I knew I had spotted the new Apple iPad somewhere before…
Captain Janeway the moment she was caught using the iPad for accessing adult material during the USS Voyager's period in the Delta Quadrant. A girl's got needs, eh?
A rather attractive Vulcan demonstrates iPad's applications for interstellar travel... or is that a map of the London Underground she's got?
An Olay advert on the iPad...
If you’ve got any shots to contribute link to them in the comments…
Popularity: 31% [?]
I use Adobe Creative Suite 4 (Design Premium) at work. It’s great apart from a very annoying error that causes the interface to degrade, functionality to cease and/or some applications to crash. The main issue, however, is the inability to use the Manage Sites function in Dreamweaver. The text of the error is very helpful as I am sure you will agree:
I’ve worked with the IT suppliers to try and get to the bottom of it, but we’ve not had much luck. Here’s how I can replicate the error.
Go to Dreamwaver and hit the Manage Sites option. The manager opens OK.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that there is already a site saved in there. That’s what makes this error really weird – it actually doesn’t happen all the time – about 1 time in 50 it will let you save a site if you are very lucky, but don’t get too excited – when you start working with the files you’re back to square one.
If you hit the New… button and choose Site from the drop-down and switch to advanced mode and then just hit OK it closes the box without the error appearing and updates the Manage Sites box. See:
Click to Enlarge
and then just hit OK without changing anything:
Hit Done and everything looks OK…
Click to Enlarge
But let’s face it, you’re never going to want to work with an Unnamed Site and store everything under a folder called Unnamed Site 2 in your My Documents folder are you?
So what happens when you try to create a site you will actually work with…
Go to the Advanced tab as before and this time set your site’s name and choose a folder to work with – on my work system we have the My Documents folder mapped to my space on the network file system …
Click to Enlarge
Don’t change anything else, just hit OK…
Click to Enlarge
Now you’re stuck. All you can do is hit OK to the error and then Cancel to get out of the Site Definition box.
Now this is where it gets weird… really weird like that relative everyone avoids…
So you’ve got rid of the Site Definition box and hit a few more “The parameter is incorrect” errors on your way back to Dreamweaver’s resting state. Then, you hit the File option from the menu bar because you’re basically screwed for doing anything now lest you be smashed in the face with more errors.
Hold on, look… Wtf happened to the “Exit” option on the File menu?
Click to Enlarge
It’s gone. Totally fucked off. Hit it anyway, just to see if it’s just the words or if the functionality has gone too…
Holy shit… What the hell did you do?!
Dreamweaver is gone. It’s busted. All you’ve got is this error. Hit the OK button to get this…
Click to Enlarge
Start Dreamweaver again… This time forget about working with Site Manager – it just ain’t going to work out no matter how many diamond rings you buy it, some things you just gotta let go…
This time we’re going to hit the File > Open option and just work with the files on the hop…
Sure, you’ve been able to open a file and you’ve done some work on it… Now try and save it someplace.
Oh what? It won’t let you? No error message, it just doesn’t do it. You can hit that Save As… option all day long and pick folders until your heart is contented, but it will not let you hit that final Save button.
Now, you might be asking why any self-respecting web designer would want to use Dreamweaver in the first place, but I really like the Site Manager and it has a pretty code highlighter.
However, with the inability to save files and manage sites I’m having to make do with Notepad++.
What’s more, this bug seems to crop up in Flash CS4 as well when you try and save files. InDesign and Illustrator all have similar issues. Photoshop CS4 sometimes.
Guess what… Never happened in CS3. Just sayin’….
Popularity: 20% [?]
Nov 10
BlackBerry Curve 8520 Browser
The use of mobile devices for accessing the internet has increased, certainly more in recent years thanks to developments such as Apple’s iPhone, lower data costs and growth of social media. Even before recent development the use of mobile devices to access the internet increased threefold during 2006 to 16% of users (Point Topic 2007).
In low-income groups research shows that there is a higher likelihood of use of mobile devices instead of fixed line telephony services, with affordability being the prohibiting factor in addition to availability of pre-pay packages. With modern drivers such as social media it is a fair assumption that use of mobile devices for web interaction among low-income groups may be larger than use of mobile devices among higher-income groups. Indeed, social network websites deploy mobile versions on a wide range of devices and mobile operators such as Hutchison’s “Three” use social network drivers as a selling point for retail of new devices that include social network services pre-installed. comScore research has shown that use of mobile devices for the web doubled in 2009 to 63.2 million global users, 35% of whom access the web on a mobile on a daily basis.
Higher-income groups will use mobile devices in addition to PC/Desktop access – for instance when on the road. However, in low-income groups there is a likelihood that mobile devices will form the primary means of access to web services.
Any web applications, especially Government services, should therefore bear in mind mobile access. This is easy when the service is simple information-based offerings, but when interactive services are offered, such as tax credits and DVLA services, there is a tendency to deploy advanced functionality through technologies like JavaScript. However, the ability for mobile devices to run JavaScript is still sporadic with the following browsers being able to support these advanced techniques:
Most of those browsers are found in smartphones, which may be too expensive for low-income groups. Though cheaper mobile phones still have the ability to access the internet the extra resources needed to support heavy scripting might be lacking in favour of achieving a marketable price point.
In summary, services cannot be wholly dependent on a JavaScript function that does not degrade for mobile users as these users may include some of the very people that Government needs to reach the most.
UPDATE 12/11/2009: A BBC News article has covered a recent exercise in testing mobile capacity in the event of landline failure. This type of situation further emphasises the need for greater consideration to mobile access to web services, especially in Government and political sectors. The report also brings forward data to show uptake of 3G dongles, which notoriously suffer lower network speeds. Indeed, Ofcom has ordered providers to make improvements. Are the days of bloated blogs and clunky e-Government interfaces over?
Popularity: 3% [?]
There could be sharks...
I hope I don’t sound too arrogant when I say that I have a knack of spotting trends and niches, often early. Friends and colleagues can back me up that not only do I have a sizeable gut from all the beer, but it’s rarely ever wrong when it tells me something.
My gut doesn’t like Google Wave. I’ve just got an invite and within minutes I found myself under-awed and wondering if all the hype has been worthwhile.
Essentially, in case you haven’t heard of it, Google Wave is what email would be if it were invented today based on what we’ve learned to this point. It’s an interesting concept, but I have my doubts.
My gut tells me that people will not migrate from their existing email experience to embrace Google Wave. There will be a tech-savvy group of people who will add it to their armoury, but it won’t be as big as Facebook, for example. Fundamentally, it will struggle to answer the question: ‘What’s the point of it?’
The question around the purpose of Google Wave’s very point of existence will put it on a par with Twitter. And whilst I’ve got my crystal ball out I might as well go on record as saying that Twitter probably won’t exist in the way we know it today within the next 2-3 years. Either Facebook will acquire it or out-shine it or it will eat itself.
I don’t normally go on record with my gut feelings and often regret having not done so when I’m proved right. This could be the first time and the last time I put my cards on the table when I say that Google Wave is not going to be as successful as some in the tech community might have you believe.
Background on the ‘jumping the shark’ metaphor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
Popularity: 3% [?]
The Register has a story pointing out the Google Chrome End User Licence Agreement – you know that thing that appears when you install something that we normally just skip past? Yeah, that’s actually quite important it turns out.
Section 11.1 might be particularly interesting:
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
Let’s use an example to further probe the question…
You’re part of a political party and you write something like a memoir and put it on Google Docs using Google Chrome. A nice man from Google could come along and think that your memoirs would be a great way to show people how fantastic their service is. Before you know it your memoirs are all over the place and you won’t see a penny in cash for it.
I’m sure you could think of some more examples or perhaps contribute to this question in the comments.
Popularity: 1% [?]
