Category: technology

General linux life would be a bit better if…

Liferea's new opetions

…Newsgator would port there software to Linux. Even if they don't, surely someone has build a client which takes advantage of the newsgator api? Nope not a single application on the linux platform. I've gotten so fed up of the whole problem, that I generally read more on my phone or fireup a browser and read it online. I know this is very lazy web but come on somebody, use the newsgator api and give your rss aggregator a huge advantage over all the others in the market. This actually really winds me up because I can't even use wine to run rss bandit and rss reading is not the kind of thing you want to do in a VM. Hell if someone could quickly write a Adobe Air application for this, I'd be happy.

…Evernote also fits into the same category as Newsgator. Runs on almost everything else even Windows Mobile and the iPhone but can we get some linux support? Not a chance. Evernote does play ok with Wine but its ugly and very slow, not the kind of thing you want to start up for a quick note or have hanging around on your computer all day. Like Newsgator Evernote also has a public API which could be used to create a evernote client for the linux platform or even something like Air. I'm still liking the idea of some conversion between evernote and tomboy notes which runs natively on the gnome desktop. Then you got the speed and easy of a native app crossed with the flexibility and ubiquity of Evernote. I actually think Conduit could do this with ease, if only I could write Python.

Why is it there is still no decent Blog editor for Linux? I use to use Wblogger then switched to … when still using Windows. Now having tried almost all the linux blogging apps, I settled on Scribe Fire which runs out of Firefox. I was surprised to find there is little in the way of blogging apps on the air platform.

Don't get me wrong I love my switch to Linux/Ubuntu (I say while slowly converting all my Freenas drives to a format which Ubuntu understands). But sometimes I think the talented developers who work on great linux software miss some of the obvious flaws. I did recently found out that Liferea the RSS reader for Linux did include Google sync support with Google Reader which is tempting me over. However when I finally did install Liferea again, I found it included the next best thing to true sync. The ability to sync the OPML file. So at least I got my subscription lists sorted.

Its also worth noting there are loads of applications which are unique to the Linux platform which are amazing such as Gwibber (which if it was a little more stable I would use everyday), Specto and the already mentioned Conduit.

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R&D TV: Episode 1


So finally its been revealed what I've been working on recently.

R&D TV is a pilot project between BBC Backstage (which is part of BBC R&D) and BBC RAD Labs. The pilot is monthly technology programme made up of interviews from knowledgeable BBC developers, BBC project experts and experts from around the world. Its made of rights cleared assets so sharing of content is a core part of its concept from day one. When I say experts, I don't even mean in the traditional sense but more people doing interesting things which there very knowledgeable about.

There are three parts to the project,

  1. A brief 5 minute video, containing all the very best bits
  2. A longer 30 minute video, containing deeper conversations
  3. The Asset Bundle, containing everything we used and didn't use to make the videos above

They say good artists borrow and the best steal. Well you can think of what we have done as a combination of PBS's NerdTV and Microsoft's Channel9. The biggest difference is the asset bundle.

Releasing the assets as well as the 5min and 30min versions is something that's new for the BBC and to be fair both teams are not well known for. I mean R&D and Rad are not content creation departments. However we truly believe this is a exciting and possibly important experiment in creating media specifically to be shared and remixed.

Not only does the asset bundle include media but it also has all the extra media to create the show and stuff which didn't make it into the show. So you can duplicate the show or with a little more creativity do some remixing and show – legally.

We (me and George Wright) did a interview with Jemima Kiss of the Guardian on Wednesday. There's a couple of corrections like the project is half RAD and half Backstage plus Rain Ashford works for backstage and Hemmy Cho works for RAD. But otherwise Jemima does a good explaining the project and some of the thoughts behind it. I kind of wished we recorded the interview but who knows what might appear in the asset bundle one day soon.

Videos can also be viewed on YouTube and Blip.TV right now but expect even more places in the next few weeks. We created a ATOM/XML podcast file so you can suck down all the files in one go using a podcatcher. Hell we even did the MD5 hashes to confirm the files are correct if you get them from elsewhere.

One of the things which I believe will happen very quickly at the start at least is people asking us to interview certain people. We will take a lot of this on board but what I really want to see is people filming themselves and using our footage and combining it with there own. I already have looked into mixing MakerTV with our footage to create a more hardware driven show. Or even taking parts of the Socialweb.TV and using some of the Kevin Rose interview. The best part of all this is, you can all do the same! One thing I've been dying to do is combine Pop!tech footage with ours, because they also put there shows out under a creative commons licence.

There's more to come from R&D TV so look out for number 2 about May time. Looking forward to hearing all your thoughts.

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I’m a PC hub?

Steve Clayton the geek in disguise has named me in his I'm a PC sticker distribution plans. Although I'm a Ubuntu Gnu/Linux user, I do support the PC ideology. People already know my thoughts on the Steve Jobs ways of doing things…I'm proud to say I'm a PC and i'm happy to distribute the stickers. So come up and ask me when you next see me. Steve do you think 10k of stickers is going to be enough?

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Windows Mobile 6.5 yawn….

Steve Ballmer talks about Windows Mobile 6.5 at the Mobile World Congress today. Pretty screenshots float around the web but honestly where the innovation and new features? Good thing this is a point release otherwise I'd be even more critical. I mean a cloud service for windows mobile phones? So what? I already backup and sync with both Plaxo and Google. A application store (because we never saw that coming) yes well ok nice, good there also keeping it open like the googlephone appstore. New version of Pocket Internet Explorer? Ummm Opera is well ahead of you guys and fenric (Firefox) is just days away from beta. New style lock screen and home screens? Why Microsoft haven't just bought the Point UI? I just don't know.

Don't get me wrong its all reasonable stuff from Microsoft. They have moved up a gear but there really not cooking on gas yet. Windows Mobile 7 better have some serious changes in it. Its frankly embarssing to move between the Touchflo interface and the standard Windows mobile interface. One minute your browsing around using your thumb next moment your using the edge of a finger nail because of the legacy windows mobile interface.

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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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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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Get your gLatitude here

I finally got Google Latitude working on my own HTC Kaiser and work's Touch Diamond. Only a couple of my friends are on it right now but its not bad. Its like Fire Eagle but with a pre-build example/application. I do wonder if you can actually get the geodata out like Fire Eagle? Because I might be not be so interested in the application, but I am interested in the where am I part.

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Good Advice for Switchers

Ubuntu install

Via Technometria, I would suggest that if you swap Mac for Ubuntu, you've got some very solid advice.

Todd Ogasawara has some good advice for Mac Switchers that might keep you from lamenting your move. I switched in 2002 but had never really been a Windows user (Sun mostly) and I knew Unix cold, so switching wasn't such a big deal for me. But if you've been a long time Windows user and think a Mac might be fun, read Todd's advice first. I love number two:

2. If you do go cold turkey, don't drag your wife, girlfriend, significant other, parents, child, best friend along for the ride until you begin get comfortable with Mac OS X yourself.

From A Brief Guide for Mac Switchers/Try-ers
Referenced Wed Jan 07 2009 07:32:21 GMT-0700 (MST)

Wait until they ask. That's the best way. And they will ask if they see you having fun on your new Mac.

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