StumbleUpon

Andrew sent me a link from StumbleUpon a few weeks ago, andI finally got around to trying it out.

This is a plugin for IE and Firefox that lets you 'stumble' across web sites that might be of interest to you.

You provide a list of the categories you are interested in, and then it uses these to find sites that other people have rated highly. You also have the ability to rate every site you visit as good or bad to further improve the pages it offers.
Then whenever you feel like it you just hit the Stumble button and see what it gives you :)

It seems to have been going for a few years now and so there is quite a big community using it. This is a good sign as the nature of the tool means that without people rating sites it wouldn't work very well!

I've only just started trying this, and my first two pages were this archery game and this helpful list of Linux commands.
A pretty good start I reckon! !

Decisions decisions.....

So having just about made up my mind to get an HTC Wizard as my next phone, as the release date approaches, I hear about a follow-up to it!

Apparently the HTC Hermes will have all the same features as the Wizard but adds 3G support! That was the only thing I thought the wizard was missing!!

Now do I wait for this new phone to come out (1st half of 2006 supposedly) or do I just buy it anyway?

I don't know... I was looking forward to replacing my P900...... :)

Opera For Free

Opera have recently followed up their free registrations for a day offer by making the powerful Opera Web Browser free to all users without adds!!

Until now, they had two versions, a paid for version, and a free version with an ad banner!

I can see this improving their user numbers, and putting them in more direct competition with Firefox, but I'm not sure how it will make them more money! Unlike Mozilla, Opera Software are a commercial company out to make a profit! Without software sales I wonder how they'll do this!! But then again, I know nothing about this sort of thing, and I'm sure they've thought it through! :)

Personally, I can't see myself switching! I tried it briefly when they were offering free registrations for a day, but there were two many things missing compared to Maxthon that I've got used to! Maybe I should give it another go though......

Who broke the search button :)

Google released the beta of their blog search recently, and so Blogger seem to have updated the search options at the top of this page with a new 'search all blogs option'.

Unfortunately, in doing so they seem to have broken the 'search this blog' feature, as that seems to search all blogs too!

Oh well, it was never that up to date anyway :)

Careful or they'll hear your password - The Boston Globe

Apparently some computer scientists in California have developed a system that can work out your passwords just from the sound you make typing the keys on your keyboard.

Scary stuff!

Link: Careful or they'll hear your password - The Boston Globe

Office 12 UI

Microsoft are holding their PDC (Professional Developers Conference) this week, and so there's a lot of new info coming out!

One of the things that people don't seem to have been expecting was the unveiling of a new UI for the next version of office.

There's a video available on channel 9 which demonstrates it, and is worth checking out!

Having watched the video, it is obvious that this new office version is more than just the next evolution of the tool!

They have made the bold move to get rid of the standard File,Edit,View menu structure and replace it with a tab based system that groups commonly used tasks. Also gone are the mass of toolbars that pop up whenever you do things like select an image for example. Instead these are replaced with context sensitive tabs.

Another major change is moving everything to more visual commands. Want to apply formatting to your table, then easily select from pictures of available formats for example! You don't have to worry about changing cells and rows individually, although you still can if you want!

The other major new feature they are calling 'live preview'. This means that you get to see exactly what your changes will look like in the document before you apply them. For example, when your scrolling through the list of fonts to find the one you want, the text in your document updates on the fly, but if you change your mind that's fine because none of the changes are stored away till you actually select an option!

There's a whole lot of other stuff shown in the video (e.g. zoom controls, and dynamically converting lists to diagrams in PowerPoint) and this mainly just covers the UI!

One things for sure, version 12 is looking like a major release for everyone's favourite office suite, and I can't see how OpenOffice and the like can compete! (except maybe on price :) )

Sony recalls PS2 power adaptors

BBC NEWS Technology Sony recalls PS2 power adaptors

So it seems like Microsoft aren't the only ones who can't make power adapters properly :)

Sony are recalling 3.5 million adapters for their slimline PS2 console!

I wonder why it's so hard to make power adapters that work correctly without overheating?

The Engadget Interview: Michael Robertson, CEO of SIPphone

Engadget have got a interesting interview with Michael Robertson, CEO of SIPphone up on their site. With eBay's purchase of Skype for ridiculous money, VoIP talk is very popular at the moment.

I have to agree that a standards based approach has got to be the way to go, not a proprietary approach like Skype. I don't want the VoIP space to end up as messy as IM with a number of different and incompatible protocols!

I've recently started looking at Free World Dialup to hook into the phone plugin on my myth box, and that is also SIP based.

One quote from the interview I found very interesting:

One of the things Skype does, which I think is petty sneaky, is to use your computer to route other people’s telephone calls

Although I can understand them doing this, especially given their Kazaa background, it doesn't sound like a good idea to me! Are there not security issues with that? And I don't think I want my CPU/bandwidth etc being used for other people calls! I can understand why Skype don't advertise that 'feature' heavily! :)

The VoIP space is definitely gonna be worth watching over the next year or so!

RSS Aggregators

RSS is completely changing the way the web is used! Even if Joe public doesn't know it yet :)

Rather than go out searching for all the different sites, you can bring all the information you want directly to you in one place.
What this means however is that the tool being used to read the feeds becomes very important.

There are two main types of aggregators, installed applications, or web based readers. I prefer the web based approach as it then provides access to your feeds where ever you are.

I was originally using the first version of the start msn project at http://www.start.com/1/, but it was getting harder to use when the number of feeds got higher, and their development seems to be moving more towards a 'personalized homepage' application rather than an RSS aggregator (see www.start.com for the latest version).

Because of this I started looking for some (free) alternatives, and came across the rather excellent Gregarius software. This is an open source PHP application that you need to install on your own web server with associated database. (The Apache/MySQL setup on my myth box works well:) )

Once setup, this lets you add as many feeds as you want, letting you specify custom folders to group the feeds. It then maintains the 'read' state of each entry, and provides a whole number of ways to view the items. It also provides the ability to tag items, and search within the full item history.

If you want to try it out, there is a demo site available at rss.gregarius.net.

It is also being heavily developed, with new features, themes, and plugins appearing, including integration with Amphetarate for personalized recommendations. I think recommendation systems will become more and more important, as the main problem with RSS aggregators is the large amount of information immediately available :)

So if you've got the system requirements available, I would recommend everyone give Gregarius a go!

My Next Phone :)

I have had my P900 for getting on two years now, so I think its time to start looking around for a new one! :)

It seems to me that my next phone will probably be a windows mobile 5 based one. There just seems to be a lot of nice phones appearing with the new OS.

The new Sony Ericsson P series phone doesn't look much different to what I've got now, and in some ways I think it looks worse, so I don't think I'll be getting that! (so called 'spy' pictures here) admittedly, these pictures could well be fake, but what's the point in having a flip with keys on it covering another set of keys??

I was thinking about the Nokia N91 because of the 4GB hard drive, but I just don't like the look of it, and I'm not convinced I really need a big hard drive anyway!

In the windows space, HTC seem to be one of the main manufacturers, and I initially though about their 'Universal' phone. This seems to have everything you could want: 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi, VGA touch screen, QWERTY keyboard, etc. Some initial thoughts here and here.
I'm thinking however that its just a little too big! This is bigger than my (nowhere near small) current phone, and I didn't really want to get anything bigger than that.
The high anticipated price is also putting me off!

So now I'm thinking that the HTC Wizard will be my next phone. This offers a large touch screen with a slide-out qwerty keyboard, but is about the same size as my P900!

I think it looks rather nice :)

The only real thing it's missing is 3G support, but I don't have that currently and haven't missed it so probably not such a big thing.....

There is a review here (babelfish translation here), and a video showing it in operation here!

This phone can be preordered as the Qtek 9100 for just over £400 sim free from Smart Devices Direct. I hope that when it is released in a month or so the carrier subsidized prices will be lower so I can justify buying it easier! :)

Let me know your thoughts!