They Still Haven’t Got it, Have They?

Yes, I am indeed talking about the utter failure by most politicians to understand the Internet, what it is about and what to do with it.

The latest gaffe comes from none other than the Torries, who declared yesterday that they would pay £1m for public policy making website. WTF?! Surely the torries are better off using newspapers tabloids like the Torygraph and Daily Hate’s poll and article section comments as a barometer for public opinion? Heck, if they want to step up, they can always start using Have Your Say.

Thankfully, one gentlemen has already seen the lighter side of things and set up something that should make Cameron blush, if he’s got any sense left still. I present, The Wisdom of Cameron.

2000-2009. The Last 10 Years in Picture.

From the New York Times, a pictorial summary of the first decade of the 21st century. It was meant to be a new era; a new millennium and a fresh beginning; but how it turned out to be a series of blunders and disasters. What will the next 10 years hold for us?

As one fellow redditor point’s out, “A tsunami that killed a quarter million people is next to guitar simulating video game. That sort of sums up the decade… catastrophic events and consumerism-fuelled apathy.”

Phillip Niemeyer | Picturing the Past 10 Years

I’m going to Mars!

Or rather my name is

If you’d like to do the same, just visit NASA’s Send Your Name to Mars page. Hurry, though, offer valid only for a limited time.

Down for everyone or just me?

If you ever wanted validation that it’s your network connection that’s to blame for not being able to access any particular website, downforeveryoneorjustme.com is what the doctor ordered.

Goodbye 2008, Hello 2009

Carbide.c++ 2.0 Released!

Nokia today announced the release of Carbide.c++ 2.0, which is a pretty big milestone in the product’s history. The best thing, besides many bug fixes and enhancements is that all available editions, including OEM and Professional are free! This is certainly an excellent move and just what the doctor ordered.

Download Carbide.c++ 2.0.

(Yet Another) Useful FireFox Add-ons List

Yes! I know, there’s plenty of top Firefox Add-ons lists floating all over the web. Too bad none of those have my official endorsement . Anyway, I’ll list some of my favorite ones here, just in case any one finds it interesting. I think they are all must haves

Setting up the S60 SDK for Development

Ever had a problem where your application was running fine on the emulator, but failed to run on hardware? Ran an application on the emulator, but the application exited, without showing any reason? Or perhaps, you expected to see the emulator logs in the debugger window, but they never appeared?

That’s because of rather aggressive approach taken by the S60 SDK installer in terms of disabling emulator diagnostics (most annoyingly, platform security violations, which go unchecked on the emulator by default) and results in unexpected behavior from applications when run on real hardware.

If you already have the S60 SDK installed, its worth checking if the diagnostics are enabled and even if you don’t want them, at least know what options affects which bits of diagnostics.

Symbian OS Networking FAQ

Soon to be published. Stay tuned!

Disconnecting Distractions

Paul Graham has an excellent article on factors that create distractions, especially the computer, as he points out:

TV is in decline now, but only because people have found even more addictive ways of wasting time. And what’s especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer. This is no accident. An ever larger percentage of office workers sit in front of computers connected to the Internet, and distractions always evolve toward the procrastinators.

The worst aspect of computer based distractions, whether its just plain old browsing or checking the status of your friends on social networking websites is that, its become a seamless experience, because we can do it right in the middle of anything we were doing and it still doesn’t feel like it, as he explains:

Another reason it was hard to notice the danger of this new type of distraction was that social customs hadn’t yet caught up with it. If I’d spent a whole morning sitting on a sofa watching TV, I’d have noticed very quickly. That’s a known danger sign, like drinking alone. But using the Internet still looked and felt a lot like work.

One thing that Paul doesn’t take on directly is the effect of social networking and video sharing websites on encouraging procrastination. To me, they are the single biggest source of addiction for the masses hooked on to the web. What’s even more scary is that increasingly, social networking sites are becoming defacto start pages compared to search engines.

Oh, did I tell you I’m writing this because the mail/calendering client at work, an universally recognized pathetic piece of $hit called Lotus Notes just hung up, prompting me to discard what I was doing and, guess what? I got distracted enough to write a blog entry about it.