Angus Thinks

Category: General

  • SQL Import from database for SQLEditor

    I now have the first version of database import working for SQLEditor. This means that you can point it at a database and it will grab the structure of the database directly.

    Currently it’s missing foreign key support, but it seems to support most other functionality.

    On a related note, I have finally fixed the bug that sometimes meant that you could end up with bad sql code. The new version now uses “alter table” rather than “references”, it creates all of the tables first and then adds the foreign keys. This means that even circular dependencies will now be exportable.

  • Amazing looking computer

    The people over at mini-itx.com have a picture of a most amazing looking pc. It is mounted vertically in a table like case. With amythtv software, a video projector and a wireless keyboard it would make a wonderful, stylish and invisible home entertainment system.

  • the non-life of Leynos

    David (leynos) has set up a blog: the non-life of Leynos!

  • Films I really want to see

    Some films that I want to see (in no particular order)…

    Shrek 2
    Spiderman 2
    The Bourne Supremacy
    Love Me If You Dare
    The Terminal

    I Robot

    (thanks to Dhruba for the idea)

  • Not much writing recently

    Unfortunately I’ve been really busy recently working on SQLEditor (and some other things) so I haven’t really been writing much.

    Not sure how that’s going to change in the weeks ahead, but hopefully I’ll be writing a bit more.

  • USB connectable mobile phone

    Simple thought today: a USB mobile phone. So you could just plug it straight into a laptop or something, without bluetooth or infra-red. I think Motorola tried something like this with the timeport 280 and also the A920; but I never learnt whether it was much of a sucess (unlikely given earlier timeport designs).

    Better yet if the phone could be charged and synchronized over the usb cable while connected.

    Obviously that doesn’t mean that I don’t like bluetooth any more, I’m still very much in favour of bluetooth. But now I like USB as well. 🙂

  • Very slight redesign of MalcolmHardie.com website

    Observant readers may notice a slight change to the malcolmhardie.com website (if you came in from there). The fonts for the titles have been resized and the stupid red boxes have been removed. Hopefully it all looks more visually cohesive. Titles now reduce in size as they become less important for instance.

    I’m still intending to switch the whole lot to xml/xslt/php, but I’ve deferred deployment for a while until some other things are out of the way. The new version is up and running on the test server but I think it needs a bit more work before it can be released.

  • Missing Email

    I just had the thought that there is email that I should have, but can’t find. Which is bad, given that I’ve been trying to archive all of my email. The key question obviously is where has it gone? And I suspect the answer may be that it is gone forever.

    This might be really bad, alternatively it might not. Who can tell?

    I think the best thing might be to convert my email to html at intervals, rather than leaving it in my email imap server. If it was carefully indexed and sorted it would probably be a better way to to do things.

  • Shareware and Serial Numbers

    Not much posting recently. But I’ve been working getting SQLEditor ready for release. The big things recently have been bug fixes and developing a serial number system.

    It’s extremely annoying to have to spend any time at all working on the serial number system, because really the time would be better spent actually improving the software. But given that I actually want people to buy copies of the thing it is sadly necessary.

    I have a simple test program working already and as soon as I develop some kind of key generator system I’ll be able to add it (probably to beta 6).

    Beta 5 is complete, so it should be released tomorrow.

  • Ringtone pricing vs Other Content

    David made an interesting point in a comment recently about the ridiculous prices people are paying for ring tones and how this may be encouraging news for more sophisticated content (like video). If people are willing to pay 50p or more for a few seconds of music in a ringtone, how much might they be willing to pay to see a key goal scored in a football match or an important news story?

    Of course Mazingo tried pocket video stories a while back using a system like avantgo. I think it worked by syncing a pocket pc or palm unit with a server somewhere. Then you got video clips pushed to the unit. The costs eventually got the better of them because the company isn’t really doing that anymore. I think the most likely reason for failure was because they had difficulty charging for a service that was extremely expensive to provide.

    Video over 3G networks has two crucial advantages over Mazingo. The first is that the people operating the system have a proven solid billing and payments system. Ring tone buyers have been useful guinea pigs for more sophisticated products and Vodafone has been running it’s Vodafone live service for some time now. So the payment side of things is working. The other key advantage is people seem willing to pay for services on mobile phones that they wouldn’t if they were buying the service via the internet and a regular PC (Or even to sync to a Pocket PC or Palm device). Somehow the networks have managed to convince users that their mobile phone is something different (and more expensive) and that they should expect to pay. Whether this view can be sustained is difficult to guess, but I suspect that it will probably last a little while yet.

    I don’t know whether this means that 3G services will be sucessful or not. I suspect that eventually people will realise that the wider internet offers more scope and lower prices. The mobile networks may have to accept that their product is really just a commodity.

    How long this takes is the key question though. It makes the difference between recovering the billions spent on 3G licenses and not. I suspect the networks will be paying very close attention to this indeed.