Notes

This is about how many Terminal.app windows you can open :)

Posted by Pedro Melo at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

I've been thinking about my personal content management system. It's one of my top priorities because a lot of stuff is waiting for it.

To speed things up, I decided to take a look at Kwiki. And all I can say, I'm sold. It's a wonderful architecture, everything is a plugin (like I wanted to do in Kiwi), and it's easy to extend.

So next steps are:

1. get to know Kwiki: I got a copy running, and I'll be looking into it


2. add the object-oriented database system to it


3. make the database hierarchical

We'll see how it goes.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

Things I would do if I could have a Orkut API:

1. Make a iCalendar file of my friends birthdays;


2. Export my friends IM addresses and use that to feed my IM client buddy list

And now we wait.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

Yahoo changed their IM protocol once again. The official reason is to prevent IM spam (or spim). I felt this in the flesh yesterday, when my client Proteus refused to connect to Yahoo network, but I didn't have a clear opinion about this. Parts of Jeremy post helped me put it all in perspective.

First, I never got IM spam over Yahoo or any other network, so my perspective over this could be somewhat biased.

IM spam is nothing like mail spam. IM solutions have from the start the concept of establishing a trust relationship between two users. All the clients I know have a checkbox (the good ones make it the default) that only allows people in your buddy list to send you messages. So the spam issue, at least for me, is a non-issue.

The other issue people are talking about is that "It's Yahoo network, it's Yahoo protocol, and it's Yahoo resources, so they can do with them whatever they want". Well, yes it's true. But thats a shallow analysis of the problem.

Think about why trillian and others have to, or want to reverse engineer the Yahoo protocol. I came up with two reasons:

1. there is a user demand of a multi-network application: my friends are in multiple networks, and I want to talk to them without having to run multiple clients;


2. Yahoo does not have a open-protocol gateway to the outside.

The second is more subtle. Given that the spam issue in IM networks is moot, I don't see a reason for Yahoo and the other networks not having a open transport gateway. Jabber or SIMPLE, for instance.

In my view, if they had one, they would be giving more power to their own users, and give them a reason to stay with Yahoo network, and use their own client. It would become the race for the best client, and frankly, I don't see what Yahoo and the others fear in that race: they have the resources and the content integration to provide the best IM client out there, hands down.

Imagine this: Yahoo and the others open up a Jabber gateway, and launch a new client to match. "Talk to anybody in the world, and you can still get personalized news feeds, your calendar, your mail notifications, in a single app".

I'm a believer in real-time always-on internet. I don't need super-amounts of bandwidth, but I need it there, all the time. I would love to see a application that would be the center of my internet presence, gathering all my friends, all the events of my online life: mail notifications, IM messages, calendar notifications, new post in my favorite feeds. I see it as: a social network-based app (maybe Google will open Orkut via an API...), with touches of dashboard for cross-linking of information. Add mobile connectivity (GPRS or better), a PDA or smart-phone, and your done!

We can only hope...

Posted by Pedro Melo at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

Nuno was complaining about the lousy support of multiple profiles in Mail.app. I agree with him, but today I noticed that I already was using some obscure features that make it all easy :).

First, in the preferences account panel, you can put several email addresses, comma separated. They will all show up in the drop-down in the Compose window, so you can change the From address easily. With MailEnhancer, you can even change the signatures auto-magically.

For this and more plugins, try this MacZealots article, or this list.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

The only two certain things in life are death and taxes. And it seems that the drug dealers now have both to worry about, at least in Kansas.

Amazing...

(via The Old New Thing)

Posted by Pedro Melo at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (view)

The spec of TypeKey is available. And the mandatory perl module is also available :).

I really like web-based "centralized" authentication systems. It's a nice stepping stone to more useful SIM-card or Smart-card based ones. It will keep me happy for a couple of months until I get decent support for smart cards in my OS of choice.

Update: and something new, at least for me, MyUID. Same thing, it seems, diferent implementation. From a quick glance to the PHP implementation (they don't have a perl module), it seems to be a little bit more intrusive than TypeKey. You can pull a user profile from the MyUID server. Will see.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (view)

So I've got an account on Gmail, at last.

I was curious to see the javascript behind it, so now I can :). I'll play a bit more in the wekend.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

I always wanted to learn PerlTk, it seems the most portable way to do a quick GUI for some perl script. My problem with it is that, being a Mac user for sometime now, I really don't want to run X11 to use it.

Apparently, my problem is solved... TclTk Aqua Batteries-Included is a Tcl/Tk distribution (binary with source available) that runs native in Aqua. I'm going to install it, and then I'll try to compile PerlTk against it.

I let you all know how it goes.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

My Powerbook is now 2 years old. It stills runs perfectly, and the battery still provides 2+ hours of charge (with heavy use; almost 3:00 if editing text only and if I'm really careful with battery usage).

So I don't have reason to change to a new one just now. Anyway, I asked around (Nuno and Pedro) what features would make them switch to a new one right now. Based on their opinion, and my own personal interests, I decided to write the reasons that will make me buy a new powerbook. It will save me time and prevent impulse buying-kind-of-stuff.

So, right now, the feature I lack the most in my current PB is internal Bluetooth. Simple as that. I always plug the damn dongle every time I sit down somewhere, either because AddressBook is still the best way to send SMS messages, or because I need GPRS connectivity. So the new one must have Bluetooth, but that alone is not enough to switch.

The other thing I miss the most is more disk space. I have a 40Gb disk, 99% filled all the time. I'll have to check possible upgrades to the disk drive.

But the things that will make me change are: a G5 PB or a DualCore G4 PB. That's it. I would prefer the Dual G4 for the cool factor, but a single G5 is probably better.

Also good thinks to have in the future PB's: integrated iSight (it's possible, check out the Vaio solution), PCI Extreme (don't confuse with PCI-X) for the graphics adapter, and Superdrive (Photo DVD's for the family).

Posted by Pedro Melo at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

Rui is my preferred source for all that is mobile or PDA related in the last couple of months. He is pretty exhaustive, and I share a lot of his view on what I want as my PDA and mobile. I'm not as forgiving about Windows CE as he his, not because I hate Microsoft (I really don't, I like a lot of software they do, not the operating systems but the apps), but because I really don't like the Windows interface.

I read his recentThe Perfect (Smart)Phone? article, and it validates my current view of my personal mobile purchase: today the company that I work for is giving me a T630; that one will go to my wife (MMS stuff), and I'll stick with my 2-year-old T68i until I can get my hands on a Z1010 or similar. I was worried about the 510 contact limit until I counted my own contacts (250-something).

The current price makes it impossible for me to buy one right now. I'll have to wait at least a year. I might buy a K700 in the meantime. Will see. I'll probably have to upgrade my 2 year old PowerBook next year also, and that takes priority.

Either way, the mobile will have to work with my PowerBook, my NZ-90, and must support iSync. That's the only really really important requirement right now.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

So the European Parliament voted against software patents but the Council voted for software patents.

What's next?

Well, elections are coming, next Sunday, so choose wisely if you care about this. Check this page to find out how the Portuguese MPs voted.

Next week, may the lobbying begin. In June, the Council must formally adopt the position, so you have a couple of days. You might need this: key arguments against software patents and MPs contacts.

If you prefer to phone them, check this out: MEP-Position-Lobbying-Guide or MEP Questionnaire Home (if you have more free time).

Anyway, don't just stand there. If you write software for a living like I do, get of you butt, go vote on Sunday, and lobby next week.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

I was discussing with Nuno how he uses iTunes, and I was amazed that he likes party shuffle...

I don't use party shuffle, too lazy to pick songs and stuff. So I have a special playlist, a smart one, that I use. This playlist assures me a continuous stream of music with 3.5 days turn around time (assumes you are listening to itunes 24 hours a day, of course, so it's more like 10 days).

Here is the playlist I use. It assumes you like to rate songs. It will work out-of-the-box because iTunes gives 3 stars to new songs and I only filter those below that:

1. Create a smart playlist
2. Add 4 rules:
   1. Genre is not Spoken Word: remove almost all the audiobooks
   2. Genre is not Audiobook: remove the rest of the audiobooks
   3. Genre is not Speech: IT conversations
   4. My Rating is greater than XX (two stars)
3. Make sure you have Match all the following conditions
4. Don't limit the number of songs. If you do, chose least recently played as selection style
5. if you disable songs with the checkbox, select Match only checked songs. Otherwise clear it.
6. Live Updating on

I also have the prefpane Rating Bar.prefPane installed. There are other options, but I like this one.

So, this playlist makes sure I listen to different stuff all the time, and if I'm listening to a track I don't like, I just change it's rating to 1 or 2 stars and it stop's playing (you must press play after, unfortunately).

One thing I noticed, is that I don't have enough music: 10 days to rotate my music collection is small. I'll have to start ripping more CD's...

Posted by Pedro Melo at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

Finalmente! Sim, eu sei que vinha um cliente de linha de comando com o bittorrent orignal, mas nunca o consegui por a funcionar...

Vou por isto a bombar e dou noticias.

Posted by Pedro Melo at 04:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)

I'm a proud owner of a Clie NZ-90 (the monster!), but it seems that it will be my last Clie.

I think I understand why they are doing this. When I first heard about Clie, they where very advanced in comparison with Palm and Handspring offers, but now, the Palm T3 and others are getting there.

I don't know the entire Clie line. There are some models that don't have a replacement right now (mine for example), but those are niche markets.

hmms... time to get a new battery before they really disapear...

Posted by Pedro Melo at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (view)