November 2011
5 posts
DOSBox ported to PlayBook, allows it to run... →
This should finally enable the PlayBook to handle e-mail. And Windows 3.1, you know, is totally enterprise ready. BlackBerry users should be happy. Finally…
All numbers lead to one →
Love these number games. Wouldn’t be surprised if one can find this rule applied somewhere in nature…
Music Typewriter | The Ministry of Type →
This is way too cool… Wish, I had that six grand…
2 tags
The old XML vs. JSON debate — this time the other...
History repeats itself, sometimes with a little twist. Just like some people tried to shoehorn XML to do stuff it was never intended to be used for and which drove solutions like JSON, now others try to showhorn JSON to do stuff, XML was actually designed for. Here the part of the O’Reilly article that triggered my anger:
XML is a very future-proof method for ensuring long-term...
October 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Why people care about Steve Jobs
To be honest, I was hesitant to write about Steve Jobs death at all. So many good things have been written. But some people don’t understand, what the fuss is about. Some say, now that they read so much about him, they can partially understand. Still many were annoyed by the reactions on various feeds and ask:
Why do people get so emotional about his death?
Well, for some of us geeks...
9 tags
Weekly Links #2011.39
In the tradition of great weekly outlets, here is a bit follow up on last week: the epic battle between Yahoo! and HP for having the worst board ever is going into another round, this time All Things D reports Explanation Spam from board and CEO to employees. Oh my! Well this could all have a happy(?) ending if reports by WSJ and others are true and chinese Alibaba is interested in buying Yahoo! —...
September 2011
7 posts
2 tags
Amazon Kindle pricing in Germany needs explaining
The German Kindle blog is happy to announce the first Kindle with German menu (the version without keyboard or touch).
I commented on the blog post and almost wrote my own rant here, as to why the German version was so darn expensive. I should have stayed in Google Reader to come along Marco’s post, who linked to an article by TheNextWeb about the misleading pricing. Ahh, there was my...
5 tags
The Anti-Tablet Tablet Which Is No Tablet
So here we have it, the Amazon Kindle Fire. You can find details on your favorite tech blog, I won’t copy those things here.
Way more interesting are the debates surfacing whether it is tablet or not (or a second tablet), whether it is an iPad killer, just a killer (product) or non of the previous.
The best non-spec-list-driven article so far belongs to Shawn Blanc. Go read it!
Many...
2 tags
The future of the iPod
Dan Frommer at SplatF shows us some charts about how the iPod fared in the recents years and drew some conclusions. I like the post overall, because he tries to make his point by showing some data and calls his speculation what it is: speculation. There were two points however, that I want to comment on:
What is the actual revenue in dollars?
Though he briefly mentions that showing the revenue...
7 tags
Weekly Links #2011.38
So let’s try something new here. I will share a couple of links that caught my attention during the week. To be a little different than other link post out there, I’ll try to post interesting stories of the week as well, but you’ll see. Here we go:
This week HP entered the race for the achievement award of the “Worst Board Ever”, which up till now was considered a secure win for Yahoo! While...
2 tags
Wind on a Leaf: Apple headlines for fall 2011 →
Funny and true and shows why the one-man show Daring Fireball fares so well compared to the other bigger outlets. John Gruber, we salute you!
2 tags
Finding a function in Office 2010 (Win) vs. Office... →
Ironically Microsoft gives you very good reasons to switch to a Mac with their own products. It’s the little things that make a difference at the end of the day.
Fortunately for Microsoft, most people I have watched using Office*, wouldn’t even try to find that function, just like they refuse to learn the basics of text processing and spreadsheet handling and rather complain that...
3 tags
Endlich mal gescheite Infos über Eiweißpülverchen,...
English readers: the linked blog is in German. Hopefully not for long, as the information there is much better than on most other blog, be they German or English.
Über zu wenig Ernährungs- und Trainingsinfos im Web kann man sich ja nicht aufregen. Wenn man sich dann aber die Qualität der meisten Quellen anschaut, dann ist das Angebot doch recht dürftig. Speziell wenn es um Eiweißshakes geht, gibt...
August 2011
1 post
Lions hate mice. (Yes, I'm talking about computer...
After some days of use, I think a trackpad is mandatory for Lion. You learn the gestures pretty quickly and they let you navigate A LOT faster. You’ll notice that, when you’re like me using your Macbook in a setup with external keyboard and mouse (standing desk in my case) and switch regularly between normal Laptop use and on the desk.
Now using the mouse feels like walking with...
July 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Seth Godin on one hour of paid workflow auditing →
Whatever you need to pay for this service, it will pay for itself in a week.
The same is true for one hour of learning your tools. Whenever someone tells me, they have no time for learning a tool properly (though it’s important for their work), I reply “Maybe that’s the reason!”
The good thing about learning the tools: the work takes less time without resorting to...
No Way. SLR Lens Mount for iPhone. →
cameronmoll:
Way.
Looking forward to the first time I’m seeing a picture of someone answering a call while their phone was mounted in this monster :)
1 tag
Parteispenden für "Schwesterparteien"
Note: This is about German politics. Hence German language only.
Ein interessanter Link von @funznetz auf Twitter gibt Aufschluss über Parteispenden, die 50.000 Euro übersteigen. Wenn man die Auflistung sieht, stellen sich einem unweigerlich viele Fragen, unter anderem auch folgendes: Warum zum Geier haben andere Parteien noch nicht das Konzept der “Schwesterparteien” von CDU/CSU...
2 tags
How a "newspaper" went from felony to cruelty
To be honest the cruelty of News of the World’s behavior is hard to describe. Not to mention the pain the family of Milly Dowler had and has to go through.
Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl’s own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News...
June 2011
1 post
2 tags
The Walmart Effect →
A nice article by the Intuit Small Business Blog. The tl;dr version: when you encounter a bigger competitor, don’t freak out and offer something they don’t (or better: they can’t).
Way too many small and medium businesses try to compete with the big players with the same products, the same services and sometimes even the same strategy — and wonder why they are struggling. A SMB...
April 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Accelerating while looking in the rear-view mirror
Stephen Few wrote a good blog post about what I consider a part of the business intelligence (BI) hypocrisy, ending with this:
Rather than trying to innovate in the realm of analytics without the required expertise,
it’s time for BI companies, consultants, and thought leaders to first learn the basics of
data sensemaking and communication—analytics—and only afterwards to try their hands...
PSYCH Twin Peaks Reunion
Watched the “PSYCH Twin Peaks Reunion” episode yesterday and was laughing the whole 40-something minutes. Hardly any scene without a reference to Twin Peaks. Every important element found its place in plot (which itself was a reference). The cherry on the pie (pun intended) was the guest starring cast with many former Twin Peaks stars.
Should you’ve seen Twin Peaks before...
August 2010
1 post
Patents then, patents now…
Patents then:
Patents grant you an exclusive right on an invention for a limited time, so you can produce and sell products around said invention to have a fair return on investment on your invention, depending on the success of your products. If you fail within the time, it’s someone else’s turn.
Patents now:
Patents grant you an exclusive right on some vague idea for a limited...
July 2010
4 posts
WatchNice spare time project. Includes my favorite ingredients.
“The true nature of any new technology can be learned best from what enthusiasts...”
– Stewart Brand (via Tim O’Reilly and Bill Higgins on Twitter)
“OH: look at your coder, now look at me, look at your coder, now look at me....”
– (by @nowells via @jezdez)
June 2010
3 posts
1 tag
“As I write this, I realize that Android and Apple both sync faster with my email...”
– This quote comes from Rethinking The Laptop and pretty much sums up why I think the common rationale to “default to Windows clients because they work better in an Exchange environment” is plain ignorance.
Wann handelt es sich um einen (Un-)Rechtsstaat?
This post is about German politics hence it’s in German.
Die Tragweite von Jochimsens und Schwans Aussagen, die DDR mangels 100%-igem Unrecht nicht als Unrechtsstaat zu bezeichnen, zeigt sich, wenn man den Spieß umdreht und sich anschaut, ob es in Deutschland 100% rechtens zugeht und Deutschland damit das Etikett Rechtsstaat verdient hat?
Nur mal so ein Gedanke.
We don't need no stinkin' scrollbar buttons
Isn’t it funny? I can still remember the days, when people argued about the placement of the scrollbar buttons (which are not that far away actually). You know, those small buttons with arrows, sometimes at both sides of a scrollbar, sometimes only at one side, depending on the UI you’re working with. Especially in the UI modding scene (aka. themers) there was a common comment:...
May 2010
1 post
3 tags
DjangoCon Talk: Additional Notes
First of all: thanks again to all who made DjangoCon.eu possible and who gave me a chance to talk about the major project I was working on for the last two years.
I was pretty excited, because a) it was the first talk about Red Square to a broader public audience and b) it was more of an improvisation because I could chip in on a freed talk slot. This led to the inevitable: I simply forgot some...
June 2009
1 post
Regarding the Theora vs. H.264 discussion...
My opinion on this discussion is that the HTML5 committee has only one question to ask themselves:
“Can someone implement a HTML5 compliant service/client without having to pay royalties to any entity for using one of HTML5’s elements?”
If answer is “Yes”, let the committee go ahead. If answer is “No”, committee has to go back to the drawing board. So...
May 2009
1 post
2 tags
dojo.beer(3) wrap up
Oh man, this were amazing 2 days here at Skytec. After the the Uxebu and Sitepen taught the ins and outs of Dojo in a very successful workshop on Friday, we went on for the third dojo.beer() on Saturday.
While technically the workshop wasn’t part of dojo.beer() it felt like one event to me. Maybe we should think about always including a workshop/tutorial-day as part of dojo.beer(), i.e. one...
April 2009
1 post
2 tags
dojo.beer all around europe
OK, the title is slightly exaggerated, but the community events are expanding:
Wolfram of Uxebu has announced two dojo.beer events, one in Amsterdam, one in Munich.
Also in Munich, you can still join an intensive one-day workshop the day before dojo.beer! We will welcome the whole Uxebu gang, as well as, Dylan Schiemann of SitePen and Pete Higgins.
Both Munich events take place at Skytec AG,...
March 2009
3 posts
2 tags
WatchBetter than 80% of the regular stuff running on TV. Should watch more commercials…
“Supporting Internet Explorer 6 in 2009 is like making a Blu-Ray player that is...”
– Elliotttt (via rjdlc) (via inky) (via arood)
3 tags
February 2009
2 posts
Newspapers are dead! Long live newspapers!
Look at the many projects from NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post and others that pop up in information visualization blogs and feeds of our favorite web framework Django. Speaking of which, Django itself originated in the news world at Lawrence Journal. Isn’t it great? Instead of dying the long and painful death that has been predicted years ago (or at least that’s how it felt to...
1 tag
Joining Tumblr
After I abandoned my old blogging space a few months ago, I spent some time looking for a decent blog service. I really thought Pownce might be an option but they bought out and were eventually turned off.
Tumblr seems to be the closest thing to what Pownce was. Maybe even better. We will see. I tried the old man in town, blogger.com but while writing the second(!) post, I realized, Blogger is...