Category Technology

Hey, where's the GPS support, Google?

Google EarthIt was just brought to my attention that Google Earth Plus for Linux does not have any support for GPS devices whatsoever, despite this being one of its main selling points over the free version. Google advertises the four variants of its Google Earth product range (Free, Plus, Pro and EC) without making any differentiating remarks for the Linux, Mac OS X or Windows ports. There is no mention of this either on the GE product page or its help centre. A potential customer would almost certainly expect this feature to be present in all three versions of the software and as such misled by the product presentation by Google.

Hellenic Reverse Directory Lookup Widget

Επειδή τυχαίνει κατα καιρούς να δέχομαι κλήσεις από αγνώστους και καθώς ο δικτυακός τόπος του τηλεφωνικού καταλόγου του ΟΤΕ δεν είναι ό,τι καλύτερο, έφτιαξα ενα Dashboard Widget ώστε να μην χρειάζεται να κάνω βόλτες στο www.whitepages.gr. Καθώς το χρησιμοποιώ αρκετά είπα να το βγάλω προς τα έξω μήπως φανεί χρήσιμο και σε άλλους έλληνες macheads. […]

Brickfilms

This is a site dedicated to stop-motion animated movies of Lego. Amazing stuff :)

As a company that puts $7bn a year into R&D, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders

said Sam Ramji, Microsoft's directory of Open platform solutions (what platforms again? oh the irony). $7bn on R&D, out of $12bn (net income). Not bad as a percentage, but what on earth do they do with all that money? It's no secret that most of the things that come out of Microsoft, despite the funds and manpower available to it, are, well, crap. By comparison, the total net income of Apple Inc. for last year was around $2bn and I guess very little of that went into R&D (Of course Apple is not doing any research that matters). Google, the new kid on the block, has a net income of $3bn, but it is also cultivating a research-focused working environment so it's hard to estimate how much really goes to research. Now, IBM, the worlds largest IT company has a net income of $9bn and let's not forget that IBM has very extensive research activities, but I'm certain diverts less than Microsoft to them. So, really, what does Microsoft do with all that money, given their poor record in both research and commercial software output?

Η Dell στην Ελλάδα

Κάντε μια επίσκεψη στον δικτυακό τόπο της Dell για την Ελλάδα. Δεν είμαι πελάτης της Dell όμως η εν λόγω εταιρία έχει κατα καιρούς παρουσιάσει ιδιαίτερα ελκυστικά προϊόντα (π.χ. οθόνες, PDAs, rackmounted servers) σε πολύ καλές τιμές και κατα συνέπεια τόσο για προσωπικούς όσο και για επαγγελματικούς λόγους έχω ασχοληθεί με κάποια από αυτά. Ο δικτυακός της τόπος της Dell για την Ελλάδα είναι πενιχρός. Μια κάκιστη μεταφορά του αμερικάνικου, με ένα μικρό μέρος του περιεχομένου στα Ελληνικά και το υπόλοιπο στα Αγγλικά, με σαφείς ελλείψεις ολόκληρων σειρών προϊόντων από τον κατάλογο (τα οποία όμως μπορεις να βρείς μέσω της αναζήτησης) και προβληματικούς συνδέσμους. Για παράδειγμα, παλαιότερα -- όπως συμβαίνει ακόμη και σήμερα με τα sites της εταιρίας άλλων χωρών -- υπήρχαν τρείς βασικές επιλογές για κάθε κατηγορία προϊόντων: 'ιδιώτες', 'μικρές και μεσαίες επιχειρήσεις' και 'μεγάλες επιχειρήσεις και δημόσιοι οργανισμοί'. Η πρώτη κατηγορία έχει εξαφανίστεί από ένα μεγάλο μέρος του τόπου, ενώ υπάρχουν ακόμη κάποια μέρη αυτού που τη συμπεριλαμβάνουν. Dell ή Hell; Ας σημειωθεί πως η Dell φημίζεται διεθνώς ως μια από τις πρωτοπόρους στην άμεση πώληση προϊόντων και υπηρεσιών αρχικά μέσω mail-order και μετέπειτα του διαδικτύου. Το Ars Technica πρόσφατα δημοσίευσε ένα άρθρο όπου ο Μichael Dell, ιδρυτής και CEO της εταιρίας δηλώνει πως θα είναι πλέον 'επιθετικοί' και στο λιανικό εμπόριο (μέσω μεταπωλητών). Καλή τους τύχη.

Full RSS feeds reduce activity on a blog?

Interesting question. I dislike the provision of full posts in RSS. It's not about ad revenue (I don't make money from my blog) or anything else except for my belief that the web is perfectly adequate and --- indeed --- superior to RSS feeds for human communication; RSS feeds on the other hand are excellent for notifications of new content (the pseudo-push aspect previously missing from the Web) and automatic dissemination of content to multiple sites/aggregators (even though I have my qualms about this too; there should be a better standard for this). Yet, CogDaily's experiment is flawed. The time-series is too short, the information does not cover all aspects of 'activity' of a blog and -- by their own admission -- the samples are not representative (there was reduced content publication). While I (intuitively) agree with the statement the data provided by CogDaily do not seem to support it.

String-by-String

Gibson has been more or less synonymous with the electric guitar and along with Fender one of the two major historic manufacturers of the instrument. The introduction of digital technology in what was generally considered acoustic or electric territory was gradual and troublesome. There are lots of people that scoff when faced with computers, modelling […]

See you in court!

I had been planning on getting a new Merom MacBook Pro ever since I found out about the processor more than 18 months ago. In the end I never did. Right after my last trip to London in early December 2006 I wrote a long rant about how the displays of the, then new (and still current) MacBook Pro on show at the London Apple Store looked horrible; my complaints included uneven backlight, narrow viewing angles and a grainy display. I guess I was not the only one to notice these; these are supposed to be Pro machines used by Pro people after all. So now Apple is getting sued for false claims in its marketing/advertising material regarding the quality and capabilities of its displays. It's quite reminiscent of the G4 MDD Leafblower towers when it took an organised effort, several web sites and constant 'harassment' of Apple executives to pay attention and own up to their crappy hardware. Yet with so many fanatics spending money on Apple products without paying attention to what they're buying as long as it's got an Apple logo somewhere I'm not surprised Apple keeps ignoring its customers and the quality issues of their products.

How to disable the WP Dashboard blog posts.

Ever since WordPress started including blog entries from WP-people in the Dashboard (first page of the administration panels) it annoyed me. Not only because I don’t care or wouldn’t like to read their blogs (I don’t in principle, but don’t mind them), but also because it did so without asking me and without explicitly giving […]

The Xcode Bugs

For reasons unbeknownst to me, Xcode has been seriously misbehaving lately. In most cases the problems had to do with its buggy parser/writer and required me to open the .xcodeproj files with TextMate and fix them. One example, that tortured me the other day, had to do with spurious compiler flags added there for no […]