Status-Q

Two surprises today.

The first is to discover that my new phone, a cheap and unassuming Ericsson T39, actually has a builtin POP email client and can be configured to send and receive email via my regular account over GPRS, which I'm starting to believe is therefore worth the rather high costs charged here in the UK.

Setting the phone up for a non-standard connection isn't entirely trivial, though, and the second surprise, when I called my service provider, Orange, was to get through immediately to somebody who understood my rather technical questions and knew the answers. And this was just before midnight. Amazing!

[Original Link] Here's the thread on Slashdot.

[Original Link] John Naughton's article on the closing of the lab where I've worked for the past six years.

[Original Link] A nice story on John Naughton's weblog.

[Original Link] the press was covering the imminent demise of the Trojan Room Coffee Pot. I can't believe it's only a year. So much has happened since then. Nothing quite so momentous, of course :-)

[Original Link] This describes how to modify the Internet Explorer resources so that the IE location bar uses Google by default for searching. You just type a location of '? woody allen', for example, to search.

I did this several months ago and use it every day; so much so that I'd forgotten it wasn't the default behaviour. If you use IE on OS X, try this. Small hassle. Big rewards.

[Original Link] Today I release my first ever Mac OS X utility! Wait - don't get over-excited! It's a simple bit of AppleScript which changes the SMTP server of all your Mail accounts at once; very handy if, like me, you have several accounts and move between networks frequently. Absolutely no use to anybody else. Update:This really isn't necessary on more recent versions of Mac OS X, so I've deleted it.

[Original Link] Dan Bricklin, lucky chap, has had a really good play on a Segway and records his experiences.

Microsoft Hailstorm (aka World Domination v2.0) is dead!
New York Times story. [Memex 1.1] Bit of a non-starter, really. How many will mourn its passing?

[Original Link] Jolly good show, I say. Takes quite a lot to make us dash for anything! But as somebody on Slashdot commented, this map paints a less enthralling picture.