Moblog

There are so many inventions these days, it's easy to miss one. I've seen Swype logos, but didn't bother to look closer at this gesture based keyboard input software. Watch this demo, it's impressive! Continue reading "Swype Gesture Keyboard Input for Mobile Devices"

Idea: Build an extension for Firefox that supports all popular (and upcoming) peer-to-peer video streaming engines.

If you've ever used Linux, you probably stumbled over the great concept of package management. When Microsoft revised MSI (now called Windows Installer), they failed to include the simple mechanism for applications to register at a central update management. The crucial point is that while Linux repositories mostly contain GPL software that can be easily packaged by third parties, a Windows package manager needs support from each individual developer - which is not going to happen any time soon without Microsoft stepping in.
I am certain that the Windows world is ready for a "Web 2.0 solution". In times where all our knowledge is being collected for free, people might actually use install scripts supplied by a community, without direct support from the vendor. Continue reading "Package Manager for Windows"

Tools

I've noticed that IrfanView now includes a third-party "save to web" component called RIOT with preview and tweaking options similar to Photoshop. Don't forget to download the extended, more recent version of the plugin directly from their website.

TeamDrive NXT 2.0 looks promising. So does PowerFolder. While both transparently synchronize files on multiple PCs (see previous blog post), each has its own strengths. TeamDrive is server-centric, aiming towards supporting WebDAV and Amazon S3 as storage backends besides their own online storage (unfortunately, not in the current beta), teamwork on shared folders (and the resulting conflict management) and unlimited file revisions, whereas PowerFolder has the advantage of being Java (available for Mac, Win and Linux, TeamDrive: Win only), and the disadvantage of being Java (in my first limited tests, it seems to take a lot of resources to scan the files on every startup). Peer-to-peer oriented, there's no need for a central server - all clients are equal. Partner clients in the LAN are instantly discovered, and you can use different profiles for different folders (ranging from one-way manual download to automatic sync). It's a pity that they turned away from releasing the program under GPL, but I understand that after years of development, they finally want to earn some money.

Websites

"wePapers helps students and others share and expand their knowledge. You can find and download the papers and documents you need in a matter of seconds, discuss them with others, or just mess around."

Any germans, willing to sell their lecture notes? Or buy some? Try Unidog. On a related note: Another german student job platform, JobMensa, keeps track of all your side jobs.

RefSeek is a search engine that "aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone".

(Among others,) GoGrid offers cloud hosting services similar to Amazon EC2. Finally, after grid computing has been promised in the last century, the world seems to be ready. If you're interested, also read the Windows Live announcements from September in case you've missed them.

Tarpipe offers workflows to publish to existing social media platforms easily. They are also supporting OAuth, an open protocol for desktop and web authorization that, in contrast to OpenID, is supposed to work transparently ("While OpenID is all about using a single identity to sign into many sites, OAuth is about giving access to your stuff without sharing your identity at all (or its secret parts).")

Dex wants to be the new "Web 2.0" social CRM that "keeps customer relationships vital and prosperous".

Seittest.de analyzes and ranks German websites using "human critera" like readability. Very basic; for example, they do not judge accessibility.

Software Development

I am currently working on a web project based on the Joomla CMS. Many components are being released under GPL, while the developers charge for the download of the sources itself. Provoking thought: If I modify the component, even slightly, and publish it somewhere else without charging for it, does this break the license? Isn't that the basic idea of GPL?



Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software, gave a basic talk on Web technologies and emerging standards in HTML5 at the TU Dresden today.

Books: New editions of Artificial Intelligence and Windows Internals are expected for December/January.

IBM DeveloperWorks series: 30 game scripts you can write in PHP

Grails is growing up and looks stable now. 1.04 released.

Mark Russinovich, co-founder of Sysinternals and author of many excellent tools (and an excellent book on Windows internals), blogs about troubleshooting a Vista system using Process Explorer and Process Monitor.

Mark's Blog: The Case of the Slooooow System