It seems like some members of the IT press aren't convinced that COMBOTS will be successful even after aquiring the rights for using characters from New Line Cinema ("Lord of the Rings"), Paws ("Garfield") and United Media ("Peanuts"). At least some editors of the german ComputerWoche don't have quite the best wishes for the new project of the inventors of WEB.DE...

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While not at all the first to present a Skype phone, Philips could very well claim having the best-looking autonomous handset with their VOIP841 (I disagree with the CrunchGear article that says the USRobotics USR9631 was operable without a PC, because it appears to me as using the USB port to connect to Skype.) With Panasonic&catalogId=13251&itemId=98296&modelNo=Content08312006061130726&surfModel=Content08312006061130726, yet another manufacturer enters the ring. But it seems they haven't got very far into the market, since they don't even have a name for their Skype phone yet.

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On YAPC::Europe (taking place this weekend in Birmingham), Dave Cross held an interesting talk about Advanced Databases for Beginners, presenting best practices in database design. Every developer should know them before starting with laying out his first database. (via Marcus Ramberg)

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Years ago, when I bought my Palm Pilot 5000 or the Palm Vx later, it went without saying that there also was a cradle in the package that connected to the PC to synchronize data and load the batteries. Today, you can count yourself happy if you don't have to buy the USB cable additionally. Nokia actually puts only a USB connection cable into the E61 package -- Nokia will charge you extra for a cable that in turn charges your phone. If you want some cradle goodness that gives your phone a nice home while it's not that mobile, then the review of the ORA USB Cradle for Nokia E61 on e-series.org may interest you.

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Sometimes, preparing the ground for a new to-be-developed Perl module requires more effort than doing the actual programming: creating a directory structure, building an initial Makefile, writing a MANIFEST file, etc. takes some time, especially if you have to look up which informations are necessary. Module::Starter to the rescue. This Perl module knows exactly what a new module distribution should look like and creates a proper environment. You don't have to use the module itself, since there's an utility included named module-starter~petdance/Module-Starter-1.42/bin/module-starter that gets all necessary information from the command line and does all the work. It's always important that basic work takes as less effort as possible, for otherwise developers often get reluctant to do it at all. Module::Starter ensures that creating new Perl modules is as efficient as it can be.

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Many men, yours truly included, have difficulties with asking for directions. And it's not just because we like to drive a few rounds in the neighborhood. We have our reasons, you know!

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One reason for the success of Web 2.0 services is that they provide APIs that enable developers to use them from other applications. You just need an interface module, library or package[1] and yet you can easily call the service's functions from your own program. Net::FeedBurner~sock/Net-FeedBurner-0.10/lib/Net/FeedBurner.pm, for example, makes it possible to access and modify the RSS feeds you registered with Feedburner use Net::FeedBurner; my $fb = Net::FeedBurner->new('user' => $user, 'password' => $password); my $feeds = $fb->find_feeds(); my $feed_id = (keys %{$feeds})[0]; my $feedinfo = $fb->get_feed($feed_id); fn1. In most cases, you also need a registered user account.

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Kai Raven draws the following conclusion from an interview with Dieter Wiefelspütz, speaker on domestic policies of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), about public surveillance against terrorist actions: Terms like "proportion", "purpose", "efficiency" and "control" were heard not a single time, them being only barricades that keep the state -- that in the eyes of that kind of politicians can only act as a prevention and surveillance state -- from fulfilling his duties. It makes me sick that politicians are actually prepared to propose actions that could be taken right out of "1984", but it downright worries me when those people don't even come from right-wing parties, but from the "social democratic" one.

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Terrorists don't have do do the laborious bomb part shopping any more to wreak havoc in a city. All they have to do is place a suitcase somewhere visible. In today's case of Mannheim, it wasn't even a terrorist but only a harmless shopper that left his trolley unattended,1518,433951,00.html at a tram station. Police and bomb squad were called, the place had been wide-rangingly cordoned off and tram traffic stopped for two hours.

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Something seems to be buggy in the WiFi implentation of my E61. Last week, I got some kind of "white screen of death" everytime my E61 tried to connect to the company WLAN. (And it connects quite often due to Mail for Exchange.) That white screen seems to go away without a reboot after some time, but it's quite annoying nonetheless. And yesterday, when I turned the phone back on after having it shut off on Saturday, I was greeted with "Phone start-up failed. Contact the retailer." According to my web search, that's often related to WiFi problems, too. Since I didn't want to send my phone on a weeks-long journey, I tried a factory reset by starting it up with the buttons "*", "3" and "green" pressed. It then took several forced 5-minute pauses because I couldn't effing remember my phone lock password, but finally, I had a working phone again. An empty working phone, to be exact. But I didn't have much software installed anyway (one of the advantages of Web 2.0), and all important data (calendar and contact entries) could be restored by syncing with ZYB.com and our Exchange server. I guess that's the consequence of that Nokia doesn't manufacture "mobile phones" any more but "multimedia computers". So the same rule applies: don't forget to backup. Jesus saves, and so should you.

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