Living in the digital world - from a personal point of view

Virtualization is becoming more and more popular even in the industrial world as I could see on the ITnT trade fair a few weeks ago. I for myself also decided recently to give it a try because I had to work on a word document and I didn’t want to switch between OpenOffice (running on Linux or on my Mac) or the Mac version of MSOffice and the Windows version. So I decided to install Windows on my Intel based iMac.

While I knew VMware from working with it on Linux and Windows before, I also knew that Parallels has been primarily developed for the Mac. Both provide a trial version for free download, so which of them should I give the try? (more…)

Recently I saw a news article on washingtonpost.com saying that Starbucks dumps T-Mobile in favor of AT&T. This reminded me of my experiences during my last travels in the United States where I had my Nokia N800 with me and always tried to find an open hotspot to check my emails and to look things up on the internet.

But no matter if it was for AT&T at McDonalds or T-Mobile at Starbucks, they all want you to pay and it’s not really cheap (although the new plans of AT&T are now slightly cheaper). (more…)

Isn’t that a funny coincidence? Just when I was thinking about how a better PDA could be designed using artificial intelligence I get an email from a collegue about an article in The Independent on Computers ‘to match human brains by 2030′

And hey, no matter if Ray Kurzweil is right with his statements about the future, I’m pretty sure there is really a lot more to come what still sounds to be science fiction. Just look around! We’re already living a lot of science “fiction”.

But of course, when I imagine having electronic artificial assistants to help me thinking, I also get scared. What if they control me? What if they’re linked and get control over the world? If one part of science fiction gets real why not anything of the bad side effects?

I cannot say a clear opinion on this. On the one hand side I don’t want to be dependent on electronic devices but on the other hand side I appreciate any help to improve my chaotic life… (But at the current state of devices available I often have the impression that they do more improve the chaos than help to organize something ;))

I always forget things. All day long. All ToDos for the day, any dates within a week, or arrangement with others. A little while ago I went to the supermarket while the shopping list was still lying on the table. Although I nevertheless managed to buy nearly everything, but I still forgot that this week it’s my duty to buy some fruits for the office (which of course was not on my list!).

Why am I telling you this? And what does this have to do with a PDA?
Well, probably a PDA could have avoided some of my above mentioned problems. But there are many reasons why I don’t have a PDA…

Some years ago I had one of the first Palm devices. I mainly used it for storing address data and of course for the calendar. The first thing to mention and I think it’s still the same these days with all devices available: The problem with synchronizing data. To get the data on the device and from the device to a dedicated application running on Windows is not the problem, but if you’re using Linux or if you want exchange data with other portable devices, you don’t have much fun if you manage it at all. (more…)

my iGoogle

It happened this weekend at my cousin’s place that I used his laptop and suddenly when trying to google something I looked on a screen completely different from what I was used to.

Instead of a blank white page with the colored Google letters and a search field it said something with iGoogle and there was a background picture and widgets. But instead of reacting like “ooh, what happend with Google”, I rather somehow liked it.

However I had the feeling that this is not a new invention and I think I remember of my first reaction when I heard about the personalized Google search page the first time: I didn’t like it at all. Wikipedia dates the first customizable homepage to May 2005 and the now available iGoogle to April 2007. I just loved the puristic concept of the simple Google search page and not having an overcrowded page as everyone else has. But this weekend my opinion changed. (more…)

Hey, wait!

I know, this is just an empty template. The content is already waiting to be put on.
I have soooo much in mind. It all wants to get out into the world!

But, damn. I do have to type it all in here… Isn’t there any other interface for this?

Ok, I guess this will take some time. So please be patient and stop by from time to time.