moebius recursive

Last night I (manually) downloaded iTunes 7.2 aka iTunes Plus as it was not showing up in Software Update. Not much to see, other than the ‘new’ DRM-free music being on offer.

What I did notice was that 90% of the music that I searched for came back as ‘not found’ in the store — including stuff that I had purchased from iTunes in the past. Granted, the majority of the music was not mainstream/pop, but, still, it appears to expose a huge gap in iTunes offerings. Perhaps it was just a search engine malfunction. Time will tell.

Technorati Tags:
apple, itunes, itunesplus, music

apple

Google’s Erik Schmidt has recently made some comments that have recently gotten a load of tongues wagging, but really is anyone surprised?

I have often thought that development within Google has been aimed precisely at gathering as much info about individuals as possible. I would imagine that the evolution was something like this:

Hey, we have all of these people that we are showing advertisements to, wouldn’t it be cool if we could individually identify them. Setting a cookie won’t work, because that can turn off cookies or use different systems. Let’s get them to login by requiring a login to enable certain parts of search. Check. Now we can associate everything that they search for with an identity.

Let’s not stop there, because we really want to know more private/confidential information that they have. That Writely thing looks pretty interesting, let’s buy that and Google brand it along with a spreadsheet. Now we can scan, parse and mine their resumes, budgets and whatever other highly personal stuff they are willing (or stupid enough) to put in our online offerings.

As so it goes with the youtube and feedburner acquisitions (what do they like to watch?, what feeds do they read). It would not surprise me if at some point in the future that they acquire Joost to get even more targeted information on viewing habits as well as another easy avenue for advertising.

It sort of reminds me of the short essay Brian Eno wrote in A Year With Swollen Appendixes that was a sort of futuristic look at the lengths that advertisers would go to try to personalize their message. The tactics used, included customizing radio broadcasts, news reports and even people to try to entice a buy or garner attention for a message.

Technorati Tags:
google, data, privacy, advertising

ideas

Interesting visualization of national flags by color. It is somewhat remarkable the consistency in choice of colors across the various cultures and aesthetics.

Technorati Tags:
flags, color, visualization, ideas

fun

Anyone looking for a Joost invite? Send me an email or leave a comment and I will send you one while supplies last.

Technorati Tags:
joost, invites, webtools

webtools

A scientific paper to be published finds that the height of a ceiling can affect how a person thinks a feels.

“When a person is in a space with a 10-foot ceiling, they will tend to think more freely, more abstractly,” said Meyers-Levy. “They might process more abstract connections between objects in a room, whereas a person in a room with an 8-foot ceiling will be more likely to focus on specifics.”

The research demonstrates that variations in ceiling height can evoke concepts that, in turn, affect how consumers process information. The authors theorized that when reasonably salient, a higher versus a lower ceiling can stimulate the concepts of freedom versus confinement, respectively. This causes people to engage in either more free-form, abstract thinking or more detail-specific thought. Thus, depending on what the task at hand requires, the consequences of the ceiling could be positive or negative.

So does this mean that you do your best thinking at the mall or in airports which tends to have sweeping open spaces and not while sitting on the toilet as has been the prevailing thought for some [think of the number of times you have seen Rodin's The Thinker humorously hunkered down on the head]?

Technorati Tags:
ideas, cognition, architecture

misc

Project Joey is a concept that is being explored in the Mozilla labs. It acknowledges that there is just too much stuff in most web pages for a mobile device browser to deal with. So Joey allows you to select and essentially cut and paste data of interest to your mobile device. I think this is fantastic and represents sort of the missing link for tools like Google Notebook and Soho Notes. The value of the tool dramatically increases if the information that I have cribbed away is available both on the web and via my mobile.

Project Joey brings the Web content you need most to your mobile phone by allowing you to easily send it to your device. You can quickly mark content that is important to you and have that content always available while using your mobile phone.

The premise is this: you can use Firefox to send text clippings, pictures, videos, RSS content, and Live Bookmarks to your phone through the Joey Server. The Joey Server transcodes and keeps all of the content up-to-date. You can then use your phone’s browser or the Joey application on your phone to view and manage what you have uploaded.

You can even take an early cut of Joey out for a spin.

Technorati Tags:
webtools, mozilla, firefox, mobile, projectjoey

webtools

Another fine waste of time. Flickrvision shows recently posted photos on Google Maps. Strangely compelling to watch.

Technorati Tags:
webtools, flickr, googlemaps, mashup, photography

photography, webtools

Jacob Nielsen’s recent article on the BBC carried the title Web 2.0 ‘neglecting good design’. I would agree that those sites that implement AJAXy eye candy are not doing their users a service, but I also believe that used well, ‘web 2.0′ elements can add to the user experience. Flash-based sites, however remain in the absolute toilet of web offerings and should be avoided at all cost.

I also take Mr Nielsen’s views with a grain of salt as he seems to have this near luddite view of the web being a text-only medium (though I note that he is actually including a link to a video on his site now). All other interaction and decoration seemingly spurious in his thought. I, however, think there is an intelligent application of any of the new features. After all, it’s about usability, not one man’s aesthetic.

Technorati Tags:
webdev, usability, design, web20

misc, webdev

With my aging Nokia 6620 beginning to give signs of giving up the ghost, I began looking for a replacement mobile phone. I was hoping that Cingular would finally get around to releasing the N73 but that was not to be. Cingular briefly teased the market with the on again off again release of the N75. A week later, they put the N75 back on their site, so I dove in and purchased one.

I didn’t spring for express service because deliveries usually show up within 2-3 days anyway. I didn’t realize that they were going to use a FedEx shipping method that would wind up sending the phone to within 40 miles of my home address, then 100 miles away so that it could then be put on a truck an delivered. Enough about shipping logistics, you probably want to hear about the phone.

First blush: the N75 is a very impressive phone, probably the best mobile I have owned. I typically don’t care for clamshell phones, but this one is very solid with a very usable display on the outer cover in addition to a gorgeous bright, clear main display inside the phone. The keypad layout is a bit different from the 6620, the biggest differences being in the tight layout of the utility keys and the addition of a music key to the right of the four-way keypad. The close proximity of the utility keys has caused me to accidentally press the Music key more than a few times. I also find it a bit awkward to highlight text for copy and paste due to the proximity of the ‘pencil’ key and the directional arrows.

Before talking about applications on the N75 it is worth noting that the phone ships with no external memory, only the built in RAM, of which around 40MB is available to the user. While Cingular and Nokia are more than happy to sell you a 2GB microSD card for nearly $200USD, you can get a SanDisk 2GB microSD for around $25USD from Amazon. I have the SanDisk 2GB and it works just fine with the N75.

There have been a few challenges in migrating some of my Symbian-based apps to the N75. My SlovoEd Spanish-English dictionary would not install until I upgraded to the S60 v3 version of the application. The problem is that the dictionary apparently takes a differently formatted license key than the one I have. As of yet, the vendor has not provided a resolution to the license issue. Profimail is the app that I depend on to keep up with my various POP and IMAP accounts while on the go. Profimail was a simple upgrade, but I ran into a hitch with the license key as well. A posting on their support forum yielded a response that an email to customer support should have an updated license key on the way. I use Papyrus as a more functional tool for keeping track of appointments on my mobile. The Papyrus install was straightforward after I worked out that the correct version to install was the ’9.1′ version of the software and not the ’6.1′ version — no license key issues with Papyrus. Apparently Nokia refers to the 9.1 version of the Symbian OS as ‘S60 v3′. Handy Weather upgraded and registered with no issues. Handy Weather lives up to its name, especially when I am traveling abroad and need to get an idea of the weather. I huge proponent of Java, I am happy to mention that the three Java-based apps that I use most frequently Google Maps, Google Mail and Opera Mini downloaded and installed with no issues at all. Sadly, my daughter’s favorite game Frozen Bubble, will not install on the N75. It was such a fun and simple game. I have yet to find another free (or otherwise) replacement for it.

Update 19 May 2007: Both Profimail and Papyrus have resolved their license key issues via email. Epocware, however, wants me to re-purchase the software minus a ‘loyalty discount’ — not very enlightened customer service.

Phone reception on the N75 I would rate as better than the 6620 as I tend to get more bars and better sounding audio with the N75 in the same places that the 6620 would struggle. The ringer is quite loud, owing to the two external ‘stereo’ speakers on the phone. I have not had an opportunity to tryout the speakerphone quality.

The N75′s camera has been something of a mixed bag. I was looking forward to having a decent (2 MegaPixel) camera on the phone, but it seems a bit quirky. One annoying behavior is that when you click the button to take a photo it presents you with a still frame of the image you think you are capturing. However, the actual image isn’t taken until a second or two later. For me, this has resulted in several pictures of blurs because the actual photo takes as I am bringing the camera back to have a look at the image. I guess it just takes a bit of patience and getting used to.

The Nokia N-Series site advertises that the phone can upload photos directly to Flickr [can't link because of annoying flash-only site]. Great, I thought, I have been a Flickr participant for a few years now. However, it appears that Cingular has chosen to disable this feature out of the box on the N75 (shock!). A quick troll through the NSeries forum on Flickr reveals that you can download the configuration file to your N75 via Bluetooth that will re-enable this feature.

Another initial frustration that was soon alleviated was that neither Apple nor Nokia provides an iSync profile for the N75 to work with OS X. It only took a few days for one to surface — the only unfortunate thing is that it is hosted on the hateful file sharing site rapidshare [no link]. I have considered hosting it on my site, but have not had time to work out the logistics.

This is as far as I have gotten with the N75 with very little time to explore it’s options. Hopefully, I will have more time to explore (photos, video, mp3 player, included apps, and more) and report in the coming days and weeks.

Technorati Tags:
nokia, cingular, n75, mobile, review

gadgets

This article on the WSJ Online about having a good google search value for your name gave me a chuckle. Since I de-cloaked about two years ago, I am (not surprisingly) the number one search result for my name. By de-cloak, I mean that previously I was very conscious about not leaving many personally identifiable signs on the internet over the previous 10+ years or so that I had been using it. Note that that includes, usenet, gopher, telnet, command line ftp and all of that pre-browser stuff. After many complaints from people trying to (legitimately) find me (or find out about me) I created the mobrec.com domain and linked in most all of my online stuff.

Back to the WSJ article — So unless there are a huge number of new Campoamor’s online (or those wishing to pretend that they are), I think that I am safe in having ‘a name that Googles well’, as will my daughter.

Technorati Tags:
google, search, names, mobrec.com

misc, webtools

There is a pretty slick feature in Google Spreadsheets that allows you to lookup and embed data into your spreadsheets using the GoogleLookup function call [from google Docs blog]:

One is GoogleLookup, which attempts to answer your questions by using information from the web. You can use it for all kinds of party tricks, like looking up the population of New York City [=GoogleLookup("New York City", "population")] or when Google was founded [=googlelookup("google", "founded")]. Try it to see what other things you can look up. I’ll warn you in advance, it’s a bit addicting. If you mouse over the cell, you’ll see links to the source pages where we found the data, so you can always check out the primary sources. And don’t forget you can copy/paste (ctrl-c / ctrl-v) the formula to other cells to easily have a bunch of GoogleLookups in a sheet. Don’t expect to change the world with this function, but have fun with it.

While GoogleLookup covers a little bit of everything, its sibling GoogleFinance focuses just on financial data from Google Finance. Using a similar syntax, you can look up the price of Google stock [=GoogleFinance("GOOG")] or the 52-week high of Apple [=GoogleFinance("AAPL", "HIGH52")]. And since stock prices tend to change more often than, say, the capital of California does, we update them in your spreadsheet automatically. So if you leave your portfolio spreadsheet open, you should see numbers get updated as you would on Google Finance itself. Of course, we also have the same 20-minute delay on financial data.

This is certainly above and beyond any feature or integration that you get with the expensive, commercial spreadsheet application available from your nearest monopoly.

Technorati Tags:
webtools, google, googledocs, googlelookup

webtools

Apparently one of the JavaOne announcements this week is that Java EE 5 development is now officially supported by Sun. Get your Mac-ready download here.

Technorati Tags:
sun, javaee, osx, apple, java

java, misc

Spain’s Solar Power generation tower is an amazing piece of engineering that can generate 11 Megawatts of power without emitting any greenhouse gas. Apparently it is quite a thing to see as well.

Technorati Tags:
spain, solarpower, alternateenergy

technology

This came up in the Olympus E-Systems Community on Flickr in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek discussion on “How to Dramatically Improve Your Photography With Ease”. It is so spot on that I had to repost it here:

I’ve done the Flickr circle of life myself (like I think you’ve done), the 12 step process so to speak…

1. join Flickr
2. take pictures & post
3. hope to get feedback
4. get feed back
5. give feedback
6. make Explore for the first time
7. join some “theme groups”
8. strive to get on Explore so more
9. become disillusioned with all the steps above
10. become jaded
11. stop giving a sh!7 what others say.
12. start taking photos for *you*

I have seen a number of people who seemed to really enjoy photography then jump on the Flickr treadmill and become absolutely obsessed. It’s as if photography becomes hard work and they think that the only ‘good’ photos are staged black and white shots with lots of photoshopped blurs and streaks in them. Basically, rather than doing something creative they wind up copying what is supposed to be ‘fine art photography’ which personally I find to be stilted, self-referential, overly nostalgic and ultimately monotonous.

Granted, my photos aren’t going to win any awards any time soon, but then again, I am at step 12. I enjoy photography, it hasn’t become my new identity.

Technorati Tags:
flickr, photography, ideas

photography

It was recently reported that Google cedes Chilean village to Argentina where a mis-drawn country border is the culprit. One of many such mishaps in my experience.

Closer to home, my wife was trying to get directions to a roller rink were one of my daughter’s friends was having a birthday party. When the in-vehicle navigation system failed to find the destination, she called me on her mobile. I plugged the info into Google Maps, only for Google to display three different destinations all with the exact same address. None of which, by the way, was the actual venue. Curiously, if you searched on the actual address that it returned, a more forthright response of “We were not able to locate the address” was given.

Granted, there has been some growth in that area and Google might not have caught up with the change. It would also be nice if they had a link on the page that would let you indicate that the directions are bogus and even offer a correction. While I could see that such a feature could be abused (a competitor could modify an address to point to it rather than the actual business) it would certainly go a long way toward fixing misdirected directions.

Newness doesn’t explain all of the anomalies. The in-vehicle navigation system claims that there is no such place as the Cincinnati Zoo (established in 1875 and the second oldest zoo in the country) but thoughtfully directs us to ‘the nearest zoo’ in circileville, west virginia. Google gets the location of the Cincy Zoo horribly wrong as well — ‘A’ is actually the entry gate to the zoo (though curiously listed as “Cincinnati Zoo Academy High School”) and “C” is clearly no where near the actual zoo location. Room for improvement, indeed.

Technorati Tags:
google, maps, gps, navigation, suckage, cincinnati

misc