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Vista is Upon Us, but Office is So Much Better

Well its late to the party, but Vista has now entered or lives and is getting significantly more coverage on the UK news than I imagined, with little mention to office 2007, which I have to say is the best thing since sliced bread in the office software field.

I may not like Vista but I can’t wait to get my hands on Office 2007:mac and for that matter a Vista box to run Office 2007. The ribbon UI isn’t like anything Microsoft has or I think will ever produce again, the logic and look and performance are much improved with my experience (office 2007 BETA over Office 2003) and its so much easier to get to all the things you want, as I remember that was the point for the Ribbon UI, I could quite see similar systems popping up all over and hopefully improve usability in a lot of god damn awful programs, that maybe high on the functionality.

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WordPress 2.1

I must have been under a rock, I forgot wordpress 2.1 I will be installing 2.1 in my sandbox and making sure everything works before I do the upgrade which, I hope won’ take too long.

Update: Turns out there are a few things that don’t like each other in 2.1, So I am going to take this opurtunity to update and rebuild parts of the my theme, mainly completely update the homepage and improve commenting. It should be completed by sometime next week.

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Digg Users Create Next MySpace?

duggspaceFrom Digg :Inspired by Kevin Rose’s $200 investment, and its success, I ask this: Can the collaborative social news phenomenon Digg.com inspire the rapid development of a MySpace-like social network created, collaboratively, by Digg users (designers, programmers, beta testers), using open source web infrastructure?

read more | digg story

My answer : Why the hell not?

But to create something that will challenge Myspace will be something abit special. MySpace is trying do what Microsoft does; be everything to everybody, but in MySpace’s case it seems to be a working formula.

What exactly is wrong with MySpace?
MySpace UK Home

As much as MySpace is trying to be everything to everybody its still not being the be all and end all in web 2.0 to me and many others, I still don’t have a MySpace and will probably never get one.

I aren’t denying that MySpace can be a powerful tool but it is a melting pot for extremes, People with 3000+ friends (its physically impossible without the web to have a group of friends that big the maximum is about 100 for an average person) and then theres all the bad press it gets because of children being exploited through the network. If they’d have thought of that when they started out they could have put some policies even some code to help prevent it.
MySpace Music
Then there is the fact the whole site is just messy, theres ads all the place and theres little in the way of easily accesible content. Why do all these so called “web2.0” sites, use very “web 1” ads, subtle ads win the day. Apart from the ads mucking up the design they just are irrelevant and people are so used to them they are ignored so why even bother putting them in? find another way to make money.

Keep It Simple Stupid ~ KISS
Why is it so complicated to find what you want on myspace apart from the ads, and why do they feel the need to replicate links and content images all over, A simple Menu system, maybe with a bit of AJAX magic would make it so much more bearable. Also the music player on peoples profile gets on my nerves why does it insist on playing on load, let the user on the end to decide.

Whilst I think that personalizing web-pages is good, personalizing MySpace pages is all wrong, MySpace should give the ability to this within there system that way they can keep everything cohesive and understandable no matter what page your on.

So That’s What I Think
I tried to be objective and it looks as if a manage it a bit but not enough. It may seem like I am just taking MySpace simply because I don’t like it, but it’s not that at all I think MySpace is successful at what it does and should inspire people to see what they can do with an idea and some coding knowledge, but as with all thing I seriously think that it can be done a lot better, and the real question is why can’t we do it better and be creative with it too.

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Why should you care about RFID?

Wiki Says:

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a method of remotely storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags/transponders. An RFID tag is a small object, such as an adhesive sticker, that can be attached to or incorporated into a product. RFID tags contain antennas to enable them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver. Link

So why is it problem?
Well the technology itself is very powerful and useful and lends it self to all sorts of difficult tasks such as stock taking, that when tagged using RFID would allow the stock to simply pushed through a scanner and that would be it.
It also allows supermarkets to create super-simple self-checkout systems; put all your stuff in the trolley, push it through the checkout and pay. No scanning, waiting or weighing to make sure you’ve scanned everything.

The RFID Library.But what if you lost the paper tag on clothes and other items and it was made straight into the product, what then. Well we save on paper, but all shops have readers for these RFID Tags. How much would it take to build up a complete picture of your life. All your clothes are tagged so you go in one shop they see your wearing a designer shirt, there’s a screen in-front of the door and that changes giving you an offer only you and you alone can use, for a particular designer shirt. You decide not to buy it and go to another store and they do the same. but all this data is store on a de-centrilised network of computers in each store. It wouldn’t take much for a person to go to each store ask for there details (perfectly acceptable under the DPA) and then piece it all together and what do you have?

A complete picture of what you bought, when you bought, for how much, and whether you paid for it with your RFID enabled Credit Card.

Thats another thing with RFID enabled credit/ID Cards you would be able to nab somebody’s card details by putting a reader near a persons pocket. The data would be encrypted but there would always be organizations that would fined away to get your details and run away with your cash.

We are putting so much information about ourselves out there on technologies that could easily give it all up to a criminal or anybody savvy enough to join the technologies up. The UK already has more camera’s per square mile than any other country in europe (possibly even the world) So will the vision of 1984 be realized or will become more aware of all these technologies and protect ourselves against theft and improper use of all this data.

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Apple Computer Inc. Now Apple Inc.

Apple Inc. iPhoneIt certainly has been a big afternoon/morning (depending on where you live) for Apple. Finally the iPhone sees the light of day and my god was it worth the weight, more information on the Apple TV (iTV) and all the usual fanfare.

I wasn’t expecting the keynote to end without the usual iLife and iWork Updates (though it does save my wallet) I was already and prepared to shell out for it. I can only imagine that some sort of update will be coming with Leopard to entice me, not that I Really need that much enticing.

Apple Inc. Well done, you still manage to prove the rumors right about something but wrong about the actual hardware itself and also have put to bed the most recurring rumor ever.