Spoken Like a Geek

Worlds Oldest iPhone

Neil Thompson — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:31:32 +0000

I have proof here that I have the world’s oldest iPhone (or possible the oldest voicemail if you want to be picky). Look at the picture below and you will see that I have a voicemail from “Unknown” on 01/01/1970! Just another reason why I am swapping my current iPhone for a replacement…

Windows XP Given Another Stay of Execution

Neil Thompson — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:19:56 +0000

It is being reported on the BBC today that Microsoft are going to extend the life of Windows XP once again - this time until the end of May 2009. This is almost certainly due to two things: the public’s dislike of Vista and the huge take-off of netbooks, which use either a variant of Linux or XP. I have been using XP on my netbook for the last few months and think that it is perfectly suited to the job and so I can see the workhorse that is XP being extended once more if netbooks continue to sell in the numbers they have in 2008.

22nd November 2008

Neil Thompson — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:47:44 +0000

Stories that caught my eye this week – 8th November 2008:

You can see the rest of my reading list here.

Does Free Lead to Buy?

Neil Thompson — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:00:21 +0000

A fairly common practice for software providers is to provide older versions of their software for free as a taster to encourage you to go on and purchase the latest versions. This applies equally to online apps as it does to desktop - the delivery mechanism is different but the principal is the same. But does it work?

Reading a story on the web recently I was reacquainted with the Softmaker products which are equivalents of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The story pointed out that Softmaker were offering a copy of their previous version of TextMaker and PlanMaker for free so I duly went off and downloaded a copy.

The first thing I did was to run a test to see how well TextMaker handled a Word document I have with complex paragraph numbering. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it worked perfectly, something that didn’t work in OpenOffice. What’s more I could also save a copy on my USB drive and take the apps with me wherever - the total directory size was a compact 36mb. Compare this to OpenOffice 3.0 which takes 286mb. This smaller size makes SoftMaker ideal for use on my Netbook where disk space is limited.

Next arrived the inevitable email offering me the opportunity to upgrade to the latest version which also included Presentation for an attractive price of 22EUR reduced from 70EUR. That’s about £19 for a full office suite so I was tempted and out came the credit card.

The footprint of the new version has pretty much doubled to 68mb. This is mainly due to the addition of the Presentations application, but the total size can be reduced further by dumping the PDF manuals and some of the templates. It is still a very small footprint again ideal for the mobile traveller. Memory usage is light too.

So, to answer the original question, free can lead to buy and pretty quickly in my case. Thinking back I have also bought product as a result of older versions on cover mount CDs, Paint Shop Pro for example, and after using the free version of the web application Draw Anywhere. So as a business model it definitely does work but the ratio of freebies to paid, in my case, is still very firmly in the former camp.

Google Mobile App

Neil Thompson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:26:56 +0000

So after much anticipation and false starts the latest version of the Google Mobile App for iPhone was launched today. What is particularly exciting about this application is that it uses voice recognition for search text entry rather than having to use the on-screen keyboard. The concept is simple. You start the app, hold the device to your ear and speak the phrase you want to search on. There is then a short delay while the voice is converted to text and sent to Google’s search servers.

The blogsphere has been alight with a buzz of expectation around the app and particularly as it didn’t arrived as expected on Friday. So I downloaded it this morning and was instantly disappointed. Firstly the voice recognition was switched off and when I went to enable it the reason for this quickly became apparent - it seems the application “only works in English, and works best for North American English accents”. Too right. In my tests the accuracy of the recognition was pretty poor, perhaps I should have been putting on my best American accent like Hugh Laurie?

As you will see from the graphic listing my attempts the application took “Neil Thompson” as “Neal Stephenson” and “AppSwing” as “Aphex twin” not a great hit rate. Given the diversity of people within the US itself I wonder how accurately it works with all the American accents? Anyway, I will wait for the UK English version to arrive.

At the same time I also tried out another speech recognition application for iPhone, Say Who. Like the Google App this takes the spoken word as input but in this case then searches your contacts for a match and can then dial them automatically. This worked better than the Google app but not by much. This time the accuracy was much better almost always finding the right contact but the app was hampered by regular hang-ups and crashes.

So on the evidence of today’s testing voice recognition applications, for the iPhone at least, have a way to go.

The Netbook Diaries

Neil Thompson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:50:30 +0000

On the Business Hacks website this week Rick Broida has been documenting his experiences of using a netbook when he has been out and about.

I am on my second netbook having recently change my Asus EEE PC for a rebadged MSI Wind and I love it but, as Broida points out, the battery life is a killer.

Read all the instalments here:

http://blogs.bnet.com/businesstips/?p=2126

15th November 2008

Neil Thompson — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:07:58 +0000

Stories that caught my eye this week - 15th November 2008:

You can see the rest of my reading list here.

SET NOCOUNT ON

Neil Thompson — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:02:52 +0000

I spent a frustrating couple of hours yesterday trying to get output from a database into a web page - something that I have done many times before. However, on this occasion as the query was complex I decided that it needed to go into a stored procedure. I quickly got that working and tested via query analyser and then plugged it into my asp page. No matter what I tried I could not get the query to run and I was getting pretty frustrated. Finally I got a message that I could Google, as follows:

ADODB.Recordset error ‘800a0e78′

Operation is not allowed when the object is closed

It seems that when you return data from a query to a record set via a stored procedure not only does the data get returned but also the number of records as a string at the end. This is the text that you would usually see only in query analyser:

1 row(s) affected

Suppressing this message in the stored procedure using SET NOCOUNT ON means that only the data is returned and the asp knows what to do. I eventually found the answers at the links below but I will not get back those two hours of my life!

http://tutorials.aspfaq.com/8000xxxxx-errors/why-do-i-get-800a0cc1-errors.html
http://tutorials.aspfaq.com/8000xxxxx-errors/why-do-i-get-800a0e78-errors.html

8th November 2008

Neil Thompson — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:40:00 +0000

Stories that caught my eye this week – 8th November 2008:

You can see the rest of my reading list here.

1st November 2008

Neil Thompson — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:25:04 +0000

Stories that caught my eye this week – 1st November 2008:

You can see the rest of my reading list here.