First this Youtube:

Then Gizmodo.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/first_glance_th.html

A few key points:

“Before I go into a bit more detail, I want to emphasize here: This is a first impression. I played with the device for about five minutes, at a Nokia-sponsored reception at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. It was noisy at the reception, and I was tired. So you should read this post very skeptically.”

Fair enuff!

Now read on…

“And that’s its main drawback — you’re paying nearly $500 for a device that only connects over Wi-Fi, and you need to spend more money on another smartphone if you want to connect over other wireless networks.

What’s the market for this thing? It seems to me like this is a toy for rich geeks — people who can afford to spend $500 on a whim, the way you or I spontaneously buy a magazine. Once Nokia has sold a N810 to all the entrepreneurs presenting at the Web 2.0 Summit, who else will they sell to?”

Yup your right and I will be first ^h^h^h^h second to admit it. but read on
still…

“The one application that might prove me wrong: The N810 supports GPS navigation. I paid $800 last year for a Garmin Nuvi GPS system, with very limited MP3-playing and photo-sharing ability (and I’m still hearing about that from my wife). The N810 is a GPS and fully-functional pocket computer, for more than $300 less.”

Ok I will repeat that.

“The N810 is a GPS and fully-functional pocket computer”

ZOMG! Screeech…

You had me at $300 less.

Oh yeah this is the magic bullet I have wanted. GPS in a device I can get at with Linux unlike the Curve or Pearl I carry now. However these two device would be very complimentary because of the Bluetooth. Now to replace the Palm OS device so I am not carrying three devices.

http://www.nseries.com/nseries/v3/media/sections/products/tech_specs/en-R1/tech_specs_n810_en_R1.html

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/17/nokia-n810-gets-official/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/17/nokias-n810-makes-first-appearance-drops-jaws/
http://www.internettablettalk.com/2007/10/17/the-nokia-n810-internet-tablet/

“* Same WVGA (800 x 480) display as the N800, brightness increased by ~20%
* GPS with particular focus on the “context sensitive web” via Ovi
* 2GB internal storage (not including memory cards), ships with maps for
* use with GPS
* Has WiFi, does not have WiMAX
* Bluetooth DUNs to capable phones, totally Foleo-like
* Faster processor, more RAM (we don’t have specifics yet)
* Battery life aimed at 4 hours of “typical use” (movies, music, internet
* access, etc.) and up to 2 weeks totally idle time, and 5 days active
* standby (”improved compared to previous generation devices”)
* Runs Nokia’s Linux Maemo interface (duh)
* Ships in November, $479″

Bummed about WiMax! That would replace the need for cellular on this device for for me. I don’t view this as a primary phone but I do view it as a conference phone using Skype.

Unix, GLIBC and DST oh my! Most if not all GNU/Linux systems use the GNU Libc for their C Standard Library. Somewhere around glib 2.3 release (2000) library code was modified in all time and date calculations routines to utilize the host systems tzdata file (normally /etc/localtime). In Redhat this happened roughly at release 7.0. What this means if you are unable to obtain fixes for your Linux system you can always download the latest tzdata file (see my procedure at http://www.kevininscoe.com/pub/howtos/applying_dts_changes_to_redhat.txt) and using the Zone Compiler (zic) apply to the system without a reboot. However if your unix system is using a GLIBC older than 2.3 or is not using glib at all you may have a concern on your hands. One way to tell if you system is using the corrected tzdata without rebooting it is to issue the command:

$ date -d ‘1970-01-01 UTC +1173679260 seconds’
Mon Mar 12 01:01:00 EST 2007

If you see April 1 then indeed your C Library is ignoring tzdata.

Found this article on Network World. I found this statement most interesting:

“When you go to your Web site design team, what you’re looking for is people who are creative and able to build these interesting Web sites…

Part of the problem as I see it (and I do this for a living if anything I am most decidedly a “web professional”) is that there are usually at least six teams on any given web project: web hosting, web development, network engineers, database administration, project management and the project sponsor (the business folks who wanted this web site in the first place). This is where the largest challenges start. It has been said that the three most important factors for any new brick and mortar business are location, location and location. Well I would put forth that the three most important factors to successful web projects are communication, communication and lots more communication! No questions are dumb (but some answers are) and knowledge assumed is dangerous. Another key factor to web project success is disclosure. Nothing is proprietary to a collaborative team! This isn’t a compartmentalized top secret mission it’s a project with a common goal in mind: success.

Master plans have two additional unhealthy characteristics. To begin with, the existence of a master plan alienates the users… After all, the very existence of a master plan means, by definition, that the members of the community can have little impact on the future shape of their community, because most of the important decisions have already been made. In a sense, under a master plan people are living with a frozen future, able to affect only relatively trivial details. When people lose the sense of responsibility for the environment they live in, and realize that they are merely cogs in someone else’s machine, how can they feel any sense of identification with the community, or any sense of purpose there? - Christopher Alexander, The Oregon Experiment

A third critical success factor to web projects is design life cycle. Not only should the entire team be engaged in the entire life cycle but is the design being revisited on a periodic basis? Is this design (now years old) still the best design? Is it still secure in light of new security practices and vulnerability knowledge? An application is a living object. It grows, improves, removes defects, improves on it’s abilities, matures and eventually dies. Is the entire life cycle being reviewed or it it simply installed and left to die a natural death of eventual abandonment or worse failure due to vulnerability exposure? There is much more at stake here than just checking off a project completion column. There is the reputation of the application, the team, the company or endeavor and yay the reputation of future projects themselves.

“It is ever so with the things that men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer. and they fail of their promise.” - Gimli, The Lord of the Rings.

… you make it yourself!

Do a Google News search for ‘iphone killer’. It’s amazing! 192 articles and by my count no less than 4 manufacturers. Shhesh folks calm down. There is nothing to “kill” here. Have you seen the sales?

Heh:

http://www.iphonematters.com/article/the_iphone_killer_moniker_111/

“So I was checking out Verizons new lineup of phones and then it struck me it had a touch screen but was automatically dubbed an iPhone killer. But how do you define an iPhone killer or a xxx killer for that matter. However its the best marketing a product can get, free publicity as consumers flock to see how well it’ll fare in the technologic collesium.”

Yeah exactomundo! The publicity you get is saying you will kill something else already popular that you are not even enemies with. It’s like saying I am the “Palm killer”. Umm gee well that’s nice but what has that got to do with anything?

Nothing to see here move along…

I came across this article this morning and I have to say I absolutely agree! Of particular importance is bullet points 3 and 7.

3. Hybrid networks

The day of the all-Windows or all-UNIX network is already past, and networks are likely to grow more, rather than less hybridized in the future. As new versions of Linux, such as Ubuntu, become friendlier for end users, we’re likely to see some organizations deploying it on the desktop for certain users. However, it’s likely that other users will continue to use Windows because of application requirements and/or personal preferences, and there may very well be Macintosh users in the mix as well, especially in graphics environments.

IT pros will no longer be able to get by with expertise in only one platform; you’ll need to be able to support and troubleshoot different operating systems.

In actuality where I am currently employed this is already a reality and has been for five years or more.

7. Software as a service

Web 2.0, the next generation of the Internet, is all about SaaS, or Software as a Service. SaaS involves delivering applications over the Web, rather than installing those applications on individual users’ machines. Some IT pundits have warned that SaaS will do away with IT administrators’ jobs entirely, but the more likely scenario is that the job description will change to one with less focus on deployment and maintenance of applications and more emphasis on broader-based planning, convergence, etc.

If SaaS takes off, the job market may also shift so that more jobs are concentrated in the application provider sector rather than in companies’ in-house IT departments. In that situation, IT pros who have the skills relating to service provision and multi-tenant architecture will have a head start when it comes to getting and staying
employed.

This point is particularly true. The new paradigm is the office is your web. I have begun investing in web techlogy because it is both portable and requires thinner clients to access such as a web tablets like the Nokia N800 or web enabled phones like the Apple iPhone.

I came across this work of fiction by Cory Doctorow. But is it really fiction? Here are some excerpts you tell me how far off the mark they are:

The interrogator in the secondary screening room was an older man, so skinny he looked like he’d been carved out of wood. His questions went a lot deeper than shrooms.

“Tell me about your hobbies. Are you into model rocketry?”

“What?”

“Model rocketry.”

“No,” Greg said, “No, I’m not.” He sensed where this was going.

The man made a note, did some clicking. “You see, I ask because I see a heavy spike in ads for rocketry supplies showing up alongside your search results and Google mail.”

Greg felt a spasm in his guts. “You’re looking at my searches and e-mail?” He hadn’t touched a keyboard in a month, but he knew what he put into that search bar was likely more revealing than what he told his shrink.

“Sir, calm down, please. No, I’m not looking at your searches,” the man said in a mocking whine. “That would be unconstitutional. We see only the ads that show up when you read your mail and do your searching.

Yeah…. and you thought your searching was anonymous. Oh and while I am at it time to pull these gems out again: Epic 2014 and “Pizza Order” (requires Flash).

“We don’t know enough about you.” —Google CEO Eric Schmidt