Mobile Barcoder Firefox Addon – a Hi/Lo Tech Coupler for your laptop and mobile

Published 7 February 2010 Android , Mobile Working , Product Review Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

Ian Leader: I’m playing around with QR codes a lot at the moment, and I just came across the Firefox Mobile Barcoder addon. If you mouse-over the icon in the bottom browser bar, this addon will create and display a 2 dimensional QR code containing the URL of the current web page. Then just scan it with your SmartPhone, and the URL will open in your mobile – a handy way to avoid typing on your phone:

Unfortunately I couldn’t get it to work with any software on my BlackBerry Curve (8520), but it works perfectly with the barcode reader on the T-Mobile G1 (Android):

Continue reading ‘Mobile Barcoder Firefox Addon – a Hi/Lo Tech Coupler for your laptop and mobile’

Adding DNS entries to a Fonera 2.0n or what’s FON really about?

Published 31 January 2010 Kind of technical , Open Source Leave a Comment
Tags: ,

Ian Leader: I’ve been using a LinkSys (now Cisco) WRT54GL as my home WiFi / router / firewall for about four years, and particularly since the OpenWrt initiative released the WhiteRussian version of their open source firmware, it’s been a joy to use: a fully-featured, flexible web GUI with both simple and advanced administration modes, access to a very wide range of linux packages, and a plugin architecture in the web GUI that allows you to add and configure a great deal of them without getting your hands dirty.

However, the hardware’s old and doesn’t support 802.11N wifi, so I bought a Fonera 2.0n. As well as 802.11N, it’s got a host of other features like USB support (for storage or webcams, or…) and applications to handle uploads and downloads to Picasa, FaceBook, Torrents and other applications / protocols. It’s also based on OpenWrt, and uses a version of the same Luci user interface.

Unfortunately, for my setup there was one key difference: There’s a module called dnsmasq on both platforms that runs a DNS server (amongst other things), and allows you to specify DNS entries for local servers. In OpenWrt WhiteRusian this is pretty simple: You add entries to /etc/hosts.local in the normal format e.g.

192.168.1.100 server1

Then reboot the device (this is pretty brute force, but simpler than remembering which init.d / rc.d script to run). Other settings like the DNS suffix (e.g. myhouse.mydomain.com) can be set in the web UI.

The Fonera doesn’t play nicely like this, and there simply doesn’t seem to be any file pre-configured where you can add entries, nor does it let you set the DNS suffix through the web UI. Here’s how I made it work:

Continue reading ‘Adding DNS entries to a Fonera 2.0n or what’s FON really about?’

Bringing together e-Learning, Communications and Knowledge Management

Published 5 January 2010 Articles / Papers , Collaboration and KM , Learning Technologies , Reprint Leave a Comment

Ian Leader: Inside Learning Technologies magazine’s November 2009 issue published an article I co-authored with colleagues Piers Lea and Patrick Dunn, “The Unification of e-Learning, Communications and Knowledge Management“.

The article looks at the benefits of bringing these complementary areas together within organisations – a trend that is definitely underway. It also considers organisational structures and other issues that have impeded widespread implementation of technology platforms that bring knowledge, learning and communications together within corporations.

Read the full article here.

RoadSync release decent push gmail client for Nokia / Symbian – better than BlackBerrry?

Published 24 December 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Ian Leader: About a year ago,  I posted a new years wish list that included “A decent Google mail…client for the Nokia E-series phones.” At the time I was using RoadSync to get push email from Exchange on my E51, and wondered if they might add IMAP support.

They left it almost to the last minute, but yesterday, Roadsync 5.0 for Symbian S60 was released, an now includes support for Google apps: push IMAP email, in addition to calendar and contacts sync through ActiveSync that’s been available since the summer.

I’m pleased to say that it does exactly what it says on the tin:

Continue reading ‘RoadSync release decent push gmail client for Nokia / Symbian – better than BlackBerrry?’

The Difference Engine

Published 18 December 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Jon Bradford: The Jay Eye Sea blog has been (sadly?) bereft of posts from yours sincerely over the last 9 months.  The primary reason has been The Difference Engine, an early stage digital accelerator based in the North East of England.

Since inception, it has taken around 12 months and a lot of discussions to get the programme off the ground.  As with any business proposition I had to articulate my rationale and justification for the project – my attempt was a white paper called “A Perfect (Disruptive) Storm”.  For the purposes of history and for those might be interested in attempting this in their own region a copy of the final “draft” of the paper is available below.

Continue reading ‘The Difference Engine’

Nexus One: Android’s Gold Standard

Published 13 December 2009 Android , Articles / Papers , Google , Rant , iPhone 1 Comment

Jon Bradford: It is all over the blogosphere – the fabled Google phone really does exist.  The first picture of the Nexus One has already appeared on Twitter and it is only a matter of time before we start getting full reviews by Google employees and the internet’s glitterati.

So why have Google got themselves into the hardware game after many different quotes from Eric Schmidt to the contrary?  By creating the Nexus One, I believe that Google have created their own Android “Gold Standard” against which all other Android phones will be measured.  This is in part to challenge hardware manufacturers and more importantly to control network operators.

Continue reading ‘Nexus One: Android’s Gold Standard’

Launch of Google groups brings Apps closer to a credible Intranet platform – but search still a problem…

Published 10 December 2009 Collaboration and KM , Google Leave a Comment

Ian Leader: Today Google launched Groups for Google Apps, making discussion forum functionality available to organisations using the Premier and Education editions of apps. I think this is a significant development, as it finally makes Apps a credible option for company Intranets. Although Google have promoted Sites as a tools for Intranets for some time, the lack of any form of discussion forum (beyond blog comments) was a serious weakness compared to commercial and open source tools that have been generally available for some time.

Continue reading ‘Launch of Google groups brings Apps closer to a credible Intranet platform – but search still a problem…’

tracked.com – great business info, but still asleep at 9:00 this morning

Published 23 October 2009 Product Review Leave a Comment

Ian Leader: I registered on tracked.com this morning, and it’s just what I’ve been looking for – a site that lets me track news, filings, financial data etc on a list of companies I’m interested in (my particular interest is staying up to date with news on clients and prospects). I have a subscription to the Financial Times, and it should be possible to do the same thing there, but it’s just not easy, whereas tracker has a simple, friendly, responsive interface.

They’ve only just come out of stealth mode, so the following may well be a teething problem, but their news feed seems to be a bit behind – there are three articles on companies in my watch list in the FT this morning, one on the front page, and these haven’t showed up in my tracked.com news feed at 9:00 (CET) – even though they will have hit the FT web site before midnight last night.

I’ll see how things improve over the next few weeks, but I already know what I’d really like to see: tracked.com and SalesForce.com integration, so that:

  1. tracked.com will automatically populate a watchlist from the accounts I own on SalesForce.com, and
  2. latest news from tracked.com will appear in a section on the screen when I look at an account or opportunity in SalesForce.com.

Update: Michael Yavonditte from tracked.com got back to me very quickly to say they are sorting out the issue with delays in the feed.

Michael Yavonditte

Tom Tom beats Google maps on road network updates

Published 18 August 2009 Geospatial Technology , Google 1 Comment

Ian Leader: And so they should, as they own Tele Atlas. Here in Zurich, we’ve been frustrated that the Uetliberg tunnel, a major new bypass many years in the making was opened in May 2009, but in mid-August, Google maps still doesn’t show it as a road (although you can see the entrance road-works in the satellite view here)

Google_Maps_No_UetlibergTunnel

Tom Tom recently launched a free on-line maps / navigation service, and though overall Google maps is slicker and faster Continue reading ‘Tom Tom beats Google maps on road network updates’

Google Apps support for OpenID is half a step in the right direction

Published 31 July 2009 Google , Kind of technical Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

Ian Leader: Today’s announcement that Google apps will be an OpenID authentication provider is a welcome step forward for Open ID.  For those not familiar with , it’s like corporate single sign-on for the web:  you can use the same user ID / password on multiple sites owned and run by different organisations, provided those sites are OpenID-enabled.

And there’s the rub – unless the sites you actually use are OpenID-enabled (wordpress.com where we host this blog is, the FT subscription-only web site isn’t), it’s not much use. Google’s move increases the pool of users who have OpenIDs, and will generate publicity that may push more sites to support it, but what would really change things is if Google decided to accept other providers’ OpenIDs to access  GMail, Google Calendar and so on. If that happened, it would close the circle and make OpenID genuinely useful for a huge number of users.

Continue reading ‘Google Apps support for OpenID is half a step in the right direction’

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