This weekend, I thought I'd extend my little Android usage tracking application to work on more ISPs than the one (Internode) that it already does. As my phone is (sadly) on Optus, I thought I'd write one for that. Internode was easy to add, as they have a documented API for accessing usage counters which are ideal for computer consumption. Optus on the other hand only provide a web application interface to check usage, necessitating the use of a web scraper.

I purchased an Android phone a few weeks ago. Part of the reason that I got it was that I wanted to see what the differences were between Android and iPhone.  This extends out to how to program them as well, so I had to write an application, just like I did for iPhone. Last night, I released my little application.  Its a usage meter for my ISP, Internode. I deliberately chose something quite simple so that I could cut my teeth on the platform, and I must say that I'm very impressed.

I’ve been trying to work out what I want to do with my career recently. When I’ve been speaking with mentors and colleagues, the first question that comes up is quite reasonably always “What is it you want to do?”. I have to admit that this question has had me stumped for some time. For the last three years, I’ve been working as a principal consultant in the system integration space for medium to large size businesses, and I have not found it satisfying.

This post is basically just to try out embedding a google wave post in a blog post :) There is some news however. I am giving a lecture to a Masters of IT class at Monash. This wave is the place where I am gathering information about what I will present. I will also provide access to the students during the class, if they wish to participate or continue the discussion at a later date.

Okay, that should be forwarding, but I wanted some alliteration :) Some time ago, I posted a very technical approach to forwarding email properly using Microsoft Exchange, which is useful if you work at an organisation that uses it. At the time, I was aware that the steps involved were to technical for some people, so I didn't really expect too many people to take it up. Some colleagues at work expressed some interest in using themselves, but didn't want to go to the effort of setting up their own man-in-the-middle server to fix the emails.

I'm presenting a session at EJA tomorrow, entitled "Choose Your Cloud". I'll be comparing the different cloud vendors, with a particular focus on Google App Engine. As an experiment, I've done my presentation in Prezi. I'm not sure if its cool or distracting. I'll check with my audience tomorrow to find out :) Choose your Cloud on Prezi

Ars Technica has posted about research that has been conducted about prediction your location, based upon data gathered from mobile phone towers.  The research shows that it is possible to predict where you will be at any given time with 93% accuracy, even before additional information such as calendars is taken into consideration.  That is spectacularly good, and just goes to show how good the information that is being gathered by our gadgets really is.

Yesterday, I posted a quick reply to a post on the google wave developer blog about creating a form based workflow system for google wave.  I was quite busy at the time and i think in my haste I may have been a bit brusque.    By way of making amends, here is how I would set up such a system. A forms workflow engine needs a number of components in order to operate correctly.

Last week, I ranted about how our cellphones will start adapting to what we are doing based upon the information they can gather on our behaviour.  Right on cue, Toshiba have now announced that they are building exactly this technology, and it will be available by the end of the year.  I'm impressed.  I wonder if they will introduce it only into the Japanese market, or more widely on Android or something similar.

About 3 months ago, I wrote a google wave gadget, which allows users to collaboratively work on a google wave gadget within google wave.  I've gotten a bit of publicity out of it and its all been great.   Sadly, tonight, the wave that I created to document my gadget has crapped itself, collapsing under the publicity of its own popularity, with more than 200 blips and 500 participants.   The main blip in the wave now has no content whatsoever, and I can't view its history to repair its view.

I've been thinking the last couple of days about the future of phone user interfaces, and I suppose the future of interfaces in general.  At the moment we have fairly static interfaces, with a scrolling list of applications with the occasional widget to tell us the weather forecast or what not.  We set it up how we like it and thats it.  Some user interfaces (in particular, I'm thinking of Android's pages) provide different screens to cater for different use cases, but it is still a manual affair.

The local Melbourne chapter of GTUG is hosting a meeting around developing extensions for Google Wave this wednesday at RMIT.  The big presenter there will be Pamela Fox, Google's developer relations person, but I've been asked to give a quick run down at the end on my experiences developing a mind map gadget.  If I get time, I might also theorise about how wave could be used to provide ad-hoc communications focused tools inside business.

Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg recently said that privacy is no longer a social norm, Google's Eric Schmidt has also said that if you want to do things online that you want to keep private, then you really shouldn't use online services such as Google, due to laws requiring identification and retention of data. There are benefits to treating your privacy as a commodity.  The most obvious examples are the personalities that have achieved fame and riches through living their lives in a very public fashion, such as Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, but each and every one of us makes a decision to trade our privacy each time we go online, whether we do it knowingly or not.

I've just updated my Google Wave Mind Map gadget to a new version.  New features include: It renders graphically now, so things are a little prettierIt won't work on Firefox versions earlier than 3.0.  If you are running an earlier version I strongly suggest that you upgradeThere is now the ability to edit properties, accessable via the properties menu button.There is a context menu that can be used to access the menu, accessible via the Right Mouse button.

I was having a drink with some colleagues last night, and the subject of the over-use of high-availability environments came up.   At too many customer sites we see requirements that the system must have 5 9s uptime (approximately 15 minutes a year downtime) when there is patently no reason for such a requirement.  As a result, we end up spending far more time, more hardware, and more software licenses on the solution than is required.

I was going to write a blog post yesterday about where integration platforms were going, which seems to me to be online webapps without the need for an IDE at all. some products like Oracle's Aqualogic ESB are pretty much already there. I couldn't quite gather my thoughts properly though, so I thought I would do a mind map. I was going to use FreeMind, but considering I was talking about web-apps, I thought I'd do a search for whats out there.

UPDATE: I've now created a service to make this much easier to forward email. If you are interested in this, please have a look at the service's site. I've got a million email accounts. Every time I start work on a new client site, I get given yet another email account. Its a pain in the butt to manage all of these, so wherever possible I forward the mail onto my main gmail account where it can get filtered, stored and searched easily.

I'm an IT consultant. As a result, I spend the vast majority of my time at work doing one of the followingReading or Composing EmailReading or writing Word DocumentsEditing our corporate WikiResearching stuff (or skiving off) on the WebLooking at Microsoft Project plansVery occasionally coding... very occasionallyTo perform these tasks, I lug around a quite heavy laptop. Its not a particularly special laptop, but it does the job. I would like to exchange it for something lighter and easier to work with in order to save my back, especially when I ride to work.

I've been trying to put together a HTPC for quite a long time now, up until now with little success. Recently, some of my workmates have started working on HTPCs of their own, which has spurred me on to try again. For a change, I succeeded, mostly through the really good MythTV distribution KnoppMyth. It takes out all of the hard work in configuring linux to work properly as a set top box, especially for obscure hardware like the VIA EPIA-M mother boards