woensdag, juni 27, 2007
Summer break
Back on July 15!
zondag, juni 17, 2007
Taxonweb
This weekend I submitted my tax declaration. It is the fourth year I do it online via a Belgian application called Tax-on-Web. This year it (finally) has some wizards to fill in fields and it comes prefilled with the numbers the tax office knows anyway such as income from labour, pension funds, etc.That is when I started thinking about web2.0 and government. Actually, I do not know any web2.0-like application made by any government. Frankly, I don't see how that should look like. Maybe the two concepts are not easily combined. I can't imagine a government site where people give each other tips to avoid paying taxes :-) .
If anyone knows of a web2.0 site made by government, I'd like to hear about it.
woensdag, juni 13, 2007
Plan a meeting with Doodle.ch
My manager wanted to plan a meeting so he send out a note to ask the availability of all team members. So far nothing exiting. The exiting thing however is he linked it to doodle.ch. The site is available in 4 languages and allows you to create polls to plan meetings. The tag line of Doodle says it all : "Doodle helps scheduling meetings – it's simple, quick, and free".Labels: doodle
dinsdag, juni 12, 2007
Something new in music town: lala.com
The most popular music store is iTunes. But there are other initiatives and sites that do excellent efforts to step up and challenge the giant. Recently I stumbled upon lala.com.It's a true web2.0 site for music. You can search for artists with auto-suggestions, the artist's biography comes from wikipedia, and you cannot only buy and rate songs, but also trade songs (that's new!) and upload your songs library to their server so you never loose them and can access them from anywhere (wow!).
It is iPod compatible. I couldn't try it out because international users cannot (yet) listen to music. Thanks to an agreement with Warner Music Group, users can listen online to the complete albums from Warner artists. The site is rather album based than song based which looks like a step back to me, but so far the initiative is promising.
For more information on lala.com, visit the site or read this article from Technology News.
Labels: lala.com
maandag, juni 11, 2007
There will be a 3D internet
My company believes that one of the 5 innovations with the most impact for the next 5 years will be the emergence of a 3D Internet.
I've posted enough on Second Life, and Second Life and education. Today I just want to mention 2 other 3D Internet places:
- Club Penguin : this is a 3D environment created for kids. That is not a bad idea if you realise Second Life is a lot about sex & money, as are many Internet places or even real life.
- Active Worlds : there are actually two similar environments just to add to the confusion: there is http://www.active-worlds.com/ and http://www.activeworlds.com. Both are different from the omnipresent Second Life in that they don't offer one virtual world with many islands, but actually a set of worlds you can choose from. The one with the dash (active-world.com) is available in a few languages and looks like a 3D chat. The one without the dash (activeworld.com) is English only and has an interesting section for eduction. For example University of Colorado's Virtual Computer.
I've posted enough on Second Life, and Second Life and education. Today I just want to mention 2 other 3D Internet places:
- Club Penguin : this is a 3D environment created for kids. That is not a bad idea if you realise Second Life is a lot about sex & money, as are many Internet places or even real life.
- Active Worlds : there are actually two similar environments just to add to the confusion: there is http://www.active-worlds.com/ and http://www.activeworlds.com. Both are different from the omnipresent Second Life in that they don't offer one virtual world with many islands, but actually a set of worlds you can choose from. The one with the dash (active-world.com) is available in a few languages and looks like a 3D chat. The one without the dash (activeworld.com) is English only and has an interesting section for eduction. For example University of Colorado's Virtual Computer.
Labels: 3D internet, avatars, Second Life
zondag, juni 10, 2007
HetBeland.com open
My mother in law asked me to make a website for the bed and breakfast she's opening. It is available in 4 languages at www.hetbeland.com . I would not call it a mash up, but I did link with Flickr and Google Maps. The directions come from Google Maps, and the images on every page are a Flickr photo badge, randomly generated from a photo set. Every time you refresh the page, the images are different.zaterdag, juni 09, 2007
Weird things are upon us
Not all web sites are useful. In fact, quite some web2.0 or older sites are utterly useless but still very popular. For example: did you ever wonder how many chickens go into one Tom Cruise? Do you know how many marathons go into the Great Wall of China?
Search no further! Go to weirdconverter.com for all kinds of silly conversions.
PS: the answers are 45,36 and 151.78
Search no further! Go to weirdconverter.com for all kinds of silly conversions.
PS: the answers are 45,36 and 151.78
dinsdag, juni 05, 2007
ASP.NET: FreeTextBox versus FckEditor
For the 'Tell.Me' explanation part of the about2findout.com project, I needed a web-based simple HTML editor. Visual Studio does not ship with such a component, but there are two popular freely available components you can use: FreeTextBox or FckEditor. Both are lightweight, cross-browser and good.FreeTextBox is a pure asp.net component, written in C#. Inspite of the name, FreeTextBox comes in a (limited) free version and a full paying version. Also the source code has to be purchased, but the fees are small. You pay 50$ for a professional and 200$ for a source code license. FckEditor is a true open source project, and not exclusive to the .NET environment.
In the end I have chosen FreeTextBox because of one thing: its integration with the NetSpell spelling checker component that I already use in my project. I made the spelling screen multilingual, and manually set the language to check, but otherwise just plugged in the component as such and it works quite well.
The downside with including an HTML editor to your page is that you have to configure validateRequest="false" in the @Page directive af the .aspx file to prevent the build-in ASP.NET security checker to block the postback. It makes the page less secure, so be sure to manually delete all scripting tags or other unwanted tags from the HTML editor before storing it in your database.
Labels: asp.net, fckeditor, freetextbox
maandag, juni 04, 2007
Boys and their toys: iPod Shuffle
Way behind the hype, I now also own an iPod. It's a silver iPod Shuffle, a music player about the size of a paperclip. It's small, comes in a small box with the omnipresent white earplugs, and a small thingie to connect it via USB to your computer.I must admit iPod simplicity rocks. The device itself has one big button and an on/off and shuffle switch. That's it. The connection with iTunes on my computer was very smooth, the device was immediately recognised. I just refused to register the iPod because the registration wizard insisted I lived in The Netherlands, which I don't. There are limits! But after I downloaded and installed the latest version of iTunes, I could register as the Belgian that I am.
iPods or other music players are a great way to listen to songs of course, but also to podcasts. Apple recently released the 'iTunes U' university on its iTunes store. Just like music publishers and artists release their songs, now educational institutions and universities can leverage the iTunes platform to distribute learning. You can for example find the open source courseware from MIT on it. Interesting initiative.
Labels: iPod
zondag, juni 03, 2007
Boys and their toys: smartphone
I upgraded my E-Ten Glofiish M700 smartphone to Windows Mobile 6.0. Registered users can download the ROM upgrade for free. I also reinstalled OggSync's latest version to synchronise my Google Calendar. (Be sure to install .NET Compact Framework service pack 2, otherwise it won't work, believe it from someone who tried :-) ).
Windows Mobile 6 has a smoother interface and includes Windows Live, but the major improvements are for companies that push e-mails to the smartphones.
Of course, I've been looking for games to install on my device. That's when I came accross Ice Cream Empire. It doesn't run on my particular phone but I do like the concept: it is a business simulation game you play via your mobile. The slogon of this free game made by Bocconni university is 'Turn the economy into a mobile game'.
Windows Mobile 6 has a smoother interface and includes Windows Live, but the major improvements are for companies that push e-mails to the smartphones.
Of course, I've been looking for games to install on my device. That's when I came accross Ice Cream Empire. It doesn't run on my particular phone but I do like the concept: it is a business simulation game you play via your mobile. The slogon of this free game made by Bocconni university is 'Turn the economy into a mobile game'.
