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September 25, 2004
Find your iPod to find your keys
Speaking of innovations, here is another one. You're gonna love this. It's something that makes your iPod even more useful. Griffin Technology came out with a plugin flashlight for your iPod. Yes, you can find your keys with it now. Isn't that amazing? Now you never have to look for your keys again. You just have to look for your iPod, and then look for that little white thingy that plugs into it, and voila, you have a flashlight and now you can look up your keys. That's a really useful $400 flashlight.
Am I the only one who finds that amusing, or do we all want to go out in clustered groups now, joining the hordes who came late to the iPod shopping party and arm ourselves with a brand new Griffin iPod flashlight? We can test it then and find out if it actually is as useful as promised.
But you know, I shouldn't be that harsh. Cause it's really hard. I mean, what do you do if you're third party developer for an uber-fetish. How can you top functionality of something that does, well, play music everywhere you go? Because Apple doesn't want to come up with a real PDA, you can already put text and your calendar dates on your iPod. So you can look up which date you missed cause you couldn't find your keys.
At least it sounds a lot cooler to say "I didn't hear your call cause I was listening to my iPod", even though that won't bring her back to you.
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
Skip or Skype
Every now and then, in between inventions like wars for presidency and frappucino light, somebody comes up with an idea that actually will change things. Just most people wouldn't think it would. In most cases it's not even a real invention. Often it's just recognizing something, seeing the time has come and we are ready for it.
Talking over the internet is such a thing. The idea is by far not new. Up to date, there must have been a good dozen voice over internet programs out there, all following their own protocols, all more or less flaky, crashing, disconnecting, worse than cells, but yet attempting to convince people to actually buy and use them. Sound is almost always choppy, most basic functions simply don't work. So how come one might be successful over another, if they're all of the same bad quality? Like with all brilliant solutions, the answer is simple. Even better, it is simplicity itself.
It's Skype, and it's for free. Plus, it works.
Skype sells itself with the line "Internet telephony that just works". That's not really an original line, except for the fact, it's actually true. I have been trying Skype for several times now, calling people online and -- here is the thing that makes the biggest difference -- also calling people in real life. Yes, that is land lines, cell phones, you know, the real world. Forget AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, iChat, Jabber and what else. You may have been fooled for some time, but come on, that was never really chatting! That was typing, dammit. And for every little 'oh!' and 'ah!', for every moan and smile, every blink of our eyes and the grumble in our bellies we had to come up with new incarnations of these ubiquitous smileys. They were never meant to go beyond the tee, you know. All of a sudden, you could find them in email, for christs sake, and an asterisk after an 's' meant something more than just a snake that spits, or something.
Yeah, I'm pushing it a little. I must admit I have been chatting too, or attempted it at least, but it didn't really work for me. Except if I really wanted to talk to someone and I just couldn't do it over the phone. Then it worked, as a beta version of real talking. It worked, but oh how clumsy.
So thank god, someone found out what people have been missing. Someone smart counted one and one together and came up with that little program called Skype. It rhymes with 'hype' -- almost scary how good they are in marketing, isn't it, and then the app even actually works! What an achievement. Hey, Microsofts and Apples across the planet, if you're listening, they did it, and they didn't ask you guys first. They just did what they thought was right, and it turns out more and more people don't think about who did it, if it just works.
Skype is available for all major platforms, it's a free download, and it's connecting to the real world. That's the summary formula of its success. Can you read that, Apple and big Micro, or do I have to repeat myself?
So how good is Skype, you're asking? Well, it works. It's like the first phone. It worked. It didn't look elegantly; it didn't work smoothly, sound was low, far and thin. It was not really amazing as an experience. But hey, the simple fact it worked at all, wasn't that something? That was at least the breakthrough of the century of that time. With Skype, well, I wouldn't go that far. But as long as it works, who cares if it's the breakthrough of the century. What matters is, people will start using it. And the last time that happened, we ended up with something we couldn't live anymore without these days. If you haven't guessed it, it's what you're looking at.
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 02:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 18, 2004
Freedom of expression
k10 is a website hub for designers around the world. It's well known in the scene, but I personally found I rarely get 'real information' out of it. However, right atop there is an announcement about copyright issues.
It is an interactive presentation made with Flash, with copyright issues as a subject. Wether this is just a personal display of frustration, or creative expression about the limiting elements in current copyright law—I just found it funny and interesting.
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 03:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2004
Click your President
Recently I found this banner on a website. I forgot the URL. I was paralyzed. I am sure it was meant as a joke. If it wasn't such a tragedy, I could laugh.
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 01:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 12, 2004
Funny or frightening
Networld Fusion writes in an article:
Mobile devices and the terrorism-alert culture
Reminds me of my own story at the airport. "Why would you bring all your devices here?" the officer asked me. She added something like she would not believe me that this was just my regular stuff, when I explained it was my hard disk, for the massive storage of pictures I made with my camera...
These are paranoic times. I wouldn't be surprised if I get strip searched next time I come to the U.S., independently of the visa I carry.
The Washington Post writes:
Cheney: Kerry Victory Is Risky
COLUMBIA, Mo., Sept. 7 -- Vice President Cheney warned on Tuesday that if John F. Kerry is elected, "the danger is that we'll get hit again" by terrorists...
Isn't that unbelievable!? Such an obviously twisted way to keep people in fear. With such a stupid lie. If we are going to be hit again, it's because we have failed to fight terrorism, and the likability is equaly high, independently of the current president of the U.S. How can an educated man use so stupid arguments, revealing blatantly his insatiable hunger for power?
If they succeed, people could likeley forget that it was in *this* presidents time when the only terrorist attack of this size and impact hit the U.S. in the first place.
The Onion Prophecies On the eve of Bush's inauguration, The Onion -- a satirical paper -- published a piece titled, "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Over.'" In the story, the Onion made light of a worst-case scenario for the Bush presidency, with Bush making promises like "selling off the national parks," "going into massive debt," "bring[ing] back economic stagnation," and "assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years." The Onion was just trying to be funny. Instead, it was prophetic.
Is this funny or frightening?
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 03:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2004
Burn The Village
Roger Ebert on The Village:
"M. Night Shyamalan, the writer-director, has been successful in evoking horror from minimalist stories, as in 'Signs,' which if you think about it rationally is absurd – but you get too involved to think rationally. He is a director of considerable skill who evokes stories out of moods, but this time, alas, he took the day off."
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 05:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How Microsoft does it
Microsoft Wins 'Tabbed Browsing' Patent
This is a perfect example of Microsofts policy: Step 1, let the Open Source community find and develop a technology solution. Step 2, take it and file a patent, permitting its innovators from using it.
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 05:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2004
Blog on
The blog story continues. Different domain, same guy. It's on. My first blog based on Movabletype. People who have been reading me should know I was using Greymatter with spill, my old blog. It can't be really called an old blog, because its short time of existence doesn't call for such a definition.
Installing Movabletype on corebasis.com was a nightmare. It's not Movabletpye's fault, not Six Aparts fault, it's got to do with our server configurations, and above all, mostly with the fact that I don't know shit about Unix. In the end it worked out though, and it's always a rush of endorphines in your system when you get something running. It feels like having fixed an old cars engine, or something like that. It was not supposed to run, after frustrating hours and hours you spent on it, and finally it just did run.
Posted by Henning von Vogelsang at 09:12 AM