Test Mixed Reality post

v1

Simplicity counts

Just watched this, now must be the time to start making systems that people want and love.

The lie that is open source

Ok I have spent 3 very frustrating days trying to get a computer to print the quintessential message for a newbie "hello world". Why is it so hard? why does it not work? because I'm using open source software- don't get me wrong I think the aims are fantastic. But the reality is lack of consistency, confusion, no documentation (least nothing that a normal developer can read), massive complexity, stupid names and no support (well nobody ever answers my please for help on the forums). Open source ... great idea... but a complete waste if its too hard to use.

So if anybody can tell me how I can compile the gtk hello world using the arm gcc cross compiler I would would appreciate it.

Remarkable companies

Is your company ‘remarkable’?

Holiday reading this week has been  Seth Godin’s book ‘small is the next big’ (www.sethgodlin.com/smallisthenewbig). Interesting book either if you are in a large company and ever wonder why,  or run/want to run a company yourself.

Reading the book started me thinking; are there any companies I use that could be described as ‘remarkable’? As I write there only two I can think of.
First is our Internet supplier zen (http://www.zen.co.uk), who though they cost more (much more) than others they rarely have problems and when they do it’s a simple call to a person who cares and gets it sorted. Hey no call desk in some far off land, nobody called Dave! Having battled with Virgin, NTL, Sky and many others Zen shows what customer service is about.

The second is a little restaurant that some of our friends (Colin and Sue) put us on to (thanks :-) its the ‘buvette’ at Buoux (pronounced  ‘boo’) between APT and Lourmarin in provence area of France. Why is it remarkable? Well it’s tiny (7 tables) it serves wonderful simple food and local wine very inexpensively. The services is warm, courteous and unhurried. The puddings are to die for and the location is simple beautiful with fantastic views. Do I care that you have to go there to book (booking is essential) and in the evening there is only one main dish on the menu, No!

Being remarkable is not simple about being better than the competition but being a company who’s customers think of as amazing.

So the question is what makes your company remarkable?

The joy of 'free' WIFI

Ok I'm on holiday. Customers however are not and when problems appear a free wifi hotspot is godsend. That is until you try it ..

So the place I'm staying in has 'free' wifi! Simple... but then nobody knows the password... A few attempts at obviouse ones proves futile. So off to the local town APT, and I find a 'free' wifi hotspot (thanks to netstumbler on my iPhone) at the Pub St'John but despite many beers, connection attempts and reboots i could not connect either via my trusty MacBook pro or my iPhone 3g, everybody else however was tapping away just fine.

Back up to the local village (Saignon) and the beautiful Auberge du Presbytere with 'free' wifi (and more drinks).
At last a connection! Or so I thought. I never realised how much movement a waiter made, as every time he walked in and out of the building the wifi signal
disappeared!

Like a bizzare time and motion study keystrokes, connection attempts
and file uploads had be timed precisely to waiter movements. However with minutes of battery life remaining and little hair left to be pulled out the job was at last done.

Lessons learnt 'free' wifi costs, in my case £36 of drinks & 2 hours
of fraustration.

Oh why do they never say free power as well as free wifi?

Technical people

Rant of the day... It is my contenton that Most technical people confuse their own possitive reenforcement with solving their customers problems. By this I mean most technicaly aware people build solutions based on what is cool to use now rather that what is right to use for the customer to solve their probems.

Want to unlock/upgrade your iphone?

Just updated my old iphone from 1.0.1 to 1.1.4. I originally used the old copy of anySimm. The phone's work well since day one (I'm in the UK so I had it months before it was officially launch here). Since the phone worked I thought I would wait until the the Iphone hackers had a sure fire way of cracking it - before upgrading it .. well now they do go to http://iphone.unlock.no/ simple, clear instructions and software that works!