Eventually Google has launched a “Local” service for mobile users.
Check it out

Unfortunately it’s for the US only and works on j2me devices, which is actually the majority of the devices on the market (at least the ones sold in the last couple of years) so this should not be a problem.

I am pleased that Google is launching such service, location based services have been available in theory for years but operators did not like very much the idea of providing that information to service providers and did not even develop any service themselves. I remember many years ago some company from Nothern Europe promoting a game to played on your mobile phone and based on informations about your position. People would walk around the city and meet other players and were supposed to virtually shoot the other player. I think it was SMS based.
Google is offering the most obvious service location based, which is find places near you such as a restaurant, a farmacy, a shop, but there could be tens of other services that companies could developed based on your position.

I read the FAQ, or at least part of it. I was curious to see any information about how they do it. There isn’t much information, of course, but I thought it was funny that one of the first questions was about privacy and taking pictures from the satellite in real-time. This is so dumb in my opinion. People wants to know their position and know shops near him, but don’t want to have pictures taken and maybe Google should delete the information immediately. This sounds to me like going to the doctor and asking for a medicine but not telling him about what you feel and what’s your ache and expect him to be able to provide a cure. I know this can sound like a paradox and someone might jump up and shout at me, but I reall think it’s like it. Like people using a credit card and then be upset because the bank knows that you purchased something in a specific shop at a certain time. It is OBVIOUS that if you want that kind of service you will HAVE to share that information and MOST OF ALL the bank does NOT compel you to use it. You are not OBLIGED to get and use a credit card. If you want to put your money under your bed you’re allowed to, but then don’t complain that to buy a new car you need to bring a bag full of money. 😀

Browsing the web always brings to new discoveries.
A few days ago I was browsing one of my favourite sites (sorry I can’t remember which one, otherwise I’d certainly give you credit for it!) and noticed this tiny application.
You can download it here:
http://liferack.free.fr/noteit

I am sorry you will need a Mac to use, but this could be an excuse to upgrade, if you haven’t understood that it’s much better than Windows and looks much nicer than Linux while still sing a *nix core.
In two words, this application automatically sends notes (post-it notes) on your bluetooth phone. You will need Bluetooth on your computer and on your phone, OF COURSE!

I haven’t tried it so I really don’t know how well it works, but I thought it’s a funny application and might be of use to some of you.

A few weeks ago we bought four little plants: basil, mint, rosmarin and lavander.
About 3 days ago my girlfriend noticed some little dark drops all around the base of the mint plant. Some leaves were beaten. We initially thought that the cat was going to rip the leaves and scratching out the earth. The drops were tiny, but there were PLENTY all around the pot.
We cleaned the drops and then went to have dinner always keeping an eye on the mint plant. After about 15-20 minutes we saw some drops around the pot again, but the cat hadn’t been around!
As soon as we were done eating we went to check the pot and the plant again. I moved it, I squished the pot. We were now sure that it must have been some kind of animal.

The day after, in the afternoon when we came home from work MANY leaves had been cut in pieces and we had a TON of drops all around the pot.
That same night my friend Sid was coming for dinner. During the dinner I decided to ask him if he had any idea and described what had happened.
All the three of us went to look at the plant once again. He confirmed our suspicion of some kind of little animal or insect, but didn’t know much more.
After we had dinner we went again to check what was going on and suddenly noticed a caterpillar!
A big FAT green caterpillar was hung on branches. He was quietly eating a leaf. We stood there looking at him eating the leaf. He was amazingly fast and ate half of the leave in a few minutes.
It was really impressive how fast he could eat… and then we saw where the “little drops” came from.
At first I had even thought that some tiny insect was inside the soil and popping out pieces of earth while digging inside or something like that.

Later during the evening I went to the kitchen to get something to drink and happily discovered that the big fat caterpillar (that we named Pedro) was not alone. Pedrita was there too.

So here’s one picture I took of Pedro. (Note: I have NO idea how to distinguish the two caterpillars)

A little research on internet taught us that the caterpillar will turn into a month.
Yesterday we moved the plant on the balcony and now it seems they are gone. Probably moved to a new plant with more leaves as they hate SO MANY in just 3 days!

Special thanks to Sid for helping us in the research!

We all know that computers heat up when you use them.
The recent processors take up more electricity and heat up more than ever. Intels do better than AMD’s, but they are not cool at all (while the old G4 on powerbooks didn’t even need a fan).
Overclockers are growing, sites about overclocking, modding and so on popped up like muchrooms in the last couple of years. The growth of this new way of using computers also helped the growth of “modding”, the art of modifying your computer and making it look nicer. You can add lights, put a window on the side (or use a plexglas case and make it entirely transparent), you can have neons inside the computer.

Cooling is probably the most important part of overclocking and modding. We have big fans running slowly and silently, we have smaller fans running faster. We have liquid cooling. There is everything you can dream of.

This is how my friend cools down his main webserver.

I have more pictures, but you really don’t want to see them! 😀

I imagine those modders that are probably having shivers right now.
I remember when I went to buy my first computer. I would have treated it like a tiny chick, moving it slowly, never shaking it, putting it down softly on the ground.
I went to the shop where I ordered it, told my name and the guy went in the back. He came back holding the computer on a shoulder with one hand and asked “where’s the car?” and we walked out and he put in the car as if it had been a piece of wood or something that would have NEVER broken… I was so SCARED that it would break up in pieces! 😀

Is it inappropriate to post such a link on my blog?

I’ll let you decide. No other words.

After a LOT of emails, many teleconferences and a lot of work, a public draft was published!

It’s still a draft and there is still a LOT of work to be done, but it’s good to have a first version public and hear the comments from the community.

I would REALLY like to hear comments about this.
Get it now! It just takes half an hour to read…

I don’t want to say anything other than “read it”, but I would really like to hear from the community.

I am not about to talk about logging visits and tracing users, but rather write log files.

Adding logging functions while you are writing a new software is really boring. It is one of those things that while you’re writing the software you don’t feel the need and think it will never be of any use.
Unfortunately softwares always have a flaw somewhere and users, for some reason, tend to do something that you hadn’t predicted.
When I started to write software I used to write only a few lines of logs here and there, just because someone told me I should do it.
Now my softwares are FULL of logs, almost any single action has a possible line of log. Of course I set many different levels of log, but when a new application goes online, I always have the logs set to the maximum. I want to see what happens and be able to trace it in the first days online.
I learnt the importance of logging where a client wanted me to explain why one of his customers was complaining and we could not find what hadn’t worked properly. It has been really hard and basically we did not have an answer, but that day I decided that I wanted to have an answer the next time that this would have happened.

Logging is the only way you have to discover is something went wrong, what the user did to make your software crash or fail. It is REALLY important in my opinion. You should not only write logs, but you should also make sure that the logs you write will be useful. This is not simple, if you don’t know the problem, you can’t be able to write the logs that will be useful, so you should try to image what could go wrong and first of all make sure your software will “fail gracefully” and then you should try to log something that should be useful to replicate the problem and possibly solve it.

These are my two cents for a better programmer. 🙂