Tag: Technology

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Blogs Bookmarks Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Music Technology

Apple – QuickTime – September 2007 Keynote Address

Ipods Special Event 20070905Apple – QuickTime – September 2007 Keynote Address

Apple Special Event from today is now available for streaming, Steve is looking sharp, great seeing him playing with iTunes Ringtone Maker: “All we are saying is give peace a chance” – “that’s for when NBC calls” LOL.

And the iPod Touch – should be called the iPod Ouch – Ouch there goes my recent resolution: “No more gadgets!” AGAIN! I am however going to wait until I can try it, before buying. I have some questions…

  1. Can I update my calendar and address book and have it synced back to iCal and Address Book? My guess is no.
  2. Does the Danish localisation include a Danish touch screen keyboard, including æ, ø and å, Steve only showed the US version?
  3. It doesn’t look like it works with Nike+.
  4. It doesn’t look like it supports Bluetooth, so no wireless headsets or integration with phones and cameras
  5. When will there be a Starbucks in Copenhagen (hey isn’t there one in CPH Airport? Guess I just have to travel some more!)

As a spin off from the Special Event today, I’ve created a Jaiku channel for the Danish Apple community called #appletalkdk, join the fun here.

The picture is Copyright (c) 2007 Apple Inc., I consider my use here to be fair use.

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Blogs Computere og Internet Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Music Technology

And the beat goes on…

I got hold of a copy of Steve’s manuscript earlier today…

*Cue the music
*His Steveness enters
*iTunes growth has been OUT OF THIS WORLD, WE’RE “BEAT”ING THEM ALL
Everyone is on iChat these days, let’s see, hmm…Hi Sir Paul!
Do you have an iPod? Yes, yes I have SEVERAL, you keep making new ones. Well I might have a surprise for you later, and tell us about the merger of Apple Inc. and Apple Corp…
*BOOM!!!
*Do you remember what the BIG jeans pocket was for? Now you can put it to use again, with the brand-new iPod Video, if you can get it to fit next to the iPhone you’ll need as well to get it online.
*Phil can you show us how that works? (Phil is in the audience with his Power…ahem MacBook – oh there you are! – Phil is on iChat with the new Leopard default theme).

*And now back to you Sir Paul.

*Oh one more thing…NAH! That’s so last year:

*Thank you and goodnight!

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Blogs Bookmarks Design Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Music Technology

Heyerdahl.no – iDiamond – the ultimate BlingShuffle

iDiamond iPod shuffleHeyerdahl.no – iDiamond

I knew that there would be a market for “gadget jewellery”, but this bling-iPod shuffle from the Norwegian Jeweller Thomas Heyerdahl in Oslo is just a bit over the top, being priced at €31.000/US $41.000. The shuffle is adorned by a total of 430 diamonds, with 312 used for the player and 118 used for the earbuds.

Looking at the “diggs” this gadget is getting, it’s a great marketing stunt by Heyerdahl. The iPod is “iconic”, but I think that it would have been much more interesting if they had made an exclusive design, instead of relying on a $79 industrial design. OTOH, linking up with the hyped Apple brand is probably a smart move, and it’s unlikely that I’d heard about it, if they had done an exclusive design.

Personally I find the details about how the gadget was manufactured, much more interesting than the gadget itself.

It was manufactured by a Dutch company called Diaro Digital Design, using the 3D-modelling software Rhinoceros.

Kopiavidiamond2Details about the iDiamond from the Heyerdahl website:

  • 1 pcs. / Special edition / Not for commercial sale.
  • Produced for Heyerdahl by: Diaro Digital Design – Robert de Brueijs / The Netherlands / www.diaro.nl
  • 3D production: CAD / CAM 3D design / Rhinoceros
  • Wax model made by: Solidcape T66Bt2 Wax printer.
  • Casting method: Vacuumcasting
  • Diamond setting: Handcrafted micro Pavè setting.
  • Details engraved: Laser engraved details

Details about iDiamond aren’t available on the Diaro Digital Design website, but I suppose that they’ll update their site soon.

The pictures that accompanies this article were copied from the Heyerdahl website, and are most likely copyright Gullsmed Heyerdahl A.S., I consider my use of the pictures to be fair use.

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Design Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Music Technology

KEWL Laptop from Dell (XPS M1330) – featuring Devo

WOW! What’s going on these days…

Dell is seriously challenging Apple with their new laptops, and I just LOVE Devo, great new track. Even HP and especially LG delivers nice and cheap sub-notebooks these days.

And now that I’m turning to the “dark side” for my new job (ASP.NET development), I might get one – now do they have them in green 😉

Freedom OF choice is what you GOT – Freedom FROM choice is what you WANT (or that’s what Apple would like us to believe)

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Blogs Bookmarks Humor Katte Kim Blog (English) Macintosh Mactopia Open Source Technology

“Hello Kitty” – Leopards are KEWL but I want something CUTE (and FREE)

Baby Clouded LeopardAfter being AWOL from Macnyt – lurking and being EXTREMELY bored with what was going on there, I’m, Bach! (For a short notice I think…)

Poor new user BTW. I have since repented and answered on-topic. Sometimes we’re not too friendly to new users @ Macnyt – thank you for pointing that out Cathrine – and read on! This is not as boring as usual – ah maybe it is – or rather: “it has no interest what-so-ever” to you ;-))”.

Well, a common Macnyt scenario (when I’m involved;-)), unfolded:

It started by me “thread-jacking” a serious discussion about “if you should wait for the next version of Mac OS X: Leopard to buy a Mac, in order to save a few – 129 actually – bucks” (:: macnyt :: danmark :: – Leopard eller Tiger) (a frequent – and ANNOYING – asked question BTW. Come on: if you need a computer get it ASAP – Leopard will not improve your creativity significantly compared to Tiger, but a MacBook Pro most likely will – to quote Ben Hammersley: “Da Vinci would have killed for a PowerBook”).

“Hello Kitty”

Well, the thread took a major turn, and we began discussing “cats” (and Nintendo DS – but I’ll save that for another time)!

I think that Leopards are KEWL, much more so than Tigers, and I also found out that they’re TOO CUTE (for proof look here: Clouded Leopard Project – Babies, from where the picture for this article was taken).

But “we’re” running out of names for “cats”: Puma, Cheeta, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Leopard already in use , so I began throwing ideas for new names for Mac OS X around, suggesting Felix, Norwegian Forrest Cat – and indeed it turned out that a lot of people already had ideas like that (and one I – and others – had in mind actually feel victim to self-censorship ;-)).

Mac OS X 10.6 – “Garfield” (LOL) would be great, and a computer that refused to start on Mondays would not be such a bad idea after all, even though edible drives made from Lasagna might not. But really: the current batch of Macs are “obese” as it is, they need to go on a diet, something Garfield will NEVER do.

Anyways…This made me think that Apple should create a CUTE version of Mac OS and call it:

Mac OS X 10.6: “Hello Kitty”

Here kitty, kitty, kitty…Ubuntu killed the cat

My good buddy Esben was quick to point out that Gibbons and Fawns are WAY KEWLer than Cats, and would have a brighter future, if some big players like Adobe agreed.

Shuttleworth could maybe “forget some boxes” at Adobes offices, if there’s still room next to “boxes” Steve already has “forgotten” there.

CS on Linux would be the ultimate “Cat killer”. Actually I think this is bound to happen, Adobe is looking for new markets, and ways to distance themselves from Microsoft and Apple, and with the increasing support for Linux that Adobe is rolling out (Flash and Apollo), I’m optimistic, and Shuttleworth can keep spending his money on Ubuntu.

Apple should fear that day, all they will be left with is Microsoft Office.

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Kim Blog (English) Macintosh Mactopia Open Source Technology

How to implement native Danish spell-checking in Mac OS X – Apple: steal it, I’ll post bail

Bad Apple

A discussion on the Danish Macintosh community, Macnyt, about the missing native Danish spell-checking in Mac OS X, let me to speculate on what it would take to implement it. Apple you’re more than welcome to steal it, and I’ll even post bail ;-).

NOTE to Danish Mac users: What follows will not give you native (Danish) spell-checking in Mac OS X, but it describes what I believe would be required, by Apple, to implement it.

What? No Danish?

Apple’s Mac OS X comes with a very nice, integrated spell-checking service. Unfortunately there’s no support for the Danish language, and this omission hits all Mac OS X applications that plug into Mac OS X for their spell checking services. This excludes Microsoft Office:mac and most open source software like Open Office and NeoOffice, that has their own spell checkers, but it hits all system applications as well as Apple’s own iLife, IWork and most other 3rd party applications.

I know from experience that this is a major issue with Danish Mac users, the question surfaces again and again.

cocoAspell to the rescue

The current solution is to install cocoAspell, a Mac OS X wrapper for the Aspell open source spell checker, and download the Danish dictionary. If you understand Danish, you can also get help from Æbletræet and this detailed guide (ZIP file) made by a Macnyt user.

Unfortunately that is not something the average person knows how to do, and it’s relatively complicated.

How to implement native Danish spell-checking in Mac OS X

So here it is: This is what I have found out, that it would take to implement native Danish spell checking in Mac OS X.

From an implementation point-of-view, it looks like it is quite straightforward.

Everything is located in the AppleSpell.service package, that is located in /System/Library/Services.

The file is organised like a .app package, first a Contents folder, that contains a Resources and a Mac OS X folder, along with a PkgInfo file and some .plist files.

Each supported language is represented by an entry in a .plist file called info.plist located in Contents, and a .lproj folder located in Contents/Resources.

The .lproj folder contains two files, one is called bindict, the other Dictionary.dat.

Problem: bindict and Dictionary.dat are binary files, and I haven’t been able to locate ANY documentation of the formats.

Step-by-step guide (for the Apple engineers):

  1. Get a copy of the “Store Danske Ordliste”
  2. Organise it “in a manner that is compatible with your indexing software” (this is the hard part, and I’m sure you could get community involvement in this).
  3. Run it through your indexing application (or lend us a copy)
  4. Create a new AppleSpell.service package
  5. Add the entry for Danish to the Contents/info.plist file
  6. Add a folder for Danish language to Contents/Resources
  7. Add the bindict and Dictionay.dat files created by the indexing application to the folder for Danish language
  8. Replace the old AppleSpell.service package with the new
  9. Ask the Danish Mac community to help test it
  10. Release it with the next, minor, update of Mac OS X

I estimate that it would take no longer than 1 man-week to implement and test this – so Apple come on…

p.s.. do you really need to reinvent the wheel?

In many ways cocoAspell, is a better and, not least, open solution, so Apple you should really consider the alternative: drop the native spell-checker and embrace cocoAspell, there’s really no need to reinvent the wheel is there?

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Blogs Computere og Internet Kim Blog (English) Technology

Jaiku-Jabber-Doo: Your “presence pusher” has arrived

Jaiku LogoI’m obviously not done writing about Jaiku, the remarkable microblogging web-application, that you can use to stay updated on what you, and your contacts are “up-to”, by following the so-called presence streams, or log of “Jaikus”, that are maintained by your contacts.

A “Jaiku” is a short message, that could be a link to a weblog entry, a photo or a TEXT message sent from your phone. Each “Jaiku” become a “presence message”, i.e. something you produced – indicating that you’re “present”. As written earlier, I love the concept.

The reason I’m writing about Jaiku again, is because they have released, in closed beta-testing, integration with the instant messengering (IM) protocol Jabber. Jabber is, for instance, the IM protocol that is used by Google Talk.

Besides the possibility of receiving presence updates as IMs, you can also update your presence by simply sending an IM to the Jaiku bot.

It works great, and it’s really convenient to have your presence stream pushed as Instant Messages, instead of having to pull it manually, by updating the web-page.

The only problem I had was that I couldn’t sign up for the beta from the web-based Google Talk client, so I had to fire-up my favourite IM application, Adium.

After I sent the activation code from Adium, I immediately began receiving messages from Jaiku in both Adium, web-based Google Talk and on my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet.

You can track progress on “Jaiku-Jabber-Doo” on the #imku Jaiku channel.

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English) Resources Technology Undervisning Videnskab

iTunes U: “e-Learning” done right?

iTunes U: the campus that never sleeps

I just discovered that Apple has launched a new section of the iTunes Store, called iTunes U – the U must be short for University.

Promising and FREE

My first impression is that iTunes U looks very, very promising.

iTunes U features video and audio lectures, lecture notes etc. from major US universities, like MIT; for instance an entire course on “Electromagnetism” from MIT with titles like “What holds our world together?…”, all organised in the familiar iTunes Store.

And the best is that the content is FREE – yes FREE.

Where are the Danish Us?

So when will we get content from Danish Universities on iTunes U? I’m not optimistic!

The reason I’m pessimistic, is the ongoing debate over “e-Learning” in Denmark. As usually, when it comes to anything remotely related to ICT, the debate is mostly about technology and ICT-skills.

STOP TALKING! Get producing!

I say: STOP TALKING: Get the infrastructure in place, and you can immediately begin producing and distributing lecture notes, audio and video content. It requires almost no ICT-skills to use an application like iTunes – all students has the skills to do so today.

Later on, more advanced e-Learning applications could be made, even though I doubt that they’ll ever work – I’m a firm believer in the fact that you’ll never be able to replace the teacher, and with the infrastructure in place, we can all become teachers as well as students.

Benefits of partnering with a commercial infrastructure provider

A major benefit of partnering with a commercial infrastructure provider like iTunes Store, is that it removes the hassles of making the technology work from the institutions, leaving them to worry about what they do best, producing content.

I’m sure that the content offered on iTunes U is available elsewhere, and that there are downsides to trust Apple with distributing the content, most likely in their proprietary formats, but the convenience of having it all show up in iTunes, which makes it so easy to access the content, and have it synced to the iPod, means that I can live with it – for now.

Despite concerns iTunes U is a wake-up call

I realise that Apple also is doing this to draw traffic to the iTunes Store, and to sell more iPods, Macs and Apple TVs, iTunes U is actually one of the biggest selling points for Apple TV I’ve seen so far.

Despite my concerns over iTunes U, it remains a great initiative – they’re getting so many things right – and it’s my hope that it will serve as an inspiration to the Danish Educational System: WAKE UP!

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Jaiku | Wifi-café i indre by. Anyone?

Jaiku LogoJaiku | Wifi-café i indre by. Anyone?

(opdateret 21-Juni-2007 @ 8:30 am)

For første, men sikkert ikke sidste, gang skriver jeg inspireret af en “presence stream” på Jaiku.

Denne gang blev der bare spurgt om der var nogle der kendte en café i indre by med Wi-Fi (trådløst netværk tilsluttet Internettet).

Og vupti kom der nogle gode forslag.

  • Drop-Inn
    MJ Coffee
    Nadsat
    Retro
    Riccos

Men det fik mig til at stille dette spørgsmål:

Er man moralsk forpligtet til at købe noget, hvis man bruger en åben Wi-Fi stillet til rådighed af en café? Jeg mener – man kan jo ofte sidde/stå et stykke væk, specielt med de dimser jeg render rundt med. Bænken overfor Drop-Inn er f.eks. behagelig, der er plads til mere end en, dækningen er god nok, og to-go kaffen købt andet steds var glimrende.

Svaret er vel en no-brainer, som Shevy indirekte påpegede: Man skal naturligvis støtte caféernes Wi-Fi direkte ved at købe noget.

På den anden side slider man jo ikke på inventar eller optager en plads, og man signalerer jo heller ikke direkte at man bruger caféen fordi den tilbyder Internet adgang, bare fordi man er der.

Så jeg kunne godt tænke mig en mulighed for at støtte caféers Wi-Fi, uden altid at føle mig forpligtet til at købe dyr kaffe, hvis jeg bare skal checke min mail.

Løsningen kunne være at FON stod for Wi-Fi i samarbejde med en af de store Internet udbydere, således at Wi-Fi blev mere bredt tilgængeligt, og caféerne blev holdt skadesløse.

Når det er sagt så er det meget sjældent at jeg har snyltet på en cafées hotspot, men jeg kan godt forudse at det kommer til at ske oftere og oftere i fremtiden.

I denne sammenhæng kom jeg i tanke om noget der har undret mig…

Allerede for 3 år siden så jeg Wi-Fi telefonbokse i New York…Kommer det nogensinde til disse længdegrader? Personligt synes jeg det ville være genialt, ikke mindst i takt med at Wi-Fi bliver indbygget i “alt”.

Hmm…TeleFONbokse…

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Open Source Technology WordPress

Spammers beware: The Karmic laws will “haunt” you

I’ve hosted a wiki on my website (https://www.kimbach.org/wiki) for some time now, and in keeping with my ideals, that states that participation should be as easy as possible, it was totally open. Notice the past tense: this morning I decided to edit the configuration files, and I now require registration if you want to edit articles on the wiki.

“Low maintenance”

The old, and totally open, setup was partly inspired by the “Co-Creation Rules” session @ reboot 8. In the discussions I had “post-boot” with the hosts of the session, we discussed that “low maintenance” was key to running a successful, participatory, site.

Stop Hand“Low maintenance” means that you create as low barriers as possible to avoid turning users away, e.g. allowing updates and comments without requiring the user to register, or in any other way surrender personal information.

There’s a major problem with “low maintenance” however: Even an uninteresting wiki, like mine, received an increasing amount of vandalism and spam, so I had to spend more and more time reverting vandalism. That’s the reason I’ve decided to require that you register and login, before you can contribute to my wiki.

I’m quite sad about this, but it’s out of necessity – I just don’t have the time to keep it clean.

Spammers beware: The Karmic laws will “haunt” you

So “thank” you spammers and vandals – I don’t really care too much – since it’s your “karma” that will be taking a serious beating for your actions.

Yes to “Low maintenance”, but for me.

If I was running a corporate wiki, and had the resources to patrol the articles, I’d still recommend as low maintenance as possible for the users. However, for personal websites – like mine – it’s just too stressful.

Spam prevention tools should be in the MediaWiki core (and they might be in the latest and greatest versions – which I can’t use because my host doesn’t support PHP5 :-(), and it should work much like Akismet integration in WordPress, which quite simply, is amazing. Akismet is a webservice, that you can query and update to prevent spam comments on weblogs, and it really (understatement) works in WordPress.

Akismet of hope

Without Akismet I would seriously have considered closing my website, since I received something like 1 spam comment every minute – instantly that disappeared when I activated Akismet.

But for now my wiki will remain high-maintenance for users and low-maintenance for me.

You’re still more than welcome to participate in my public Projects through the wiki, but it does require registration now.