HTTP Error 447

This just in: Photo Matt has gone HTTP 447.

Rendezvous A Go Go

Yesterday Gizmodo mentioned Pocketster, a program for Pocket PCs that among other things implements Rendezvous (Zeroconf).  It sounds like Simedia, the company behind the product, is also working on a newer version that should iron out a few weirdnesses of the current program.

It’s a shame that there’s not more Rendezvous/Zeroconf love on the PC side.  It’s an amazing thing, really, when things “just work.”  Take the new Airport Express.  It’s absolutely wicked!

My hat is off to Simedia and everyone else trying to spread the Rendezvous love throughout the world.

Mostly Mobile Linkdump

Foo

• Nokia rejoins WiMax.
• Wi-Fi on Amtrak could be useful.  $9.99 for a trip is quite reasonable.  It’s probably a better deal than my pay-as-you-go T-Mobile hotspot account at $6/hr.
• Gizmodo and others linked to a way to boost the power on you Garmin iTrip to roll your own pirate radio.
• Moto buys embedded computing company Force Computers.
• Intel has delayed Centrino 2 until 2005.  By then you’ll be ordering a jumble of things called a Centrino 2 with a Pentium M 775 and Intel Pro Wireless 2400 with Bluetooth.  I can’t imagine how that can make any sense to a non-techie customer.
• Engadget covers details uncovered from the FCC about the new HP iPAQ h6300 with GSM/GPRS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.
• Sleepycat ships Berkeley DB Java Edition.
• OSNews announces that Gnomefiles.org aims to be your one stop Gnome shop.
• CNet: tablets take their time.  They’re still too damned expensive.  Scoble: how can we get Tablet PC prices down?  I really want to be able to afford one.
• US mobile carriers only get 3% of their revenue from data services.  I’m trying to boost that figure personally, but so far no luck.  A lot more than 3% of my monthly bill goes to paying for data and SMSes.
• Broadcom is buying 3G chipmaker Zyray Wireless.
• Rome 0.2 is out.
• WASTE 1.5 beta 1 is out.  Three cheers for the GPL!
• ASP.NET on Linux using Mono sounds sadistic but fun.
• Slackware 10.0-RC1 is making the rounds.

JXTA 2.3 is Out the Door

Word from Gonzo Mofo is that JXTA J2SE 2.3 is out the door.  It looks like there are a lot of bugfixes, some deprecations, and some new features in this release.  The JXTA website should update with details soon, but for now check out the Gonzo Mofo link above.

Verizon Trails the Pack with Worldwide SMS

Mobiletracker reports that Verizon is excited about their new international text messaging.  AT&T joined the transatlantic SMS party a few months ago, so it looks like this officially puts Verizon at the end of the line of carriers that “get it.”  My advice to any carrier that does not support international SMS: quietly add the capability and pretend that you’ve been doing it for years.

Firefox 0.9 Linkdump

I have to dump links from the tabs in Firefox, because Firefox 0.9 (One Tree Hill) is out!

• A new release of Feather Linux (a compact Knoppix remaster) is out.
• Via OSNews, FreeBSD is in stealth growth mode.
• Joi has a new 7610 and spoke at some press conference yesterday.
• Scott Hanselman on the brilliance of Apple’s new AirPort Express.
• I’m putting XP SP2 RC2 on the laptop this morning (thanks Scoble)
• Rootprompt links to a story about TKCluster that I’ll have to look at later.  I’m a die hard OpenMosix guy on the clustering side.
• Infoworld reports on the troubled relationship between Vodafone and Verizon.
• Tom Hume points to a Symbian Bluetooth Virus.

The update went well.  The new default theme is a little more sparse than the old one, but I think it’s growing on me.  I also like the rotating dots above each tab when they reload.  The rotating dots definitely give a consistent experience going between Thunderbird and Firebird.  Everything seems pretty zippy.

On to the post-update links:

• Confluence 1.1 has been released.
• pywi-fi “is a Python library that provides access to information about a W-Lan card’s capabilities, like the wireless extensions written in C.”
• Chris Heilman has fifteen pictures about fifteen pictures.  I’ve never seen so much glass labware used in the development processes.
• Coverage of the new Nokia phones has reached the mainstream.  It’s dumbed down blurbs from here on out.
• EPOC/Cabir.A is definitely a “proof of concept” virus for Symbian phones with Bluetooth as the transport mechanism.  It is hardly a “threat” if you have to say yes to the installation.  It could be a harbinger of things to come though.  More coverage at The Guardian and others.
• The installation of XP SP2 RC2 seems to have gone smoothly.  I don’t notice anything different, but I’ve been running a beta of SP2 for a month or so.  I will have to say that wireless networking rocks in SP2.

Even more links from just before bed:

• Infoworld: HP adds Lustre to cluster offerings.  Lustre.org has more information about the cluster file system.
• OSNews: PearPC 0.2.0 released.  Networking works in Windows now!
• PyPI notes a beta release of Zope 3.
• BoingBoing brings news of a 5.2 quake in San Diego.  No major damage is reported.
• Richard Elling talks about NFS clusters such as Sun Cluster.
• The O’Reilly Mac Dev Center introduces linking geolocation with photos using GPS and EXIF.
• Miguel shows a teaser screenshot of Cocoa# on OSX.
• Wi-Fi Networking News announces the Community Wireless Summit to be held in Illinois August 20-22.
• Mono Beta 3 is out the door.
• Aparently MS Smartphones can read RSS too.

Nokia Press Conference Notes

I’m up for the Nokia press conference.  Yes, it’s 9am in Helsinki, but it’s 2am in DC.  I already know what they’re going to talk about, but I want to hear what they have to say and see the phones.

With some URL hacking, we have found some pics before the press conference started.  The press conferences has just started and we’re reviewing the entire presentation.

And some more from thenewsmarket (I’m still waiting to view the full-size videos):

The Second Coming of Nokia

Last week Reuters ran a story about there being “no buzz” about the announcement of a few new phones from some company from Finland that nobody cares about anymore.  I’ve seen the lineup, and I think that there’s going to be a ton of buzz.  Nokia has pushed the rez on their Series 60 phones, embraced WCDMA, VPNs, Push-to-Talk, embraced the flip phone and low-end market, and they plan to have all of this on the streets by Q3 and Q4 2004.

That’s not to say all is well and good in the Nokia camp.  A lot of analysts have all but given up on the company, citing a slide in market share while the “other guys” pick up the slack.  If Nokia can ship enough units quickly, get the pricing on the 2600/2650 right, stay agile, focused and balanced, we could be looking at the Nokia Renaissance unfolding before our very eyes.

Oh yeah.  Russ and I broke the story tonight a few minutes before Reuters and others.  The clock on my server is a few minutes fast, but my story was online a few minutes before Russ’ which we clocked at 7:53:45PDT.  Take that!

New Nokia Phones Announced!

On a whim, I thought I’d take a look at the Nokia press site to see if there would be a webcast for the new phones.  Lo and behold there is already information up about them:

• Nokia 6630: Tiny 3G
• Series 60
• WCDMA, EDGE, or old-skool
• About 500 Euros (no contract) in Q4 2004
• 74 megs of memory
• 1.23 megapixel camera
• 1.27 grams, 110x60x20.6mm 
• Could this be Charlie?  Yep.
• Nokia 6260: Series 60 Flippy
  • VPN
  • Push-to-Talk
  • Supports the new Nokia Wireless (Bluetooth) Keyboard
  • About 400 Euros (no contract) in Q3 2004
• Nokia 6170: Flippy Series 40 
  • EDGE
  • XHTML, MMS, 65k colors
  • About 250 Euros (no contract) in Q4 2004
• Nokia Wireless Keyboard
  • Bluetooth
  • Only works on newer phones (7610, 6630, 6260)
• Nokia 2650: Cheap flippy that looks really good 
  • MMS, Java, XHTML browser
  • 97 grams
  • Q3 2004 for 120 Euros (no contract)
• Nokia 2600: Cheap but classic
  • Polyphonic ringtones
  • Spreadsheet
  • 94.5 grams
  • 100 Euros (no contract)

Also of note:

• Series 60 gets a major facelift: WCDMA, higher rez, IPSec, VPN, QWERTY input, 3D graphics, and more
• Information about mobile SSL VPN
• Mobile SIP
• Nokia expects 2 billion mobile phone users by 2007.  Will one in three humans on planet Earth have a mobile phone?

Debian x86-64 Go For Launch

LWN carries the news from debian-devel-announce:

We are proud to announce the Debian AMD64 port is ready for inclusion in Sid. The port is currently at 97% compiled with most of the remaining packages having FTBFS RC bugs filed for unrelated reasons. We have also finished debian-installer for the AMD64 port and generate daily builds. All that still remains to be done is for dpkg to include the amd64 patch, for archive space be given to the port, and for an official buildd to be setup.

Excellent work guys.  I know how fast a well-tweaked Debian system can be, and the thought of running Debian on AMD64 is quite exciting.  AMD64 gear is still a little too expensive, but I’ve seen several sub-$700 desktop systems with AMD64 inside.  Getting closer…

J2ME Polish Looks Promising

The Wireless Development Weblog pointed to an extremely interesting project today: J2ME Polish.  The screenshots look a lot more sexy than plain old MIDP on mobile phones.  I’ll have to read the docs in depth to grok J2ME Polish on a technical level, but on the surface it looks like a very clean and polished (sorry for the pun) project, and might be worth some serious attention by J2ME heads.

Wi-Fi at Maryland Rest Stops

I love it when random stories about hotspots like this one at netstumbler are local for me:

The state of Maryland is launching “hot spots” at two of its welcome centers on Interstate 95 so motorists can access the Internet wirelessly.

More information can be found at Baltimore Bizjournals.  I’ll be sure to have live coverage via my laptop the next time I’m able to stop by the rest stop.

Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate

Gizmodo mentions Bluetooth EDR, or Enhanced Data Rate.  It is supposed to be faster than but backward compatible with plain old Bluetooth (or is it Bluetooth Classic now?).

I’m glad that it’s going to be backwards compatible with oldskool Bluetooth, though honestly I’ve never had an issue with the speed of it.  Sure, I’ll have to wait if I’m transfering a multi-meg file to or from my phone.  For most things Bluetooth seems to be fast enough.  I’m sure that for more advanced uses more bandwidth would be great, but it’s not a deal breaker for me.

I would use a slower Bluetooth device if it connected more reliably and didn’t do the random weird things that Bluetooth devices seem to do at one time or another.

Bluetooth EDR Roundup:

• EDN
• Daily Wireless
• Design Technica
• The Wireless Weblog

Morning Links

• NewLC links to The Symbian GCC Improvement Project, which aims to update the Symbian-compatible GCC toolchain.
• Linux Today points to a Linux.com article that discusses using jabber and jann as a log monitor.
• Sci Fi Hi Fi has an amazing shot of Point Reyes.
• Simon Willison discusses backporting Python 2.3 code to 2.2.
• GonzoMoFo recaps some bugfixing for JXTA 2.3rc.
• OSNews on moving from Debian to SUSE and back again.
• Reuters: Clear Channel is getting ready to pay out on some of its indecency cases.
• Scott Hanselman has some notes on how to make .NET code happy in Mono.
• Jenny finds a killer use for SMS.
• Via Erik, Neil takes a tour of Firefox 0.9.
• Reuters: Roy Disney Wants Details on Eisner’s Pay
• Dejan Bosnac at ONJava discusses SMS-powered Java apps.
• OSNews has some interesting tidbits about what Apple may or may not be working on.
• Speaking of Apple, how about the new G5′s now up to 2.5GHz for the elite creative class.  I’m still looking for a cheap blue and white or grey and white G3/G4.  My G4′d 8500 runs 9.1 great, but I can’t quite coax OSX on to it.
• Blue Sky on Mars points to rome, an RSS/Atom library for Java.

Back to Reality

Things are finally starting to settle down after a few hectic days.  We’re almost done with leftovers and are finally starting to get back to our regular schedules.  Thanks again to the guys, Martin, Eric and his parents for mobilizing the champagne.

In other news, we ramped up the wireless infrastructure with a Linksys WRT54G on sale for $69 before rebates and $59 after.  That’s about $40 off what I’d expect to pay normally, $30 off the normal “sale” price, and below my “buy it” threshold.  I know that Linksys is pushing the SpeedBooster versions of their hardware, but 802.11g/b is faster than my internet pipes, and if I need to transfer anything faster, I’ll plug the thing in.  You know, with wires.  (Grandpa, tell us about when computers had wires!)

I picked the WRT54G because of an array of flashable Linux distros that I can put on it.  I’m going to run the stock firmware for a bit until I get things sorted out, but I’ll be shopping around for the best firmware for it.

I’m still way behind on my aggregating.  I should have a linkdump ready in the morning.

Mobile Wedding Technology

Special thanks to the mobitopians who sent along a bottle of chapagne.  You guys rock!  Yes, Erik, my parents are ecstatic.

Premarital Links

All the little details have been filled in and everything is set for tomorrow.  Until then, here are some links for you.  Hopefully I’ll have a chance to read them in depth during the week.

• Today is Python Bug Day.
• It’s good to have Russ back online again.  Go read now.
• Chris Sells is gearing up for another DevCon.  I know that it’s going to rock.
• I’ve been catching up Lessig, and it’s all worth reading.
• I’ve lost the via, but this Whidbey VB pseudoscreenshot makes me chuckle.
• Apache Practico is the Apache Cookbook en espanol.  I really need to learn how to type the proper letters in Spanish on a US keyboard.  Maybe then I’d look like less of a gringo.  Doubtful.
• OSNews: IRIX 6.5.24 Released
• Danny Ayers points to a free Python book.
• Appropriately found on the Duke Speaks! weblog, you can make Ant talk to you.
• Libopendaap is an open source C library for accessing iTunes shares.
• Phil Wainewright covers the three Ps of SOA.  SOA is the new black.
• Brood X (the current crop of Cicadas in the Eastern US) has been quiet for the past few days.  It’s been cooler and wet.  Hopefully they’ll shush tomorrow afternoon too.
• Joi Ito on NoteTaker, Ecto and TypePad
• BBC News: Former US President Ronald Reagan has died, aged 93, after reports in recent days that his health had taken a turn for the worse.
• Distrowatch covers a new Lycoris release, Feather Linux, LAMPPIX, and an intriguing debian-based firewall distro called Gibraltar.
• Via Lamda the Ultimate, Axiom is a computer Algebra system with its own programming language and other fun stuff.
• If Netcraft is right, we’re going to need spam filtering for our wikis.  Ugh.
• Hey, Knoppix 64 (for AMD), baby!
• Happy birthday, BeOS.
• RootPrompt: Sun confirms decision to open source Solaris
• RootPrompt: Behind four Linux community sites
• K5 on social engineering
• OSDir points to an Internet News article about Source Forge Enterprise Edition.  It’s a complete break from previous versions, and it runs atop a J2EE stack.
• Scott Hanselman notes that you can get XML Spy Home Edition for free.
• Newsforge carries the announcement of PHP 4.3.7.
• Alan Coopersmith talks about the XOrg release plans, seeing how the whole world is watching and all…
• Freshmeat has the announcement of Webmin 1.150.
• PyPI has the news of Mysql for Python 1.0.0.  Cool!
• Gizmodo has an interesting article on the the technical side of playing Ogg files on an iPod.

I’m Getting Married!

Expect things to be rather slow around these parts over the next few days.  I’m getting married on Sunday.  I will however do my best to moblog over the weekend, probably until someone confiscates the cameraphone from me.

Jodd

JSurfer earlier today noted that a new release of Jodd out.  Jodd is a general purpose Java library.  If you’re thinking about reinventing the wheel, it’s probably already been done in Jodd.  Browse through the javadocs for an idea of what you can do with it.  Jodd is distributed under a license that looks like a modified BSD one, so it should be suitable for incorporation to projects with lots of different license types.

EV-DV Sooner than you Think

Phone Scoop brings news that EV-DV chips are slowly inching down the pipeline:

STMicroelectronics (ST) and Texas Instruments (TI) today announced the delivery of sample CDMA 1xEV-DV chipsets to device manufacturers. In collaboration with Nokia, Korean carrier LG Telecom is testing the solution for its planned deployment of 1xEV-DV technology.

We should start seeing EV-DV tech hitting sometime during 2005, with a more widespread rollout 2006ish.  This seems to be in line with what I learned about EV-DV at ETech.  That’s the “slow” Rev C though.  It can only pull down about 3 megabits.  The uplink isn’t that fast, but the downlink is what you’re really worried about anyway.  The uplink speed will be fixed when Rev D comes out.

EV-DV is definitely a tech to keep an eye out for, and might hit some top 10 lists in 2005 or 2006.