your entire Finder grind to a halt while the system sends out a search party looking for the missing disk. Normality doesn’t resume until all hope is lost, and the rescuers don’t seem to give up easy, even though they never have any chance in finding anything.All that’s gone in Leopard. Disconnect a file share, and the Finder remains responsive while it tries in vain to reconnect in a separate thread. It then simply pops up a disconnect notice. If you have your Mac on a network, that’s reason to buy Leopard in itself. The new Mail similarly benefits from multicore optimization.

Great description … glad it’s now fixed!

Feedyes? Feedno! Finding a working YouTube RSS Generator

October 25, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I’m trying to create a feed for a page that has no feeds:http://youtube.com/results?search_query=serious+games&search=SearchFeedYes is supposed to be able to do that … but annoyingly, the site continually has technical errors that prevent me from making a feed. First of all, it doesn’t show steps 3 and 4 … after showing steps 1 and 2. And secondly, after following the instructions in step 2, it tells me that the URL is invalid … after just using it to create a perfectly good list of recent videos.Arggh …Dapper has issues as well. In fact, in total, I probably spent about 45 minutes fooling around with FeedYes and Dapper before finding a service that actually worked …The best I found for YouTube RSS is actually YouTube RSS Generator, which looks decided low-tech but gave me a perfectly functioning feed in about 25 seconds.

Google has much better …

October 16, 2007
John Koetsier
news

. . . Excel help than Excel.Every single time I need to find out how to do something in Excel, I try to figure it out from Excel help. Search usually gets me nowhere, but sometimes gives me a clue what I should actually be searching on. But the help I usually get is not very helpful.So I turn to Google, and usually on the first page of results, using the search terms that make sense to me (an admitted Excel weenie, and proud of it) I find the answer.Isn’t that bass-ackwards? Shouldn’t the best source of information about your product come from your company?

Second life just like first life

October 4, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Well, I’m unhappy to report that Second Life is just as big a pain in the you-know-what as my first life.I’ve had an account for years, but haven’t used it much. However, now I’m doing a paper for my master’s program in educational technology, and thought I’d get back in for some hands-on research.Only problem? Bugs, bugs, bugs.After downloading and installing a fresh client right from the Second Life servers, I’m told during start up that I need the latest version. Clicking the download update button crashes with an unknown error (twice) … so now I’m re-downloading Second Life … all 90 MBs of it.Fun, fun, fun. If this wasn’t for a good cause …

What really is the iPhone?

September 26, 2007
John Koetsier
news

There’s a great column at Strominator that explains exactly what it is:

The iPhone is not a phone, its the first generation of a new type of computing device. One that will change how we view computing. One that will make our lives simpler. We won’t have to learn how to use applications, we’ll just use them. We won’t worry about launching applications, saving files, quitting — just using. Every other smartphone is still based on an archaic, cumbersome, paradigm taken straight from desktop computers. Drop-down/pop-up menus, programs, files — ugh. Look how bad Windows Mobile is, and most of us are used to the real Windows on our desktops. Why should a phone take minutes to just turn on? The alternatives are not much better. Mobile OSX, what runs inside the iPhone however, is a whole new beast. Intuitive, responsive, and an extension of the beautiful hardware that it runs on.

Which is not to say there aren’t issues … as the article also talks discusses.

Firefox rocks

September 13, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Wow wow wow.It’s been about a year – an eternity in web terms – since I’ve seriously tried Firefox. I’ve been using Safari: it just has better aesthetics, and up till now has been significantly faster.However, I’ve just updated, and wow … Firefox launch time is a quarter what it used to be on Mac OS X.Dunno yet if it’ll be the one, but it’s going to get another long look from me.[ update ]Holy mother, the typography has improved on Firefox. Unbelievable. Poor typography – letters that looked like marching ants – was one of the reasons I could not live with Firefox (or Flock) a year or so ago.

Virtual worlds, real economy

September 12, 2007
John Koetsier
news

The world’s first economist studying a virtual world (more accurately: virtual universe) has delivered his first report:

This is the first Econ Dev blog on the economics of EVE. We are heading into unknown territory since there exists no standardized measures on how to describe and analyze an online universe, or if indeed there is a need to have new tools to describe virtual reality. Trade and industrial activities are an important part of EVE and therefore descriptive analysis of trend in quantity traded, price fluctuations and regional differences are always of interest to those participating in that business. In order to fulfill the expectations of pilots we need your comments on this dev blog and which parts are most interesting. Selected sections of this dev blog could be updated on a regular basis if the demand is there.Minerals are the basis of everything in EVE. Most things built in EVE require one or more minerals; some easy to get, others not so much. Minerals provide income for professional miners and newbies alike and no war can be won without having a good supply with which to build and equip an armada. The constant demand for minerals makes the market one of the most effective in the EVE Universe with huge volumes and thousands of trades on a daily basis. That is why examining the mineral market in some depth has been chosen as the topic for the first Econ Dev Blog (EDB).

Good news? Bad news? I don’t know … but it sure is interesting news.

The iPhone comes to Canada … well, sorta

August 31, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Well, I just made my first iPhone call.That’s no biggie to hundreds of thousands of people in the US, of course, but the iPhone has not yet been released in Canada.Mike Skovgaard, a buddy at work, has been buying them in the US and taking them up to Canada to unlock them to work with the Rogers and Fido cell networks. He’s already done it with a few, and showed me his latest. Apparently, Mike was only the third person in Canada to unlock the iPhone.So, review in one paragraph or less? Awesome. Cover flow is great, voice quality is excellent, phone usability is amazing, photos are really cool, Google Maps is incredible, etc. etc. Everything just works, and everything just works the way you think it ought to work.Love it, can’t wait for it to “officially” come to Canada.

Running list: Apple iPhone lawsuits

August 30, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Apple is getting its ass sued off over the iPhone.I’d like to write a scathing critique of modern idiots who buy things they haven’t researched and then blame others for their idiocy, and an equally damning tirade against companies that produce nothing, add nothing, and do nothing but think up obvious ideas, patent them, and then suck blood out of other companies … but I just can’t sum up the energy.Instead, I’m going to list all the Apple iPhone lawsuits I can think of … and ask you to add any others in the comments.

  1. Battery lawsuitsApparently, there’s three of them now. 
  2. Roaming feesI agree, roaming fees suck … 
  3. Keyboard patentSome guy dreamed up something, and now he owns it forever? Interesting. Even more interesting, because he’s currently in jail for fraud! 
  4. CiscoOK, this one’s over … but Cisco did file a lawsuit over the iPhone name 
  5. Any more? I’m sure it’s just a matter of time …

Monster security fiasco – literally

August 30, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Job warehouse Monster has had an ongoing security nightmare, with hackers infiltrating the database and pilfering usernames, passwords, and email addresses with which to launch phishing attacks.The worst part? Monster doesn’t know how bad the problem is! From an email sent to me this morning (note the bolded portion):

As you may be aware, the Monster resume database was recently the target of malicious activity that involved the illegal downloading of information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for some of our job seekers with resumes posted on Monster sites. Monster responded by conducting a comprehensive review of internal processes and procedures, and notified those job seekers that their contact records had been downloaded illegally.The Company has determined that this was not an isolated incident. Despite ongoing analysis, the scope of this activity is impossible to pinpoint. Monster believes illegally downloaded contact information may be used to lure job seekers into opening a “phishing” email that attempts to acquire sensitive financial information. This has been the case in similar attacks on other websites.

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

Apple’s Sept. 5 iPod Announcement: iPod, iPhone, iPDA, iComputer, iMobile Computing

August 28, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Apple’s scheduled a Steptember 5th special event: “the beat goes on.”It’s obviously about iPods. My guess is that Apple’s now ready to take the next step. More to the point, the marketplace is finally ready for Apple to release the next evolution in iPod: mobile computing.You already see it in iPhone. And we know that OS X is underpinning future iPods.iPods have been carrying our calendars and notes for years. But it’s always been the sideshow, the off-off-Broadway down-the-lane-to-the-left non-attraction.I think the new iPods are going to take a huge leap in functionality. iPhone’s seamless reading of PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, and more will be part of the iPod experience.It’ll still be the entertainment hub – music, movies, podcasts – that it is. But it’s going to take the next step to a mobile computing platform that includes some of what we currently think of as “business” functionality and some of what we think of as “consumer” functionality – especially games.It would not shock me if concurrent with this unveiling of the new iPod we have an “iSDK,” a software development kit for iPhone and iPod.You read it hear first.

iWork needs Appleworks import

August 14, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Dan Knight of Low End Mac fame has a well-researched article on the abandoned Apple office suite AppleWorks, which used to be ClarisWorks.Most of it I’m taking with a bit of a grain of salt, since I know Dan is a keep-my-old-computers-til-they-rot kinda guy, but he makes a number of good points, and one very important one:

However, iWork isn’t AppleWorks. It’s not an integrated word processor, database, spreadsheet, paint, and drawing program. It’s much more like Microsoft Office, where Word and Excel are separate programs that can work together.And while iWork can open PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files, for some reason Apple has ignored compatibility with its own AppleWorks program, which is used by millions upon millions of Mac users on both the Classic Mac OS and OS X.I know Steve Jobs has a general disdain for things not created on his watch, and he’s allowed AppleWorks to languish, but if he wants Mac users to migrate to new hardware and iWork, he needs to make it easy to convert .cwk files into iWork documents and spreadsheets

An import function … that would be useful for people who have documents in AppleWorks. I know I have a few on my home computer.

I wanted to do this 7 years ago …

August 13, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Smart article on changing your browser’s useragent to gain access to pay sites:

Ever wondered why Google returned search results that lead to sites that require a registration? How did Google index the site without a registration? Many sites want their site indexed in Google to receive more hits, so they allow Googlebots in. Because of this reason we can take advantage of this. All we have to do is disguise ourself as a Googlebot and many sites will let us in without registration.

I was planning to do exactly that with an online learning site I built in 2000, but the feature got lost on the cutting room floor …

Verisign is hounding me …

August 10, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Verisign is driving me nuts emailing me and phoning me. Just to make it perfectly clear:

  • I don’t want your PDF white papers on internet security.
  • I don’t want your SSL certificates.
  • I don’t want your emails.
  • I especially don’t want your phone calls from “sales executives.”

Hrm … now that’s off my chest I feel marginally better. Until the next call starting off with “Hello, this is $salesguy calling from Verisign. How are you?”Worse than I was before you called.

Thumbs up, thumbs down: obligatory post-Jobs-keynote post

August 7, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I want the new iMac.
I want the new iPhoto.
I want the new iMovie.
I want the new GarageBand.
I want the new Keynote.
I want the new Numbers.
I’m not really impressed with iWeb.
Not too sure about .Mac yet.
I don’t really have a need for Pages – Word is good.

Best new iPhoto feature
Better organization of photos. Events is just brilliant … we have 14,000 photos and they’re just a complete blur. Events makes sense, and it’ll be a major enhancements. I called my wife down for that chunk of the demo, and it passed her keenly tuned BS filters. She even said “cool” a few times.

Best new iMovie features
Movie library just like photo library: one of those things that is obvious after Apple does it. Creating a movie in minutes: very needed, and very awesome.

Still needed: easier podcasting
I still think Apple needs a better podcasting tool. GarageBand is not the obvious place to go for podcasting, and it’s still not super simple and easy there, AFAIK.

WordPress admin panel: why is Akismet not under Comments?

August 7, 2007
John Koetsier
news

wpI guess the title says it all … Akismet, which is a comment spam identification and deletion tool, is under the active menu, Manage, not under Comments.Odd.On a related note, I’m getting something like 5000 comment spam attempts a week, of which about 1 makes it through onto the site.Two things that implies:

  1. Akismet is stunningly amazingly incredibly good. There are no words.
  2. A huge amount of web traffic is spambots looking for places to implant their evil input. I wonder what percentage? 1%? 3%?
  3. Bonus implication: the success rate for comment spam is approaching zero … for blog/forum owners who know about Akismet.

Buzzword is the full meal deal: online word processing

August 2, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I was skeptical when I saw the Wired blog post praising Buzzword, the latest entrant into the online office world.

Buzzword beats current Ajax-based offerings like Google Docs and Zoho Writer in both usability and aesthetic impact. And in a few months, when a desktop version is released, Buzzword will pose a serious challenge to Microsoft Word, the current king of document editing on the desktop.

But Wired is right: this is an amazing product. I managed to snag an early invite to check out the beta, and it already feels polished and more than usable. It uses Adobe’s Flex to achieve near-desktop feel on the web, and eventually is intended to use AIR to run on the desktop as well.Uploading and placing an image, working with tables, saving and undoing with key commands instead of having to use the menus all the time, plus all the word processing basics … it all seems to be there.buzzword screenshotVery cool.I’ll play with it a little more and post something a bit more detailed …

B-school makes PowerPoint a pre-req

July 31, 2007
John Koetsier
news

The Seattle Times has a story about the University of Chicago requiring students to submit powerpoint presentations as part of their entrance applications.My eyes bulged a little at the photo’s subtitle:

Chicago business-school administrator Rose Martinelli says PowerPoint presentations permit potential students to demonstrate creativity that might not come through in traditional applications.

PowerPoint IS a traditional application!

Sadly, so many educators are so ten years ago.

for the BS-in-marketing category …

July 26, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I’m checking out some online resources for education and came across this:

For nearly 70 years, ProQuest has offered superior information services in electronic, microform, and print-on-demand formats to university libraries.

Interesting.

Obviously, this is a programmer’s use of the inclusive AND – as long as one part of the conjunction is true, it all evaluates to true. POD and electronic have certainly not been around for “nearly 70 years.”

Bah, humbug.

Master of Educational Technology

July 23, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I’ve been slowly taking my MET graduate degree over the past few years. The course I’ll be taking next semester sounds like it’ll be the most interesting one to date: ETEC 522.

ETEC 522 is an online immersion in the global eLearning marketplace with particular emphasis on the environmental dynamics, evolving business models and success characteristics of eLearning enterprises in public and commercial domains. The course will be delivered in a case-study modality from a venture analysis perspective. The primary learning materials will be a “pitch pool” of authentic 12-minute venture finance presentations by the leading executives and leaders of current, real-world eLearning enterprises spanning the diversity of approaches to eLearning business opportunities. Examples representing entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial ventures will provide a balance between corporate and institutional enterprise. As the foundation for practical learning, students will undertake the critical due diligence analysis of these ventures individually, in groups, and with professional venture finance guidance.

Learning? This is fun!

Iceberg on Demand

July 12, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Note: this is a paid review – ReviewMe is paying me $50 for posting this. However, all thoughts are my own, and I’m saying only what I decide to say. The payment part is so that I say *something* about Iceberg on Demand.

Iceberg on Demand is one of a new class of development tools designed for the web. They kinda make me think of GUI RAD environments, but they’re for the web, and they’re typically much, much easier to use. Similar tools include Sidewalk (which I’ve mentioned before), The Form Assembly, and WyaCracker.

The difference
The difference appears to be that Iceberg on Demand is orders of magnitude more powerful than these other solutions, that pretty much focus on simple web forms to gather data. It’s billed as allowing non-technical users to create “enterprise applications,” which is a major, major claim.

I wanted to personally try it before reviewing the application, so I signed up at their home page for a beta account. However, they appear to be in limited beta, as I haven’t received any access privileges in the 48 hours since I signed up.

The promise
The basic premise – giving non-programmers the tools to create full-functionality business applications – is incredibly compelling: use the business process mapping tool to map a process, create your business forms via drag-and-drop, integrate simply into already-built apps such as HR, CRM, project management, and bug tracking … and voila … you have a working enterprise system to run your business on. It reminds me somewhat of Sigurd Rinde‘s thingamy.

I’m sure the reality is a little different: I don’t yet see accounting apps that you need to run a business and I’m sure there’s a number of other missing pieces, but wow … if this takes off and they increase the number of built-in apps over time, this could be very, very exciting.

The reality is, most of what businesses need to function is to get, store, retrieve, and modify data. It’s not rocket science. It’s data that follows business process rules.

If Iceberg on Demand can essentially automate creation of enterprise systems, look out IBM, Oracle, Infosys, and all the other “business services” tech shops out there: the billions you’re hoovering out of clients’ pockets is in danger.

OK, back to reality for a moment.

Right now, this looks like a great tool for start-ups, young companies, anyone with not much budget but need for real business systems.

In the future? Who knows.

Apple: give away iQuiz for free

July 9, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Why on earth is Apple selling iQuiz?

it’s a tiny application that lets you run quizzes on your iPod. McGraw-Hill is using it to deliver their new interactive learning for iPod program.

Apple’s charging only 99 cents for it on the iTunes store. But why not give it away for free?

Then it could be the basis of a new standard delivery mechanism for educational content … and curriculum companies wouldn’t have to worry about tolls on the road for their potential market. Surely the revenue that Apple would win from increased iPod sales would vastly outweight a couple of pennies on iQuiz.

New iLife: better camcorder compatibility

July 5, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Camcorder compatibility is a major problem for iMovie users these days. If you haven’t heard or seen that, check out the comments on this post.

Many, many, many camcorders available right now, especially the new hard drive-based versions, will not work with iMovie. They record in low-quality MPEG-2, which combines the audio and video into one datastream. iMovie only works with DV camcorders or hard disk camcorders that record to MPEG-4, a higher-quality format that keeps the audio and video separate – enabling future editing.

There are workarounds (see above link) but they are time-consuming, costly, and not foolproof.

There are rumors that iLife is ready for an upgrade soon, perhaps even before the next version of Mac OS X comes out. It had better include an updated iMovie with built-in capability to handle MPEG-2, because it’s getting hard to find camcorders that are Mac-compatible.

Frankly, it’s hard to believe this is a problem that Apple has not yet addressed: imagine if iPhoto only worked with 5-6 cameras.

Apple needs to fix this quickly … or at the very least, provide an actual, specific list – with model numbers – of camcorders that work with Mac OS X and iMovie, instead of this no-help help page.

Possible is not probable

June 22, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Every time I see something like this in the mainstream press I think: clueless.

There’s little question the iPhone pulls a lot of great wireless functions and applications into a very cool package. But most of those features aren’t exactly new. Google Maps for mobile? Practically any smartphone user can download the application to his or her device.

It’s not about: is it possible. It’s about: is it elegant, simple, natural, obvious, easy, beautiful, friendly. Most importantly: is it normal. Does it just feel normal to surf the web on your phone, locate and listen to music on your phone, to make make phone calls even.

(In case you’re wondering why Linux isn’t mainstream, that’s why. The answers are no.)

That’s Apple’s primary genius. Not always to be first – but almost always to make wizardry easy, even commonplace … while still being elegant and sexy.

Apple on speed?

June 14, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Since when is speed the most important factor in a browser’s performance?

Safari 3 is the fastest browser running on Windows, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2, based on the industry standard iBench tests.

Like others, I was a little underwhelmed by Apple’s WWDC conference. Safari for Windows was a surprise, but not the kind of wow I was hoping for. The big thing that is bugging me, though, is selling a browser on speed. Maybe that’s just because I’m a Mac user, but is IE or Firefox slow for most PC users? Do they feel slow?

I haven’t heard that from any of my friends who use PCs.

My only guess is that the average non-technical PC users junks up his PC (and his browser) with all kinds of plug-ins and toolbars – which could make IE feel slow. Safari will win that comparison simply by virtue of not being compatible with anyone’s toolbar.

But I doubt anyone on a reasonably modern PC with a fairly clean IE install is terribly worried about browser speed. I just don’t see it.

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