WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Cool Tools: ImageJ

A real gem is hidden on a National Institues of Health website. ImageJ is an image manipulation tool that can be run on any platform and can also be offered via a browser. It's small, fast and offers easy image format conversion, cropping, "quick fix" editing and analysis and also offers a plug-in architecture. It can load files from web servers as well as the local disk so it's an ideal tool for grabbing and saving images you find on the web. A very sweet addition to both the web and local toolset.

[Previous cool tools: SDM - jEdit - jAlbum - jDiskReport ]

posted at 3:01 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

New Car

OK, so Volker beat me to it posting about the extremely cool EyeToy clone for the Mac, ToySight, which is also on my Christmas list, but I can tell you about the new car that I'm eyeing up. It's radio controlled via bluetooth using a phone like the T610 - you just use the joystick on the phone - and it plugs into the phone for charging. Reviews call it 'extravagant' and 'fun' (check out the video) so that fits as a suitable gift :-) Amazon have it - could be here by Christmas ;-)

posted at 9:44 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Homeopathic Spam Bill

It was only reading Dan Gillmor's item on the new US spam legislation titled 'CAN-SPAM' (which, like the PATRIOT Act is actually an acronym that even the least socialised geek would be embarrassed to coin) that I realised its name meant something other than I had imagined when I posted last week. I'd assumed that the legislators were caught up in the old error of using 'can' to mean 'may' and that the intent of the legislation was to define the parameters within which marketeers may spam unwilling recipients, thus making atonement to political donors for enshrining the wildly popular Do Not Call list in law.

But no, this was not an unusal foray into honesty (as that's exactly what the bill does - tell spammers they 'may', and make recipients responsible for joining an unworkable 'do-not-spam' registry which will offer the ultimate master mailing list for the unscrupulous). Instead, in a blinding flash of cross-cultural insight, I realise it's 'can' as in 'trash-can' and that this bill is supposed to end spam - "throw it in the can". In my mind it now lacks even a g-string of respectability - the very title of the bill is dishonest in the tradition of the subject lines of the spam it tries to address and I am disgusted. At least homeopathists believe what they are saying.

posted at 10:48 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

EclipseCon

This just in - I'll be one of the keynotes at EclipseCon in Anaheim in February, talking about the way open source is an expression of the massively connected society. Sun hasn't joined Eclipse for now, but this demonstrates a lack of basic hostility and a willingness to co-operate from both 'sides'. Looking forward to it!

posted at 7:15 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Java Source Code Available

In the course of discussion in his comments, Barry said that

I don't for example ever recall seeing the source code to the JVM or javac; like Windows its source is available (I believe) but only to specified partners, and I don't really have a problem with that, by the way.

and I realise plenty of people today don't know that the source code to Java is available for download and has been since at least 1995.

This was one of the main reasons for Java's success - individuals and university departments around the world (and indeed corporate labs like the one I worked in at the time) downloaded and ported Java and made it available for pretty much any platform. This was quite radical in its day and in my (perhaps controversial) opinion was the example that made it clear that open source would work in 1998-9. If only the guys who had retrospectively defined the term 'open source' had done it in a way that included Java...

posted at 11:05 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Plains vs Canyon

Robert Scoble thinks I want to put him out of business. That's not actually true - either personally or corporately. I respect Microsoft as a competitor and (heresy!) have long admired a great deal of the software engineering that's done there. I also do want them to change their behaviour so it stops putting people out of business (and I know it happens because it happened to me a long time ago, but we'll save that for another day) and respects the right of competitors to exist.

I recognise the "they're out to get us" paranoia that Robert expresses and which I've noted before seems characteristic of Microsoft's poker-game approach to business (which I first read about in 'Hard Drive' and seems intact even today). The way I've taken to thinking about this involves imagining how ecosystems might develop in canyons and on open plains (caveat: IANABiologist).

In a canyon, there's not much room for similar species. Once an animal takes up residence, similar species are unwelcome and may become prey or be chased away - it's live-or-die becuase (apparently) the habitat has limited resources. On the plains, there's room for everyone and animals learn to live together (albeit uncomfortably for prey animals) or ignore each other. Canyon-dwellers want to win - plains-dwellers want to flourish. Plains- and canyon-dwelling creatures have a hard time understanding each other - they are starting from such different places that the basic mindset of the other seems ridiculous. Sun is a plains-dwelling creature and as such is used to co-existing. Microsoft is a canyon-dwelling creature and only total victory counts as success.

So while there are both competitive living to be done and past wrongs to right, I'm not trying to put you out of business, Robert. But I fear the reverse may not be true.

Update:Barry conflates the two articles today and takes me to task saying Sun's "co-existence" is just copying Microsoft. But I'm taking a broader view here, describing what I think is a long-term corporate character trait. Sun 1, NFS, Java were all genuinely innovative business moves. That's what I'm referring to as a 'plains dweller' - Sun took each of those things and used them to create an ecosystem, not a monopoly.

posted at 3:02 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Looking Glass Redux

As well as the excitement of getting 100x my usual traffic following my Looking Glass posting, I have been interested over the last week to watch two clear reactions to Looking Glass. One is best summed up as "Way Cool" and the other as "Bah, Humbug".

Most of the posts I have seen in the "Cool" category have been appreciative of the eye-candy, rather than getting excited about anything specific. On the other hand, the "Humbug" category (ignoring a little anti-Sun rock-throwing, especially on SlashDot and in the Seattle PI comments) has yielded plenty of detailed discussion, but most of it seems to have been about whether LG is actually a 3D interface ("no coloured glasses?") and whether, abstractly, 3D interfaces have anything to offer (usually from people who sound as if they feel GUIs are inferior to EMACS). Very few have actually commented on the specific innovations shown in the demos.

SciFi HiFi seems to be in the 'Humbug' category (and from Apple, Chris!), asking "what does 3D buy us in the GUI". I've tried Looking Glass and the best thing it brings is the ability to clear space on the desktop without dismissing or hiding the windows involved. Expose is great (I'm a Mac user) but temporary - when I resume work the clutter comes back. LG offers another approach to clearing space for work, where I can slant & stack windows to the left and right of my workspace. Parked like that I can still get an idea of their content or maybe even read them, and that feature alone is very worthwhile. I don't think anyone has commented on it though.

Being demonstrated for theatrical effect at COMDEX may have given the impression that it's some sort of polished, about-to-be-released product, but it's still a prototype. As such offers a place to experiment with other ideas - some good, some not so. Being able to flip a window and use a 'stickie' on the back of it is handy, replacing icons on the 'dock' with mini versions of the full window is less so, and applications attempting to be "completely 3D" definitely need work - the CD Player is a work-in-progress.

posted at 2:42 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Toys

A clutch of new things to report:

• VersionTracker yielded an answer to a long-standing question of how to use my iSight to capture video clips - GCam. Nice and simple, does the job. I see Volker has spotted it too.
• AKMA's recommendation took me to Gentium, which is a delicious Unicode font that I'll be using often I suspect.
• John Lewis finally had an iCurve in stock (this is what I think Ted needs) so my Powerbook is ergonomically positioned at eye-level and I have a new bluetooth keyboard. I'd like a bluetooth mouse too but haven't come to terms with minimalist Mac mice yet so am still using the Wacom Graphire.

Now December is here I suppose I should follow the family tradition and buy myself no more toys. Well, maybe one or two small ones won't hurt...

posted at 11:51 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Vapo(u)r Trail

I was up early this morning here in Southampton. Couldn't sleep. Went to the 8am eucharist.

Vapo(u)r Trail

A vapour trail gives prelude to the dawn
glowing peach on palest blue morning sky
and the waning moon has started to set
in the west where sunrise is yesterday's dream
and the waning moon has started to rise
radiant gold on deep blue-black night sky
star-studded awaiting the vapor trail.

Fresh winter mornings almost worth having this cold for (which is why I've not been posting - felt too yuck).

posted at 9:50 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |