Mozilla Labs Weave

 Mozilla Labs - Weave

Weave is a FireFox (Mozilla) add-on.  I installed and will test the sync capabilities.  The only issue for me is that I had to create Yet Another Account (including a pass phrase to encrypt my data/credentials).  At this point, I prefer to use an existing account and/or cloud services (think Microsoft, Google) for my sync services. 

I am hoping that cloud services will be the source of centralized authentication and services, but at least we are headed in the right direction.

Some of the key functionality enabled by the Weave add-on includes:

• Synchronization engine - securely transports your browsing experience across all your devices
• Cryptographic engine - provides default client side encryption for all your data
• Weave server - a secure storage location for all your encrypted data
• APIs - extension interfaces for 3rd party developers

The initial release provides synchronization of browser meta-data (bookmarks, stored passwords, history, tabs, preferences, add-ons, personas).  Future releases will support other types of data and functionality.

Technorati Tags: Mozilla,sync,Firefox,cloud

Droid Day 2

List of the Apps I added below.  I continue to be impressed with the integration of the Google Apps (GMail, Google Voice, and Maps.  I’m not so certain Navigation will put Garmin out of business, but it does a reasonable job.

The sluggish response issue I had on Day 1 may have been an anomaly.  I disabled automatic sync on the applications and disabled the GPS as well, but the battery life is probably going to be something I manage closely.  I would buy an extended life battery in a minute, and don’t care that the Droid would look like a humpback whale.

Droid Apps - update

• Action Complete – nice GTD app, but can’t sync with laptop or cloud.
• gDocs – Google Docs application – synch with Google Docs, supports folders, not sure how I will use, possibly to link to Tasks or shopping lists.
• gTasks – Google Tasks synch.  Works OK, but can’t synch with Outlook, so this is of limited utility to me.
• Maps – Google Maps, enabled Latitude.  Very interesting, but requires GPS to be enabled, so it drains battery.  Also some privacy issues, but very neat for the kids to keep up with us if we are out of town.
• MeeboIM – Meebo Droid client – it caused MSN to log out my laptop client because it’s not a ‘native’ Microsoft Messenger client.  Not a big deal.  I setup my MSN, Google accounts.  Supports AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, jabber, Mebo, MSN, MySpace (gak!), and Yahoo clients.
• Visual Voicemail – Verizon loads a default client, but will automatically upgrade, and for $2.99 a month, you can have your Verizon Wireless voicemail transcribed and available on your Droid.  I find it odd that I get this service for free from Vonage and Google Voice.  Hello, Verizon, anyone home?

Droid Manuals:
Droid User Guide – which I didn’t get in the unit I purchased on Friday!

Technorati Tags: Droid,apps,Google,manuals

Verizon Droid

I went to the Mount Laurel Verizon store at 6am this morning to buy a Droid.  Oddly enough, I was the only one in line over the age of, oh, 30?  Lots of customer service people and they even had a photographer and some marketing folks.  Bill was my customer service person, and he did a great job – he knew the Droid and even took some time to walk me through the interface and apps a bit, even demonstrating how to search the App Marketplace for a Twitter client.

I was the first person to complete my purchase, so they took a picture of Bill, me, and the Droid with the time displaying.

My first impression is very, very positive.  I will wring the hell out of it this weekend and post my comments. 

I bought a set of screen protectors, but the Droid fits in my Samsung i760 holster as well as my car holder.  I’m amused that the Droid manual has fewer pages (it’s actually a gatefold) than the Product Safety and Consumer Information brochures.  The only accessory is a 115V USB wall adapter and USB/mini-USB connector, but this fits into my existing car charger, so I’m ready to go.

Current Favorite Apps

• TwitDroid – twitter client
• Advanced Task Killer Free – task management utility
• Google Voice
• Car Home – GPS navigator
• Barcode Scanner – scan barcode and web lookup
  
  

Technorati Tags: Droid,Android,Google,mobile,communications

Apps Status Dashboard

After the Great Google Mail Outage of 9/1/2009, I looked into a Google Status page.  The link below is for the Google Apps Status Dashboard and it displays a current status (No Issues, Service disruption, Service outage, and information available) for each of the Google Apps (Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Talk , Google Docs List, Google Documents, Google Presentations, Google Sites, Google Video for business, Admin control panel).

Apps Status Dashboard

Technorati Tags: Google,Apps,status

SourceForge Community Choice Awards

http://sourceforge.net/community/cca09/vote/

SourceForge is a great source for high quality, high function applications for multiple platforms.  The Community Choice Awards is a good overview of the best applications available from SourceForge.

Applications I use on a regular basis include:

Notepad++ – Notepad replacement
FreeMind – Mind mapping tool
FreeNAS – turn your spare workstation into a NAS device
KeePass – Password management tool
OpenOffice – Microsoft office replacement (sort of…)
Audacity – Audio editing tool
ClamAntiVirus – free antivirus, low CPU utilization
Nagios – comprehensive, opensource network monitor tool

Technorati Tags: SourceForge,opensource,software

Nick Bradbury: FeedDemon to Sync with Google Reader?

What is RSS and why is it important?

RSS = Real Simple Syndication. It is an internet standard for publishing HTML based content that allows end users to receive summary information published to a site without making a browser connection to the site.

I have a list of 100+ sites that I visit for work, to receive news, and personal interests. Using an RSS aggregator, I can skim through all my feeds very quickly, flag the ones I’m interested in, and review them later. FeedDemon let’s me manage the flagged content and optionally synch it with a server for an annual subscription fee of $15.

Now, it looks like they will offer a synch capability with Google Reader. I think this is where Google has an edge on Microsoft. Microsoft tries to offer turn key solutions, but users like me are looking to pick and choose ‘best of breed’ solutions and integrate them into the cloud (Google, Microsoft, others).

Nick Bradbury: FeedDemon to Sync with Google Reader?

Sprint HTC Mogul – Hard Reset

While traveling, I had my HTC Mogul die.  The symptoms were ‘artifacts’ on the home screen (overlay), and the device was generally unresponsive.  I turned was able to turn the phone off and on, but it was stuck at the green Windows Mobile 6.1 initialization screen.  I had to remove the battery to shut down.  A soft reset made no difference, so I performed a hard reset.

This is disturbing when you are on the road, but at least the problem was resolved in less than 30 minutes.  No additional hardware or software was required, ActiveSync and Mobile applications data are retained on the laptop.  I have considered disaster recovery applications for Windows Mobile, but I do not think this is necessary.

Data lost after the reset was limited to Text messages.  I didn’t have any other data in local storage because I configured all other applications to store on the SD card.

Hard Reset – hold down both the soft keys (right and left with the dot at the bottom of the device) and press the reset button on the base of the device.

1. After the reset, you are prompted to be sure you want to reinitialize the device.  You must respond using the keyboard. 
2. System performs an auto-restore with Sprint customizations, some of which can not be uninstalled.
3. Next, the phone auto-restarts to initialize the auto-restore.
4. The phone can be used at this point, but I need to restore my contacts and applications, so I connect to my laptop running ActiveSync 4.5.
5. ActiveSync device with local laptop.  I configure my synch to maintain
   1. Contacts - ~900 contacts – everyone I know, business, personal, and family
   2. Calendar – three month history of appointments
   3. Tasks – typically 45-75 total
   4. Notes – 55 notes
   5. Favorites – 5
   6. Microsoft Office OneNote – light use, about 20K-30K
6. Reset Theme and interface.  I use Windows Default and simplify the interface so I don’t have to scroll the screen.  I also added my basic Owner Information.
7. Add/Remove Programs
   1. Developer One Agenda – install on device
   2. Evernote Mobile (3.0.0.981) – storage card
   3. OneNote Mobile – storage card
   4. Microsoft Voice Command PPC 1.60 – device
8. Device restarts after the Voice Command install to re-initialize the device.
9. Last, reset the Ring Tones to my personal choices

Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile,HTC,Sprint,Mogul,ActiveSync,disaster recover

Hardware and Software I use

Starting this as a sanity check, and to answer some questions people have asked in the past few months.  I’m burning time while we wait to take Sarah to the airport.

Software

Backup – Acronis True Image – great software for full backup and rapid restore to your desktop or laptop.  1GB/min backup speeds to external USB 2.0 drives.

Office 2007 – I live in Outlook 2007, and use Word 2007 daily for my work.  There is a learning curve from previous releases, but it’s worthwhile learning the Office Ribbon.

RSS Reader – FeedDemon.  Period.  It’s great, and I maintain a subscription Newsgator so I synch my RSS feeds across multiple systems (work laptop, home desktop, personal laptops) and I it is available via web as well.

Browser – IE7 and the current release of Firefox.  I live in browsers and use both, selecting the best for the task at hand.  Typically, Firefox for general use and IE7 for business/financial transactions.

Text Editors - Notepad++, TextPad, and VIM.  VIM is a personal choice because I have used vi under Unix for longer than I can remember, Notepad++ is a great open source, multi-platform editor, and TextPad is quite good and I use the workplace feature often.

PDF Creation - PDFCreator – another open source project, I use it to generate PDF files and it installs as a print driver on your system.  It supports all the basic Adobe Acrobat Pro features, but not encryption, watermarks, and other advanced features.

Process Lasso - Process Lasso runs at a higher priority, monitors and throttles processes to optimize the system responsiveness.  I have tested for a few days and it has been stable and measurably improved my system response.  I am using the free version, but may upgrade if I’m still using it in January.  Process Lasso helps system response on my laptop, particularly with the SMC.EXE process and when I’m doing labs with Virtual PC locally.

 

Hardware

Windows Mobile Phone – forget the iPhone, I have used a Windows Mobile phone for almost five years.  It synchs with Outlook, it works well as a phone, and supports

Zune – I don’t like iTunes software, I got a 30GB Zune for $99 a while ago (white versus poo brown), and it does a great job with podcasts, which is my primary use as well as music when I use a bicycle trainer indoors.

 

Technorati Tags: software,list,hardware

Writers Rooms, How We Work, and library catalogs

 

The links below are from the Guardian, a blog, and library.thing.com.  I found the original material on Metafilter.  The Guardian article is my favorite, and includes pictures and background information on famous writers offices.  I don't know if you would call them offices per se, but it's interesting because it is where they did the bulk of their work.  Some were shacks detached from their homes, others were rooms in the homes, some were separate offices.  Either way, they are interesting because most used pen and paper, or typewriters to write.

The How We Work are interesting as well.

One of the things I find interesting is how the professional writers (Hemingway, etc) approached writing like a job, they blocked out time on a regular (daily, weekly) basis, and approached it in a methodical fashion. The same is true of Kerouac, despite the impression people have that he wrote "On The Road" as a steady stream of unedited prose.

Writers Rooms
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/writersrooms

How We Work - quotes from artists, writers, and musicians (creative types)
http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/12/how_we_work.html

I See Dead People['s Books] - A group for those interested and involved in entering the library catalogs of famous readers.
http://www.librarything.com/groups/iseedeadpeoplesbooks

 

Technorati Tags: literature,creativity,office,process

Google Experimental Search

http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html

Keeping track of new features in Google is almost a part time job.  I stumbled onto the Alternate View for search results and thought I should post the Experimental Search page.

A comprehensive overview with examples was posted on Ars Technica

My first week at Unisys, I took an accelerated Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 course. Craig (the awesome Unified Communications Instructor) pointed out you can narrow searches to just Microsoft or Linux topics by appending 'microsoft' or 'linux' to google.com to get an alternate, filtered search view.

http://www.google.com/microsoft

http://www.google.com/linux

Technorati Tags: Google,beta,Microsoft,search

RSS Web 2.0 Suite for Individuals - NewsGator

RSS Web 2.0 Suite for Individuals - NewsGator

I paid for FeedDemon and I use the mobile client as well. It's a great product and I am lost without it, but the thing that is not pointed out in the press releases is that Newsgator has a great subscription model. You also have to consider the Newsgator applications (FeedDemon, etc) as part of a larger system.

You subscribe to Newsgator, this central subscription on the Newsgator server. Client software can then be installed on laptop, desktop, mobile clients and your view of the central subscription can be managed depending on your client needs. With your subscription, your client (mobile, web, and Feeddemon) will synch with the central server, so if you read a bunch of feeds at work, flagged some for follow-up or saved them to a Clippings folder, when you log in at home, they are already marked as read, or flagged into your Clippings folder.

For me, this is well worth the subscription, not only from a time savings, which is huge in my case, but because review of the Clippings let's me rapidly review lots of feeds and distill and manage the good stuff.

Feedstation is another application that is linked to Feeddemon. It can be configured to automatically download multimedia content of RSS feeds (typically, but not limited to audio podcasts) onto my primary workstation where I sync it with my Zune (I know your a Mac guy, but I *really* like the Zune with 2.3 rev firmware - I can synch podcasts wirelessly and have FM radio for working out on my bicycle trainer (Christmas gift to Dad) at home).

Technorati Tags: RSS,synchronization,tools

Uberman's sleep schedule

kuro5hin.org || Uberman's sleep schedule

I experimented with various biofeedback and sleep mods in college and the basis of this sleep schedule reinforces what I observed. Don't know if its practical with my lifestyle - married (and want to stay that way) with children and long (10-12 hour) work days.

I also realize that now that I am over 50, and as I increase my level of exercise, I need ~8 hours of sleep a night. This is over the 4-6 hours I averaged in my 30's and 40's. The only thing I really miss about being younger at this point is that I didn't need to wear glasses for reading and I can't run without pain in my knees.