Microsoft Tag offers seamless 2D barcode service

I have been fiddling around with 2D barcodes for a little over a year and recently came across Microsoft’s offering known as Microsoft Tag (Beta).

Microsoft Tag is a high capacity color barcode that uses triangles instead of the more common squares used in other 2D barcodes including QR codes. Not unlike other 2D barcode solutions, the tag is essentially a web link; the reader decodes the Microsoft Tag, sends the URL to a resolution server that returns a URL containing the content, which triggers the mobile phone’s browser to load the page. Microsoft Tag seems to be proprietary technology.

Common issues facing 2D barcode solutions provider are :
- size of the code itself
- decode accuracy and speed
- speed of resolution server in returning content URL
- system compatibility of client software on a wide range of mobile handset models

I started by downloading the client reader onto my iPhone and had no problems. I then proceeded to creating a code for testing, which again was problem-free (see issues about this below). I launched the app on my iPhone and the reader automatically detected and decoded the 2D barcode without having to perform the normal i) frame, ii) take snapshot of code, iii) decode, and iv) resolve process. This is not unlike i-Nigma’s client reader on the Symbian S60 platform. The decoding and resolution were both speedy. The reader was not fussy about framing, lighting or size of code within the reader’s window. I was impressed with the overall performance.

Generating the code from Microsoft’s website was simple and quick but the output options are limited and odd I would think. The website offers exporting the code as either pdf, wmf, or xps format with sizes ranging from 0.75 to 120 inches. I would have preferred saving the code as either jpg or png – this is much simpler and more direct for majority of users.

My preliminary experience with Microsoft Tag was promising. Microsoft’s website offers users to the ability to create tags quite easily, and provides graphic reports on how many times the code (i.e. Microsoft Tag) has been clicked on / decoded.

According to Microsoft’s website, the client reader supports a wide range of devices including iPhone, Symbian S60 3rd edition platforms, phones supporting J2ME, Windows Mobile 5 and 6 as well as a few Blackberry handsets. I suspect the user experience on J2ME phones will be different.

Currently, Microsoft Tag’s reader can only decode and process Microsoft Tags. If Microsoft expands its website service and reader to include creating and decoding for other public domain codes like QR and Data Matrix, it could become the de facto service for 2D barcodes.

TwitterFon best Twitter app on iPhone?

Ever since I started using Twitter, I have wondered what the best Twitter app on iPhone is. Turns out Gizmodo covered this in a great article in late Jan 2009. The article reviews both free and paid apps for iPhone. It seems I am already using the best free Twitter app already as I am using TwitterFon . . .

Click on the link below for the full story.

iPhone Twitter App Battlemodo: Best and Worst Twitter Apps for iPhone.

Lifehacker Gina Trapani’s ideal setup

I’m always immensely curious what hardware and software other people use on a daily basis. Today I happened upon an interview on Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani covering her gear and ideal set-up at Waferbaby.

Interesting! Gina Trapani on waferbaby.

Twitter . . . to tweet or not to tweet

Lately I have begun using Twitter.

Micro-blogging, and Twitter in particular, is already immensely popular in the west, but still in its infant stage in Hong Kong. Personally, I find it requires quite a bit of work to get started – it demands more active participation than say Facebook.

I was also alerted that the basic web interface of Twitter’s own page does not begin to reveal the ways it can be used to share information. As a result, I have installed Twitterfox as an add-on in Firefox, TweetDeck as an app on the desktop, and TwitterFon onto my iPhone.

I have to say I am still experimenting with Twitter and my experience is still rather mixed. As times, the blurbs that I upload seem totally random and meaningless to anyone but me; I don’t see the reason why anyone would want to read my tweets at all!

Gmail even better than before with multiple inboxes

Lately, Gmail has been rolling out quite a few exceptional new features – of these, I find the improved contact management and multiple inbox particularly useful.

Gmail’s contact management used to be pretty basic and of the new enhancements, the merging of contacts should prove to be a welcome addition. Now I can easily clean up my contact list – and then eventually sync them to my iPhone.

Gmail’s multiple inbox is simply a godsend. I used to have to search again and again for archived emails and attachments despite having a decent labeling system. Now, with multiple inboxes, I can see my inbox together with key projects I am currently working on all on one screen! Absolutely brilliant. Multiple inbox can be enabled in the Gmail labs tab, and further customized within the regular settings tab.

My first Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron install

Recently, I patched up an abandoned PC sitting in the back of my room and ventured into my first experience of a Linux distro.

Half a year ago, one late night, while surfing the web, my PC beeped, the screen went blank and the computer failed to reboot. After much trouble-shooting, I discovered that the SATA controller on the motherboard was fried. I ended up building a new PC around a more modern dual core CPU, and my old AMD single core system was left abandoned.

Fixing The Hardware
2 weeks ago, a friend of mine threw out an old PC. I promptly took that machine apart and salvaged the PATA hard disk. My guess was that the motherboard in my old PC was still functioning fine apart from the SATA controller, and I could probably get it to work with a older PATA drive connected to one of the IDE controllers. This turned out to be case and I now have a spare PC to play around with – so I decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron onto this system.

Before installation, my prime worries were whether Ubuntu would recognize all the hardware – which included an AMD 64 3200+ CPU, an ATI X700 series video card, and an Asus A8N-E motherboard – and difficulties in configuring the installation.

Installing Ubuntu 8.04
I am glad to report that my first experience of Ubuntu was a very pleasant one. Installation went without a hitch. Loading the OS via an installation DVD, I was taken through a simple 7 step guided process – all of the onscreen instructions were clear and easy to understand. The installation took about 15 minutes.

Upon completion of installation and a quick re-boot, I entered the Ubuntu desktop. Everything was working smoothly: keyboard and mouse were working, monitor was displaying in correct screen resolution, and broadband connectivity was present. As far as I can tell, all the hardware was working properly.

I was then prompted for 2 items : enabling drivers for the ATI video card (when I agreed, Ubuntu downloaded and installed without any problems) and system updates. A total of over 350 updates totalling 360+ MB were identified and this took roughly 40 minutes to download and install.

Next I launched Firefox 3.0.3 and was checking my mail in no time.

Overall, I am impressed with Ubuntu 8.04 and had decided to delved more into the OS.

My first Ubuntu Desktop : with Cairo Dock and Rainlendar

Todoist gets upgrade – sidebar enhances productivity

Online task management service Todoist received a major enhancement last month with the launch of a sidebar extension for Firefox (compatible with Firefox 3.x). The extension adds a button onto the browser toolbar and a simple click opens a sidebar on the right side of the browser – currently it seems this sidebar cannot be docked to the left.

Enhancements brought about by the sidebar include:

• One-click addition of web pages as task items – this transforms Todoist into decent solution for bookmarking temporary / working web pages online
• Tight Gmail integration. It is now a breeze to add important emails that need follow up action as a to-do item in Todoist with a simple click.

I have been using Todoist on and off for over a year. I prefer it over other more powerful task management software and online services mainly because of its simple and clean interface. In the past, adding links to web pages inside Todoist required too much manual cut and pasting; now with the sidebar, it is a great deal easier. The service has also evolved with the sidebar and is capable for doing much more than compiling simple to do lists. With this current enhancement, I can myself using it on a much more frequent basis.

If you really need elaborate features and multiple ways of syncing it with Microsoft Outlook or cell phones and PDAs, then Todoist is probably NOT the solution you seek.

To begin using Todoist, you need to register here for a free account. The extension can be downloaded and installed here.

Highly recommended.

Ummagumma goes mobile!

Over the last half a year, I have become acquainted with 2D barcode and mobile content technologies. As a result, this blog now has a mobile version that can be conveniently viewed on mobile handsets.

On the top of right sidebar, I have placed a QR code that links to the mobile version of the blog. The first thing users need to do is install a 2D barcode reader onto their handsets. Once they have the reader, all they need to do is scan the QR code with the software, sort of like taking a snapshot of the code. The software interprets the QR code, launches the browser and loads the webpage. This helps bypass the gruesome task of inputing the URL into the handset browser (though of course you can do that too). Most modern handsets come installed with decently capable browsers and newer models with 3G and HSPDA connectivity would be ideal for this purpose.

There are many free 2D barcode readers on the market for mobile handsets, but unfortunately, the number of models they support vary greatly. The 2D barcode readers I would recommend at this moment are i-nigma (which performs incredibly well on Symbian Series 60 handsets) and QuickMark.

Another useful utility, or rather web service, that I rely on to produce a mobile version of the this blog is Mofuse. This web service offers a simple and rather brain-less way to create a mobile handset compatible version of any webpage or blog. Once registered (free), users can create pages from scratch or simply pointed their mobile site to the RSS feed of their blogs. Essentially, Mofuse loads and converts the RSS feed into a mobile friendly format, so once set up this way, users no longer have to maintain or fuss over their mobile blogs. The mobile version of Ummagumma is currently text only as I find this more efficient for viewing on handsets. Mofuse is a brilliant idea executed well. Highly recommended!

P.S.: the link under the QR code offers viewers a preview of what the mobile version of Ummagumma would look like on their handset screens.

aNobii : an excellent Web 2.0 book tracker

Despite spending numerous hours each day at my PC, and despite utilizing a fair number of so-called Web 2.0 services, I haven’t come across a local Hong Kong service . . . till last week. The site in question is called aNobii.

Situated in Hong Kong, aNobii offers a useful book tracking service. Users register for a free account and immediately start entering books and various details like whether they have started reading or finished the book. The usual social networking features are present – one can invite friends, create and join groups with specific topics, as well as explore neighbours, i.e. users with similar bookshelves. Other expected features include tagging, rating titles and numerous ways to sort the bookshelves. You can also see how many users own a title and how they rate it (if they have finished reading the book).

Where aNobii distinguishes itself is in ease of use. Even non-techies should have no problems with this site. Entering books is very simple – just type in the ISBN codes at the back of the title or do a search which yields very decent results – and the site will generate the rest. I entered books I read recently (most of them in 2007) which amounted to 70+ titles and the database managed to recognize all of them via ISBN codes. Impressive.

The site is well designed too. Layout is clean, simple and easy on the eyes. The major downside at the moment seems to slow loading pages and occasionally outages. Then again the site is in beta like nearly all Web 2.0 offerings, so hiccups are expected.

As I book lover, I really liked the features aNobii has to offer. I used to compile a timeline to monitor what I’ve read – which is work because I have to input book titles, authors, date started and finished data into a XML files as well as upload images manually. With aNobii, all this is made simple. I’m giving aNobii a very positive thumbs – and highly recommending it for people who love to read.

My public profile at aNobii.

Create online timelines with xTimeline

xTimeline (currently in beta) offers users an easy solution to creating timelines that can be viewed online. Access to timelines created can be controlled by users with 3 options: completely open to public; accessible by invited friends or viewable by user only.

After registering for a free account, users can create timelines in just a few simple steps. I found the process as straight forward as it gets. Users can enter data event by event or via bulk upload with a CSV file. An interesting option is to create timelines based on RSS feeds. This option makes the creation of a timeline of your blog entries a no brainer.

When I gave xTimeline a trial run several weeks ago, the site did not support traditional Chinese characters. I sent the development team an email about this and reply was prompt : the item was in development. About a week later, I received another email for them, this time informing me that the site now supported Chinese characters. On Monday, they’ve added another feature, the ability for users to export data in a XML or CSV file. Good work and very nice user response!

Overall, xTimeline looks promising as an online timeline solution. It is at the moment not half as flexible as Simile Timeline, but xTimeline has the benefit of being very easy to use. I’m sure the development team will gradually introduce features that allow timelines to be more tweakable. Recommended.

xTimeline
xTimeline blog
Create a timeline from RSS feeds with XTimeline – Lifehacker

Zoho Notebook powerful but not intuitive

Zoho is a Web 2.0 enterprise that offers online office tools. This includes your usual word processor, spreadsheet, planners and such. Last week, I came across several blog posts that mentioned Zoho Notebook beta as an elaborate and powerful tool for taking web clipping and misc notes. I registered with the site (very easy) and logged in to give the app a quick run through.

I found Zoho Notebook versatile but not intuitive – experienced web users with have no problems with creating content but novices (like my parents) may have difficulty figuring out how to add pages and organize entries. The app does give users a choice of keeping notes (or books as they are called) private, published or open to collaboration. You can easily add web pages, audio and video as well as mark up webpages with annotations and side notes. I found the app as responsive as most online AJAX applications – no better but no worse.

I also found this link to a published Zoho “book” that offers prospective users a rundown of the app and a great demo of the apps itself.

What’s your Web 2.0?

Many Web 2.0 apps are touted as the “next big thing”. But how many of them are used on a regular basis by actual users? Well, I came across an article at Web Worker Daily that links back to a survey at Engtech, with the intention of discovering this.

The Rules posted over at Engtech include linking to the post and the post of whoever tagged you and creating a list of the Web 2.0 sites you use and categorize them from “daily use” to “weekly use” to “monthly use”.

The survey is open to all to participate in the comments section at Engtech or to join in on the meme with their own blogs. And here are the Web 2.0 apps I use.

DAILY : Google Reader, Gmail, Last.fm, Wikipedia, Netvibes
WEEKLY : YouTube, WordPress.com
MONTHLY : Tumblr, Photobucket, Blogger
OCCASIONAL, when needed : Todoist, Yahoo!Pipes, Google Notebook

Yahoo launches the confusingly titled Alpha (Beta) service

Yahoo! has launched an interesting new search service called Alpha (currently in beta!!). The services generates results pages with modules for Flickr, YouTube and other web services. Users can log in with their Yahoo Accounts and customize the modules. The interface is quite clean – a definite plus.

It is supposed to compete with Google’s Searchmash, which I find to offer a slightly better experience. (Compare screenshot of Yahoo! Alpha on top with Google Searchmash on bottom).

[via Download Squad]

Google Desktop upgrade : sidebar gets new look

Google Desktop’s latest upgrade contains several new features :

1. Transparency for sidebar
2. Icons on top left corner of gadgets
3. A cleaner look for gadgets
4. Drag and drop gadgets from sidebar to anyway on your desktop
5. Gadgets from Google (as opposed to 3rd party) received updated looks

Installation woes : initially I downloaded the release via Goggle Updater and while the download was successful and the sidebar was functioning, I could not set it to transparent. Subsequently, I un-installed and re-installed Google Sidebar – this time the sidebar achieved transparency. (Google Desktop download page)

Impressions : transparency gives Google sidebar a much sleeker look, in tune with Windows Vista and newer desktop skins. The gadgets themselves also appear smarter in general. Memory usage seems on par with previous release.

One can find many gadgets for Goggle Desktop and I find some of these very functional. Currently, the gadgets I have installed into the sidebar include : calendar (syncs with Goggle Calendar), photo gallery, web clips (RSS feeds), local weather, scratch pad and a system info panel.

Terragen : a powerful landscape image generator

As I was searching for some high resolution wallpapers, I came across a landscape generator called Terragen. Quite a few of the more dazzling wallpapers that I downloaded give credit to this software. Apparently, Terragen is free for general and non-commercial use. The free download has a cap on resolution for the images it generates – which is naturally unlocked if you eventually decide to pay for it. As a free software, Terragen is still able to produce images up to 1280 x 960.

In terms of features, Terragen offers plenty of options from cloud textures to control of camera angles, amount of terrain, water and the angle of sunlight. I found Terragen to be a very powerful software and while it has a medium-to-high learning curve, I did have a load of fun of the program.

Link to Terragen website

Screenshot of Terragen

A random landscape I generated

IE 7 : a significant upgrade

I was asked by my parents how the Internet Explorer 7 fared against Firefox 2.0, so I downloaded Microsoft’s latest version of the browser. IE 7 is a significant upgrade on Microsoft’s part, incorporating many of the technologies and features that made Firefox (and to a lesser extent Opera) a fave among power users. The redesign look of the browser feels more modern.After using IE 7 for around a week or so, I ended up with the following observations.

Installation was smooth with no major problems or disasters. Microsoft’s download is significantly larger than Firefox’s and they need to validate your copy of Windows before download begins. This means users with pirated copies of Windows are out of luck – or at least need a work-around. Previous favourites and settings were carried over. Upon completion of installation, PC needs rebooting. Overall, installation took more steps than Firefox. Like Firefox 2.0, rendering / loading speed of pages were reasonably speedy. I experienced no problems so far with majority of pages.

The interface of IE 7 has been radically re-hauled. The new look is very sleek and in my opinion not only an improvement over IE 6 but also surpasses Firefox 2.0 in terms of sheer style. Usability is altogether another issue, as IE users with have to become accustomed to the re-arranged toolbars and new button locations. I found the placement of the Home and Refresh buttons odd. IE 7 now features tabbed browsing. In barebones mode, IE 7’s tab features are decent and compares favourably with Firefox.

By default, IE 7 switches on Microsoft’s ClearType technology for LCD monitors. I wasn’t aware that this feature was embedded in Windows XP. With this technology, I discovered that fonts have a much better presentation because of anti-aliasing. Since IE 7 turned it on for the browser only, I subsequently enabled ClearType for all applications on my PC via Microsoft’s 4-page web ClearType web tuner.

Personally, I still prefer Firefox 2.0 over IE 7 for two main reasons. Firstly, Firefox 2.0 has a built in spell checker which is extremely useful. Secondly, IE 7 is more instrusive with Active X warnings – it even prompted me with warnings when I loaded a simple HTML page I created on my own PC.