frankps
The world as frankps sees it!
Skype for iPhone released
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I have only played with it for a few minutes on my way to work today, and my first impressions are really good. It must be one of the best designed applications that I have tested on the iPhone so far. And for me, it is really the first VoIP application released for the iPhone. Of course, others will argue against me 
To able to enter Apple’s AppStore Skype has made some limitations for how and when you can use the application. You can only make free Skype-to-Skype calls and low cost calls to landlines and mobile phones – and participate in conference calls – from WiFi spots. But you can IM and participate in group chats, whenever you have network connectivity, whether it’s WiFi, 3G, EDGE or GPRS. It’s ok for me, and lets me be reachable in new ways, when outside of office.
Skype has made available a great video presenting their product on the iPhone:
MIT with OpenAccess
0From the Tech Online Edition:
Faculty voted unanimously this week to approve a resolution that allows MIT to freely and publicly distribute research articles they write. MIT plans to create a repository to make these articles available online.
The resolution, effective immediately after it was passed on Wednesday, makes MIT the first university to commit to making its faculty’s research papers publicly available. Though the School of Education at Stanford and several departments at Harvard have already adopted these policies, MIT is the first entire university to make this pledge.
The open-access rule will only apply to articles published since Wednesday. Researchers who wish to opt-out do so by sending a letter notifying the Office of the Provost.
The ad hoc committee’s explanatory document states that the ability to opt out may be especially important for junior faculty “who do not want to jeopardize their ability to work with certain publishers.”
“Initially opt out will get used a fair amount,” said Harold Abelson, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of the ad hoc faculty committee that proposed the resolution.
Links:
Thank you for all the fish, and …
0I am for now a happy Spotify user. Thuesday 24 March Last.fm announced that listening to Last.fm Radio will require a subscription of €3.00 per month. My first thought was fair enough, they have to earn money to pay the license fee. But then hang on a minute, what else did they write in this blog entry? In the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, nothing will change. Yes, that means that the service stays for free for users from these three countries. That is not something I can or will tolerate. They have defined their users in to two groups: First class users and second class users. First class users get a free ride, that the second class users have to pay. As I live in Norway, I’m defined as a second class user. I guess that the leaders of Last.fm must have been smoking their socks, if they think that they will get away with this. Let darwinsm deal with them (read: finance crise), they have already sent of several of their employees. Now they can close their company.
Besides this, a post in one of the Last.fm forums adds a couple of things:
- The old API to stream music will disappear in a few weeks. Unless I’m missing something, that implies that all clients (official and third party) will stop working, and upgrading them is required to continue using the service.
- Streaming music to mobile phones will not be permitted (a comment in the same thread explains that this restriction applies only to phones, so Nokia tablets are not affected).
I am saving my account for now, but I am inches away from deleting all my data on Last.fm and close my account. I guess there are many users that will do that. I have never seen more comments being made on Last.fm’s blog.
Also a friend of me blogged about this in Italian and another in Hungarian.
Xobni no longer in beta!
0My favourite Outlook-plugin, and the very reason that I dropped Thunderbird in favour of Outlook, Xobni, is now out of beta. The plugin adds social networking and search features to the email and contact organizer. I first looked at Xobni last year. Today Xobni is dropping the beta tab with the release of Xobni 1.7. Xobni’s webpage has also gotten an overhaul.
The new version doesn’t come with any shiny new features, but it it does have a number of improvements under the hood that let Xobni and Outlook work better together. For instance, Xobni loads faster, loads messages better due to caching, and users can control how often and how much of their email is indexed by the plugin. You can also decide whether Xobni will open every time you launch Outlook or if you want it to appear only when you want it.
I ran in to several problems trying to upgrade an existing version on my work computer. I guess the problems were related to me just quiting Outlook, and that I also had to end it’s background process. After ending the process, installation went smooth.
Xobni continues to be available as a free download, but the company is working on a premium version that will be available this summer.