Adobe Launches Online Office Suite and New Flash-Enabled Acrobat 9 - ReadWriteWeb

Holy Cow! I read that same news about Adobe building a office suite way back when, and I thought it made sense, but I was not thinking much of it. Now I checked out the review of ReadWriteWeb and I like what I read - experiment will tell us more about it, but come on it's looks pretty good ain't it.

When sync goes off the rails - Blackberry/Google/Outlook

Today something very bizarre happened, 95% of my calendar went missing. My setup for syncing is not simple, but it has been working flawlessly for the last several months. Just before boarding the plane today, I noticed my calendar was missing. I looked at my blackberry last sync log it was saying 89events deleted. needless to say I was sweating. I don't know what went wrong, what I did wrong, or what conditions the software figured it could just go ahead and delete. Somehow my google cal got into this state where it thought all the appointments in outlook were to be deleted, and so the sync deleted them. Thank fully Outlook has a trash, and I was able to sort deleted items by type and I think I was able to undelete all the events that were deleted, but i will never know until the said event is supposed to happen. Anyway I had to reset the sync - re-upload all my outlook into google, and re-set my bb to re-download all my google data, and now we seem to be back to normal... I think.

Empower your BlackBerry

As you know already I come from the palm world. Since I have switched from the Treo to BB, there is a piece of functionality I had to give up that I found more painful than others. On the treo I had the ability to create task/appointment from a call, an email, or a contact. I finally got my hands on something that has a similar kind of functionality as a side effect. Empower HTML email viewer allows me to get my emails in HTML which is much better than the std viewer on the BB, but also, from an email I can now create a task or an appointment, and Empower sucks the content out of the email to populate the task or the appointment with the right information. It's by no means perfect, because it could use the from field to give a little more context to the appointment or the task, but it's one step in the right direction. Give it a shot.

MagToo -creating panorama shots

Over the weekend I shot a few pics at the cottage that I wanted to stitch together. I happened to read a review of MagToo  on webware, they recommended it, I gave it a shot, and it works well.

Technology knowledge vs Business domain

Francis posted an interesting tidbit about the technology totem pole. It got me thinking about it. Francis took the technology angle an dived. The perspective I would like to take is one of a balance to explain the sometimes condescending behaviours of programmers. If we think of a spectrum in software you have one end which is pure technology, and the other which is pure business.

In mind mind the technology end is where one will find Linux Kernel Hacking, C++, etc... While at the business end one can find more the VB like skills. At the technological end we have functionality based engineering, while at the business end we have task based development, business needs. The business end of the spectrum is you've guessed it by now much more rooted in solving a problem for a business to go better, faster, bigger with much more efficiencies with no degree of separation or very little between the end result(the need) and the software person/team.

At the technology spectrum end most of the time for the kernel hacker the link to a very specific business improvement in a given project is not there. How many times have you been in a discussion where - if only the kernel could do this, then I would rack in that much more money. The point is many more avenues will be explored before one even think about the kernel, so the connection to the business is not nearly as strong.

The reality, and this is where I high five Francis', in my my mind if I'm from one end of the spectrum and I want to go work at the other end I will have a steep learning curve. In one case it maybe technological, and in the other it will be in business "saviness". Neither one can't be taken lightly they are both crucial to the success of any given project.

Palm come up with something new! ...Very Soon

When I read story of a battery review and custom battery door, my reaction is if this what we're down to talking about on the Palm platform and phones it ain't pretty. It a sign the company is taking too long to come up with something that will set blogs abuzz. Where is the new new thing, the stuff I know Palm for.

Vista Sp1 problems con't

Guess what - I still haven't been able to install SP1 on my XPS m1330. What a bonehead I am, anyhow this is how I feel. I've tried three more times just today. I think it's over, I'm about to give up. Reading further, even talking to someone at MS - I have disabled all the hardware that is not essential, and reverted some to plain old default drivers, no sound card, no imaging, no webcam, no etc... all disabled. Next I went into msconfig, to disable all services that are non windows, then I disabled all startup programs. I rebooted, thinking that nothing could now interfere between me and SP1, so double click on the SP1 exe, the process takes longer than usual, good sign I think - it even gets to 100%, wow i think, then it all comes down crashing - the same old message appears "Service pack did not install, reverting changes". How screwed up is that? We're in 2008, I'm not talking about Dos, and fiddling around with config.sys and autoexec.bat here to get to more than 640kb of ram, I should double click and it should update. Pls someone get me an OS that works...

Cebit : memory keys

Check those memory keys - delightful ain't it?

Nice neck lace wouldn't you say?

BlackBerry the start of a new thing?

As you know I've been a huge Palm Treo user and fan for the longest time. Well thanks to my friends at Rove I'm now playing with a Blackberry curve to experiment with it and see what kind of trade-offs I would be making if I switch. Anyway more to come here to discuss my experience.

Maybe some of you know already, pls let me know!

Wal-Mart To Dump HD DVD Movies, Players -- Wal-Mart -- InformationWeek

Stick a fork in HD-DVD it's done! I'm one of the few who thought Toshiba could pull it off and since I had an xbox360 I bought a HD-DVD player, now I feel like a betamax dude. People were saying what killed the betamax was that the porn industry went with VHS format, well it in this case the porn industry went with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray still won. So Sex doesn't rule the world after all, and next time someone asks - my answer is Sony!!!

Bye Bye my Treo? a platform loosing steam?

bye bye palm? I'm sorry after so many years but that's it, No more patience for it anymore.  I didn't want to believe it but the writings are on the wall, I will have to make a decision. Mainly two problems

1. The battery life, even after latest firmware upgrade, I'm still baffled sometimes in the morning to see my phone's battery dead. I have add those problems with the 680 since I got the device and I don't have the time for this anymore. On the road this problem is just exasperated I can't last a full day with one charge.
2. The eco system which used to be Palm's strength is loosing steam. I several wonderful applications, but they are no longer updated. For example the best portable email around is snappermail, but it hasn't been updated in over a year and there is no schedule for a new release. I'm using IMAP from google now, and i have a problem with snappermail, there is no way to find support for the problem. The vendor website has little activity and the google web site has little palm activity.

So what should be my next smart phone device - must - long battery life, bluetooth, email, perfect syncing with outlook, good app eco system, would be very nice - wi-fi, camera better than lame 1mega pixel.

The rise of Flash Apps!

Flash/Flex/Air are making some in-roads, and the desktop application as we know it is getting it on the chin! It's an inevitable collision. Through the adobe technologies people can leverage the connectivity and a rich user experience. The browser is still required by most of this new generation of applications, but speaking with adobe people the paradigm is shifting away from the browser and "urls".

Nothing new here right? After all we've been speaking about this since Java came about in 1995. What is different, well I've been playing with Blist a database application, like access or Filemaker, or Corel Paradox(which I worked on back in the days). There is another one called joggle a photo management package(I haven't had the chance to try this one out).

What's common about those two apps and many others- They are slick, powerful and with no compromises on the user experience. Java on the client never delivered on that. The Adobe trio does. This is a wake up call for us all working in the shrink wrap space, up and coming smarty pants entrepreneurs in a basement are coming out of nowhere with offerings that are right up there in terms of value and experience.

The downfall of the platform from what I can gather around the web is that when it's time to do computations it's not up to snuff, compared to java, which in turn is not up to snuff when compared to C++.

I think we need to look seriously in Adobe's offering because it's got some powerful tools. The platform has momentum, offers the ability to develop fast. Last characteristic, but not least, it's a great equalizer the barrier of entry to complex interactive and connected applications is lower than before. I was told once - Never underestimate the market appetite for tools that will make them look smart and talented ie make them shine!

Too often in software engineering we think of building products using tools for real men, or technologically elegant, and we forget that time to market, the ability to iterate rapidly, and provide a compelling user experience is what really matters. We have to open our minds to tools that from the first look could be perceived as unworthy, or difficult to integrate with the existing code base.

Good Programmers = success

From Slashdot again - an interesting topic - how to recognize good programmers. While I strongly agree with most of the conclusions, in particular, passion as in how many side projects, or programming someone is doing just for fun, or investigation, or analysis of what is going on in the industry.

• I'd like to also point out that during an interview getting someone to dig and explain his/her work (the so what?, and how so?, how did you do it?) will help  assess if this person understands what work he/she has done. One pattern I've found over the years is, how easily senior guys can answer the technical questions you ask them, they've been there done that. If one doesn't corroborate those answers with the person hands on experience and understanding of it - the risk are high that you're hiring process is letting in the wrong people.
• The candidate MUST be doing 80% of the talking during the interview, otherwise you are speaking too much!
• Don't hesitate to interrupt if an answer is not going where you want - you only have so much time.
• But you have to be willing to tolerate silence, so that what you hear from the candidate comes from the candidate, and not the answers you want to hear.
• Assess the people fit - the performance of your team is highly dependant on how well the team gels, hiring people that will fit in your culture is key. So when talking about past experience listen in carefully how the candidate speaks of his past bosses, colleagues?
• The people doing the interviews must be a good representation of what you're looking for. They will know what to look for, with much better ease.
• Remember the saying as well "A programmers hire A type programmers, B programmers hire B programmers, and C programmers have no idea who they hire"

From there you're done with Step one of Demarco's description of a manager's job (If my memory serves me well!)

• Hire the right people
• match the right people to the right jobs
• make sure the team gels!

Microsoft and the OLPC project

It's a long time ago that bill gates was saying that people in the development world don't need a stripped down computer. They need real computers he said... Well now MS can't turn the tide away, if they want to have a shot at the developing world market they will need a stripped down version of Windows to work on this nice little laptop which will be sold to developing countries. The cost of not doing it is a new generation of geeks not knowing blip about windows, ouch!!! Remember as Friedman says in the world is flat - it's not because you're somewhere in San-Wherever-not-on-the-map that you don't have talent, and can't be using this computer talent of yours to make a living, I'm most probably paraphrasing, but you get what I mean.

With this laptop we will be putting computing power in the hands of thousands, and millions of kids who have never had the opportunity, or would never have the opportunity to see one, because it's designed with their needs and environment in mind, so that it's and efficient and useful device.

I participated in the GiveOnGetOne program I can't wait to get my hands on the machine. I will make sure to get our UX/Design team to review and give us a product assessment. It's been designed by Yves Behar, the new darling of design in the valley, and designer of the great bluetooth headset Jawbone, so it should be exciting, stay tuned!

Vista's performance

Here is validation I'm not crazy. Vista is soooo slow, look at those numbers, it's almost or over 2x as slow as XP depending on the software one uses.

Kindle

Kindle was released today, the e-book reader from Amazon. It has nice features, like wi-fi connectivity so that you can instant buy from amazon. It's slim, it's light, and from what I have seen looks nice. It looks like something you can hold as easily as a book. I look forward handling one for real. I've watched a few videos of the thingy, but no where I see features like underline, or capabilities to insert notes - are those features just a given, so this is why they are not talked about? I'm assuming the keyboard is for more than typing urls.

Update: So yes you can have annotations, and underlines and the ability to export them. This is extremely useful, as right now I need to go through the books and the underlines and write them on paper as book summary, which I only rarely do, which means I don't get as much value out of the book itself. So I want one!

From Amazon's

Bookmarks and Annotation

By using the keyboard, you can add annotations to text, just like you might write in the margins of a book. And because it is digital, you can edit, delete, and export your notes, highlight and clip key passages, and bookmark pages for future use. You'll never need to bookmark your last place in the book, because Kindle remembers for you and always opens to the last page you read.