...more recent posts
I have been eagerly awaiting the debut of the Treo 650 cellphone. It has been officially announced, but isn't on sale yet. The big disappointment with the specs is that the camera did not increase in resolution. It's still just a VGA (about 1/3 of a megapixel.) When I first heard this I thought it was a deal breaker and I started to look for other possible phones (more on that later,) but now I am not so sure. It may turn out that the sheer number of pixels the camera can resolve is not the only factor.
Palm (who makes the Treo,) said they had planned to include a 1+ megapixel sensor, but could not find one that operated well in low light conditions. As the owner of a Treo 600, I can say that this was that cameras greatest failing. It is basically useless when not in bright sunlight. So Palm stuck with the VGA sensor, but they say it is different, and that the second generation VGA sensors, combined with a new lens, and new software, make for a better camera than the first generation 1 megapixel sensors that are out now.
Here are some side by side comparisons of pictures from the 600 and 650. It really does seem much improved. And the 650 shoots very small videos as well.
Now I am back to undecided. Certainly seems very usable.
Still working on the new layout. Not that I care too much, but I am trying to use my page to learn non table based CSS design. I made something I really liked, but then it turns out that it is completely borked in IE. So I dropped back to this non-design for the moment.
This is the madness of designing for browsers. It's not as bad as it used to be (specifically because you can safely forget about the hell that was Navigator 4,) but it is still a pain. For anything but the most simple design you probably have to do some browser sniffing and serve up different CSS files for different browsers/platforms. That is a change I had sort of wanted to make anyway (putting the CSS into a separate file rather than including it inline,) but it will be a slightly more involved operation to do it this way.
Yeah, I know, pretty interesting...
The new page design is still coming, but since I want to start blogging again I'm not going to wait for that. Here are some things I have been thinking about, and what I suspect this blog will focus on:
Serious bandwidth is on the way to the end user. Both fixed (like fiber to the home,) and wireless. I know it has always been the case that this is "on the way," but it's really true now. Honest. Here is a pricing page for Verizon fibre service. 30Mb/s!!! This is already deployed in some areas, and some non trivial number of people in NYC will have access to this in 2005. A lot more on this, as well as 3G wireless rollouts (also happening as we speak,) in the days ahead.
The one true device is sort of limping towards us. I wish this would go faster, but it is happening too. I mean the convergence of your computer, phone, audio/image/video player/recorder into one device you can put in your pocket. The U.S. is maddeningly behind much of the world on this, but we'll see some big strides in 2005. Something more than SMS has to fill up all that 3G wireless bandwidth. The Treo 650 and the S/E K700a are pointing the way, even if both are crippled in serious ways. Soon we are going to be able to take it all with us. Lots more on this.
And while this might not seem connected, the rich web application has arrived ahead of time. I thought we had to wait for entirely new sets of standards (like what WHAT-WG is working on,) but it turns out that today's browsers, CSS, serious javascript/DHTML magic, and even the first judicious use of Flash (!), have all ushered in the rich web application: websites that have the look, feel, and usability of a standalone desktop application. Google Mail and Flickr are leading the charge, but there are a ton of other very interesting things out there (del.icio.us, bloglines, etc...)
And finally one that I don't have a good name for yet. Something like the convergence of weblog communities with smaller, private, P2P networks. Bit Torrent and RSS are heavily involved. I guess I think of it as the dawn of the tribal age on the net. This is spurred to some degree by oppressive legal actions by those in power, but I am mainly going to steer clear of politics. Perhaps I am overly pessimistic at this point in time, but I just don't think it matters any more. Building safe, private, transparent networks of friends (extending the connections blogs have provided to connect not just words, but all media, and all the content on each of our computers,) is what I want to focus on.
Lots of bandwidth, pocket sized always on computing/media devices, rich user interface web services, all connecting people into increasingly private networks. That's how it looks from here.
So, yeah, more on all of that to come....
New page and new posts are on the way. No doubt you can feel the excitement in the air.
The United States government and the Semantic Web are a perfect match: imagine all of those senators and representatives, each query-able by age, party affiliation, bills proposed, committee membership, and voting record. For the last few years, I've wanted to collect as much data on the U.S. government as I could, convert it to RDF, and build a site and a web service that make it possible to explore that data. This will be my goal over the next year, and I'll document my progress here on XML.com.Paul Ford's personal site is the amazing Ftrain.com.
Treo 650 pictures and specs revealed. Here is the initial thread with the info, although there is no point slogging through all those posts just to get the facts which are summarized here: 1.3 MP digital camera, 320 x 320 screen, bluetooth, removable battery, and possibly push to talk technology.
Here are some pictures: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Is Verizon 1xEV-DO high speed wireless working (unofficially) in Manhattan? "...[W]hen you go to the Triborough area and get over a Gig/Sec reception... Yes... thats right.. you heard it here first...."
OnMyCommandCM is a UNIX CLI and AppleScript executor. Your command may take a clicked object as a parameter so you may perform an action on file, folder or text. A command can be executed in terminal, silently or with output window. But the best part is that you are building your own command, your own Contextual Menu Item. You type your command once and then it is just a click away!And it's free. Very cool.
The second browser war. Nice article on the near future struggle as the web and the desktop OS collide (combine?) This is like the stuff I used to talk about concerning Mozilla and how it was going to change everything because it is not just a browser, but a cross platform application environment. Mozilla is still an important piece, but the great hope is now WHAT-WG rather than XUL.
I think people have to understand this possibility (that the web will, in some important senses, be the future desktop operating system) to understand the potential of google.
Completely unconfirmed, yet believable, iPod rumor:
AirPod.
Summary: airport wireless add-on for iPod.
Attaches to bottom of iPod via dock connector.
Mates cleanly; appears to make the iPod ~1 inch taller.
Powered via 4G iPod's "enhanced" battery.
Requires 4G iPod; earlier models not supported.
Streams iPod audio via AirTunes to Airport Express.
Capable of streaming at line level or with volume control.
Enables wireless iPod syncing.
Includes "pass through" dock connector on bottom, allowing iPod, with AirPod attached, to operate while docked or with other external dock connector power source. Additional dock connector accessories can therefore be "piggy-backed" onto AirPod.
$99