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Good morning!

You may have noticed that I speak here and elsewhere about how my needs are served by lesser machines or lesser demands. For example, I’ve come around to the conclusion that everything I need to do on the go, I can do with a S40 phone and a good camera.

Or that Windows no longer serves my needs. Or that I can live with integrated graphics. Or that I am happy living further away from downtown DC. Or that I am a cat person.

Notice the operating pronoun here: I.

Yes, that pesky thing, the personal pronoun. Could be so many other people. Could be me. Could be myself. Could be Irene I.

So consider the following exchange between myself and a member of the illuminated internet users association:

I’m slowly coming around to the idea that I don’t need the S60 phone and considering going back to an S40. Just the speed of the phone alone makes it worthwhile.

There’s literally nothing I can’t get on the S40 that I can on the S60, except – and this is a big except – a QR-code reader. Perhaps my next phone will be an 8×00 phone.

To which I get this enlightened reply:

“There’s literally nothing I can’t get on the S40 that I can on the S60″ — I’m sure you meant nothing YOU use, because there’s TONS of things you can get on S60 and not on S40.

Ah, yes. The internet troll. It has arrived to comment without reading.

For future reference – if you arrive to troll or to comment without reading because someone else told you to do so, please take your agenda elsewhere. People like you are why I stopped commenting on Slashdot and spend most of my time downvoting people trolls there. It’s why I don’t read Digg or Drudge Report any longer. Fact is, really, if you have an opinion without reading, I’m going to laugh at you and ban you going to ignore you less likely to take you seriously. Take a hint from these people who not only backed up their positions, they read what I said, even though they disagreed.

Congratulations Razor1973 – you have won one internets for your insightful remark.

Web 2.0: speeding up how fast you can get flamed by people who don’t read your comment.

(Now watch the trolls line up to protest without reading.)

I’ve been waiting for Goldfrapp‘s latest album, Seventh Tree, for a good while now. I’ve been a Goldfrapp fan a lot longer than I knew I was a fan, so I was excited about the new album. So, Seventh Tree. Right, well what is it not?

• It is not Supernature. Don’t look for a dance album here.
• It is not Black Cherry. Don’t look for a experimental album here.
• It is not Felt Mountain. The sound is much better.

What it is, then, is a slightly disjointed collection of slow electronica pieces set to an original rhythm. Oh, yes, and it will likely be remixed in unbelievable and incredible ways. It may well become the first YouTube of albums in a way that no album has allowed remixing to date.

Unlike Ooo La La (my favourite bit of Goldfrapp to date), there’s no single track on the new album that can be tossed in the stereo and danced to right away. Unlike Crystalline Green, there’s no single on the new album that you can destroy a pair of stereo speakers with. But the first remix of A&E, from the North American A&E CD single, has already been added to my list of driving songs, and will likely spend much more time on my favourites list than did Strict Machine or Hairy Trees. This remix, and the next, will likely appeal to the hardcore dance club scene, as well the driving club; the last remix will likely appeal more to the people who thought Justin Timberlake‘s SexyBack was a good song and gave it a Grammy over Ooo La La. In short – something for everyone!

I suppose what I’m trying to say is this: Goldfrapp’s usual fans will likely not like Seventh Tree much: it’s more folksy, much slower and less edgy. While the sound has not become commercial, as I had feared when I watched the A&E music video, it is fundamentally different from what Alison and Will have put out in the past. Their past efforts could be characterized as coming up with the perfect sound by themselves, which led to a love of the music from some and a hatred from others. Seventh Tree, by contrast, brings a solid foundation and then expects others to create the sound that they want. I think the genius in this is that they realize that some of their best music has been due to the remixes; just listen to the Ooo La La CD single to see an excellent example of this “Music 2.0″ effect.

So what do you get when you buy Seventh Tree? Well, you get songs that are not quite finished. I do not mean that you wouldn’t want to listen to them – I did, and I enjoyed them, especially Road to Somewhere – but you’ll be left wanting more. Much like the Sopranos, it almost feels like the music has ended mid-sentence and you’ll crave the remixes. I’m not sure how this experiment will work out, but it may well be the future of the music industry, alongside the pioneering experiments of In Rainbows.

By the way, if you buy your music in digital format: Clowns is not a bad rip – it really is meant to sound that way.

Just as I was beginning to pontificate on the wonder and beauty that are web and web 2.0 applications and about how all my data would be accessible anywhere on any device I ran into a slight problem.

A large slight problem.

Specifically, cloud computing require network connectivity.

So when today I discovered that Windows was up to it’s usual shenanigans and no amount of pleading, beating or mucking about through the registry would work, I discovered the pain of being without all my data momentarily.

Let’s not ever do that again, shall we? I still hurt.

PS – Americans say connectivity in a very odd manner, making it three words (“KON-NECK-TIVITEE”) instead of two (“connect-ivity”)

As promised, I made a list of the software that I need to use and that I’d like to have around since I do use it from time to time.

If anyone can help me fill out the blanks – particularly the red exclamations – that would be great.

In fact, the only thing stopping me from going to Mac OS tomorrow is that I absolutely need a replacement to Paint.NET. PC Suite is too much of a killing block for me to move. And, no, the GIMP and GIMPshop do not count – I don’t have enough hair left to pull out in frustration. I suppose I could buy Photoshop, but I feel unclean going back to non-FOSS software. Not to mention, I’d be out several hundred dollars for features I’ll barely use.

Standard disclaimer: I’m told there are some awful relationships out there. This post is not meant to trivialize those, but it is to point out some other abuses that we take for granted. These relationships, like the other ones, need to stop.

Confession: I’ve been in a relationship since about 1990. Since then, I have spent countless hours beating my head against the wall, yelling at inanimate objects, hitting and in some cases, severely damaging, inanimate objects. Not to mention myself. Every successive iteration of this relationship brings new lows, and every time I have justified it by saying it was worth it, and that the pros outweighed the cons and that it would get better.

In time.

Always, I would reassure myself – give it time, it’ll work out.

Even when I was asked for more and more and more and I, happily, and then reluctantly complied. Maybe giving more up would help. Maybe things would get better.

Sometimes, I would blame myself for it – maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I could have done something differently. Maybe I deserved this. Maybe it was my fault that I was up a creek without a paddle. All those maybes.

No more.

Microsoft Windows, you and I are done.

All those screwups that I blamed myself for, the increasing resources you demanded and I complied with, all those hundreds and thousands of hours fixing what you botched because a committee decided against common sense – all of that crap I had to put up with: I don’t deserve this. I deserve better.

Every new restriction you introduced, every new random error you generated, every new issue that suddenly appeared, every single one made me hate you more and more. I accepted each, I learned to work those I couldn’t accept, I snuck around what I couldn’t work around; I don’t deserve to. It’s my house computer and you’re the unwelcome interloper.

Things I don’t deserve:

• Being treated like a thief for installing store bought and receipted software. Windows Activation & Advantage – there are special levels of hell reserved for you. And your designers and implementers. And their managers. And VPs.
• Being treated like a thief for playing music and movies I own. It’s my machine, I’ll play what I want, how I want, where I want and when I want without you looking over my shoulder.
• Being told I’m a moron for wanting to do any of the following “normal” things: installing software, starting software, connecting to a network, moving files or folders. Really, let’s admit it Windows – YOU are at fault. The fact that I have to click that awful “Continue” button is because YOU screwed up. You have had five major versions to fix it. FIVE! 5! Not once did you redeem yourself.
• Your refusal to cooperate with anything – your previous incarnations, and god forbid you should obey standards. Would it really kill you to do so?

You’re out of chances, so nothing you do will help your case. In fact, if you would kindly shut up and clear yourself out, that’d be great. But you won’t because you’re a fat, ugly slob. So I’ll have to clear up your mess.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

1. Write up a list of software I need to have running, and find replacements for them.
2. Copy all my files to my “I don’t care about disk formats” drives.
3. Nuke you from orbit. Only way to be sure.
4. Switch to something better.

I’m undecided today whether my next computer will be Linux-based or a Mac. The cost for the former is considerably less, but the aggravation more than makes up for it. Why would I go from one proprietary system to another? Because people are complaining about how much Mac OS X costs. Why? Because it’s so good that people can’t justify paying another $80 for a product that makes tiny incremental improvements. It’s that good that I can’t figure out what to put in to make it better!

And I deserve better.

And now I’m going to go get something better.

(PS – If you’re wondering the straw that broke the camel’s back is: there is a wireless network at work that I can’t connect to. In fact, every single one of the nearly two dozen people who have come over to ask me for help are running Vista. Meanwhile the two Macs and the half dozen Windows XP laptops I can see are running just fine. The solution lies in editing the registry. Are you kidding? If I needed to manually edit configuration files, I MIGHT AS WELL USE LINUX.)

For reasons which are not clear to me, Windows Vista SP1 downloaded and installed itself on my computer. This is odd because SP1 is not due out for us folks in the trenches in the next couple of months, at least. Yet, here’s visual proof:

Weird. I thought only MSDN people were getting it right now.

This is going to be a bit of a long review, so I’m going to cut most of it, and if you’re interested in reading more about it, follow the cut.

A brief introduction to the Nokia N800: about the size of two decks of cards put side by side, the N800 is the successor to the Nokia 770, and now has a sibling in the GPS-equipped N810. Unlike the majority of Nokia’s previous offerings which ran some flavour of Symbian or another (or Symbian’s predecessor), the N800 runs a customized version of Debian called Maemo.

The latest version of this operating system is called OS2008 and debuted with the N810 device around the middle of October 2007. Theoretically, OS2008 was made available for the existing base of N800 users in December 2007. I say theoretically because Nokia’s servers collapsed under the load and it was not until the last half of January 2008 that I managed to successfully download the whole thing and install it. So this is a review after using it for a month – and is primarily a catalogue of one reasonably power-user’s take on it.

Read the rest of this entry »

My roommate and Google are two of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

Especially when my roommate is doing her Google-fu.

About 15 years ago, when I moved to Manila, one of the first things I remember watching on television (and my sister will probably remember too), is what I called the “Chinese Aladdin”. It was a heck of a production and I’ve searched years and years for it. I distinctly remember only one thing from it: “It’s a very, very very good morning in China”.

Now from that one phrase, my roommate tracked down the melody (“Lovely Morning in China” – wma sample) and that it was a 1990 production of the Prince Street Player’s Aladdin starring Susan Egan as Mei Ling.

All that from one vaguely remembered line from years and years and years ago.

Three things about all of this amaze me:

1. The internet – how it has a copy of almost anything you can think of.
2. Google – how it indexes just about everything on the internet.
3. My roommate – how she can deftly manipulate Google to narrow the 157 million results to thirty.

I am amazed and awed. When in the history of humanity before the internet and Google has anyone ever been able to find something like this so quickly?

Wow.

Never mind the Holocene Calendar; I propose we create a new calendar era starting on 7 September, 1998; dates before are Before Google’s Founding (BG) and dates after are After Google’s Founding (AG).

About once a year, around this time of the year, in fact, I find myself wishfully thinking how nice it would be if all my computers and all my gadgets all shared the same calendars and contacts databases, so I could enter it into the nearest interface handy and not worry about it. Long ago, I came to the conclusion that no matter what interface I use, Google’s Calendar and Contacts were really the best solution all around as a back-end for PIM needs. And when Google added IMAP to Gmail, a party was in order.

My buddy Koh knows about this obsession of mine to keep things in sync – and I think she’s even blogged about my fun trying a while back. Since then a couple of things have happened:

1. I got rid of my Windows Mobile phone (boy was that an ugly piece of work!)
2. I stopped using Lotus Notes (whew!).
3. I moved over to Thunderbird on all my platforms (instead of Outlook, Entourage and Evolution, respectively on Windows, Mac OS and Linux).
4. I picked up a Nokia N800.
5. I’ve stopped trying to keep my older devices synced.

But in other terms, the situation is pretty much still the same. I’m trying, basically, to do the impossible: sync devices that were never meant to be synced. And I don’t mean “sync” as in “download the calendar from Google once a week”; I mean “download the calendar from Google, and upload my changes every two hours”. Two-way sync is nigh impossible.

Oh yes, also – it has to be free and preferably, FOSS.

I experimented with a handful of techniques, including a kludge using ScheduleWorld, Funambol, and others, but after trying to keep everything in sync for about two weeks and suffering uncountable crashes, sense was beaten into me.

So I stopped. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try again, right?

So here’s where I stand right now:

1. Computers (three – Windows Vista Ultimate, Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”, Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”): if it runs Thunderbird, Thunderbird is installed, along with Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar. Lightning enables scheduling in Thunderbird, and PGC allows two-way syncing of Google Calendar and the local Thunderbird copy.
2. Nokia N80 – GooSync used to work, but it died a while back and so I manually sync the calendars every so often.
3. Nokia N800 – what PIM software?
4. No contacts sync at all.

Where I’d like to be:

1. Computers: Using PGC for calendar, and GCalDaemon for LDAP access to my contacts.

2. Nokia N80 – get something working, at least for my calendar. Maybe I’ll try GCalSync, if it installs, for a change. One kludge that might work is to sync my phone with my Windows desktop (where Nokia’s PC Suite handles the hard work of getting it onto the phone), but PC Suite doesn’t sync with Thunderbird (but it does with Windows Vista Calendar, which does with Google Calendar! ). See how quickly how complicated it becomes?

3. Nokia N800 – install GPE-Contacts and GPE-Calendar and get them working. One way sync (from Google to the device) would be acceptable on that, since I don’t really use the N800 as an input device.

I’ll be trying some experiments out this weekend (after making a suitably disposable calendar) and hoping for the best. Who knows? Maybe by the end of this month, I may actually be able to fire up the nearest device and know (within a couple of hours) what I’m supposed to be doing.

That’s what I said the last time, of course.

Cancel or Allow?

Ahem.

I’ve now tried to live with UAC for at least six months. But when I can’t even start a media player without getting a UAC prompt, guess what happens to UAC?

Good riddance. Best use of a reboot, ever.

PS – Get rid of that damnable icon too.