It hasn't even been revealed yet and it has a FaceBook group thanks to my friend Dave.
Curiouser and curiouser!
In the meanwhile, if you want to know this weekend (and get a little Singularity-related thank-you gift).
Archive for January, 2008
You may be wondering why I'm speaking at a ColdFusion conference.
Three reasons:
Firstly, it's in Scotland -- Edinburgh to be precise -- and I'm loathe to pass up any chance to visit that lovely land.
Secondly, Scotch on the Rocks is branching out this year to embrace Flash and Flex.
And finally, they asked me very nicely during MAX Europe: "we know you're not the biggest fan of Coldfusion but we'd love to have you speak anyway!" How can you say no to that, really?
(And the reason I'm not the biggest fan of ColdFusion has nothing to do with the technology itself; it's because I personally don't see a widespread future for closed-source application servers in general when there are so many excellent open source alternatives available as to make them into commodities. That said, ColdFusion does have a lot going for it, especially in the enterprise market and for building internal systems. It was revolutionary when it was first released and I've dabbled in it myself in the past. It is very easy to learn and use. It just doesn't excite me like some other technologies do.)
As I mentioned earlier, Scotch on the Rocks is expanding this year and you can see this in the speaker line-up which includes (among others) Kai Koenig, Sean Corfield, Ben Forta from the CF side of things and Peter Elst and Neil Webb from the Flash world.
If you're into ColdFusion and live in Europe, don't miss this. Especially if you're also interested in RIAs, Flex, and the Flash Platform in general.
Tickets are currently available for £199 (early bird discount) until 29th February.
I've been teasing you for a little while now about Singularity.
What is it? A new Flash technology? A new RIA? A Web 2.0 site? What, oh what, could it be?
As I promised earlier, if you put up a What is Singularity? Badge on your web site, you're going to know earlier than everyone else.
And that time is approaching quickly!
In fact, I'm going to let those of you with badges in on the secret this weekend! (And here's a big, heart-felt thank-you to over 120 of you who have already put up the badge on your web sites!)
Those of you with badges are also going to get an exclusive little virtual thank-you gift from me. 
So, if you haven't gotten round to it, now is your last chance to put a Singularity badge on your site and get in on the scoop!
I can't wait to let you guys in on this. It has truly been killing me to keep it secret. I'm very excited about Singularity and I hope that once you find out what we're cooking up, you will be too!
I ran into Pete, Josh, and Andy at The Office earlier today and found out that a software jailbreak/upgrade for iPhone firmware 1.1.3 has been released. I was on the modmyifone site yesterday, finally upgrading my 1.0.2 iPhone to 1.1.2 and hadn't seen anything so I went back there for a look.
It looks like two different solutions were released several days ago but those had issues (the location feature in Google Maps not working, etc.)
This morning, cash7c3f, who owns modmyifone, posted that they have a new software jailbreak method for 1.1.3 that you can run from Installer.app.
And, if your phone was unlocked at 1.1.2, it should retain its unlock after the upgrade. (My phone retained its unlock from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 and 1.1.1 to 1.1.2).
To get it, you have to add the modmyifone repository to your Sources in Installer.app.
Once you've done that, you can see it under the System category.
I'm going to keep and eye on this but probably won't install it until I see some feedback on whether it breaks anything.
I'm really happy with 1.1.2 because I finally have caller ID again for UK numbers and that was my biggest complaint. (If you had numbers in your phone book in international format +44 0779 etc. under 1.0.2, caller ID would not work when people called you from the UK; the numbers would show up as 0779 etc.)
Update: More info on the 1.1.3 official jailbreak from ModiPhone. They also report "a contacts-related issue" with the method that should give you further pause before trying it out.
It's a scarf. It's a QR Code. It's a scarf with a QR Code on it.
The ultimate in geek winter-wear? Donno. But it is pretty darn cool.
The Lendorff.Kaywa scarf is the creation of Office Lendorff, who make pixel-art knitwear here in England, and Kaywa, the authors of the excellent Kaywa Reader QR Code reader that I have on my Nokia N95.
You thought Apple was ripping you off with the price of iTunes songs in the UK? You should see what Sony is doing!
There was heated furor over Apple charging different prices in the UK than elsewhere which got somewhat resolved recently when Apple standardized its iTunes prices across the EU.
The whole deal there was because people in the UK were paying at most 13p per song more than their European counterparts. But, because there was a considerable price difference between EU countries, the EU got involved. Unfortunately, no such action will be taken against Sony, who, as we say in the UK, is really taking the piss with their pricing because the EU has no jurisdiction over pricing differences between non-EU and EU countries.
So we're used to paying more for stuff in the UK but when does the price difference become ridiculous?
Is paying 50% more for something acceptable? OK, how about 100% more?
Hmm, how about more than 100% more for the same thing?
Case in point: I was browsing the online Playstation store on my PS3 and I thought I'd download Piyotama. At £3.49, you can't go wrong, right? Well something told me to read a review before buying it. I found a couple from US web sites but one thing struck me immediately. They all listed the game as being available in the US for $2.99.
Why's this strange?
Because with an almost 2:1 exchange rate, we're not used to seeing the actual price of an item be higher in the UK than in the US.
So Sony is selling Piyotama for $2.99 in the US and approximately $6.91 here in the UK. That's more than double the price!
For every one copy here, you could buy two copies of it in the US and still have enough left over to buy a double cheese burger at Burger King (though why you would willingly subject yourself to such abuse is beyond me!)
To cut a long story short, I know it's ridiculous but now I can't bring myself to spending a meager £3.49 on a game because I feel like I'm getting ripped off. How crazy is that?
Geographical pricing works as evidenced by the fact that I was going to buy the game without another thought. But then I found out how much it costs in the US and my opinion was radically altered.
To be effective, geographical pricing requires us to be in the dark about how much things cost elsewhere. Otherwise, it can very easily lead to feelings of resentment. No one likes to feel like they're getting ripped off.
What will be the long term effect of this resentment on a company's image? How will it affect customer loyalty when a competitor springs up that doesn't employ geographical pricing?
What do you think? Can geographical pricing survive the information age? Or is this walled-garden approach eventually doomed to extinction thanks to the Internet?
I've been a paid-up subscriber of the much-hyped Mozy remote backup system for about a year now. The only problem is that I haven't really used it in that time and I emailed them a few days ago to ask them to cancel my account (and I haven't heard back yet). The reason: I haven't successfully backed up once on my Mac.
When you first run Mozy, you select the folders you want to back up and Mozy starts backing them up. This first backup can take a long time if you have lots of files. We're talking days here.
That's fine except there's a catch: You can't interrupt the backup.
Update: Keith Peters reports that you can actually interrupt the backup and provides a screen-grab to prove it. That being the case, this must be one of the worst UI cock-ups in history because, for all intents and purposes, it looks to the user as if the backup failed and is starting over.
If you're on a desktop machine that you leave on all the time, that shouldn't be an issue. But my primary machine is my notebook and I'm rarely in the same spot for a couple of hours let alone a couple of days.
So Mozy has never backed up my Mac successfully.
Every now and then I see the error dialog above to remind me that I'm paying for something that I'm not using.
This is such a fundamental flaw that I don't know how Mozy gets the glowing reviews that it does. Perhaps most of the reviewers use it to back up just two or three files for testing and leave it at that.
I might give Mozy another try at some point if they implement a system where you can actually resume interrupted backups.(And if anyone from Mozy is reading this, could you please get back to me about canceling my account?)
Update: After Keith's advice, I let the Mozy app run its course and it has finally managed its first successful backup. I'm going to give it another chance. But please, guys, fix that horribly misleading UI!
Doug McCune is reporting that there is a clause in the Widget Design Challenge 2008 contest being run by eBay that bars entrants from using open source libraries in their entries.
The actual clause follows:
Widget may not incorporate any open source code except for Adobe Flex under the MPL license
This is not good.
I cannot think of any project I've worked on in my career, going as far back as I can remember, that did not use open source code in some capacity. Heck, we owe "Web 2.0" and the web as we know it to open source (can you imagine Google being what it is today while running its huge server farms on Windows Server?) Open source is everywhere, both behind the scenes (powering operating systems, application servers, and databases) and in front (Wordpress, Papervision3D, MediaWiki, etc.) When I was still doing client work, I wouldn't take on any project with a "no open source" clause. Life's too short. And I have much better things to do than reinvent the wheel.
The Flash Platform is blessed when it comes to open source. You can find quite a comprehensive list of open source Flash projects on OSFlash. It makes no sense whatsoever to guarantee a reduction in the quality of entries by disallowing developers access to these amazing tools.
Doug sums up what developers will be missing out nicely in his post:
That means no 3D engines, no physics engines, no custom component libraries. If you wanted 3D you’d have to build your own custom 3D engine. Umm, no thanks. It’s funny because they make the explicit exception for the Flex framework, since if they didn’t do that you wouldn’t be able to make any Flex app at all.
I know this must just be a legal clause that slipped by the Flash team at eBay who are organizing the contest. Now that it has been unearthed, I have no doubt that eBay will swiftly rectify the situation and allow open source libraries and tools to be used in the contest.
As Spock would say, "it's only logical, captain." (Yeah, I gotta lay off the Star Trek books, I know!)
Singularity is sponsoring BarCampBrighton2, a gathering of 150 geeks that is scheduled to take place on March 15th and 16th, 2008 at the University of Sussex in Brighton.
It's no secret that I love BarCamps and Hack Days. They're wonderful unconferences where there is no speaker/attendee divide. I attended my first BarCamp in London and it was a blast (if you haven't been to one, you really should go!) BarCampBrighton, which took place at Madgex's offices last year (thanks, Glenn!), was similarly wonderful. Furthermore, it coincided with the Brighton Food Festival which was yum and a half!
All this to say that it's an honor to have Singularity sponsor this year's BarCampBrighton.
(What is Singularity? Those of you with badges on your sites will be finding out in about a week!)
BarCampBrighton2 is being organized thanks to the efforts of Paul Silver, Matt Weston, Jon Markwell, and Jay Gooby. Keep an eye on the wiki and on Upcoming as once the tickets are released they usually go in the first half hour or so.
Looking forward to seeing some of you there!
VectorDesigner, Snapz Pro X, Pixelmator, CSSEdit, AppZapper, Speed Download, 1password, CoverSutra, Cha-Ching, iStopMotion, Awaken, Tiki Magic Mini Golf, Wingnuts 2, and TaskPaper are the 14 applications you get for $49 in this year's Mac Heist. And there's just over 1 day left to take advantage of it.
I just put in my order (through your link, Relly, so I hope you get NoteBook!)
I already have a couple of the apps but you can assign the ones you have to someone else at checkout -- in this case, Stephanie's going to have a nice surprise when she wakes up tomorrow!
And, if you buy the bundle using the links on my post, I might just get a cool app called NoteBook also (and LaunchBar, but I'm way too much a QuickSilver addict!)
Update: Thanks, guys and gals! Enough of you bought it through the night that NoteBook was unlocked for me when I woke up this morning... can't wait to play with it.
Recent Comments