Not too long ago, I mentioned the Netgear Skype WiFi phone, which was due to come out in the first quarter of 2006. Forgot about this, until Chris recently pointed me towards Amazon who are now accepting pre-orders. But, at $250, it’s significantly more than my guess back in March of around £100 ($160), and now out of my price range.
Amazon’s pre-order price tag is even expensive by market rates, considering the fact that Sipgate are doing a WiFi phone for £109. Admittedly, it doesn’t look as stylish as Netgear’s product, but the functionality is similar enough.
Given the price tag, and some of the early reviews I read, I’m not going to be one of the early adopters of this product. I’m sure it’ll be a success though, which will hopefully prompt other companies to create similar products, and drive the price down. I’d also like to see someone make a regular wired skype phone (which could be used without a PC), which should be relatively cheap. The GrandStream BT-101 looks tempting, but doesnt work with Skype.
Looks like I’m stuck with the USB Cyberphone-K for a little longer, though admittedly, its been hassle-free for the most part since I got it eleven months ago.
Tags: skype, netgear, wifi, voip, phone, sipgate, cyberphone-k
I’ve been using GMail for a while, and with the combination of the new feature where GMail allows changing the from address setting and the relaunch of my personal blog, decided use some of my invites to create multiple accounts for myself to manage email.
Creating seperate GMail accounts took a few minutes, and reconfiguring all my email to forward all email to these new accounts instead of a pop3 box was also a painless task thanks to the brilliant CPanel utility my hosting provider is using.
Until now, Google’s standard GMail notifier has been working fine, though it’s only designed to work with one account, and there doesn’t appear to be any movement on adding multiple account support anytime soon.
There are a few options out there:
- GAlert
- Gmail Manager (Firefox Extension)
- Notify2
- ePrompter
- Pop Peeper (uses pop3)
- PopTray (needs secure plugin to work with GMail and uses pop3)
I’m using PopTray for checking various other pop3 accounts, and this is freeware gold. A massive thumbs up to Renier Crause for creating such a fantastic utility and releasing it as freeware. Having tried lots of various pop3 checker utilities over the years, when I found PopTray over 2 years ago, my search came to an end, and I’ve been a satisfied user ever since. However, the Gmail plugin is a little flaky, and doesn’t work so well.
Only found out about Pop Peeper recently, and after reading through the help online, it seems to have some trouble with checking GMail. After my experience with managing GMail via pop3 with Poptray, this is an awkward route, and not an ideal solution, resulting in my decision to not waste time trying this one.
Along the same lines, I’ve had very brief periods of trying to use Outlook and Eudora to manage my Gmail accounts via pop3, and found the whole thing awkward. Although this would probably work well for people who want to download their email into an email client, I’m happy, and prefer to keep my mail on the server so that it can be accessed from multiple PC’s, mobile phone, etc.
Another option I only found recently was notifier2, which looks promising. There’s a trial version available, which is limited to 4 accounts and checking at 15 minute intervals, and a licence is only $10. It does a lot more than just check GMail, including checking things like Sitemeter, Adsense, etc. But, it lasted all of five minutes on my system, as it’s not really geared around Gmail, doesn’t allow easy logging into multiple accounts, and doesn’t appear to have a decent notification system for new messages.
Some time ago, I tried ePrompter, which I think is one of the worst designed, most amateur looking applications I’ve used. It appears to have some nice functionality, but can do with heavy improvement to its interface. The layout, colours and fonts are sickly, and using this on a daily basis would make nauseous. Look at the screenshots below:
It would make sense for the author of this application to spend a couple hundred dollars to get a designer improve this interface, remove that terrible Tell your friends about ePrompter text, and release this as shareware. At least it wont make its users sick. As things stand, I’m not going anywhere near this ever again.
That leave the final system tray application, which is also the one which clearly stood apart from its competition, GAlert. The developers tout this as a better Google notifier, with support for both email and news, multiple accounts, skinning, etc. It seemed to work well enough, and after spending a few hours knocking up a custom skin to my liking, bought a licence. Not much at $13.50 for a single PC.
Although it’s a decent and robust application, after some days use, I’ve realised that it has a few annoying quirks. The context menu lists new mail in accounts, but to my annoyance, clicking on them doesn’t always launch my browser with the correct account (Update: clearing the cookie cache in Internet Explorer seems to solve this problem). Overall, it needs some polishing up, though it serves my basic needs. Accounts get checked at 5 minute intervals, and a nice little alert pops up in the corner of my screen with the sender, subject, summary, and time of the message.
Combined with the GMail Manager extension for Firefox, it’s actually relatively easy to keep track of multiple accounts. This extension adds a small unobtrusive icon to your status bar, and makes actually logging into the different accounts painless, with just three clicks (right-click, choose account, left click on icon). If GAlert worked in the same way, it would be perfect.
There’s still a market for a product that can do this though… ideally, something combining the best features of Notify2, GAlert, and Gmail Manager. I’d happily pay upto a decent product that checked and gave easy access to all my GMail accounts, decent new email notification, showed my Google Adsense, and had an intuitive interface. With Google Calendar out now as well, and the API in the pipeline, it would be good to see a windows app integrating with this too.
For now, I’m sticking with GAlert to check email, and GMail Manager to log in to each individual account. Works for me 
Tags: google, gmail, email, multiple accounts, gmail notifier, galert, gmail manager, notify2, eprompter, pop peeper, poptray, pop3, google calendar
We use Dell servers for everything, and they’re generally good machines. Although others have had negative experience with Dell Support, I’ve called them a couple of times and always found them to be good (though perhaps because I spoke to someone in a call centre in Scotland rather than India).
As part of our network changes where we’re implementing virtualisation, we needed to format the windows partition of an SC420 server, and re-install Windows 2003 server afresh.
The problem is that the Dell OpenManage software doesn’t allow you to install Windows on an existing partition, forcing you to wipe the hard disk completely in order to install Windows. This means losing all partitions, so you can forget copying data between partitions to back it up.
This is a bad move on Dell’s part. The software should at least give the option of re-installing on an existing partition. The problem is made worse by the fact that this system has SCSI RAID drives which means Windows needs to be fed drivers via floppy disk during setup. The Dell PowerEdge SC420 doesnt’ come with a floppy disk drive.
It’s very frustrating that despite the massive uptake of portable flash-based USB drives, that Windows is still dependent on the age-old floppy disk for installation on machines using RAID. There’s absolutely no way of supplying the drivers in any other way.
There’s little choice, except to perhaps find a floppy drive from an old PC sitting around somewhere, and temporarily hook it up to get Windows working. That’s assuming the motherboard has a floppy disk drive connector.
Makes me wonder whether we’ll ever really be free of those 3.5″ pieces of plastic and magnetic film. At least not until Microsoft allow RAID drivers to be supplied via other means…
Tags: dell, openmanage, partitions, microsoft, windows, raid, floppy disk, usb drive
I’m a keen Basecamp user, and recently wanted to start building some custom functionality based around the API. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a C# wrapper out there, allowing easy access to the API from within .NET, so I’ve created a simple version to do this.
Download it here: SimpleBasecampApi.zip (17 April 2006)
The solution contains two projects. A class library project, consisting of one class, BasecampApi.cs, which has only one method, SendRequest(string command, string request). The command text is always prefixed with a forward slash, eg. /project/list. The request text is an XML string which is posted with the request, as required by the Basecamp API documentation.
As this was built relatively quickly, there’s no data validation, and very little error checking, so if you use this in production code, these are things you should consider implementing. However, I am planning to improve on this, so you might want to check back once in a while to see if there have been any updates.
The second project is a sample winforms applications, which allows you to test the API. It can be used to send requests, and view the XML data sent back. To avoid the hassle of entering your url, username and password each time, simply modify the app.config file accordingly.
Although this simple API wrapper works relatively well, it still requires manual creation and manipulation of XML data. I’ve started working on a second, more advanced version, which wraps objects around the XML data, making it much more intuitive to use. However, there is significant work required in getting this to work properly, and I don’t know if there is enough demand for it to justify the work involved.
I’ll post a copy up here on my blog when I’ve done a bit more work on it, but in the meantime, if anyone is interested, feel free to get in touch and I’ll send you a copy of what I’ve done so far.
Update – 02 May 2006: There’s a really nice PHP Basecamp API wrapper at QuirkeyBlog. Haven’t tested it out yet, but reading the documentation, it’s usage is similar how I imagined the improved C# version wrapper working. Sadly, there wasn’t much (any) feedback on the this post despite numerous downloads, so the job of improving it has taken a back seat, as there appears to be very little demand.
Update – 10 December 2006: It’s good to see someone take this foundation and extend it. Someone has written a much more comprehensive .NET wrapper around the Basecamp API, with proper objects (rather than having to manually craft and parse XML data). It’s only compatible with .NET 2.0 though, but it seems like a lot of people have started using this for new development work anyway. This is definitely worth checking out.
Tags: basecamp, api, wrapper, c#, .net, programming, project management
I’ve been using Google Calendar for a coupla days now, and am impressed. It’s easy and intuitive to use, and has the usual ajaxified interface we’ve all come to know and love from Google. As expected, it hasn’t changed much from the leaked CL2 Google Calendar screenshots on Techcrunch last month.
With the excellent Stopdesign collaborating with Google, it’s not hard to see why this project has turned out so well. The company has also worked with Google before, on the Blogger.com redesign, which was also a huge step forward from it’s predecessor. It’s also nice to see Google implement good web functionality such as RSS integration, easy publishing of calendars, easy sharing of calendars, and a decent API.
Like Dare’s experience, I haven’t really used calendaring much in my personal life. It’s handy for work, to keep track of meetings, deadlines, etc, but outside of the office, it’s of little importance to me. But, I have to agree with Charlene Li in that Google Calendar creates a platform for “Time” applications. The API is going to be the real key in making this a success.
It’s going to be fantastic when Outlook can integrate directly with this, which according to Google Calendar’s project manager Carl Sjogreen will be coming “soon”. However, given that Google said they were working on multiple account support for GMail notifier a year ago, and nothing has happened yet, it’s anyone’s guess as to how soon we can really expect to see Outlook support. Having said that, Outlook integration with GMail is a lot more visible than multiple account support for GMail Notifier, so I imagine this will take priority.
As applications are built on this, it’s going to be a lot more useful. No doubt, it’s going to integrate strongly with Gmail somehow, but I’m really looking forward to the day when, say, my Sky TV planner integrates directly with my Google Calendar, so I can keep track of what TV shows I want to watch (or record). No doubt, we’ll also be able to integrate things like Basecamp and Backpack into this too, which will be very helpful. This could turn out to be the calendar of calendars.
When GMail launched, a couple of friends refused to move from Hotmail because they used the calendar functionality, which GMail didn’t have. Maybe they’ll finally make the move now.
There’s more about Google Calendar on the The Google Blog.
Update: From Microsoft Watch, Microsoft Readies Multi-Pronged Calendar Assault, which speaks briefly about Microsoft’s calendar application in the pipeline. However, having been using Windows Live Mail Beta for a few months now, it’s a sore disappointment, and if this is Microsoft’s answer to Google Calendar, they have nothing to worry about.
Tags: Google, Calendar, CL2, Gmail, Time, Outlook
I’m using numerous tracking tools on all my websites, including TheCounter.com, Google Analytics, and the usual log analysers like Analyzer, AWStats, etc. But, recently, I came across MyBlogLog, which offers outbound link tracking without interfering with your website.
This really is one of the coolest tracking services I’ve seen, and the basic package is free! Although this is good enough for most people, there’s also a premium service, if you want real-time tracking a few other things, and at just $25 per year, it’s probably worth it just to support these guys for creating something such a cool stats tool.
They’re also a great bunch of folks! I emailed them twice in a single day with suggestions, and got a personal reply each time, within an hour, letting me know they’d already implemented some of my suggestions. That’s what you call good customer service!
While I’m talking about analysis tools, I should add that on the other end of the scale, TheCounter.com happens to be one of the less efficient companies I’ve dealt with, and I expect more from them, especially as they’re part of JupiterMedia which is a digital company.
To start with, for a paid service, the amount of marketing they shove down their users throat is abysmal (by way of annoying banners on their login page, though AdBlock can filter all this out), and their customer service is just as bad.
Trying to renew my subscription was a farce, and involved slogging through my various email accounts to find to the initial email they sent me with some ridiculous order number, which was needed to process the renewal. C’mon guys, you’re a digital company! Make it easy for me to use your services and give you my money!
Well, anyway, that aside, go on, sign up with MyBlogLog and find out where your readers are going when they leave your site!
Tags: mybloglog, logging, tracking, click, thecounter, google analytics, blogging
It’s no secret that Firefox is a complete dog with its memory management. Its memory usage is excessive, and it can get very sluggish, very quickly. It’s not unusual for me to have to manually kill the firefox.exe process 3-4 times on a good day, as it gets so bloated and eventully just hangs.
I’m also forced to think twice whenever installing any new extensions, for fear of further damaging my already fragile browser. Not sure what it is with Gmail, but there’s around a 40% chance Firefox will crash whenever I open it up (so I need to make sure I don’t have anything critical on screen whenever I double-click the GAlert icon in the system tray).
Just came across a tip (via Venture Chronicles) on how to stop Firefox’s excessive memory usage. It’s not a guaranteed fix, but it does help, and it’s so simple, you’ve gotta wonder why it’s not enabled as standard.
The thing that makes Firefox so great is the huge number of extensions available. Quite simply, a vanilla install of Firefox doesn’t cut it anymore, and the trade-off with memory usage is worth it. The recent news of crtical vulnerabilities in Windows doesn’t help either, and I’ve been using Internet Explorer even less in recent weeks.
Tags: firefox, memory, internet explorer, browser
It seems like the the firefox extensions website has changed, and it’s become quite a disappointment. It used to be easy to quickly skim the list of new extensions, with their summaries, and check whether anything worth installing had become available.
But, not now. Mozilla only list the most recent extensions, but to see anything more than the name, you have to click them one-by-one, which is ridiculous. To add insult to injury, the ‘Recently Updated’ header links to the RSS feed, rather than display the list a HTML in your browser.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but I’ve tried figuring out where to find a list of new extensions ordered descending, and can’t find it, so either it’s been removed, or there are some serious usability issues there, which Firefox haven’t thought about.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who checks the site for newest extensions, and by removing this feature, Mozilla has made it significantly harder to see these. I’m very disappointed. Hope they put this feature back.
Tags: firefox, extensions, usability
I’ve been meaning to blog about this for ages, but it seems Scott Hanselman beat me to it, and has a great entry on how to track down a trojan, showing which tools to use, and how to use them. The free tools from Sysinternals are brilliant, and should be part of any techie’s toolkit!
Of course, you could just use Firefox, which will probably reduce your chances of being attacked by 90%! (or more!) 
Tags: trojan, virus, cleaning, sysinternals, tcpview, process explorer, autoruns, tcpview
It was painful, but I’ve finally abandoned MovableType and moved to WordPress. Although old posts have been imported, WordPress seems to ignore attributes on some HTML elements, so things like images and the code highlighting isn’t working on all posts. But, hopefully, now that I’m using a decent blogging platform, I’ll be posting more.
I’m going to have to read up a little on mod_rewrite to ensure that visitors can find some of the popular posts easily…
I’ve also updated the About section, with more information about me (though it still has the same cheesy photograph!). The contact page has also been tweaked, primarily to fit in with the new design, which now has the sidebar on the right throughout the site.
Tags: wordpress, movabletype, blogging