Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io

Evernote != Tomboy Notes

Evernote on WINE

The reality of the same information on multiple devices and platforms is starting to become a reality. But there's always a edge case. Take for example Notes. I use Tomboy Notes on my Ubuntu Laptop because its lightweight, fast, wiki based and saves in little linked XML files (great data portability). And rather that get sucked into using Outlook notes again or even one note, I've switched to using Evernote on everything else (thanks Nicole for the heads up on this service) including my windows mobile phones and the ipod touch. But does Evernote have a Linux client? No. Instead I'm forced to use the web version which is no good when I'm in a meeting room with no connection. What the notes world needs is for Tomboynotes to support Evernote's API and i'm not the only one saying this…

Use the Evernote API (http://www.evernote.com/about/developer/api/) to sync Tomboy notes –> Evernote, and possibly Evernote –> Tomboy (though obviously images, etc. wouldn't sync into Tomboy…perhaps include a link to the note online in that case?)

I was thinking this would be the perfect reason to use something like Conduit if it supported the Evernote API. Its all a pipe dream, in the end I broke down and cheated by installed Evernote under wine. Boy its ugly and gets on my nervious, I really would like a native version or better still the sync option.

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Want to buy my old Home Cinema setup?

So if you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen I bought a new Home Cinema amp on the weekend. I had planned to upgrade in the near future but when I was out getting my mobile phone upgraded, I come across a great deal in SuperFi. It was a ex-display Onkyo 7.1 Channel Home Cinema amp (Onkyo TX-SR505E). I had planned to buy the next one up from Richersounds but for over double the price. The one I bought was on shop floor for 120 pounds but I knocked them down further again by another 20+ pounds. 97 pounds exactly which is very good for a 7.1 home cinema amp. It took me ages to get it setup because its very different from my previous setup and I didn't have all the cables.

Anyway all this begs the question, what do I do with the old Home Cinema kit? It still works and is still really good but its going to be a real pain to sell on ebay, computer exchange are not going to take it and I don't really think I'll get much for it. So I have made a video to prove it all works and hopefully someone might be interested enough to drop me a offer. I'll add the specs below but here's someone with almost exactly the same setup I had.


Dolby Digital/DTS Decoder: Technics SH-AC500D Surround Processor. Supports 2x Optical and 2x Coxial connections, Supports Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1 and Pass through Stereo with automatic switching, fully working remote, Dolby midnight mode support, Solid american power adapter included. Bought for 300 pounds brand new from a specialist importer


Dolby Prologic Power Amp: Sherwood Newcastle R725 RDS. 100 watts per channel (5.1) 130 watts in Stereo. 8 analog audios in, 2 tape loops, phono input, A/B speakers modes, supports dolby prologic, 4 surround modes, composite video switching, 2Eq's plus Cinema bass, 6 Channel input (the technics decoder uses this). Remote sometimes works. Bought for 299 pounds from Richersounds in the UK

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Unboxing the HTC touch HD

All my current phones

So I have a new phone to add to the line up (watch the unboxing), the HTC Touch HD (far left). Its not like I'm collecting them, the ipod touch isn't really a phone at all (I just use it for reading rss feeds and ebooks but that may change now I got the Touch HD). After that there is my old phone the HTC Kaiser/Tytn II and finally my work phone the HTC Touch Diamond. Yes I like Windows mobile phones but I'm certainly still interested in turning the Kaiser into a Android phone some time soon.

So far the HTC Touch HD is good, the touch flo3D interface is so much faster that the Touch Diamond. Its also so much more usable with its extra resolution. Browsing the web using Opera is much more like the iphone browsing experience. I'm still typing faster with the stylus that my fingers right now, but I'm sure that will change soon. Thumbs up to the Touch HD right.

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Time for a phone upgrade

HD Touch

This time things are less interesting. Because I'm on a 18 month contract with Orange and only done 15 months come Feb 14th I can only upgrade within the Orange range of phones. This isn't such a problem because the only other network I would consider switching to is Tmobile and thats only because they have the Google G1. I already found out that O2 and Vodafone don't let you use your phone as a modem, actually the guy in the Vodafone seemed shocked why I would do such a thing. I explained I don't want two contracts and a modern phone can do everything those USB modems can but then he tried to bulls**t me about the speeds of 3G/HSDPA, claiming I would struggle to reach a fifth of the speed.

Anyway the selection is pretty poor from Orange, there coming soon phones really don't fill me with amazement. The only phone worth upgrading to is the HTC Touch HD and I got to say i'm having douhts about that choice even. Don't get me wrong its a very nice phone but I'm quite liking my HTC Kaiser with its keyboard. If I had any choice I would upgrade to the SonyEricsson X1 or the Touch Pro. To tell the truth the only interesting phone out there outside of the previously mentioned is the Palm Pre and who knows when the UK release will be.

So it looks like I will end up with the HD Touch HD from Saturday.

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The Sync wars, Google just kill Plaxo?

Everything was fine, Plaxo would sync to my windows mobile phones via there propitery sync application. And I could grab the specially crafted ical feeds for use with Evolution. Then Google released Sync for mobile devices. My world would never be the same…

Synchronize your contacts. Get your Google contacts quickly and easily to your Windows Mobile phone. With Sync, you can have access to your address book at anytime and place that you need it.

Get calendar alerts. Using your phone's native calendar, you can now access your Google calendar, and be alerted for upcoming appointments with sound or vibration.

Always in sync. Your calendar and contacts stay synchronized whether you access them from your phone or from your computer. Add or edit contacts or calendar entries right on your device or on your Google account on the web.

I tried to add Google Sync to Evolution directly, but evolution seems to get hung up on the fact theres no mail attached. Once I find a way around that, every single device I own will be syncing with Google Sync. I'm really going to have to consider what I use Plaxo for in the future.

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Wanna-be dj applications

Samsung 7600

I'm getting a little fed up of seeing all these crazy wanna-be dj applications. Seriously I'm not against them but most of them are so very lame, there not even trying to take advantage of the fact there on mobile devices.

DJ Party Mixer for Windows Mobile doesn't even support pitch control. IPJ for the iphone and ipod looks much better but fails for not supporting 2 or more tracks. You have to use a external mixer which ruins the whole concept of mobile. The shaking effects is interesting but ultimately its all a bit of a joke again. Also a expensive one at 50 dollars. Pocket studio seems to have most of the features needed to get a decent-ish mix but this is the rub why all these devices suck for mixing. The Pacemaker not only has everything sorted for a real time performance but it also has dual sound outputs. One for monitoring and the other one for audience output. This is simply not possible on any of the mobile devices to date. The Samsung M7600 is selling its self as a dj phone but once again theres only one output. And even the most advanced Windows mobile phone can not seperate the audio out between the headphone jack and the bluetooth sound connection which could count as two. If it was possible it would be interesting to monitor on a bluetooth headset and have the main output plugged into a amp, system, etc. No I'm sorry to say but Tonium have totally got this area covered at the moment. I do hold out hope (I still remember the first digital dj app – virtual turntables and they said it wouldn't take off) for clever IP djing but right now, its not even close to interesting. What is interesting is Wiijing

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Is the BBC talking too much about Twitter?

BBC Technology blog

Answer: No, well maybe… (I've been convincing my friends from Bristol for ages.)

This came up on the Backstage list via (Frank Wales) today along with another actually related topic which I pitched into the list. Seems the BBC might be annoying some people with its talk about twitter. Some have even suggest the BBC setup its own microblogging service.

Obviously I don't speak for the BBC but I thought I'd twitter it and see what comes back. Here's some of the responses.

dogsbodyorg @cubicgarden No idea if it's too much but surely it's better to talk about Twitter (an open company /w API & no ads) than Facebook / Myspace

euan @cubicgarden talking about it as individuals is one thing – appropriating it as an organisation is another

oliciv @cubicgarden I can remember thinking the same thing about Myspace when it was the hot new place to go on the internet and all over the media

lancew @cubicgarden wondering if BBC is obsessing over twitter, maybe they should setup a laconica server for BBC folks?

SoullaStylianou @cubicgarden nope I don't think BBC's mentions of twitter is OTT. Its basically of the moment is it not?

digitalmaverick @cubicgarden i think Twitter is as important as email, so I have no problem with BBC mentioning it lots at the moment

mmetcalfe @cubicgarden I thought the protesters were complaining about the Gaza situation, not a bloody microblogging platform!

So everyone keeps shouting we should setup our own.

I thereby recommend they have a look at laconi.ca. It’s ‘micro-blogging’ software which functions in a very similar manner to twitter, but would allow the BBC to set up their own service, without having to lend commercial support to an entity. It’s also used to power identi.ca – a ‘free’ rival to twitter. They’d have to think of a new name for the service though… what would you call it?

Well I'm happy to say we did. We used Laconi.ca but haven't really made use of it yet. I was also thinking with the change in Jaiku's licensing we should set that up too. The main purpose of the setups was to interop on to and off Twitter and Jaiku at the time plus kill off the internal twitter system Yammer which I'm still not totally convinced about (although others are). At least someone should have told Peter about Yammer.

So whats going to happen? I think as the BBC gets its heads around microblogging it will quickly notice that not only is it somewhat promoting a single startup through its wording but that Microblogging is much bigger and like how we don't host our blogs on wordpress.com, we will want to host it ourselves. There's all type of things we could do with our microblogging system, things which are forbidden on Twitter or even not possible because of the way Twitter is setup. The obvious example is a children's microblogging service. This will resolve its self and it will be the geeks who had a hand in the new bright future of the BBC.

And at the end of the day, some fun.

imran @cubicgarden not only can't the bbc stop talking about twitter, but now the bbc is talking about the bbc talking about twitter /images/emoticons/wink.gif

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The day the cloud rained

Ma.gnolia

In my data portability presentation, I always talk about services going away or changing. But even I hadn't really considered what happens when theres simply data lost. Ma.gnolia was a service I did use briefly between my switch from delicious to evernote and back to delicious. I had a ton of bookmarks on there but only really had 20 or so which were not on delicious or evernote. On top of that, I use a simple cron job to pull down my bookmarks every few weeks. However even this method isn't perfect as I sometimes have my laptop offline when the time comes around for the next backup. I really should move the cron job to my download machine which is always on and connected to the net.

Anyway I was lucky, I was reading stories earlier in the month from people who couldn't trust online services again with there data. I hope over time they will find ways of trusting services but I totally see the need for more services/apps which offer simple backup solutions. For example Conduit could be perfectly placed for this type usage, if there was more providers and generic hooks. The other solution is to simply have your data running through many services. One goes down and looses everything, another can be pulled upon to get the data back. Actually Ma.gonlia is using Friendfeed to recover some of its data, so it may sound slightly crazy but its already happening. Right now my microblogging activities are aggreagated over about 4 different services including twitter, identi.ca, Jaiku and Ping.fm. My RSS reading is still all on Newsgator but I'm planning a cron job for the APML (one of the things i'm missing from ma.gnolia) and OPML. Plus I have Newsgator offline clients on 2 phones, 1 ipod and 2 computers.

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Many thoughts about Google Latitude

Google spy in your pocket headline from the Metro Newspaper

When new technology comes along and disrupts, its hard to grapple with the questions and answers. I've been thinking about Google Latitude for a while since I got it working on Friday night and decided theres quite a lot of complexity to this new distruptive technology. Here's what I've been thinking

  • In Google Latitude you can turn the share my location off but what about those who you want to show your location. There's no fine grain control over what your friends can see it would seem.
  • Even if you could control what each friend saw, it would be a pain in the ass to change each time. Maybe in the future some kind of grouping would make more sense.
  • Following on from that, it would be good to see a more Fireeagle type response, where I can say to a group of friends I'm in this city, while to the public I can say I'm in this country. And of course to the selected group of friends, which street I'm actually on
  • But also following that, will friend get funny about only being able to see which City I'm in instead of the area or street. Maybe they will only share what you share with them?
  • Maybe it even makes sense that you can only share what that other person shares with you? so if I share only which city I'm in with all my friends, I can't see which street there on. Reforce the friends factor?
  • I've decided not to add close work mates to my friends list because I really don't want them to know where I am. And yes I can turn it off but then theres the whole, why did you turn it off? Were you hiding something?
  • Using your mobile with cell trianglation is pretty good but with additional GPS you can track right down to a small range of house addresses.
  • I didn't agree to Google Latitude getting my updates from Jaiku, even if they are public. But hey its not bad little feature
  • Where's the public view of Latitude for some of more darling types? And talking of which, where's the API, ical feeds and georss feeds?

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Video education for confidence tricks

Taken from Cory's BoingBoing post.

Wikipedia's list of confidence tricks is a globe-spanning journey through con-jobs ancient and modern. Required and fascinating reading:

A clip joint or fleshpot is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor, or no, goods or services in return. Typically, clip joints suggest the possibility of sex, charge excessively high prices for watered-down drinks, then eject customers when they become unwilling or unable to spend more money. The product or service may be illicit, offering the victim no recourse through official or legal channels.

The Melon Drop is a scam in which the scammer will intentionally bump into the mark and drop a package containing (already broken) glass. He will blame the damage on the clumsiness of the mark, and demand money in compensation. This con arose when artists discovered that the Japanese paid large sums of money for watermelons. The scammer would go to a supermarket to buy a cheap watermelon, then bump into a Japanese tourist and set a high price.

List of confidence tricks

As most of you already know I'm a big fan of the public being totally aware of these type of tricks or scams. Its self protection from the elements who will take anything from you if let them.

It would be good to actually link some of these with the Real Hustle episodes which are mainly online now. We also need something like this for the electronic world. I don't just mean how to identify scam email but also more advanced stuff like checking certs, setting up vpns and checking for leaking for information. And of course we need a ton around simply language multiplation (social engineering). Too many people fall for these scams/tricks.

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