Nokia 770 raw but indispensable

The Nokia 770 device needs work, but it’s indispensable to my daily routine! Nokia developed the Internet tablet as a new category for mobile use of the Internet. Viewing web pages, reading e-mail and news (RSS) through Wi-Fi. It competes against the Origami, UMPC concept, but is cheaper and available. Yesterday, they pre-announced that the next release will include Google Talk providing instant messaging and VOIP.

Plenty of reviews cover the device, so I’ll focus on how I’m using it. As with any new platform it has warts but overall I find the device useful and usable. It’s designed for mobile usage of the Internet, whether from the sofa or at a wifi hotspot. Think of it as a portable TV for the Internet.

I don’t use most of the applications. The e-mail client is poor, it’s unusable for monitoring lists. And I’m not really into media. So I don’t use the Internet radio, because I haven’t bothered to find any stations: there should be a default list like Apple’s iTunes radio section.

But, I use the device every morning to catch-up with RSS. You can read news feeds off-line so I can take advantage of it on my commute or sitting in the local coffee shop. If I see anything interesting I can e-mail it to myself for further investigation. This completely transforms dead travel time enabling me to do something useful. Automatic podcasts downloads might be a nice addition but I’m not sure I’d use it.

I also use it to access Webmail, particularly if I’m on holiday so that I don’t need my laptop. The notepad application is limited but usable for quickly jotting stuff down: I’ve often carried around a notepad for this so perhaps I’m just addicted to notes. Hopefully, a new full screen keyboard will make this easier.

The biggest challenge to Nokia’s ubiquitous Internet vision is the unreasonable prices of Wi-Fi and mobile phone data packages. Most wifi providers charge about 12 GBP per month and you often can’t roam networks. I would probably have to sign-up for more than one package if I wanted to use wifi at Cafe Nero and Starbucks! As for mobile data-plans, these are even more expensive and have limited data transfer. Perhaps IM and VOIP will improve the value proposition, but at the moment it isn’t compelling.

What do you think, will the Internet tablet concept catch-on? How do you use your Nokia 770? And do you think VOIP/IM will increase Wi-Fi take-up?

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Visualising web search

Attended an interesting talk by Karen Blakeman on Getting more from the Web at the Institute of Directors last night. The audience were business leaders, not technology people so Karen's talk focused on tools and strategies for accomplishing better searching. She did a great job in the time available.

With more time I'd have loved to hear how she undertakes some common business searches. I'm sure every business has looked for information on their competitors, customers and market dynamics. New tools like RSS and blogs also have great potential for actively monitoring market perceptions.

I was surprised how few of the audience had used the advanced search capabilities of Google, probably less than 25%. Admittedly, I'm a Google addict, colleagues get sick of hearing me say "Google is your friend!" to every question. But without some basic knowledge like using phrases and boolean logic you can't get the best results.

Better user interfaces would help searchers to undertake the right search and visualisation tools help to interpret results. My research for web search visualisation tools didn't turn up anything brilliant – ironic I know!

Grokker is the best visualization/visualisation tool I found, it shows you an outline view by subject and a dynamic map view. It's in Flash and searches Google and Wikipedia. It works fine on Mac, I haven't tested if it is compatible with the Linux version of Flash. The Brain does simple but easy to navigate visualisation. It's in Flash and doesn't work properly on Mac or Linux. Kartoo is again written in Flash, and the look and feel seems like it's designed for children but it's an interesting tool. Quitura may be the best tool, if you are a Windows user and are allowed to install software on your computer.

The only cross-platform, non proprietary interface, visualisation for search engines I could find was Clusty. It gives you categories which are somewhat useful. I think the one I may use is, Dogpile, although it isn't aiming at visualisation you can do some comparison between different search engines.

Do you have any secret search tips? And, do you know of any good search visualisation tools or use any of the ones I've mentioned?

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Open Source document management missing

OpenOffice has been gaining momentum in the wider world, but document management is an important piece of the jigsaw that's missing. Every office produces a mountain of documents that need to be managed, and commercial systems are often far too expensive. A Free Software alternative would be a great opportunity to make headway amongst small businesses.

There are lots of great revision control systems in the free software world, in fact there seems to be an overload of options. All the same problems that something like Subversion solves exist for knowledge workers who use Word and Excel. Just one example is that often the largest part of project co-ordination is document management. It's a constant stream of boring administration ensuring that team members can:

• Access the documents they need
• Have added all their project documents to the repository
• Are using the latest version of a document
• Integrate all their changes into the documentation

If you can't afford a proper document management system there aren't that many options. Wiki systems such as Writely and Jotspot can be useful but aren't a complete solution. It's difficult for users to learn a completely new program and they often resist. Wiki syntax is fine for straightforward document but can't fully replicate the capabilities of an office suite. And the users have to be on-line to edit the documents.

Searching today turned up lots of ways to publish office documents through a Content Management System (CMS). But I couldn't find anything that was designed for keeping documents synchronised and doing real revision control. There are some references in the OpenDocument applications wiki page, but none were very promising.

Ideally the user would use a document management system from within their office suite. So in OpenOffice when you checked in a new version of a document it would tell you if there was a later version and show you any conflicts. The downside to this sort of integration is that it limits the content types you're managing, and means that each office suites would have to implement a different system. Perhaps a system could be based on something like iFolder, and then plugins could be written for each individual application – potentially any application could provide a form of revision management.

I'm really surprised that there isn't anything out there for doing this. What do you think, would document management be a good free software application? Are there any that I missed? And why do you think there aren't any well known options?

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Mobile phone tracking

Want to check your partners movements, or make sure employees are sick and not taking a break at the beach? Mobile phone tracking allows you to watch a phone globally without the owner knowing! The Guardian reported a while back one journalists sneaky girlfriend stalking experiment. I forgot to publish this when it came up, but it's still an interesting story.

Her apathetic reaction to being monitored mirrors that of most people I've spoken to about privacy, the impact of technology and their impact on society. Most people have a general expectation of privacy and don't realise that in a ubiquitously networked and sensored world we leave a constant trail of bread crumbs.

Information is power so it's natural that governments and institutions want more information so they can analyse it for their benefit. The question is what level of monitoring and data collection we're willing to accept. It's a complex question and my fear is that society won't become aware of the issue until long after the decisions governing this area have been taken. There often very little media interest, though The Independent newspaper has recently been drawing more attention to the issues.

It's quite easy to get over-focused on the drawbacks but many of these technologies will be beneficial – making the decisions that much harder. What could be more useful that knowing that your friend Bob is at your favourite bar and that he knows the barmaid you like.

Location awareness using systems like dodgeball is just a small part of what will be possible. The online world where more information is recorded and interlinking is easier will probably see the results ahead of the offline world. If Generation C really exists then the interplay between content creation, mash-ups (aka web services), findability and human nature is going to be very interesting. Just imagine the impact on job hunting or dating if you can deep dive someone's personal history; at least you could get straight to the point! For a minor window on the possible, try seeing what the Internet knows about you on the Egosurf site.

Before you start pulling the battery and keeping your mobile in Walkers crisps bag The Register reports that the system does notify you when being monitored: well if it's by a member of the public anyway!

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BBC builds collaborative future

The BBC is under pressure at the moment as it renews its charter and secures funding from the government. Politicians and competitors are lobbying hard to have it "reformed" more towards their interests. Politicians want an easier ride, and the big media owners want less competiton. It's hilarious reading the various media commentators on what should happen to the BBC – talk about turkeys not voting for Christmas!

None of them seem to understand that it's the content, stupid! And not just the information imparted but how we receive it. The BBC has consistently out thought and out innovated most media outlets. One small example, try and subscribe to an RSS feed for technology at The Times and at The BBC. It's fairly obvious at the BBC as there is an RSS icon in the left hand menu. At the Times it doesn't seem possible at all, you can follow a link to find out about RSS, but it doesn't have a feed for technology. Needless to say I read the BBC for technology news.

With this background it's great to see that the BBC is pushing forward with further innovations. According to reports released yesterday they are:

"Looking ahead to an on-demand world in which people will increasingly access BBC content when and where they choose"

This involves a new music strategy, more media for younger audiences, and changing their websites to handle more user generated content. They'll also publish all their content across multiple platforms. There are short reports at the BBC, The Times and The Guardian.

It'll be interesting to see what they come up with, I hope there'll be attempts to more actively involve an audience to create communities consisting of both their content and user-generated content.

Do you think the BBC's strategy is the right idea? Is it too powerful? And, what sort of content would you like to see?

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Web 2.0 application races

Applications you can use through the browser, hosted applications, have been popping up faster than moles on a freshly mowed lawn recently. It's such a fast moving area in Internet technology that it's got it's own moniker, Web 2.0. Aside from the hype and the odd names there are some genuinely useful applications. But finding the good ones can be a nightmare. A good place to start is Philip Bradley's page that lists Web 2.0 applications by how they are used: found on Karen Blakeman's blog.

The TechCrunch site is the best way to track the Web 2.0 space, through there's a host of alternative Web 2.0 blogs. But before you decide that you're going to use Writely over Jotspot check out Alex Bosworth's Web 2.0 application races to see which is the most popular.

What do you think, is Web 2.0 a new frontier or just hype? And are you using any of these applications?

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Apple iTunes DRM must interoperate say French

The French parliament is proposing a new law to free consumers from DRM lock-in. Essentially, a media system that operated a format lock-in would have to provide information so that other technical systems could interoperate. There’s more coverage on the BBC and Business Week.

It’s widely seen as an attack on Apple’s iTunes/iPod system as it represents 70% of the digital music market. The impact of the law would be that Apple would have to provide interoperability information to other music player manufacturers such as Sony. Consumers would be able to play content they had bought through the iTunes store on any player. At the moment iTunes music will only play on an iPod due to encryption.

The FT is scathing of this idea, probably because it would have a significant impact on Apple’s share value. The main report, France seeks to fragment Apple’s core, by Waters, Allison and Braithwaire suggests that:

“According to the industry’s received wisdom, these closed systems are characteristic of new technology markets in their infancy”

Odd received wisdom, because as far as I know there’s no proof that closed/proprietary systems open up due to market maturity. And DRM is just the latest extension to the proprietary system tool-box.

Two obvious examples, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Word aren’t infant technologies but their both proprietary and difficult to interoperate, damaging consumers. The rise of interoperable systems has mostly been caused because a technology is a challenger (ethernet versus token ring), or was part of public development (TCP/IP and UNIX). Can anyone think of a technology that has opened up due to market maturity? And does anyone think this will change, particularly considering that reverse engineering is increasingly difficult?

In a point in the main comment piece the FT states “Politicians have no business legislating for interoperability”. On the basis that the market should prevail and that it’s for monopoly authorities to protect consumers. It seems bizarre that consumers should have to accept being locked out from playing content that they’ve legally bought. Proprietary DRM systems secrets are a red-herring, if it’s that important to the content industry they should come up with an open standard.

Actually, consumer protection should go further. Forget Apple and iTunes for a moment. Much of our lives and communications are going online and it’s only going to increase. If we can’t guarantee interoperability between formats then we face the prospect of losing whole chunks of our records and history. For a sane digital age, users must have the ability to interoperate between formats. It’s a basic requirement that is for the good of all.

The Internet proves the long-term benefits of open systems, protocols and formats for all. Consumers and businesses have benefited from the creativity possible with an ecology of open systems. Companies such as Apple will still be able to win through superior products.

What do you think, should formats be open? Has the French legislature gone mad or is this ground breaking law? And, would the proposed law damage Apple?

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Remaking TV with Democracy

Video podcasts (aka vodcast, aka video blog) are the latest outgrowth of the podcast concept: the difference is the content is video rather than audio. Democracy Player (formerly DTV) is a new program that lets you watch video, subscribe to shows so you get the latest ones automatically and it provides a channel guide. Just like Sky+ or Tivo you can watch TV shows when it suits your schedule. The client is available on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and it’s pretty slick looking:

Democracy Player’s been created by a not-for-profit organisation called the Participatory Culture Foundation who want to open up media production and collaboration. Consequently, the client is Open Source and uses free software such as BitTorrent, Python and Mozilla.

You can think of this as a poor mans IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) because content producers don’t have to set-up streaming infrastructure. But, video is a bandwidth monster – the TWiT’s (The Week in Tech) video I downloaded was over 459 MB. So if your show is popular you’re going to chew through your web sites bandwidth allowance very quickly. Democracy Player solves this problem by including Bit Torrent, so at some points when you are using the program you are also a (peer-to-peer) server for other users to download video from. There’s nothing obvious on the site that says when this happens but there is some bandwidth limiting capability in the Preferences.

I’ve been using it for a few days on the Mac and while there are bugs it’s very impressive and definitely worth giving a whirl. There’s also some general buzz in the blogosphere: For background The Ponderings of Woodrow posts about the IPTV competitors, Digital Dojo posts about his experiences, and macobserver has some coverage. Democracy Player isn’t the only option, there is also Fireant and ITunes, here’s a post on using iTunes.

Do video blogs sounds like the future of TV? Will you be part of the creative revolution? Post your thoughts.

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Making the Web your way with Greasemonkey

Greasemonkey lets you run scripts when you visit a web site. Using a DHTML script stored on your computer it can change how a web site looks or functions to fit your preferences. Think of it as configuring a web site to your needs.

There are lots of uses for this functionality. For example, if you think that the text size on your favourite news site is too small you could make a script to magnify the text – every time you visited greasemonkey would automatically change the site for you. For a more visual overview watch this four minute video.

There is some concern about the impact of userscripts changing websites in ways that content publishers didn’t envisage. This could have a commercial and technical angle if their use becomes wide-spread. For me the wider their use becomes the better: greater user interaction (mash-ups) will benefit site creators, and having control over sites behaviour in the browser is great for users.

The first step to using Greasemonkey is to install the extension. When you restart Firefox you’ll see a cool monkey button in the bottom status bar. The best place to find greasemonkey scripts is the userscripts directory.

To install a script in Firefox take the link to the script so that it’s displayed as text in the browser window. Then in your browser click on the Tools menu and the Install this User Script… menu item.

The scripts I find indispensable are below, and as you can tell I use Google Gmail a lot!

Gmail delete button
The Gmail delete button script places an easily accessible delete key on the main bar. It may be passe but I don’t want a persistent archive of shopping lists and movie ticket confirmations so delete is my friend!

Gmail Secure
This script makes sure that all Gmail traffic is encrypted over SSL so that no-one can read your gmail. I decided to use the CustomiseGoogle extension instead as it has a swathe of google functionality.

Gmail Macros
Gmail already has some keyboard shortcuts but gmail macros extends it. Useful additions are “t” to trash a message, “p” to purge a message (mark it as read and archive). If you press “g” (for go perhaps) you can type the label name and it will take you there (works with inbox and trash as labels). Alternatively, if you click “l” and type a label name it will mark the message with that label.

Add to Delicious Focus 2.0
If you installed the Del.icio.us extension I discussed in my post yesterday then you can use this userscript to make it more usable. When the pop-up window shows this extension focuses input in the Description box, so you don’t have to click your mouse to start typing. It’s available from userscripts.

That should be enough to get started and I’ve only scratched the surface. If you find a really killer user script, or something that I should have mentioned please comment or trackback!

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A selection of Firefox extensions

The last six months have seen the Mozilla Foundations Firefox browser achieve momentum among users. It’s share of users has gone over 10%, and it’s reaching 20% in Europe. A double figure share of the market makes it a realistic competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and sites have started to react accordingly. Aside from security a key factor in it’s success is that Mozilla is very configurable. If you’re going to spend most of your day using a single application then you want it to closely match your needs: Firefox lets you add extensions to provide specific capabilities for your requirements.

Here’s a collection of extensions that I use every day. To install one visit the link and click on the filename for the extension. Mozilla may pop up a security box, if it does follow the instructions to permit that site to install files. After you’ve installed an extension you have to restart Mozilla so that the extension loads.

Avoid annoying adverts with Adblock
Adblock lets you block out those annoying adverts that make some webpages useless. By default Mozilla will block pop-up adverts but this extension goes even further. It does take some effort to configure properly but is well worth it. It’s also worth mentioning that blocking adverts is controversial – adverts are how sites pay for the content, so if enough people block adverts sites may not be able to pay their bills and could shutdown. I tend to block really annoying flashing adverts and leave context-sensitive or small and static ones alone. The Adblock site has more.

You’ve got new mail with Gmail Notifier
Webmail keeps me in contact wherever I am, and Google’s Gmail with it’s extensive feature set and generous storage allowance is my favourite. But it’s so annoying having to go to the web page and login every time to check if there’s new e-mail. There are a variety of ways you can be alerted to new mail, this extension is one of the best. It places a small envelope on the bottom bar of your browser window that when clicked takes you straight to your Gmail page. When you have new e-mail the icon changes colour or it can play a sound to alert you. Get the latest version directly.

Fasterfox for lightspeed browsing
The Fasterfox extension speeds up your browsing experience by configuring Firefox’s options for speed. Think of it as a tune-up for your browser. You can either use the defaults, or configure your own settings – and the little page load timer that it places in your status bar is cool.

Del.icio.us post
The Del.icio.us site transforms how you use bookmarks. Freed from your computer you can access them from any browser, share them with others and use tagging to sort or sift for associated sites. The Del.icio.us post extension adds a button making your bookmarks a click away. I’ve always loved the idea of Del.icio.us, but this extension lets me integrate it into my normal browsing – download it now!

Easy editing with Xinha Here
From blogs to forums I’m constantly responding to sites through a text box. This extension provides an easy to use HTML editor – it gives you full access to HTML wherever you use a textbox, and you can save your posts. You access the extension when you’re in a textbox by right clicking and activating the Xinha Here menu item. I’ve only just started using it, so far it’s been very useful for posting to my blog. You can get it here.

I’m also looking at Spellbound, and will post about Greasemonkey another time. All the extensions I use are popular so should be stable, I’ve used them all on Linux and Mac OS X. Have I missed any great ones, and what’s your favourite extension?

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