Agents in the Matrix and tough economic times

Before the movie "The Matrix," John Quarterman wrote an interesting book with the same title and around that same time Alan Kay published a great article about "software agents" that captured my imagination. Microsoft was interested in these ideas as well, and we brought some people and technology together into a suite of offerings that became http://agents.live.com/ (Windows Live Agents). While teaching in Microsoft's (awesome) Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View I met a talented, articulate, warm and friendly developer in this area who is now looking for a job. I believe there is a huge promise and potential to Alan Kay's vision that we in computer science have yet to realize. But the economics and business models apparantly don't work so we're stuck with less appealing software, sigh.

OneNote rulez!

OneNote is the best computer application around. And now we don't need to retreat to live mesh or windows live sync or Groove or other file sync methods to get onenote notebook synchronization over the public Internet. OfficeLive now offers sharepoint services as part of the standard small business offering.

- Go to http://officelive.com/
- Sign up for a *SMALL BUSINESS* account with a liveid
- In the left column, click on "Business Applications"
- Click the green "Activate for FREE" button that appears
- In the left column, click on "Team Workspace"
- At Right-most column header, click on "+Add"
- Choose "Document Library" from drop-down
- Name it "notes" (or whatever you want)
- Under "Document Template" drop-down, select Microsoft Office OneNote section
- Click "Create"
- Under "New" drop-down, click "New Document"
- In OneNote, save the file (it's just that simple!)

Add people with a liveID as editors and such to your sharepoint site so they can also open, sync, share, notebooks. OneNote uses your liveID credentials and syncs to the sharepoint when it sees 'net. Pretty slick!

activesync via bluetooth

1 – Update to the latest windows mobile device center
2 – Follow these instructions to add and change the registry entries on the PC to COM5.
3 – Pair the devices
3 – On the phone, UNCHECK the [] Activesync capability the PC offers when the devices pair. Hit done, done, done.
4 – On the phone, in Activesync, select “connect via Bluetooth” and follow the prompts (add serial connection to PC).

This voodoo to make it work is insane but it does work and I can now sync outlook to my phone, yippee!

mio c220 GPS

Our Garmin Nuvi 200 series GPS that we received as a gift is fatally flawed.  Last week in Boston while trying to use it we realized that we frequently need a reliable GPS. Garmin has a great user interface and wonderful maps that are easily flash updated.  It's routing has been perfect in the USA and in Europe wherever we used it.  However, our unit cannot operate while charging and it frequently spends 20 - 30 minutes finding satellites.  On ocassion it takes a few hours.  So in Boston we decided to buy a new GPS.  When we arrived back home, I ordered a Mio 220 from Circuit City for $75 (with free shipping).

It arrived today and I eagerly unboxed it.  I pulled down the latest version of miopocket.

and it works like a champ.   I tested it while picking my daughter up from the train station in Seattle.  The GPS finds satellites instantly.  It plays MP3 files and movies.  The touch screen games work well.  I installed other Windows-CE software that also works.  It functions while charging in the car and the suction cup mounting is much better than Garmin's.  It holds on to the windshield firmly and extends further towards the driver.  It is also sturdier and appears less failure prone.

I have not tried any of the GPS programs other than the MIO software and maps that came on the DVD.  I hope the Garmin software will work with my maps from the Nuvi but I doubt it

Unlike Garmin's female voice (whom the kids call Maya), the Mio has a male voice.  The default US English units are yards (on Garmin they are feet).  Both the Mio and the Garmin had problems with the Amtrak station in Seattle but the street directions are fine.  I am more accustomed to the Garmin interface so I don't yet like the Mio.  Also, the Garmin's screen is much bigger.

I think it's pretty cool that the GPS runs windows so I can run lots of great software.

wishlist for my mobile phone

1 - I would like to add a USB wifi device.  Are there drivers for them available for windows mobile 5 or 6?

2 - I would like to get the camera to work better. Is there better camera software available?  The pictures have good resolution but the optics, colors, contrast, and focus are crap.  Can one attach external optics?

3 - I would also like to buy a bluetooth GPS device for use with streets and trips or tomtom or garmin  or other map software. Any recommendations?

more photos of Aachen -- http://mw.spaces.live.com/

I uploaded about 5 dozen photos from my walk around Aachen to http://mw.spaces.live.com/ for your viewing pleasure.

Mitch teaches in Aachen, Germany (part 5)

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The Aachen office is under construction so Microsoft rented a conference facility 2 Km from the office in a castle called Schloss Rahe. The castle has a moat, a dungeon, and well-appointed, brightly lit conference rooms. We had no projector but someone ran back to the office to get one (a tiny 8" squared unit that worked amazingly well). Microsoft Redmond sent the printed workbooks too late but they arrived literally minutes before the class began. The food and coffee at Castle Rahe is bad (except for the fresh fruit) and there is no Internet available, ouch! However I had almost all of the materials I needed and the courses ran quite well without network access.

Mitch teaches in Aachen, Germany (part 4)

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The hotel Aquis Grana is in the center of Aachen next to the big Cathedral complex and cobblestoned squares / pedestrian-only areas. Parking is in an underground garage next door. The rooms are clean, small, and quiet. There are plenty of restaurants and wonderful shopping in the area (great book stores!). There is no health center inside the hotel but it's really interesting to jog around downtown because of all of the tourist attractions (fountains, shops, historical landmarks, University, the Cathedral itself). And push-ups / situps can be done anywhere. I had a great dinner in a local basement-restaurant filled with noisy kids, young couples, and extended familes. German beer is the best. Breakfast buffet at the hotel is also fantastic. I am a big fan of most breakfast foods including Cantonese rice porridge, grains (oatmeal, granola), eggs, fruits, salads, fresh-baked breads. It was fantastic and I ate too much.

Mitch teaches in Aachen, Germany (part 3)

I shall be back in Zurich, Switzerland after teaching two courses in Aachen. I shall be in the Microsoft Zurich offices meeting with some people there.

Zurich is an interesting town with a long history and much less visible devastation from the "war centuries" that one sees in most of Europe. Napoleon fought the Austrians in the area but the town itself was not attacked.

Zurich is on the Limat river and touches the long, skinny, deep lake Zurich. The lake is very clean and the water sports on it are fun.

My daughter Adinah (15) is blogging about her job in Zurich at http://adinahwyle.blogspot.com/ and she has some photographs there of swimming and speed-boating.

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Driving from Dusseldorf to Aachen, Sunday 20th July, 2008

The drive from Dusseldorf to Aachen is interesting. There are very many tiny cultivated fields and dozens of wind turbines generating electrical power. In Germany, apparantly if you generate power using a "renewable" energy source (wind, solar, hydro) the government will pay you 10x the normal price per kilowatt hour. So, for example, if you mount solar panels on your roof, it is more cost-effective if you pump the power into the grid and then pull power back out to run your house because you are paid 10x what it costs you.

There were a few areas of the highway where there was no speed limit but I did not go over 200 for more than a few kilometers because it was really scary and the roads were wet. There were crazies going very fast (about 240). The GPS systems navigated me to the hotel in downtown Aachen without a single wrong turn or difficulty. It is unfortunately very slow to drive in or out of the downtown Aachen area because the streets are narrow, one-way, and serpentine around the pedestrian-only zones. I cannot imagine trying to drive around Aachen without a GPS.

Mitch teaches in Aachen, Germany (part 2)

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The Air Berlin flight was late leaving Zurich so I arrived in Aachen at rush hour (around 5pm).  When we landed there were two other planes flying right next to ours. All the planes landed within 1 minute of each other (two at once on parallel runways).  Our plane rushed off of the runway because another plane landed right behind us.  The runway on the other side had a plane taking off right after the one in front of it landed.  It was like watching military jet operations.  The Aachen airport uses those special buses that scoot around the tarmac, taking people to and from the planes instead of having the planes pull up to a gate.  We were very efficiently wisked through the high-traffic tarmac and taken to the terminal.  I actually prefer a smaller terminal and those buses to walking and taking trains through the humongous terminals of large airports.

 

There was no line at the Avis counter and I had my "Skoda Octavia" in under 3 minutes (German efficiency).  When I travelled extensively in Germany in 1981 the Berlin wall had not yet fallen and the idea of driving a Czech (Soviet block) car was absurd.  Now Volkswagen has a close joint venture relationship with Skoda and the Octavia is very impressive.  The six-speed turbo-diesel can accelerate the car (on the Autobahn) up to 200 Km/hr quickly; the German-style performance clutch is like high-friction rubber, biting hard as soon as the clutch pedal moves a few millimeters.  It has a large multi-function display with GPS navigation, entertainment, weather, bluetooth for the phone, and many other features I have not yet needed or used.  The portable GPS I brought with me is not nearly as good as the onboard system; on the way from the airport to my hotel I used both systems but from the hotel to the conference facility I used only the onboard GPS.  I have become better at entering the destination data and the system is gathering up my destination points.