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A few thoughts on Google Buzz

Jacob — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:32:59 +0000

Google Buzz is a new offering from Google comparable to Twitter or the Facebook Wall feature. People can share a short thought or message with those people on their contacts list in Google Gmail. Here are a few thoughts I have on Google Buzz:

Integration with Gmail is both very great and very bad. I like only having to stop at once place to check both my email and read through some recent buzzes. On a larger scale, however, this restricts buzzing to only those who have Gmail accounts. Most people who don’t currently use Gmail won’t want to sign up for a Gmail account just so they can buzz.
Location resolution in the mobile buzz app quite accurately describes where you are. That may be fine if you are buzzing about your experience at a particular store or business, but sometimes I would like to share my location more generally so that I can communicate to people that I’m in Fort Collins, but without telling them my exact location.
Commenting and liking are great features that allow my buzzes to be more social and invites more discussion.
Better APIs need to be shared so that developers can allow third-party applications to help a user buzz. I hear this is coming, but it should have been available from day one.

It will be interesting to see Buzz evolve over time, but hopefully we won’t ever see any “Which movie character are you?” or “Be my Farmville Friend” buzzes that have plagued Facebook.

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The iPad is an enemy to openness

Jacob — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:33:44 +0000

A friend of mine who is an Apple employee, Quinn Taylor, tweeted, on the day of the iPad launch, about the use of Flash by Hulu and other online video providers. Presumably, he is responding to criticisms that the new iPad, as well as older iPhones, do not support flash and won’t play videos from Hulu. This is what he said:

When is Hulu going to get with the times and support H.264 and HTML 5 like YouTube & HD content? Flash is an enemy to openness & innovation.

So apparently, a system which requires a proprietary SDK to create videos, which then need a proprietary (free) player in order to view videos, is an “enemy to openness.”

Of course, the iPad isn’t exactly the perfect friend to openness. I mean, to develop anything for the iPad, you have to download the proprietary SDK, use it only on a newer Mac, pay to join Apple’s iPhone developer program, submit any developed application to Apple, hope that Apple approves your app, wait for people to find your app in Apple’s App Store, and then if it gets that far, users can download and use the app on the proprietary iPad device.

I just want to point out that on the conversation of enemies to openness, we could use the new iPad as a perfect example, as everything is locked down and closed from beginning to end.

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Books on my work bookshelf

Jacob — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:04:36 +0000

Here are some of the books on my bookshelf at work:

I also have various Circuit Cellar and Linux Journal magazines.

No related posts.

GDocsUploader 1.4 released

Jacob — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:22:32 +0000

While still in college, I wrote my first Mac OS X program to upload documents to Google Docs. The program is called GDocsUploader, and it supports drag-and-drop uploading of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos, and PDF files.

Today, almost 9 months since my last release, I am happy to release an updated version of the program. The new updated version will allow users to upload PDF documents, a very much requested feature.

You can download the new version from the Google Code project site.

I had been doing everything I could to get Google to add PDF uploading capabilities to their API. I even submitted an official issue, which generated 73 comments and 136 stars, making it “the most requested feature.” Last Friday, Google finally responded by releasing version 3.0 of their API which supported PDF uploading.

The entire development of this project happens in my free time, on an old iBook G4. Unfortunately, because the latest version of OS X will not run on this old laptop, I cannot ensure that the app works on Snow Leopard, nor can I fix it if it doesn’t. I’ll probably think about creating a cross-platform version of the app which would run on Windows, Mac, or Linux through Adobe Air, providing greater platform stability.

If you would like to send me a monetary thank you gift for developing this, please consider donating through paypal.

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Spring snow storms

Jacob — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:40:41 +0000

I’ve had a couple of people ask my why there seems to be a greater snowfall in Colorado during March and early April than during the heart of the Winter in December and January. Fort Collins receives an average of 12.4 inches of snow in March, compared to only 7.1 inches in December.

Warm air can hold more water than cold air. Anyone who has experienced a hot and muggy day knows this. Also, warmer temperatures are more likely to evaporate more water into the air.

Snow requires cold air, so that the moisture that comes out of clouds is frozen instead of just rain.

The most snow fall comes when warm moist air with lots of water combines with cold frozen air that causes snow. This is most likely to occur during early spring months. During winter, the air is too cold on average to hold lots of water, and during summer, the air is too warm to cause it to snow. In the spring months in between, there are just the right amounts of both to make it snow more.

March 27, 2009. NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team

The follow up question asks why it doesn’t rain more in the summer if warm air holds more water. Much of the warmer air is warm enough to hold onto the water causing it not to rain. If, however, the air is cooled, then water can fall out of those warm clouds as rain, just like squeezing a sponge.

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DTV conversion screw up

Jacob — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:39:43 +0000

In case you haven’t heard, broadcast television stations are converting from analog to digital signals. This means that those people who use an antenna to receive free television signals will need a setup capable of receiving the new digital signals. Many newer TV can receive DTV (digital TV), while older TVs like mine will need a converter box.

This conversion has been in plans for year and years, but many consumers aren’t ready for the old analog signals to be discontinued. Originally, there were plans for all analog signals to cease on February 17th, but since so many consumers were unprepared for the switch, congress decided that the plan was screwed up and they decided to do what congress does best, screw it up even more.

Congress voted to extend the conversion date until June 17th, but the problem is that they gave the TV stations the option of turning off the analog equipment anytime between now and then. So rather than having one established date for the conversion, some TV stations will turn off today, others later, and others on June 17th. This wasn’t communicated well to consumers, many of whom might be surprised when some of their TV stations switch today rather than the “extended” June 17 date.

There are 491 stations which will go digital-only on June 17, including a few PBS stations in the Denver area. A full list in PDF form is available.

An additional problem is that a government program to provide $40 coupons for purchases of converter boxes has run out of money, and although congress allowed some stations to extend their conversion date, they didn’t provide additional coupon funding as part of their analog expiration extension plan.

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Universal remote code for Medion TV/DVD

Jacob — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:29:55 +0000

I have a Medion TV/DVD combo that I picked up at some black Friday sale a number of years ago. It has been an OK TV, well used, with a few little quirks.

With the Digital TV conversion happening soon, I purchased an RCA DTV converter box and hooked it up to my Medion TV. The problem is that the converter box came with its own remote and my TV wasn’t listed in its list of universal remote codes.

The universal remote codes in the converter manual were all three digits long, so I started putting codes into the remote starting with 001. I eventually found a code that works sufficiently good; it works for the volume controls and the TV power button.

The code is 191. It really only took me 20-30 minutes to get up that high, which especially wasn’t that bad because I was watching TV at the same time. I’m just glad that it didn’t turn out to be a higher numbered code.

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How much is an old computer worth?

Jacob — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:36:37 +0000

Flickr Stock Photo

Occasionally I get asked how much a particular used computer is worth. Because computer technology continues to increase at a steady rate, computers loose their value quite quickly.

My general rule is that a computer looses about 30-50% of its value every year. A computer which was purchased at the store for $1000 might be worth somewhere around $300 two years later. Particular brands and technologies may loose value faster or slower, but generally, all computers loose their value quite quickly.

For this reason I recommend that no one ever buy a computer with the intent to sell it to someone else later.

I also recommend to most people that they do not buy more computer than they need right now. This means that you shouldn’t buy excessively more memory, speed, or storage because you intend on needing that extra capacity in a year or two. Ignoring this advice, people could buy too much computer that would be worth half as much when they actually need to use it all.

(photo credit)

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GDocsUploader 1.3 released

Jacob — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 06:27:12 +0000

About a year ago I started a little programming project to upload documents to Google Docs. I wrote a little program for Apple OS X called GDocsUploader to support drag-and-drop uploading of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and photos.

Today I released an updated version of the program. In addition to bug fixes, this new version supports video uploads to Picasa. Additionally, this new version makes it much easier to upload multiple files at the same time.

You can download the new version from the Google Code project site.

The entire development of this project happens in my free time, on an old iBook G4. Donations would help me feel good about continued development of this project.

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BYU’s supercomputer is too slow

Jacob — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:54:32 +0000

Twice a year a list of the top 500 supercomputers is released. BYU’s supercomputer, named Marylou4, was once ranked as high as 45 on the list. As of last June, Marylou4 fell in rank to 274.

The most recent listing doesn’t even include a BYU supercomputer. Marylou4 is too slow to make the list.

So there you have it: BYU no longer has a top-500 supercomputer.

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