RSS Feed Read'n ...

Recently, one of my good friends has recently just obtained a new job where he gets to actually USE technology (he was in a very traditional sector before) ... I hinted that he might want to read RSS feeds so he can quickly read what's going on in the industries he is working in as information about new products, services, etc... is released. He didn't know anything about RSS, so I sent him to Wikipedia (which is always so slow!) to read more about it (Atom/RSS/OPML, etc...). Having done that, I recommended that he download Omea Reader, since I work for the company that makes it, so I could help him learn it quickly since I use Omea Pro on a daily basis, not to mention it's free. However, we quickly ran into a problem ... he needed to install the .NET Framework in order to use Omea Reader, and he did NOT have permission to install anything like that on his computer. He would have to put in a request to the admin to do it. What a bugger! But, this presents a problem which I'm sure he's not the only one to have run that course. What to do?

Well, get a browser based RSS reader of course! I then recommended Bloglines (although I personally don't have any experience with it, as I use a rich client) ... but then somebody else told me about Pluck. I haven't had a chance to crash test the two, but Pluck is pretty impressive, easy to use (a plus for novices), and free (at least for now). Plus, they have something cool called Shadows (I won't discuss that, since I don't know enough about it yet, but basicaly you can create your own personalized search engine ... more about it later when I play with it.) integrated into it.

Whatever the case, web based RSS clients are pretty useful, but if you wanna read off-line, there will be a need for rich clients, too, with off-line functionality. I guess it just depends what you need.

The Importance of Roaming

Recently, on my trip to the US, I was pretty surprised that I was able to connect to a GPRS connection and send/receive MMS outside of my "native" mobile area (the Czech Republic). That surprise wore off quickly, as I remembered that Vodafone actually purchased the small mobile carrier I was using (Oskar) recently ... this purchase, which I didn't think was a big deal at first, automatically gave me access to all Vodafone networks and the networks of carriers they have agreements with. Wow, pretty freak'n cool! Last year, when I travelled outside of the CZ, I had to just "give up" my GPRS connection at the border, but it seems those days are long gone (sure, I could have switched to T-Mobile then, but I was happy where I was for the time being).

I guess sometimes, it's cool when a large company gobbles up your smaller one .... :-)

Back from the PDC ...

Well, first off, I made it back ALIVE. I don't know how many of you have ever been in a plane that aborted landing on the first attempt, but let me tell you, if you want a sure way to crap yourself, this is it. As if flying 10 hours from LA to Amsterdam wasn't bad enough, the KLM Boeing 747-400 I was flying on decided to trick all of the passengers at the last minute, by jacking the jet-engines to full-throttle as we came over the runway to go screaming back up into the sky ... everybody in Business Class (where I was :-) had the look for SHEER HORROR on their faces ... I don't know how mine looked, but I counted to 15 and figured if I wasn't dead by then, it'd be ok ... after about 30 seconds of full-throttle going up at 45 degrees and then leveling out, the Capitan came on and said some plane hadn't managed to make it off of the run-way yet, and it was dangerous for us to land as we might rear-end it ... at least the guy was honest -- as we did a loop to come back around to land and he said, "Flight attendants prepare to land" -- everybody started laughing, since he had just said that about 10 minutes prior ....

Anyway, enough small talk ...

Microsoft's PDC, from a mobile stand-point, wasn't all that interesting. There was almost NOTHING there in regards to development stuff --- no specific SDKs for Bluetooth development ... nothing (Note: I didn't manage to see about 30% of the booths, so maybe there was something there I missed). They had some propaganda booths showing MS Mobile devices (I even played with the HTC Universial), but outside of this -- when I started pressing them with development questions in regards to Bluetooth development, seems they didn't really have anything to offer (however, I did land a Windows Mobile 5.0 Developer Eval Kit with VS .NET 2005 Beta 2 on it ...). Symbian is still far ahead in regards to SDK "openess" (although Symbian SDKs suck). Whatever the case, not much else to report ...

Off to Microsoft's PDC ...

Well, I'm off to Microsoft's PDC in Los Angeles this week ... while this is a developer's conference, I hope to find some interesting development tools and technologies relating to the Compact .NET Framework and Bluetooth. Wish me luck on this 9/11 travel day (great) ....

Over-Hyped Apple Ipod Nano ... now in stores ...

Ok, I'm gonna get thrashed for this, but I stand by my guns that Apple's portable music line, iPod, is both over blown (in terms of feature set) and over-priced (for equal players). Case in point, everytime Apple release a new player, such as happened today with the iPod Nano, it hits the airwaves hard, like no other portable music player. It even gets mentioned on CNN everytime something new about it comes out. I don't know if this is just paid advertising or what (I don't think so), but it is almost annoying everytime I hear something about Apple (who have a large chuck of the portable music market in the USA, but not in Asia or Europe ... and who were late into the market, and certainly haven't out innovated iRiver or Creative.

Hats off to the Apple Marketing Team -- I think nobody on the planet is as good as them as producing so much hype and driving so much interest out of products that have existed for some time.

Back to the Nano ....

It does, unlike the Shuffle, seem pretty cool -- small form factor, thin, and with 4GBs of space, it seems Apple may just have launced a REAL death blow to the other portable music player makers ... unlike prior hype, maybe Apple is for real this time. Guess I'll have to buy one to find out :-)

Omea 2.0 Released ...

JetBrains' Omea version 2.0 has now been released. This is the ultimate integration information environment. If you're an RSS and Newsgroup junkie like me, this tool is essential. However, it also indexes all of your local emails and files, so you can find stuff quickly (better than Google Desktop) ... it even indexes ICQ and Miranda messages (which are then searchable). Plus it does a whole bunch of other things (for organizing this information -- you can link info, categorize info, etc...). Check out its demo to get a small taste of what it can do.