graham.reeds/

Going pro

Remember The Milk has launched a pro version of itself. I know that a lot of work has gone into RTM and they’ve been working on it for three years for free, but it still isn’t ready to be sold on as a complete product. In my mind there are quite a few (as I see it) glaring problems that are currently holding them back from being taken seriously as a fully fledged product.

• Date additions don’t work.
• Lack of task dependencies.
• Lack of sub-lists.
• No start date for tasks.
• Emails don’t contain enough information.
• Haphazard UI.
• The price is too high: $25 per year is very expensive for a beta product. I would say they would get a lot higher response if they charged $1 per month – more than enough to make up the short-fall.

The last one is the kicker. They have to differentiate between the free and beta product. Currently it is only email support that the paid up crowd get – and they already get a good community service from the user message boards.

Now they can go two ways. Give the new features to the Pro group initially, essentially making them beta testers, and then releasing them after a period (1 year?) to the free crowd. Or not give the free users any of the new features that they’ve been screaming for for ages.

Makes me almost want to start my own…

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My slow network

Finally got around to checking out my network and why it is appallingly slow. Well it took me about 30 seconds to figure out but setting things aright might take a bit longer.

For reasons known only to the hardware engineers at Abit, my KX7-333R refused to accept the Belkin PCI network card (wouldn’t even post with it present). So I got a USB one instead – after the amount of faff I’ve had with them I wish I wired up the house with good old fashioned cat-5: The speed is less than stellar and it cuts out from time to time.

As with most things I procrastinated instead of doing something about but when it came down to it, it was something simple holding it back: My machine just isn’t good enough. It doesn’t have USB 2.0 so the speed is limited to less than a meg a second. Using TeraCopy, I timed my system to 680kb/sec average while copying a 700mb file from one machine to the other.

No wonder backing up my photo’s to DVD was like gouging my eyes out with a spoon.

So what can I do about it? Well I might flash the bios, but that is unlikely to grant me USB2. What it might do though is grant me the use of the PCI card which I would of liked to of used in the first place. However flashing comes with it’s own dangers. Less dangerous is upgrading the motherboard drivers. While this probably won’t allow the use of the PCI card, it might give me a meagre 1% through put across the whole system, and the usb1.1 drivers may improve stability and stop the disconnections. Maybe.

Here goes nothing…

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Deviant practices by Big Blue

IBM have started making their developerWorks section available only if you sign up. This is fair enough, they have a good resource and they have the right to track the comings and goings of their readers.

However the thing that riles me every time I have to log in is their practice of taking me to a page where I can “review my contact information” – like it changes regularly – but there are two tick boxes at the bottom of the page, both unchecked:

• Please use e-mail to send me information about other offerings
• Please do not use this data to send me information about other offerings

It is sooo infuriating having to tick the bottom box on each log in because I know that if I forget, even just once, I will be buried under an avalanche of spam. While it may not be illegal it certainly isn’t friendly.

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“Sod this, I’m going back to bed”

said the stranger on the platform.

“I think I’ll join you” I thought. Then I corrected myself: “To my bed obviously”.

A cold, wet, constant drizzle on a Wednesday morning and the 7:08 train hadn’t arrived. Nor had the 7:43 or the 8:43. In fact no trains had been seen in either direction since I arrived and it is now 9:08. I have been drizzled on for 2 hours continuous, the rain is running off my coat onto my legs and I am thoroughly pissed off. I’m going home.

So I am now in, in a change of clothes and warmed up via a nice cup of coffee. What was the hold up? According to the National Rail website there is a “PA system fault. No announcements until further notice.” Well that’s helpful. Where’s the trains?

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And before I retire to my bed…

…I will leave you with this post.

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Heroes

Me and Mrs Bear has just finished our marathon sessions of watching the TV series Heroes. An enjoyable roller-coaster of plot twists and turns let down by a poor ending.

Spoiler Warning: Firstly Sylar’s ‘death’. Hiro was a short run away from him. Sylar could have easily stopped him from running him through. Better would be if Sylar flung the parking meter via telekinesis at Hiro just to have him micro-hop through it and then run him through, more exciting and believable than the invincible Sylar being beaten by a Japanese version of Comic-book guy. It was just too easy. Also you knew Sylar was going to get away – you saw him take half a clip from Parkman early in the series and survive. Being run through is a piece of cake for him. Also it opens it up for Season 2 (or Volume 2 as they are calling it).

There’s also a couple of other why’s like why in Suresh’s flat didn’t Peter lie down when Sylar caused all the glass to levitate? It was obvious he was going to locate Peter in a Die Hard fashion. Even though he didn’t lie down, why was he facing away from Sylar when the glass hit? Why didn’t he block it with telekinesis and send it back his way?

And with the second season being apparently just 9 weeks away and a 6 part “Origins” series slated for the mid-season break I am left wondering who the person is that when Molly looks for him she can’t see but he can see her…

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eco-madness

Mrs Bear is bit of an eco warrior when it comes to shopping so we get the decomposable bin liners (which are literally rubbish), the food with less packaging (never mind the taste), and eggs which are free range (because cages are cruel).

So when we were out we got some eggs from Asda. Does that really warrant a post? It does when the eggs are “Respectful. 6 free range eggs from hens carefully reared using sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar power”

WTF?!

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What I Want Is…

…a single recharger.

I know this is never going to happen, but I want a single recharger for all devices that can use a recharger. It won’t happen without government intervention, but benefits for the consumer are numerous.

Something else that is also on my wish list (and I would implement if I became a benevolent dictator) would be a single power supply and connector for the world. USB can pump several milli-amps through – enough to recharge a Motorola Razr (and I think the Nintendo DS uses a modified USB design for it’s recharger).  Currently I have 4 items that need recharging on a regular basis and all have different rechargers. Now I’ve seen cool pouch systems for reducing the clutter of recharger cables but nothing will reduce it as much as making a “1 charger fits all” rule a law.

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Rail Chaos (again)

I’ve been meaning to post about this but every time I look for a link regarding it there is nothing to link to.

A lot of time in the mornings have been lost to upgrading of the signals between Billingham and Hartlepool on the coast line between Middlesbrough and Newcastle – the line which I travel on the way to work. Now I can expect delays due to the upgrades and I can understand that the work is long, arduous and they have to make sure they get it absolutely right.

But the delays haven’t been caused by work, they’ve been caused by thieves stealing the copper cable used for the signals. Today was the fifth time it has occurred in the space of a month. Apparently the cable has high resell value which is why the thieves target it. Now I guess you aren’t going to get a lot for a small section – you need at least one of the giant cotton real worth of cabling, which means you will have to do a lot of work to:

1. Lift the cable out of the runs. Even dragging the cable out will mean the use of a winch or something.
2. Move the cable somewhere. The amount of cable is substantial – remember it runs a couple of km between signals – and will weigh a lot.

Personally I would simply electrify the cable and rig it to an alarm system. As soon as the cable is cut they know the cable has been severed and have a rough idea where. A couple of security guards with night vision goggles, tasers and dogs can cover the few kilometres of track and corner the thieves until police arrive. The coverage would be easier due the limited places where the thieves can get a van to actually move the cable out.

So the question is: Why haven’t they?

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RTM update

Following on from yesterday’s post, the RTM team have released an update which now gives support for sorting by preference (be it date, priority or name) which means that one of my main gripes is defunct.

However this update also supports my concerns over the interface as they have two drop down lists each with different styles.

Hopefully they will implement the time-shifting option as it shouldn’t be too difficult to implement.

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