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China in your hand
Perhaps you've got better things to do over the festive season, but if you want to be dragged back to the demise of the British motorcycle industry, you've just hit paydirt.
On the face of it Motorbikes and IT have very little in common. However, if you look back to the 1960's maybe there is a trend which could be worrying for the US software industry.
Has the US software industry got overconfident? Will we all be computing in the clouds 5-10-20 years down the line? Are discrete software and hardware packages deader than the dodo?
Recently I've reviewed a couple of software packages from Chinese companies - server partition management from Easeus and an enterprise network protocol analysis package called Capsa from Colasoft. Both were efficient, neat and did exactly what they said on the tin. In fact PowerQuest's server partition manager software, acquired by Symantec stopped at version 8.0 and was never upgraded to support Microsoft's newer server operating systems. So spotting a gap in the market, is maybe the first step to global domination..
A gap in the market was precisely what did for the UK's motorcycle industry, as the Japanese started off producing small commuter-type machines which were cheap, and more reliable. The UK's manufacturers never thought the Japanese would be able to produce a bike aimed directly at their own market. As such, the Honda CB750 must have been quite a shock and the death of motorcycle manufacturing in the UK followed pretty swiftly.
The Chinese appear to be doing the same with software packages, and you can bet the US software giants probably don't consider China's software industry as capable of coming out with software's equivalent of the CB750. Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, seem to be doing OK. Could the same happen in the software market? Time will tell.
Of course, it could be that all the festive drink has befuddled my brain, and my perception of things to come may be way off the mark - but stranger things have happened.
Happy New Year
Web demos - watch that open microphone after they're over!
Ronnie Reagan's done it, John Major has, so has Jacques Chirac - that is forgotten the mike close to them was still open and active - and it seems that web demos can also trip up the unprepared. I recently had a one hour web demo where the vendor presented its next latest and greatest - under embargo.
Unfortunately I can't do shorthand yet and didn't fancy using the old water-cooled pen for nearly an hour. However, I can dump phone calls straight to hard disk courtesy of a dongle attached to the phone mini-jacked into the audio input. Unfortunately speech recognition hasn't progressed yet to the stage where you can present a low signal-to-noise .WAV file to speech recognition software and get a neat transcript of the call ready to cut and paste into articles.
A pair of headphones mini-jacked into the audio output was a good alternative to holding the phone for an hour. When the questions had been answered at the end of the demo, I put the phone back, but blow me down when I could still hear somebody at the other end through the headphones. Nothing dramatic and no scoops were in the offing - but the potential was there. So check those mikes after web demos - you might just save yourself a shedload of pain.
SATA in your lap
Anybody who's heard Kate Bush's classic 'The Dreaming' album, specifically the song 'Sat in your lap', may have been wondering why her exquisite voice should be heard warbling about SATA drives: "Some say that knowledge is something SATA in your lap." Beats me.
Anyway, after two Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk enclosures have broken on me after the original purchase of a Western Digital MyBook World Edition - based on the WD 500GB NAS Caviar hard disk, I decided whilst ambling through Maplins, to invest some folding drink vouchers on a CnM HDD Docking Station (pictured above).
All you have to do is clip the SATA drive into the device, connect up the power and USB cable and you're ready to roll. The downside? Well, the drive electronics are exposed and I suspect it wouldn't take kindly to having a cup of coffee dropped over it. I tend to pull the drive and put it into one of those anti-static packages and pop it back it when it's needed, since I don't think it would be that safe to leave it in clear view.
So far I've had no problems and it's normally used to mirror work files stored on a data partition carved off the main system OS drive. If you come by any more SATA drives, these can be interchanged quickly. Hopefully, that solves the problem.
Hands on: Skyfire mobile browser
There have been a number of browsers available for mobile handsets, but based on my early experience, Skyfire looks like one of the better ones. It is the first browser I have used that allows you to view video content on web sites, as well as Flash animations and Java-based content.
Like Safari on the Apple iPhone or Opera's mobile browsers, Skyfire shows you the whole web page. This will almost certainly prove too small to read on most phones, so you can select a position on the screen to zoom in on, magnifying the text to make it easier on the eye.
Using my own handset, a HTC S730 running Windows Mobile 6, I found I could browse sites such as VNUnet.com (see screenshot) and see the animated Flash adverts on the screen, just as you would on a PC browser. I was also to click through to the audio/video section and click to watch the weekly news debrief video.
I also tried out Skyfire on the BBC's news site, and could watch the video content there just as easily. The video quality seems as good as you would get while watching on a PC screen, and is quite impressive considering it is being delivered over a cellular (3G) connection.
However, while Skyfire claims that its browser is twice as fast as other mobile browsers, I found it took about a minute to open on many occasions, and some web pages were also inexplicably slow to load, while others appeared as quickly as you would expect on a PC.
It should be noted that these problems could be due to issues with the cellular network rather than Skyfire itself, and the software is still officially in beta even if it is now free for anyone to download and install.
I also tried out Skyfire using the Wi-Fi interface of the S730 handset, and found that pages loaded faster, but this did not seem to any impact on the quality of the video.
Users should be prepared for browsing eating into the battery life of their handset. After a few hours of tests, my phone had used up about half of a full battery charge, whereas it usually lasts for days or even weeks if used just for talking and texting.
With Java and Flash support, Skyfire enables access to many more sites than is possible with some other phone browsers I have used. I was able to create and edit a document using Google Docs, for example, which isn't something I would recommend doing on a tiny smartphone screen, but does prove that it is possible.
I also used Skyfire to log into VNUnet.com's web-based content management system, which is heavily Java-based, and found I could carry out tasks, although the tiny screen again made this difficult. Nevertheless, it shows that Skyfire could be used for emergency access to Java-based enterprise applications, should the need arise to get information while out of the office, for example.
Overall, Skyfire looks like a good browser to try out if you have a handset running Windows Mobile 5 or 6, or a Symbian phone with Nokia's S60 user interface. A brief list of supported phones is available here.
Gmail gets a to-do list
Google has added a to-do list to Gmail, which can be accessed from the Gmail blog or from your Gmail settings page.
The new feature is called Tasks and pops out into a new window, which remains with the user while they surf the web, similar to Google Chat. Tasks can be ordered with indentation tools. For example, as Google demonstrates in its blog, users can split their to-do list into work and personal sections.
On the positive side, vnunet.com testing found that as Google promises, it is easy to enter new tasks - all it takes is a click into an empty part of the list, a type-up of the task and then a hit of return to save the errand.
However, vnunet.comlabs found a few problems with the new feature.
If the return button is hit after already using the indentation tool, the next task is automatically indented further, which then makes it time consuming if a user wants to fill out an entire list under one main heading. The only way to have all the items lined up on the same margin is to go back and un-indent each of the errands.
Also, although Google is allowing users to easily convert emails into tasks, it is not so easy to export one's tasks to email. Google is offering no simple button to do so.
Finally, Google has allowed users to add a due date for their tasks but these are not synched with the Google calendar.
It will be interesting to see how Tasks competes with Remember the Milk, the to-do list Google introduced a few weeks ago when it rolled out support for third-parties in Gmail.
Remember the Milk adds a small task icon to the top of each day in the Google calendar and a simple click on the icon allows a user to review and update their tasks and see where they are located on a map.
BlackBerry Bold and Storm: Head to head
I've been having a try out with the BlackBerry Storm, Research in Motion's (RIM's) first touch-screen device. My colleague Daniel Robinson has carried out a full review or you can get a look at the Storm in action by watching our video review.
I was keen to get my hands on the device for two reasons. Firstly, I've long coveted an Apple iPhone, mainly for its lovely looks, and screen size and quality and so was interested to have a try out on RIM's touch-screen version; and also because I've just switched over from using my old 8700 BlackBerry and a separate Nokia mobile handset to having just one device, the BlackBerry Bold and so wanted to see how the Storm would compare.
Previously in my old unconverged world of separate mobile/emailer I never used the BlackBerry for anything but checking my email and replying to the odd one here and there; I made the occasional phone call and sent the odd text but much preferred my mobile for those things. 
So moving to the Bold was quite an experience and I'd advise anyone considering a switch away from two devices to a combined phone/emailer to thoroughly try out the keyboards of any potential handsets before making a purchase.
I found the BlackBerry SMS and phone capabilities difficult to get used to, mainly due to what seem like minor changes from a normal mobile handset but they caused a lot of frustration for me.
For example, the Bold and Storm save all messages in one folder, while I'm used to separate folders for received/sent/draft texts; while trying to change the phone settings, including selecting a ring tone and choosing between the vibrate/ring/vibrate+ring options, proved a real chore, requiring navigating through several different pages and dozens of options before finding the correct Profiles/Advanced/Normal/Phone sequence and arriving at the right place. I also found the requirement of repeating the same choice of Volume/Number of Vibrations and so on for the phone when it is out of holster or in holster an unnecessary duplication of effort; the same process was then required for setting up my preferred SMS profile.
Having said all that, I still rate the BlackBerry as an emailer device, and RIM has made huge improvements since I first began using one a few years ago, especially in terms of the speed of mobile browsing and the ability to view spreadsheets and other business documents.
From my fairly brief look at the Storm, I couldn't spot many different features from the Bold apart from the obvious touch-screen upgrade. Both devices have the same icons, browser, and phone capabilities.
One key upgrade with the Storm was the inclusion of a Chat icon in the menu, offering direct links to download pages for popular instant messaging tools. However, I didn't have much joy with this feature. I managed to download Google Chat, but was unable to log in to my account to try it out.
The music and video players are the same on both devices; the video quality was particularly impressive on both, with high quality picture and sound.
One strange difference was in the charger. I didn't take the charger for the borrowed Storm home with me overnight and when the battery died that evening I automatically went to plug in my Bold charger, only to find they have different connectors. It would be great to see RIM, and in fact all mobile handset makers, standardise on chargers across their different models and it would certainly earn them some green brownie points.
So now onto the Storm's headline-grabber - the touch-screen capability. The general consensus around the vnunet.com office was underwhelming - most people found the virtual keys very difficult to get used to, even with the addition of a "click" when pressing down on the screen - and this was my initial reaction too.
However, having used the Storm as my main emailer/phone for a few days I got used to the way the keyboard worked - I found it helped to aim to put my finger slightly to the left of keys rather than direct centre of them. I also really liked the ability to go back to using a SureType keypad and predictive text, especially for sending SMS messages, something I really miss with the Bold.
A final point: the way the screen switches view to reflect whether you're holding the phone sideways or upright is a neat feature, but it is slow in switching between the views. In the end I found myself favouring a sideways full keyboard view for emailing; and upright SureType for texting.
Overall my first touch-screen BlackBerry experience was good enough to make me consider a full-time move to a similar device in the future - but preferably one with a more satisfying mobile phone experience.
Photos: hands-on with Sony's eBook Reader
Sony has very kindly loaned me one of its PRS-505 electronic book devices to try out.
In particular, I wanted to see how it would measure up as a medium for carrying around Microsoft Word and Acrobat PDF files for reading on the move, as the alternative is to print them out or load them into a PDA or laptop.
The first thing worthy of note is that the 6in display of the eBook Reader has to be seen to be believed. Although only black-and-white and lacking a backlight, it has such a high display resolution that it resembles more a printed page than any other computer screen I've ever seen.
So how does it double as a mobile document reader? Sadly, not too well. It's easy enough to get files onto the eBook Reader, but while PDF files are supported natively, Word documents are not and must be converted to RTF format first.
And while the text in PDF files displays very well, any embedded images or graphics can only be seen in the entire page view; zoom in, and the graphic simply isn't displayed any more.
But the eBook Reader is really designed for looking at books, specifically those published in the EPUB digital format, and Sony supplies the PRS-505 with excerpts from several titles in this format for buyers' to try out.
The eBook Reader is a nice size and weight for the job. It is just a bit smaller than a sheet of A5 paper, weighs about 260g, and comes fitted into a leather-effect cover that makes it look like a notepad when closed. The device itself appears to be made of brushed steel, and feels like it is built to last.
Overall, the eBook Reader is fairly easy to use, but it seems to have too many controls. There are ten buttons labelled 0-9 down one side of the screen, plus two navigation controls, dedicated next-page and previous page keys, as well as tiny buttons to zoom in and take you to the main menu.
The eBook Reader has two slots for Sony Memory Stick Duo and SD Card Flash media, from which it can read files. Users can also load files onto the device over a USB cable from a PC using a supplied Windows tool called eBook Library, which seems to have been designed to imitate the look and feel of Apple's iTunes.
One advantage the PRS-505 has over other electronic devices is that its E-Ink "Electronic Paper" screen uses much less power than standard LCD technology, and consequently the batteries last much longer than those of other electronic devices. I used the PRS-505 for several days before the battery charge indicator went down even a single step.
Moleskinsoft package burrows into directories
Ever looked at that new disk you bought last month and found out it was nearly full? Which directories are the culprits and which files are hogging the disk could take a while to dig out. Should you resort to the command prompt or take that PERL tome off the shelf and finally decide to learn the language and write that one line program to list the top 50 biggest files and where they are?
Another way could be by using Moleskinsoft's Directory Size program, which can be used to scan your disk and put up the size of each directory and sub-directory. You can then drill down to the directories showing large storage sizes - those housing gargantuan files - and find out what they are. For me it's normally large OS image files, which I normally use to save the state of the operating system to a safe state, so I can re-image if the OS breaks.
We checked out version 2.2, and it's easy to use, although if you have a 50 terabyte storage system, expect to wait a fair while for it to trawl through all the disks. I dug out the culprits which were hogging my hard drive fairly quickly, but Directory Size also showed me a few files which I thought had long gone.
Directory Size let's you dig deeper into your folder and sub-folder structure until you get to the bottom level where all the files are. You can put filters onto your searches as well, and Directory Size can also give you pie-charted detail of your file size distribution, or who the owners of the files are, or what extensions the files in the directory contains, or you can search on specific time ranges. It allows you to dig out all those ancient files which were clogging your storage, and which you'll never need again. Well, at least until 5 minutes after you've deleted them ...
The software costs $27 (£18.50) for a single licence, and on the basis of a 'time is money' approach, it could be cash well spent.
