From Subject to Object

A few weeks ago Apple introduced MobileMe as a replacement for .Mac. As has been noted, Apple, with this change, went from a Subject based i approach, to a Object based me approach. As noted in the above linked article this means the following:

Signs do, however, point clearly to Apple steering away from consumer as creator of data and toward consumer as data itself. I no longer create the data I sync, the data is me and it syncs on its own.

For the past seven years, I've been heavily involved in defining relationship types with a Subject Type and Object Type. And therefor I feel that I can add my own two cents to it. The way I see it is that the subject attributes something to the object. That something is normally either described by a role or by a verb phrase. For example, the i in for example iPhoto attributes photos to iPhoto. Now for MobileMe. Here we have an Object Type: Me and a role description: Mobile. The trick is now to find out what is attributing to the mobile me. Is that the I from the apps in iCal, iTunes, iMovie et cetera? Or can it be Apple? Or the notorious Cloud?

In my opinion, it is I that is contributing to me. And to which me? I'm quite sure that I can have multiple Me's because I have multiple I's. For example, when asked at a party where my car is, I might answer I'm parked over there, at the end of the parking lot. And, since I can have multiple I's, I'm sure I can have multiple me's too. In this case it would be a Mobile Me. This leads me to the fact that I am contributing to the Me that is on the road, or at least away from my PC. In this light, MobileMe can be seen as part of the ongoing evolution that removes the ties to the home PC and enables mobility.
This evolution started with the need for remote access and dumb terminals via teletype. Then the home PC came cutting the ties with the work environment and the mainframe computers. After the home PC became the central server of all personal data, a further tie was cut with the increased popularity of notebook and laptop computers. As technology advanced, the PDA's and mobile phones became more and more popular. Now we have the combination of internet access via cloud computing and an able wireless infrastructure that allows true mobile access. It is exactly this that is enabled by the introduction of MobileMe. It fits both with the description on Apple's pages and with the naming of the service: MobileMe.

In short, the move from Subject to Object in the name is based upon the shift from home computing to wireless access everywhere with small personal devices like the iPhone.

Zaaf

Spring cleaning time

Everyone of us probably has that big box of cables and assorted electronic gear that's been gathering dust over the past years. In my case there were two boxes, plus some cables lying in the proximity of the boxes and the computer. Today I took the opportunity to go through all of my cables and stuff and decide what to throw away. For fun's sake I made a list:

1. Apple Powerbook G4 667MHz with power adapter, spare power cord and two spare batteries;
2. IOmega Zip Drive with parallel interface, including parallel cable and power adapter;
3. 40GByte iPod 3G, with the black and white interface and a broken hard drive;
4. Palm m505 with usb cradle and power adapter;
5. Belkin USB 2.0 riser card that was used in my PowerMac;
6. Sony battery charger for the 20th anniversary walkman;
7. 10/100 Mb Ethernet card;
8. ATA 100 raid card;
9. 3 parallel ATA 66 cables;
10. Creative Soundblaster microphone from 1995;
11. Broken Sony earbuds;
12. Sennheiser earbuds;
13. Sweex 128MB MP3 player with earbuds;
14. RF-plug male;
15. Palm 16MB SD Card;
16. Compaq two button ps/2 ball mouse;
17. Trust mouse to go with their touch pad;
18. Logitech 3 button ps/2 ball mouse;
19. Logitech 2 button ps/2 ball mouse;
20. Logitech scroll wheel usb optical mouse;
21. small 2 button usb optical mouse;
22. Parallel Cable;
23. RS 232C to Parallel adapter;
24. RF TV splitter;
25. 6.8GB Maxtor HDD;
26. USB charge stand;
27. 3 uk-style power cords, one with a 3A fuse;
28. 2 grounded power cords;
29. USB WIFI access point;
30. DV-in enabler for Sony handycams;
31. Bose holding etui for their horrible in-earbuds;
32. USB enclosure for hard drives, including 30 GB HDD and power adapter;
33. USB enclosure for hard drives, including 80 GB HDD and power adapter;
34. Two HDD enclosures with mounting brackets for swapping hard drives in a PC-Tower, including a 8GB and a 20GB hard drive
35. four-way USB hub with power adapter;
36. 15 meter of telephone wire;
37. telephone wire with ethernet-style plug and wall socket plug;
38. USB to PS/2 adapter;
39. 42 3 1/4" diskettes;
40. Wall mounting bracket for original "ufo" Airport;
41. Din 4-pin to Din 4-pin cable;

That's the lot. And when we go through other boxes and shelves, I'm sure that we'll find a lot more obsolete hardware. Still it feels weird to do the spring cleaning in the summer holidays.

Zaaf

Turned a new leaf

Yesterday, after finally receiving a nice bonus from my previous employer, I went to my local Apple dealer and got myself a shiny new machine. After my PowerBook died on me, I tried to use my iPod Touch as the web browser for the living room. However, due to some limitations of both the hardware and some web sites, I decided to treat myself to a new MacBook Pro.
And after receiving my final paycheck from my previous employer, I went ahead and bought the 2.5 GHz, 4GB Ram MacBook Pro, together with a time capsule for my backups and a new wireless mouse. I now can browse the web again while watching a movie.

This is so much more enjoyable than sitting in the attic with my Mac Pro and missing the ins and outs of the series my wife follows on TV.

Zaaf

Webpage junk

We're all familiar with the issue. Most of the time, when reading an article on a newspaper website, the information is in one column in the middle, flanked on the left with some navigational bits and on the right with some advertising pieces. We all know it and most of the time we don't look at it anymore. The web browser on the iPhone / iPod Touch however lets you zoom in on the text you want to read, thereby missing out on the junk surrounding it. This makes for a great uncluttered reading experience. So much so that when I switched back to reading news on a laptop instead of my iPod Touch, I immediately started to double tap on the column containing the article.

As a side note, some weeks ago I participated as a user in a usability test for a new website. The lady conducting the test noticed that I did not look at the information displayed at the left and right of the centre. Instead I just scrolled down to read that same information. So it would appear that my Mobile Safari webpage reading habits are already the dominant way of reading a web site.

So Web-developers, please stay in the centre and deliver us from junk,

Zaaf

New eye on the world

Just in time for the summer holidays, I bought a new, small and lightweight 1080p HD widescreen Sony video camera. It's a nice looking thing that records only to sony memory sticks. It's name is the Sony HDR TG3E. Now that's what I call a sexy name! I wish more companies would uses letter / number combinations for their product names. It just rolls of your tongue so easily doesn't it? HDR TG3E. It's great! It's so unlike those boring Apple names like "iPhone" and "MacBook". No, Sony gets it!

Anyway, this camera is so small, that they omitted the view finder, which makes it rather awkward to use in sunny spots. The other thing they did with it is move most of the controls to the touchscreen. And Sony is so confident that it's easy to use, that they don't even provide a booklet on how to get started. This lack of buttons and view finder makes it a very attractive looking camera, which of course, they had to undo a bit by plastering all kinds of stickers on them to advertise it greatness.

The good things about this camera are:

• It's very light and small, meaning that it easily fits in the pocket of your coat. However, since I bought it for the summer holidays, this is a moot point because I don't wear coats in summer.
• Because there is no view finder, you need the screen to film. Sony made it so, that the camera starts the moment you flip open the screen, thus saving another button.
• The fact that it uses memory sticks instead of tape means that it starts very fast. It even has an automatic stand-by mode that makes it even faster to stop and re-start filming.
• The memory card also gets rid of the fear that you tape over a previous scene.
• The zooming button is slowed down considerably compared to my previous camera, making it almost impossible to zoom too fast in a shot.
• Getting rid of the tape means that transferring your video from the camera can be done at much higher speeds, without the possibility of frames that are dropped. With a tape, there is always the possibility that the computer is too busy with other things to be able to capture al frames. With a memory card, this is no longer an issue because it has direct access.

Of course there are also some bad things about it:

• The battery has a small capacity. You can only shoot up to 40 minutes of video with it.
• The battery is placed inside the camera, making it look nice, but disallowing you to attach a bigger capacity battery.
• The Wide-angle on the lens is not very wide. Making some shots hard to capture. I've ran into this more times than I would like.

But overall, I'm quite pleased with this new camera. If you want, you can find some films at YouTube.

Zaaf

Television = Fake Reality

This morning, I showed my kids a few YouTube clips on my Apple-TV. They were discussing the various types of stunts that can be performed on a bicycle. The weird thing was that each time a great bike riding stunt was performed, they asked me of of was real or just some movie-trick. Apparently, they treat everything they see on TV as made- up and the only films on TV that are real are those that we shot ourselves.

Somehow I'm glad that they see things this way,

Zaaf