My average day has me logged in and working from about 6 different computers. Some are Linux, some are Windows and one is a Mac. Up until now, on all of these machines, I had separate different browser favourites\bookmarks, passwords, histories, preferences histories etcetera, and if I needed a bookmark or whatever on when computer when I was on another, I’d have to remote control or walk there to get it. Until now that is. Mozilla Weave has changed all that and now I have the same settings/history/bookmarks on all of my machine on all 3 operating systems. Best of all, it’s a free service!

What is Mozilla Weave I hear you ask? Well, think of it as an online service that stores your browser details in an encrypted state on one of Mozilla’s servers and you can access that data using the weave browser extension installed into as many different Firefox browsers as you like. In my case, my 6 different Firefox installs over Linux/Mac/Windows all have the weave extension installed and configured to use the same weave account, and as a result all of them now have the same browser details.

Case in point is this post, I’ve never posted to htmlfixit.com from this computer before, but because this computer and my home computer both have weave installed, this computer “remembered” the post address and the user-name and password to log in.

This is the way things are destined to move, all your data available all the time from anywhere. I’m a fan.

I’ve been following the Android Linux phone phenomenon with interest since it began, even going so far as to download the SDK and start learning to write Android apps. All I had left to do was choose the Android phone I wanted for myself. First I wanted the HTC Magic, but then I saw the Hero video on-line and fell in love. Since Australia is the A$$ end of the world as far as tech companies are concerned, it took so long for the Hero to arrive here that before they did, I fell in love with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, it had twice the screen resolution twice the CPU power, a fantastic camera with flash and a flashy interface. I wanted one badly. When it was announced, it was the most technically advanced android phone on the market.

Fast forward months and months and I don’t have one yet. Why? because nobody else does either. When Sony-Ericsson announced the phone, it’s features were unrivalled. Now however, it still isn’t out, but it’s features are no longer outstanding. Motorola’s Droid, the Google Nexus one and others have most or all of the features of the Xperia X10, the main difference being that you can actually buy a Droid or Nexus one right now if you want to. (not in Australia yet, but you get the idea.)

An added sting is that the Motorola Droid (2.0.1) and Google Nexus one (2.1) are shipping with much newer versions of Android than the Xperia X10 (1.6) so in some ways it’s behind the 8 ball before it even joins the race. Why have all the other phone companies that wanted to, been able to design, manufacture and release outstanding Android phones, except Ericsson? There is already talk about Snapdragon 1.5ghz CPU Android phones, so unless the X10 gets out the door really soon, it will totally underwhelm the market when it finally does arrive.

Don’t get me wrong, the specs on the Xperia X10 still make my mouth water, particularly the screen and the camera, but if I’m going to spend big bucks on a phone, I’ll want it to be at the forefront of technology for at least a few months and the way it looks to me now, by the time it does get here, it will already be outdated. This phone had the potential to change the game for Sony-Ericsson, and now it is likely to under perform. Not because it’s a bad phone, just because the hype is gone and it isnt’ really special anymore.

Sad really, I had my heart set on one of these things and now I’m looking into buying a Google Nexus one.
Sony-Ericsson have had a hard time of it lately and if this is any indication, it’s not difficult to see why in my opinion. Building hype is great, but if you don’t actually sell the phone at the hypes peak, it declines. That is what happened here, the Xperia X10 took so long to come to market that it was overtaken by Motorola and Google who are now beneifiting from much of the hype generated by the X10 video’s and reviews all over the net.

I think these phones and the iphone are the future of the web for us, or at least a big part of it. There are a lot more mobile phones in the world than there are computers so the market is huge for the mobile Internet. My prediction is that 5 years from now, 60+ percent of the smart-phone market will be running on Linux/Unix based phones. Most of these will be used for browsing the net as well as social networking. It’s worth making sure your sites look OK on them.

The German Government has actually recommended that people stop using Internet Explorer until Microsoft can release an as yet unwritten patch to close a major security gap. If you must use IE they recommend using high security settings. While the BBC article mentions that all browsers provide security risks, this one appears to be a significant hole as Chinese hackers used it to attach Google computers apparently.

I don’t use it simply because I don’t like it myself … but if you choose Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, go update to Internet Explorer 8 today.

Sadly, the majority of Australians are sheep I think. (which is probably why Kiwi’s love it here).

When the Port Author massacre happened in Australia, our politicos took the public outrage as a good excuse to ban nearly all defensive or offensive weapons in Australia. People still get shot, only now the criminals are the only ones with guns and other weapons, and the police get to investigate our murders rather than justify our self defense. We’re not even allowed pepper spray for crying out loud! Retires getting beaten up in their own houses are becoming almost weekly news stories simply because there is no danger anymore to the criminals.

Now, in another show of rampant zealotry, Our current Labor government is not only planning on making ISP’s filter all of their traffic to restrict us to looking at only that which they deem suitable, but now it seems they plan to force all ISP’s to inspect all their traffic looking for possible copyright infringement so they can do the movie and music industry’s jobs for them.

Will someone please sack that idiot Stephen Conroy before we end up living in the Labor governments version of Taliban Afghanistan? I’m starting to wonder if this guy is actually being subsidised by movie and music companies. Just about every time he opens his mouth, it seems to cost us another right or freedom. Perhaps it’s time we got ourselves a constitution so the personal preferences of our transitory politions have less chance of becoming laws. More

Another example of Australian Stupidity is asking our government to push ahead with the emissions laws that just got knocked back. People, it’s sad but true that the cleanest large scale viable power generation we could have at this time is Nuclear, and Australia has backed away from that in fear. So telling our politicians to clean up our atmosphere is going to have only one real result. Low income people will suffer. Why? Well because the government doesn’t really have any new tech to roll out, they don’t have any new power generation methods or anything that could actually help the root of the problem. All they can do, is make it more expensive to process power and manufacture products.

Now what do companies do when their costs go up? Why they up their prices to consumers of course. So, your power bill goes up a thousand or so dollars a year, the power company pays the government the extra money they took from you, and business goes on as usual. Power usage won’t change much, and the government gets to look “green”, just for rooking the moronic sheep we call a populace.

People… The only net effect of these emission trading schemes is to make your life harder and take your money. There is no new technology or cheaper power options, it’s all about making it too expensive for you to use the power you do now (regardless if you already use the minimum you can already). That’s it! That’s all they government can do. Of course they can’t tell you that or you’d reject outright it so it’s shrouded in vaguarities and catch phrases to make it seem green. But wake up people, get a clue! This isn’t going to hurt the companies in question much, they will either get subsidised, or pass on the cost to us, or both. This is going to hurt our pockets and if you don’t believe that, your a fool.

So next time the government tells you how wonderful they are for pushing emission trading schemes, remember that what that actually means, is to make your life harder and much more expensive in the hope that you won’t be able to afford your current lifestyle and will therefor use less power.

Microsoft, who have been known to patent tiny and sometimes seemingly obvious things (timed mouse clicks for example) while riding on the shoulders of giants who often gave their truly revolutionary discoveries unencumbered by patents, has been bitten by the spurious software patent issue themselves. Microsoft Word it’s been ruled, is in breach of somebody else’s software patent (related to XML tagging). Better yet, an injunction forcing them to stop the sale of such infringing products has been granted also (Word and Vista). This has led to speculation that there may be something to the theory of Karma after all and that what goes around really might come around.

Sadly Microsoft has way too much money for this to make much of an impact on them. They’ll most likely pay the fine (290m), perhaps create a workaround and carry on business as usual. But still, the more money they have to hand out in the US, the EU and anywhere else that dislikes their practices, the more likely that at some point in the future, the board will realize that their version of business as usual isn’t really all that profitable anymore. Read more at Reuters.

Funny and relevant, at least if you are in Australia.
Censordyne

Say no to censordyne folks! Since when have politicians been technology proficient enough to even consider make decisions like this?

I’m thinking ….

Toyota has developed the wheelchair in collaboration with researchers in Japan. The system analyzes brain wave data using signal-processing technology and delivers neuro-feedback to the driver.

Several months back we became aware of a technology that is alleged to help people improve their brain patterns — to become more productive. I went to a seminar by Hope139.com and learned that you can monitor brain action and through neuro-feedback improve your ability to think. I was intrigued, but not intrigued enough to fork out the big bucks they desired.

In contacting “traditional” medical professionals and health insurance companies, I was informed that this technology is not widely recognized and getting any type of reimbursement would be difficult at best. This was in fact confirmed by the presenter at the seminar I attended. And yet the idea seemed logical to me and I wondered about it a fair amount since. The idea may be starting to gain some recognition however.

Last week when I learned from Mike Industries (a blog that used to be full of great things and thanks to twitter is now near useless … present story being a rare exception of late) that a company was now making a “toy” that allowed you to levitate a ping pong ball with EEG waives, I became even more intrigued. That videor story suggested that work was underway to do all sorts of things with brain waves, including flying jets. I really think there is something to all of this … you exercise your body to become better at a skill be it juggling, writing, typing, running, basketball … and on and on. Why not your mind? And I suppose we do exercise our mind on some level — we do multiplication tables, division problems, figure things out, do jigsaw puzzles, be we get no truly objective and simultaneous feedback (unless I suppose you are juggling knives … hmmm).

Now this week Toyota announces a wheelchair that responds to brain waves! Exactly! Now how can they tell you there is nothing to this technology on the one hand and then on the other use a wheelchair that uses the very concept?

I’m intrigued and thinking this will be the next big thing — much bigger than the Segway which was to revolutionize our world as we knew it.

I’d love to replace my computer mouse with an eeg … but not to strap on a helmet to do it …