Occasional Observations

Sometimes, it feels really good to remove software that's failed to meet
my expectations. I got as much of a buzz today from ditching the
hugely-nosey but extremely limited-capability Avant Go as I got, years
back, as I did when I finally managed to remove Norton's bloated
anti-virus in favor of a smarter, more dynamic AV solution.

It was never destined to be a long term thing with Avant Go. As
previously noted, I was concerned by the amount of
personally-identifiable info it collected when I signed up, and of
course as I used the service. The ads were too intrusive and it wasn't
possible to make them go away. And since Avant Go has gone solo and
abandoned ActiveSync, for "quality of service" reasons, I kept
forgetting. But most of all, I was sick of click-thru' errors. I'd
browse the headlines and find an interesting-looking story - then get
directed to a totally different page. Try as I might to find the page I
wanted, it invariably wasn't there. Marks out of 10? Zero.

I'm always surprised that the Woolworths in the city center here is so busy. Popped in for a chocolate bar and spent 10 minutes queueing for the checkout - all tills ringing at top speed. Obviously there's a demand for the "CPS" they seem to focus on.

Although the IE browser built into Windows Mobile 5 is nice and corporate, it isn't exactly innovative or even feature-rich in terms of mobile browsing - so it hasn't taken me long to yearn for an alternative. Opera appears to have an offering, but I just don't like their full-size version. However, the new Minimo from the Mozilla Foundation looks promising. I like the layout and the pre-sets - also it uses tabbed browsing - which IE mobile just cannot do. So far, so good.

PS the iPod is still working.

Strange: the iPod is working again. I reconnected the hard drive, ran
through the gamut of iPod tests (on the 4G model, hold down the center
and left buttons after a hard reset) ... and even the HD passed. The
battery's full, I've been changing songs at random to make the drive
spin, and it's working faultlessly (so far).

Multiple component failure indeed. I want my ?35 back, and will lodge a
complaint accordingly.

Now the stricken iPod is back, I've been Googling around and run some tests to try and identify what's wrong. It looks and sounds as if the hard drive is dodgy although I really can't find anything else wrong, even having worked through the diagnostics. See my iPod bookmarks in del.icio.us for a bunch of useful sites on iPod diagnosis, of course I should have consulted these before turning mine in for a shoddy ?35 "diagnosis": makes me wonder if any out-of-warranty iPod is simply labelled as a failure and returned.

If the hard drive is up the creek then the good news is that I'll get a 30GB replacement. It's vital to check the dimensions of any replacement drive - the 20GB 4G iPod has a 5mm thick drive, while the 40GB model (and the current 60GB 5G iPod) have an 8mm thick drive - so these won't fit. But the 30GB 5G drive will. It's a Toshiba MK3008GAL drive, for reference.

This look that says "not if but when will you buy me a pony, Daddy?"
Hard to resist, isn't it...

Dodgeball.com puzzles me. The idea: send a text message announcing your arrival at a given location. This is broadcast to your friends' cellphones, via the site - and checkable online. But why? Surely going to a new place means you might actually interact with the others in your vicinity? If they're not cool/hip/interesting/attractive/young/old/weird enough then why go there?

Is Dodgeball for people who are scared of being alone, for boasting ("I'm at billg's for dinner") or, worse still, frightened of being Off The Grid?

At least someone in the US has found a use for SMS messaging. GPS/3G-equipped PDAs can also use SMS for IM - which sounds like it could be expensive.

/Old duffer

... The Customer is King! Worth remembering even when they are horribly wrong, or they make you do things you would not normally do.

Here's an email exchange between me and a service provider - whom I'm enabling to sell their services to my customer:

"The email entitled 'Angebot' IS an offer actually, technically, legally, and every other way. It even included a signature block. In 16 years of doing business this is the first such hoop we've had to jump through. If your customer is not satisfied with our offer would you please have them call or write me directly."

My response: "Can you please stop being a prima donna. I'm acting as my customer's agent. Customer is King, right? Just cut and paste your email on to letterhead and send me the PDF - please. I'm pretty sure you are going to get a bit of commission from this, and think of the future business from me as well."

PDF arrived 10 minutes later. The consequences: Contract signed. Money made. Lesson learned?

Took a lunchtime wander around the Theresienwiese and grabbed some pictures of the Oktoberfest 2006 at t-minus 5 and a half weeks. More photos on Flickr.

The author Terry Pratchett dominated my weekend for two reasons. I'm way behind in reading all the Discworld novels, and try to space them out for maximum enjoyment. Going Postal arrived on Saturday and it's one of the best ... which is some praise considering there are 20-plus books in the series now.

I also received the 4GB CF card and it's chock full o' music already (I'll post the playlist soon). The arrival of Going Postal inspired me to check for Windows Mobile players supporting the Ogg Vorbis file format. Two I like: the GSPlayer and the Core Pocket Media Player, which also does video, although it is lacking a media library.

Bye bye Windows Media Player Mobile. If you can't play my OGG files I can't use you.

Those clever chaps over at Orb have an interesting thing going - download an applet to an always-on computer which then streams content over the internet, on demand.

So all I need is a user:pass and it's Napster all over again.

After a morning spent writing an article about multiple-core dual-socket server blades, my own processor is heading for meltdown. Words that have adopted a certain meaning are suddenly wrong.

For example, I was referring to a CPU as a processor, when it's actually a die. Trying to explain that this "processor" has two cores, when these are generally known as processors, is when it gets complicated (I plumped for the description of two hearts beating as one). Then add an extra level of complexity by explaining that it's possible to put two dual-core, dual socket blades together to make a quad and two of these quads can be bundled into an octo - which actually has 16 "processors".

I'm getting there.

The pocket PC has lost the first battle of the PR war to the iPod. It's VHS Vs BetaMax all over again. Doh. I've changed sides. While listening to music on the journey home tonight, I'll also be browsing through selected web pages downloaded during the day. My 'pod couldn't do that... AvantGo has some software which makes it easier, although they wanted a whole lot of information from me, and there are a lot of advertising "channels" and embedded ads. Let's see how long my patience lasts...

It seems that BMW 1 Series drivers have taken the crown from Audi A3 drivers as the most aggressive on the autobahn. Invariably they're the ones driving just a bit too close, and usually getting towards the ragged edge of the performance envelope. Are they first time tony brand owners with something to prove?

So far, so good. I'm using the latest version of ActiveSync, 4.2, and
have already discovered the "issues" it has with Sygate's firewall.
Having worked around that (it's not good form to discuss security
work-arounds, right?), it's time to sync with the Exchange server.

So far no joy despite the PDA enjoying web connectivity via the
corporate network while cradled. Since it's already on the corpnet I
didn't use the VPN. So far my attempts to enjoy a conversation with the
Exchange server have been fruitless. Now I know Exchange is a
complicated beast, so let's see what our tech support can make of it.

The PDA arrived this afternoon, and tradition was of course preserved, with David Bowie's 1977 album Low being the first music played on the device. It's important to test the sonic abilities and Low has long been my reference CD.

So far so good - the W-LAN capabilities are impressive, and the first Skype call completed successfully. ActiveSync is struggling with my work Exchange server but otherwise working well ... PDAs have moved on a long, long way since my last model of five years ago.

The 1GB card got filled up way too fast but then I have Low encoded at 320kbps ... time to start pricing up the 4GB SD and CF cards.