May 20 2009

Google Street View in Dublin

Category: Location Based ServicesTeknovis @ 11:02

I previously described how Google will photograph the streets of Dublin for Google Street View in Google Street View Comes to Ireland.

This morning I spotted one of the cars taking the photos in the north side of the city! I am hoping that I will be visible when the photos are eventually published online!

The car that was being used was a red hatch-back, and I think that it had Irish registration plates on it. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to take a photo of it using my PDA :(

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May 19 2009

WolframAlpha

Category: InternetTeknovis @ 13:14

WolframAlpha – view the demonstration, look at the examples, and try it! It looks very impressive!

I am currently trying to get two friends who might find it useful to try it! One of these friends uses a lot of mathematical tools and the other friend works with genetics.

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May 18 2009

Patched Windows 2000 Installations

Category: WindowsTeknovis @ 08:19

I had to install Windows 2000 on some computers over the weekend. The last time that I installed this operating system was several years ago! My main concern was figuring out what service packs and hot fixes needed to be installed. This is what I installed:

  1. Windows 2000 (from original CD)
  2. Service Pack 4 (W2KSP4_EN.EXE – 129MB)
  3. Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4 (KB891861) (Windows2000-KB891861-v2-x86-ENU.EXE – 31MB)
  4. Conficker Protection MS08-067 (KB958644) (Windows2000-KB958644-x86-ENU.EXE – 1MB)

These computers are operating on an isolated network that does not have Internet access. However, other laptops are regularly attached to the network.

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May 17 2009

Record Number of New Irish Domains

Category: InternetTeknovis @ 08:24

The latest figures from the IEDR show that a total of 9,781 .ie domains were registered in the first quarter of 2009. Registrations in Q1 2009 were up by 28% compared to Q4 2008. The previous highest number of registrations was recorded in Q1 2008 with 9,092.

For the full story see Record number of new .ie domain registrations in Q1 2009.

I actually think that this is really impressive in the current economic climate!

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May 16 2009

Mailinator Email

Category: InternetTeknovis @ 10:03

A friend (who is currently considering starting a blog) told me about an interesting email service that he uses called Mailinator.

Actually, I used to achieve something like this using a catch-all. I thought it was very useful for giving individuals and companies spontaneous email addresses that I could later convert to a real email account. However, it does make you very vulnerable to spam :(

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May 15 2009

Vodafone Roaming Charges

Category: Business,TelecomsTeknovis @ 07:28

I read last night that Vodafone is abolishing all roaming charges for the summer!

I think that this is brilliant, and I hope that it becomes permanent! Also, I hope that this is rolled-out across all Vodafone operations!

You can read more about this in Summer roaming promotion ā€“ mobile roaming service from Vodafone.

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May 14 2009

Vodafone Application Store

Category: Mobile Computing,TelecomsTeknovis @ 13:18

Vodafone has announced that it is creating an online application store. I think that this is an interesting move, because as far as I am aware it is the first time that a mobile phone network operator has actually created its own application store.

This announcement is evidence of the shifting role of telcos from simple bit-carriers to providers of value-added applications and services. This is turn should increase revenues significantly, without incurring proportional costs.

I think that the advantages of this strategy to users are:

  • Identifying and sourcing new applications becomes easy
  • Purchasing new applications becomes seamless due to integrated charging
  • Access to new and innovate services

I think that the advantages of this strategy for developers are:

  • It reduces the barriers-of-entry for smaller developers to get their applications to the users
  • It reduces the need for developers to market and promote their applications
  • It eliminates the need for developers to collect revenue from users
  • It enables developers to write applications that access resources within Vodafone’s network by using a Vodafone API.

So it is a win-win-win situation!

For more details about this story see Voda joins app store wars with smart pipe approach.

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May 13 2009

Brightkite FriendFinder

Category: Location Based ServicesTeknovis @ 17:40

I came across another FriendFinder LBS today called Brightkite. It is interesting to see that this LBS includes many social networking features. I wonder is it only a matter of time before the mainstream social networking web sites start to include location functionality. Maybe they do already!

There is a great promotional story on the Brightkite blog titled New Feature: Brightkite now gives you more legroom… I was considering joining, but then I read Why Iā€™m giving up on brightkite (for now). Now I am not so sure :|

Perhaps there are lots of other similar LBSs of which I am not aware! Perhaps I should make a list of them, and then try them! All I need to do is find the time…

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May 12 2009

Skype Typing Indicator

Category: SoftwareTeknovis @ 19:39

I noticed during a Skype chat today that I was able to know if the other participant was typing a response to me or not! I never knew that Skype included this functionality. Indeed, I actually thought that it could not include a typing indicator due to copyright and/or patent reasons. For example, see VOTE HERE for “typing status” indicator.

I understand from Skype 3.1 Beta for Windows ā€“ SkypeFind and typing indicators that the typing indicator has been available for some time, and this article also contains a nice animated image showing the typing indicator in action!

I am unsure of how well the typing indicator is implemented in the various versions of Skype. I was using Skype on Windows when I noticed it, and the other chat participant was using Skype on Linux.

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May 11 2009

Linux Articles

Category: LinuxTeknovis @ 12:43

I read two interesting Linux articles this morning. The first article provides a very general introduction and overview of Linux. It is The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Linux, and it contains four parts:

The second article discusses several different Linux distributions in detail. I will still use Ubuntu, but if I had to choose another I would choose Fedora. Regardless, the article is interesting to read. It is There’s Way More to Linux than Ubuntu: 8 Distros Compared.

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