Inventing the Future

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Via Evan Tim O'Reilly lists the current development and charts the future of the net. It's nice to see an emerging market that so far seems to have enough competition yet still be based on standards.

I'll be the first to admit that I jumped on the web log bandwagon (though I rolled my own) but until recent articles like Tim's I hadn't viewed my creations through SonicBoomerang as part of new emerging markets. There are business models out there, as SonicBoomerang is slowly proving but like any good viable business it takes time. The .com boom may be over, but the fun is just starting.

Rogers now carrying Treo

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Rogers is now carrying the Treo. Now I'm hard pressed between the Treo and the RIM. It has all the same features as a RIM, GSM/GPRS as well. But it's got some more features as well. 16MB of memory, runs Palm apps, has stylus in addition to keyboard (no graffiti input with keyboard though, as there's no room to write), handsfree, regular phone, and speaker phone. Probably a lot of little differences as well. The biggest shock though is the sticker price. $850. Ouch. I don't think I'll be buying either of them soon. Check out this review by Dan Bricklin. Rogers isn't listing the new Blackberry yet so I'm not sure exactly how much it will cost. Probably similar but slightly less than the Treo.
Update: The Treo will support GRPS with a software upgrade. Note to Treo: GPRS is here. Make it available already. I've used a Blackberry 5810 over GPRS in Toronto so perhaps Rogers is holding off on deploying them officially until it's fully tested and scalable.

Waterlogged Camera Turns Magic

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After playing with my grandfather's Nikon Coolpix is was interesting to read this article from Wired on a photographer that droped his Coolpix into a pond and was surprised to see the destructive results when the camera was finally dry. Personally I would have been a little more that upset at my Coolpix taking pictures like this but Farrell seems to have gained quite a bit of attention with the results.

AOL to switch to Mozilla engine

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NewsForge reports that AOL will use the Gecko rendering engine used in Mozilla. "A browser shift by AOL is going to leave an awful lot of companies that assume their Web sites only need to work with Explorer scrambling to rewrite their code so that they don't lose AOL's 30 million-plus subscribers, or about 30% of all U.S. Internet users." Time to bring some balance back into the force and hopefully get all the designers back to standards.

Linux on my laptop

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Now that my laptop information has been migrated to my desktop I decided to install Linux on it. RedHat 7.2 with Gnome and KDE. Not much drive space after that install. Both Gnome and KDE have their own merrits, so I'm going to flip flop until I decide which one I like better. Right now I'm leaning more to KDE. It appears a bit more cluttered but it seems to have more applications to graphically control the environment. I've toiled away long enough with server's via the command line and would prefer to control everything graphically. This is also a good indicator as to how long it may be until Linux is a real alternative on the desktop. Based on first impressions, it still has a way to go.

Hunting Webhancer

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Webhancer is a web siteperformance analysis program that may be installed on your computer without your knowledge. I found webhancer installed on my system unbeknownst to me. As a consumer this incensed me as it was installed subversively and alters my windows network stack. I'm sure this doesn't improve performance either and appears to cause additional problems.

I initially went looking for background programs that might be causing network related problems I had observed. Every time I launched RealOne Player from Mozilla it would freeze for several minutes before playing the audio. Now that webhancer is removed it seems this problem is also gone. If I notice the problem again and Webhancer has not re-installed itself I will publish a retraction.

I'm not sure which programs are shipping with and installing Webhancer. Refer to Webhancer Spyware to detect and remove it.

Wireless Mesh Routing

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A while ago I mentioned that the only barrier I saw to Wi-Fi overtaking cellular usage was node switching, or rather the ability to stay on the network while moving between transmitters. John Markoff writes about mesh routing in this NY Times article. This is grass roots Internet at it's best. Done properly, it can reduce the digital divide for those who don't have access to broadband or who cannot afford it by current means due to their location.

The Day After

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The honking of celebratory horns went until at least 12AM outside my window. I'm sure the partying went even longer down on lower Yonge St., King St. and all across the country.

It's February 25, and it's 13 degrees celcius outside right now. Serendipity perhaps, or maybe all that celebration warmed up the country. I'm going for a walk to soak up all the smiling Canadian faces.

Several National Post articles were moving and humourus today. Canada's Moment of truth, A nation at a standstill, Shooting from the Lip, and my favourite for the day; Canada turns fear of failure into poise by Christie Blatchford.

I feel like today should be national holiday. Hey, fifty years to the day. Not a bad idea at all.