So it turns out that I was on to a good idea with my iPhone app. The problem is that on the 6th Feb someone else released exactly what I had in mind. They even used the same open source libraries as I was going to use. That’s the second time in recent months when someone else has beaten me to it. Unfortunately there isn’t much opportunity to differentiate my app from what exists, with a similar approach and functionality the only room for improvement is simply charging less. The underlying problem with accuracy is the quality of the iPhone camera and it’s lens, but that’s something only Apple can really fix. The amateur (me) going after the software company with a “me-too” product isn’t going to work, so it’s back to the drawing board.
Monthly Archive for February, 2009
Haiku, the operating system (not the poetry) aims to pick up where BeOS left off. BeOS was an operating system for personal computers created in the 1990’s. It was famed for it’s ability to multitask and it’s many other ground breaking features. Whilst it wasn’t based on any of the more familiar alternatives to Windows (such as Linux) it was positioned as a competitor in this market. In the days before Mac OS X, Apple’s current operating system family, it was hoped by many (including Be Inc) that they would be purchased by Apple and their future OS would be built on BeOS. This didn’t happen, Apple bought NeXT in 1996 and a few years later Palm bought Be.
Whilst this is all very interesting it doesn’t explain Haiku. The goal of the project is to recreate BeOS and extend it, bringing it up to date whilst still being compatible with BeOS and it’s existing suite of software. I really don’t see any benefit to Haiku, other than a curiosity of a system kept alive by loyal fans, but with it being freely available to try I thought I’d see what it was like.
Not only is it easy to try Haiku it’s also completely free. I downloaded my favourite virtual machine programme – VirtualBox, the latest Haiku test image (VMware images work in VirtualBox), created a new virtual machine gave it at least 128MB of RAM told it to use the VMware disk image as the hard disk and pressed Start.
Haiku booting
It has to be one of the most unfortunate and uncanny coincidence I’ve heard in a while. A German woman who travelled to the Roslyn suburb of Dunedin, New Zealand (where I am currently sat) has been rescued by police from a man “not who he had portrayed himself to be”, Detective Senior Sergeant Steve McGregor told the Otago Daily Times. The woman had travelled to Dunedin only a few days before me to be with her partner who she had met on the internet (This is where the story is different, I met Bhav in Australia).
The full story is available on Yahoo!Xtra. Freaky!
Before I headed of to New Zealand I performed as the Bass Trombonist in Callander Brass at their first concert. For such a new band containing a number of players who had only recently picked up instruments we made a good noise. Watch the video below of our opening number, Southdown.
Too late for Valentines 09 (I had a good one, thanks for asking) comes the DIY LED heart shaped microcontroller card.
How many girls can say their Valentines card runs at 14 MHz?
After 5 flights I’ve made it to Dunedin, on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. This is my fifth day here and I’m really enjoying it. Apart from the minor sunburn (it’s strange to think it was snowing when I left Glasgow) I’ve had no ill effects, even managing to avoid jet lag.
I was quite impressed with Emirates this time round. The free hotel room in Dubai was a really good addition to what was the cheapest ticket I could find.
So far I’ve visited a two museums, two markets, a rugby game, the Moeraki Boulders, the Chinese Garden and the Royal Albatross Centre. The last main Dunedin attraction yet to visit being Baldwin Street.
On the job front, we hear back tomorrow (17th) about that although it looks positive.
Central Dunedin
Surfing in Dunedin
Scottish shop with piper outside
The most photographed building in the southern hemisphere (apparently); the Train Station. Some of the stone came from Aberdeen
Some of the Moeraki Boulders