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Whoosh! There goes 2010.. Bring on 2011 I'm ready for you!!!

Submitted by garan on Sun, 01/02/2011 - 11:54

My blog is still here! With the upturn in Facebook and Twitter over the last 12 months I've not posted much as I guess l've become a bit of a FB'aholic and am fascinated by it from a professional point of view. The introduction of AJAX powered chat in a browser has seen a lot of my friends contacting me via FB chat and the private message system provides more personal messages than I get through email. From a cynical standpoint, FB is potentially very sinister as they've got too big but the same could have been said about Google a few years ago but their star has waned slightly. Twitter was also meant to take over the World but within my group of friends it's been eclipsed by FB too. It's going to be interesting to see what comes next and in the meantime I'm very interested in L7 firewall appliances... Getting geeky now so I'll move on!

2010 brought us the iPad.. No surprise that I have one and I'm sat in Starbucks typing this on it. I'm trying hard to justify having an iPad. It's a gorgeous piece of kit but I think I could have happily managed without it, using a combination of my smart phone and my laptop. I don't need a middle device. The iPad is useful in the office on my own 3G connection though. Sometimes there's something I'd like to do on my own kit and my own net connection but feel once again that it's overkill.

I mentioned smart phones. This year I've been rocking an iPhone 3GS as my main phone and have had a few different work phones. A Vodafone 360 handset was the least useful during an eat my own dogfood phase. No surprises that Vodafone have stopped developing their own handsets. I had a HTC Desire - that was a highlight. The functionality and feature set is much richer than the iPhone but it doesn't have the same polished user experience as the iPhone. I did like the portable wifi hotspot feature though; something I'd consider jail breaking my iPhone for.. My latest work phone is an iPhone 4. Nice upgrade to the 3GS. Finally a camera flash! The battery life is better and the screen is good but it's not worth paying for an upgrade. I'm eligible for an upgrade at the moment but that would reset the timer on my 24 month contract. No thanks! The future is SIM free, maybe Google Nexus S shaped and powered by giffgaff.

2010 saw me finally get rid of the Beemer. I'm running around in a Golf and whilst it's nice with a hefty punch and gokart handing I miss the comfort of the old girl, especially on long motorway runs. I also miss getting the back end out around roundabouts plus VW traction control doesn't understand that I want lift off oversteer!

I've still got the R3. Thinking about an upgrade but will have to see how finances are looking when Spring approaches. I know what I'd like but it depends what sort of part-ex I can get for the yellow beast.

So 2011... What will it bring? I dunno! But I do know that I'm in charge and I'm going to make it a good one! Please join me for the ride!!

Check out the Android!

Submitted by garan on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 09:35

Google have taken another step towards total world domination through the introduction of their new mobile phone OS. With the recent spate of Apple's lack of consistency with regard to what is and what isn't allowed on the App Store swiftly followed by extension of the developer non-disclosure agreement to stop folk publishing their rejection letters, maybe Android is the way to go?

Whilst I mull this over I think I'll have a play with the HTC Android emulator:

http://tmobile.modeaondemand.com/htc/g1/

App Store Rejections:

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/13/apples-app-store-rejection-policies-...

App Store Rejection Letter NDA:

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/23/apple-extends-non-disclosure-to-app-...

Google Reader

Submitted by garan on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 21:54

I've been using Google's RSS Reader recently to organise some of the stuff that I regularly look at on the wubbleyou wubbleyou wubbleyou. I'm using Google Reader to manage my subscriptions but exporting the OPML file so that I can use the Newsstand iPhone app to read when I've got a few minutes to spare. It seems to be working well.

I've exported some of my 'blogrolls' over there on the right. I can change what appears on this site by simply changing the tags on the Google Reader app.

I've exported the blogrolls with no title and no formatting so that I can control the look and feel myself by creating drupal blocks for each of the rolls. The only thing that I'm not able to control is the order. It's alphabetical.

Flash Earth

Submitted by garan on Sun, 12/23/2007 - 12:36

Most people have been amazed by Google Earth, the web version at http://maps.google.co.uk/ and Microsoft's http://local.live.com/ but they all have different data sources.

I came across Flash Earth today that allows you to try different sources from the same browser window.

Have a look at the following link which is the centre of Hook. The warehouse on the left became housing about 18 months ago which you can see if you select one of the Microsoft options.

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=51.282507&lon=-0.962509&z=18.2&r=0&src=ggl

There's also quite a few new conservatories..

Beetle Bags on Google

Submitted by garan on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 15:14

Just did a search on Google for Beetle Bags. This site comes up on the first page! W00t!

The ultimate mobile computer?

Submitted by garan on Thu, 10/19/2006 - 09:00

Remember when laptops were the size of suitcases with mono screens and 5¼ inch disks? Over the last twenty five years mobile computers have got smaller and smaller, culminating in the UMPC devices that Microsoft are certain that we all need.

Sun and Google are going the other way.. Have a look at the latest Sun concept server:

An example on their website says that the box could have the following spec:

  • A single Project Blackbox could accommodate 250 Sun Fire T1000 servers with the CoolThreads technology with 2000 cores and 8000 simultaneous threads.
  • A single Project Blackbox could accommodate 250 x64-based servers with 1000 cores.
  • A single Project Blackbox could provide as much as 1.5 petabytes of disk storage or 2 petabytes of energy-efficient tape storage.
  • A single Project Blackbox could provide 7 terabytes of memory.
  • A single Project Blackbox could handle up to 10,000 simultaneous desktop users.
  • A single Project Blackbox currently has sufficient power and cooling to support 200 kilowatts of rackmounted equipment.

If Sun starts to produce this then you would be able to give them a call and get a top 200 computer delivered by noon the following day. All you have to supply is some fibre into your network, power and water for the cooling system. This would be significantly cheaper and faster to implement than building out your existing data centre plus you can be creative; put it in the car park, in a warehouse or maybe on the roof!

Whilst Sun are prototyping this product industry rumours are that Google are a bit further down the track, already having a shipping container ready to go. If that is the case then Google could quickly grow across the World's peering points which could be good or could be bad... Let's hope that Google remains true to their own 'we're not evil' PR.

Google Maps for Mobiles, Lee

Submitted by garan on Fri, 07/28/2006 - 00:25

Lee told me about this tonight:

http://www.google.co.uk/gmm/index.html

Wow! It's like being in 24!

Just remember that you have to pay a stupid amount of money for every bit and byte that you download over your mobile.

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