Nokia and Microsoft

The Elopocalypse: Nokia chooses Microsoft | Be the signal

Basically what I think about the whole thing is stated in this post.

In my opinion a very bad long term decision for Nokia. I really wonder how much the Ex-MS CEO had influenced this. The thing is it's just bad for Nokia as a company but a really great thing for Microsoft. I think its uncommon for a company to do good things for an other company without getting a good value back. And I really don't see much value coming from MS. Basically Nokia has outsourced its OS development to MS. So Nokia has given up on a major part of the company.

And all the other now incompatible projects they have running. I just don't see where this turns out good for Nokia in 5 to 10 years from now. I see the benefit shortterm as Meego just isn't ready and they are loosing a lot of market share. In my opinion they should have killed off symbian much sooner and direct that cash to meego. They didn't push hard enough for any platform and now they are somewhere in the middle and need to jump ship to something that works already. And I think jumping ship is never a good thing to do. We will see how this turns out ...

Never Pay For Online Dating

Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating « OkTrends

such a shame that match.com did buy them. No one should ever pay for a dating site that works like this.

Back from a break

A lot has happened recently and I haven't really been in the mood to post here. Started to regularly go to the gym. Sitting in front of a computer all day at work and doing nothing for your body just isn't a good idea. I feel much better already which also affects my mood positively. I'm a Grooveshark VIP user now as well. They offer a nice service, but more on that in a later post.

I got myself a new phone. A HTC HD2 originally running WinMo 6.5 but I'm running Android 2.3.1 on it right now. Good phone with a big screen, much better to surf the net than my old HTC Hero running Android 2.1. Most of my friends and family got themselves new phones as well. All Android and Windows Phone 7 devices. I guess smartphones are now very mainstream.

I put Ubuntu on my mothers computer and she seems to like it very much so far. This gave me confidence that Ubuntu really is far enough for an average user to use daily. I have high hopes for the 11.10 release of Ubuntu. I think the upcoming 11.04 release with the new Unity UI is great but Unity needs a bit more time to mature. I hope that with 11.10 release Unity will truly unleash its power to the masses.

more later ...

The Humble Indie Bundle #2

The Humble Indie Bundle #2 (pay what you want for five awesome indie games)

Great games, even better than from the fist one. A real must have ...

Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910

So I got myself a nice modern webcam (Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910 for about ~90 EUR). But how does it work on Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)? I wasn't sure if it worked at all. As it arrived today I can now say that it works well so far.

I did the following:

1. Plugg it in a free USB port.
2. Set the "Input" of the sound preferences to use the Webcam's build in mic (called "0821 Analog Stereo" here) if you want to use that one.
3. Install cheese to try it out (or use Skype/Empathy and call a friend)
4. Set the cheese capture resolution to what you want (open the preferences for that). For pictures use a high resolution, for video use a lower one as the framerate will be very bad on the higher resolutions.

So it worked well so far out of the box. I hope the linux drivers improve further as I think the video capturing is a bit low on the framerate side. Noteworthy is that the framerate is higher in Skype than in Cheese, so maybe its just the software that needs to improve. I didn't try it with Empathy so far.

Microsofts anti OpenOffice.org video

OpenOffice.org’s New War | The Linux Action Show | Jupiter Broadcasting

they are just soo good :) .. and MS as usual so lame -.-

So You Want To Be A Designer

So You Want To Be A Designer: Top 5 List - Aza on Design

very good 5 points. This is what I expect from someone who calls himself a designer..

Corporate Censorship Kills Creative Innovation

Grumpy Gamer Corporate Censorship Kills Creative Innovation

Fanboyism and Brand Loyalty

Fanboyism and Brand Loyalty - You Are Not So Smart

good read ..