I took advantage of an offer to upgrade my iPhone 3G to the 3Gs model just before Christmas. I spent some time considering the alternatives, and speculating about what might become available during the next eighteen months of my new contract, but I've been more than happy with the 3G so my decision was quite an easy one. The 3Gs offered three main improvements over the 3G: a faster processor a better camera a 'compass' At first glance, these improvements seem quite modest. [continues...]
In my previous post about QR codes I made a couple of points which, after receiving some interesting comments, I'd like to expand on. I see them [QR codes] occasionally on blogs/web-pages but I just don’t much see the point of that Shortly after making this point, I suggested on a UKOLN internal mailing list that it might make more sense to include a QR code in a cascading style sheet provided for printing, rather than viewing on the screen. [continues...]
I spent half an hour this morning experimenting with QR barcodes, prompted by Andy Ramsden who is running a small test/survey. I used various iPhone clients to try to decode and make use of three QR codes printed on a sheet of paper. Each of the three codes encoded different information - a URL, a simple string of text, and an SMS message with mobile number respectively. It transpires that the iPhone does not make a first-class QR decoder. [continues...]
It hasn't even occurred to me to look for a user-manual. This user-interface is so much better than any comparable device, it's just not funny. It'll be copied for sure, but right now the iPhone is fast heading for the horizon and those other poor phones and PDAs out there are going to have to run to catch up. This is the first gadget I have brought home where the family have soon clustered around it, wanting to touch it and play with it. [continues...]
The other day I found myself using my cellphone’s inbuilt camera to photograph a UML diagram which had been hand-drawn on a white-board. The results were poor, and I ended up having to transcribe it by hand. I was intrigued to stumble across scanR, a startup who offer a service to process low-quality photos of white boards and paper documents. Haven’t tried it yet, but they do offer a free trial. [continues...]
I went out a couple of weeks ago and treated myself to a new palmtop - Sony's Clie TJ37 I must say I'm very pleased with it. Having had three PalmOS devices before, the main new feature I wanted was WIFI access. This is because my 3 month old son, Joe, seems to sense it when I open my laptop and has usually started crying before my Linux system has fully booted-up. [continues...]