says big fish, little fish, cardboard box!
is being useful
OK, so it’s slightly old hat, but when it works it’s just scary cool. Im using my phones data connection (you know, that unlimited one) via bluetooth and the random bluetooth widget plugged into my laptop to be using scary fast and usable. When i say usable, I’m using several tabs, big pages and collecting my e-mails at the same time.
Now in theory i should have been able to do this for years, and i sort of have before, but now i have a new battery for my laptop this is actually a viable solution long term.
Somethings Tech just rocks, especially when all of this is happening on a train…
has 53 tabs over 7 windows, there has to be a better way to use the internet…
decided to sort some photos between things… bad idea… 10 down, 9472 to go…
The idea of a Digital life as I see it is a really really cool (most importantly, useful) thing. I would always define this as having all the data you want and need very accessible to you at as close to all times as is possible.
So this is photos, videos, music, e-mail, the web, contacts, calendars, instant communication etc searchable, accessible, available all the time.
This is something thanks to our modern computing generation we are getting closer and closer to this, however, much as I try, this is still a very very complicated goal to achieve.
For example, all my photos, music, videos, contacts, calendars etc are all on my computer. I have done a fair bit of tagging of my photos based on events and people in them, this makes that data searchable. So, lets pretend I’m looking for some info on Demelza. So I type her name into my computer as a search term. That then spits back all the photos with her in, any videos she might be in, her contact sheet in outlook which contains a profile picture, her phone numbers, addresses, e-mail address. I get back any calendar events she has been tagged to, like me visiting her at home this coming week. I also get any chat logs we have between us on MSN.
Not bad going, that’s my computer fairly sorted. I also carry my phone with me which contains my full calendar, my full contacts list. I also have my task list, my notes, and although I don’t bother for reasons that become clear, I could have my favourites too. My phone also has access to most of my e-mails as my e-mails are mainly IMAP accounts. This means the e-mails themselves stay online and whatever device I’m on just contacts to them, so be that my phone, my computer, my laptop or even webmail, they remain the same for all.
Bookmarks is a tricky one, or even my Firefox session. I’m looking at ways to have all my bookmarks tag-able, searchable online so I can get to them everywhere.
I also did look at having my MSN chat logs online (behind a password) so I could get them from anywhere and again search them. This turned out to be a lot more complicated than you would have though, I also have my logs on my phone, computer and laptop for all IM logged separately with no way as yet to search them all at the same time.
So most of this has come a long way, however it didn’t get there quickly, nor was it easy. In the last year I have taken about 9,000 photos, all of which needs to be tagged for this to work. I have maybe a weeks worth of work on them to clear the backlog.
The technology is just about caught up with what’s need, but its still not easy enough, fast enough or useful enough. I still don’t have all my files available to me from anywhere. I could remote in but that’s not quite the same, I could access the files in their directories but that wouldn’t give me access to all the nice search data i want.
I think i have even forgotten where this post was going, maybe I’m just trying to explain that at the moment, keeping track of your data is a nightmare.
just can’t juggle any more data!
has 265GB of data that isn’t his and he needs to return to its owners…
OK, about an hour or so ago Google launched a new browser called Google chrome. This was in actual fact a mistake, they accidentally launched some of the material about it yesterday so today they decided to come clean, explain and then release.
First, the download link: Google Chrome
Suffice to say, me being me, I have read most of the info about it now and have just installed a copy. The only things really that make it any different from any browser should be that it has tabs on the top, its faster and its more stable than anything else.
But before I get to what it looks like, here is what happened when I tried to install it on my machine:
Basically it tried to shove itself in my auto run before anything else. This strikes me as just not needed and annoying at best. No idea why they needed to do that, i don’t have it set to feedback data to them (You get asked at the point where you download, not in the browser once its up and running, so the installer should not need anything here!). In short, Google, not a good start.
OK, once I gave it a bit more room to move it was installed:
Not bad looking, it works with Aero in Vista which is good enough for me. Interface is very light. Not impressed I don’t seem able to change the quick-start links that come up when you go to a new tab, they change themselves… I would of thought of all the people in the world Google would be happy to make it easier to let me get to what I want to.
Not been looking long, but one thing I did notice which hasn’t impressed me… I would have thought a modern browser, especially made by the kings of speed would be light. Now maybe I’m behind the time but last I looked over 62MB wasn’t small. Especially when I had Digg, The register and Google open.
This said, it is very very fast. Not sure if that’s enough to move me away from a very nice and well suited Firefox setup for me, we will see.
Filters are very very helpful. In the full Outlook I use them to allow me to sort my e-mails into folders etc depending on what they are, who they are from, who they are to etc. Windows live mail (AKA Hotmail) also allows me to do this, however there is one very very important feature missing. In the full fat client I can run a new rule on existing e-mails. So if I decide I want to sort my e-mails in a slightly different way this is very easy to completely change the structure of my inbox despite there being goodness knows how many thousands of e-mails. In Live these rules I create only apply to new e-mails! Argh, maybe I wont sort my Live account then…
The Internets has some great images from time to time… I would love to be able to source where this image actually came from… Unfortunately someone else copied it without any clue as to where it’s from…
I did a terrible terrible thing this weekend. I went to Nicolas farewell/Christmas party before leaves for South Africa… That’s not the bad party, that was the great part, the bad part was I actually forgot my camera! It’s not like it’s small, it’s not like it wasn’t charged, ready and on my bed…. People actually asked me if I was feeling unwell when I got to the party, such is magnitude of this uncharacteristic display of forgetfulness.
My camera kit these days is about a grands worth, and for all that money, it really seems pointless when you leave it on your bed! Ah well, there is always next time…
had a great time at Nicolas party… and after epic driving is now in Brighton (again)
I’ve just been watching the speech by Barack Obama as he officially accepted the candidacy for the democratic party in the US.
The American presidential election is something that is very important for not just America, but the world as a whole. Based simply on the fact that Barack Obama wasn’t George Bush I would have been more than happy to see him go into power. Having seen that speech and combined that with everything else I have seen him say, I want him to be president for his policies, his attitude and his down to earth commitment for change.
America, please don’t screw up this time, this is the chance the rest of the world wants you to take.
“;” alt=””>