Wednesday, September 24, 2008

gPhone oops

On the one hand, Apple is giving geeks The Fear.

So we feel forbidden love. On the other hand ...
T-mobile G1: Android and T-Mobile G1's Five Most Obnoxious Flaws

Topping the list, it's tightly integrated with your Google account—so tightly that you can only use one Google account with the phone.
Last time I looked I had about six Google App accounts, two of which I use pretty regularly -- including on my iPhone.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Forbidden love - the open G1 gPhone

Apple's rejections of iPhone apps that "confuse" users by "duplicating" Apple functionality are now top secret.

So it's not surprising that we geek iPhone users feel the love that dare not speak its name ...
A First Look at Googles New Phone - Pogue’s Posts - New York Times Blog

... Android, and the G1, are open. Open, open, open, in ways that would make Steve Jobs cringe. You can unlock this phone after 90 days—that is, use any SIM card from any carrier in it. The operating system is free and open-source, meaning that any company can make changes without consulting or paying Google. The App store is completely open, too; T-Mobile and Google say they won’t censor programs that they don’t approve of, as Apple does with the iPhone store. Yes, even if someone writes a Skype-like program that lets people avoid using up T-Mobile cellular voice minutes.

Android is not as beautiful or engaging as the iPhone’s software, but it’s infinitely superior to Windows Mobile—and it’s open. The G1 is only the first phone to use it, the first of many; it’s going to be an exciting ride.

T-Mobile already supports VOIP over WiFi, so the Skype-like option isn't appealing. It comes with the phone.

T-Mobile and AT&T are both SIM based. The no-contract cost of the G1 is about the same as the contract-extension cost of the iPhone. So it might be iPhone-price competitive for a current AT&T customer to buy a G1 with T-Mobile, plug in the AT&T SIM card, and cancel the T-Mobile service.

Gee, you don't imagine they thought of that?

Go Google, Go.

(Alas, I wish I could say Apple will pay for their closed shop strategy, but I'm not prepared to bet against the tyranny of the mean.)

Sharepoint list or library corruption bug: Do not set the “required” value on any Sharepoint column

I don’t generally post on Sharepoint bugs, though I run into a lot of them at work. I’ll make an exception here because this is a nasty bug, and I wasn’t able to locate any descriptions of via Google. So if anyone else runs into it, this post might be helpful.

This bug manifested with a Sharepoint 2007 document library. This library had custom fields (columns, attributes, metadata, etc) like “group”, “tags”, “author” etc.

One day we were unable to see or edit those custom columns in the standard (web) view. It was as though they had vanished. We could see them in the Access/Excel-like “data sheet” view, so the data was there. We could even edit the values in that view.

It wasn't easy for our IT group to figure out what had happened. It seems that under some circumstances setting a field as "required", when rows already exist with null values for the field, will corrupt a Sharepoint list.

It can only be repaired, with difficulty using, Sharepoint Designer.

There is no fix date from Microsoft this bug. For the time being the required attribute value should not be used in a Sharepoint list.

There are worse things about Sharepoint (the world’s most inane file share and document management system) but they’re design flaws, not bugs. Up to now this is the nastiest SP 2007 bug I’ve personally experienced.

Jacob uses Dappit to create a public RSS feed from my Google Shared Feed web page

Jacob takes pity on my frustrations with the unsharable Google Reader shared items feed.

He creates a Dappit feed from the shareable shared items web page version of the shared items.
Family Medicine Notes

... Poor John. He couldn't get an RSS feed out of google reader without a COOKIE. Enter Dappit Kinda nuts to get the RSS from what is essentially a screen-scrape of the HTML. Oh well .. in desperate times, we take desperate measures."
Lord, what a hack! My brain recoils from the horror.

I couldn't get the Dappit link to load on first test, but I'll try again tonight. Maybe this will embarrass Google?

At the least I'll have another Feed generator service to compare to the 2-3 like services I use to monitor Dyer's feedless page (version 2).

Let loose the geeks of tech war: Google on Android vs. Google on iPhone

I use my iPhone with Google Apps - not MobileMe.

I'd love to use MobileMe -- I'm not deterred by the cost. The problem is that MobileMe sucks. No public APIs. No calendar sharing. Exactly the same Notes and Tasks functionality as Google Apps (none).

Google Apps are simply vastly better than the MobileMe alternatives.

So my iPhone Mail.app syncs with Gmail. iPhone Calendar.app syncs, via my iCal/Spanning Sync desktop, with Google Calendar. My Notes and Tasks (Appigo Notebook and Tasks.app sync with Toodledo). Of course Maps.app works with Google Maps, Google Reader Mobile works with Google Reader, and Google.app search works with ...

You get the picture, as my son Ben would say.

Apple either doesn't get the picture, or they can't execute on the server.

Problem is, the picture's not complete. I can't, say, sync iPhone Calendar.app directly with Google Calendar. My wife's Blackberry Pearl can do that, thanks to Google software, but my iPhone can't. This is a big problem, and it's a problem owned by ... Apple.

Not good.

On the other hand, that won't be a problem for the Android ... (emphases mine):
Official Google Mobile Blog: Google on Android

At Google, we develop products that we love to use ourselves. For example, we're avid users of Search, Gmail, Maps, and many others. But for those of us in mobile, it's tough. Not all products work the same on all devices, and although we try and optimize for each device, we often run into challenges specific to certain mobile phone platforms. I, for one, used to carry three devices with me all day. I love my iPhone for its powerful browser and music player. I use my BlackBerry for Gmail and Calendar (and occasionally Brick Breaker), and I carry a Nokia N-series phone because of its camera and YouTube application.

The first Android-powered phone, announced today by T-Mobile, comes 'with Google'. The following Google applications are preloaded on the device: Search, Maps, Gmail with Contacts, Calendar, Google Talk, and YouTube. There are a few things I'm particularly excited about:

  • Easy to use. It's never been easier to use Google on your phone. With single sign-in, you can log in to your Google account and have instant access to all your favorite Google products. No messing around with settings, your login never expires, and everything just works. If you don't have a Google account yet, you can set one up on your phone and be up and running in seconds.
  • Fully synchronized. Your emails, contacts, calendar entries, Google Talk chats are fully synchronized with Gmail and Calendar on the web. New events are pushed in real-time to your phone and any changes you make on-the-go are immediately available on the web. If you ever lose or break your phone, all your data is safe and secure in the cloud.
  • Designed to work together. Search is now available as a feature in many applications, including non-Google ones, such as the music player. While you're listening to a song -- like something from Depeche Mode -- just 'long-press' the artist's name. You'll see a menu pop up that let's you search Google for the Depeche Mode Wikipedia entry, or search YouTube for the music video. The contact application lets you see your friend's IM status, view his address on a map, and communicate with him using Gmail or Google Talk. And, of course, you can call or text him as well.
Depeche Mode? Shades of my ancient Quebecer (eng) past.

Emily's Blackberry isn't the greatest. I'd like to get something better. It has to work well with our family Google Apps. Could be she'll be getting an Android.

Apple needs to get their *** in sync. They need to either match Google on the server side (impossible) or fully support Google Apps as competitors to Mobile Me.

Or my next phone, won't be an iPhone. I may not be the only one ...

Thanks Google. I love these bloodless tech wars.

Monday, September 22, 2008

How do I share my Google Reader Shared Items Feed and process it via Yahoo Pipes?

Google Reader provides all kinds of nice feeds from your "folders" (tags) and your shared items. Most of 'em can be managed by any feed reader, including Yahoo Pipes.

Except for the Shared Items Feed. That one requires a cookie corresponding to a Google Gmail account. I'd like to be able to share manipulate that feed, so I've posted a question on the Google Reader Group:

Share my Google Reader Shared Items Feed and process in Yahoo Pipes - How Do I? | Google Groups

Public Google Reader folders (tags) have feeds. They don't require authentication; I can manage them in Yahoo Pipes, anyone can see them.

Things are different from the Google Reader Shared Items (and probably starred items too). They have a feed, but it requires a Google (Gmail?) account to be read.

For example, here's the Atom feed for my shared items:

http://www.google.com/reader/atom/user/06457543619879090746/state/com.google/reading-list

I think anyone with a Google account can view it (may have to log in) this feed using Google Reader.

I can't add it to Bloglines though, and Yahoo Pipes can't process it.

I do realize that anyone can view the web version of this:

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/06457543619879090746

but that's not what I want to share. I want to be able to publicly share and process the shared items feed including sharing it with people who don't have a Gmail account.

Is there a way to do this (short of using a feed proxy)?

I doubt there's a solution today, but maybe Google will rethink this requirement ...

Update 2/2/09: I find a fix from a different angle.

Don't throw out those OS 9 apps just yet ...

Sooner or later I suspect there will be an OS 9 emulator that can run some of those Classic apps. So keep the CDs around, and a copy of Classic too ...
MacWindows: The web site for Macintosh-Windows integration:

... the development of both of those emulators has veered in that direction [running OS 9 in Leopard]. I think that Mac users have more interest in the emulators now....