Check out this study that our Nielsen Online business unit recently completed where they used the NetRatings panel of 250,000 Internet users to determine who is using Twitter. It ends up that the 25…
Like many others recently, I have just received my Google Voice telephone number. It’s great! I can now keep the same telephone number for the rest of my life. I know, Local Number Portability, is…
I am currently hiring a new developer and since these opportunity are far and between nowadays, I want to make sure I pick the best one for our environment. I am already doing all of the basics:…
I’m working in Cognos Report Designer today and seriously, this thing is powerful! I was recently playing with SQL Server Report Server 2008 and thought how great it was that they have *kinda* started to get the matrix reporting right with the new Tablix control, but that thing is kindegarten compared with the out-of-box exprience you get with Cognos!
I will post more of my exprience with Cognos soon, but if I can get it to play nice with other application development environments (like .NET), there are some cool things in-store :)
Check it out at: http://www.cognos.com/
iPod Touch 3.0 Does NOT Support Bluetooth Headsets!
Can I just say that the iPod Touch has turned me into a fan of Apple. Since I purchased my Touch (which actually was my 5th or 6th Pod overall), I have purchased a second for my wife and then a 24” iMac, which I have been loving.
This revelation about NO Bluetooth Headset support really makes me mad and will for sure effect the amount of praise and marketing of the product that I do for Apple. This is a low/cheap shot from Apple. If they would have been really upfront about the LACK of Bluetooth Headset support, I may not have upgraded. Using Skype with my Touch 3.0 was the primary reason for upgrading.
Fanboys, flame away. Be my guest. Continue your troll ways.
But, this is not cool! Totally cheap move Apple.
All they had to say is, “Does NOT support Bluetooth Headsets” on the front page of the iPod Upgrade page and I’d continue to tell everyone that this is the most amazing device on the planet.
If you are not happy about this, please post a message in Apple’s Support Forum, so that, at the very least, they know we aren’t happy about it:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2043868&tstart=0
Not sure what it is about my Mac, but it seems to really invite exploring and playing around with things that are a little out of my normal comfort zone. Last night it was learning to make lasers shoot out of a girls eyes in Adobe AfterEffects and tonight it was a RAD (Rapid Application Developmnt) tool called WaveMaker.
Installation was simple (if I didn’t use Windows as my primary OS, I’d probably come to expect installations like this, but since the Mac is currently still “just-for-fun”, I still get amazed at how easy installing software on it is :). It was all of download the software, double click the WaveMaker icon and a few second later, I was prompted with a message stating that it was installed. Can’t beat that! It asked if I wanted to get started, to which I said, Yes.
It opened Firefox to a new integrated web server, running on Port 8094 (not exactly sure if it assumed that there wasn’t anything already running on that port or if it did some cool scan first), but it worked with no issues. The interface is very nice and really simple to understand. They have a bunch of great templates already set up to get you started right away. The start page offered to take me to a tutorials page. I decided to start with the always utilitarian CRUD example. After a 9 min video, I was ready to dive right in.
Behind the scenes it’s using all the latest cool frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, JAXWS, ACEGI, Dojo 1.0. You can create and run application right on the integrated WaveMaker Rapid Deployment Server or on Tomcat 5.5, JBoss 4.2.3, WebLogic 9.2, WebSphere 6.1.
All in all, extremely simple! This type of technology makes me re-think how I have my current teams developing software.
Anyway, check it. There is no doubt, at the very least, a simple use you’ll have for it.
Google Data Visualization Playground
I just started playing with Google’s Data Visualization API. I can’t believe how easy it is to get started.
Using my new MAMP setup, I had a demo setup in just a few quick code snippits.
Check this out: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/
WordPress setup on MAMP in 5mins
Wow! I just setup WordPress on MAMP in 5 mins. It was so easy.
Check out this great screencast: http://www.macminicolo.net/videos/ServerVideo9.mov
Palm Pre... Not so impressed
So, today was the day, June 6, Palm Pre launch day. Wow! What a total let down. No lines. No one knew what I was talking about when I asked if they had checked out the Palm Pre. How do you have an iPhone-killer that no one even knows about. Yes, I know that it [the pre] does have buzz, but I think that it may only be gadget industry self-made buzz. I can tell you, it definitely isn’t the kind of buzz that existed the weeks leading up to the iPhone release. I feel a little wierd about how I thought that this thing was bigger than it actually is. I listen to a lot of gadget news (Engadget, ARS, Gizmoda, GTGD, DL.TV, Tekzilla, etc.) and I think that I am a victim of self-created news. You know, when the news creates a huge deal about something that really does need to be blown up that big, but by over hyping it, they get more ratings. I think that my beloved, gadget news blogs and podcasts have dupped me on this one.
Anyway, I got to my local Sprint store. There was one guy playing with the single display unit. There was another guy next to him checking out the simple flip phones. The guy checking out the Pre, finished up (in only a few minutes - not a good sign). I asked the other guy, “are you waiting to check out the Pre. He was like, huh? no.” I thought, hmmmm, how could someone be in the market for a new phone, at a Sprint store not know about the Pre? This isn’t a good sign.
What I thought of the phone:
- The shape is not right. I think that it’s too short.
- The keyboard’s keys are only OK. Too small.
- The speaker is pretty good. Better than my iPod Touch.
- The camera is only OK. The auto flash is nice.
- The OS has too many different ways to navigate. Not like the simplisity and consistency of the iPhone. Also, some of the buttons are a little too small. Not as bad as Windows Mobile, though.
- Weight is not right. I feel like it should be just a little heavier.
- I am not sold on the flipping through applications. I feel like it’s back to my Treo 700wx with Windows Mobile where I have a bunch of applications running that I am not still using.
Well, I didn’t play with it for too long. It wasn’t that exciting for some reason. I still remember the first time I played with the iPhone. I was like, wow, this is a completely new way to interact with a computer/phone. I just didn’t feel the same when I picked up the Pre.
Can’t wait to hear what people think in a few weeks. As you really need a few weeks with a phone to really know anything.
Wishing I was here...
Check this out:
I am really starting to get the itch to get a new bike and start some long distance adventure rides. This stuff is so great.
