Update: It seems Safari 5.1+ together with OSX Lion’s “All My Files” Finder view implements something similar as I suggested. Funny!

After a recent discussion on @twitter with @limi and @philikon on the difference between the Firefox and Chrome Internet browsers, I started thinking about why I still find both browsers lacking in the download experience department.

For an excellent primer on how the different Internet browsers currently handle downloads I highly recommend reading @Limi’s blog post and come back to revisit this post.

I do not know about you, but I hate the Firefox Downloads window like the redheaded stepchild it is. The web-page-in-a-tab solution from Chrome (yeah, yeah, yeah – I know Opera did the tab thing first, but who uses that browser besides you?) doesn’t quite jive with me either.

Thus I decided to do this quick & dirty mockup of how the download experience in the browser could be improved.

Introducing the Browser Downloads Docking Menu

I would think a slide in/out dock menu for downloads would be a better solution. This way you’ll always know where your downloads are and it enables context (page and download file viewable simultaneously, guaranteed) and visual/ spatial cues (e.g. in an OSX version you should animate the download file flying into the downloads dock menu).

Visual / Spatial Cues

I think it’s important to visually show that the user’s intent to download has been registered, where the download can be expected to be found and what you can do next. If the dock menu is not out/showing already, it should slide out first, showing the user how and where.

Filtering & Recovery

Some sort of parameters to adjust list view of downloads should be added, but not visible to the normal user as default. Should be extremely easy to understand and use for normal people. Should change and filter view live/realtime. The big fat “Show all” button is there to secure that the user can feel confident that she’s seeing everything and that all filters are off/reset.

Your Opinion

What do you think? Are you happy about the current download experience in your browser? How would you make it better?

Have you tried out TweetMag yet? It’s an exiting new iPad app that will let you comfortably read an aggregate of your @twitter feeds. The app is not totally unlike Flipboard, but it’s currently and it let’s you consume the content in a more flexible and enjoyable way in my personal opinion. However, the way TweetMag (as of writing) facilitates twitter list management sucks. I’ll suggest a quick and dirty fix to that below, but first, take a look at the sweet TweetMag app in their promo video:

The problem with lists in TweetMag

Right now, the process of adding and managing twitter lists in TweetMag can be a very painful chore especially if you are following many lists from one single user. You have to add each list separately, one at a time, by dragging the icon of a list from the menu bottom right to the top menue bar or rack (up to “TOP STORIES” and “CATEGORIES”). As that was not bad enough, you need to drill your way down the interface to find the same user again and open her lists again for adding the next list. And again. And again. And again. Ouch! And as if that wasn’t enough, you can’t even see which lists you have already added! That’s just silly and poor design if you ask me. Click on the image below to see a screenshot of the current TweetMag app on the iPad in its original size:

My improvement suggestions

It doesn’t have to be this painful. I’ve made a very quick and dirty improvement suggestion illustrated below, adding a simple visual cue and an extra button.

The user should visually be reminded of the lists she’s already added by labeling and/or fading out (ghosting) the already added twitter list’s icon (illustrated). It is not possible to spot which lists the user has already added in the current version of TweetMag, potentially leading to a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth operations to verify if a list has already been added or not.

Currently, to add another list from the same twitter user, the user is forced by the software app to step out of context, remembering (internalising) the previous steps and repeat a multiple step process to get back into the context of continuing to add twitter lists from the same user.

That’s just not nice to the user in my book. I think the software should play by your processes and let you stay in your context. By adding an add/remove list button directly in the list overview, the user would be able to add, remove, manage all list operations in one process without having to leave context or having to remember previous steps and keeping the original goal in mind while working herself back into context repetitively per list management operation.

Adding colour to the add/remove buttons like green and red could further enhance affordance.

Should you be worried that any spatial navigational cue of having the user dragging the icon to the TweetMag rack might be lost for each add/remove operation using simple button operations instead of drag & drop, I suggest looking at how Apple OSX is doing this; You could animate the icons flying up on the rack, flying down out of the rack respectively to retain the visual cues. Take a look at the image below for a quick and dirty mockup of my suggested changes:

I also added the suggestion on Get Satisfaction should you be interested in my suggestion to improving list management in the TweetMag app.

Your opinion

What do you think of TweetMag? Do you love it? Hate it? Perhaps you prefer Flipboard? Do you create and manage twitter lists with TweetMag?

No, I don’t mean a brief history of Old Boy Networks, The Family or other more outlandish and exotic pre-digital era networks.

You see, as I was doing my due diligence for this crazy new venture, I jotted down some notes on the history of digital social networks leading up to the Facebook era and I thought I’d share them here with you.

Most of the following is based on to the level of theft in no small part, verbatim quotations from the book “The Facebook Effect” by David Kirkpatric (@davidkirkpatric) and some tidbits from Wikipedia, Google and my own faulty memory.

And, yes – it is heavily biased towards the US and Europe since I did not have much good source material on say, e.g. Chinese, Korean and Japanese social networks. Feel free to fill me in.

I highly recommend the book if you are interested in a different (albeit rosier) perspective of the story behind Mark Zuckerberg‘s (@finkd) Facebook than the book “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich and the film version “The Social Network” by David Fincher. Preview the book in Google Books, buy the paper version at Amazon, or as a eBook from the Kindle store or as an audiobook from Audible. (I bought mine from Audible).

I claim Fair Use, as in the “Please don’t sue. That wouldn’t be fair.” kind. The following content is meant for educational purposes only . If you want to use or republish, please make sure to credit and attribute  David Kirkpatric and Wikipedia. Commercial (re)use would probably be bad for your karma.

Here we go – A Brief History of Social Networks:

1968

J. C. R. Licklider Source: Wikimedia Commons License: Public Domain

JCR Licklider & Robert W. Taylor write the essay “The Computer as a communication device” and predicts;

“you will not send a letter or a telegram – you will simply identify the people who’s files should be linked to yours”

1973

The first Community Memory terminal, an ASR-33 teletype, at Leopold's Records, Berkeley, CA, 1973. Source: Community Memory Project Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5

Community Memory started. A notable precursor to the public Bulletin Board System.

From Wikipedia:

Community Memory was the first public computerized bulletin board system. Established in 1973 in Berkeley, California, it used an SDS 940 timesharing system in San Francisco connected via a 110 baud link to a teletype at a record store in Berkeley to let users enter and retrieve messages.

While initially conceived as an information and resource sharing network linking a variety of counter-cultural economic, educational, and social organizations with each other and the public, Community Memory was soon generalized to be an information flea market . Once the system became available, the users demonstrated that it was a general communications medium that could be used for art, literature, journalism, commerce, and social chatter.

1978

Monochrome BBS - A more recent modern BBS

The first BBS is launched.

From Wikipedia:

The first public dial-up Bulletin Board System (BBS) was developed by Ward Christensen (@WardXmodem). According to an early interview, while he was snowed in during the Great Blizzard of 1978 in Chicago, Christensen along with fellow hobbyist Randy Suess, began preliminary work on the Computerized Bulletin Board System, or CBBS. CBBS went online on February 16, 1978

1979

Diagram of usenet, Author: Benjamin D. Esham License: Public Domain

Usenet enables members to post to groups dedicated to specific topics.

From Wikipedia:

Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.

Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980. Users read and post messages (called articles or posts, and collectively termed news) to one or more categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects, and is the precursor to the various Internet forums that are widely used today. Usenet can be superficially regarded as a hybrid between email and web forums. Discussions are threaded, with modern news reader software, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.

1982

Minitel built in 1982 Author: Tieum License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

The French postal service is the first to bring the concepts of commenting in online groups and chartrooms to a mass consumer audience with the launch of the national online service, Minitel

A side note, from Wikipedia:

The German “Bildschirmtext” (BTX) is almost as old as Minitel and technically very similar, but it was largely unsuccessful because consumers had to buy expensive decoders to use it. The German postal service held a monopoly on the decoders that prevented competition and lower prices. Few people bought the boxes, so there was little incentive for companies to post content, which in turn did nothing to further box sales. When the monopoly was loosened, it was too late because PC-based online services had started to appear.

1985

AOL logo 1991 to 2006 Source: brandsoftheworld.com License: Fair Use

America Online starts (albeit under another name; Quantum Computer Services, Inc.)

http://www.well.com/

The WELL (The Whole World ELectronic Link) launches in San Francisco by Stuart Brand, Larry Brilliant (@larrybrilliant) et al.

1987

Howard Rheingold (@hrheingold) – a big user of the WELL – publishes an essay in which he coins the term “virtual community” to describe this new experience.

1988

Screenshot of Prodigy

IBM and Sears launches commercial online service called Prodigy.

Anonymous users, pseudonyms were the norm on these online services.

IRC II

IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen in August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk) on a BBS called OuluBox in Finland.

1991 – 1994

The World Wide Web sees the light of day in 1991 created  by Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) and Robert Cailliau (robertcailliau.eu).

From Wikipedia:

The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW and commonly known as the Web, is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can viewweb pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them via hyperlinks.

CU-SeeMe logo

CU-SeeMe, an Internet videoconferencing client originally written by Tim Dorcey of the Information Technology department at Cornell University launches for Mac in 1992.

In the early days of the World Wide Web the notion of an online community advanced a little further, enabling users to set up a personal homepage that could in some cases link to pages created by other members.with services like Tripod started in 1992 with two Williams College classmates, Bo Peabody (@bopeabody) and Brett Hershey, along with Dick Sabot, an economics professor at the school, theglobe.com founded in 1994 by Cornell students Stephan Paternot (@stephanpaternot) and Todd Krizelman and GeoCities originally founded by David Bohnett (@dcbohnett) and John Rezner in late 1994.

1995

match.com screenshot anno 2008

match.com started by Gary Kremen as a proof of concept for Electric Classifieds which aimed to provide classified advertising systems for newspapers launches, filled with personal information for a highly specific purpose.

Classmates.com created by by Randy Conrads launches to help people identified by their real names to find and communicate with former school friends.

The first Internet Forums (or Message Boards) start to emerge.

1996

PlanetAll a social networking, calendaring, and address book site launches in November 1996. It was founded by a group of Harvard Business School and MIT graduates including Warren Adams. (A big thanks to James Currier for pointing out that I had missed PlanetAll!).

From Wikipedia:

PlanetAll was possibly the first social networking site on the Internet. The site had more than 100,000 groups, organized around real-world counterparts such as academic institutions and employers. When the user entered the name of his or her university, the service would list the user’s classmates who were also members of the service. Users could exchange authorization to access the each others’ contacts. Many sites at the time offered web-based address books and calendars, but PlanetAll.com combined the two: when a user entered travel plans into the calendar, the service would cross-reference the destination with the address book, as well as the user’s contacts’ travel plans; the site would then notify users when they would cross paths with their contacts.

1997

Reid Hoffman

SocialNet.com dating service founded by Reid Hoffman (@quixotic)(Hoffman worked at Apple on eWorld, but perhaps better known for founding LinkedIn and as an Angel Investor).

sixdegrees.com founded by Andrew Weinreich launches, takes social networks further. A breakthrough in use of real names. The first Rolodex in the cloud. Invitation only. At the time revolutionary. “Network me” feature for matching you with users that met your quality criteria. Failed due to operating costs, licensing costs, development and maintenance costs and users only having dialup Internet at the time (e.g. the service lacked photos due to bandwidth concerns). Bought out for 120 million. Shut down in late 2000. Weinreich was granted a broad reaching social network patent.

1999

Ethnic focused networks Black Planet founded by Omar Wasow (@owasow) and Asian Avenue co-founded by Benjamin Sun, Peter Chen, Grace Chang, Michael Montero, and Calvin Wong launches with limited social networking functions.

The daily jolt (R.I.P. April 6, 2010) launches as a campus bulletin board for 12 Schools.

tickle.com launched originally as emode.com, with quizzes and tests for both entertainment and self-discovery, by James Currier and Rick Marini. Warren Adams of PlanetAll is an investor.

Swedish teen community Lunar Storm (R.I.P. August 8th 2010) launches

Ordinary people begins using email. Again, using addresses that typically would not correspond to their real names.

Address books of emails maintained on and within the services. Members did not identify real-life friends or establish regular communication pathways with them. Later in the decade, Instant Messaging (IM) services like ICQ, PowWow and Ubique to hold the same way. People used pseudonyms for themselves, not their real names.

1998

On August 4, 1998, Amazon.com announces that it has agreed to acquire PlanetAll. Under terms of the agreement, Amazon.com acquired 100 percent of PlanetAll in exchange for 800,000 shares.

2000

Amazon.com shuts down PlanetAll.com on July 2, 2000, telling PlanetAll members, “We are pleased to announce that we have completed the integration of the key e-commerce related features of PlanetAll.com into our main site at Amazon.com… Although PlanetAll.com will be going away, you’ll still be able to enjoy some of the tools that help you keep in touch with like-minded folks.”

2001 – 2002 : Social Networking bug hits Silicon Valley and SF

2001

Cyworld (huge in Korea) adds social networking capabilities

Plaxo launches by Napster co-founder Sean Parker (FB profile)(and later The Facebook CEO) and two Stanford engineering students, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring. Has a viral concept; One user leads to more users – It has a Network Effect.

“Network Effect” as explained by Wikipedia (excerpt):

In economics and business, a network effect (also called network externality) is the effect that one user of a good or service has on thevalue of that product to other people. When network effect is present, the value of a product or service increases as more people use it.

The classic example is the telephone. The more people own telephones, the more valuable the telephone is to each owner. This creates a positive externality because a user may purchase their phone without intending to create value for other users, but does so in any case.Online social networks work in the same way, with sites like Twitter and Facebook being more useful the more users join.

The expression “network effect” is applied most commonly to positive network externalities as in the case of the telephone. Negative network externalities can also occur, where more users make a product less valuable, but are more commonly referred to as “congestion” (as in traffic congestion or network congestion).

Over time, positive network effects can create a bandwagon effect as the network becomes more valuable and more people join, in a positive feedback loop.

Ryze launches by Adrian Scott (@adrianscottcom). Explicitly business-only.

2002

Friendster launches March 22nd by Jonathan Abrams (@ABRAMS), Peter Chin and Dave Lee. It gambles to lure users away from match.com. Uses real names and photos on profiles. You could search for friends near locations. Invitation only, befriend if you liked the photo. Cracked the code of the modern social network, defined basic structure. Problems; “Fakesters” – People with fake names, fake photos. Plagued by engineering misjudgments; did not scale, had major outages, performance issues. Mark Pincus (@markpinc)(later founder of Zynga) and Reid Hoffman (@quixotic) are investors.

Club Nexus launches by Stanford students Orkut Buyukkokten (@orkut) and Eytan Adar. Meant to connect Stanford students only. Complicated, too many features. (Bonus material: An analysis of Club Nexus by the founders.)

InCircle launches by Club Nexus founders. Alumni only.

Orkut Buyukkokten (@orkut) leaves for google. Programs a new social network prototype. Pitches it to google. orkut.com launches.

CourseMatch and Facemash are created by Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) while at Harvard.

Harvard Connection is founded by the Winkelvoss twins Cameron Winkelvoss and Tyler Winkelvoss with Divya Narendra and some help from Mark Zuckerberg.

2003

LinkedIn founded by Reid Hoffman (@quixotic).

Tribe.net founded by Mark Pincus (@markpinc). A social network around specific interests. Burning Man, Alt Sex and connecting turned out to be what the users are more interested in instead of buying and selling things.

Patent by SixDegrees.com‘s Weinreich put up for sale, Reid Hoffman (@quixotic) and Mark Pincus (@markpinc) buy the patent for $70.000 in front of highest bidder Yahoo!.

MySpace founded by Tom Anderson (@myspacetom) and Chris Dewolfe in frustration of Friendster’s failures and wanted to appeal to the fakesters. Hustled bands, artists and fans in Los Angeles to join. Music + Sex + Anonymity + Chaos seemed to be the recipe.

Collegster.com free usable services by students for students launched at UC Irwine Alumni.

House System launched at Harvard to buy and sell books, review courses. It invited students to upload their photos.

WesMatch at Williams College.

GaleStation at Yale. A dating site.

CUCommunity (or CampusNetwork, SEASCommunity.com) at Columbia University.

Hi5 created by Ramu Yalamanchi (@ryalaman), big in Spanish speaking countries.

2004

The Facebook launches. Limited to elite universities offering a stark contrast of an experience of that of MySpace

From the CrunchBase profile:

When Tagged launched in 2004 as a teen-only social network, security was a top priority. In October 2006 the site made a drastic change and went from being under-18 only, to allowing users of any age to join. This change has helped user registration skyrocket. In fact, Tagged was adding more users per day than MySpace in May of 2007.

2005

YouTube founded by former PayPal employees Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim

2006

twitter launches in July 2006 by Jack Dorsey (@jack), although the founding story behind it is controversial.

YouTube sold to Google in November for $1.65 billion.

2007

Dana Boyd & Nichole Ellison write in a paper:

“The salient features of a true social network”: “A service where a user can construct a public or semi-public profile, articulate a list of other users which whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. You establish your position in a complex network of relationships. And your profile positions you in the context of these relationships. Usely in order to discover otherwise hidden points of common interest or connection.”

twitter reaches it’s tipping point at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. During the event Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000.

Orkut.com strangely occupied by nearly over 50% Brazilians and 20% Indians.

2010

Amazon is awarded a social networking system patent based on its previous acquisition of PlanetAll.

twitter has over 190 million users.

Facebook launches Graph API, Open Graph protocol, an improved Facebook Connect and Social plugins, has over 500 million active users. Mark Zuckerberg is Time’s “Man of the Year”.

Microsoft and Google still haven’t got a real answer to social networks.

[fblike layout_style='button_count' show_faces='true' verb='like' font='arial' color_scheme='light']

What is your take? Something missing? Tell me what you think in the comments below.

As you may already know I use Dell Netbooks with Apple OSX and I previously wrote a post about how you can too.

I recently encountered a problem with the Dell Mini (Inspiron) 9 that I found no real helpful solution to fixing on the intarnets, so I thought I’d just take a moment to share what I did to fix it. Sort of.

Whatever you do, don’t buy a new Dell battery before you’ve tried this. If it doesn’t work, you’re probably better off buying a new (used) Mini 9 on e.g. eBay instead, cost/benefit wise. You can always use the old Mini 9 Hackintosh on mains in the kitchen, on the night stand, in the bathroom, give it to someone who could need a computer or whatever.

Problem / Symptoms:

• Battery not recognized on boot up (“Battery not identified, press F1 to continue”)
• OSX reports that the battery is 100% charged (although you know it’s not)
• White power/charging ligt and red low battery warning light blinking, disco style
• Battery will not charge whatever you (even downgrading BIOS to A00) do and will eventually run out of juice
• GOTO 10

Possible Causes:

• BIOS upgraded to A05 or above
• Something else (I have no idea. You tell me.)

Conditions / Prerequisites:

• Dell Mini 9 with blinking leds, disco style
• NetBookInstaller 0.8.4 RC1 “special edition”
• OSX Snow Leopard updated to 10.6.5 installed on said Dell Mini 9 by way of said version of NetBookInstaller
• USB stick with Dell I910 Mini/Vostro A90 USB Key Drive flashBIOS Utility installed (Don’t ask me how to get it. Search around.)
• Make sure the battery is connected to said Dell Mini 9

Recipe / Fix:

• Boot from said “Dell I910 Mini/Vostro A90 USB Key Drive flashBIOS Utility” on said USB stick
• Select the Mini/Inspiron A04 BIOS and flash it
• Wait for the flashing to complete and reboot the Netbook

Et voilà. On boot, there should be no nagging “battery not identified: press F1 to continue”, no more disco blinking of LED lights and the battery will now recharge. I hope. At least it now does for me. For good measures, let the Hackintosh recharge the recommended-from-Dell 12 hours before using it

I’ll mention here that this worked with the original Dell battery that came with the Mini 9 and with my Chinese 8 cell aftermarket battery.

Problems / Still to resolve:

• If you pull the mains power plug out, the red/white disco style blinking will return
• If you pull the mains power and re-insert it, OSX reports that the battery is 100% charged (although it’s not)
• If you pull the mains power and re-insert it, the Hackintosh will not recharge
• GOTO 10

Kludge to the Fix:

• Don’t pull the mains when turned on
• Re-insert mains
• Reboot
• Or turn off, turn on, let boot
• Or keep it turned off, connected to mains, see if the white charging light is on, if the battery is actually charged
• Or rinse, lathe and repeat the flashing of the BIOS if the battery won’t charge once again

Hey, at least you do not need to buy a new battery or a new Dell Mini 9. I never promised you a rose garden.

Here’s the official Dell response to Mini 9 and 10v battery problems on the Dell support forums, although it did not help me initially. I tried to flash the BIOS back to A00 through each revision up to and including A06 with no positive result. Flashing directly from A06 to A04 with the battery inserted seems to have worked for me.

This has nothing to do with the “Airplane Mode” on Linux issue or the 12 hours charge-up battery issue, mind you. Those are red herrings if you’re using OSX and have the symptoms I described above.

In other personal Hackintosh news, I recently acquired a Dell Mini 10v off of eBay and upgraded it with 2GB RAM, a 60G SSD and OSX 10.6.5. I find the size of the keys more convenient for work use than the Mini 9. My experience so far is that the Mini 10v works flawlessly with OSX 10.6.5 – including sleep. I’d recommend it instead of the Mini 9 if you’d ask for my opinion on the two.

I do have a 3G iPad and I’m really happy with it, should you be wondering, but I still find myself needing a “real” OS for work use from time to time. Maybe it’s more due to my mouse, keyboard, desktop paradigm conditioning over the years than the iPad iOS and Apps. Sure, I’d really love to get the new MacBook Air, but as a bootstrapping entrepreneur, I find the cost/benefit of a Hackintosh to be the more conscientious choice at the moment.

Do you use OSX on non-Apple hardware? Tell me about your experiences.

Bonus Material:

How to change the HD for a SSD in a Dell Mini 10v

How to upgrade the RAM in a Dell Mini 10v (Part 1 of 2)

How to upgrade the RAM in a Dell Mini 10v (Part 2 of 2)

I recently attended a brilliant and funny talk by Ryan Dahl (@ryha) on node.js at @cowoco a great co-working/co-location initiative in Cologne, Germany.

Here’s my recorded live stream from the event. (I apologise for the quality and the Flash format of the videos. I hope USTREAM implements HTML5 video soon too.)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Today is the World Plone Day and I am attending the regional event in Bonn, Germany to show my support, to meet new people interested in Plone and catching up with the usual suspects regional community. Every year on the 28th of April, informational events about the Plone CMS are held around the world.

What is Plone?

Plone is a free and open source content management system built on top of the Zope application server. Plone can be used for in principle any kind of website, including blogs, internet sites, webshops and internal websites. It is also well positioned to be used as a document publishing system and groupware collaboration tool. The strengths of Plone are its flexible and adaptable workflow, very good security, extensibility, high usability and flexibility. -Wikipedia

What is the goal of the World Plone Day?

The World Plone Day (WPD) is a worldwide event. Our goal is to promote and educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using Plone in education, government, ngos, and in business. -World Plone Day FAQ

So far today at the WPD in Bonn Jan Ulrich Hasecke from hasecke.com and DZUG held a great introduction to Plone. You can download the slides here. (Currently only available as PDF due to image license issues. The presentation should be up on Slideshare shortly.) and you can read his (German) Whitepaper on Plone here (be sure to set your browser language to DE).

Here’s some snippets of his presentation as streamed live on USTREAM (sorry for the low quality; It’s live from my iPhone):

You can also follow my sporadic live USTREAM here: http://ustre.am/aQ8

(Non-Flash version of the image slideshow)

I’d like to offer all the participants a big THANK YOU! Looking forwards to be seeing you guys either in Sorento and/or Bristol. You rock! Seriously.

The official German DZUG press release describes the results of the sprint quite well, so I thought I’d be a lazy bastard attach my crude translation below. Feel free to quote it, reuse and repost it as you may see fit.

PRESS RELEASE

DZUG e.V. (German speaking Zope User Group)

Forsterstr. 29 ∙ 06112 Halle (Saale)

Visuals: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12317756@N08/4448944324/

Official hash tag: #cathedralsprint

The Plone Cathedral Sprint 2010 in Cologne comes to a successful end

Over 25 Python developers from Europe, North and South America gathered at the GfU Cyrus AG educational institute in Cologne, Germany (http://www.gfu.net) to collectively push the development of the Plone Content Management System (CMS) forwards. As another Plone sprint, the Tahoe Snow Sprint (http://plone.org/events/community/tahoe-snow-sprint-2010 http://www.coactivate.org/projects/tahoe-snow-sprint-2010/project-home),  was being held at the same time in Tahoe, USA the developers utilized video conferencing and the differences in time zones to work on certain topics around the clock.

The sprint in Cologne was highly productive. During the sprint, the Plone 4 release manager Eric Steele even published a couple of screen casts where you could follow the progress and the results:  http://blip.tv/posts/?topic_name=cathedralsprint

More usability

The Plone Cathedral Sprint was dedicated to further improve and enhance the user experience. The search results from the native Plone search engine now return more information about the found article, making it easier for the user to find the right one. Additionally, the search results can now be further narrowed down by applying further various criteria incrementally.

The configuration of collections is also more intuitive and faster than ever before. Collections are saved search requests that show the search results as if the returned content would be located in the same area, or folder if you will, of a website. Creating extremely flexible websites is made simple by using collections and their numerous search criteria. The new collections user interface enables Webmasters to change and modify the settings faster than ever.

Commenting in Plone was extended to include moderation and captchas, thus enabling anonymous commenting in Plone out of the box.

The Plone event calendar was also enhanced to enable standard management of all-day and recurring events.

Starter help for German speaking users

Plone supports around 50 languages and is thus deployable worldwide. The numerous new functionalities of Plone 4 and the according changes to the user interface were translated to German and Dutch during the sprint. The helful links that now appear on a standard start page should be Of particular interest to German speaking users. This start page is automatically generated when creating a new Plone site. You’ll now find links to sources of information in German on the page like the Plone developer handbook and the German mailing list in addition to the documentation in English.

Sprints as culture

Sprints are a distinctiveness of the Plone, Zope and Python development culture. The list of successful and legendary sprints held all around the world is long. Traditionally, developers come together at the location of a developer community alternately and on a rotational basis to exchange ideas and work intensely focused on predefined tasks and goals. The Cologne Cathedral Sprint 2010 will probably be remembered in the Plone community for delivering results for quite a while.

About Plone

With its around 200 core developers, Plone is one of the largest Open Source projects in existence. The user friendly CMS is characterized by its workflow support, accessibility, scalability, expandability and high security.

Plone supports about 50 languages and runs on all common operating systems. Plone is Open Source software licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL).

http://plone.org/about

About the Plone Foundation

The Plone Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was formed in May 2004 with the Apache Software Foundation as a role model. The foundation is the copyright holder of the Plone source code and the Plone trade mark. It is located in Houston, TX USA and is officially represents the developer community worldwide.

With around 200 core developers and 570 developers of Plone products the Plone community is one of the largest and most vibrant Open Source developer communities worldwide.

http://plone.org/about/foundation

About the DZUG e.V.

The DZUG e.V. considers itself the representative for the German speaking Zope users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It seeks to better connect the interests of users and developers to enable a more efficient pooling of resources within the ever fast expanding Open Source community. The organization especially initiates projects that support spreading Zope within the German speaking world, like translation and documentation of software components and organizing training and informative events.

DZUG e.V. Deutschsprachige Zope User Group

Forsterstr. 29

06112 Halle (Saale)

Phone +49 (0) 345 122 9889 9

Fax +49 (0) 345 122 9889 1

E-Mail email@dzug.org

Press contact:

Jan Ulrich Hasecke

E-Mail juh@dzug.org

Phone +49 (0) 212 2331483

Yours sincerely,

Jan Ulrich Hasecke

A couple of months ago I met a new acquaintance that had some interesting business ideas. As luck would have it, they happened to correlate in part with some ancient ideas of my own and we instantly hit it off. Since then, a little voice in the back of my head has been telling me that I might have a record of the original brainstorming back in 2003. It’s not quite what we’re up to these days, but it is in many ways related. At least it was sort of the spore for me. More on that for a future post, perhaps.

Lo’ behold: I actually managed to find the original IM chat log between me and a good friend sometime first half of 2003 after some searching of archived CD-ROMs [sic], translated in parts from Norwegian. It’s a fun time capsule if nothing more and it’s interesting to see how the assessments and predictions for mobile devices, services and business models we had back in 2003 relate to the mobile reality of 2010 – or not.

If you’re of an overly sensitive nature, be warned that this post contains colourful adult language. I would also state for the record that my references to Nipponese people and Nipponese culture are not meant to be derogatory, defamatory or otherwise insulting. Far from it. I find Japanese people and culture most fascinating and inspiring.

To all telcos that might find statements, opinions and ideas in this post derogatory, defamatory or otherwise insulting – well life just ain’t fair, is it?

My friend’s IM nickname has been changed to protect the guilty. He knows who he is and what he has done.  ;)

So with no further ado I’ll let it all hang out here in the open  for posterity. What can I say. We were angry young men of low moral fiber young and needed the money:

BlackTar says:
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/business/technology/5987828.htm [link no longer active - nice argument for permalinks - and I was not able to find it on wayback machine. Anyway, I seem to remember the article was about some new dating and geolocation thingy]

BlackTar says:
new? no

BlackTar says:
I’ve had an idea about the perfect Japanese mobile phone along those lines for a long time.. .

BlackTar says:
it’s gotta happen sooner or later – would bee nice to cash in ourselves

Friend says:
I thought this was cool when I read about it back in the tamagotchi days

BlackTar says:
yeah, but think about the possibility to cash in real money on perv nipponese (and the rest of the world for that matters)

Friend says:
I think that would be pretty kick-ass, actually…

BlackTar says:
there once was this Japanese hightech product that would let you plot in sexual and partner preference and it would indicate when someone with the same gizmo and matching profile would be in your vicinity

BlackTar says:
it never took off

Friend says:
not necessarily for perv purposes

BlackTar says:
no, true – but it’s more fun if you think about perverted nipponese

BlackTar says:
well.. . my idea is to enable each and every mobile phone with the same capabilities

Friend says:
separate the crap, sort of

BlackTar says:
either with a Java app together with a server based solution

BlackTar says:
low threshold

BlackTar says:
or just the server solution

BlackTar says:
ref. NetCom Buddy [early Norwegian geolocation service that you could set up in a web interface to have it report by sms where your friends were, based on opt-in consent and triangulation]

BlackTar says:
you can already receive notifications about where your friends are

Friend says:
hmm.. it cannot work other than server side.. or else you need new hardware

BlackTar says:
true, but the interface could be Java

BlackTar says:
instead of sending sms – but sms is a proven business model by now

Friend says:
if it can’t run piggyback on the standard mobile server traffic

BlackTar says:
it is a prerequisite that it can

BlackTar says:
(must)

Friend says:
but you can like request a ‘proximity check’ from the server, anyway.

BlackTar says:
yeah, but you do it via SMS!!!

BlackTar says:
that’s the genious part!

BlackTar says:
you constantly need to BUY services!!

Friend says:
yeahyeah, of course.. just thinking out aloud here

BlackTar says:
I think this is ripe for bigggg bucks

Friend says:
piggybucks!

BlackTar says:
piggy, piggy can’t you see.. .

BlackTar says:
imagine you are about to go out for a night on the town – then you just set up what you are looking for today/tonight – either via sms or web – then you can request proximity checks via sms afterwards

BlackTar says:
I believe and think this is worth insane amounts of money

BlackTar says:
after all – the human sex drive is probably the most proven business model of them all

BlackTar says:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/national/02INTE.html

BlackTar says:
wtf

Friend says:
Keep a lid on it!

BlackTar says:
riiiiiiiiiiiiight

BlackTar says:
how much does a patent cost?

Friend says:
the nipponese are probably working on this already.. better sleuth for some industrial espionage on the net

BlackTar says:
you are the only one I’ve told

BlackTar says:
no! I don’t think the nipponese even use sms

BlackTar says:
do they?

BlackTar says:
they probably have some sort of micropayment system

BlackTar says:
but.. . I picture this being just as big in the us of a

Friend says:
are they making money on devices or services or both.. sort of

BlackTar says:
both I think

BlackTar says:
they do have a completely different network

Friend says:
yeah well, usa have discovered sms and teletext only in the recent year or so

BlackTar says:
with 489587347598759 more features and bandwidth

Friend says:
hmm.. but they can’t launch a network just for this? .. probably radio

Friend says:
isn’t it only short distance that is of interest?

Friend says:
or

BlackTar says:
no, it could probably work on the nipponese network too

Friend says:
e.g. sitting at home checking out where the most likeminded are in the city at the moment

BlackTar says:
exactly

BlackTar says:
you can do this today with GSM

BlackTar says:
and probably with anything that sends and receives waves

Friend says:
yeah, with people you know…. ok I know how this can work

BlackTar says:
trinangulation between base stations

Friend says:
yeahyeah

BlackTar says:
it’s going to get much more fun when gps becomes a natural part of a mobile phone

Friend says:
but it can work exactly like the “where are my friends” thing

BlackTar says:
triangulation is even more accurate as of now, tho afaik

Friend says:
you don’t have to send any extra information between phone and central either

BlackTar says:
yeah! and one should also be able to do the “where are my friends” thing too

BlackTar says:
no, it only takes that you opt-in to allow your geolocation to be published

BlackTar says:
you’ll send a simple or advanced query to the server via SMS – it returns what it finds

Friend says:
because the numbers are categorized on the central [server] into interests you’ve been filling out over the internet.. and when one does a “my friends search” it does not search for the numbers you’ve added, but any number they’ve flagged prerequisites

Friend says:
the technology is already there

BlackTar says:
after a proprietary – a la google – sorting

BlackTar says:
there has to be some flexibility in handling the query such as you risk to never get a match [sic]

Friend says:
that you not? or? huh+

BlackTar says:
a lot of the success factor lays thus in the algorithm(s) for handling the matching of criteria

BlackTar says:
understandably you could make this hyper simple too

BlackTar says:
with if/else functions, booleans

Friend says:
hmm.. I don’t really see a problem with this.. you get % numbers on matches and it’s left to the user to decide if that’s good enough, sort of..

Friend says:
a fixed number of hits every time

BlackTar says:
% match is meaningless – ref websearch

Friend says:
hmmm….. can one buy oneself upwards on the lists?

BlackTar says:
hehe

Friend says:
el corrupto

BlackTar says:
that doesn’t work either ref websearch

BlackTar says:
but it’s clear that you have to specify degree of match you want when you request query per sms

BlackTar says:
hihi

BlackTar says:
so you have to send more than 1

BlackTar says:
and it is clear that you need heaps of parameters and features that you can adjust per sms

Friend says:
mo’ money

BlackTar says:
but just enough so that it becomes, stays functional

Friend says:
one can request info on hits

BlackTar says:
so, you see.. . it’s in actual fact the sane as Trepia – only smarter

BlackTar says:
regular people don’t understand hits

BlackTar says:
info on hits? more info, click hear plz

Friend says:
duh

BlackTar says:
tell me more about info on hits

Friend says:
Once you’re a member of the service you can enter personal info about yourself, this can be bought with sms, when MMS gets common you can have images/videos, whatever, too

BlackTar says:
yeah

BlackTar says:
yes

BlackTar says:
info on hit == profiles

BlackTar says:
brb

[snip, snip, snip. Lunch break and a funny digression about Cottage Cheese, Procter & Gamble, Amway and the Church of Satan. It happens, you know.]

BlackTar says:
what’s neat & sweet about the mobile service is that it is remarkably compatible with the multi level marketing [MLM] scheme!!!

BlackTar says:
you have a product (that in addition to be low cost – initial investment only) that people consume and come back to consume
- then you ‘franchise’ the system to agents below you (distribution companies, telcos, etc) who then resell the service to other subcontractors. We collect from every party from the bottom up!!

BlackTar says:
== daddy bigbucks

Friend says:
what’s the name of the friends search service thing from telenor?

BlackTar says:
no idea

BlackTar says:
[the service from] netcom is called ‘buddy’

[snip, snip, snip. A digression about SARS in China, ill friends and travel.]

Friend says:

http://telenormobil.no/mobilinfo/oversikt.jsp

Friend says:
#2

Friend says:
Pick-up tips?!!!! jesus

Friend says:
Jokes?!!! OMG

BlackTar says:
positioning

Friend says:
ho ho!

BlackTar says:
‘It costs NOK 0,0 per message that you receive.’

BlackTar says:
eh?

Friend says:
hmmm.. Whiskey Tango Foxrot ?!

Friend says:
ah.. you pay fixed

BlackTar says:
longitude and latitude?

BlackTar says:
how much does one pay fixed?

Friend says:
or?

Friend says:
no, then they would probably state it

Friend says:
‘The query is free but you have to pay for the answer.’

BlackTar says:
Probably an error

BlackTar says:
‘Get Bible verses directly to the mobile.
It costs NOK 3,0 per message that you receive.’

BlackTar says:
‘when do you want to be notified’

BlackTar says:
haha

BlackTar says:

http://telenormobil.no/mobilinfo/product/categories.jsp?maincategory=ENTERTAINMENT&category=CATEGORY0

BlackTar says:
fucking hell

Friend says:
what about a ‘get out of a meeting’ service? Order an incoming call in 20 mins. .. hoho you can use alarm clock wake up services for this

BlackTar says:
yupp

Friend says:
oops.. muyo importante, must go!

BlackTar says:

http://telenormobil.no/mobilinfo/product/product.jsp?productCode=BIORYTMER

Friend says:
hmmmmmm…..hmmmm…mhm…hmhmhm.hm……

BlackTar says:
kiss my.. .

BlackTar says:
“You will receive a total of two messages.
It costs NOK 5,- per received message.”

Friend says:
set sail for cock, assboat!

BlackTar says:
I too want to cash in on this NOW!!!

Friend says:
serialz straight to your mobile

BlackTar says:
gotta talk to [other friend].. . He knows some people who do bulk SMS server solutions

BlackTar says:
hihi

BlackTar says:
l/p pr0n craxx0r

BlackTar says:
abuse

BlackTar says:
send a message with the code ‘idiot’ and get an incoming call telling you off for being stupid enough to waste NOK 10,00 on the service

BlackTar says:
that would probably work too

Friend says:
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… do you have a link to that ‘buddy’ thing?

BlackTar says:

http://www.netcom.no/

Friend says:
kinda wondering what kind of info you get back? your friend is situated at 4525 degrees north, 34 clicks west at sea level 341345?

BlackTar says:
in the street with number of the house

BlackTar says:
have tested

Friend says:
kool

BlackTar says:

http://mother.netcom.no/Forside/index.html

BlackTar says:

http://mother.netcom.no/Login/login_page.html?org=%2FBuddy%2Findex.html

Friend says:
if one does not find funding in a hurry, then it’s just to send a registered letter that explains the gig to telenor and netcom.. wait ca 1 year and then sue..

BlackTar says:
yup – file at lawyer and deposit box

BlackTar says:
stupid pages

BlackTar says:
ah! I got the buddy password right now

BlackTar says:
neat

BlackTar says:
can log in everywhere at netcom without being registered

Friend says:
yes, so get it theeeeeeeeeeeeeen

Friend says:
usually receives it immediately

BlackTar says:
yup

BlackTar says:
you got netcom?

Friend says:
yes

BlackTar says:
okidoki

Friend says:
hmmm… does it cost anything, come to think of it?

BlackTar says:
probably per received message

BlackTar says:
with MAP and stuff!!!

BlackTar says:
‘It is free to use Buddy from mother.no in August and September!’
Det er gratis å bruke Buddy fra mother.no i hele august og september!

BlackTar says:
[mobile phone number]?

Friend says:
yes

Friend says:
HELL! Why don’t I get a passsssssssssword

BlackTar says:
took 3 tries before I got one

BlackTar says:
search (reception) SMS WAP* and WEB
1 person NOK 3,00
Group 2-5 persons NOK 5,00
Group 6-10 persons NOK 8,00

Friend says:
I’m not fucking receiving one

Friend says:
maybe they canceled my subscription thingy?

Friend says:
haven’t tried to call lately…

BlackTar says:
wap & web per gprs.. . hmm whatwhat what

BlackTar says:
you need to invite people

BlackTar says:
so I’ll try to localize myself then

Friend says:
bah

[snip, snip, snip. Digression about HL2 screener, SMS gambling services, gen BS]

BlackTar says:
so

BlackTar says:
I’ve invited myself now

BlackTar says:
to netcom buddy

BlackTar says:
but now the html doesn’t work

BlackTar says:
damned shit

BlackTar says:
part of the secret about the sms thing is that it shouldn’t be as committing and explicit as the classifieds

BlackTar says:
so that you can remain anonymous but still create a feeling of excitement and adventure

BlackTar says:
so that most people possible would use it

Friend says:
yup.. the [Norwegian data storage supervision department] would probably like it too

BlackTar says:
BUT then you can of course choose to make it explicit by way of our anonymous sms chat system!

BlackTar says:
and that costs money ™ per message

Friend says:
the problem is to beef up the user numbers…..’

BlackTar says:
yes – the secret to that is to place the bar as low as possible

BlackTar says:
once they’re ‘in’ they’ll have a lot of features to burn away the money on

BlackTar says:
or they can stick with the simple features – which cost money still

BlackTar says:
it mustn’t cost too much either

Friend says:
join for free.. increase 10 cents per use until fixed price of NOK 3 or whatever

BlackTar says:
I think a fixed price per received message is the way to go

BlackTar says:
some services [features] are of course more expensive than others

Friend says:
important: finding out how the triangulation thing works with the telcos.. if it is at all possible to buy this service [from them]

BlackTar says:
it is – if they make money on it

BlackTar says:
think about it this way – we would be doing the least amount of work possible : 1. Own the rights 2. Manage the concept 3. Harvest money

BlackTar says:
the best bit is that the telcos would be responsible for the integration and technical parts themselves

BlackTar says:
we just want money per license and share per received sms – we are only going to invest in the concept

BlackTar says:
see the presentation on rebel.as

Friend says:
the technical part is there.. it just needs to be hooked up with the Whoremonger ™ sms services

BlackTar says:
yes, and that’s not our responsibility

BlackTar says:
that costs money

BlackTar says:
and those interested in making money on their networks should carry those costs

BlackTar says:
if we only make something that talk in standard tongue [made with open standards]

BlackTar says:
then the rest should be fine

BlackTar says:
I think the essence is to create a concept with a low bar for participation, and at the same time offer flexible and advanced features

Friend says:
hmmm.. the input part in itself … registering … criteria .. must work on mobile .. have to be pretty vague? preformatted multiple choice?

BlackTar says:
that’s of the essence

BlackTar says:
creating something that WORKS here

BlackTar says:
that concept must be thoroughly thought and worked out

BlackTar says:
where the already proven technology bits only gets included as independent elements one takes for granted

BlackTar says:
the concept is really just a combination of existing technologies and a proven business model – combined in a new way with a kickass ‘frontend’ (if you catch my drift) on top of it all

Friend says:
Indeed! I’m just a bit busy — must get things done in a hurry!

BlackTar says:
oki

BlackTar says:
me too – really – but can’t be bothered to work :-\

Friend says:
I’m attending a meeting soon and need to have stuff finished :=

Friend says:
“but can’t be bothered to work” so true so true . it’s boring

BlackTar says:
it’s eating me away

BlackTar says:
slowly

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You’ve heard it all week; Buzz, Buzz, Buzz. I’m very guilty of adding to the… well… Buzz. (Sorry. Bad pun.) and I’ve almost had enough myself.

I think nobody knows exactly what Google Buzz is right now and where it’s going to go, evolve into. I think most agree it has tremendous potential. However, a most provocative thought occured to me today; Could this be a Blog killer replacement?

The gist of my hypothetical argument is that Google Buzz could probably replace most blogs given the ability to take it out of Gmail, customize, widgetize and skin it a la iGoogle. The Google vehicle is already there in the form of the current Google profile page or embedded externally over the Buzz API. The vehicle for an standalone service is already there as Google owns Blogger. The quest for unified commenting could also have been solved by the advent of Buzz. Further more, Google’s proven efficiency at filtering SPAM in Gmail, it stands to reason that they’d do an excellent job at eliminating comment SPAM.

Please share your take with me – I’d really like to hear what you think.

For those of you who live under a stone actually live wholesome, meaningful lives Buzz is a new service launched by Google.

Think of Google Buzz as something like twitter with no character restrictions and with comments or Facebook without Farrmville and the other horrible wonderful stuff, like FriendFeed if you’re of a more adventerous inclination – or perhaps a Blog?

Currently I hate the (as of writing) lock-in of the service with Gmail, but I’ll keep that for future posts.

The service has improvement potential and, shall we say some rough edges?

Here’s a primer on what you should know about Google Buzz to get started.

To keep in the spirit of ‘the now’, I’ve embedded the original Google Buzz thread (as a grotesque kludge – do tell if you know of a better way) below.

UPDATE 2012: Below we have the answer to the question in the headline. It’s a resounding “no”. Buzz is scheduled to be killed and old content is not embedable anymore.

I thought I’d give you guys a heads up on how I’ve fared with my Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh so far.

Yesterday the Hackintosh asked me to download an Apple update and – fully acknowledging the risks – I installed it. Needless to say, the Hackintosh would not boot afterwards. As of yesterday I’m running Windows XP on the netbook again so be warned – you may not want to be as stupid adventerous as me.

That notwithstanding, the following issues would need to be resolved for me to be running OSX on the netbook permanently:

• No audio out (of the stereo jack that is – the speakers worked)

• No audio in (OSX could not find an input device, no mic!)

• No second monitor output (crashes when cable inserted in VGA port)

• No standby (needed to disable standby as it would crash, need reboot)

Some of you pundits out there may already know how to fix these issues, but I didn’t have the time so far to research and apply them myself.

Perhaps I’ll give OSX a second try on the netbook, but for now Windows XP will have to do – although it certainly is a rather drab experience after a couple of weeks with OSX.

Please do let me know how you’ve fared so far! Did you have any issues? Did you manage to solve them? How did you do it?

The following is a  description of how I installed OSX on my Netbook in case you were wondering. Update: Later I also wrote a post about how fix potential Mini 9 battery issues and upgrade RAM and installing an SSD with a Dell Mini 10.

UPDATE: I’m now a Mac. :)

As a short disclaimer I’d better tell you that I’m not a Mac. Never been. I’m pragmatic. To me, operating systems are just a means to an end. I don’t really care if it is from Finland, Redmond or Cupertino as long as it gets my job done. To date, Microsoft Windows got the job done just fine for me. Your mileage may however vary and I respect that.

But as Apple’s hardware and software has been improving from insanely overpriced and terribly underpowered to just slightly overpriced and adequately powered I’ve been thinking of making the switch. As my Netbook is currently my primary computer (after the iPhone, if you will), I figured installing OSX on it would be a low cost entry point to the weird and hopefully wonderful World of Apple OSX – I like to try before I buy. That and the fact that it makes for a nice talking piece in business meetings. ;)

I will get back to you with my experiences with the Hackintosh Netbook and OSX in a later post.

Enough gay banter. Let’s talk shop.

Hardware

• Dell Inspirion Mini 9

I don’t think you can get these directly from Dell anymore. I got mine new for ca. 200,- € on eBay with 16 GB SSD and 2 GB RAM.

• 8 GB USB memory stick

This is what you’ll first be installing OSX and Netbook Installer on. See below.

• A real OSX Mac with a DVD drive and admin priveleges

Access to a Mac is not strictly necessary, but it’s how I did it. Check out the other guides for more install options.

Software

• Netbook Installer

This is the (OSX) software that does all the magic, making OSX think your Netbook is a Mac, installing necessary modifications and making your USB memory stick boot.

• Original Apple OSX DVD

Regardless if you love or hate Apple, please show the developers some respect and buy an original DVD. A Snow Leopard upgrade DVD will also work and is cheaper than the whole hog. However, I’m not sure about the legality of installing from the upgrade DVD alone so do not consider this an endorsement of such a procedure.

The Recipe

All set? Got all the ingredients listed above at hand? Good. Now go follow the excellent instructions from mechdrew. FOLLOW. EACH. AND. EVERY. SINGLE. STEP. That’s it! Hopefully. And as always – consider paying your dues and donate to the developer(s).

Whoops

I almost got it right on the first try. Almost. Seems like I skipped a little too much of the instructions. Don’t be as stupid as me. Read the instructions carefully and follow each and every step – no matter how silly or weird they might seem. My mistake was not turning on WiFi and Bluetooth using Dell’s tool before turning off the Netbook and installing OSX.

Here’s an overview what you might need if you screw up like me and feel adventurous enough to give it a second or hundredth try:

Optional hardware

• USB DVD drive

To reinstall your Dell Windows XP OEM CD and Dell Recovery DVD.

• Another USB memory stick

To install PE the Builder image on. See below.

Optional software

• Dell Windows XP Home OEM CD

To reinstall XP if need be. Came with your purchase – hopefully.

• Dell Recovery DVD

To reinstall Netbook specific drivers if need be. Came with your purchase – hopefully.

• PE Builder

To create a bootable image of XP to put on a USB memory stick if need be. PE Builder will create a minimal version of your Windows OEM CD and comes with a handy set of tools of it’s own. Consider paying respect and donate to the developer if you like it.

IMPORTANT: When creating your PE Builder image, open the plugins prefs in the PE Builder application and enable “RpcSS needs to launch DComLaunch Service first – SP2 only”. You won’t be able to partition your disk(s) using diskpart without this plugin enabled.

• UBUSB

To put your PE Builder created image on your other memory stick and make it bootable.

The Optional Recipe

I experienced a world of pain trying to reinstall XP and Dell’s tools just so I could turn wireless on again. However, you may fare better. The point is not to give up.

Sometimes the OSX install will stop with an error message – just boot your PE image (see below) and reformat the disk and try again. Sometimes OSX won’t boot after installation – just turn the Netbook off and on again. It will eventually boot for you. I hope.

I dealt with disk problems during install by making an image of the Dell Windows XP Home OEM CD with PE Builder (remember to activate plugin – see above), copying it to another memory stick using UBUSB and booting from said stick. I would format, partition and rebuild as needed.

To reinstall Windows I needed a USB DVD drive to boot the Dell Windows XP Home OEM CD. Nothing else worked for me. My Samsung USB DVD writer worked just fine, though. If installing Windows gives you trouble, boot your PE Builder image and partition/activate/format your disk and fiddle about as needed.

After sucessfully installing the Dell Windows XP OEM CD, I installed the Dell specific drivers from the Dell Recovery DVD. You’ll have to install every driver and utility one after another manually using Dell’s interface (as far as I could gather). It’s a usability nightmare. Don’t get me started.

The important part is to reinstall all wireless drivers and the utility to turn wireless on and off. There’s a chance you won’t be able to install the Bluetooth drivers. I know I wasn’t. If it happens, just google for the Windows drivers.

After successfully installing all drivers for WiFi and Bluetooth, start the utility to turn wireless on and off from the sys tray and turn everything on. Shut down Windows. Install OSX – now with wireless capability.

Feedback

Have you installed OSX on your Netbook? What was your experience? How did you do it?

I happened to stumble in on an interesting presentation of the software based colour grading tool from Autodesk named ‘Lustre‘ at the IBC 2008 and bagged a small part of it. Have a look for yourself in the videos below.

Apologies for not catching the name of the presenters and for the poor sound quality of my Samsung NV8.

[tags]ibc, ibc08, ibc2008, autodesk, discreet, lustre, colour grading, color grading, colour, colour, post, post production, film, video, lighting, software, digital, film, cinema, cinematography[/tags]

Some of you may know NewTek from the good old Amiga days, the golden era of the VideoToaster and LightWave 3D. I certainly do. I’ve been a fan and user of LightWave 3D over the years.

So, it was with a certain nostalgic fervor I made it over to the NewTek stand at the IBC 2008. It turned out that I was in for a surprise. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that none other than the legendary Kiki Stockhammer is back at NewTek. Have a look for yourself in the video and picture below.

For those of you who might not know, Kiki at one point used to be the figure head of NewTek of sorts.

I lost Kiki off the radar way back when she left NewTek for Play Inc. in the mid to late 90s and was marketing a product called Trinity, a competitor of sorts to the VideoToaster of the time. Now as luck or faith will have it, it looks like Kiki Stockhammer is back with NewTek helping marketing a product named TriCaster – a product not at all unlike the Play Inc. / Trinity – if memory serves me correctly. I’d love to know for a fact if there’s an actual lineage or connection there.

In further cool trivia, Kiki Stockhammer appears to have a star trek sci-fi post punk band called Warp 11. I’d love to check them out if they should ever happen to play gigs in Europe!

[tags]newtek, videotoaster, toaster, trinity, lightwave, lightwave 3d, tricaster, 3d, play tv, star trek, warp 11, play, post production, amiga, play inc, television, video, desktop video, kiki, stockhammer, kiki stockhammer[/tags]

The Google Maps application on my BlackBerry 8700g (yeah it’s not very en Vogue, but I still find the iPhone an unpractical-for-business toy) asked me to upgrade the Google Maps application today, and I was pleasantly surprised with what the update had to offer.

The new cool features are, except from a slicker interface, as far as I can gather ‘Google Maps with My Location‘ – a pseudo GPS by triangulation feature as first seen in GMaps on the iPhone, traffic information hopefully including more corners of the globe and real GPS over Bluetooth if you have a separate Blutetooth enabled external GPS device.

I’ve tested the GPS over Bluetooth function with a I-Blue 747 GPS receiver / logger and can confirm that it works like a charm, placing me accurately with traveling direction showing.

Looking sweet to me at the moment. Let me know how you’ve fared with the new Google Maps app and leave a comment.

[tags]google, maps, gmap, gmaps, googlemaps, blackberry, apps, gps, gsm, edge, gis, bluetooth, triangulation[/tags]

It’s over a week since the Plone Conference 2007 in Naples, Italy but I’ll try to wrap up my highlights from the third and last day regardless of the lag.

At the socializing dinner on the evening of the second day I had the unexpected fortune of finding myself seated at a table next to Roberto Allende from Menttes and Plone Cono Sur. He seemed like an interesting guy, so I decided to check out his speak “Plone Cono Sur: creating a Plone users group from scratch” on the following day.

Long story short: That speak really made my day. It was both funny and highly motivating. Watch it for yourself:

So as soon as I got back to Cologne I got in touch with the local Zope and Python User Groups with the goal of contributing as much as I can. Let’s hope we’ll have A PZP (Python Zope Plone) User Group in the region soon.

Lastly I’d like to thank Luiciano Ramalho for the neat t-shirt. I’ve never “slept” with a Brazilian before. It was, uh… special. ;)

[tags]plone, ploneconf2007, conference, speak, motivational, rheinland, cologne, usergroup, rzug, dzug, zope, python, conosur, menttes, Roberto Allende, Luiciano Ramalho[/tags]