here comes a time in the lifecycle of an application when reliable and non-lossy export facilities need to be implemented. Unfortunately, ego of developers sometimes leads to good import facilities while there is only limited or no support for export of user data. Del.icio.us are one example which was previously mentioned. Another such example is Microsoft Outlook et al. Microsoft are reluctant to allow easy data export, which implies no trivial escape from proprietary. Thunderbird, however, does a terrific job importing all data (mail and settings) from Outlook or Outlook Express. OpenOffice.org acts upon Microsoft Office proprietary reasonably well too.

WordPress are currently working on export facilities that simplify and bridge the gap between the administration panel (application) and the data (SQL). It is wonderful to see export facilities realised, which demonstrates no ego among the software developers. This allows users to ‘dance’ between platforms at will. There is always a certain feeling of freedom knowing that taking on one certain application cannot result in a vendor lock-in.

ood news have just arrived: the EU has rejected, with a crushing majority, the software patent bill.

The Register states:

The European Parliament has voted by a massive majority to reject the software patents directive, formally known as the Directive on the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions. The vote to scrap the bill was passed by a margin of 648 votes to 14, with 18 abstentions.

Some outrageously simple algorithms have recently been filed as patents. More notably:

• Microsoft filing a patent for address book encapsulated objects (i.e. more proprietary)
• Amazon with the ‘one-click shopping’
• Leaving the best for last: Amazon patenting the recommendation of books based on pages previously viewed

Luckily, such insanity is unlikely to invade Europe.

ow does one identify music which has potential of being liked? Music, unlike textbooks, does not contain text or keywords. Its tags are not always valuable either. An interesting paper from Trinity College Dublin describes a method by which music adapts to the preferences of listeners (PDF). However, can this be done purely based on prior data? Data that is provided in advance unlike in real-time? A List of records maybe? Playlists perhaps? We seem to be coming closer to realisation of this idea.

Image similarity measures are one focus point of my research; also sparks to mind is Google’s notion of ‘Similar Pages’. Why not apply similar principles to music? I now collect big daily dumps of music that I listen to (output to files using the following technique ). Bound to each entry is the time when a track started. From this, one can infer which tracks are being skipped. Alternatively, full, raw playlists can be of use and might, in fact, be more manageable as well. By exploiting a large collection of playlists, the nature of the genres can be better understood.

Given all of this data, it can potentially be used for collabortive playlist sharing, somewhat like del.icio.us (see previous reference to del.icio.us with a gentle introduction). Users can then discover other songs they might like based on other people’s playlists. The more data, the more accurate statistics will be. Getting large lumps of input (playlists) is effortless too. Just imagine yourself the scenario:

You can automatically find playlists most similar to yours and recognise the most-played tracks on that playlist. Social software has seen great success recently, so exchange of music preferences and recommendations is probably the way to proceed.

According to the BBC, Open Source begins to have its impact on schools in Britain.

In open source software (OSS), the underlying computer code is freely available so users can alter it and publish new versions, to benefit the community.

Leslie Fletcher, chair of governors at Parrs Wood High School in south Manchester and campaigns manager for the UK’s Unix and Open Systems User Group, offers a personal perspective on how schools can benefit.

Manchester made this courageous step, which came to my attention via the Manchester Linux Users Group. There was another recent and much more widespread initiative in Michigan.

t was only a few months ago that my colleague’s forum got hijacked and vandalised, never to come back on-line again. Over the weekend, my host came under a denial of service (DoS) attack because of outdated, non-secure installations of phpBB (not worthy linking to), which proved to be far from reliable. Several sites including mine were suspended for hours in order to avoid another such attack, which brought the server down and crippled it for 40 minutes. I was possibly among the culprits as my phpBB installation was not patched up properly.

WordPress 1.5 likewise. Security flaws are continuously discovered and about 4 fixes have been released in the past few months. If you install software, make sure it is secure, patched up and avoid installing it whenever unnecessary. More installations lead to more maintenance and potential loopholes.
 

Audra Ang, an Associated Press writer, reports about a Beijing clinic that treats online addicts.

All the children here have left school because they are playing games or in chat rooms everyday,” says the clinic’s director, Dr. Tao Ran. “They are suffering from depression, nervousness, fear and unwillingness to interact with others, panic and agitation. They also have sleep disorders, the shakes and numbness in their hands.

The descriptions sound a little freaky, but I have known people whose entire life was dependent on their computer.

Hmmm… 5 AM… time for lunch…

The iMac I sometimes use at work. It’s
rather obvious I’m right-handed.

have a few pet peeves when it comes to the placement of peripherals for the sake improved interaction. For instance, I would strongly encourage placing the mouse right next to the keyboard and adjacent to the keypad (not diagonally). The thumb is then close to the secondary ENTER button and only a mere distance from the arrow keys, which are frequently used for navigation, for example in file managers or text editors. Conversely, the mouse can be picked very quickly to assist editing.

At the same time, the left hand remains poised over the left section of the keyboard, close enough to SHIFT, ALT and CTRL (or equivalent) which are better off used as keyboard accelerators (shortcuts) at the speed of will.