http://www.oliviertravers.com/ en-us olivier_travers@scifan.com 2009-03-14T22:30:47+00:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2009/03/14/state-of-my-voip-setup/index.php?rss1 I just bought a prepaid data package from Claro, one of the three mobile telcos here in Chile. After fumbling with their settings (their APN for prepago banda ancha is bap.clarochile.cl, not bam.clarochile.cl) I've just completed a successful call with... 3218@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ digital lifestyle 2009-03-14T22:30:47+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2009/03/08/nokia-e71-apps/index.php?rss1 Quick notes on apps I'm using with my E71 smartphone: Nimbuzz and Fring because (unless I'm being really dense here), Skype Mobile doesn't support free skype-to-skype calls over WiFi. I'm using Teliax as an SIP provider. (This would give me... 3217@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ digital lifestyle 2009-03-08T22:52:01+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2009/01/28/offline-gmail/index.php?rss1 Gmail + Gears if finally happening. The pieces are really starting to be put together by Google here. Good move.... 3216@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ web apps 2009-01-28T14:21:20+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2009/01/21/want-timely-firmware-updates-dont-buy-a-nokia-e71/index.php?rss1 To help other people from being sold a device that's not going to be maintained by its manufacturer, let me warn you that some versions of Nokia's E71 smartphone sold in the US (aka E71-2 NAM) have not received any... 3215@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ best & worst practices 2009-01-21T15:26:03+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/12/19/google-app-engine-gets-serious-about-availability-transparency/index.php?rss1 After Zoho, Google. Now we're talking: System Status Dashboard, Quota Details Page, and a Billing Sneak Preview. These quotas and billings make me think Google must have hired someone who used to work in the mainframe business at IBM. There's... 3214@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ web apps 2008-12-19T17:50:26+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/11/11/zoho-gets-on-public-health-status-train/index.php?rss1 Kudos to Zoho for introducing a detailed dashboard monitoring the health of their online applications. I'm very pleased to see more and more web app vendors delivering on transparency I advocated as early as 2001 for online apps and services.... 3213@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ web apps 2008-11-11T17:52:08+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/11/10/plowing-through-unstructured-data/index.php?rss1 Jon Udell just experienced some of the practical limitations getting in the way of sharing and representing structured data easily that I've been running into myself. To produce an entry about Circuit City's store closures, I had to spend a... 3212@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ web apps 2008-11-10T16:22:47+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/09/26/dept-of-people-who-know-what-theyre-doing-dabbledb/index.php?rss1 I've looked at online databases and spreadsheets rather extensively a couple of months ago, and DabbleDB had hands down the most powerful yet usable user interface of the bunch, significantly ahead of what Zoho or Google (among others) have to... 3211@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ web apps 2008-09-26T12:58:04+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/08/29/us-3g-payg-byod-omg-wtf/index.php?rss1 I'm thinking of buying an unlocked Nokia E71 (about $400 at Newegg, the Blackberry Bold isn't really available unlocked yet at decent prices, and the iPhone has half a dozen dealbreakers for me). I want a device for use in... 3210@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ digital lifestyle 2008-08-29T00:01:05+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/08/26/the-entertainments-political-bias/index.php?rss1 For your entertainment: the Hollywood overwhelming leftist bias in numbers. To be taken with a grain of salt given PoliticalBase's elusiveness about how it collects the data and where it's coming from. It makes it hard to know how thorough... 3209@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ politics 2008-08-26T14:30:22+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/08/22/latin-drum-grooves/index.php?rss1 The full drumset is not really a central instrument in Latin music (as opposed to a bunch of percussion instruments), nonetheless many Latin grooves are playable on a drumkit, especially if you add a couple cowbells and woodblocks. Since I... 3208@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ music 2008-08-22T13:18:30+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/07/22/still-quite-an-analog-world-were-living-in/index.php?rss1 Sometimes it feels like we're swimming in an endless sea of digital content, and to the extent I for instance have more than a terabyte of media on my own local network (currently 16 IP devices!), we are. But once... 3207@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ meta-tagging the universe 2008-07-22T15:32:34+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/07/14/how-southwest-hedges-its-fuel-costs/index.php?rss1 Interesting interview with Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly. 10/16/08 update: Southwest Airlines posts 1st loss in 17 years.... 3206@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ management & operations 2008-07-14T15:44:09+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/06/14/why-i-unsubscribed-from-the-economist/index.php?rss1 I used to really like this magazine. A couple years ago they changed their Editor in Chief. Seems the new guy's goal is to turn it into another wishy washy leftist vehicle. Look, there's Newsweek, Michael Moore movies and countless... 3205@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ politics 2008-06-14T01:48:19+00:00 http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2008/06/13/all-thats-wrong-with-microsoft/index.php?rss1 Here's a really excellent wrap-up of the staggering mediocrity at Microsoft for pretty much a decade. Detailed, informed, right on target.... 3203@http://www.oliviertravers.com/ industry players & news 2008-06-13T21:24:01+00:00