While I’m waiting for my Windows VM to reboot, just figured I’d mention that Oracle’s free tool SQL Developer totally rocks. And it supports MySQL for you geeks out there (POSTGRES 4EVA!!!!!)
It makes coding and testing complex PL/SQL fairly painless. It’s built on Java and runs on Mac OS X beautifully.
We made a couple of maintenance updates to Tempo last night, and added in a couple of features that numerous users have been asking us for:
Recently I met Alexis Rondeau, one of the two clever fellows that created the site Semapedia.org. The site allows you to create 2D barcodes, called Semapedia Tags, that link to information on Wikipedia. The idea is that you print a tag that links to information about a place or thing, then you stick that tag on the place or thing. Anyone with a 2D scanner program on their phone can then lookup the information at the site when they see the tag. Pretty cool! (I’m still trying to get the program for my Treo installed correctly.)
Anyway, I saw this on their blog and I had to share:
so you are on a bus stop and there is a barcode to download the bus schedule. Great Idea, not. The poster with the barcode takes a whole side of the bus stop, why not just print the time table, how often does that change? Why pay for anything like that. If the service behind the barcode would tell you exactly in realtime where the bus currently is located or tell you if any of your friends are on that bus, then we have something a printed time table cannot provide and is clearly more attractive. Haven’t seen any of the other ideas, but for starters, detect needs, find out what current medias don’t provide and so on.
Indeed! Always go for the simplest solution.
Warren Ellis wonders aloud why “videomail, in these broadband days of ours, has never made a bigger dent. Why I don’t get videomail in my inbox along with email.”
I’d say it’s because most of us see a camera pointed at us and we feel the need to act. It’s rather difficult for a lot of people to “be natural” when they are being filmed.
When most folks seem to be looking for ever faster, ever more seamless (and often literally asynchronous) communication, the last thing they want to do is “have to act” for a two minute videomail.
Listen, we need to talk. It’s about your Earthlink spam blocker. The one that does this:
I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.
To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.
If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.
Click the link below to fill out the request:
I realize that this has its uses and I’m sure it cuts down on the amount of spam you get.
But, there are better ways. Much, much better ways. And if you’ve been wondering why you never get your activation e-mails for things that you sign up for, that’s pretty much why. You wouldn’t believe how many of these responses we get every day for PingMe and Tempo. We always try to do you the favor and click the links when we have time, but lately there are so many (now requiring us to fill out a form), that we can’t really keep up.
Do everyone a favor, turn that thing off. Cut down on the amount of mail flying around the internet.