web-mastered

Andreas Stegmann

Wed, 25 May 2016 22:54:42 +0200

From now on you can find my blog articles over at Medium.

I kind of misused tumblr for the kind of content I posted anyway (longer content instead of shorter snippets). And I have the feeling tumblr has dropped the ball since the Yahoo acquisition. Unfortunately.

The Cook and the Chef

Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:52:57 +0100

The Cook and the Chef:

Somehow this piece about Elon Musk’s independent reasoning does a better job at explaining the “magic” of people like Steve Jobs than the countless historic summarys (named biographys).

Hey Apple, you need to move away from your strategic walled garden approach

Sun, 15 Nov 2015 13:44:50 +0100

After a 5-month encounter with Android (Sony Xperia Z3 compact) I switched back to the iPhone (6s).

My reasons would fill an article by its own, but let’s just say both operating systems have their pros and cons - the perfectionist in me has decided he needs the feeling of tidiness, more polished user experience and superior app quality that comes with the Apple ecosystem and hardware.

While I would say the ecosystems getting closer and closer, the gap in hardware is still relevant: The incredible fast fingerprint sensor, new possibilities in touch interactions and the top-of-the-notch camera with natural looking images are reasons on its own.

But: As hardware features get more and more commoditized, Apple will need to play their biggest differentiator - the integration of hardware and software. In fact you can see this strength at work with the afore mentioned 6s features. Now enter the cloud department.

Here ist the list of services (or jobs to be done) and how I substituted them on my iPhone.

Replaced Apple services:

Apple Mail - Google Inbox App
Calendar - Google Calendar App
Contacts - FullContact App
Safari - Google App (when I open the browser manually it’s in almost all cases a Google search)
iCloud Photo Library - Google Photos & Flickr
iCloud Drive - Google Drive & Dropbox
iTunes Match - Google Music
Apple Music - Amazon Prime Music (good enough for me)
iCloud Notes - Evernote
iTunes Movies - Amazon Prime Instant Video
iBooks - Amazon Kindle
Apple Maps - Google Maps

Remaining Apple services:

iCloud Backup
Find my iPhone

Apple Services that are part-time replaced (meaning they get used alongside):

Siri - Google Now
FaceTime - Google Hangouts
iMessage - WhatsApp & Facebook Messenger

It was surprising for me how many Apple services are disabled now. The service distribution looks like 75% Google, 10% Amazon, 10% Facebook “conglomerate”, 5% Apple.

Not using Apple services on an Apple device results in a lot of disadvantages. For example I’m not able to control my music with Siri or make a lot of shortcuts with Workflows. Despite that I favor the added benefits and features above the deep integration - this should be a huge warning sign for Apple.

Dear Tim Cook, how could/should you react?

Make your services best-in-class and reliable (they’re probably working on that right now)
Make your services accessible anywhere, preferably with native apps (they’re probably not working on that, except Apple Music)
Let the user decide which service they want to use and offer APIs at the system level (they’re probably not working on that)

Don’t get me wrong, I think with an Apple device you can get the most complete package at the moment - but some strategic decisions should be rethought for the long-term future - otherwise you’ll see (at least) me switching again.

How to get the most out of the Amazon Fire TV (unrooted)

Mon, 17 Aug 2015 12:39:56 +0200

Today, you can get the Amazon Fire TV for 69€ (in Germany).

Enough reason for me to summarize how this device single-handedly can be the solution to living room media center woes. (Well, at least it made my life a lot easier.)

1. Install 3rd party applications

The Amazon App Shop offers just a small fraction of Android apps (although sometimes with a huge discount). Because of the Android roots, you can install every .APK (Android file extension) that’s available. Just download with Raccoon and isntall via AGK Fire (for Android smartphones) and adbFire (for desktops). Unfortunately not everything works due to compatibility and Google Play Services restrictions. Here is a comprehensive compatibility list.

Magine and Kinocast are wonderful examples that need to develop a TV-optimized Version of their app.

2. Use Kodi

One of the must-haves is certainly Kodi (formerly known as XBMC). Kodi is too packed with features for this short summary, so take your time and google the details. I use Kodi to (live-)stream content via several Plug-Ins. For beginners there’s a custom build with a lot of Plug-Ins pre-configured.

3. Use other Input methods

In addition to the nifty remote and its surprisingly well working voice recognition I recommend this keyboard/touchpad combi. If you’re into games (the selection isn’t great, but growing) I would order the OUYA controller with the benefit of having also a mouse-equivalent.

4. Use Google Music or Spotify for music streaming

After some amount of tweaking I got the Google Music to run properly, a huge win, because I have my music library now on the big screen. For Spotify free tier users: You can’t use the App Shop Version, but you can install the smartphone Version, which works fine with a mouse.

5. Use ES File Explorer for movie streaming

This “simple” file explorer has the option to connect to several cloud storage providers and/or your local network drives. No need for the expensive Plex Pass here.

6. Use a USB hub and USB stick

What needs to be fixed in FTV2? The interal storage is not enough. Thankfully, almost all USB sticks work as external storage. Now that big FIFA15 game can be installed easily.

7. Install FireStarter

Before FireStarter I had to dig deep in the settings menu to launch a 3rd Party application. Now I have it configured to launch in the FireStarter menu with a doubleclick on the home button.

8. Stream from your smartphone

There are apps to emulate AirPlay and Google Chromecast. I can recommend AirPin for iOS devices (despite it’s not as good as streaming to an Apple TV).

As the title suggests, there is even more you can do if you root your device. But for a lot of people (including me) this isn’t an Option. Amazons OTA updates happen often and you don’t get to choose.

The big Apple Music disappointment

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 11:21:16 +0200

Like a lot of other web/tech nerds I’m disappointed by Apples entry into music streaming. (Make no mistake, the average user appreciates the no-third-party-solution. Die-hard Spotify fans will rightfully stay with the service, but the people who are introduced to music streaming right now will thankfully take the integrated offer.)

I’m not so much disappointed by the horrific onboarding process, though it is terrible

I’m not so much disappointed by the - especially in Apples benchmark - horrible UX
I’m not so much disappointed by the plethora of bugs that happen when you stuff a new service inside several old products that are meshed together in iTunes
I’m not so much disappointed by the missed opportunity to use the playcount statistics that every iTunes user has accumulated over the years to generate recommendations like LastFM does it for a decade. I see what they are doing here, but I just don’t think curation can beat the algorithm in the long(tail) term.

These are all things Apple can fix or add in later iterations - what it can’t fix (and what saddens me the most) is the underlying business modell & concept: Instead of Beats, buy a service like bandcamp and/or cdbaby. Let the artists sign up directly at your company and let them sell and stream their stuff without the intermediary, the labels. (After all, that’s what the internet enables us to do.) Just look at the income distribution in the music business and you instantly see why this could be a huge deal for artists.

A service like “Ping” or its reincarnation “Connect” is just the icing of the cake. At first it would only cater smaller indie artists. But I could imagine rebel heads like Taylor Swift will follow very shortly and perhaps exclusively on this new service. The wave is rolling.

Of course Labels wouldn’t be happy. Maybe they would even pull their stuff from iTunes. But Apple is the one company that has shown time and time again that it is willing to disrupt itself. They have the money, time (they’re already a late follower), and even more important: the loyal follower base to push it through.

Apple had the historic chance to revolutionize the music industry again (after the “I can buy music digitally via iTunes”-revolution), and they blew it.

Two cheap cloud storage solutions for your big photo library

Tue, 28 Apr 2015 23:28:08 +0200

I’m still experimenting what the right cloud storage / personal data syncing solution works for my purposes. Here are two ways I discovered along the way.

1. Amazon Cloud Drive

Amazon went into the cloud storage war with unlimited photo storage for prime subscribers. But, as I said before, the sheer size of cloud space doesn’t get you anywhere if the tools to fill that space aren’t there: Don’t bother to download the Cloud Drive Desktop app - it’s just a wrapper for the website uploader, no sync function here.

Fortunately I stumbled upon CloudHQ. With this webservice you can sync folders between different cloud storage provider. So I can facilitate my OneDrive desktop uploader and push all my local photos to Amazon Cloud Drive (with the detour over OneDrive). Now I have my photos on my Fire TV as well. Also I coud backup my Evernote photo notes or Gmail photo attachments. This is “true” syncing and goes far deeper than the connections you can establish with ifttt.

2. Flickr Camera Roll

While Flickr offers 1TB of storage for a relatively long time, the mac desktop uploadr is just a few months old (and still in beta). This is not a file system copy in the cloud like Dropbox, it’s more like the iCloud photostream in good. Uploads are happening in full size and are visible only to you.

Side-note: I would add the Google+ Auto Backup to the list as well, if there weren’t the photo quality reduction to 2048px (which is a deal-breaker for me). Anyway, the “Auto Awesome” computer generated content - especially the GIFs made from several similar looking pictures - is surprisingly good.

Mac OSX Switching Guide

Tue, 31 Mar 2015 16:25:01 +0200

Since 2011 I’m using a MacBook Air as my primary personal device. While not everything is gold over here, I didn’t regret the switch.

I have assembled a few nice-to-have tricks for the novice Mac user to make it easier

to move from Windows to MacOSX
to deal with Windows and MacOSX in parallel on a daily basis (like I do, mostly due to the fact that Windows is the only true supported system by my office IT department)

These alterations are not a statement on which side has it right, it’s more of an attempt to reduce the amount of mental adjustments when switching.

1. The missing Cut & Paste

For Windows users Cut & Paste is almost as important as Copy & Paste. For historic reasons, Mac’s do nothing if you try the CMD + X keyboard shortcut.

If you want the same beavior, install the free XtraFinder. Then go to its preferences and enable Cut & Paste.

Bonus: If you want to see folders on top of finder views (like Windows does it), XtraFinder can help you, too.

2. The missing “Snap”-Feature

While I don’t need the other visual “helpers” in Windows 7, I did grow accustomed to Snap. If I want to see to windows next to each other, I just need to drag them to one side and they snap in place.

If you want this as well, install BetterSnapTool ($ 1.99 Mac App Store). There are plenty of alternative window managers (with a lot more functions) available.

3. Closing programs

Windows got me used to the fact, that a red button in the corner quits the app entirely. In MacOS this depends on the app. Most of them close the current window, but stay active and also stay in the dock. If I would want this behavior, I would click on the Minimize-Button.

Thankfully, RedQuits brings the Windows-feeling over. But look out, in Yosemite I stumbled upon weird behaviour with my favorite clipboard manager.

4. Document saving

I’ve written about in detail - since OSX Lion Apple incorporated a new document saving model. For a more or less consistent Windows-like behavior follow the steps in the old article and create a new keyboard shortcut.

5. Enable “Right-Click”

Windows users and mouse users (exception: Magic Mouse) use the (bottom) right part of their trackpad/mouse to bring up a context menu with further options. You can change that in MacOS directly in the system settings. OSXDaily offers a good walktrough.

Interestingly, Windows 10 will use the same “Double Tap” as default MacOS to bring up the context menu.

6. File system support

One of the first things you might want to install is a NTFS-driver. Otherwise every USB thumb drive formatted with NTFS (Windows standard) won’t be able to receive files from your Mac (no write support). There is a free FUSE-driver and a paid alternative.

7. Virtualization

There willl be edge cases where a certain Windows software isn’t available for Mac. In that case you can install a virtual windows inside your Mac. Virtualbox is the place to go for a working, free virtualization suite. If you have deeper pockets you get deeper integration with Parallels.

Thoughts about the next big technology wave

Fri, 27 Mar 2015 15:46:35 +0100

Introduction

It’s interesting when new technologies make their way into our lives. Every big invention changed the life of people and whole industries while the speed of change seems to accelerate. Especially interesting is the gap between the birth of certain technologies - Horace Dediu named it inception - and their mainstream adoption.

Take the mobile market for example: “Smart” phones by definition were around since let’s say 2000: Back then, the first Nokia Communicator with Symbian OS, was already able to surf the web, install 3rd party applications and had limited flash support (seriously). But it took another 8-10 years till a real mobile revolution took place with the advent of the first truly usable touch interface (iPhone) and the first moving mobile eco-system (App Store based on the iPhone SDK).

Another example from history: The first commercial transport flight took place in 1910. But it wasn’t until the 1950s that the airplane slowly replaced taking a ship or a bus as a means to transport passengers to distant locations.

The potential of IoT

This introduction brought context for the actual topic: There is a new technology wave coming, called the Internet of Things. In fact you could think of IoT as an extension of the internet which is disrupting businesses for around 20 years now. The paradigm change that we saw with music or media is now coming to even more industries and will revolutionize everything again. The full power of “Digital” hasn’t unfolded yet. The question is not if this transformation will happen, the question remains how and when. At which point of the adaption curve are we right now?

We are just at the beginning. Not the beginning of the talk about IoT and the hype surrounding it - in fact we are at the “peak of inflated expectations” (Gartner). Just look around, if you want IoT products right now, you can buy all sorts of stuff: From the automatically adjusting desk to the “intelligent” mug. These sort of products have their justification, but it’s more of an R&D accomplishment addressing early adopters than a mass-market. This xkcd comic is funny because it’s true.

But if we can get past the hype there are valid use cases for connected products. I would say we are at the beginning of getting around to take the technology to real world use cases.

I’m honest, when I first got in touch with IoT in form of ifttt 4 years ago, I was exited about the possibility that every web service could talk with another. But I didn’t foresaw the step from connecting (web) services to real life objects and the vast amount of opportunities that arise with it.

The eye-opener for me was a recent Wired article about the Magicband, a wristlet Disney offers to its park visitors:

What the world will look like once IoT is there for money and identity services: Disney World’s #magicband http://t.co/8QiaeburKT

In broad terms the Magicband enables Disney to

make the customer experience as painless as possible (e.g. guidance to next attraction, entrance to attraction paperless)
implement a deep personalization with the visitor
make money transactions as hassle-free as possible (and therefore more likely)
get data about customer behavior that was un-accessible before

No wonder other industries are knocking on their door to borrow the technology.

With the growing “toolbox” of new technologies (listed in a separate article) further use cases are possible:

E.g. a sensor in a production machine could recognize a failing part and trigger an alert - with the details where he gets the correct replacement part - to the mobile device of the nearest service engineer. The business model has moved from reactive (pain is already occurred) to proactive: The catastrophe has been avoided.

Todays gimmick for fitness enthusiasts could become tomorrows data collecting mechanism in how to navigate the company’s forklift through the warehouse in the most efficient way.

The driver itself could be equipped during night shifts with a device like Vigo, a wearable that tracks blinking and body movement. When tiredness is detected, it tells the corresponding smartphone app to send gentle vibrations and energizing audio tracks.

And everything including automation in personal homes could be applied to businesses as well, where time savings can directly be translated into money. It should work like this: When I park my car on my reserved spot, the computer boots and is ready when I’m there. On the way to my office I’m passing a beacon that pushes me my next appointment and sets my phone to silent. With my intelligent key card (which could be an invisible software service) doors open for me according to my security clearance and my PC unlocks whenever I’m near. Energy savings due to efficient use would be a nice side-effect.

The State of Affairs

Big companies have joined the ride: Industrial (GE, Siemens, Bosch, etc.), as well as big tech (Intel, Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc.). And as with every major tech leap, new companies will emerge. Maybe it will be Xiaomi, which is already on track to offer almost every gadget possible (even air purifiers). And with their forked version of Android they have the software building block to glue them all together under one roof.

The technical advancements point in the right direction: Embedded processors and memory are becoming more powerful while getting cheaper and more energy efficient. At the time being, the common connector sits in the cloud. The open Wi-Fi movement and other proximity based transfer protocols are progressing to support that. An entirely software-based SIM would spure development even further, downgrading the role of carriers.

One could say the first real market test will be the Apple Watch. We will get new datapoints in how the consumer uses a smart device that is much closer in his everyday interactions than a smartphone. And as with the smartphone, the use cases will probably be different from what was expected in the first place.

When I was working at Deutsche Telekom we examined the “always on”-society and how that changes the way we interact with one another. Now we need to do the same kind of analysis for a society where every object is connected and people use platforms instead of apps.

Outlook

The following part is pure speculation, but it represents my futuristic vision on the progress of the Internet of Things.

I think the deployment of IoT will take place in coarsely three stages. Each of these stages have their own challenges, which have to be overcome.

In the first stage, in which we are nowadays, the connection betweenIoT devices is mostly bidirectional, often between some IoT device and asmartphone. Due to the lack or relative novelty of common protocols, these devices are often used in isolated applications for a single purpose. The challenges of this phase is to convince consumers and businesses alike of the usefulness of IoT products - nobody wants to waste money by being the first to implement a not market-ready system. In this context it will be interesting which party will drive the change. In mobile it became clear that the consumerization of IT has leapfrogged IT departments in a very short time. But in case of IoT, I’m leaning towards a business-driven future. One key aspect is deep integration: A system like the Magicband only works in the closed environment of Disney World. In the open world there are many different competing standards. Furthermore there are factors like privacy and data security that need to be dealt with. Companies can legitimate data tracking (to optimize the underlying algorithm) from their own employees much easier than private consumers.
In the second stage, IoT devices are able to accomplish much more difficult tasks, for which an interconnection of many devices is required. Instead of having one smart hub in the middle, every node in the network could gain some sort of “smartness”. Objects will offer services to other devices, e.g., a thermostat can answer questions like “when has my daughter arrived at school” by getting the GPS input from her smartwatch in the immediate past. From the inputs of many devices in a mesh network, probable states of the environment can be approximated - the devices in this phase make increasing use of derived insights, e.g. rising room temperature as an indicator for how many people are there.
The IoT systems we see today are relatively dumb once they are implemented: OTA updates are the best that you can get. In the third stage, devices expand their capabilities in areas such as self-awareness and self-reflection. Devices will be able to judge the information they gather on the level of experience and thereby can reflect on their behavior, judging their sanity and informing about the uncertainty of their findings. “Ethic algorithms” need to be discussed.

After all, let me do a quick summary: Is the IoT movement right now worth the hype? Yes, indeed. When will IoT systems suitable for a mass market audience? It’s starting right now. What will happen in the future? Nobody knows exactly, but better be prepared.

Upcoming tech trends - A buzzword definition

Fri, 27 Mar 2015 15:33:43 +0100

While I was writing my article about the next big wave in technology, I quickly realized the need for a comprehensive list of explained buzzwords (almost like a glossary).

So here I am, listing everything connected to the Internet of Things theme. This is not so much an academic definition as it is an attempt to move the terms into a broader context. If you think I am missing an important topic, feel free to comment.

Internet of Things (IoT): A network of physical objects that communicates with each other. The objects are classified as smart because they have some sort of sensor implemented. The common underlying thinking is as follows: Every object that could have a sensor implemented will have one in the longterm future. The communication between devices and people can, but doesn’t need to be over Internet. I recommend this infographic for more details.

Embedded Systems: In comparison to todays computing systems, an embedded system is not necessary visible to the user. It is hidden in the object itself, e.g. traffic light. Often times an embedded system has limited processing capabilities, but low energy-consumption and low price per unit.

M2M: Machine to Machine communication is an integral part of IoT, it defines the exchange of data between systems. It’s the wired or wireless network between objects. IoT goes one step further by including also the customer and the smart interpretation of data.

Beacons: Beacons are based on Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth Low Energy Standard). Today they are mainly used at the Point of Sale to attract the customers attention. While very limited in reach (user has to give explicit permission), first studies show the potential to increase sales. Beacons can be used in other cases when location is important, e.g. to get info about art I’m looking at in a museum. iBeacon is Apples isolated solution for devices running iOS 7 and newer.

NFC: Near-Field-Communication is another protocol that is also based on proximity. Credit cards and smartphone can be equipped with an NFC chip. At the moment the biggest use case is for quick and contactless small payments. The introduction of Apple Pay (uses NFC) will drive further adoption.

RFID: Radio-frequency identification is a different standard for wireless data transfers. While being on the market for a long time, RFID today is used as a cheap technique for tracking certain moving objects, e.g. in toll collecting or anti-theft protection.

Mesh Network: Mesh Networks have no central point, instead every device is used as a transmitter, improving the overall reachability and spread. Thus enabling connectivity in a previous isolated area. Examples: FireChat & Greenstone.

Smart Home: Also known as Home Automation, basically means IoT for the living room and kitchen. It connects entertainment systems as well as basic functions like light and thermal. This can be done by single accessories or by implementing a whole system. Smart Metering is a related function that monitors and bills utility services like gas.

Connected Car: Automative with wireless network connection. Gartner forecasts that about one in five vehicles will be “connected” by 2020. I’m not sure if the car will play the pivotal role in pushing IoT, but I’m sure that especially the automative sector can benefit from smart systems in a lot of areas.

Wearables: Smart device baked into a fashionable “everyday” item, prominent examples include Google Glass and the Apple Watch. Because of its close relation to clothing, Wearables are a cornerstone in the idea of Ubiquitous computing. They are emerging alongside IoT, mainly due to the fact that they are increasing the relevance of the other side: Working with enabled objects around me benefits from a frictionless interaction (and looking at my wrist is easier than pulling a smartphone out of my pocket).

Big Data: While Big Data itself is another strong IT trend, the data input comes often from IoT systems. Big Data then makes sense of the data by recognizing patterns.

Industrie 4.0: Term was created in 2011 to describe a german political initiative to improve manufacturing in regards of efficiency and flexibility by incorporating advancements in IoT and robotics. My problem with the initiative is described here.

Politik 0.4

Fri, 27 Mar 2015 15:22:16 +0100

Im Zuge der CeBit-Berichterstattung bin ich auf dieses Video von Kanzlerin Merkel zu “Industrie 4.0″ gestoßen:

Während ich es generell löblich finde wenn Digitalisierungsthemen vorangetrieben werden sollen, ist dieses Interview doch bezeichnend für den allgemeinen Umgang der deutschen Politik mit neuer Technik: Es setzt den Schwerpunkt auf die (möglichen) Negativfolgen:

Heutige “Fachkräfte” werden durch Robotik und Technisierung ersetzt, die Folge ist Arbeitsplatzabbau
Die im Zuge der Technisierung erhobenen Daten werden für eine Unterhöhlung des Datenschutzes genutzt

Natürlich sind dies Themen, die betrachtet werden müssen - aber dann bitte ganzheitlich, also alle Chancen gegen alle Risiken abgewogen.

Dazu passend ist die Aussage vom CEO der T-Systems:

Im Wesentlichen haben wir nichts hinbekommen, um uns pragmatisch schnell auf Standards zu einigen. Das IIC [US-Equivalent] kommt pragmatisch voran, […] es werden Quasi-Standards gesetzt. […] Unsere Gründlichkeit könnte zur Bedrohung für uns werden. Am Ende gewinnt vielleicht nicht der Beste, sondern der Schnellste.

About the Spotted by Locals App

Sat, 13 Dec 2014 19:35:00 +0100

I travelled quite a bit in the recent years. The “Spotted by Locals” service quickly became a very good companion.

Spotted by Locals is a series of mobile and online city guides with up-to-date tips by locals in 58 cities in Europe & North America.

We handpick our locals (“Spotters”) and meet them in person in their city. Our Spotters live in the city they write about, speak the local language, write only about their favorite spots, and keep their articles up-to-date.

A good idea with a good execution overall.

But when the team asked what could be done about their smartphone apps, I couldn’t resist telling what bugs me. This is an excerpt from the mail to the developers:

I’m a long time fan, but to be fair: The only advantage the app has over
the website is that you don’t need a data connection. Of course that’s especially important for a travel app, nobody likes roaming charges. But in 20145 the strategy should be “mobile first” - and not an afterthought.

If I were the product owner, my priority list would be as follows:

1. Fix geolocation (or as the blog post put it: “better maps”)

So far I have only used the iOS version, but there was no integration
with Apple Maps / Google Maps, like e.g. “open in Google Maps”. I don’t
know what map data you’re using, but at least it should be possible to
zoom in fluently without seeing pixels (please use vector graphics).
Also: Walking Directions!

2. Improve usability

Make the app easier to use by splitting the content. Every city should be one app (like with other guide publishers). People are searching no generic travel guides, they search a specific city they will visit in the future. Also this would show everybody the temporary free cities much clearer. Result: better App Store ranking!

3. User integration

A good start would be that everybody can rate places with thumbs up / thumbs down.

Even better: Gamification with some sort of ranking (who in the community visited the most spots, badges for certain accomplishments like visiting at least 5 different countries, etc.) By the way, If you are interested in such features I can recommend Fog of World. But please leave the checkin-feature to the established ones.

4. Social Media

The word mashup is overused and not trendy anymore, but it would be very nice if the app could show me the latest context information: Ratings from yelp, foursquare or TripAdvisor (maybe a combined meta-score), Photos from Instagram or Flickr, Wikipedia snippets from the sightseeing places nearby, OpenTable in countries which supports it.

And don’t forget, keep up the good work :)

Cloud Storage size comparisons tell you only half the story

Fri, 28 Nov 2014 17:05:00 +0100

Well, OneDrive has by far the best deal right now. In terms of $ per GB this is just ridiculously good. This is like Dropbox for cheap, maybe it’s the right time to put all my data on OneDrive. Microsoft has a good reputation regarding cloud services, so this can’t be that bad.

This was my thinking about a month ago, therefore I bought an Office 365 subscription. And boy, was I wrong. This post should be a warning for everybody who thinks about buying OneDrive.

Here are my findings where OneDrive can’t fullfill basic needs that Dropbox users take for granted:

1. OneDrive doesn’t sync existing folders.

This is german, basically it translates to “There are 16 problems with your OneDrive. There are already folders on OneDrive with the same name.”

Well guess what, I know that there are the same folders on OneDrive, this is kind of the definition of Online Backup. The software should be intelligent enough to go through every folder/file and check if the contents are the same. If yes, everythings fine, if not get the newest version on my disk or the other way in the cloud. At the very least, if you’re not sure which side has the right file, please do some conflict resolution. OneDrive won’t do any of this.

And instead syncing the files that are not in such a folder and therefore theoretically not affected, OneDrive completely stops syncing anything.

2. The OneDrive iOS app doesn’t show the correct status.

6 Days ago I uploaded a certain folder to OneDrive. When I open the app it refreshes itself, but no, afterwards it doesn’t show me the folders that are right now viewable on onedrive.live.com. Killing the app doesnt’ help. Manual refresh doesn’t help. Instead, this is the error that appears when I try to navigate around:

“Folder has been moved or deleted.”

3. OneDrive has no differential sync.

Differential or partial sync means syncing only the changes made to the file, instead of the entire file. Why do you need that? Well maybe, you want to backup some files that are 1 GB or bigger (movies, ISO from your favorite OS, TrueCrypt container, ZIP backup etc.). Without that feature, every time you go into standby mode, OneDrive resets the upload status and starts again the next time it is running. Just like a FTP client in the 90s.

4. OneDrive has no LAN syncing.

If two people on the same wifi network share a file, it doesn’t need to go all the way over the internet, if LAN syncing is enabled. E.g. incredible useful and time-saving when setting up a new PC on the same network. Dropbox offers this for at least two and a half years.

5. OneDrive on a Mac has significant CPU usage.

6. OneDrive restricts the path length of its files.

7. OneDrive has restrictions on file names.

[The problems 5, 6, 7 are already written down in detail on ignorethecode.]

8. OneDrive doesn’t work with external drives or symlinks.

Of course, one of the basic questions when getting such a huge amount of cloud storage revolves around the possibilities how you can fill it with your content. For example, I can place my Dropbox folder on an external drive that can hold all my stuff. Or even better, I put some important folders on my internal SSD, and the bigger folders on an external drive and link them with symbolic connectors.

OneDrive (artificially) removed these features. At some point symlinks were possible, but at the moment OneDrive completely stops working if it detects a symlink.

So how should I sync a TB of files when my main computer holds only 128 GB?

To be fair, OneDrive on Windows 8.1 had a pretty clever solution.

OneDrive-replicated folders always show all the files and folders that reside within those folders, and they do so even for files that aren’t available locally. If a file isn’t local then a placeholder would be shown instead. Attempting to open the placeholder from Explorer or a Metro application would first sync the file locally, and then open it.

Eventually they will bring this funtionality to Mac users? Uh no, instead they removed the feature from Windows 10.

Conclusion

More “nice to have”-features - like the Save to Dropbox-Button - are missing, but I try not to be too harsh on them. I don’t know if the OneDrive team just needs some time or if their ultimate strategy is flawed.

Their first frontier should be a good desktop client, on all clients. I looked for alternative clients with no luck. (Unfortunately ExpanDrive works not reliable enough - don’t try to upload more than 500 MB at at time. And there is no feature to make a file/folder permanently available offline.)

My advice if you thinking about going OneDrive: If you want to use OneDrive for a more or less static online backup/hosting, maybe the cheap pricing outbalances the missing features and reliability. If you want to use OneDrive like Dropbox, as a real sync solution for your really important files, please think again.

My Media Setup: Part 2

Sat, 01 Mar 2014 16:27:16 +0100

Let’s begin where I left off in Part 1:

So, Miro can deal with new watchable content pretty good, what do you do with existing films on hard drives or DVD’s? You could import them in Miro, too, but personally I want to separate throw-away content that is only watched once and, let’s say the Blu-Ray edition of my favorite blockbuster. But that’s stuff for another article.

Therefore I import and consolidate this kind of media as well as mp3 music files in iTunes. You may find better media librarys but when you own an iPhone this should be the way to go. In fact, iTunes Home Sharing with additional VPN (to get your library on other computers that are not in the same WiFi network) is pretty cool.

If you don’t want to use the iTunes interface in the living room, please give Plex a try - a media frontend based on XBMC for your iTunes library. The Plex App uses Direct Play and Direct Streaming to deliver a really instant playback feeling.

Needless to say, despite my efforts to make it as easy as possible, it’s not “Grandma-friendly” and could change at some points. For example at the moment I’m thinking about how to solve the remote control problem. Sticking with different remotes for dedicated stations or getting a Logitech Harmony?

To save or not to save

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:30:00 +0200

Back in 2011, right after the introduction of OSX Lion, I wrote:

Resume, Versions and Auto Save are features so needed, they should have been built in modern operating systems years ago.

Indeed, it would have been better Auto Save (incl. Versions) were the standard for years. Then I wouldn’t face the problem I’ll explain to you in a second.

I still brace Apple for their efforts to get rid of saving altogether and try to brake with the old, archaic concept of hitting that save button every 2 minutes, just in case.

But what I didn’t foresaw back then, were all the problems this concept brings. If you want to know the details, go and read this in-depth review from Matt Neuburg. To sum it up, a lot of problems occur because every PC/Mac user with the tiniest amount of knowledge has already internalized the mental model of “only when I hit the floppy disk symbol, my work is preserved.” E.g. people have the habit of experimenting with existing documents with the fall-back mechanism of not saving the changes they made when closing the document. This is not possible with the new way.

Now it’s 2012, the year of Mountain Lion, and I am still struggling how to handle my document-saving-model-system: The old fashioned-way or the way Apple intends it to be. It comes down to two choices.

Go the Apple way (leave Mountain Lion on its default settings):

Applications that support the new model will save document states without additional action, at frequent intervals the OS creates “versions” to which one can return to in case something went wrong. Opening a document will bring you the exact state you left it in the last time. (good)
As noted in the article, you need to think about saving before you do changes to your document, reversing the mental model you are used to. (not good)
Developers need to built support for Auto Save right into their apps. The most-popular office suite from Microsoft has still not followed the lead. (potential dealbreaker)
It works only on HFS+ formatted hard drives. (bad)

This all means, to be sure that your files are save, you need to understand how the system works. The fact that Neuburg’s article is over 3,000 words long should give you a hint about the learning curve involved.

Try the more-or-less traditional way (by flipping two checkboxes):

You can’t turn off Auto Save completely, there is no way to go to a Microsoft Windows-like state. (bad)
Closing an altered document brings up the familiar dialog “Do you want to save changes?” (good)
Documents will not be opened again (resumed) automatically the next time the application launches. (neither good or bad, just less confusing)
Despite that, the common “Save As”-command does not work like “expected” - changes in the original document are saved, too. (bad)
Behind the scenes, OSX still creates versions. (good)

The last point is important. It gives me some of the advantages from the new model without all the traps. And there you have my decision.

Probably you noticed that both ways don’t satisfy me, but at least Apple has backtracked some of the worst parts of Lion and showed a will of “correcting” itself, which gives hope that one day we will live all the benefits which were promised in the first place.

There is a good chance you’ve already watched the...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:33:00 +0100

There is a good chance you’ve already watched the tretralogy “Everything is a Remix” by Kirby Ferguson.

The docu does a very good job at showing how new advances in technology, music and movies build on each others creative works, how our society as a whole benefits from this, and why our stubborn legal system can’t deal with it.

If you haven’t seen the series yet, here’s the best chance to catch up. I re-edited (“remixed”) the four parts and some of the extended material into one big piece without repetition for fluent watching.

If you like the thing, you should give Kirby credit.

Online Music Phase II

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:02:00 +0100

When I was younger, much younger, I always had this idealistic technological day-dreams about how a better tech-world could look like.

One of them was about the perfect file format for music. Of course it would contain all the metadata like lyrics, BPM, or crowd-sourced genre information. While on pause it would display the cover art, while playing it would show the video (only on devices with screens that support it and only if there would be a video available).

The reason I’m thinking about this now is the recent shutdown [1] of Grooveshark in Germany, which leaves a hole unfulfilled: Rdio, Napster or simfy stream music to you as much as you want, but let’s face it, because of the costs of round about 10 €/month they shut out a lot of customers, which aren’t that music-savvy. Spotify offers a free version, but it’s also not available in Germany and it needs the desktop client.

Even if you could afford the money, a ne plus ultra-solution looks slightly different. We already see labels withdrawing their music from streaming services due to low income. And if you would want to share a tune with a friend, you have to watch out if he/she has also a subscription on this specific service.

The hypothesis: YouTube is the best player in the field to fill this gap. They already have the reputation to be the best site to play music. Let me repeat: Even not intended by the YouTube founders, it became the 1st place young people go to when they want to play their favorite song on a party or even at home.

The striking difference between Grooveshark and the YouTube of 2012 is the simple fact that a huge portion of uploaded content is legal, meaning uploaded by the artist or label themselves. Only in addition, you get a lot of fan-uploaded tracks (with often rare material). It would be interesting to see how the music catalogue of YT compares with the one from e.g. Spotify.

And it seems I’m not the only one with this thinking. Take a look at Cantio. Basically the service leverages the YT music library and wraps it into an audio player interface.

There are other services that try to do the same, but Cantio is the most promising because:

it has good UI design
it has its own Radio mode (based on genre)
it lets one import playlists (in M3U format)
it has easy sharing with custom short URLs built right in
it has keyboard shortcuts (a hooray for the nerds)

What I miss is the integration of other services: First and foremost Vimeo or Dailymotion - because they don’t have the same strict DRM system like YT in place (yet) - and audio-only services like SoundCloud or the HypeMachine.

Nevertheless, I found my Grooveshark replacement.

^[1]I think the reason for the inevitable closing of Grooveshark is and will be the deja-vu to common services: Grooveshark looks exactly like an iTunes (or other music player of your choide) version on a webpage - but for free. This is the kind of radical change major labels will never ever agree with. Maybe that’s also the reason why YT doesn’t do something like audio.youtube.com on its own.

I don't like the word process

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:04:00 +0100

The fun part working for a carrier is that you sometimes get to touch the new stuff before it is introduced to the market.

At the moment I’m carrying a Samsung Galaxy Nexus as my primary device. It’s a cool gadget, maybe on par with the iPhone. But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

The Samsung phone showed me with brutal honesty how settled I am in the iOS ecosystem. The established processes makes it harder to switch sides.

Let me give you one example.

I listen to a lot of music on the go & everywhere. So I’m eager to get the relevant music from my large music library to my little companion (iPhone 4S). On the one hand I want my favorite songs, on the other hand I want to discover new music to my liking.

That’s where the old fellow iTunes comes in. Since Version 3 you can create Smart Playlists (they update automatically based on selected criterias).

For my purpose, I build two lists which accompany each other:

The playlist “Fresh” displays all songs that have been added to my iTunes in the last 3 weeks, that I haven’t listened to.

The second one, named “Hot Right Now”, lists the songs that I’m currently listening to a lot, means they’re my favs right now.

The only thing left for the setup is to select the playlists to sync with my phone:

I also include the Genius Mix “Indie Rock” made by iTunes and tick the box “Automatically fill free space with songs”. From my experience the last option gives you the songs that have the highest playcount in the library.

Of course one can tweak the parameters to their satisfaction, but I accomplished my goal: Everytime I sync with iTunes I get the music I like best, mixed with a bunch of new stuff I haven’t heard before, always maxing out the storage capacity, automatically.

Now show me the Android way of doing this task. (There is none.)

And that from the guy who told you 15 months ago how to stay iTunes free. Oh, irony.

[Update]

I recently re-discovered the iTunes alternative doubleTwist. It should be noted that doubleTwist offers the import of existing iTunes playlists (inlcuding Smart ones) and can sync with Android devices.

Embedded above is a slightly re-edited version of John...

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:24:00 +0100

Embedded above is a slightly re-edited version of John Siracusa’s devastating review of Steve Jobs one and only authorized biography.

To summarize his criticism: Walter Isaacson did a poor job because he simply didn’t care. While for us the work of Jobs has influenced our live in so many ways, for him it was just another book to publish. He doesn’t have the technological understanding to ask the right questions, neither he tries to learn it. At one point Siracusa basically says every graduate with a fascination for Apple could have written a better biography than Walter Isaacson.

That for me, was the key point which you could apply to everything you do. Enthusiasm, commitment and passion are of such importantance for your job that you should’t work without it. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

For the detailed analysis, listen to the almost 2 ½ hours long edited podcast or go to the source files at 5by5.tv.

The only thing I did, was to merge the two pieces together, cut out other topics and move the feedback part to the end.

The Android Wishlist Phone

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:05:58 +0200

Hey you, Android vendors. Since you are all clearly experimenting with your Google phones at the moment, why don’t you cherry-pick the things I’d like to see in a compelling iPhone rival?

To make my point clear: We are definetly not in a feature race in the smartphone space, I stated that before. But the ingredients listed below could be used to make me forget the great iOS ecosystem. [1]

Hardware

The Casing could be thin and with Kevlar on the backside (as seen in the Motorola Droid Razr).
I’m still not sure about the right screen size. 4.65" seems bloated, on the other hand 3.5" in the meantime seems a bit too small. [2] For the moment I’ll settle with the 4.0" display (1280x720 pixel) seen in the Sharp AQUOS Phone 104SH. [3]
Actually I don’t care about the underlying processor power or RAM - just make the experience smooth. It seems not that easy, so throw in all you can. Maybe a 1,5 GHz OMAP Dual Core-Prozessor with 1 GB RAM will do the job (as seen in the HTC Vigor).
Include a publicity astonishing camera, like the 13.2 Megapixel CMOS Lumix sensor (as seen in the Panasonic LUMIX Phone 101P), completed with a 2 Megapixel Frontcamera (as seen in the LG Optimus Black).
More nice to have hardware additions: HDMI Output and 1930mAh battery (as seen in the Motorola Droid Bionic) / Waterproof body, DLNA support, Digital TV Tuner and NFC (as seen in the Sharp AQUOS Phone 102SH)

Software

Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich, without some frustrating UI overlay from carriers or hardware manufactures (as seen in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus)
Amazon Android App Store preinstalled [4]
Sony PlayStation Suite preinstalled
Integration of Dropbox for storage (as seen in the new HTC Sense phones)

Furthermore, some really simple rules:

Release at most 2 hardware updates per year. I don’t want to see minor speed bumps or other versions of my phone the week after I bought it.
Spilling a name like “Galaxy” over the whole line-up, will just weaken the customer perception of the brand.
Support your old hardware with the newest software at least for the common time of a contract, which is where I come from not less than 2 years. (How it’s not to be done)
Let me buy an unlocked version without a carrier contract, even if the phone itself will cost xxx freakin’ dollars.

^[1]Also it’s clear that many of the features contradict each other, mostly in regard to battery life.

^[2]I’m aware of the argument that you need to reach every corner on the screen with your thumb. But let’s be honest, bigger is better while gaming or entertainment activities, like watching a movie. And now ask yourself what you do with your smartphone all the time.

^[3]Sadly, not one Android phone that is available in the western hemisphere does offer the same pixel density as the 17 months old iPhone 4. And it makes you wonder why only Japanese people get the good stuff.

^[4]I’m not sure about the legal situation. But since Google seems to be ok with Bing as the default search, I think other App Stores and the Google Android Market could coexist. Perhaps Amazon or Sony give you a couple of bucks to encourage the integration.

As most viewers of Apple’s “Let’s talk...

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:53:00 +0200

As most viewers of Apple’s “Let’s talk iPhone” event I was disappointed immediately after.

But then I asked myself the question what Apple should have done to appease me or the masses. I can’t think of a damn single thing. [1]

Or did you really expect that Apple’s Voice Control goes way beyond what we know from Android? Oh wait, perhaps it does. I was working on Voice-to-Text technology and I can tell you what Forstall did on the stage was pretty amazing. In fact, Siri is the dream of the Semantic Web, which was dubbed “Web 3.0” a decade ago. It remains to be seen if people change their behaviours and use voice as an input method, though.

Or do you think a smartphone camera can ever replace your DSLR? Maybe not, but you can clearly see how Apple does everything possible to get the best camera experience with this form factor. Look at these (hopefully untouched) photographs and tell me you expected more from the iPhone 5. [2]

Once more, this is how Apple rolls. Small, incremental improvements, instead of dramatic revolutions. Secondly, hardware specs alone isn’t what’s important anymore. Services, and their integration with hardware is the new real deal.

[Update] Read similiar lines from Dan Frommer.

For users, this is still the best phone that money can buy.

^[1]LTE is too laughable to even discuss here. We’ll talk again when TelCo’s made their promises happen. Same goes (in a smaller degree) for NFC.
One area - where improvements would be very welcome - is the battery life. On the other hand the iPhone already rules the smartphone competition.

^[2]What I really don’t get is the naming. I understood it with the 3GS, but now? I thought Apple stands for simple and clear product titles. Now consumers are waiting for the “real” next iteration, the iPhone 5.