Ronan’s Blog

Latitude - Wave - Now Buzz …. 3 Products of very limited use, that will have virtually no uptake.

Latitude - Allows my friends to see exactly where I am right now, why would anyone except for over-protective parents ever want this?

Wave - A simple web based group chat history to replace Skype group conversations and e-mail threads. Too revolutionary and too confusing to ever be taken up.

Buzz - Extending mail to allow for social networking status updates and location information.

Buzz is the real final straw for me, Google has ceased being an innovator and is desperately trying to cling to the coat-tails of other successful internet trends (i.e. Twitter / Facebook in this case). Buzz will never take off, for the simple reason that people become invested in their social networks with the time they spend on it as well as the community they build up. One might argue that Google and GMail contacts are already a community, but the are an e-mail community and not a social networking community.

Another Google product Fail has been released.

Retrotranslator is a tool that makes Java applications compatible with Java 1.4, Java 1.3 and other environments. It supports all Java 5.0 language features and a significant part of the Java 5.0 API on both J2SE 1.4 and J2SE 1.3. In other Java environments only the Java 5.0 features that don’t depend on the new API are supported.

Could prove very handy !

Found this instructions for how to run your regular Firefox install as well as a portable version at the same time.

Awesome!
Tip - Run Multiple Instances of Firefox Portable | Pro Reviewer (My Free Review)

So according to Microsoft, IE8 is as fast as Firefox 3 and Chrome, also having the same levels of customization as FF3 and Chrome, as well as adhering to web standards as well as the other browsers.

Apart from these 3 facts, IE8 is apparently better than other browsers ….. What a load of crap !
Windows Internet Explorer 8: Get the facts

Google have today released a static Map API, for generating simple single image, non-interactive map images.

What are the benefits of this API?
To Google -> Decreased Bandwidth and processing, if static maps will suffice (for example a location map on a business webpage), then a single request on their data will be enough, rather than placing a map with panning & zooming capabilities on it.
To the User -> A single image map can be copied & pasted into e-mails & documents more easily for your average user, so that they don’t need an image editing tool.
So why do they feel this completely new API is required?
A slightly different operating mode (i.e. Single Image Mode) in the existing API with a simple set of instructions would surely be enough.
Google Static Maps API

I just bought an iPhone on eBay… And I’m happy enough with the price that I paid as most for sale were going for around the price that I paid.

However, looking at the bid history, I notice there seem to be many bids by bidders with a long history of bidding but not actual purchases, my “No Reserve” auction item looks like it exactly wasn’t. Perhaps sellers up-bidding with different accounts ?

MyFox Washington DC | Police: Crack Found in Man’s Buttocks

So after downloading FireFox 3 today and installing, I was a little surprised to see it taking about 78%-84% CPU use constantly.

I could not work out why, until I started closing tabs, then I found the one causing the error: GeoWeb 2008 Conference

The scrolling advertisments on the right seem to be what was using all my CPU, the strange thing is that this was not an issue with FireFox 2

After, this happened a few times I went to look for a way to Stop browser re-sizing you Firefox window and I was really quite easy.

Developers who write sites that do this should be shot.

1) Click Tools, then click Options.
2) Go to the Content tab.
3) Click the “Advanced” button to the right of the “Enable Javascript”
4) Uncheck the selection “Move or resize existing windows”.

See the second link here …. Its really excellent !
Johnny Chung Lee - Projects - Wii