If you are a talented developer for iPhone, we are looking for someone that can develop a WiFi application for it. It involves getting deep into the WiFi interface, so please only apply if you can do such work. We pay a very attractive hourly rate, so if you’re up for it, email me!
Weekend project: a HazMat guide for the iPhone
It’s not a native application (getting to know XCode is going to be harder!), but a so-called “web application” for the iPhone. A few times I’ve been at RTAs involving trucks carrying hazardous chemicals, and other times it’s out of curiosity that I would like to know what exactly is the well-protected container wrapped in warning labels carrying when such a truck drives by. If you want to dive right in without going through the introduction, browse your iPhone to http://www.technik-news.de – if you save it as webclip on your desktop you will get a nice orange flaming icon with it.
Hazardous chemicals and their classification
To cover the need of a unified system to classify and identify dangerous goods in transport, a unified number system was devised and adopted by the United Nations, and is now recognized by a number of countries, including those in the European Union and the United States. The commonly used label on trucks, train carts and other containers is an orange placard with two numbers – the top is the Hazard Identification Number (HIN), and the bottom the UN Number, uniquely identifying the substance.
In this particular example, the HIN is 33, meaning highly flammable liquid (the same number repeated indicates an increased danger), and the substance as the UN number 1203, which corresponds to motor spirit, gasoline or petrol. For example, diesel is not as flammable as gasoline (lower flashpoint) and carries a HIN of 30.
In addition to these placards, a container must carry hazmat (hazardous material) information placards, known as ADR labels in Europe, an example of which is shown below.
DSL Zugang — bekommen Sie überhaupt einen?
Da steht man nun vor den ganzen Plakaten, die DSL Zugang hier, DSL Zugang dort offerieren, einen schnellen, einen günstigen, einen komfortablen DSL Zugang und man weiß noch gar nicht, ob dieser DSL Zugang überhaupt für einen selbst verfügbar ist. Entscheiden Sie sich daher nicht zu früh, nicht, ehe Sie die DSL Verfügbarkeit nicht geprüft haben. Der DSL Zugang ist extrem abhängig vom Ausbau der DSL Netze, weshalb der DSL Zugang vom Anbieter XYZ für Sie unerreichbar bleibt.
Aber bevor wir gleich weiter über DSL Zugang und DSL Verfügbarkeit sprechen. Klären wir erst einmal, was genau eigentlich zum DSL Zugang gehört. DSL Zugang ist ein Sammelbegriff, der verschiedene für eine DSL Verbindung ins Internet notwendige Komponenten umfasst: einen DSL Anschluss als Eintrittskarte für die DSL Welt, einen der DSL Tarife für das Verweilen in der DSL Welt, eine DSL Hardware für die technischen Voraussetzungen und eventuell Spezialhardware für DSL Telefonie als preisgünstige Art des Telefonierens. All das wird zusammen in ein DSL Paket geschnürt und dem potenziellen Kunden angeboten.
Kommen wir jetzt noch einmal auf die DSL Verfügbarkeit zu sprechen: DSL Verfügbarkeit kann sich nun auf die DSL Geschwindigkeit eines der DSL Pakete oder aber auf den DSL Anschluss beziehen. Eine gute Nachricht haben wir auf jeden Fall: Irgendeinen DSL Zugang können mittlerweile die allermeisten Haushalte in Deutschland erwerben. Selbst, wenn man allein das DSL Netz der Telekom betrachtet, ist der DSL Ausbau so weit fortgeschritten, dass über 90% der Haushalte mit einem DSL Anschluss der Telekom versorgt werden können. Die DSL Netze anderer Netz- und DSL Anbieter sind schlechter ausgebaut, weshalb hier genau der DSL Zugang Ihrer Wahl an mangelnder Verfügbarkeit beim DSL Anschluss scheitern könnte. Sollte das jeweilige DSL Netz noch nicht zu Ihnen vorgedrungen sein, ist für Sie auch kein DSL Anschluss an dieses Netz möglich. Sie müssen ein anderes Paket für Ihren DSL Zugang schnüren. Selbst, wenn das DSL Netz Ihrer Wahl Sie erreicht, ist noch immer nicht gesagt, dass Sie es auch mit der von Ihnen bevorzugten DSL Geschwindigkeit nutzen können. Vielleicht lassen die technischen Voraussetzungen nur einen DSL Zugang mit DSL 2000 zu, während Sie gern DSL 6000 oder DSL 16000 gehabt hätten. Da kann man dann meist (erst einmal) nicht viel machen!
Twitxr spam
I am quite surprised about the lack of respect for privacy and anti-spam laws that many startups are showing nowadays, with the excuse that being social and web-two-d0t-ohish gives them carte blanche to jump over all the hoops. Today’s case: Twitxr.
A friend got this in his inbox:
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Martin Varsavsky wants to keep up with you on Twitxr
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 01:01:07 +0000 (UTC)
From: Twitxr
Reply-To: no-reply@twitxr.com
To: notshown@nospam.com
See Martin Varsavsky’s pictures:
http://twitxr.com/martinvars
Thanks,
The Twitxr team – http://twitxr.com
About Twitxr
With twitxr you can share a moment, a picture, a thought, instantly with your mobile phone. Where are and what are you doing your friends now? Twitxr tells you.
To start with, the email address this was sent to is from an old company he worked at, and which has not been used for over three years. It seems that Martin has just taken his list of email addresses, containing anyone who he has ever been in touch with, and copy/pasted them into the Twitxr database. Secondly, the email comes from a no-reply email address, and provides no way to unsubscribe from these communications. In fact, this email was not even used to subscribe to a Twitxr account!
Now, I believe there are many laws in Europe and the US that prevent this. We currently use a mailing list platform that requires us to comply with many regulations and provisions, so I know for a fact that it’s not as simple as copying a bunch of emails into a database and clicking ’send’.
Bluetooth broken by Siemens on the Gigaset SL560
Had to buy a new DECT cordless phone today, as the kids finally managed to bust the only remaining good unit in the house – so I went shopping for a Siemens, as they have proven to be the most trustworthy and abuse-taking phones. This is the one I got, thinking how nice it would be to use the built-in Bluetooth to sync my agenda and use a headset for long calls.
Or so claimed the blurb, soon to be proven wrong. First attempt, sync my Mac’s address book, should be easy enough. The phone supports exchange of files in vCard format, but it failed to actually receive any, it just sat for ages with a ‘Transferring data’ message on the screen, until it bombed with not even an error message. Sending from the phone to the Mac failed equally well.
I then tried to pair my Jawbone headset with the phone, which was mostly uneventful (although it took two tries to get the headset into the preferred devices list). Dial a number. Press the call button on the headset so that it takes over. Watch nothing happen. Attempt to pick up an incoming call by pressing the headset button – fail again.
So off I went to the Bluetooth SIG to check the PICS on this piece of crap, and lo and behold, there it was – the SL560 supports Bluetooth 1.2, which in itself should not be a problem, if the right profiles are supported (and correctly implemented of course!). This is where things turn south, on the audio side, the phone only supports the Audio Gateway (AG) role, which is confusing to many headsets out there, which expect either a handsfree or headset profile to be available. Headset (HS) is specifically NOT supported on the SL560. Thus, expect many headsets to fail talking to this phone.
On the data front it doesn’t fare much better, with object push client and server supported, but only the basic requisites are implemented, being information on supported content, authentication and PIN exchange, object push, and vCard 2.1 format. Nothing else like business card exchange, or calendaring formats are supported. I have to try sending a contact from a Windows PC, as it wouldn’t be the first time Apple implements something in funny ways (maybe OS X supports vCard 0.1 Beta, who knows!).
Conclusion? This phone is going back to the shop tomorrow, and I’ll be getting a less fancy, more standard Siemens. Bluetooth SIG, it’s about time you start policing manufacturers with some degree of accountability, not merely watching the compliance reports come in. I can certify my Bluetooth device with just one test rig, and not test it with any real-world device, and still claim it is Bluetooth compliant, and I know from experience that such a device is bound to fail.
Chronopay is a joke!
So I tried to add funds to an online music store today. Their payments are handled by Chronopay, which provide the most confusing, user-unfriendly payment system known to man. You are asked for your name and surname, address, and card details (OK all normal up to here), but then…the issuing bank of your card? My bank has variations on the company name, which means I cannot be sure I’m typing the right thing here. After this step, I’m shown my bank’s ‘Verified by VISA’ additional check page, which asks me to enter a PIN that has been SMS’d to my mobile phone (whaaaa?). Entered the PIN which is accepted, and a few seconds later…transaction refused. All in a page using Times New Roman as the font – how ugly can you get? No word on why was the transaction declined, from the myriad of possible fields where data could have been input wrong. Call their service hotline (uhm, their 24/7/365 chat is “offline”, I guess this is a leap year or something), wait for 10 minutes, nobody bothers to take the call. Either they are very busy, or they leave some temp to take the calls at a very slow pace. In all – it SUCKS! I tried this thing seven times, with various combination of inputs, and they all failed. Just to see if I was going senile, I purchased something else online, and it went through just fine.