Seems like YouTube is having some problems this morning… An hour or so back I was looking at some videos shot in Antarctica, but now all I get is an error message – Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.
Update: It’s back!
Here’s a really good reason why you should never use Windows as a server operating system (even if you still think you should use it as a desktop OS). I don’t see a lot of websites crash like this anymore, but when they do they are almost always built using Windows, .NET or the other technology that is best avoided, Java (I won’t get started on that one today though).
In this case, I was attempting to submit a form for a recall on a battery charger that goes with my cordless drill. The server apparently is not working though, and felt the need to give me a stack trace (something that would have been much better off being emailed to a system administrator, who could wake a developer and get the thing fixed. If enough developers are woken up in the middle of the night to fix this kind of thing, eventually they’ll refuse to accept Windoze as a server platform. Ideally, they’d refuse to use it entirely since it isn’t really suitable for anything these days.
I have a couple of Devicescape updates for everybody tonight (and I’ll also post some more photos soon, but you can check most of those out in my Flickr stream anyway.
Nokia Videos
The video to the right is a video shot by our friends at Nokia that shows Devicescape logging in automatically at a T-Mobile hotspot. Here’s another one shot at San Jose airport.
Both of these videos used the T-Mobile network, but Devicescape also works on most of the other hotspot networks you’ll find around the world.
SF New “Mobile” Tech
The other thing I wanted to mention was that I presented at SF New “Mobile” Tech last night here in San Francisco. If you were there, thanks for coming (especially all the folks who already had Devicescape running on their devices).
If it was anybody else they’d be madly scribbling tickets and demanding that you move. Not only is the first one parked in a red zone, there is a second one double parked alongside it!
They should be issuing each other with tickets at this point, not standing there chatting (presumably about their day of harassing people who were confused by the ridiculous number of different types of parking zones and different rules and exceptions for each in San Francisco.
In some places the meters have different coloured caps to confuse you some more; there are yellow capped and green capped meters for different restrictions on parking. The odd one though is the red capped meter. Red normally means no parking, ever, no exceptions (unless you’re a DPT employee apparently). So what does a red capped meter mean? No parking ever, but when you do (illegally) make sure you drop some quarters in there as well or they’ll get you for parking on an expired meter as well as in a red zone?
Are they from another planet? Well, no, just from a part of our own planet that few see. Monterey? Oh, no, sorry, I meant under the great oceans. This particular one was, however, in the aquarium at Monterey. Part of a spectacular section of the aquarium devoted to jelly fish.
Many people are familiar with the orange on blue jelly fish photos that have become a signature image for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but there are many other species at the aquarium too from ghostly white saucers to jellies that could be mistaken for plants.
We’re heading into winter now. It has been darker when I wake up to head into work, and the sun is much lower in the sky. That makes for some interesting photos like this one where the sun makes the bridge seem as though it is burning white hot and melting into the bay beneath it. Or perhaps I’m just imagining it.
Stopped by the new Whole Foods Market supermarket in Oakland this afternoon to pick up some things that are hard to get in other places (e.g. Quorn), and also to add their free Wi-Fi network, which has a click to connect portal, to the set supported by Devicescape.
I successfully connected using my Thinkpad (running FC4 Linux because I’m too lazy to upgrade it), my Nokia N95 and the my still-modified iPhone.
My only complaint about the store was that there were no pastries on sale at the coffee bar. Their loss more than mine since I just opted for the coffee without the snack (probably better for me too!). I guess you’re supposed to walk around the corner to the bakery first, but if they want people to sit in the coffee shop area working and keep re-ordering, please include the option of buying some tasty pastries too 🙂
A few of my photos have been included in the Maui guide from the folks at Schmap before. Now they’ve selected one of my photos from the Ferrari Carano winery taken earlier this year for inclusion in their Napa Valley guide.
I caught the very early (6:10am) ferry over to the city this morning, something I don’t think I’ll be doing again. That said, it did afford me the chance to see the sun rise over the bay. Here’s a photo taken along the Embarcadero, looking out towards the Bay Bridge. On the left side is the new Pier 14.