Mozilla developers have been working on building a version of Firefox specifically for mobile devices. This involves not only fine tuning the Firefox web browser but adding new features and changing some of the default functionality in Firefox in order to make it more usable on mobile devices.
The problem with mobile devices
Mobile devices have been notoriously difficult to write to due to memory and CPU constraints as well as very limited displays. Luckily some of the constraints are being relaxed as mobile devices become more powerful. Devices such as Nokia’s N810, Apple’s iPhone and the OQO palmtop give developers access to rich displays and acceptable CPU and memory limitations in order to write fully functional software.
Why a whole new Firefox?
As evidenced by its popularity, Firefox works great as a browser on the desktop. In fact it works on mobile devices as well as Nokia has taken the Mozilla engine and created the MicroB browser which is included on the N810 and OS2008.
There are some advantages to tailoring a mobile version of Firefox however. For example, due to some of the mobile compromises with regards to CPU and memory, there some cases where optimization should be performed differently in a mobile context versus a desktop context. In fact performance optimizations appear to be high on the list for Fennec.
Mobile browsing is also different in that a keyboard and mouse is not always the preferred (or even possible) interaction methods. Activities that we often take for granted on a desktop such as cut and paste are not always easy or possible on mobile devices. By providing alternative means to perform certain tasks that are difficult or cumbersome on mobile devices can greatly ease the burden of mobile browsing and enhance the experience greatly.
Mobile Firefox can also go beyond a port of desktop Firefox in order to take advantage of the characteristics of mobile devices. Having integration with a devices phone capabilities or geolocation (GPS) capabilities could add interesting twists to browsing. A user’s mobile device could also act as a master data repository for different desktop installs allowing someone to keep multiple desktop Firefox installs in synch.
Still pre-alpha
Fennec is still in pre-alpha stage with an alpha planned for September but in open source fashion, you can download and try milestone builds.
I downloaded Milestone 7 in order to try it out on my Nokia N810. The browser is definitely rougher around the edges than the built in N810 browser but I think that the developers have some good ideas and plans on how to take advantage of mobile browsing.
It will be interesting to see how Fennec develops in the future.
Blip.fm allows you to search for songs and artists via a handy search box. Once a song is chosen, a Flash based media player will play the chosen song for you and will allow you to “Blip” the song. By blipping a song, a user must add a comment about the song (though some simply put a blank space). Over time, the series of blips creates a music stream which is in effect a personalized playlist with a running commentary.
Blip.fm sources tracks from files stored in publicly accessible locations and indexed by sites such as Seeqpod and Skreemr and so the songs which you play are available to others to listen to the same songs as well. Blip also has an upload function which allows you to upload songs which you would like to (and are legally allowed to) share.
Share and communicate
In Twitter fashion it is possible to follow other users and see their running tracklist as well as let others view your songlist. You can also reply to users entries by using the @username convention that Twitter uses. In this fashion, you can have ongoing conversations, suggest new songs or just let somebody know how much you like (or perhaps dislike) their choices.
It is also possible to view the entire Blip.fm music stream which shows all the blips that users are currently listening to. This can make for interesting viewing as you can see a very wide variety of music being blipped. There are typically obscure artists and tracks and international music mixed in with the more mainstream choices blipped by users.
Buying the blips
Blip.fm makes it possible to buy the MP3 that are blipped through Amazon’s music store. I assume that Blip get a referral fee from Amazone when purchases are made. Unlike the Squidoo business model, the “DJs” blipping the songs and in effect generating the blip.fm content, don’t get any compensation but the ability to discover and listen to new and old music is most likely reward enough to keep users coming back to the site.
Be your own DJ
Give it a shot and check out my playlist at http://blip.fm/ddamours. Warning, it is addictive.
You’ll probably be listening to songs that you haven’t heard or thought of in ages as well as discover some new songs that are bound to become your future “classics”.
Shortly after the release of Eclipse 3.4, Instantiations released version 6.7.0 of their Eclipse based Java GUI design toolset WindowBuilder Pro. Version 6.7.0 includes the following components:
Swing Designer 6.7
SWT Designer 6.7
GWT Designer 5.0 (despite the release notes claiming it contains 4.0.0)
New features
The most important feature of this release is that WindowBuilder Pro 6.7 now fully supports Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede). This is critical in order to allow users to upgrade to the latest and greatest Eclipse version and be able to take advantage of the features that Ganymede brings.
One of the nice new features (at least for certain users) is that WindowBuilder Pro has been validated for IBM Rational Software. This means that if you are a user of Rational Application Developer (RAD) that you should now be able to install and use Instantiations without any issues. Although I don’t use RAD myself I can imagine that there are some developers who are glad to see this.
SWT Designer
Speaking of taking advantage of new Eclipse 3.4 features, the SWT Designer now has support for the new 3.4 data binding APIs such as the TreeViewer input bindings as well as improved support for existing bindings.
Swing Designer
The Swing Designer portion of WindowBuilder hasn’t received too many updates in version 6.7 but there are couple of notable improvements. JGoodies FormLayout (version 1.2.0) is now supported. Apparently, JFileChooser support has been added as well though I can’t find any reference beyond the release notes and I don’t see any apparent support in my installation. Perhaps I’m missing something.
GWT Designer
The GWT Designer included in this release has made great improvements over previous versions. Support for MyGWT and GWT-Ext has been improved with a palette now available for GWT-Ext now included. GWT Designer also now supports Firefox 3 under Linux and Safari 3.1 under OSX.
As I’ve stated previously, WindowBuilder is the best tool out there for building Java, SWT or GWT GUIs. Pre-existing GUI code can be modified by the tool and there is no additional untouchable sections created by the tool like other GUI programs. This latest version improves support and has fixed some nagging bugs and so far appears to be a more refined and robust tool. Good job Instantiations!
I’m disappointed that version 6.7 did not include any of the Swing Beans Binding (JSR-295) or improved Swing Application Framework (JSR-296) support but it appears that support will be coming in future versions. Then again Sun has been VERY QUIET on these two specifications. Hopefully they won’t be dead in the water.
Although it has been out for a while, I just recently had the opportunity to update to the latest OS 2008 (4.2008.23-14) which is based on maemo 4.1 codenamed Diablo.
No more flash upgrades thanks to SSU
Maemo 4.1 introduces a new feature called Seamless Software Update (SSU) which drastically changes how operating system updates will be performed in the future. Previously when a new update was released, the N810 needed to re-flashed with the updated OS version. This effectively completely wiped out the contents of the device and it was necessary for users to restore or reinstall previously installed applications.
Once maemo 4.1 is flashed onto an N810, SSU allows in place OS updates without having to re-flash. Users also get a notification of possible updates on their home screen as well as in the application manager. This is in contrast to previously where tablet users had to navigate through Nokia’s site to find OS updates.
By having this new update capability on the mobile devices, Nokia intends to release smaller, more focused updates on a more regular basis. For example instead of waiting for major updates to several components in order to have a full OS release, it will be possible to Nokia to push a new browser update independently from other updates. In fact, on August 11th, Nokia did just that and released the first SSU update which included updates for the web browser and the email client.
Other OS2008 updates
In addition to SSU, the latest OS 2008 update also includes a new email client based on the open source Modest and tinymail project. Although not fully featured as something as large as evolution, Modest appears to be a decent email client. It has support for multiple accounts and built in support for some webmail sites. Modest is also designed to be a compact and fast mail client even reportedly being faster than Gmail’s web interface. I’ll have to dig in a bit deeper and use Modest a lot more before making any judgements on it.
Do you think that data on your computer or laptop is private? Think again; especially if you travel to or from the United States.
The Power of Big Brother Homeland Security
Big Brother a.k.a. the US Department of Homeland Security has deemed that if you are crossing the border, they can pretty much do whatever they wish with your electronic equipment and any data that you might have on it.
According to the washingtonpost.com, the Dept. or Homeland Security’s search policy allows laptops or other electronic devices to be brought to an “off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing”. The search policies also specify that copies of the device’s content may be shared with other agencies and private entities for translation, decryption or “other reasons”.
Now I’m not generally a paranoid person but the policies appear to give security agents some pretty big freedoms which could be ripe for abuse. Any person “without suspicion of wrongdoing” along with “private entities” for “other reasons” scare me.
Examples of abuse
For example, an executive of a company which is developing a revolutionary technology has his laptop seized at the border. The contents of the laptop are found to contain information related to a new product or process which could threaten a large American company. Under the search policies, it appears possible that border officials could share the data with the large American company (”a private entitity”) for assesment of the damage that this new product could have on the company (”other reasons”).
For example, the next time you enter the US with your laptop the border agent could seize and copy all of your photos, web browsing history (including any saved passwords), downloads, documents, financial and banking information and any logs of your activities. Now this may or may not contain information that you deem to be sensitive but I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable letting strangers having full access to my data with seemingly little oversight. Who knows perhaps they will send all of your email and IM conversations between yourself and your mistress to your wife back at home. After all that is a “private entity” and the information would be sent for “other reasons”.
How can you safeguard your data?
Besides the obvious tactic of avoid travel to or from the United States or not bringing any electronic accessories along with you through customs, there are other measures which one can take to protect the privacy of your data.
Encryption
Encrypting your data is an option which can provide some security for your data. Many programs such as PGP, FileVault and TrueCrypt allow users to encrypt files or even whole hard drives which makes it very difficult for people to access data without the proper passwords. Disc encryption however is not completely safe. It is also true that officials might be able to force you to reveal your password although this is currently being challenged in court by Sebastien Boucher.
Travelling with “Blank devices”
In fact, the Toronto law firm Blaney McMurtry has a policy which requires all of its lawyers to travel with blank laptops. This is in response to concerns that border officials could confiscate their laptops and gain access to sensitive legal and client documents. They are also creating policies which would protect the data on their Blackberries as well.
Tracking and diffs of previous edits of posts which allows authors to get full histories of posts and pages. This could be really handy when multiple authors collaborate on posts.
Updated and improved Press It bookmarklets which had been unfortunately removed entirely from WordPress 2.5. In addition to providing an easy to create a post about a web page at specific URL, the updated Press It bookmarklet will allow extract photos from web pages and even embed scripts for some videos such as YouTube videos.
Ability to perform a theme preview before activating a new theme on a blog
Google Gears support Wordpress
Security enhancements
Below is a video demonstrating the latest new features in WordPress 2.6.
Problems upgrading WordPress blogs to 2.6
When I upgraded my WordPress installs, I couldn’t log back into the blog. After entering my username and password, I received the message: “Please log in again.“. I ended up having to delete my blog’s cookies in my browser. This appears to be due to the fact that WordPress 2.6 has changed how cookies are handled in order to make WP more secure.
Another issue which I encountered was that my permalinks were broken. The home page would render fine but any of my posts would come up blank (though my sidebars still rendered properly). Oddly, my other blog did not encounter this issue. It turns out that Wordpress 2.6 has an issue with permalinks which include index.php in them. For some odd reason back in the WP 2.2 timeframe, including index.php was the only way in which I could get permalinks to work which is why it index.php is in my permalink structure. Suggested fix 2 which is ensuring that the category and tag base are not empty seems to be working for me.
Smooth sailing…
With these two problems resolved however, everything appears to have upgraded properly and WordPress 2.6 seems to be humming along nicely.
This week, Industry minister Jim Prentice introduced Bill C-61 which contains amendments to Canada’s Copyright Act with the intention of updating the current law to take into account the widespread adoption and use of new digital media such as iPods and and other portable digital media devices.
Format shifting to be made legal
One of the major headline grabbing items in the bill is the explicit permission to allow transfer of content (at least some content) to multiple devices such as portable music and video players or computers. This amendment would legalize transferring the contents of a CD to your MP3 player or to your computer.  There are some restrictions such as only one copy per device is allowed, that no DRM was disabled or circumvented in the process.
It is interesting to note that the clauses permitting format shifting include, music or “a work or other subject-matter that is a photograph or is contained in a book, newspaper, periodical or videocassette”. There is no mention of other formats such as DVDs nor other types of content such as online video or online photographs which if I understand correctly means that format shifting would remain illegal for these cases.
Legality of time shifting
Another reason for the “modernization” of Canada’s Copyright Act is to clarify the legality of time shifting which is the practice of recording a program in order to watch it at the user’s convenience. In the U.S., time shifting has explicitly been legal since 1984 when the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Sony vs. Universal case was handed down. In Canada, there is currently no mention in the Copyright act regarding the legality of time shifting. Since users are effectively copying programs when using their VCR, computer or DVR, they are in violation of the Copyright Act.
If passed in its current form, Bill C-61 would explicitly allow time shifting which is great for consumers. There are however several caveats with this new allowance. It is not legal to keep recorded copies “longer than necessary in order to listen to or watch the program at a more convenient time”. It would be illegal then to keep recorded copies of your favourite shows. What the legal status of people’s existing collection of programs would be remains unclear. This also means that if you want to have a copy of a show long term, you would be forced to buy it on DVD or online even if you recorded every episode on your VCR or DVR. As I will discuss below, there are also DRM issues which could impact the use of time shifting.
Canada’s version of the DMCA
Although the amendments specifically allow consumers to copy legally obtained media onto various media devices for personal use, there are a lot of strings and conditions which have led many to label this Bill as Canada’s DMCA - a reference to the widely criticized United States’ DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). In fact Michael Geist, a law professor a the University of Ottawa has pointed out that the Bill C-61 digital lock provisions are even more restrictive than the US DMCA.
DRM - making criminals out of consumers
One of the proposed amendments specially prohibit the circumvention and disabling of any digital locks or digital rights management (DRM). Since DRM is present on many CD, online downloads and almost all DVDs, it will effectively be illegal to make copies of these media onto portable players or for other purposes such as backups. Today, it is quite common for people to copy or “rip” DVDs in order to have a backup copy as well as to enble the transfer of the content onto portable video devices. Bill C-61 will now make this act illegal and designate a lot of people as criminals.
Making things even more confusing?
There still appears to be a fair bit of confusion over legalities of certain activities as well as the effect of Bill C-61 on people who currently have items which are currently legal but will no longer be legal if and when the Bill is adopted.
Will C-61 pass?
With the uproar regarding the introduction of this bill combined with the fact that federal conservatives are in a minority government means that this bill will probably not be passed without some modifications. Hopefully the government will listen to the outcry and change some of the more onerous DMCA like clauses.
As many people inside and outside the academic community are aware, there is a steep decline in computer science enrollments in post-secondary institutions. For many in the computer science field, including software companies such as Google, Sun and IBM this is a troubling trend. If there are no CS students graduating, who will develop the next generation of software? Is there anything that can be done in order to see this trend be reversed?
How to increase CS enrollments and interest
There are several approaches that can be taken to attempt to address the decline in computer science students. Attempting to attract students to the field in high school and even elementary school is one approach. By involving and interesting students early, it is possible to form a more positive image of what is involved in computer science and teach and show them why pursuing a degree in the field is worthwhile.
Other bloggers have also examined the issue of how interest high school students. Cay Horstman has a look at declining CS enrollments and suggests perhaps that we should look at enhancing high school courses or offering advanced placement (AP) courses to students. Sonya Barry suggests involving industry professionals to act as volunteers in order to support and enrich high school programs. She also examines the issue of how to target and teach high school students in Once we have a room full of kids, what should we teach them?.
Restructuring CS degrees
Another approach which might attract some more students to computer science is to modify how CS degrees and courses are currently structured.
There are several CS specializations or different CS related degrees that can be offered to students. Some of the most common of these variations include software engineering, computer engineering and information systems. Typically these specializations require a core set of CS courses along with several courses in the chosen area of the field. By expanding these specialization options to areas such as HCI, bioinformatics or animation some students which were previously disinterested in a general core CS degree might become interested.
Some colleges and universities are taking this approach a step further and tailoring the core set of CS courses based on the wanted specialization. Georgia Tech for example has introduced a threads approach in which students pick two out of eight threads to follow. These threads include options such as Computer Modeling, Computers and People and Computers and Media. The student’s prerequisite core CS courses will then be determined based on the threads selected by the student. In the words of Georgia Tech, this model eliminates the “one size fits all” CS curriculum.
Other universities are restructuring how they teach CS to ensure that courses concentrate on core CS fundamentals such as problem solving, data structures and algorithms as opposed to struggling to programming language syntax and other non fundamental issues.
Will the students come back?
There is no doubt that reversing declining computer science enrollments is a difficult task. There are several additional factors which are not directly under control such as macroeconomic factors such as the job market, the valuation and hence accompanying salaries and prospects of CS graduates. Despite tons of efforts in recruitment and attractions, if there are no stable well paying jobs for graduates, except for the hardcore passionate computer geek, students will simply not enroll. There are signs however that things might be turning around.
With the introduction of its Android mobile platform, Google announced the Android Developers Challenge which has $10 million in prizes for great mobile applications built for Android.
Phase 1 Round 1 winners
The first phase of the challenge which was just completed, resulted in 50 applications being shortlisted, the developers receiving $25000 and the chance to go on to the next round where up to $275000 will be up for grabs to the best applications.
It appears that Google has already received its money’s worth. Before even a single phone or handset is built, Google managed to get a nice little roster of applications created. The winning 50 applications are shown here (PDF - 4 MB). Although I can’t attest to the quality of the submissions, there appears to be some really interesting ideas in the list. Silicon Alley Insider narrowed it down to their favourite 5.
One application that I was impressed with was AndoidScan which can recognized bar codes from books, CDs or DVDs and will fetch reviews and perform a pricing comparison with a dozen online stores. If it works as advertised, it could end up being a really handy application. As expected, a few applications are mobile social applications and few deal with sharing routes or quickly sharing pictures and other data while on the go. All appear to have some potential.
Android vs. iPhone vs. Blackberry
Google is obviously trying to attack the chicken and egg problem of handsets and applications. By providing a lineup of useful apps, handset providers will be more likely to make the plunge and create new Android or Open Handset Alliance based handsets. Applications will also be the key battlefield in the competition between the Android platform and the iPhone and Blackberry. Google is hoping that by building a strong SDK and attracting developers to the relatively open platform that great applications will emerge which will raise the profile and popularity of Android.
If you are interested in seeing the extent of the damage from the great Fredericton flood of 2008, there are several videos and pictures available on the internet. I will list a few of the better sites and video which show how the Fredericton area has been impacted by this 2008 flood.
Fredericton Flood 2008 videos
May 3rd - 30 minute video (and pictures) from the government of New Brunswick taken from a boat on the river surveying damage in the rural areas of Maugerville and Sheffield.
May 1st - 36 minute aerial video (and associated aerial pictures) from the New Brunswick government of the Fredericton area starting at Lincoln, flying west over the downtown Fredericton area and continuing upstream on the south side over the river to Mactaquac Dam. The video then continues back to Fredericton on the north side of the river and continues downstream to Maugerville before circling back upstream to downtown Fredericton. Unfortunately the video is not of the highest resolution so it often hard to see the flooding particularly in the city except in obvious areas such as the Westmorland street bridge. The last couple of minutes of video however do have a better look at downtown Fredericton and the extent of the flooding. The devastation in the rural areas of Maugerville and Sheffield is readily obvious however.
A YouTube search Fredericton flood for Fredericton also has a few personal videos of the 2008 Fredericton flood from the ground.
On the ground flood pictures
There are several bloggers posting on the ground flood pictures including Charles Leblanc and MacBros.
Some major media sites, in particular the CBC and have also created a section on their site where people can post their own flood pictures and videos.
A Flickr search for “Fredericton flood“also brings up more 1300 photographs taken from various people around the city.
