David Roessli's Empty Set

Links for 2008-10-09 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

jqzoom
JQuery zoom tool

Links for 2008-10-07 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Latest iPhone Software supports full-screen Web apps
Remove Mobile Safari's chrome and turn your webapp into an iPhone app wannabe

A West African storytelling Sunday afternoon

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:31:26 +0100

Almost a year ago day for day, I wrote about the enchanting Moroccan tales of Hamed Bouzzine and how we all got wrapped up in them. Yesterday, it was two West African storytellers, or “griots“, that brightened up my Sunday afternoon.

Part of the festival “Le Monde des Griots“ organised by the Ateliers d'Ethnomusicologie, Manfeï Obin from The Ivory Coast and François Moïse Bamba from Burkina Faso were invited to share their stories with us.

I have always loved having stories read to me, so I am a prime candidate for these kind of events. The venue takes place in the Alhambra, a beautiful theatre close to a hundred years old full of past glory and warm vibes. Another favourite of mine.

The show was in two parts, Manfeï Obin leading in, followed by François Moïse Bamba and Moussa Sanou attending the music (awesome). They all gathered at the end for a final storytelling, singing and dancing. Moussa is an awesome musician.

They painted the Alhambra with their words, filling the air with bright images and sounds, unfolding vocal rythms and rhymes that echoed far back in the hall and though your memory cells.

There are no bad words, only bad interpretations

There is a kind of magic in the way they lay their story down, capture your attention, make sure you are still listening. Then slowly lead you exactly where they want you to be. Throw in some humour and wrap up with simple words of wisdom.

Although we all hear the same words, we all heard a different story, resonating in a unique manner according to one's experience, worries, happiness and outlook on life. We all went home with a little something more, a little richer, with a sparkle glittering at the back of our eyes.

“Si tu es pressé d'avoir un enfant, épouse un femme déjà enceinte“

Listen to our stories. Our words might reach your brain, their meaning might reach your heart, at which point they are yours to tell and to share. In your way. That's the way stories live, evolve, spread.

More information

Manfeï Obin has published a number of story books which are well worth taking a look at.
Discover him on YouTube.
Radio Cité - les Matinales: Festival le monde des Griots. Invités: Astrid Stierlin des Ateliers d'ethnomusicologie, François Moïse Bamba et Moussa Sanou du Burkina Faso. Listen to the podcast of Coin du monde du 6 octobre 2008 (MP3 - French).

MP3 Flash Player courtesy of dewplayer.

Links for 2008-10-06 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

SugarSync
Sync Files, Backup Data, Remote File Access for PC, Mac, Mobile Phone

VisualHub discontinued

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:13:17 +0100

I first heard about Techspansion closing through lynxman's Twitter feed before reading the notice that is displayed when you launch the application.

...After much soul-searching (it's not you, it's me), for personal reasons, Techspansion is closing its virtual doors.

Tyler Loch

I loved this video converter application, and its little brother iSquint as well as AudialHub, the audio file converter.

It was a bit what GraphicConverter is to still images. Offering support for a large variety of video formats and was both easier to use for basic conversion while offering a greater number of advanced options for video geeks. A rare combination.

There is no real competition. FFMpegX does the same thing (uses the same underlying open-source code ffmpeg), but the GUIs just don't match up.

Hold on to and backup your copies of VisualHub and AudialHub.

Missing you already.

All software seems to have been removed from the server. For those wondering where they can still grab a copy, point your browsers at http://mactalk.cachefly.net/dump/VisualHub.dmg.

Links for 2008-10-01 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

iPhone icons oasters
Fun, eventhough a bit expensive. Didn't think they'd have the right to do this. Aren't the icons copyrighted?

Links for 2008-09-30 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

twitterlibphp
A PHP interface to the Twitter API

Links for 2008-09-26 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Truesenses SMS Gateway
Looks really professional

Geneva Apple Store is open

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:08:53 +0100

The Geneva Apple Store opened yesterday at 17:00 CET. It is Apple's 242nd store worldwide.

I wasn't sure to attend, but curiosity got the best of me. Not curiosity of the store itself as I was very much sure it would resemble closely other Apple Stores as the initial pictures showed up online (thanks @lynxman). No, I was more curious about the crowd it would drain, about those fanatics who are ready to stand in line for hours, about the atmosphere, the vibes, being part of an event. I wanted to meet Mac g33ks. Was all this possible in Geneva, Switzerland?

Incidentally, a meeting having turned short so I got there 30 minutes before launch and very naturally joined the line which was still short. I must have been in the first 200 people. The line grew rapidly after that.

It was a curious mix of people of all stems of life. A interesting mix of ages, social status, motivations, looks and glares. People were curious, generally happy, chatting and laughing with their neighbours, the more passionate sharing their experience with the others. Mothers with their teenage sons and daughters, business men pretending to look elsewhere while whispering in their bluetooth devices plugged in their ears or tapping on their iPhone virtual keyboards, youngsters betting on the number of t-shirts they will be able get out of the event. Cameraphones were held high over the people's heads in an attempt to pixellise the moment. Incredulous faces glaring out from behind the bus or tram windows swept by from time to time while the queue grew longer.

Something was in the air. A little something, shared by the people standing in line. Nothing like you might experience in SF, NYC or London, but hey, we're in Geneva, Switzerland after all…

Five minutes before the opening, the whole staff came out, clapping and cheering the crowd, running up and down the pavement in their cyan and orange t-shirts. The countdown begun. Security tightened, men in black suits with crewcut haircuts and plastic earphones appeared from inside, lining up in front the main doors. Gee, they played it up to the last minute. Two catch like plain clothes bouncers seemed to direct the show, shouting out orders in English to the men in black. Wouldn't want to mess with these two…

Suddenly, from inside the store, the staff counted out loud the last ten seconds before the doors opened and the first flow of people were let in through a row of smiling staff cheering and handing out the t-shirt boxes. Welcome to the Apple Store.

The place seemed smaller than I anticipated, but it was crowded. A long corridor lined up with the latest iPods and MacBooks leads you into the main hall with the Genius Bar on the left, the accessories' racks on the right and tables with all of Apple's hardware presented, ready to be tried out. The main hall's ceiling is opened to the sky through windows which should let in the daylight (or moonlight?) and give a pleasant atmosphere. The staff is young and friendly. I chatted with a couple of members of staff and a Genius and I was please to feel they knew what they were talking about, were happy to talk about it, and even had a tinge of passion in the background. Uncommon for Geneva in this retail industry. This will workout fine.

WiFi was barely available. I managed to connect only briefly to the store's network before dropping back onto EDGE. I'm pretty sure this will be fixed in the coming days. I wandered briefly around the store, observing more the people than the hardware, before leaving the floor and letting the reminder of the queue access Geneva's first Apple Store. The queue was still long out there, I bet they gave out all their t-shirts before nine o'clock struck.

From the street, the store is rather discreet, even a little overshadowed by the next door tax free perfume shop that stands out more prominently. A small Apple logo on a grey background sticks out only visible if you come from la place du Molard, out of sight if you come from le Rond-Point de Rive.

I guess I'll be back before long.

Enjoy more pictures at,

Geneva Apple Store opening - david roessli on Flickr
Apple Store & events - Flickr group
Apple Retail Store Geneva - ati84 on Flickr
Loops photostream - loops on Flickr
Geneva Apple Store opening photos - The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Grand Opening Photos - ifo AppleStore

And more information at,

Geneva Store Generates Press, Photos - ifo AppleStore
Apple Store Geneva opens its doors - World Radio Geneva
Apple Store Geneva opens its doors, local retailers not worried - MacUser
Apple ouvre sa première enseigne européenne à Genève - Le Temps
Un Apple store ouvre à Genève - Tribune de Genève
Genève: le premier Apple Store de Suisse a été inauguré - Tribune de Genève

Links for 2008-09-23 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Magasin Apple Store - Rue de Rive
Local retail info
Ariel Flesler: jQuery.ScrollTo
A cool plugin for jQuery that implements smooth in page link scroll to
CSS and opacity: methods for creating translucent elements
By using CSS properties

Worn to a frazzle

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:52:16 +0100

Having a long breakfast today while trying to catch up with the endless unread items of my RSS feeds which are well into the four figures. Just thought I'd say hi somewhere in between .

I'd love to have a go at cleaning up my numerous drafts in order to post those still relevant. If I don't find the energy, I'll probably just crash out with the kids, play board games or take them to the pictures.

Make me strong.

Hey, ever noticed the plethora of synonyms to tired or weary?

Tired, worn out, exhausted, fatigued, sapped, burnt-out, dog-tired, spent, drained, prostrate, enervated, done in, beat, ready to drop, bushed, worn to a frazzle, pooped, tuckered out, dead beat, bone-tired, zonked, wasted, enervated, jaded, whipped, bagged, knocked out, wiped out.

Currently playing in iTunes: Pulse by Archive

Social unnetworking

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:38:20 +0100

I have a strange relationship with technology lately. Things tend to break, malfunction, bug more often than usual. My levels of electrostatic fluid must be high.

Anyway, with the summer closing in and automn's cold lick too close to admit, I felt an urge to clean up my bookmarks, especially the social network ones. Don't ask me why. Not quite sure if I was fleeing or snuggling up. Go figure out.

The number of services in which I had an account just for the sake of having one was astounding. These accounts just stood there, idle, or patiently aggregating the little crumbs I leave on the net, with little or no life of there own. Linked to people I'd never met, I suddendly felt the urge for space.

So, I ran through my arm's long list of bookmarks, and patiently set out to discover the ”Delete my account” links throughout the various dashboards and setting panes. Not as obvious as one would anticipate. While I eventually found them, either through the Help or FAQ sections, some were not activated, others required you contacted the owner by e-mail or some were plain non existant.

You can checkout any time you want, but you can never leave!

The Eagles

An interesting exercice, considering that the basic principle of a social network, or any other webapp or website for this matter, should be to let you leave as easily as you join. Moreover, let you leave and take your shared data with you. How many of these web sites offer some kind of export function I ask you? Not many believe me.

It's interesting to note that not one offer the option to warn your contacts that you've left. On the other hand, they all try to scrape through your address books when you join to send out invitations to all the new e-mails they find… with or without your consent sometime. Got burned once.

So, Friday I bid farewell in no special order to Jaiku, Pownce, Rollyo, Mixin, iLike, MyBlogLog, Tumblr, Vimeo, Virb°, Bebo, Mag.nolia, Brightkite, LiveJournal, Vox, MySpace, Tribe.net, Xanga, LightStalker, SumgMug and Plaze.

Now, don't get me wrong: I like a number of these websites and services (really). I just don't use them. This said, I'll continue to recommend them when appropriate, and I might register again one day if needed - who knows. Most of them are innovative and dynamic. I'm just in an overload state.

For no real reason I kept Facebook, Plaxo and Xing going. This might change in a near future. My favourites remaining Flickr, Twitter, Last.fm, del.icio.us, Linked.in and Upcoming.

+24d

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:01:26 +0100

Monday morning 0630a.
Showered. Sun is rising.
Time for printer lifting.

Let's make this week smoother than the previous one.

Lost my sunshine

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:03:19 +0100

Gosh it's wet out there. Wet and humid. It's been raining buckets ever since I got up earlier on. The kind of weather that entices you to snuggle up in bed and forget about the outside world all together. Work up on your bedside book backlog. Get lost in compulsive purchases on the internet. Attempt to sort your music or photo library for the n^th time. Backup all your computers. Move the furniture around. Repaint a wall. Listen to the same track over and over while singing out loud. Wishing time travel and teleportation existed. Finishing a whole box of cereales.

I find I sleep deeper and longer when it rains. Don't you?

Tomorrow is a new day without any mistakes in it

Anne of Green Gables

Anyhow, daily logistics and other constraints have decided otherwise. Who knows, one does say that rain has that special cleansing and detox power…

I've lost my sunshine in the rain.

Currently playing in iTunes: When It Rains by Brad Mehldau.

Waiter Rant

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:42:24 +0100

I haven't posted many book reviews since I relaunched this weblog. Not that I didn't want to, or was at a loss. Quite the contrary. I have a number of books I would { have } like{ed} to talk about. Many of which on web design or related topics. As well as travel stories, bios, Indian tales, etc. But no. I kept silent, by lack of time, attention, will or skills. I don't know.

Anyway, the book I wish to talk about here was an Audible pick on episode 102 of MacBreak Weekly, a favourite podcast of mine. I was in search of something to listen too, and this recommendation was spot on.

The book admirably narrated by Dan John Miller who brings it to life in all it's splendour. So much more than just a collection of waiter's anecdotes, it leads you into the intricacies of the food serving world, the delicate balance, power struggles and all aspects of the restaurant business.

You're ready to do something when you're ready to do it.

Most of the book takes place at a New York City restaurant named "The Bistro" (pretty generic, no?). The waiter gives us a composite picture of his life as the waiter by observing the mesh of interactions between the management, fellow workers, and customers. The good, the bad and the more than often ugly.

I enjoyed the psychological angle. I love the way the Waiter analyses his doings and feelings, manages his relationships with others, and draws a philosophical portrait of the waiter's trade. Most of which can be applied to other trades and people. I love how he balances his criticism with empathy for all and how he shares the truth about sanitation, poverty, relationships, self-confidence and bad customers. It's a tale of a man who chose an occupation out of despair and became excellent at it while preserving hope for the future by tuning out his passion.

Cocooned inside our private dramas we often don’t realize life is rolling by us like it should

I read that a number of the weblog readers were disappointed by the book. I can't speak for them, but I've added the weblog to my blogroll since.

He's a waiter. He's really a writer. Refreshing. An engaging read (or listen).

For a beautiful web

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:17:38 +0100

Yesterday, Andy Clarke launched For A Beautiful Web!, a site presenting a series of master classes and workshops on creative design and training for the web.

The initial master class "Visual Web Design Master Class For A Beautiful Web" is scheduled for December in London and focuses on how to discover new ideas and new ways of working.

The classes will be intimate as they are limited to 40 people. I must admit that I am very tempted by December's initial class, more so as I have only attended one conference this year. There is an early bird £70 discount for the first ten registrations for those who think fast.

You can preregister your interest for next year's classes, which main themes cover advanced css styling, microformats, accessibility and markup.

I'm looking forward to see how Andy will master these one day courses. The Carson Workshops he's given where a great success, both in the UK and in the US. Some of which were given twice. I am confident he's going to come up with new ways to inspire and enlighten those who are fortunate enough to attend these events.

I am fortunate enough to have followed Andy's talks at the yearly @media conferences ever since his first, back in 2005. He is an inspiring figure and always delivers a topnotch talk which boost you with a new drive to change and better the way you work, design or code. Passionate.

In addition to the website, you can follow this project on Twitter and through a dedicated Facebook group.

For those of who don't know Andy's work, go to his company website or checkout his excellent book "Transcending CSS".

Ctrl-P-Print

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:36:32 +0100

Eddie Izzard's Encore on Computers - just for a 7' laugh…

Orig: YouTube

90 days

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:39:08 +0100

It's been almost 90 days since my last post.

Whoosh.

It's not like nothing happened, or that I haven't written anything, or felt, reflected, pondered or brainstormed. No. It's just that I haven't published anything.

I have a number of drafts in store. On ACLs, mobile websites design - turning into a white paper -, various rants, on my relationship with technology or with life in general, notes on the latest conferences I've attended, etc. There's food for thought enough. Just nothing public. Yet.

It's just that the basic publishing requirements weren't met. No enough time, quality time, intimate time.

Technology at home can be misinterpreted, misunderstood if not clearly explained and shared. Technology can appear as a barrier, a refuge, an exit. Truth is that technology can be used as a barrier, a refuge or an exit.

In my personal case, it is perceived as work invading the home. The moment I open my notepad, it is as if I left home for, well.. for another world. A private space.

Exclusion and frustration are derived from this behaviour. The paradox is that I take the upmost care not to interfere, perturb or invade the home activities. I usually lift the screen of my MBP when all are occupied, in bed, when I feel that it won't be misunderstood, misinterpreted. But current reality denies me this right. Ironically, the uses I make of my computer these days is most of the time related to family life. It may be photo or video processing, family event scheduling, DVD authoring, etc.

Nevertheless, I must admit that a great part of my life lays on or beyond the internet. E-mail, IM, Twitter, Flickr are only a few pipes that connect me to my friends, partners and clients. As a freelancer, I feel compelled to remain available, to monitor the websites I manage or to feed the social networks I belong to.

It is probably all a question of balance. Maybe part of me has been drawn outwards for various reasons, maybe my personal balance is at stake, maybe I don't communicate well enough, or maybe it's just life. I don't know.

The fact is I've been saying « I don't know » quite often recently, and my online presence has suffered from it. To tell you the truth, I don't really care. Wrong. I do care. Put it this way, I blog firstly for myself, for me. If the need, or the opportunity diminishes or evolves, well I deal with it. Or try to. As best I can.

This weblog, like those which came before, is just a mean for me to express certain views and emotions or share tips. I've never had the ambition of building a community or anything like that. So sometimes, I just stop publishing - 'pub' like in 'public'. I just get on with my life in the real world. If there's one thing I learned recently it's that if you don't take it, nobody will give it to you. Very egocentric, I know.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you all this, but thanks for reading all the same. Enjoy the summer. It's over 29°C at 21:30CET. Bliss. I love it.

Currently playing in iTunes: Fleur blanche by Örsten.

My 2 cents worth of iPhone tips for Switzerland

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:22:33 +0100

Important note: please bear in mind that this post relates to a first generation iPhone running 1.x software.

It's almost a month now that I've received my iPhone, and I thought it might be time to share a few tips related to its use in Switzerland where it still isn't officially available despite the rumours (Feb 29th, April 4th, etc.).

I bought a couple on eBay where you'll find an impressive list of new jailbreaked iPhones with the latest firmware readily available for sale. The prices have risen over the last weeks, but with a weak dollar, they remain reasonable compared to what is sold in Switzerland. Your best bet remains to find someone that can pick one up in a US Apple Store for you.

The first one came over jailbreaked, and fully patched with the necessary tweaks to make it work properly in Switzerland. I didn't realise that before Cécile started to have issues with hers that I never had. As we compared our iPhones it became clear to me that mine had been enhanced and not hers.

So here are a few tips we managed to work out that might help you if you've just received a jailbreaked iPhone v1.1.4 from the US.

For more information on the jailbreak process itself, please check ZiPhone's Blog and please don't forget to make a donation to Zibri - thanks.

EDGE configuration

The first thing you'll want to do is to setup the phone's EDGE configuration. You'll find these settings under Settings > General > Network > EDGE. These settings depend on your operator.

For Swisscom

APN: gprs.swisscom.ch
Username: (nothing)
Password: (nothing)

For Sunrise

APN: internet
Username: internet
Password: internet

For Orange

APN: internet
Username: (nothing)
Password: (nothing)

Important note: Orange Switzerland doesn't offer EDGE, and several friends of mine haven't managed to establish a GPRS connection either, while others have. The situation isn't clear.

Next, you are going to want to install third party applications to enhance your iPhone's experience. Like sending and receiving MMS for example. But before that, there was a couple of issues we nedded to tackle.

BSD Subsystem

Before you start installing anything, make sure you have BSD Subsystem installed on your iPhone. You can check by selecting Installer > Uninstall and looking if it's the list of installed applications.

BSD Subsystem is required before installing many other applications and patches and therefore should be the first package you install on your newly jailbroken iPhone. Many third party application and tweaks rely on it being installed.

Check iClarified for information on how to proceed to install BSD Subsystem.

Caller ID recognition

The first issue that arose was the non recognition of the caller ID. Although the SMS senders were correctly identified by their name, the phone calls we not. Only numbers were displayed on an incoming call. More specifically, they were only if you hadn't specified the international code in your address book. So 079 123 4567 was recognised but not +41 79 123 45 67. Bummer.

It turns out that iClarified had the answer in the form of AppSupport which fixes Dialer Crashing and Caller ID problems (thanks timschuerewegen).

Again, check out their excellent tutorial.

Turn predictive typing off

Next we noticed tha my iPhone's keyboard settings offered the option of turning off the autocorrection, but it lacked on Cécile's. Autocorrection can be a drag depending you the language you are writing in and the keyboard layout you are using. I write in French or English, but use a German layout (QWERTZ).

Once again, there's a tool to install (KB.app).

The install process is more than easy once you have Installer.app which you should if you've received you phone jailbreaked.

Open Installer icon on your iPhone.
Navigate to Community Source and install it, of course if you have it already installed skip that step.
You gonna see that now you have a lot more applications available through Installer.app.
Navigate to Tweaks > KB.app and install it.
You are ready to go.
Now you can Enable or Disable the Autocorrection by the new option available in Setting > General > Keyboard.

Watch the installation on YouTube.

MMS setup (iPhone OS 1.1.4 / SwirlyMMS 0.3.8)

The next step was to reinstate MMSs on the iPhone. Sending and receiving MMSs may not be too popular in the USA, but is widely used in Europe. I love them personnaly.

Luckily once again an application is available the enables you to send an receive MMS on your iPhone: SwirlyMMS. It still is a little rough, but you can send and receive with it. Install it through the Installer > Productivity > SwirlyMMS (or directly from the developer's by adding swirlyspace.com/SwirlySpace.xml as source in the Installer). Remember, you must restart the iPhone before using it (turn the phone off by pressing the power button for several seconds).

SwirlyMMS Settings for Swisscom

MMSC : mmsc.swisscom.ch
Proxy : 192.168.210.002:8080
APN : event.swisscom.ch
Username : <empty>
Password : <empty>

SwirlyMMS Settings for Sunrise

MMSC: mmsc.sunrise.ch
Proxy: 212.35.34.75:8080
APN: mms.sunrise.ch
username: mms
password: mms

SwirlyMMS Settings for Orange

MMSC: 192.168.151.3:8002
Proxy: 192.168.151.002:8080
APN: mms
Username: <empty>
Password: <empty>

Now you can send and receive MMSs. Just wait until the upper right square in the status bar becomes green before attempting to send or receive.

Sending is straitforward: type in a title, select a recipient, select an image and click send.

Receiving is straitforward too. When an MMS is wating, just click the upper left button in SwirlyMMS called Fetch. The number of MMS to fecht will be displayed next to the Fetch button label.

On the other hand, you'll need a couple of other applications to select and view the image you have just fecthed. As of the time of writing SwirlyMMS v0.3.8 only supports images (no movies).

If you are having trouble getting this app to work, check the forum for FAQ and tips.

Then you need to install MobileFinder and MobilePreview to navigate in the filesystem and view the received image and MobileTextEdit if you want to view the received text. These applications are available through the Installer > Productivity section.

The images you receive are stored in ~/Media/MMSFiles. Open MobileFinder and click on the upper right ~ button. That will take you to your home directory. Double click (yes, double click) on the Media folder, and you'll find the MMSFiles folder where your images are stored. Double click an image to view it.

If you move them to your camera folder and rename them like the camera folder pictures you will be able to sync them and se them in the cameraroll (Good if you want to send them by MMS), but you will not get a thumbnail of the picture. Only a white background. If you want to see the picture in the camera roll, just save it again like you did to get the white thumbnail, but with "THM" extension (for example: IMG_0001.JPG, then save it again with IMG_0001.THM).

MobileFinder take some getting use to, but once you've figured out how to navigate the filesystem, move, copy and delete files, you're done.

Use Image Capture or iPhoto (or some other photo management software) to transfer them to your Mac.

IMAP your mailboxes

When you setup your e-mail accounts in your Mail application, I strongly suggest you choose the IMAP protocol. It is so much powerful. There is an interesting post on setting up your GMail account on the iPhone on 5ThirtyOne.

Apple has a technote on setting up your accounts: iPhone and iPod touch: Email Account Setup.

Backup your SMS

Getting your data in and out of the iPhone is trivial except for the SMSs. Luckily there are a couple of applications on the Mac that do just that. Namely Syphone and MobileSyncBrowser. It turns out that Micromat's product Syphone is still too buggy (v0.99b) to be reliable. I needed to remove the preferences before launching the application otherwise it crashed on launch. Moreover, it doesn't display accentuaed letters properly. MobileSyncBrowser on the other hand rocks. It will backup your SMSs, contact info and call history.

Both these applications allows you view the backup files iTunes creates from your iPhone. Everytime you synch your phone, iTunes keeps a local copy of the information contained in your iPhone's SMS and Notes applications as well as your recent call history. MobileSyncBrowser allows you to refer to these files and copy the information for archive or reference purposes.

Choose a data plan

If you start using EDGE, I suggest you check with your operator if he offers data plans that might suit your consumption. I opted for Swisscom's Surf Option 50Mb. It gives me 50Mb of data for CHF 10/month. Without this option you are billed 0.10 CHF/10 KB by Swisscom. We'll see how well that suits my needs. Check out the other operators for their offers.

And finally, what is yours called?

I don't know about you, but one of the first things I do when I buy a new Mac, iPod or now iPhone is to choose a name for it. I'm allergic to the default "John Doe's Computer" or "John Doe's iPhone". My relationship with my hardware is far too personal to leave it like that (but that is the topic of whole new blog post).

I named my iPhone Jaya, while Cécile called hers Graham. What is yours called?

Serenity

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:48:44 +0100

Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Come back later to read a tale of failing hardware and unwilling people.

Currently playing in iTunes: Feel So Different by Sinéad O'Connor

Soulmate

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:37:46 +0100

A different reality. A state of mind. A new colour. A direct line. A stateless presence. A broader horizon. A free thinker. A cloudless sky. Now and here.

soulmate (also soul•mate)
noun
a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.

Currently playing in iTunes: Angel by Jack Johnson

« But you're so busy changing the world
Just one smile can change all of mine
We share the same soul […] »

Just for you

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:51:57 +0100

These few lines are for a friend in need.

This is one of thoses times when you feel something as been ripped out of you. Something so deep and vital, that you are left utterly stunned and empty. What more, there is no rational explanation to backup why this happened. No excuse. No reason. No room. No mercy.

Your most inner self cannot bear the brunt, or accept the simple idea that such a behaviour exists.

Revulsion, nausea, sadness, revolt, sorrow and heartache.

Unfair and undeserved.

Nevertheless, you will grow stronger at the outcome, fill in the gap with more love you ever thought you were capable of. Horizons will broaden and relations deepen. You've got it right. All right.

I feel for you.
Really.

Thought I'd let you know.

Currently playing in iTunes: Respect by Aretha Franklin