90’s classic: Alice’s First Mobile Phone

by Zef Hemel

2:32 p.m.: “Hon, when you get home tonight could you pick up some tomatoes in the store? We ran out.”

2:35 p.m.: “Something went wrong. I heard a beep sound coming from the bedroom, like 2 seconds after I sent my message.”

2:40 p.m.: “I think I might have aimed my phone wrong. I was pointed it towards the bedroom, thought it wouldn’t matter. How silly of me.”

2:44 p.m.: “Hon, where do we keep the map? Want to see which direction I should point to send the message to your work.”

2:48 p.m.: “I keep hearing those beep sounds from the bedroom. Maybe the messages are bouncing the walls back to the bedroom.”

2:55 p.m.: “Hon, which street is you work at again? 22nd street or 24th street?”

3:02 p.m.: “Test”

3:07 p.m.: “No, still doesn’t work.”

3:15 p.m.: “I give up. Again a beep from the bedroom. Phone is broken. You should return it tomorrow.”

Compiling…

by Zef Hemel

I got some time for blogging again. Why? Because I’m doing some development of our WebDSL compiler again, or rather, debugging. And as compiling this thing takes like 2 minutes, I got more time to write. Great way of keeping posts short.


(source)

Ok, the two minutes have passed.

Attention Spans

by Zef Hemel

Since I started working full time, and don’t feel I have (or at least should spend) a lot of time reading the (116) blogs I’m subscribed to, I notice I started skipping long posts. Especially 1200 word almost philosophical essays, like are often posted on ReadWriteWeb.

During my bachelor in computer science we had to take communication classes. A typical result of companies complaining about computer science students being really smart, but not being able to communicate through other means than IRC and Jabber. Ironically, the class was taught by the most nerdy caveman of them all. Incidentally, without the contemporary west-coast American accent like in the not-so-hilarious Comedy Central sitcom Cavemen.

But I digress. One day, a guest speaker came to talk about writing for the web. She gave some rules. Most importantly: keep it short. “People do not like reading on computer screens, so keep it snappy and to the point. Make key words jump out, for instance by italicizing them or making them bold. Add illustrations that draw attention and are illustrative. And, if for some odd reason you need more space. Write a longer document and offer it as a PDF download.”

The initial weblogs were essentially link dumps. You’d link to some funny cat picture and write “funny cat!” Now that was snappy, that was to the point, that was consumable. Why did we ever move away from that?

Apple a bit Needy?

by Zef Hemel

Last Saturday we went to Saturn, a huge electronics store in Rotterdam, to buy Justyna an iPod. Incidentally, this is the kind of shopping that I like, much better than acting as a clothes hanger for three hours in a row.

She got an iPod nano 4GB with a “cute” pink leather “jacket”. Great. When we got home we set it up. It’s always fun to see how people who are not that much involved in IT that much see things and what they notice. Of course the setup went smooth, you can leave that to Apple. What disturbed her, however, was Apple’s pushing of (1) registering her iPod which included giving her name, address, phone number and work industry and after that (2) pushing her to get a iTunes Music Store account, which means more information plus yet another user name and password. Even though she will most probably never buy any song there. Or, as she put it, “I don’t want a stupid Apple ID!”

We decided to break off the registration procedure. But now, every time you plugin the device, it will ask to register and then, every time you plug in the device, you have to click “Later”. We’ll see how long she will be able to resist.

Macbook in the Air

by Zef Hemel

During yesterday’s keynote, Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs introduced the Macbook Air.

It’s an ultra-thin and light Macbook. It has a 13″ screen, 1.6 Ghz C2Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, full-size keyboard, multitouch touchpad, one Micro-DVI out and one USB 2.0 port. It’s an interesting product. But I wonder is where it fits in.

For use as a main computer it might be a tad limited. The processor is acceptable, as is the memory, but the hard drive might not be sufficient. Also I think one USB port is really not enough. I have two on my MacBook and I already have problems with that. Also, there’s no UTC network connector and no CD/DVD drive. There are ways around that (such as a USB CD player, or this new feature that is called remote CD or whatever), but still, as a main computer — I’m not convinced.

So, what would it be used for instead? As a travel mate maybe. It’s light, so you can bring it anywhere, to work, in the train, on the plane. Its battery life is acceptable (up to 5 hours, an hour less than my Macbook). But if it’s a laptop that you’re supposed to have just for travel, presentations, and generally, to carry around with you everywhere, then the price tag is a bit high (this baby costs $1799).

And if you want something to carry around with you, something you only use for presentations and while traveling, but not as your main work station, isn’t an Asus Eee much more interesting? For one it’s heck of a lot cheaper ($299), which also means it’s not as much of a disaster if you accidentally leave it in the train (not something that would happen to me of course *cough*). Sure it’s not as powerful (it has a 900Mhz processor, 512MB RAM, 4-8GB of HD space), and it’s much smaller (it has a 7″ display), but that’s the point. It’s a cheap device for on the go. It’s not trying to be a full-blown desktop. It’s pretty clear where Asus positioned it: as a cheap, ultra-portable device. Great for presentations, great for doing a bit (but admittedly — not a lot) of work on the go.

So I’m not all that thrilled with the Macbook Air.

DataPortability video

by Zef Hemel

It’s kind of cool:


DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo.

Europe a Country?

by Zef Hemel

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