This article is a short tutorial on how install WebOS applications on your Palm Pre independent of the region they are intended for, e.g. install US only apps that do not even show up in the app catalog outside the US on your French / German / Spanish Palm Pre. The process is rather simple as it basically just exploits the current behavior of the App Catalog’s update mechanism.

But before I get to the point, let me comment something that really bothers me: As of now, the US App Catalog shows about 2000 apps, while the German catalog is showing a mere 600, paid apps included. I understand, that given Palm’s app submission forms, it’s a bit of an inconvenience for developers to fill out the extra fields to make an app available outside the US, but from my own apps QR deCODEr and DIX Dictionary, I managed to collect a bit of statistics (which I also confirmed with other developers), looking as shown below:

While the numbers for Canada, Mexico, Great Britain and Spain are admittedly not too impressive, things look quite different when it comes to Germany. The US account for about 70% of all WebOS users, but 20% of all users come from Germany as the diagram suggests. Thus, those developers not willing to take an extra five minutes to fill out the forms to make their app available outside the US are basically alienating between 20 and 30% of potential users of their app. What I find most frustrating about this is, that I can’t understand why so many developers don’t care about this. Sure, it’s a bit of a hassle to fill out those extra forms since translating your app takes quite some time and effort, but then again, Palm doesn’t force you to do so. You are free to just copy over your English app descriptions into the German / Spanish / French forms. That’s about two minutes for each additional language. So to all of those lazy developers: Are you sure you don’t have an extra six minutes?! There really is more to this world than the United States!

But enough already, here we got with the install tutorial for apps submitted for other regions than your own.

HOWTO Install Apps Not Showing Up In The App Catalog For Your Region

I realize that this may seem quite some work to most ordinary users, but for somebody who’s used homebrew apps or the WebOS SDK before, it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to follow the tutorial and install an app.

The basic idea is to exploit the App Catalog update mechanism’s current behavior. If you click a link to an app that’s not available in your region, instead of viewing this app, the app catalog presents you with an error message that this app is not available in your country. Nevertheless, if you already have an older version of such an app installed and go to the update view in the App Catalog, you’ll find that even for those app only available in other regions, you get a notification of available updates and upon tapping ‘install’ the App Catalog will happily download and install the new version of such an app.ç

So all we need to do is make WebOS think that we have an old version of the app we want already installed on our device and it will allow us to download and install the latest version. We do so by creating a “dummy” app with the same app ID as the app we want and a lower version number than the currently available version.

UPDATE: As an alternative to the following DIY tutorial, there are two apps that do all the work for you. See the end of this post for details.

1. Make sure you have all the prerequisites: A text editor, the Palm WebOS SDK , your WebOS device with activated Dev Mode and Preware installed on your device (or some other way to find out app IDs).

2. Create a new folder called Dummy somewhere on your hard disk.

3. Within that folder, create a text file called appinfo.json

4. Open this file in a text editor and copy the following lines to the file (including the brackets):

   { "id": "FILL IN APP ID HERE", "version": "0.0.1", "vendor": "FILL IN VENDOR HERE", "title": "FILL IN TITLE HERE",

   "type": "web", "main": "index.html" }

5. Fire up Preware and find the app you want to install, e.g. French Le Monde app as show below:

6. Scroll down to see the vendor name, version number and app ID:

7. Now edit the text file we just created and replace all ‘FILL IN … HERE’ entries with the data you see in Preware AND make sure the version number in the text file is LOWER than the version number you see in Preware (0.0.1 as version number should usually work fine).

   For our Le Monde example the text file should look like this:

   { "id": "com.backelite.lemonde", "version": "0.0.1", "vendor": "Le Monde Interactif", "title": "Lemonde.fr"

   "type": "web", "main": "index.html", }

8. Fire up the command line, go to the folder containing the Dummy folder and type the following to pack the dummy application:palm-package Dummy

9. Now connect your device to your computer via the USB cable and type the following to install the dummy application to your device:_palm-install –d usb com.backelite.lemonde_0.0.1_all.ipk_You should now see the dummy application on your device’s launcher page showing up with a default icon. (Don’t launch it, because it won’t start up at this point, since it’s just an empty dummy app.)

   

10. Launch the App Catalog on your device and go to the update view, where you should see our dummy application showing up and an updated version being available:

11. Tap Install Updates and wait for your device to download and install the new version.

12. Congrats! You now have the full and latest version of an app installed on your device that is not available officially via the App Catalog in your country. You can now launch and use the app. In your launcher you may still see the old dummy icon for this app. The real icon will show up once you’ve restarted your phone.

I’ve successfully tried this procedure with a dozen apps. It works only for FREE apps though. For paid apps, Palm is unfortunately / thankfully doing additional checks, so that you can’t just inject a dummy package to get a free update to the actual app ;)

One last thing: Since I’ve already done this procedure for quite a few apps, you can download my dummy app packages below and just install them to your device using WebOS Quick Install. This way you can skip the text file editing and command line packaging / installing and directly head to the App Catalog update page to get these apps.

• AccuRadio

• 20minutes.fr

• Lemonde.fr

• Word Whirl Lite

• SFR WiFi

• Net2Streams Lite

• YPmobile

Enjoy!

UPDATE

As Jason Robitaille points out here, his Ipk Packager tool may be more comfortable for creating dummy app packages than your regular text editor. Also, Blacklight was kind enough to update his Ipk Fetcher tool to completely automate the above method. Presented with a list of available apps, just select the one you want and hit ‘Generate IPK’ and it‘s done.

It’s not often that I write an actual post about something I just came across on the net. Usually I just share interesting news via Google Reader here and the ‘Feed Favs’ section on my front page, but this is something I was so impressed by that I just want to show you the video right here without much talk.

Microsoft has become quite innovative in my opinion over the past months. Ranging from creative, refreshing and productivity boosting changes and features in Windows 7, to an actually competitive new search engine called Bing and the recently announced Windows 7 Phone Series with a quite unexpected look & feel, Microsoft apparently also wants a piece of that online maps cake. The following video, which I came across here, shows some of the latest (yet to be published) features of Bing Maps, some of which a rather impressive and astonishing than just cheap copies of what Google Maps offers.

But see for yourself: Blaise Agüera y Arcas: Augmented-reality maps (TED2010).

Here we go! My first webOS app for the Palm Pre & Pixi is online. It’s a simple application for decoding so called QR Codes (special type of 2D barcode). Once decoding is done, results are nicely displayed on your phone and you can follow any link, dial any phone number or send a text message contained in the bar code by just tapping the according link, icon or phone number.

Click here to go to the apps web site and make sure your read the short manual here which explains the types of barcodes supported and how to use the application.

The app is currently available via Palm’s web distribution program here while awaiting approval for the on-device app catalog.

Short answer: Yes. In a few more words: It’s not an iPhone killer as many out there labeled it to be but it can easily keep up with it. I wasn’t quite sure which one to get, the iPhone or the Palm Prē, till the last moment but I finally decided to take the risk and give the Prē the benefit of the doubt. The Prē can’t keep up with the iPhone in every single aspect, there just are a few things where Palm just had no chance of overcoming the two year head start the iPhone has, the biggest aspect for sure being the App store. But the Prē more than compensates for this shortcomings by throwing in a number of creative ideas and features even the iPhone with all its apps has nothing to come up against with, like Synergy or MULTI TASKING. Ever tried to listen to web radio on the iPhone while downloading a large PDF in your browser and looking up a number of addresses just received via email in the Google Maps app, switching back and forth between the latter two?! Well, go ahead. Try! The bottom line is, the Prē doesn’t have everything the iPhone has but it surely doesn’t fall in the category of all those phones desperately trying to imitate the iPhone as closely as possible, failing miserably on the way there. It comes with its own set of unique and stylish features that allow things that aren’t even possible on the iPhone and over time, I’m sure, it will catch up further. Besides, most of those things the Prē brings along right out of the box are quite polished and reliable making it a real pleasure to use.

I’ve been waiting to get a new phone for quite a while and while originally waiting for the iPhone 3GS release, I decided to wait a little longer when I learned that the Prē was on its way. Last Friday finally was the day, and it has been over week now that I own this shiny new toy. That’s plenty of time to explore every little detail of it and the reason I’d like to share a few of my thoughts, point out what I like about it and what not so much. There are a lot of things in which i don’t agree with other reviews out there, but of course there are a few things that you may have read before, so here we go:

Pros

• Multi tasking is just so much more natural and handy than the way the iPhone works
• WebOS is fun to use and actually looks awesome
• Standard apps like browser, email and messaging are rock solid
• The app store is getting new additions every few days now
• German Prē is sim and net lock free (see O2 FAQs here)
• The Prē isn’t as Google focused as Android and not as manufacturer bound as the iPhone
• App store less restrictive than Apple’s version
• Gesture area is an awesome idea (I’m hardly using the middle button on the device)
• While not possible yet, the instructions for tethering are already present on the device and tethering is planned to be supported with future firmware versions (see O2 FAQs here)
• Touchstone charger: Works great and is well thought through (automatically takes the call when you take it of the charger while it’s ringing, automatically switches to speaker mode once you put it on the charger during a call, etc) BUT seems there are quite a few faulty touchstone chargers on the market (see below for details). Once you got a good one though, it’s just awesome.
• UPDATE: Form factor: With the slider closed it’s just tiny and cute, with the slider open it’s the most comfortable phone to hold while talking that I’ve ever seen. BUT the form factor also has its drawbacks. See below.

Popular Cons I do NOT agree with

• Sharp edge at the bottom of the device: People have claimed it’s sharp enough to slice bread, but I really don’t see the problem here. Sure, it’s a sharp edge, but I don’t even feel in during my daily use of the device. I’ve never had the slightest complaint about this edge!
• Small, tiny keys on the keyboard and bottom of the screen to close to the keyboard: I’ve got small hands, small fingers, for me the keyboard is quite comfortable and not too hard to type on. I wouldn’t give up the hardware keyboard for the world! As for the bottom of the screen being to close to the keyboard: No problem here either. Though I must admit, I can picture people with larger hands having way more problems here. The keyboard for sure isn’t too large and while it isn’t a problem for me it definitely might be a point of complaint for some of you.
• Wobbly slider mechanism: Total crap! The slider is absolutely fine. It’s not 100% firm and stiff but nowhere near annoying or disturbing!
• Battery runtime: I somewhat agree with this one, but it isn’t worse than e.g. the iPhone. Just switch of push email and use WiFi when at home instead of 3G and battery runtime increases from intolerable to ok ;). A few more tips (in German) can be found here.

My personal Cons

• Hard- and software adaption regarding Europe: Palm claimed that hardware and software adaption are the reason for the late release of the Prē. I know this is true as for the GSM support the Prē needs to work on European networks, but what about the rest of the hardware? What about special characters on the keyboard? There umlauts in German, accents in French and Spanish, etc. You could have adapted the keyboard!!! Even worse for the software: O2 stated things like “support for popular European social networks” (I don’t recall the exact phrasing) in its advertising for the Prē, but in fact the only thing supported is Facebook. I can only speak for Germany, but the most popular networks here are: StudiVZ, lokalisten and maybe Xing (for business). Besides, there other less important ones like Stay Friends and I’m sure Spain, Ireland und UK have their proper social networking sites besides Facebook. Not a single one of those is supported! In fact, Europe did not even get the same software version as the US. We are two versions behind! I honestly did expect more in this regard. Honestly Palm, if you want to win the hearts of your European customers, you’ll probably have to do more than just make your devices technically work on European networks. Please!
• Combined and instant messaging: The idea is admittedly awesome BUT what good is it if only AIM and Google Talk are supported? Again, I don’t know about the US, but in Europe, ICQ and MSN are far more popular. They should be supported since the initial US release of the Prē. I really can see no reason why those are not supported. Please Palm, this is a MUST. It is the feature I miss most!!!!
• Software keyboard: I really love my hardware keyboard but sometimes you just need to type a single word like a login or a street name on Google Maps, not worth the effort of sliding your phone open. This is not among the most important features to add, but a software keyboard would surely make nice plus!
• Auto-correct and auto-complete: The Prē has basic typo correction but nothing more. Even the oldest Windows Mobile phones have auto-complete (in conjunction with hard- as well as software keyboards). Leaving this out is a big one! On mobile devices, T9 or auto-complete just makes typing so much faster. That needs to be added as soon as possible!
• Support for third-party music players: Support for iTunes is really nice, but first of all I need the latest firmware version to able to use it (which isn’t available yet in Europe) and secondly, we probably all know that this cat and mouse game can’t go on forever. Sure, the Prē also support third party players like Windows Media Player or others via its flash drive mode, but it doesn’t provide a reasonable way to sync playlists. There’s not even a way to create playlists within the music app on the Prē itself. I’d be 100% OK not to use iTunes, but you can’t seriously expect me to sync hundreds of songs to my device and not have a single playlist, only being able to choose between all songs or a single artist or album to play. That’s not very satisfying. My suggestion: Focus on supporting other players for music sync instead of continuing that time consuming game with Apple.
• App launcher: Currently one can rearrange icons but not add new pages to the launcher. That’s annoying, with three pages (one being for device & settings related stuff) I can’t figure out a reasonable way to order and arrange my apps. It should be an easy task to allow users to add more pages to the launcher. That’s not really a big challenge. But it would definitely make a difference! As a last thing: Reducing the icon size on the launcher or the launcher bar would allow to add more icons to either of them. (Though I see that they would be harder to touch and icon quality would probably suffer due to the down sampling, so I understand it that one is not coming)
• Lid for the USB charging cable: It’s so hard to reach and open that you’re probably annoyed by the second time you have to do it. Seems like a strategic design aiming to increase the sales of the overpriced, wireless touchstone charger. Sad, but then again, Palm’s goal is to earn money just like any other company out there, so somewhat understandable! Still, if the touchstone charger weren’t so overpriced it would be even more understandable.
• Touchstone charger: Palm obviously has or had a quality problem in the manufacturing of the wireless charger. I had to go to the O2 shop three times to exchange both, the back cover as well as the charger till I had a set that did actually work reliably. Before, my Prē would loose the connection to the charger from every few seconds to every few minutes, just to pick it up again shortly after that, bringing up the “battery charging” notification (along with the according sound) each time. This is just plain annoying and intolerable (see this video). A little bit of internet research also brought up that I’m obviously not the only one with this problem. Anyway, for those experiencing this issue, have your retailer exchange the charger (and possibly the back cover that comes with it). A perfectly working charger (like the one I own now) should not have this issue, not even once a day or so. My Prē hasn’t lost the connection to the charger in over seven days now, except for when I took it off the charger of course. Also, unlike some of the forums posts or Palm support guys tell you, the problem with this issue is not misalignment of the Prē on the charger. Sure, it has to be aligned right, in fact there are only two possible position in which the Prē will charge but you’re not required to align it to the millimeter. The magnets in the charger take care of the alignment as long as you’re not trying to put it on the charger in some completely awkward position like diagonal or so.
• UPDATE: Form factor: While perfect for your pocket and super comfy in your hand while talking, it has quite a few glitches. With the slider open, the phone seems extremely unbalanced when you type on the keyboard. Even more so if you’re trying to type one-handed. Especially for the latter case, I find this quite annoying.

In the end, the Palm Prē is a great phone in my opinion. In a few ways it’s two years behind the iPhone, in most things it can totally take it up to the iPhone and in some ways, it even beats the cr** out of the iPhone. As long as Palm doesn’t think they can take it slow now (in which case they would be sadly mistaken) and as long as they keep the updates coming and address current shortcomings and problems with the Prē, it has the potential (together with future WebOS phones) to be mentioned in the same breath as the iPhone and any Blackberry.

Oh, and as a last note: The reason I’m comparing it to the iPhone so much, although it’s not meant to be a so called “iPhone killer”, is because that’s the main competitor in functionality in my opinion. RIM / Blackberry I just don’t know well enough, and Android / Windows Mobile and manufacturers supporting those are just way too busy badly imitating the iPhone, trying to make their devices look like yet another iPhone without actually being one and more importantly without putting the necessary effort and creativity into the job to actually make their devices good and shiny. I just can’t get why they’re doing this, as Palm made the solution so obvious: Don’t copy everything, just copy the good and important features and copy them well! Then add a few of your own ideas. There must be some?!

UPDATE: I see the need to revise my statement on Android above. I still think what I said is true for Android 1.x and according phones, but it seems this all just changed with the release of Android 2.0 and and a vast number of manufacturers jumping on the Android train. The new software version seems to do exactly what I recommended above. Copy all the good existing features like the iPhone’s app store idea, multi-touch / touch-oriented interface, the Pre’s combined messaging, synergy, hardware keyboard and multi-tasking. Then add some of your own ideas (like a killer navigation app that’s even free) or / and improve on the existing features like combined messaging, better hardware keyboard, etc. Combine this with a developer with nearly unlimited resources (such as, I don’t know, Google?!) and a variety of Hardware manufacturers willing to go along, and you get a system that should be gaining ground immensely fast, casting a huge shadow on the new Palm. More so since Palm is taking it really slow with its update policy and currently not doing much but fix bugs. (This article says a lot of the things I am thinking.) I really hope they have something big to show with the upcoming update(s) because otherwise I see a lot of dark clouds at Palm’s horizon, again!

Few weeks ago I stumbled upon these posts here and here, mentioning Google SketchUp as a design tool for home improvement, etc. This reminded me of one of my own articles that’s been in the drafts pipeline for quite a while now and which I had almost forgotten about. So here we go, finally:

Almost two years ago when I was about to move in into a new apartment, I was on the look for some 3D home design tool. Now, there’s plenty of those tools on the market, developed by smaller software companies producing software off the assembly line, i.e. flooding the market with half-baked mass-productions at a ridiculous price point. So I didn’t really consider buying one of those things. Then again, professional CAD software at an even higher (though justified) price point as e.g. various products offered by Autodesk would have been a bit of an overkill for the task at hand, which is why I finally ended up using Google SketchUp.

Now Google SketchUp has a few things going for it:

• First of all, of course, it’s free! That’s as cheap as it gets!
• It’s got a very fast learning curve (compared to pro CAD tools) thought you should know it still has some form of a learning curve, i.e. there’s quite a few smaller rocks to bump into once you try to do more then simple objects
• There’s a large collection of existing models that can be used in SketchUp, to be found at the Google 3D Warehouse which are all free. That’s a real time and money saver, compared to site like http://www.turbosquid.com/ where you pay quite an amount for each 3D model. This also makes Google SketchUp kind of a Web 2.0 thing, since everyone can down- and upload models from and to the 3D Warehouse.

On the other hand, up till then, I had only used SketchUp to design simple objects for Google Earth and never done anything more complex. So designing my new apartment in SketchUp working with true and precise scaling, I also realized quite a few shortcomings on an otherwise awesome product:

• It lacks precision tools and precise ways of interaction which I can only assume are present in the Pro Version of the tool and which I sadly missed building a exact model of my apartment.
• Automatically generated intersections between surfaces and lines or other surfaces often show erratic behavior, meaning surfaces that should be plain no longer are, etc. … making it a pain in the a** to work with them. The real problem here is the spontaneous and unpredictable nature of when this happens or not plus the lack of a proper visualization of such surfaces which makes it really annoying to work with. One way to somewhat deal with it, is using groups and components to keep closed objects together and from intersecting with the rest of your model.
• Last but not least the overall interface for selecting and interacting with your model could use some reworking making it more consistent and predictable, less annoying (though you get used to some of the annoyances and find workarounds to compensate for them) and besides, I’d love to see more import and export functionality in SketchUp (which is again reserved for the Pro Version).

So what’s the verdict? Given it’s price and learning curve compared to other products on the market Google SketchUp is the way to go for most of the hobbyists out there, I’d say! Although the user interface could use some improvement and a bit more pro functionality would be nice to have, with a little bit of patience you can do almost anything with SketchUp, from building a whole city quarter for Google Earth to designing and planning the interior of your new apartment. See the results of my work for an example of the latter one:

There’s also an all-wireframe, all-opaque and all-x-ray version of the video above.

Two final notes:

• In a big copy-cat action Microsoft bought a CAD software manufacturer called Caligari, just to offer this company's C 3D design product named trueSpace for free to compete with Google SketchUp. While I found trueSpace far less intuitive and easy to use and didn’t really get into it, I still wanted to share the info here and encourage you to head over to their website, get a free copy and come to your own conclusions (which you’re free to share here of course).
• As a second note, I’ve been using Google SketchUp together with Windows 7 RC lately just to find out, that while it’s still useable it shows extremely buggy behavior regarding surface selection and rendering. This may well be related to Win 7 graphics drivers (Intel integrated graphics in my case) and not to Windows 7 itself directly, but being as buggy as it is I can’t really recommend using Google SketchUp 7 in conjunction with Windows 7 for the time being. Anyone any similar experiences? Or updates on this behavior with respect to Win 7 RTM?

Time to shed some light on one of those secret tools in my little electronics toolbox: Eagle3D! If you are like me, using Cadsoft’s awesome (and free) layout and schematics tool Eagle and want good-looking pictures of your latest design, then you should probably heave a look at another free little tool designed to work on Eagle layouts to generate a 3D ray-traced rendering of your boards. The tool or rather script is called Eagle3D and can be found here.

No why is this worth writing about? First of all because it’s an astonishing tool creating absolutely realistic images of your board before you even think about manufacturing and soldering it. But secondly, because Eagle3D is not the type of tool with funny, colored icons in a nice little toolbar where you just click one of those icons and your rendering is done. Unfortunately, using it as it comes out of the box, you’ll probably end up with only half of the parts on your board being rendered correctly or rendered at all. To see the rest of you parts on the board, there’s no way around some fine tuning of the Eagle3D scripts (or even some CAD construction work to build custom parts). Below is an image of one of my boards at various stages, rendered with the out-of-the box version of Eagle3D, rendered after editing some of the Eagle3D scripts and finally, rendered after construction and adding some custom parts with Google SketchUp.

So before I explain all this, let’s make sure you got the basic part right:

1. Go here and download Eagle3D AS WELL AS the archive containing all the parts included with Eagle3D as images. You’re gonna need the latter one later on for lookup purposes.
2. Get the latest POVray version here.
3. After you’ve installed all the above to whatever location you prefer, fire up Eagle, open your favorite board and select File –> Execute ULP then in the dialog that appears, navigate to your Eagle3D directory and the ULP sub-folder there and select 3d41.ulp
4. Once you hit Open a settings dialog appears. You can basically leave the default settings as they are, just remember the path that’s shown on the first page where Eagle3D stores the povray file.
5. Hit create POV-File and exit and answer all the questions you’ll be asked (e.g. colors of LEDs, logos on ICs, …)
6. After the POVray file has been created, open it with POVray and hit Run to render your board.

At this point I’d like to point you to this site here and this one for a detailed description of Eagle3D’s features and further instruction on its basic usage.

Now, if you’re really lucky, after the six steps mentioned above, you end up with an image of your board with all parts rendered correctly. Unfortunately, in most cases, some of the parts will be rendered incorrectly (misplaced, mirrored, etc.) or not rendered at all. These problems result from two different situations with different solutions, but first a little but important background info:

Eagle3D parts are all described by macros written in POVray’s scripting language and you can find them in the povray subfolder in your Eagle3D directory. These macros are named different from the Eagle part / package names, which is why there are two files 3dpack.dat and 3dusrpac.dat in the ulp subfolder of the Eagle3D directory in which you can find the mapping between Eagle package names and Eagle3D part macros.

So if now some of the parts on your board are not rendered (correctly or at all) there’s the following two reasons:

1. There is no or a wrong mapping in the 3dpack.dat or 3dusrpac.dat file between some of your parts in Eagle and the Eagle3D macro BUT such a part EXISTS in the Eagle3D image library. Example: In the design above, I’m using 4-pin Molex connectors with the package name 53048-04 in my Eagle layout and Eagle3D doesn’t render those connectors BUT I browse through the image archive I’ve downloaded before from the Eagle3D website and I see, that there is in fact an image of the connector I’m looking for, named CON_MOLEX_53048_4.png. Solution:

   1. So I open the 3dpack.dat file and search for CON_MOLEX_53048_4 to find the following line:

      NOEAGLEPAC:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_MOLEX_53048_4(:Molex 53048:

      This line tells me that the Eagle package with the name NOEAGLEPAC is mapped to the Eagle3D POVray macro CON_MOLEX_53048_4.

   2. Now you can either directly edit the line in this file or more elegantly copy the line into 3dusrpac.dat

      53048-04:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_MOLEX_53048_4(:Molex 53048:

      This way, you tell Eagle3D to map your Eagle package 53048-04 to the CON_MOLEX_53048_4.

   3. Now if you save your changes and go through steps 3 to 6 of the basic Eagle3D instructions above again, the missing Molex connector should be rendered correctly

   Hint: If a part is actually rendered but misplaced or flipped, rotated, etc. you can edit the mapping above and change the 13th to 16th ‘0’ digits to correct the rotation angle and x-, y-, z-offset of your part, e.g.

   53048-04:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:90:3.2:1.2:2.6:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_MOLEX_53048_4(:Molex 53048:

   Details see here.

2. There is no mapping in the the 3dpack.dat or 3dusrpac.dat file between some of your parts in Eagle and the Eagle3D macro AND such a part DOES NOT EXIST in the Eagle3D image library. In this case, there are two different solutions: Example 1: Eagle3D comes with the following 6-pin and 10-pin connectors (named CON_DIS_WS6G and CON_DIS_WS10G) similar to the connector I need, BUT I need an 8-pin version which doesn’t exist in Eagle3D.

   Solution:

   1. Look for the Eagle3D macro for these connectors, to be found in the connectors.inc file in the povray sub-directory.

   2. Inside this file, look search for CON_DIS_WS6G or CON_DIS_WS10G and you will find the following:

      #macro CON_DIS_WS6G() object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(6)} #end #macro CON_DIS_WS10G() object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(10)} #end #macro CON_DIS_WS14G() object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(14)} #end #macro CON_DIS_WS16G() object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(16)} #end

      As you can see, these lines describe a 6-pin, a 10-pin, a 14-pin and a 16-pin version of the above connector AND more importantly, they all just call another macro named CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRNDGRND with the number of desired pins passed to in brackets.

   3. Add the following lines to the file

      #macro CON_DIS_WS8G() object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(8)} #end

   4. Now, of course, you need to add a respective mapping to to 3dusrpac.dat again:In 3dpac.dat you’ll find a line saying:

      ML6:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:180:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_DIS_WS6G(:Wannenstecker 6Pin:Shrouded Header 6Pin

      So, add a similar line for the 8-pin version to 3dusrpac.dat:

      ML8:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:180:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_DIS_WS8G(:Wannenstecker 8Pin:Shrouded Header 8Pin

   5. Render your board again and you should now see your 8-pin connector!

   Hint: This does not only work for connectors as used in this example. In fact, many of the Eagle3D parts, especially ICs are implemented as specific macros that then call a generic macro to which they pass the number of e.g. pins as a parameter. So you can easily add a similar part with fewer or more pins for example. There is no guarantee that this does always work as it depends on how the generic macro is implemented but fact is, in many cases it works!

   Example 2: On your board there is a completely exotic part, e.g. the Amber Wireless BlueNiceCom IV in the case of the board above AND there is nothing even remotely similar to be found in the Eagle3D image library.

   Solution: In this case, think about living without this part being rendered on your board :) but if you’re really desperate to see this part on your board, there are two ways to go:

   1. You can manually write a povray macro to draw your part. This option receives a straight ‘zero’ though on the intuitivity scale and is extremely time consuming. I’d only recommend that for very simple parts. If you still wanna go there, have a look at this site here and the pages linked here.

   2. Design your component / part in Google SketchUp and have SU2POV export it to povray format which can then be included in your Eagle3D design. Don’t underestimate the time needed for this approach! But especially for more complex parts this is way easier than approach number one!

      When this idea came to my mind, I did a quick Google search and it turned out someone has had this idea before. So instead of writing detailed instructions on how to export SketchUp designs to povray and include them in Eagle3D, I’d like to point you to this tutorial which does a pretty good job in explaining the whole process.

      I’ve used this method to design the Amber BlueNiceCom IV mentioned above as well as a CR 2032 battery among others. You can find these and other Eagle3D components I’ve done in Google SketchUp at Google’s 3D Warehouse here.

Finally, some eye candy… these are a few of my boards rendered with Eagle3D:

All in full size

Trying to install the Palm Pre / Mojo / WebOS SDK on my computer running Windows 7 RC. As reported here, I experienced the problem of the installer failing silently towards the end without an error message, performing a rollback. I have no idea how long it takes Palm or even if they are planning on fixing this in the near future, but a look into Windows event log shows that the silent failure of the installer is caused by a Windows Update package for the User Mode Driver Framework which the SDK installer tries to install but which apparently fails to install on Windows 7.

So my solution to the problem is simply not to make the SDK installer try to install this Windows Update Package. Since it’s only an update, it’s probably not crucial to running the SDK. So here’s a 15 min. procedure how to edit the Mojo SDK installer program based on this former blog post of mine, so that it skips the Windows Update package during install.

First of all two preliminary steps to install the tools we need:

1. Download and install the Microsoft Windows SDK which contains a tool called Orca which we need for the procedure. (You don’t have to install the whole SDK! You only need to select Developer Tools – Windows Development Tools during install)
2. After installing this, go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin and run Orca.MSI in this folder, which install the actual Orca tool.

Update: Several people have mentioned this link, where you can download Orca directly without having to download and install the full Microsoft Windows SDK. You can get Orca from there and thus skip step 1.

Now the procedure to actually alter the Palm Mojo SDK installer:

1. Open the folder to which you downloaded the Mojo SDK installer (Palm_Mojo_SDK-Win-1.1.0-sdk62-build08.exe)
2. Hit “Windows + R” on your keyboard (or click Start and Run) to bring up the Windows Run dialog and enter %TEMP%, hit enter.
3. Now arrange the two folders next to each other so you can see the both at the same time, then run Palm_Mojo_SDK-Win-1.1.0-sdk62-build08.exe. In your Temp folder you see all kind of weird files and folders, the important thing is, that once you run the installer above, a new folder with a random name starting and ending with brackets and consisting of lots of numbers appears. There may already have been similar folders in your Temp folder before you ran the installer, so try to locate the one that was created the moment you ran the installer.
4. Initially this folder contains nothing but three *.ini files, yet once the first step of the installer is completed a new file is created there, named Palm SDK.msi. Copy this file to the folder where Palm_Mojo_SDK-Win-1.1.0-sdk62-build08.exe is located. Once the copy process is complete, cancel the installer.
5. Now right-click the copied file and select Edit with Orca.
6. In Orca, select InstallExecuteSequence in the left pane, the scroll to the very bottom in the right pane and select installumdf.08B8BE2B_9174_49D1_84B0_40324FD7DE34. Right-click and select Drop Row. This removes the command to execute the Windows Update package which causes the installer to fail.
7. Now we’re almost done. Hit Save and exit Orca.
8. Run Palm SDK.msi and just follow the wizard. The SDK should install fine now without any problems or failures.

A tiny tip at last:

Once the SDK is installed, if you want to run the Palm Pre emulator as suggested by Palm, right-click the application link and select Run as Administrator or if it still doesn’t work Troubleshoot compatibility and then select Windows XP SP2 mode. When I first just clicked the emulator link, nothing happend, no program appeared, … I don’t quite remember which one did the trick, running it as Administrator or in compatibility mode, but one of those finally made it work.

Some useful links regarding the SDK:

• How to operate / control the emulator, keyboard shortcuts, etc.
• Instructions how to install the Eclipse plug-ins for development Important: The Eclipse plug-in update link given on the site doesn’t work. It’s and https link. Use this link (the same link with http) and it should work.

Have fun with the SDK!

I think this is worth a post on my blog. Apparently a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget that I designed quite a while ago to follow a live Formula 1 news ticker has been good enough to serve as a template for German TV station RTL; a CLONING TEMPLATE!!!

RTL just put the same gadget on their own website. All they did was change a label move two buttons and change the gadget’s color from red to green. Nice job! I think you guys at RTL owe me some credit for that. You copied the overall gadget design and even the fly-out window. You didn’t even bother to change the settings dialog! This is a copy and paste job!!! I guess some intern then was asked to change a thing or two, right? A color, a label, even a button… I guess at least someone in the copy-cat company has heard Einstein’s wise words before: “Real creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”

Can you tell the difference?

Anyway, I guess I should feel honored if not directly, at least indirectly by the mere use of my own gadget as THE template for your own, official sidebar gadget. Thanks, I guess!

Deutsche Version:

Das ist mir dann doch einen Blog Eintrag wert: Offenbar wurde das Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget dass ich vor einiger Zeit entworfen habe um den RTL Formel 1 Ticker in der SIdebare zu folgen, zur Vorlage für RTL, genauer gesagt zur 1:1 Vorlage für deren Klon!

RTL hat vor kurzem ein solches Gadget auf deren eigener Website online gestellt. Dabei wurden gerade einmal zwei Buttons, eine Textbeschriftung und die Farbe des Gadgets geändert. Tolle Leistung! Ich denke dafür schuldet ihr mir etwas Anerkennung! Ihr habt das komplette Design samt Fly-Out Fenster kopiert. Dabei habt ihr es nicht einmal für nötig befunden den “Einstellungen” Dialog zu ändern. Ein echtes Copy & Paste Meisterwerk. Danach wurde wohl noch ein Praktikant gebeten zwei, drei Dinge abzuänderen? Die Farbe, eine Beschriftung, sogar einen Button… Wenigstens einer in dieser Klonmaschinerie dürfte wohl mal über Einsteins weise Worte gestolpert sein, worin der Schlüssel zur Kreativität in der Geheimhaltung der eigenen Quellen liegen soll.

Ich denke mir steht durchaus ein wenig Anerkennung für Arbeit zu, die ich in den Entwurf dieses Gadgets gesteckt habe. Wenn schon nicht das, dann wäre es zumindest angemessen gewesen ein klein wenig mehr Geld für die Entwicklung desselben auszugeben und tatsächlich ein Gadget zu entwerfen, anstatt nur meines zu kopieren!

So muss ich mich jetzt wohl indirekt dadurch geehrt fühlen, dass mein Entwurf als DIE Vorlage schlechthin für RTLs offizielles Gadget Verwendung fand. Danke, denke ich!

I’ve just added a new page for a university project that I’ve recently finished. It’s a project aimed to design a hardware device that can manage the distribution of data among various subsystems of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). All information on the project including the official project documentation and the slides of a talk given on this subject are available on the project page.

In this post, I’d only like to share the final result. More precisely, I’m showing two videos of the actual hardware piece rendered by a software called Eagle3D (or more precisely rendered by POV-Ray based on the script generated by Eagle3D). The result is just amazing. See for yourself!

By the way: Both these videos are using YouTube’s new HD features. To get an impression of how much of a difference this makes, check out the standard quality videos here and here. And as a final note: This tutorial did help a lot in figuring out how to get YouTube to generate a HD version of my uploaded videos. You need to upload your videos in exactly the right format, otherwise YouTube just doesn’t do any HD!

Since I’m currently running Windows 7 Beta on my computer, I’ve ran into this issue quite a few times. You download some program you’ve been using on Windows Vista before, and once you try to install it, you’re being told “The operating system is not supported. Installation will be aborted.”

For many 3rd party installer systems, using Microsoft’s compatibility wizard will solve the problem. Just tell the wizard that the program requires special permission and ran on older OS version (e.g. Vista) and it should install fine. Unfortunately, this usually doesn’t work for Microsoft Installer packages (*.msi files). Here’s a short tutorial on how to still force those packages to install (taking the Samsung LightScribe software as an example):

1. Hit Windows+R to open the “Run” command prompt and enter %TEMP% to open your temp folder. Select all files and hit Delete. Confirm and just ignore all files you can’t delete.
2. Run LS_Update_1.14.32.1_.exe, which will extract the installer contents to some folder in your temp folder and start the installation. At some point the installation stops and you’re told that your OS is not supported. DON’T hit OK now, leave the message open!
3. Go to your temp folder and look for some cryptic folder like {C1EFD9F9-2726-4203-A83F-848D81B32CD9}. This folders contains the extracted content from the above installer (including the actual MSI package). COPY THE WHOLE FOLDER TO SOME PLACE SAFE (e.g. your Desktop), as the temp folder will be emptied once you exit the setup procedure. After copying that folder, you can now confirm the “OS not supported” message. The installer will exit and the temp folder be emptied.
4. Go to your copy of the former temp folder (e.g. on your Desktop) and locate the MSI package in it (e.g. LS_HSI.msi). Right-click it and select Edit with Orca (Orca is a Microsoft tool to edit MSI packages and is included in the Windows SDK which can be downloaded here).
5. Now, while there is now absolute standard way how MSI packages check the operating system version, this check usually is part of the launch conditions. Therefore, in Orca, select LaunchCondition under Tables and look for something suspicious like ( (VersionNT=500) OR (VersionNT=501) OR (VersionNT=502) OR (VersionNT = 600) OR Installed ).
6. Delete or modify the above condition to meet you needs and hit Save.
7. Close Orca and run the MSI package by double-clicking it. The program should install fine now.

This is not a universal tutorial for all MSI packages out there. It requires some thinking of yourself once you opened the MSI file in Orca, as the OS checks don’t always look the same, but the trick works for quite a lot of Microsoft Installer packages out there.

I probably shouldn’t have given Microsoft that much credit in yesterday’s post. What I’ve just learned nearly gave me a heart attack. Microsoft is canceling Flight Simulator. This may not be very tragic news from a general user’s point of view and doesn’t really change anything I wrote about Microsoft’s change yesterday, but from a very personal view this is probably the worst thing Microsoft could ever do. Microsoft Flight Simulator is probably the best simulation game out there and unfortunately it’s not like there’s many replacements I could go to now. So I’m really sad to here that this Flight Simulator X DVD box I bought more than two years ago is probably the last one I’ll have ever bought.

“Change is the only constant.” I think it was Einstein who once said that. I also think it was Microsoft who tried to prove him wrong over the last years by constantly looking the other side whenever users did complain about their operating system. The ultimate proof I guess was Windows Vista. I don’t really hate it as much as most other people out there and I’m actually quite fine with it, but it took Microsoft way too long to get it released, the update, version and compatibility lists were way to complicated, it took them months after the initial release to get the system really stable and usable and finally, it’s hard to neglect the fact that Vista’s needs regarding memory, hard disk access and CPU load are quite a bit over the top, which is especially problematic for notebooks or even more netbooks. While I’m still quite ok with Vista though not particularly fond of it, I can absolutely understand everyone sticking with Windows XP for the time being. Microsoft never really admitted that Vista might have been a mistake, but obviously they must have taken note of that. Otherwise it’s inexplicable how they come to do so perfect with their next operating system, Windows 7.

It is mistakes from which we learn and judging by how much Microsoft has learned between Windows 7 and Vista, the latter one must have been a really, really big mistake. This time, Microsoft seems to be doing right everything. I’m finding it hard to believe I just said that, but looking at Windows 7 so far, I’d be lying if I said something else. From the beginning till now, they’ve gotten everything right. Towards the end of last year, they presented an early preview of the system, a preview with a stunning new taskbar UI and a preview that was probably more polished and stable as Vista was at its actual release. Since I didn’t have a spare computer by then, I decided to install this version on my everyday laptop, a HP 2710p with a 1.3 GHz ULV CPU. That’s exactly the type of computer where Vista will show it’s flaws in their full glory and it’s also the computer kind of computer that, once installed on, makes you fall in love with that new operating system with the big ‘7’ in its name.

Faster boot time, tremendously faster shutdown / standby time and a really noticeable increase in battery runtime are just a few things Windows Vista promised and Windows 7 actually delivers. The really big thing though is the new taskbar UI (once activated using the magic trick here). Looking really closely, in Vista, I can maybe find one or two good and really helpful UI improvements, the rest just being optical sugar. Now in Windows 7 I can instantly name like 20 new features and improvements on the UI, at least 18 of which are of the type “can’t live without it anymore”. And I really mean that. Ever since I touched that Windows 7 CTP, I’ve been so waiting for Microsoft to release a feature complete Beta version with a reasonable installer so I can update the rest of my computer to Windows 7. The difference between the old taskbar and the new super bar is just enormous, which is also the reason why I don’t want to list the changes here now but rather ask you to wait for another blog post coming within the next days which will cover just the new UI.

Anyway, besides all the improvements I just mentioned, Microsoft added a lot of minor tweaks, like a modern UI for old programs like Word Pad and Paint, an improved calculator, Aero Peek and Snap window arrangement aids, quicker Wi-Fi connection management, sidebar gadgets without the sidebar, easier file sharing on home networks, tablet PC and touch panel improvements, and many more.

From the moment of naming the product, when they kept the clear and simple codename Windows 7 as a final product name instead of some stylish, trendy new marketing name to the point where they underestimated the mass of downloads of the EARLY published PUBLIC beta version, apologized for the error and corrected it by extending the download period and removing the limit on the number of license keys they were going to give out, Microsoft has clearly shown one thing: they have heard the complaints and are willing to react and change things. Personally I think, this time, they got it ALL right! And unless they miraculously find a way to screw it all up right before the finish line, I think Windows 7 will be what Vista was promised to be and much more, probably the best operating system we’ve seen from that company in over ten years!

Related Links:

• Windows 7 website
• Windows 7 Beta download
• Blog with lots of tips & tricks regarding Windows 7
• Windows 7 Team Blog

since I wrote my last blog post here. The date of my last post tells me, that it’s been almost exactly six months. Quite some time! That’s why I’d like to clarify a few things to hopefully prevent some of the emails I get asking about THE STATE OF FSXGET.

I’ve been quite busy writing my master thesis over the last months. That’s basically why neither my blog nor the FSXGET project did receive much attention. Since the other developers on FSXGET are currently inactive, too, the application didn't receive any updates at all. But YES, I’m definitely planning on continuing and updating the tool. I’m still facing my final exams, so don’t expect any news on the project before the middle of the year, but rest assured the project isn’t dead.

By the way: I’d be happy to have some people taking part in the job, helping to push forward the project. So if you’re interested and have some programming skills, don’t hesitate to mention that! ;-)

I've recently been doing some research on current GPS devices since I broke my own about year ago. I used to use a Magellan Meridian which I've been extremely satisfied with. Still, it's probably not worth a repair intent as it's the display that is damaged. Besides, the map material available for the device is of course totally outdated as is the hardware itself. So I currently looking for a new device.

Long story short, I've never been to fond of the Garmin devices and as I'm looking for an outdoor GPS for hiking, mountain biking, etc., I found the Magellan Triton series to be particularly interesting. Color touch screen, rugged, nice interface, support for Geo Caching and depending on the model flashlight, camera and many more features make this device really interesting. BUT it has one very large drawback! Magellan doesn't seem to interested in Europe too much, meaning, there's only country boundaries and large streets on the device's integrated base map and no detailed maps available to buy and / or download (besides some special maps like waterways and topographic maps for Norway). Since I'm planning to use this thing mainly in Europe that would be an absolute no-buy reason.

Fortunately a little digging brought up that there's plenty of 3rd party maps and tools available for the Magellan Triton. Seems that the device's map format is publicly known. I don't know whether it's been made available by Magellan or just been figured out by someone but this fact allows to create proper maps for the device. Plenty of such maps for various countries all over the world are linked on http://www.maps4me.de/ and a few more links plus a lot of user support info can be found at http://www.magellanboard.de. There's one map I'd especially like to point out: A topographic map of Germany for the Magellan Triton created using the OpenStreetMap data as a basis. I find it just awesome that this way you get a full topographic map for Germany which may not be perfectly complete but in some cases even more detailed than commercial maps for free. Beside that I just like the idea behind OpenStreetMap as I pointed out in an earlier post, I'm also quite fond of the fact that using OSM on your GPS device, you can kill two birds with one stone. First you get a free map for your device and then, wherever you find spots, tracks or streets missing in this map, you can just hit the "record button" on your receiver and using your PC, add the recorded data to OpenStreetMap on their site.

After all, the availability of an OSM map for the Magellan Triton might be the one decisive reason, to finally convince me, that this should be might next GPS device.

I didn't actually think about this when I "rediscovered" OpenStreetMap the other day and wrote my blog post about it; there's yet another feature that OpenStreetMap doesn't offer... routing! I didn't really notice that as I'm hardly using this feature on Live Maps or Google Maps, but in fact, there's no from-to route finding service on OSM.

BUT luckily there is OpenRouteService, a free routing service that is based on (as you may guess) OpenStreetMap. Another great example of what to do with a free worldwide street database ;-)

I'd like to help and spread the word about a project I actually came across quite a while ago but which I've rediscovered recently: OpenStreetMap (German version here). In short, this project is a community effort to create a copyright-free world map.

The look and feel is basically the same as with Google Maps (without the satellite coverage of course) but the big difference is, that OpenStreetMap maps are completely free. Not like Google's maps which are "free" as in "you can do this and that with our maps BUT YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO ...................... ............".

Of course they don't have all the features of the big players like Google or Microsoft; there's no Street View, no Bird's Eye View and sadly but understandably no satellite coverage but the maps (and the data behind them) are completely free and you can use them for practically anything. You can even download the world database which the maps are based on onto your computer and use it for whatever you like. Besides, in some of the more crowded areas, OpenStreetMap maps are even more accurate then Google's version, as you can see in the following picture.

So how are they making these maps? Simple answer: You make them. Take your GPS unit and record your track while you're driving your car, riding your bike or just walking. Afterwards, get online, upload those tracks to the OSM website and name the streets. As mentioned above, it's a community effort. So the success of this project depends on as many users willing to take part as possible. There's still quite a few blank spots on the maps, especially regarding smaller villages, etc. So feel free to contribute! Speaking for myself, I'll definitely give it a try and provide a few tracks in the near future since I've found a few spots that I can fill.

Last but not least, as it is with Google, OSM can be customized with overlays and different views. In particular, there's a cycle map...

... and a skiing map.

I really like the idea of this project, especially the fact that we have a worldwide street and address database that is available for free to everyone. Besides, talking about normal street maps, it definitely is an alternative to Google Maps. So make sure, that at least every now and then, you use OSM for your address searches.

Yet another short spread-the-word post. I just came across the Museum of Modern Betas which basically is a list of the 100 most bookmarked (del.icio.us) software projects in the field of online Web 2.0 style applications.

The range is from file conversion, video encoding, web analysis to business travel and groupware tools. It's a nice long list with a lot of entries on it you probably already know but I'm pretty sure there's some projects on it you haven't ever heard of but which you might find pretty interesting. It's worth a visit!

For those who read my post on tablet pen input regarding your name that possibly has a non-English character in it, e.g. German or French, here's my current solution to the problem!

Doesn't matter if you're surfin' the web or just writing an email to an English colleague. There's many times when it makes perfect sense for a non-English user to set the Tablet PC input panel to English language. Unfortunately this makes it a total pain in the a.. to write down your name on your Tablet PC since Vista doesn't give you the slightest chance of writing non-standard characters such as ä, ö or ü or any characters with accents.

Of course, you can always just switch your input language to something else, like German, enter your name and switch back to English. But over time this gets a bit annoying, too.

So far, my best approach to this is using macros! That's not an any-case solution but it's quite ok for common, repetitive tasks like writing your name or address, etc. For those interested, there's of course plenty of macro solutions out there but I found two programs specifically designed for Tablet PC use. These two are PenCommander and ActiveWords. Both do the job but (based on a first glance only), I slightly prefer ActiveWords, since the input panel can be hidden in a similar way to Microsoft's Tablet PC input panel, i.e. almost hidden on the border of the screen and appearing as you hover it. With PenCommander you can only select between fully shown or hidden to the system tray which isn't the best place to quickly reactivate it with your pen, to be honest.

Anyway, what the two programs do, is letting you define any words that, written down on the programs input panel trigger a certain action. Such actions can range from sending keystrokes, replacing text or running a program to complex script operations. Needless to say I'm interested in the text replacement function. With this, I just define a new trigger word like "name" and as an action I select "text input / replacement" and set its value to my real name "Jürgen". So whenever I need to fill in my name somewhere, instead of opening Window's input panel, I just open the ActiveWords input panel, write down "name" and ActiveWords does the rest, i.e. fills in my real name.

As I said, that's not a general solution to the non-English character problem but it absolutely does the job for common problems like your name, mail address, email address or whatever. Even if there's no special characters in your name, this method has the potential to save you some time entering long text you often need or opening programs you use on a regular basis.

Btw: This would be a nice new feature to be integrated into Microsoft's next version of the Tablet PC input panel. Since they've already started integrating such features into Vista's speech recognition system, why not do the same with handwriting recognition?!

Are you a hardcore user of Outlook 2007's new color categories feature? Maybe even using it instead of folders and maintaining a single giant inbox using color categories as I do? Then you're probably as annoyed as I am by the fact that Outlook can't be taught to label replies and forwards to received message with the same labels / categories as the original message. Not even that Outlook can't do this automatically, you can't even do it manually in an efficient way as Outlook doesn't offer any category button in the ribbon for replies and forwards. You can of course always type your reply, hit send and go to the 'Sent Items' folder afterwards to categorize your message but that's soooooo inefficient and annoying!

Long speech, short conclusion: Here's the solution!

1. Add a new DWORD type registry key using regedit.exe at the following location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Preferences
2. Name it "SendPersonalCategories" and set its value to "0x00000001" (1).
3. Restart Outlook!

That's it! Now Outlook will tag replies and forwards with the same categories as the message you're replying to.

Thanks to the guys at http://www.tutorials-win.com for the hint!

I'd like to point out the blog post found here. It's about free mindmapping software. Since I've known and been a user of Mindmanager for years now, I was quite surprised by this blog post. I didn't know either of the two pieces of software. An open-source freeware alternative to Mindmanager called FreeMind as well as an online Web 2.0 style alternative at www.mindmeister.com.

I don't have much more to say about it. Just wanted to help spreading the word. Give it a try for yourself!

I've been planning to exchange my current notebook for a Tablet PC for quite a while. Few weeks ago, I finally got it over with and now I'm a proud owner of a HP 2710p convertible Tablet PC.

Needless to say that during the last weeks, as always with new toys, I spent an excessive amount of time configuring my new device and installing and trying out every application I could find out there. So why not share a few of my discoveries?!

OneNote 2007

My favorite application for Tablet PCs absolutely is OneNote 2007. I've been using this application even on ordinary computers over the last months and it's still a whole lot better on Tablet PC. Take (handwritten) notes, organize stuff, capture web pages, screenshots, ... and all with just a few easy clicks with your stylus. Fantastic!

InkSeine

As said before, OneNote can also be used on ordinary PCs which means there's has to be a certain compromise regarding its interface to be usable by both stylus and keyboard / mouse users as well. For the heavy stylus users among you, I found another application called InkSeine at Microsoft Research. It's not an actual product but as one might guess an application with the purpose of research and testing of new techniques in mind. Nevertheless it's user interface is designed for heavy pen use and even better, searching the Internet or documents on your computer and linking or inserting the results is completely integrated into this interface. This application is really worth a shot. Nevertheless I should mention the lack of textual input and support for non-Microsoft applications such as Firefox or OpenOffice. Besides, there is a problem with the integrated search functions not being compatible with the current Windows Search 4 Technology Preview.

Having said that, I'd like to make a short side note: You should definitely try out the tech preview of Windows Search 4 (available for Windows XP and Vista). It's just so much faster and more responsive than former version that I wouldn't wanna live without it anymore. But remember: InkSein's integrated search functions won't work anymore after installing the tech preview of Windows Search.

Ink Desktop

Another note taking tool by Microsoft. Ink Desktop allows you to take handwritten notes directly to your desktop. That's a really handy thing for stylus users. Now you won't only put recently downloaded files or documents you're currently working on on your desktop but important notes, too. Handwritten, quick, easy!

Now the last tool for today, finally a non-Microsoft application:

SnagIt

The Vista Snipping Tool, OneNote 2007 and InkSeine are already doing a good job on taking screenshots quickly and easily, nevertheless there's an even better way. SnagIt allows you to easily take screenshots not only of your whole desktop, a single window or a certain region of the screen but also of webpages, preserving links (if you wish so) and windows with content that requires scrolling. SnagIt's the definite standard when you're talking about screen capture. Try it out!

More tools coming soon ... Ink Crosswords, Tic-Tac-Toe, Sudoku, Calculator, Inking Math Formulas, Physics Illustrator and personal fonts

Stay tuned!

As a Tablet PC user I'm relying on stylus input and handwriting recognition a lot. So let's start with the good news: Microsoft did a hell of a job with Windows Vistas handwriting input panel. Recognition accuracy is really astonishing and though some third-party product like Firefox leave room for improvement talking about the input panel's integration, it works well and fast in most other situations.

Now the bad news. I can't get that freakin' thing to learn my name. I must admit there's no way my parents could have known that I'd be using handwriting recognition on a computer one day when they named me over 20 years ago. So I can't blame them for deciding on Jürgen.

As long as I'm using German as the selected input language on the input panel, I'm fine. But since I'm dealing with English most of the time and since I'm also talking to some Spanish guys every now and then, most of the time my input panel isn't set to German. Unfortunately Microsoft didn't consider that case as relevant and there's no way of teaching Vista my name with the input language set to English, not even using the handwriting personalization tool as it won't allow me to enter any characters that aren't part of the selected language's keyboard layout. Automatic learning and correction tools aren't an option either since whatever I write on the input panel gets changed into the closest fit of a standard character. As soon as the correction tool is running out of close matches to "ü" it just comes up with not-so-close matches. This turn's out to become an extremely funny game that in no way I can win.

Finally as a another little side note on handwriting recognition in Windows Vista let me mention that I started training the system (in English) using the handwriting personalization tool to improve accuracy even more. This again works great just that I can't run this tool for any language other than English. Especially not for German, Spanish or French input. It took me a while to find that information on the web but turns out that this is in fact true. Handwriting personalization is only available for English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

To be precise, automatic learning of handwriting style and targeting specific recognition errors is available for these languages and only these. Automatic learning of vocabulary and teaching the system your handwriting style by feeding the system with handwriting examples is even supported for English exclusively. Check for yourself here.

Microsoft could really care a bit more about DETAILS!!!

Since quite a while Microsoft is pushing 64-bit operating system versions. In fact, talking about most of Microsoft's current server products they're even exclusively producing x64 versions. Now I'm a Windows Vista user since November 2006 and for half a year now I'm using the x64-version.

I'm quite satisfied with it as almost all of the hardware manufacturers of my devices provide the necessary drivers BUT I'm quite disappointed by Microsoft itself regarding their 2007 office series. I'm ok with its not being available as a 64-bit version, but I'm definitely not ok with messages like "Internet fax services are not available on 64 bit operating systems" which comes up when you click the Send as fax button in Word 2007. Same thing with Groove 2007 Filesharing Workspaces: "Filesharing workspaces are not supported on 64 bit operating systems". Neither is the Send to OneNote printer driver and as far as I remember the office problem solution assistant.

For months I've been waiting for a fix to this now, as none of the issues have

been addressed with SP1. Today I found a note on this blog stating that Microsoft isn't planning to take care of the Send to OneNote printer driver in the current 2007 version of Office at all. It'll probably be fixed in the next version of OneNote but there's not gonna be any patch, update or fix for the current version.

This really disappoints me! It's not just that Microsoft is taking care of those things very slowly, seems they're not even caring about them at all. Considering that Microsoft Office isn't exactly the cheap or free open-source office suite this makes me really hate MS a little bit. It's just not ok like this!

Although the blog post mentioned above doesn't say anything about the Groove Filesharing Workspace and Internet Fax service issues with 64-bit operating systems, I'd be surprised if they were facing a brighter future than OneNote.

Just read the news that Google released a new beta version of it's planetary explorer Google Earth which now includes 3D models of some of the bigger German cities, too. Among the Berlin and much to my liking Munich.

I gave it a try a few minutes ago and decided that this is definitely worth a quick (almost) real-time post. I activated 3D buildings while having the map centered to Munich and all I could say was "Wow!". Nothing more to say!

Have a look for your self:

Get it here.

This is nothing really new but something that is definitely overdue!

Given the background of my experiences at AENA and my studies, the video below (Source) which I found through Pogue's Posts wasn't actually much of a surprise for me but I think it gives a really good overview for non-pros! Besides, for me, it's at least been a short update on the American state of the art and future plans as my personal knowledge tends to be a bit focused on the European on-goings.

For those among you who want to know a bit more then "ADS-B = AIRPLANE + GPS + COLOUR DISPLAY = COOL" and may be wondering how GPS with it providing a downlink only is to provide every airplane with other planes' positions, have a look at the Wikipedia article on the topic. There you'll find the details!

Just wanted to point out two recent updates to my website.

A few days ago I finally uploaded a short description together with the slides and paper of a talk I gave a few weeks ago on the topic of "Rendering Smoke & Clouds" in the context of a game design university course. Have a look at it here.

The second update is a Windows Vista sidebar gadget, my first one actually. It displays the content of a (German) Formula 1 live text ticker (sport.rtl.de) in the Windows sidebar and includes features like a flyout window for detailed view, automatic refresh, quick access to the original website and a Formula 1 live stream. Feel free to give it a try here and please leave your feedback!

Just uploaded a new version of the Formula-1-Ticker sidebar gadget. Now supports a setting dialog to control the size of the gadget. Also supports different sizes in docked and undocked mode. Text size is now adjustable, too. Give it a try!

Just released FSXGET Version 0.1 Beta 2 which contains a new feature, allowing you to select display units (meters or feet) and several bugfixes. Checks for the operating system and service pack version now as well as for SimConnect installed and instances of the application already running, to give better user feedback if the application encounters a problem at startup instead of crashing with some cryptic error message.

As always, more info and download here.

As I myself already got some experience with using Google Maps and Earth to display things such as stars (Web-based Planetarium) or Flight Simulator X aircrafts (FSXGET), I really like those two applications I've came over yesterday:

They're both based on Google Maps, with the first one showing the realtime positions of Swiss trains...

... and the second doing the same for planes over Zurich.

Absolutely awesome! The latter one comes really close to FSXGET just for the real world and looking at the technique behind reminds me of a passive radar I've seen in action during a visit to INDRA's plant in Madrid.

Besides, since my internship at AENA, I somehow just enjoy looking at realtime maps with planes moving around ;-)

Few days ago, I did some research on how to make sure that only one instance of my .NET application will run at a time. I found there's three ways to do so, of which two are quite common and also very stable and professional.

Solution Number 1: Using a Mutex

Just have a look at the code snippet below. This is a simple C# program with just a few lines added.

static class Program
{
    static bool bFirstInstance = false;
    static Mutex mtxSingleInstance = new Mutex(true, "My Mutex Name and ID String", out bFirstInstance);

    /// <summary>
    /// The main entry point for the application.
    /// </summary>
    [STAThread]
    static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            if (!bFirstInstance)
                return;

            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

            Application.Run(new Form1());
        }
        finally
        {
            mtxSingleInstance.Close();
        }
    }
}

The important lines are lines 3 and 4 and 14 and 15. First we create a mutex with any name (string) we like and try to access it. The result (whether gaining access to the mutex failed or succeeded) will be written to a boolean variable. If this is the first instance of the application, we sucessully will gain access to the mutex and bFirstInstance will be true. If it's a second, third, ... instance, the first instance of the application will already have locked the mutex and we won't get access to it, thus bFirstInstace will be false.

We just check for the value of bFirstInstance and if it's false, the current instance will exit immediately.

Important Note: Make sure the mutex gets closed when the first instance of your application exits (even in case it crashes and doesn't exit normally). You can use a try / finally statement as shown above for this.

Another important thing: You should declare the mutex as a static class variable to make sure it won't get cleaned up by garbage collection somewhere down the road. Instead of using a global static variable, you could also make use of GC.KeepAlive(mtxSingleInstance);.

For further information see the two articles here and here.

Solution Number 2: .NET Remoting

This is basically about setting up some kind of inter-process communication so one process can just shout out 'Hey, is there someone of my kind already running?' on some channel and other instances of this process will respond with 'Yep, that would be me' or whatever.

The great advantage over the method before is, that with this solution, you cannot just check for other instances already running but you can also exchange information between the two instances (like passing the command line parameters of the second instance to the first instance and let the second instance exit after this while the first instance will do the job).

Now despite this solution sounding a little bit complicated, it actually isn't. In Visual Basic this is just activating a checkbox and in C# it's about ten lines of code. For the Visual Basic solution, go here. For C# do the following:

1. Add a reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll to your project

2. Add the using Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices; statement to your main application class.

3. Add a new class to your project, lookig like this:

   using Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices;
   
   public class SingleInstanceApplication : WindowsFormsApplicationBase
   {
       private SingleInstanceApplication()
       { 
           base.IsSingleInstance = true; 
       }
       
       public static void Run(Form f, 
           StartupNextInstanceEventHandler startupHandler)
       {
           SingleInstanceApplication app = new SingleInstanceApplication();
           app.MainForm = f;
           app.StartupNextInstance += startupHandler;
           app.Run(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs());
       }
   }
   

4. Now change your main application class from this

   static class Program
   {
       [STAThread]
       static void Main()
       {
           Application.EnableVisualStyles();
           Application.Run(new Form1());
       }
   }
   

   to this

   static class Program
   {
       [STAThread]
       static void Main()
       { 
           Application.EnableVisualStyles();
           SingleInstanceApplication.Run(new Form1(), 
               StartupNextInstanceHandler);
       }
   
       static void StartupNextInstanceHandler(
           object sender, StartupNextInstanceEventArgs e)
       {
           // Here you can just make the current (new) instance exit or do whatever you like with the command line arguments
       }
   }
   

That's it!

I found this idea and the code above here.

Solution Number 3: Checking the Process List

I'm not gonna go into detail here, as this shouldn't be the preferred solution as I think. It's just for the record. To check whether there's already an instance of your application running, you can of course just read the systems list of processes currently running and see if your application's in it or not!

Happy coding!

Yet another short article about how to programmatically detect the version of the operating system and installed service pack version in a .NET application (C#).

Basically I found three ways how to determine these version number in a C# application:

1. Using the System.Environment.OSVersion class

   • Fast and easy, perfect to get Windows version including major, minor, revision and build section of the version number.
   • Problematic to get the service pack version: Gives you a string like e.g. 'Service Pack 1, v.744' which you'd have to parse then. Not an ideal and very stable way (regarding future service packs) to get the service pack version number.

2. Using the WMI Interface

   SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery("Win32_OperatingSystem");
   ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
   
   foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get())
      int iSPVersionMajor = int.Parse(mo["ServicePackMajorVersion"].ToString());
   

   Allows to retrieve numeric (major and minor) version number of installed service pack

3. Using native Win32 API: GetVersionEx

   I didn't try this solution myself but it seems quite promising, too. More details can be found here.

Last but not least, some information about Windows Version and Build numbers:

• Wikipedia on the Comparison of Windows Versions
• Wikipedia on Microsoft Windows
• Wikipedia on Windows NT

Today I've released version 0.1 Beta 1 of FSXGET. It's the direct successor to version 0.0.3.1 RC4. The change in naming is to make the version numbers more readable and manageable.

Remote Connection - Run FSX and FSXGET on different computers

The new version includes a new configuration dialog that facilitates setting up FSXGET to connect to Flight Simulator X running on a remote computer, i.e. a configuration where Google Earth AND FSXGET run on one computer but Flight Simulator X runs on another. I've also released a new tool called SimConnect Config Tool which helps changing Flight Simulator X configuration to allow remote access (e.g. from FSXGET). A howto article about setting up FSX and FSXGET for remote connections can be found here.

Just released a new update for FSXGET correcting bugs regarding x64 and non-English systems. Download and more information here.

Most people reading this probably won't find it very funny. I do though!

I can't say whether I like it more for its being a joke about Hamilton (I'm a Ferrari fan) or the Spanish stubbornness of pronouncing foreign words the way they fit best into their own language regardless of how they should be pronounced or how absurd they might sound, which puts another joke in the banner below. Anyway, I just couldn't help smiling when I first saw it.

(Source)

Anyone remember the wikiscanner, a tool cross-referencing IP ranges known to belong to a certain company with IP addresses of Wikipedia article edits, thus exposing which companies have edited their own Wikipedia entries (and what they've edited)?

I did really like this project unlike most politicians, governments and companies exposed by the tool I guess. Anyway, it's time for Vol. 2! Books that make you dumb!

It's from the same author again, this time cross-referencing colleges' students' average SAT scores with colleges' most read books lists on Facebook and there you go. You'll be able to tell what clever guys read and what dumb people read ;)

Of course, one can argue about any causality in this and apparently not too few people were quite willing to do so as the author states on his website but there's actually not a single word on his website blaming any of those books for dumbness or cleverness of its readers. Just consider it a fun thing and enjoy reading through the list!

I've just found out that one of my projects, a web-based planetarium found a mention on a Taiwanese blog. It's the blog of a programmer from Taiwan whose application I used in my project and who helped me out with some problems I had when trying to adapt his application to my needs.

You can see his blog entry about my project here. But anyway, I'd like to use that chance to thank him again for his help. He did really save me a lot of time just as did his application.

So, thanks again starryalley for your help and keep up such a good work with mobile starchart.

This is going to be a short post about my first year of experience with Windows Vista. Now I'm not gonna tell you that you should use Linux or Windows XP instead of Vista which is really really bad, as you can read on so many blogs and forums but I want to give an honest opinion on Vista's look and feel and point out some things which are pretty odd and which I really can't understand.

So first of all: I actually like Windows Vista. Built-in search, nice GUI and especially that extremely improved way of navigating folders in Windows Explorer are features I benefit from. Control over thumbnail sizes is another nice feature of Windows Explorer. The sidebar is ok, too, though one can clearly see that Microsoft didn't spend too much time developing that one.

Now to the things I don't like and often not even understand:

1. During the first few month of usage, I couldn't plug-in any USB flash drive with more than 500 MB, as Vista would crash with a BSOD (blue screen of death) in result. Man! How did Microsoft achieve such a bug?!? I'm not talking about that very special time dilating warp plasma machine I'm trying to connect via USB... it's a USB FLASH DRIVE. I've been really annoyed by that matter but couldn't do much about it. Finally after few months living with it, some Microsoft fixed the bug and since then, I'm able to use my 2 GB flash drive again. :-)

2. Windows BackUp tool! It's gotten a clearly improved GUI, I must admit that. But for the cost of features which are now missing. It's no longer saving to some *.bkf file but to *.zip files each of which cannot be larger than 100 MB. So you end up with dozens of *.zip files in the end. But the most annoying thing is that it can no longer backup EFS encrypted files. They are just left out. There's no longer any way to backup them in Windows Vista, besides doing it manually. But why?!? All you gotta do now to keep files from getting backed up is to set that 'encryt file' checkbox in Windows Explorer. Aren't encrypted files important?!? Now I have that nice and easier to use BackUp tool (NT BackUp was clearly outdate) in Windows Vista, but it's not worth a cent as I'm not even using it. I need ALL my file to be backed up not just some of them, so I have to use some other backup solution.

3. Same with Windows Disk Defragmentation. Now it's got an easier to operate GUI but somehow Microsoft forgot to include some kind of program feature. The disk fragmentation visualization overview is gone, too. I can understand the latter one, as for sure, it has never been too accurate and more than a nice to watch animation but what about the progress indicator? Somewhere on the web, I have read that it's been inaccurate, too. Well, be it so but at least you had some hint at all on how long defrag will take. Now you're left with 'disk defragmentation may take from few minutes to various hours'. What the h***!!! A SIMPLE PROGRESS BAR WOULD HAVE DONE THE JOB! How can having no idea at all on the duration be any better than an inaccurate prediction?

4. This one's again about progress indicators. Now in the case of copying files. I thought the times of '3772653665387752 minutes left' predictions till copying files is done were gone since Windows XP. Windows 95, 98 and ME had this problem. Not that I really missed it in XP but now I guess, I should thank Windows Vista for reviving it!!!!!!

But besides that little bug Microsoft has tried hard to improve the file copy dialog. Now shows the transfer rate and waits and usually makes quite accurate predictions on the duration. But I don't quite get how Microsoft does calculate it. Must be some numeric approximization of a really complex 5th order integral equation! Why? Because it usually takes 30 to 40 seconds, sometimes even longer till Vista gives you that number after starting to copy files. Till then you can read 'Duration: calculating...'. This is annoying as many file transfers are even done by the time Windows has finished calculating the duration but it's even worse for the fact, that after just a few seconds, Vista shows you a stable and accurate transfer rate in the copy dialog together with an also accurate size and number of files that are being copied. By that time, you or a eight year old child can calculate (just using your head, not even a calculator) the duration of the transfer within three to four seconds, sometimes even faster. This way, you have the result 30 to 40 seconds before Windows Vista does! That's probably the worst thing at all in Windows Vista. Mostly because I just can't understand, even after thinking about that really really hard, how and why Microsoft does that!

Anyone explain it to me? Please!

PS: Number 1) and 4) have been resolved by now. 1) by some Windows Update months ago, and 4) by Vista Service Pack 1 which has been available as a Release Candidate for a few weeks now.

Somehow this trailer has made its way to the web today. The movie itself is due December this year if I remember right. So till then, enjoy the trailer:

As you can see, there's gonna be an update to my website. This is mainly to simplify things a lot and use only one CMS, namely Wordpress. I still have to figure out whether it does the job or not but I'm pretty positive on that.

Till migration is complete, you can still visit my old website at http://www.juergentreml.de/joomla/.

Update 2008-01-28:

Migration is complete. The old website has been taken offline and is no longer available.

No, that's not gonna be some 'you should use Firefox because it's better and faster and safer and...'-article. In fact, I don't even like seeing those words on official or semi-official Firefox banners. I've been an IE user for years until five years ago I switched to Firefox and fell in love with it. I definitely prefer Firefox over IE but for various reasons and with 'faster' and 'safer' NOT being among them. Basically I just like it for the many extensions there are and a few details I really enjoy.

Anyway, few days ago, I came across an icon while surfing the web, which I just wanted to show.

Though it might look this way, I just want to point out: I really don't have any problem with IE. It's a nice piece of software, too, and who ever likes it is free to do so! However, I like the idea of that icon! Close to the official one at first sight but with that but with those pearly white little details... ehh... and that blue 'e' ;-) Just a creative, nice piece of art!

Oh... and by the way, that's the usual icon you see on the web (with a little less salt and pepper):

As this article reports, some bloggers have found that Google Maps can be tweaked to show higher resolution images of at least certain regions of the world. This works only for very few regions but nevertheless, this example presents a quite astonishing view.

Ever been bored? Well, here's something you need to give a try. Really! Why don't you just start to hunt down the location where your Windows Desktop wallpaper has been photographed? Nick Tosches story suggests that this can be a lot of fun and, by the way, it reminds me pretty much of Geocaching.

Last but not least, the story (which I found through David Pogue's blog) is quite a piece of art. Really nice to read!

Yet another software bug story that will be told by some wanna-be-cool computer science professor to his students 20 years from now. Have a look at this! Apparently, some geek managed to make the new F-22 jet's computer crash as it crosses the date line. Wondering why this makes me think of Ariane rockets and Mars orbiters?!

Here's an excellent article on Windows Vista's User Account Control feature. Although some people tend to interpret this article as Microsoft admitting that UAC is just a big joke, I think it's a very technical and neutral article about the capabilities, boundaries and purposes of Windows UAC. It's worth a reading!

At CES Yahoo! anounced a new version of its instant messaging client. This is going to be more than just an updated version. It's gonna be a completly new application specially designed for Windows Vista using WPF.

At the moment my famous IM client, for sure, is Windows Live Messenger. Why? Because it's got a clear design and is not to clouded with all possible functions in any corner of the screen, a fact that is most certainly true for ICQ but to some extent also for AOL IM and Yahoo! Messenger.

Anyway, Yahoo! Messenger is right behind WLM on second place. And with this new version (supposed it's running stable and fast and won't be cluttered with ads all over) it'll be first place soon! ;-)

The reasons are pretty straight forward: It's got a nice design which fits quite well into my Windows Vista desktop but more important, it has a much clearer window structure, and most important it supports flexible chat windows tabs and the windows sidebar. With flexible window tabs, I mean it even has tabs (unlinke several other IM clients) and furthermore you're not forced to decied between tabs or no tabs but instead just drag one window into another to "tab" them but still can leave certain windows untabbed. See, it really pays off to have a look at free, competitive products every now and then! ;-)

Last but not least, I'm looking forward to the Vista Sidebar plugin. I'm checking the MS gadget gallery nearly every day for a similar Windows Live Messenger Plugin (there's only two unstable ones). Currently I'm spending a few months in Spain, away from family and friends. Needless to say that there's a few people I chat with quite a lot. Let this be my partner, family members or people working with me on the same project, I'd be happy to have some sidebar gadget giving quick access to instant messaging with those people.

I just hope hope Yahoo! will realese some early customer pre pre preview alpha version soon! :-)

Btw: I'm not a Yahoo! fan or something like that, but if this thing turns out to be only half as good as the video suggest, I'm gonna love it!

Link to Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista

PS: Tabbed windows, a sidebar gadget, better background design and less restrictive message length limits would be a nice starting point for Microsofts next version of Windows Live Messenger. Closer cooperation with Yahoo! enabling inter-network video and phone talks would be another nice feature. About ICQ, ... well, let's just strip it down to the design part. That should be hard enough for you guys! As soon as you got a design at all, and by saying design, I MEAN design, start thinking about functionality and usability!

Obowhl es etwas spät ist für einen Eintrag zum Thema WM 2006, schreib ich das hier jetzt trotzdem schnell.

Beim aufräumen auf meiner Festplatte bin ich über das Video unten gekommen und dachte mir, ich stell das einfach mal auf YouTube. Das Video wurde am Fan Fest im Olympia Park in München aufgenommen beim WM Spiel um Platz 3 (Deutschland gegen Portugal). Ich fand es damals ziemlich beeindruckend und vor allem überraschend, dass München nicht nach dem Endspiel sondern nach dem Spiel um den dritten Platz die grosse Abschlussparty mit Feuerwerk gegeben hat. Weltmeister der Herzen eben!

Auf jeden Fall hat das Video mit dem musikuntermalten Feuerwerk und der Nationalhymne im Anschluss mich ein wenig in Erinnerungen schwelgen lassen, Erinnerungen an Sommer, Sonne, Spass, gute Laune und eine verdammt geniale Stimmung! Liegt wohl an den vielen Regentropfen die hier so an meinem Fenster vorbeifallen den ganzen Tag, dass ich mich grad etwas nach Sommer und München sehne! ;-)

24 - Season 6

I had almost forgotten about the short preview of season 6 at the and of 24 season 5. Now while looking the web for the airing dates of the upcoming Stargate Atlantis season I came across the wikipedia page on 24. And hell ... the pilot's airing in 5 days!

So finally there'll be an end to weird Spanish talk shows or never ending Operación Triunfo! If it's only half as good as the earlier seasons, it'll soon be a high priority entry on my weekly schedule! Allthough not all people I know do like 24, for me, it's one of the best TV series I've ever seen.

And there's even more! Seems that they are planning to make a 24 movie. Allhtough I've got no idea of how to make a 24 movie (unless it's trying to challenge Michael Ende's Never ending Story by lasting real 24 hours), the fact that it'll be set in London sounds quite promising!

Stargate Atlantis, Formula 1

Anyway, 24 is not all! Two other fix items on my schedule are the second half of Stargate Atlantis season 3 starting on April 6th and of course the 2007 Formula 1 season opening on March 18th in Melbourne.

Any important TV shows I forgot to mention?

Here's some information about podcasts which I'd like to share. Why? To be honest, mainly because NYT podcasts are so f***in' good but also because Spain seems to be nearly podcast free.

How It Started

I consider myself a regular podcast listeners since about a year or so, having started listening to German news show podcasts trying to somehow keep myself busy on the sheer endless busride from my appartment to the university campus.

I found this to be a pretty goot alternative to radio, as it gives you a lot more freedom in choosing what you want to listen to, though unfortunately not beeing as easy to use when new to the subject.

Hardware & Applications

I started with an iPod Shuffle which I had got for free, soon noticed that Apple doesn't want me to listen to Podcast on such a cheap device and thus forced to use some of those nice but not at all intuitive and stable programs like Juice or Doppler. Let's just say the chain of Juice downloading the podcasts, Windows Media Player keeping track of new shows and uploading them to an Apple iPod plus iPod Shuffle Library Updater didn't work as very reliably. All this has been quite a mess. So finally facing my stay abroad in Spain and an even longer bus ride to the university campus I bought myself an iPod Nano 2G and know what? It works like a smooth. iTunes and my new iPod make a perfect team and now it really isn't any more than just plugging your iPod into your computer before breakfast and plugging it off afterwards and you'll have all new episodes of you favorite show on this shiny little thing.

Where's the Podcasts?

So now I'm set to listen to hundreds of awesome shows on my iPod every day on this one hour metro ride? No! Unfortunately not! But why? Because there simply are no podcasts, at least not in Spain.

Well, I must admit that's been a little bit of an exageration, nevertheless Spain stills seems to be quite busy finding a translation of the word into their own language before even thinking about using the word. That is to say, none of the big newspapers seem to be offering podcasts, neither the small ones. TV stations either. You'd be happy to find their program schedule on their websites not to speak about additional features like podcasts, RSS or media stuff. Well, at least there's ads! ;-) So what remains is low quality recordings of Spanish radio shows, tremendously long in duration, huge in size and tiny in content, as long as you aren't taking bad jokes and "second hand" music for content (allthough the latter two things might be subject to my personal likes and dislikes). Anyway, not considering the non-functional podcast links on www.elmundo.es, a big spanish newspaper, this is all you'll get, so check it out yourself at:

• Cadena SER
• Cadena COPE

Now talking about Germany, I'd be happy to say that they are doing a better job, but they're not! It's exactly the same style. Simple recordings of radio and TV news broadcasts which are published on the according websites as so called podcasts. At least there's more than in Spain, so, you'll have a bit more of a choice and therefore might find some shows being somewhat above average, others somwhat below. Try it youself at the following site:

• n-tv

There's even one german site with quite good podcasts:

• Financial Times Deutschland

New York Times Podcasts

So finally where's the good podcasts? Easy question, easy answer: Go to the New York Times web site at www.nyt.com. That's what podcasts should be like and the reason for this blog entry. They are really PRODUCING podcasts and obviously spending money on this matter. They're not just publishing recordings of interviews or read-alouds of some of their columns, allthough one of the best podcasts on their site is just this. David Pogue, a NYT tech clumnist reading aloud his weekly published article. But he's as good a reader as he is a writer and that he is for sure ... again subject to my personal likes! The podcast which is named after it's author is about the latest gadgets on the tech market whose features are presented and explained but also judged, quite often with a good portion of humour, sometimes quite obvious, sometimes somwhat more hidden. In short, excatly the style I like. ;-) Just give it a try:

• David Pogue

And make sure you don't miss all the other podcasts on the NYT web site, especially:

• Tech Talk
• Most E-Mailed Articles
• Movie Review
• New York Times Speaker Series
• World View
• Science Times
• Front Page
• Washington Report

So finally, feel free to share your favorite podcasts in the comments to this blog entry.

By the way, even in Germany and Spain, there are a few podcasts which are quite okay, but mainly this is small unknown podcasts which are being published on a far less regular schedule (if any) and aren't really suitable for your daily metro or bus ride. That's why I didn't lose any word about those in the text above.