Month: August 2006

Official Google Blog has this post titled How to move Ramses II:

Turns out some smart engineers work for the transportation contractor: they used Google Earth to plan the route, made the decision to move the 3200 year-old statue — and will do so this Friday, August 25, 2006. Walkways, cables, fences and road dividers are being brought down to make way! Trials and tests have been done to ensure the roads can handle the load, and now Ramses II will embark on what is most probably his last journey.

This is a good chance to learn something about Egyptian history and culture too. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia page about Ramses II:

It is said that there are more statues of him in existence than of any other Egyptian pharaoh, not surprising as he was the second-longest-reigning Pharaoh by many years (second to Pepi II).

Davig brings up an interesting discussion in his post Are Personal Blogs too Personal?. There are as many opinions on this as there are people in the blogosphere. And maybe even more, as some people change their opinions once in a while.

Why does the whole world need to know he activities and tasks that I take on?

My current thoughts on this issue go along the lines of – it’s not the activities and tasks that matter, but person’s attitudes towards them. In other words, of course, I don’t care one bit about someone going to a club last Friday and getting drunk into oblivion. It’s not what I am looking for in that post. What I am interested in are person’s feelings and thoughts on the subject. Those help me see the world via other people’s eyes. I start noticing things that I’ve never noticed before. I think more. I share my thoughts and feelings. And hopefully, it does good somewhere else. And that’s the beauty of the blogosphere. Not the activities or tasks that people take on.

Tim O’Reilly notes the heart of Web 2.0:

Whether it’s pagerank at Google, interestingness at Flickr, or diggs, or SmugMug’s most popular feature, we see all across the web attempts to incorporate human intelligence into web applications. As I’ve written many times, harnessing collective intelligence is the very heart of Web 2.0. And that intelligence is distinguished by its bionic nature: we’re building applications that are a fusion of human and machine.

Joel Spolsky raises an issue about Superstitious FAQ Writers:

Have you noticed that FAQ pages for online services almost never include instructions for how to cancel your account?

Yes, I’ve noticed that. But I’ve also noticed something else, something that forces me to constantly ask the same questioin every time I see a FAQ: “Have you noticed that FAQ pages almost never include really frequently asked questions?” They seem to only have questions that authors THINK are frequent. Either that or something else is a reason for that I never use FAQ pages.

Yes, my phone is dead. And this time CYTA has nothing to do with it. The phone itself decided to pass away. Actually, most of the functionality is there, and it still responds, but its touch screen is not functioning. And, if you don’t know, the only way to enter anything into SonyEricsson P800 is via its touch screen. Maxim has dropped it down one time too many.

While I’m sad about this loss, I am not THAT sad. The poor thing was getting old anyway. My blog records indicate that I’ve bought it around July 17, 2003, which makes it more than 3 years old. And that’s pretty old, if you ask me. Plus, I’ve been using it extensively. It was showing the age already – battery was getting flat pretty quickly, vibrator didn’t always work, it was getting stack way too often, the screen and body are all scratched…

My co-worker lended me a very old Nokia phone until I’ll get me a new one. But which model should I get?

My needs and wants have changed slightly. If you remember, I once wrote a post detailing what I am missing from a perfect phone. Since I got myself a laptop, I don’t need a smarphone anymore. Or I don’t need it at this very moment.

So, here are the things that I don’t need in my phone:

• Camera phone. They are all crap anyway.
• WiFi. There aren’t that many places around here where I can use it, plus the screen is too small, and the keyboard is too … well… small. If I need Internet, I’ll use my laptop.
• PIM. I am using enough of web services not to need any organizers in my phone. If I can set three simple reminders or so, that’s good enough for me. Plus an alarm clock. That’s it.
• FM Radio. I just don’t care anymore. And the headphones all suck. My ears hurt if I use any.
• GPS. As much as I’d love to have a GPS device, I don’t want to have one integrated with my mobile phone. Batterry life is way more important to me know.
• WAP. WAP is just dead and useless. I am trying to forget this abbreviation, so that it won’t accidentally slip out of my mouth and force me to explain the concept to my son.
• Nokia. I don’t want my phone to be from Nokia. I just don’t like the company.

Well, now that I’ve wrote that list above, I have a better picture of what I actually want to have in new mobile.

• Phone. Yes, it should have clear sound, good volume for when I am outside, and people should hear me too.
• Address book. This is one feature I’ve grown to love. I keep all my contacts in my address book in my phone, so that I have them all with me at all times. I want address book which can handle images for contacts – otherwise I forget who is who, and categories for contacts – so that I don’t have to go through all of them each time.
• Bluetooth. I make often backups. And I change ring tones and stuff.
• Battery life. Although I am pretty used to charging my phone once a day, I don’t want to have to do it.
• SMS tools. I am getting a lot of SMS. No, I mean A LOT OF SMS. There should be a way to delete all read or unread SMS quickly. Listing, reading, and navigating SMS should be very responsive. Bonus points for folders where I can separate and save messages.
• Synchronization. It would be nice to synchronize my phone with my Linux laptop. If I won’t have to re-compile kernel (or do some other similarly non-sense work) every time do so, I’ll be the happiest person on the planet.
• Buttons. I want my home to have buttons. I can leave without touch screen. Or I can have a touch screen additionally. But I want it to have buttons too.

That’s about it. Can you guys recommend anything that fits these criterias? It shouldn’t be hard finding a model or two that goes a long, should it?