Thanks Yahoo!

It’s like you read my mind… all I want it IMAP now…

And it now officially supports Safari 3 - even better - no more nag screens for Yahoo! Mail.

Comments (0)

Only every twelve months do I upgrade my phone, so it is truly a ‘special’ delivery when the postman arrives with a little white note and a pen asking for my autograph.

This is the first time I haven’t really thought long and hard about which phone came next, I’d resigned to the fact that Sony Ericsson tend to make fantastic mobiles, and so plumped for the highest spec one they do in what I call the ‘work’, and they call the ‘K’ series. I don’t know what the K stands for, but much like CYMK, it doesn’t really matter as long as you know it’s important (the K in CMYK stands for Key actually).

I approached my contract renewal with the sole aim to keep my bill down yet gain as many minutes as possible. I have therefore, ended up on an 18 month contract for the first time. No iPhone for me anytime soon I predict.

The fact is, I only really buy phones for two reasons (excluding phone calls, obviously). The first is the camera. I could have gone for the N95 with all it’s bells and whistles, but even the owners who really should love the thing can’t say much nice about it. Much like Cameron Diaz in a chastity belt; everything you could ever desire is inside, but it’s just so damn hard to get at.

At the moment, 5 megapixels is king (that is unless you want to spend the GDP of a small African nation on a handset). As a person who in 2003 used to parade around with a 5MP camera as the greatest thing I ever bought whilst most people were still asking what ‘digital’ was, I feel slightly wary of my newest purchase. After all, it’s only 3.3 megapixels less than my DSLR, and in the 12 months since I bought my last phone we’ve gained 1.8MP on the previous version.

Anyway, I digress. Five million dots was the lowest I was going to settle for, so if it was going to be a Sony, it had to be this model.

The second major feature I need is synchronicity. My Mac’s, my phone - they both have to mirror all of my contact details for reasons including theft, loss and the knowledge that everyone I know is contactable no matter how drunk I am or what time it is.

Well all modern phones have that feature these days (Bluetooth), but the calendar and contact updating always impressed me on my W800i and K800i previously, so no reason to change what works.

So, I made a blind purchase. The guy on the phone offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse and although I’d never seen anything but a photo of the thing, I knew it was the handset for me.

Well, I may have been a little naive in not having a proper play beforehand. Although on the whole it is a very nice Sony Ericsson from the same mould as it’s two predecessors, it does lack a little in joined-up thinking. It’s not the software which has been improved upon - very well in most cases. It’s not the battery, SIM and memory stick access - a brilliant improvement. It’s not the display - brighter, more clear and sharper than ever. The main issue I have is with the keypad.

It maybe a ‘getting used to it’ thing, but my major bug bear is that although the keypad buttons are beautifully spaced, they are just about the same height as the amount of flesh required to squash-in when you try to press them. Hence, much like a overweight cat sitting on a remote control, the buttons are completely covered, but don’t actually press in.

My solution to this would be my nail (thankfully since I stopped biting them in India, I now have some), but the convex shape of the buttons means all but the most concave of fingernails can press them. This means that my rather ‘pointy’ and ‘nail-like’ nails slide around as though they’re competing in the Winter Olympics.

I do seem to be getting the grip of it, but it has taken a day or so. It will get easier with time, but after just picking up and playing with my old K800i again for five minutes, I think I will miss the big, hit-them-with-a-baseball-bat style buttons.

The other major button errors are the navigation keys. For the K850i, the joystick has become a thing of the past which is unfortunate if you like amusing yourself with Java games, because it’s not so easy anymore. However I’m not overly enamored by games, so I’m just trying to get used to the Big Blue Thing that replaces the joystick and loops around the 2 and 5 keys. It isn’t really bad, but still, bring the stick back - we’re in the middle of a 1980’s revival, we should be embracing these types of old-skool technologies.

The four (or two) silver navigation keys (depending on how you look at it) really are too small considering this a phone and accepting calls/hanging up are pretty important in my old fashioned view of things. However the biggest departure in navigation is the touch-sensitive (light-sensitive) menu buttons at the base of the screen.

Initially I didn’t enjoy them, but I’m pretty fond of them and their animations now. With no tactile response, it seems odd that you’d implement just three buttons using this technology. Then again, they didn’t use much logic in designing the rest of the keypad, so why start using those brains now.

Otherwise, they’ve taken a big step in the right direction. The camera is a real camera. It has ISO selection, metering, a proper mode switch, shutter release and on/off button on the side. The lens is now sensibly protected by a clear cover rather than the fantastically effective crumb and dust pit that previous models came with. It also lights up like Kit from Knightrider, which means if the spinning light ever dies on your Sky+ box you can just sellotape your K850i to the front of it with the shutter open and party on down.

Ok, so it’s missing optical zoom, and WiFi. It’s not really a cutting edge departure in design, and it’s sort of ‘gone a bit Britney Spears’ on the keypad layout. But hey, it’s new, it’s shiny, it’s a SonyEricsson and I’ve got so many more minutes now that I’m going to have to start making new friends just to mop up the call allowance.

Comments (1)

Anyone who has had a discussion with me about my TV habits in the past six months will probably have heard me mention the BBC iPlayer. I signed up for a beta account the day they announced it back in the summer and was lucky enough to get immediate approval to start using it.

For me, ‘On Demand’ has been the most important advancement in the television watching experience for a very long time. I understand the hype, but have not yet really engaged with HD, digital recorders or services like Sky+ - I’m spending less and less time actually sat in front of a TV to watch programmes.

This is probably partially down to my lifestyle - the computer is always to hand and in most ways it delivers my DVD/video-watching experience in a far smoother way, and I’m not limited to when I watch what. Even when I do use the TV, Virgin’s Catch Up TV service is a regular player, and although I’m unsure why there are two extra & identical channels dedicated to just Virgin content, I tend to hit the big blue button (on the old Telewest remote) and browse through around a week’s worth of content.

The main problem I find with accessing On Demand content on the TV is speed. I’m used to zipping through menus at lightening speeds, and having to wait for slower-than-56k-modem-speeds for just a textual menu to load drives me up the wall. However, when you get there, the experience of watching something you missed two days ago rather than having to sit through forty minutes of some other drivel to wait a repeat to start, still wows me.

When I started using the iPlayer beta back in the summer, I was still using Windows mainly, and so it didn’t matter that I needed to download most of the programmes in big lumps (using the Beeb’s own peer-to-peer network). However, I knew that one day before the end of the year I was going to switch over to Mac, and with no sign of when support would be coming, it looked like I’d have to run the service on a virtual machine for a few months. In actual fact, no sooner had I installed Windows, I found BBC had suddenly made some of their programming available through embedded Flash players, but I still had to download some of the content.

It turns out it was just the beginning of a wider roll-out, and now everything (as far as I am aware) is available as a embedded video. Initially, I was a little skeptical about the quality - in the first week or two there were a few instances where the playback went down mid-way through a programme, but this seems to have been ironed out. I did wonder if the quality had suffered because of the streaming nature of the system, but after using the new Flash-based media for about a month, I can’t say I’ve really been bothered and the problems have become less frequent. It’s not like you’re having to watch it at a measly YouTube quality anyway (and I think that will remain a benchmark of TV-streaming for a long while).

The interface of the system has seen some changes since the beta launch of the pink and black iPlayer. I was initially concerned by the reliance on JavaScript in the interface, and had occasionally hit bugs which prevented me from getting what I wanted without having to refresh the page. The desktop application twinned with a web application approach that was used for the peer-to-peer element was a little bulky I felt, but no I don’t have to concern myself with that, the process has become far more lightweight and nimble than most video-delivery services; the BBC being lucky that it doesn’t have to include anything but the content, unlike feature-packed, advert-ridden, social-video-networks.

I can’t really fault the immediate benefit of a multi-platform, Flash-based, seven-day service, except that perhaps I’d like it to include programming from other networks. According to reports, plans are in the pipeline. I’m always disappointed to find Channel 4 doesn’t supply their content in a wholly Mac-friendly manner (try live streaming of Channel 4 or the 4oD service), but I know that we are still in the early stages of development of these media repositories, and further down the line it we will hopefully see more providers offering their content in the way the BBC is now doing. After watching iPlayer content in this new way, I would definitely advocate that this is the way forward with the medium. Those who still want to download (as long as they have a copy of Windows), still can.

And maybe one day we will see whole series back-catalogues being made available through these services. 4oD have a pretty good pay-for system for this already, but the BBC would have to provide the service for free.

The BBC’s listen-again and on-demand radio operations have also been poured very recently into the iPlayer mould, although the change is superficial at the moment. RealPlayer is still required to access any of the content, but I’m sure they will eventually take the lead from Channel 4 who have been pioneering a Flash-based system with custom playlists of programmes so you can create seamless radio experiences for yourself. Still in beta, Channel 4 plans to launch a number of new digital radio stations in the next year or so, but their beta channel (4Radio) is already available in this way.

Overall, the impact of the BBC’s iPlayer on my television watching habits over the past six months has been significant, and whilst I enjoyed 4oD as the first in it’s field I really don’t want the hassle of firing up Windows everytime I want to watch Grand Designs - I’d rather go and use Catch Up TV on the box. Online for mainstream television, the BBC iPlayer now leads the way.

(p.s. Anyone who knows a good way to control the iPlayer using an Apple remote and is reading this… I’d be very interested to know!)

Comments (0)

A while ago I wrote about the things that you most certainly need on your Macbook , or at least my take on it. Three quarters of a year on, I’ve made the full switch to Apple, and my desk is now also sporting a 24-inch shiny, aluminium iMac.

I thought therefore it was probably a good time to add and edit my original list, especially since I have now made the leap from Mac OS X Tiger to Leopard on both my machines and certain things are either irrelevant, more essential than ever, or just specific to desktop-based working.

So here is my all-new iMac Essential Selection.

AppDelete

This funky little freeware app has served me well of recent. With the need to remove quite a lot of old programs that I’m no longer using, the newest release of AppDelete swiftly removes any application and associated system files to the Trash.

Initially I was worried about losing some critical files (typical of my Windows-paranoia) but so far I’ve not encountered any such problem, and it does a very tidy job.

Caffeine

This is a DVD-watcher’s essential that I discovered a few weeks ago.

Caffeine is a truly featherweight program that has only two states with no configurable options – just ‘on’ or ‘off’ – and when ‘on’ ensures that your screen will neither dim nor sleep. Like matchsticks for monitors.

This was never a major concern for me on my Macbook as I only used it for work, but when watching videos it’s a bother to fiddle with the energy settings every time.

Camino

I didn’t really cover browsers in my last mac selection, but being as they come in a few flavours and I have the fortune of knowing most of the major ones inside out, I thought I’d share my choice.

Camino is Mozilla’s Mac-native offering, and though not ideal for developing (it can’t handle plugins like developer’s-dream Firefox), it is a beautifully quick’n‘slick.

If you use Firefox on a Mac and you haven’t tried the new version of Safari or Camino, do it for a week and you maybe be surprised at how slow Firefox can seem. If you are wondering what the pages look like (if you are worried that you are going to get some odd Konquerer-like experience) don’t worry – it’s Gecko, so it looks like Firefox, but feels like it’s drunk a crate of Red Bull.

Expanding Camino: MoreCamino & UserAgent

If you are going to run Camino, I strongly suggest the following two extensions.

MoreCamino is an extra preference pane and just a single file to be copied to your Application Support folder. For the sake of a few seconds to install the thing, you can benefit from Firefox-like Google searches from the address bar, instant search-as-you-type functionality and a couple of other things that I’m not that bothered about.

Secondly and more importantly if you are a Yahoo! Mail user, you’ll want to grab a copy of UserAgent – another small extension that allows you to bypass Yahoo!‘s annoying and not-turn-offable inbuilt your-browser-is-not-officially-supported message by pretending you are using Firefox.

Flickr Uploadr

Well, you might not be bothered if you don’t use Flickr, but then again, why aren’t you using Flickr?

Quick and easy, I used to use the Windows one, and now I use the Mac one. Flickr Uploadr is fully Quicksilver compatible too.

Transmission

OK, I used to use an app called bits on wheels, but when I saw Transmission and how truly simple the whole thing was I switched over. If you need a handy little BitTorrent client that doesn’t take up acres of screen real-estate, this is my recommendation.

MAMP

As I predominantly work with Apache/PHP/MySQL sites, having a development environment is key to everyday coding. If you are not a web designer/developer, this isn’t going to be much use to you, so I’ll let you skip to the next app.

Leopard comes with Apache/PHP/MySQL pre-installed, just not enabled. I used to use XXAMP on Windows for my development environment, but their Mac version is still very new, so I opted to try MAMP after failing to really get to grips with the default OS X installations (config file nightmare).

MAMP is very simple. You install it, you install the widget, you pick your default root directory for websites and then you’re off. Simple as that.

If like me, you want a little more control, you probably could do with upgrading to MAMP Pro, or if like me, you are feeling a little adventurous, you can use your existing apache knowledge to customise the shipped httpd.conf and your hosts file to get multiple Virtual Hosts. It just takes some of the headache out of setting up the environment.

gReader Theme (from HicksDesign.co.uk)

So this isn’t strictly a piece of mac software. I used to use it on Windows, and all it is a theme for Google Reader, but none the less, it makes the rather stark, white and blue interface a little more appealing.

For the sake of copying a CSS file into your Application Support folder, it will make your feed reader a much happier place to be.

Transmit

Cyberduck, I’m sorry to say, for me is dead, and Panic’s Transmit is the way forward. Trev has recommended this little FTP client to me again and again, but it wasn’t until last week I downloaded the trial version and have been FTPing gloriously ever since.

There are some great little features such as semi-direct FTP from one server to another. If you’ve ever had to switch servers, you’ll probably know how much double checking you have to do to make sure you have all the files you wanted – but this seems to be a thing of the past with Transmit. Again, full Quicksilver integration and ‘droplets’ which allow in-Finder drag-and-drop uploads a breeze.

Quicksilver

If you saw my last list, you’ll realise I’m repeating myself here, but Quicksilver really does need another mention. In terms of time-saving, this app is just awesome.

The development stalled for a long while, but is now back on track as an open-source project, and despite the improvement’s to Leopard’s Spotlight feature, it’s not quite time to give up on Quicksilver. Especially with the new and rather suave Cube theme (install from the plugins pane)

For those who don’t know what Quicksilver is, it’s a application launcher and system indexer that allows access to practically any aspect of your mac in a matter of keystrokes. Ctrl + Space brings up a floating menu that you can use to locate any application, file or folder, then carry out pretty much any action upon it.

Want to open a word document without trawling the filesystem – you can. Want to instantly bluetooth sync your phone – can do. Want to create a new text file on the fly – completely possible.

If you can get into using it, it will speed up your workflow.

iWork, Numbers

Since my last evaluation of Apple’s own iWork suite, the addition of Numbers, the spreadsheet application has added to the desirability of the package. Much in the same vein as the other offerings, it makes a good all-round accountancy log.

Generally, iWork’s ability to handle Microsoft Office documents is fantastic, but I wish that saving files back into their original .doc, .xls and .pps formats wasn’t quite so much of a clicking-trail.

Actually, I’m not fully decided on my choice of office suite at the moment. Matt recommended NeoOffice as a suitable replacement to the rather clunky basic OpenOffice app, and which I found useful for a while, but Google Docs has actually proved it’s weight in gold over the past few months when I’ve collaborated on projects that were separated by the Atlantic Ocean.

Bento

Now this is a odd one. I’m not really recommending it as such (it’s not fully baked yet), but more expressing my intrigue as to this new, preview-only app from Apple-subsidiary, Filemaker.

Bento, which is named after the compartmentalised Japanese lunchbox (think sushi/sashimi), neatly and smartly fills the gap in iWork that Access bulkily fills in Microsoft Office.

I say this because it is not a power-user application, but if as I suspect, it does become part of the iWork suite, I think it will become indispensable at home and in the office.

Until now, creating a database has really been the preserve of the software engineer, but this very elegantly and simply allows anyone to tap directly into their existing Mac databases (your media collection, your Address Book and iCal) and combine that data with your own custom collections of information to provide new and exciting catalogues and databases.

The examples provided are things such as sports-team tracking, room-booking, class-monitoring – all the sorts of things until now might have required a much heavier-duty and costly solution.

This is definitely one to watch.

Honourable Mentions

New to Transmit, I am also new to Panic’s other major offering, Coda. I’m in the process of looking at scaling down my current editing processes to something a little less heavy, and this program appears quite promising. I have to admit, I’m not entirely sold – inline editing such as tag wrapping and auto-completion lacks somewhat, but the file-management aspect is a definite plus. I’m still undecided whether this is my next purchase.

Automator for a long time wasn’t on my list of favourite applications. I struggled to see it’s use. Macro recording was one of the things I sorely missed from Windows 3.1 onwards, yet Automator still seemed to be taking a step backwards.

However…

I have since discovered the wonders of what can be done with Applescript in combination with Automator, and have produced some nice little routines which I now use to maintain my photo collection, my development environment and well, not much else at the moment, but I do have a list of things I want to try and batch up in the near future.

Productivity Tips

There are a few other little productivity tips I would like to share now also.

Active Screen Corners/Hotspots

OS X allows you to setup four hotspots on your screen (each corner) where, if you thrust your mouse, you can control certain Expose and screen functions. This is great if you need to quickly disable your screensaver, turn on your screensaver or sleep your screen – all things I need to do regularly. To set them up, visit the System Preferences > Expose & Spaces.

Inserting Odd Characters

As a Windows user, I used to know all those useful keycodes for strange characters. OK, well I knew two – the copyright symbol (Alt + 0169) and (Alt + 0232). Exciting eh?

Well for a convert, this is all different now, so I thought it might be worth mentioning that if you quickly need to insert the copyright symbol on a mac, it's Alt + g (not really logical is it?), and to add an accent is far easier than remembering a whole code – Alt + e once, then just follow it with the letter you want to accent (such as an a, e or u).

Other diacritic marks are achieved with other Alt + combinations, but a good way of making sure you can reference these shortcuts quickly is to enable the language icon in the menu bar, which provides very quick drop-down links to the Keyboard Viewer and Character Palette. Do this in System Preferences > International > Input Menu and tick the two options mentioned. A little British (or other) flag will appear next to the date.

Making The Date Better

Talking of the date – it always annoyed me in Windows that I had to hover to get the correct date, and on Mac to have to click on the menu bar time. A problem no longer. Taken from a Lifehacker tip, simply open the International System Preferences pane as in the previous tip, but select the Formats tab instead.

Now click on the Customise button in the Dates section. Change the show drop-down to Medium, then copy the contents of text field below.

Cancel the page, then click on the Customise button in the Times section. Once again, select Medium from the drop down, then paste in the copied block in front of the time. Press OK and see the date magically display next to the time in the address bar.

If you are a Leopard user, you may also have noticed that the iCal icon now updates the date in real time if you keep it in the dock, but I still quite like it up in the top right-hand corner.

Navigating Menus Using The Keyboard

I could continue to go on at length about this, but you’re probably bored stiff if you’ve even got this far, so I will conclude with this final Leopard-only tip.

Press Ctrl + Shift + ? on most applications and the help menu will drop down. Now start typing what you are looking to do. Copy, Paste, New Smart Folder (this is how I discovered this) and the help menu will not only show appropriate topics, but also the menu item you might be looking for. Another couple of keystrokes to select the item might have stopped you from touching the mouse all together.

Conclusion

There are loads of brilliant little apps and shortcuts out there, and these are just the ones I like/find indispensable. If you have others, feel free to share (until the comments close).

Comments (2)

Being as it’s been a week and a bit since I installed Leopard, I thought I’d share my thoughts.

As an ex-Windows user, upgrades in OS X tend to be less visually different than the ones for their Microsoft counterparts. Rather than re-skinning the whole interface, they instead have a more evolutionary approach to the process.

I’m not overly excited by the new translucent menu bar, the rounded corners and gradients on the context menus, the new screensaver features, the shiny dock or the black Apple button, but it does add enough to make you feel like you have upgraded; at least a little bit.

Apple touts version 10.5 as including 300 new features, but you won’t realistically notice most of these on a day to day basis. That said, there are some very nice additions, and one or two annoying ones.

Time Machine

Time Machine, like most reviewers have reported, is bliss. Backup is a nightmare for me and to be able to just whizz back through a collection of files until I get the one I want is far superior to my current methods (running tailored Windows BAT files, and on my MacBook, occasionally copying the contents over when I remember). I probably would have liked a little more control over the setup, the ability to publish to a wireless drive (apparently this feature was originally to be included, but then pulled for the final release) and also a way to change the regularity of the backups on certain folders.

Terminal

Terminal can now be made a lot prettier, and I think it’s possible to load up custom windows at startup, but so far I haven’t been able to figure it out. If I do, I will be very happy.

Coverflow, Quicklook & Network Access

Coverflow for files – now that is awesome. Speed-wise it’s like greased lightening and to be able to visually go through several hundred web files in realtime and pick the correct one is ridiculously nice. I also absolutely love the fact this is not restricted to the machine I am using. Machine-sharing has become ludicrously easy and I can use Coverflow on not only the contents of the other Macs on my network, but also the Windows machines too.

The new networking benefits improve screen sharing (Remote Desktop style) too, and it’s much nicer than using VNC. Super speedy too over my wireless network.

Although Quicklook is sold as a feature of it’s own, it’s just another implementation of the technology used in Coverflow, but again is super quick and very nice to use, although I did have to customise my toolbar in order to get the icon to appear.

Finder

I always used to read that people hated the default Finder application, but my only problem with it was the lack of a working ‘Cut’ function. Well, that still appears to be missing, so no happier there, but the newly laid out views and search tools are fantastic and a much welcome upgrade to the old one.

Speed

I can’t really tell much how much speed improvement I have over my old installation, but it does seem quicker, and I don’t think I could ever have said that about my previous Windows upgrade experiences. That said, boot up seems to take about the same amount of time, but as my Macbook stays on sleep mostly, that’s not really a problem – actually if anything I think it wakes faster now.

iTunes

Of course, since I didn’t overly praise the visual elements above, I’ll have to make some sickening applause of something eye-candyish, so it’ll be the new iTunes visualisations. There are a handful to choose from, and they are stunning. I mean really stunning.

iCal

iCal has received a nice refresh that hasn’t alienated me too much (which is just as well as it is one of my most frequently used apps) and now has a more sensible use of screen real-estate – allowing the changes to events to be made ‘inline’ rather than occupying a drawer that used to take up a quarter of the screen. I’m also enjoying publishing my calendars to the web, although I’m unsure if that is a new feature, or just something that became more obviously labelled in Leopard.

Stacks

I’ve not found much use for the Stacks feature yet, but I have a feeling it will come in more use as I start using my iMac for major development work. I can see potential for dropping current project folders down there for ease of access.

Mail

Lots of Mail users appear very happy, but it’s not an app I use at the moment, mainly because Yahoo! don’t yet offer IMAP (and they better do soon because these GMail types are making me weep now). I will use it as soon as the doors are opened (I could use POP, but it’s just too limiting).

Issues – Skype, Firewall, Dock, Quicksilver & Growl

I have fallen foul of a few compatibility problems however. Skype hasn’t been working and I found out that is because I had turned on the OS’s firewall. Leopard’s firewall is controversially off by default, but setting it to anything other than ‘allow all incoming connections’ makes the Skype icon bounce twice before quitting automatically. No explanation given. A reinstall solves it, but then a restart means you have to reinstall again. It’s a rubbish situation. Turning off the firewall and a reinstall apparently solves this, but it’s not ideal.

Another minor issue for me is that Quicksilver now appears in the dock permanently and there doesn’t appear to be anyway of removing it (I really don’t need anything else clogging it up). If you are using Quicksilver, make sure you upgrade to the newest version now, as there has been some issue in the old one pinging the author’s server so much that it has taken the site down. You will need to download the new version from the link posted here.

In the old dock, running applications used to be marked with a very obvious little black arrow. Initially I though this had been totally removed, but it turns out it has been replaced with a thoroughly wimpy glowing puddle. If there is one thing I really want back, it’s an obvious way of telling which apps are running.

I had an issue with the Candybar theme in Growl not displaying any text, but switching to any other theme seemed to solve that. Apart from these handful of irritations, I have been genuinely impressed with the upgrade and yet to discover anything truly horrible.

So far, loving it.

Comments (3)

This morning (after yesterday’s speedy departure from The Lakes) saw me in central London, in a suit. Not just in general central London, but more specifically in Microsoft HQ on the first floor of some huge glass-clad building in Victoria.

I was given the opportunity of tickets for this small event not too long ago, and thinking it might be good chance to hear some big names speak, snapped them up.

It had been arranged (or at least was being compared) by Ryan Carson of Future Of… fame and the idea was for the speakers to express ideas about the relationship between software, services and Web 2.0 companies in the UK.

The talks were opened by Lars Lindstedt, MS Software Economist and probably the least known of the major speakers. He referenced research which essentially said that in recent years enterprise productivity has been going downwards, but that trend can be bucked by the use of software (basically a justification for more systems I assume) and discussed the way Microsoft is predicting that the way enterprise-level systems will evolve into something called the cloud (essentially using S3 / EC2 / distributed services – except later on we discovered Microsoft will be launching their own competing version on similar lines to these existing products – this will apparently be good for the users as it will keep prices competitive in the marketplace).

Following Lars was Brent Hoberman, the guy who is most famous for the creation of the practically prehistoric lastminute.com which was one of the handful of truly successful companies that survived the dot com bust. He was passionate about innovation, and scathing about marketing, saying it should be the product that generates it’s own publicity. His main tips for web entrepreneurs were to remain incredibly over ambitious, to go for big markets and to create buzz with great products and constantly improving interface. He also disclosed that he is now working on another start up in home furnishing.

The ‘keynote’ (although I don’t think that word is ever used at Microsoft anymore) was delivered by an industry heavyweight. Steve Ballmer who replaced Bill Gates at the CEO of Microsoft in 2000 talked about a range of new products and introduced a demonstration of the new Silverlight, Seadragon, Popfly and Photosynth technologies/software.

Until now I hadn’t really seen Silverlight in action, but it looked similar to what Flash can already do, though I do understand it does develop on concepts. I had been initially quick to dismiss the impact this technology might have, but thinking about it, it could make a dent in Adobe’s market if people are prepared to develop applications on Windows boxes (big .NET firms) as Microsoft intends. Flash has been a bit of problem on Internet Explorer for a while due to that patent case they lost, and I can only assume the next version of the browser will be bundling Silverlight.

That said, it won’t kill Flash (too many people develop don’t use MS coding platforms), but it will be highly adopted on client machines because of this, which could let it see success.

They demo-ed some mash-up stuff too using a web based app (called Popfly, built on Silverlight) that made the whole process of linking different services look incredibly simple, but I’m still not sure of it’s relevance to the everyday user. To me it looked a little bit too much eye-candy and not enough substance for most developers, but maybe they will find a niche for it.

They also demoed SeaDragon – a technology that allows seamless browsing of vast quantities of data through streaming. It was quite impressive and the example they used was a quantity of text that would have required a table the size of Wembley Stadium and a 14 Terrapixel digital camera. Apparently Curry’s don’t stock a camera like that, but IKEA do sell that table (joke directly from MS).

Ballmer took Q&A and mentioned a few strategy points. He said Office and other Microsoft apps will never be fully web based, but will remain an amalgam of both web and installed technologies, although he discuss the streaming of software (like that Windows-in-your-browser that appeared on the web a while ago) and said categorically that they have no intention of opening up development of MS languages/tools to other platforms (although Silverlight will be deployable to Windows/OSX/Linux/Mobile).

Overall it was entertaining and he had no problem in slating Google’s advertising methods in GMail or Oracle’s databases. It made it worth listening too though. I still feel MS are not an innovative company as yet, though they do appear to be doing more and pioneering work, none of it yet appears to have made it to market. They certainly are covering all bases though; this morning they also announced collaboration spaces (Basecamp anyone?) and showed an entire raft of products to cover all needs.

Clearly Adobe are getting defensive too, with today news that they have acquired a Writely clone, maybe we will see them branching into other realms of software too.

Finally there was a panel discussion, chaired by Ryan Carson and consisting of Ben Way from Rainmakers (who appeared on Secret Millionaire if that helps put a face to a name), Saul Klein (Seedcamp) and Cary Marsh (Mydeo). It mainly discussed how to start-up, manage money and deal with failure. A good way to wrap up, but not as insightful as some of the previous discussions.

It was then lunch and the 100 or so attendees milled around eating sandwiches, canapes and drinking Microsoft bottled water (I was going to get a photo, but it looked a little odd lurking around the drinks table). There weren’t many developers there by the looks of things, mostly VCs, industry types and NCGE types, but I did bump into Jeremy Keith who was there with Andy Budd and Simon Willison. I had wanted to talk to a couple of the speakers, but as I was pressed for time I had to leave DDS to himself and head back to the trains.

Comments (0)

Being that it isn’t actually 7am yet, and that I got up at 4.45am this morning, I’m doing incredibly well. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I’m actually enjoying this train journey.

Two days in Southampton with Currin for a meeting and to hash some ideas together means that I’ve had to set off early to get a good ticket, and on a morning like this, an empty cabin, a table to sit at, the smell of fresh coffee and the early sun streaming through the window panes has made it more than bearable.

I can only speculate that by the time I reach my destination all of that will have been swept under the track, replaced with a squeeze of passengers, the smell of BO and weather that would drown a duck. It’s meant to be wet according to the weather forecast.

I’m made all the more chirpy by the over enthused Apple-fanatic in myself, who has been doing somersaults since yesterday evening when Stevie J drew the cloth back on the long awaiting iMac refresh. I’m also excited by the upgrade to iWork (I think that is indicative of something).

Eitherway the new slimmer enclosures look great, and fairly close to what I had imagined. I had assumed they might have been even thinner (getting down to 2cm flat really would be a massive ID achievement, but there had been rumours of new aluminium enclosures and a lower profile is an obvious direction, even need, now (akin to the expected appearance of video on the iPod a couple of years ago).

The reason I had been so unsurprised at the new design was due to the leaked photos of the keyboard last week. It was quite obvious if this was a real leak (greeted with much scepticism until I saw the level of detail and number of photos) that the new Mac was going to be of the lo-fat variety.

I think the new keyboard design is very sleek, and glad that I had waited out on the purchase of a bluetooth setup a few months back. I’m seriously considering a 24” model (I’ve been waiting for this launch for about six months and sort of scheduled in my final switch to Mac), but am holding back until Leopard arrives in October, maybe even until the first refresh, which I assume will appear just before Christmas (improved chipset I guess, based on previous behaviour).

Whilst on the train I’ve been able to review a couple of the videos that appeared alongside the launch material last night. The refreshed iLife looks very nice, and .Mac has definitely seen a much needed makeover. I still wouldn’t pay for the service, my only real want from it would be the IMAP access on my main email account, and I don’t really see myself switching to iWeb as my editor of choice… The animated online offerings for the photo galleries are stunning pieces of JavaScriptery, and possibly market-leading, even in bespoke web design. Once again the main triumphs of the product is the great attention to detail which just set the software apart from the competition by a mile.

iWork has also been updated, and Numbers, a long hoped-for spreadsheet offering from Apple will ideally be a good reason to not have to renew my MS Office licence. Although Google Docs is fantastic, sometimes internet access just isn’t available, and a streamlined desktop app is what you really need. I’m trying to not get too excited by the thoughts of reams of mathematical formulae (Swan) but this came a pleasant surprise that the jump across should be made even easier.

So resisting the temptation to spend a significant amount very quickly, I’m going to hold for the next couple of months at least, and then decide whether I really do need that extra 500GB of hard drive or 2GB of memory (the answer is no).

Comments (0)