Onfolio

Onfolio www.Onfolio.com is a tool that I saw about 12 months ago and whilst I was happy to use the trial I didn't follow though with the purchase for whatever reason......guess what popped up as a free option in the Microsoft Live Toolbar today :)

I love how competition delivers better, often free, services for the consumer and the Toolbar Wars are no different.

With the three way tug of war between Microsoft, Google and Yahoo (4? AOL) for toolbar space on your computer the functionality is just getting better and better.

As I'm not a stock holder in either company, so I'm all for non profit making giving away the company, services.

The tool bar is available here http://ideas.live.com/toolbar Then you can choose which of the options to download.

"Onfolio is the complete solution for collecting,organizing and sharing online content.
Built into the browser, Onfolio is a convenient and familiar tool that will make your web research more efficient and organized."



Basically you can copy visuals/text/photos/feeds etc from the web, think of it as a scrap book for your browser.

It's a great tool and whilst I'm a huge fan of Microsoft Onenote which is similar (though paid for) everyone should be using Onfolio. Two Thumbs Up.

Cheers,
Dean

Neat UI

I came across an "in development" application the other day called Low Fat

http://macslow.thepimp.net/?page_id=18
The problem:
Todays file-management interfaces are more or less the same for the last 10 years. Ok we have thumbnail-previews in our icons to reflect the actual file-contents, but it is still only a stand-in or substitution for the real thing. But it's not very real-world-like, where you have e.g. a bunch of photos or document-sheets that you just can look at to see what's in them. It's not really a seamless experience. On the other hand there are desktop search-tools like beagle and Spotlight, which help us find the kind of things we are currently interested in from our huge heaps of personal data. Thus we don't see the unhandy clutter of hierarchical file-systems. Would it not be great if the computer could show us just the stuff we currently interested in, in a natural fashion where there's only our documents and hardly any UI at all?
A solution:
Enter 'lowfat'. Its goal is to bring that life-like and natural display to the desktop, alongside with a flat hierarchy of our files, when combined with todays search-engines. The aim of lowfat is to be an engine to view and handle your documents with lifebehaviorhaviour allowing for example to seamless zoom, pan and rotate them. Furthermore it should support the user by making sorting and arrangement - according to certain criteria - of the currently viewed documents available.
Current (and even not so current) hardware is capable enough to allow these kind of things. Common graphics-hardware and CPUs are mostly idle during general desktop-usage, when you are looking through your files in your file-manager. This processing-power can be put to good use by 'lowfat'.
http://macslow.thepimp.net.nyud.net:8090/projects/lowfat/preview-1.swf

Which got me thinking, how long do we have to wait for some decent "revolutionary ideas" in UI compared to just evolutionary plodding in the last few years.

Lets face it, how far have we really come from the days of windows 3.1?

I mean I know Vista is a big project, I know that it takes a lot of time and energy (and money - but Bill, once you get to $50B it's hardly a competition anymore) to develop a new operating system and it looks like MS is only going to be developing these every 4-5 years but realistically when was the last time you saw some type of information presentation that you thought "neat" that's something I can use.

I mean we've all seen Minority Report and everyone apart from techno neophytes fell in love with two handed control and whilst I dont believe three dimensional will be available today it's good to see that multi-input touch screens are finally coming onto the market
http://www.cycling74.com/products/lemur

or even better Jeff Han's work which is out of this world and should be funded immediately
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-y3ZNaCqs
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/index.html
but to be honest without the UI developments this hardware will never be developed.

One of my favourite applications that i use at least on average about evey 5 mins when I'm online is Sensiva (www.sensiva.com) or check out my post from last year http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/sensiva.html

I know for me I would love to have my monitor built into my desk. A great big 80cm touch screen (under glass so when I spill my coffee I dont jump out the window).

Being able to interface via touch will add new dimensions to multi-file control.....some companies will get it and develop the interfaces to deliver, some wont (I'm talking to you Mr Benioff at salesforce.com with your crappy document manager tab).


If you could change the way you work with your computer what would you want to see?

Is it voice, is it manual interface, is it a two handed single plane mouse, is it multi-input touch screen?

Deleting Files is a Crime?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/10/222203
"A former employee of International Airport Centers, who is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with them, returned his company laptop as required. Hoping to find incriminating evidence, I.A.C. attempted to retrieve deleted information from the laptop in question with no success. This employee had beaten them to the punch. He had used 'secure delete' software, in order to make sure nothing could be recovered. He is now being charged with a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."


http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6048449.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed
Jacob Citrin was once employed by International Airport Centers and given a laptop to use in his company's real estate related business. The work consisted of identifying "potential acquisition targets."
At some point, Citrin quit IAC and decided to continue in the same business for himself, a choice that IAC claims violated his employment contract.
Normally that would have been a routine business dispute. But the twist came when Citrin dutifully returned his work laptop--and IAC tried to undelete files on it to prove he did something wrong.
IAC couldn't. It turned out that (again according to IAC) Citrin had used a "secure delete" program to make sure that the files were not just deleted, but overwritten and unrecoverable.


Hmmm, note to all - if you consult, dont sign the proforma employment contract without considering all of the terms and dont accept anything on face value (especially the IP Ownership term that everyone seems to want to put into my contract about owning the rights to any and all IP that I develop during the course of employment....yeh right, start paying me for 168 hours a billable week and we may negotiate a percentage but until then dont even kid yourself that you own my concept development 24 hours a day).


Cheers,
Dean

Bacci Sayings

You could do worse in life than by living your life from the sayings you get in Bacci chocolates.

Jodie found one today that I truly felt warranted being posted here.


"The Heart Has Its Reasons Which Reason Does Not Always Know"

nice huh :)

FairTax

Interesting site
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/main.html

I always hoped Australia would go down this path but looks like the GST has stalled into an 'additional' tax rather than an income tax offset.

I've never quite understood why governments have chosen to block this apart from the preference of their favourite lobbyists (corporate - I mean lets face it how much did you donate to your local politician last year.....then stop bitching about being screwed)

Either way I'm sure some country will go down this path, when you think about it most of the 'tax havens' already have a quasi gst in effect requiring you to live (and in effect spend money) for between 60-120 days a year, this 'residency' requirement often supports the local community through employment and support year round of these part time residences.

Cheers,
Dean

Skype Plugin For Desktop Sharing

I thought a few people who read this blog might appreciate this new Skype plugin http://www.unyte.net/download_unyte.html

It’s basically a screenshare application for skype users. While you are on a chat you can share docs, web browsing, image viewing etc. It's still a little bit beta'ish' but works pretty well and its free for 1 on 1 sharing (paid version allows up to 4 people to view apps).

Let me know your thoughts I’m curious to see how well it operates once the number of users picks up.

Cheers,
Dean

US and Canadian skiers get smart armour

http://www.newscientist.com/article

A futuristic flexible material that instantly hardens into armour upon impact will protect US and Canadian skiers from injury on the slalom runs at this year's Winter Olympics.
The lightweight bendable material, known as d3o, can be worn under normal ski clothing. It will provide protection for US and Canadian skiers taking part in slalom and giant slalom races in Turin, Italy. Skiers normally have to wear bulky arm and leg guards to protect themselves from poles placed along the slalom run.

I'm not quite sure how it works but I love this potential for the product

Another potential application may be sound-proofing. The propagation of sound waves should generate a similar strain to an impact, so it may be feasible to create a material that becomes more sound proof in response to increasing noise. "It could have some very interesting, unexplored properties," Green says.

Having intelligent materials at a mollecular level sounds outrageous and I'd love to know how it really works but it looks like they have real products available already
http://www.d3o.com/product

The future for product designers has to be outrageously bright with technology like this becoming available.

Cheers,
Dean

KFC technique to fight for DVR mind share

What's the secret of that KFC commercial?
Advertisement designed to make viewers slow down -- viewing, anyway

No, not that secret.

Colonel Sanders' herbs-and-spices recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken is still safely locked away, but the chain unveiled a new TV ad Thursday that allows viewers to crack a hidden message if they play the 30 second spot back slowly on a digital video recorder or VCR. The gimmick is aimed at countering the rise of technology that enables television viewers to skip past commercials faster than ever before.

"This is taking the exact opposition approach -- rewarding viewers for taking the time to engage and be interactive with television," said Tom O'Keefe, an executive at Foote Cone & Belding, the advertising agency that created the spot for KFC Corp.

For those savvy enough to solve the secret, the prize is a coupon for KFC's new, sauce-drenched Buffalo Snacker chicken sandwich. The 99-cent Snacker debuted a year ago and is credited in KFC's earnings rebound.http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/24/kfcsecret.ap/index.html

I wish i had balls the size of the advertising exec who pitched this to the client :)

Yes we are going to market a secret keyword to people watching our ads but btw only 20% of them have dvr's and will be able to pause the screen frame by frame to view it.

The other 80% aren't even going to know there was a keyword there.

This is an excellent advertising concept and shows how creative types really can come up with techniques to utilise the oncoming (sometimes feared) technology.
Dealing with technologies on the edge I so often that I hear "the sky is falling" or "it's the end as we know it".
This is an excellent example of how people, humans, creative types (often driven by roi or excess budget that has to be spent somewhere) ...will always overcome, will always adapt.

I think this is an excellent example of how new technologies can help us, can inspire us and even from time to time make us reach deeper inside ourselves for an even more creative solution than we would have thought of in the first place.

Next time you get stopped by something, pause, look around and think how can I take advantage of this in a way that will astound.
Cheers,
Dean
P.S. interesting article about insertion of Clues into the Lost advertisements
http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2006/05/tonights_lost_i.html
P.P.S Check out GE's latest PVR busting advertisement
http://www.ge.com/onesecondtheater/

Wouldn't it be great for the last 30 frames from the last second of a TV ad spot be used for advanced information delivery.
What a great opportunity to put up 30 pages of url's, graphs, phone numbers, comparison pricing...recipes using your product etc etc.
Besides worse case scenario ...think of the free press you would get just the way KFC did. Big Balls I say...definitely got to appreciate them.

Sony DRM Debacle Part 2

It’s a bit technical but this is a follow up to my post on the 11th of November last year about the Sony DRM rootkit.

Basically this article talks about how they have managed to externally query Sony’s cache servers to determine where in the world has been affected by the Sony DRM Rootkit.

Look at the Europe picture here http://drm_sony_europe.JPG

So now the hackers dont even need to do wide scale internet 'trawling' for computers that have been infected by the root kit installation, they can now query the Sony cache servers and look up your ip addresses directly and head straight for your computer to hack in via the gaping unprotected hole Sony installed.

If you haven't uploaded the patch by now you deserve what you get, you have been warned.

This has to go down in history as one of the ‘mistakes of the internet’ like the purchase of Petfood.com


Cheers,
Dean



http://www.doxpara.com/

They're Here...
Submitted by Dan Kaminsky on Wed, 2005-11-16 02:27.
Some pretty extensive, even mainstream coverage (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Wired News) on this whole Planet Sony Rootkit Metrics project. Cool! Now, if only I could get the chance to look through the actual logs...

Welcome To Planet Sony
Submitted by Dan Kaminsky on Tue, 2005-11-15 09:28.

Sony.

Sony has a rootkit.

The rootkit phones home.

Phoning home requires a DNS query.

DNS queries are cached.

Caches are externally testable (great paper, Luis!), provided you have a list of all the name servers out there.

It just so happens I have such a list, from the audits I've been running from http://deluvian.doxpara.com/ .

So what did I find?
Much, much more than I expected.

It now appears that at least 568,200 nameservers have witnessed DNS queries related to the rootkit. How many hosts does this correspond to? Only Sony (and First4Internet) knows...unsurprisingly, they are not particularly communicative. But at that scale, it doesn't take much to make this a multi-million host, worm-scale Incident. The process of discovering this has led to some significant advances in the art of cache snooping. Here are some of the factors I've dealt with:

Just because you *request* the disabling of recursion, doesn't mean it'll actually happen. A full 353,200 name servers had to be excluded from the final tally because not only would recursive queries emit from them whether or not they were desired, but they'd also notify their neighbors of the results.

Low TTL names exist, and are rather difficult to catch by cache snooping (they expire before you can find proof of life). However, they may be hosted by names that last much longer -- updates.xcp-aurora.com has a lifespan of an hour, but xcp-aurora.com's NS link to resolver1.first4internet.co.uk will last 150,000 seconds.

Some hosts lie -- captive portals, I'm looking at you. Simply filtering TTL's that are divisible by 100 has a way of eliminating most of them; after that, you're left with surprisingly few NS's that lie about IP.

I also have an IP->Geographic data, courtesy of Mike Schiffman's libipgeo and the fine folks at IP2Location, who have a very impressive database. So, the first thing I did was geolocate the data. After dispensing with the raw stats gather...

What can I say? Pretty pictures. Ugly data, but pretty pictures!
USA
Asia
Europe

And the tool used to make this? Welcome To Planet Sony! (based on Partiview in general and the always awesome PlanetLab's work in particular)

Smart Sigs

You know what I mean, from time to time you see a really smart signature (or tag line) on an online posting and you just splurt out laughing, I'll post a few of them here at this post as I see them but this one cracked me up


--Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........



BTW if you are looking for smart sigs, the epicenter of the universe has to be one of my favourite sites http://slashdot.org

Cheers,
Dean