Piezoelectric fans. No, I’m not going to say it. No really I’m not. OK… These look cool.
[untitled]
April 2nd, 2002
Portable outlining
April 2nd, 2002
Thought for the day: the iPod is now usable as a contact list manager as well as an MP3 player. My suggestion for the next step: make it an outline browser. You could create arbitrary outlines in something like OmniOutliner or Radio and carry them around with you on the iPod. The user interface is superb for that.
Some outlining programs have a handy to-do list option. Each node has a checkbox, and an item is automatically checked when all its sub-items are checked. While entering text on the move would be a pain, checking and unchecking things is something you could reasonably do on an iPod.
Checkboxes would probably require changes to the iPod software itself, but simple browsing could be done initially by creating fake MP3 tracks in an appropriate directory hierarchy. That’s how the contact list idea started. Should be easy.
In fact, if somebody gives me an iPod, I’ll implement it…
[untitled]
April 2nd, 2002
A nice quote from the Queen Mother in Sunday’s Telegraph:
“Travel by helicopter? I think the chopper has changed my life – rather as it did Anne Boleyn’s. “
[untitled]
March 31st, 2002
John Naughton’s column in the Observer is particularly good this week.
“How is it possible to make money from the internet?’. It’s the wrong question, because it’s based on a fundamental misconception.”
[untitled]
March 29th, 2002
Expensive Bytes. There’s a new marketplace in cyberspace. Virtual Game Weapons Bought With Real Money (NY Times)
Bluehype
March 29th, 2002
osOpinion: “Bluetooth has been touted as ‘the next big thing’ for three years now and has consistently failed to live up to its hype. More accurately, it has consistently failed to live, period. …802.11b wireless networking… has already taken any corporate role Bluetooth aimed at, relegating it to road warriors and tech-toy junkies. “
[untitled]
March 24th, 2002
John Naughton – “Why shouldn’t ministers change their minds? …The really stupid people are those who refuse to countenance changing their minds, no matter what happens. ”
Agreed. My father says he’ll vote for the first politician who says, “I’m sorry – we made a mistake. We’ll try and get it right next time.”
[untitled]
March 22nd, 2002
jEdit is becoming really rather a good text editor. It’s a while since I’ve looked at it, but it now has a lot of nice features, and a large number of plugins with which you can extend it. Being Java-based, you can use it on a wide variety of platforms.
It takes some time to get into, customize, etc but I can see it might be worth persevering. Nothing worthwhile, as they say, was ever achieved without hard work. (Who said that, besides my mother? Albert Schweitzer? It’s his sort of thing, but it probably predates him)
[untitled]
March 22nd, 2002
Good quote from Jamie Zawinski – “Linux is only free if your time has no value” – He’s quite right. That doesn’t denigrate it, but for most situations, cost is not the best reason for choosing Linux.
[untitled]
March 21st, 2002
Apple releases a new iPod with twice the storage space, and software to allow iPods to store contact lists.
I predict the next step will be calendars, and this thing will gradually evolve into a PDA. No easy route for text entry on the device, though. They’ll just have to build in a microphone and use speeach recognition…
[untitled]
March 21st, 2002
Re Bluetooth and Macs: I spoke too soon.
Bluetooth cavity
March 20th, 2002
Apple’s Bluetooth Cavity. [osOpinion] Apple led the world with USB support and is still well ahead of PCs when it comes to Firewire. It’s interesting that they haven’t yet jumped on the Bluetooth bandwagon.
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