I've been using Google Calendar extensively to try to keep track of all of my meetings. In general, I would say that it has been marginally successful; the sharing is very basic and it doesn't do resource scheduling (such as "I want a Conference Room, any conference room, for my meeting"). No matter, it is better than using a legacy option like Exchange/Outlook or iCal. I can get there from my iPhone and open it with any web browser.

Over the past few weeks I've been struggling with a bug in Google Calendar, and couldn't figure out why it was happening. It turns out that Google, as you would expect, tries to be too smart without understanding the consequences. Furthermore, the Google ego means that there is no bug reporting form. Whaaaa?

The bug goes like this: If you click on the calendar and create an entry, it will interpret the words in your entry and try to be smarter than you. For example, if you type "Meeting at 3 in Menlo Park" in the text box, it will create an hour long meeting at 3pm on the current day with the location of "Menlo Park". It will even ask you if you want a map.

Here's the bug: With Sentilla, we do a lot of work with Sun Microsystems... you know, those Java guys. Every now and again, we even have meetings with them. I type into the box "Sun Meeting at 3 at Sentilla World Headquarters". Next thing I know, Google Calendar says "event created" and I can't find it anywhere. Weird. I repeat this process 3 or 4 times. Same thing. Turns out, Google is putting the entry on Sunday (get it, "Sun") and calls the meeting "Meeting". Grrr. Damn you Google. Eric Schmidt was from Sun... Google, you can't be against Sun!

MacBook Air -- I was in love with it when it was announced. but a number of things dissuaded me from immediately purchasing one (i was tempted!)

1. no cell-modem support. need this for traveling to work everyday.
2. battery is not replaceable. this sucks for airplane trips.
3. hard drive is 4200 rpms. this means it is slow, which kills performance.
4. no ethernet port. useful!
5. usb dongles. do i really need 15 things hanging off my macbook?

Apple also announced the MacBook Air case -- the world's thinnest laptop case. I have to say that this blog post is the funniest thing I've seen about the MacBook Air.

Time Capsule -- Can I bury it and have it backup my Mac wirelessly? Then dig it up 30 years later and realize that I wasted a lot of money 30 years ago. Steve reinvented iSCSI. All we wanted to do was use an iSCSI device to back up our MacBooks. But no, you had to brand some lame item. Oh, and Steve-o, AirPort Express has USB ports for hard drives -- why can't I use those? This is exactly why I hate Apple.

iPhone -- Yay, I can finally determine my location (within 2 miles) using Google Maps. (note sarcasm) Where is my file browser? Where is my ability to store the Caltrain schedule and view it without an internet connection? Who cares about multiple SMS and rearranging my icons? Grr!

The best part of the iPhone update is a feature not documented on any blog. Somehow they missed it. Apple changed from using the POP interface of Gmail to instead using the IMAP interface. The IMAP interface means your iPhone is always in direct sync with your Gmail account, which is tremendously useful.

iTunes movie rentals and Apple TV v2 -- This feature has so many flaws it isn't even funny. Only 24 hours to watch the movie (but 3 months to start watching, weird). HD versions are only available for Apple TV, not when downloading with iTunes to your PC. Oh, and did I mention that Netflix is letting you download movies for free and watch them whenever you want? Oh, and Netflix has 6,000 items now; iTunes will have 1,000 items by the end of February. Apple, just give up, seriously. This is a silly feature that I'll never use.

I thought MacWorld would top CES, but it seems like both have let me down this year.

This year's CES was less than eventful. Yes, we get it, every company in the world is making HDTVs. And while everyone is looking forward to MacWorld instead (yes, my iPhone needs a serious software update -- like when can I store the Caltrain schedule PDF on my phone without having to be online every time I want to know when the next train is). Luckily, the folks at Think Computers (who? never heard of 'em) have decided to redeem CES with an extra special article. They posted a slew of pictures of the booth babes of CES. Vegas + Electronics + Booth Babes. What more would you expect?

Oh, and my vote is for Creative...

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index.php?x=articles&id=67

Berkeley has recently lost two amazing Berkeley-run businesses, Clifbar and PowerBar. An article about the loss of business says that "businesses grow up and find office space scarce." As a former Berkeley business owner, I have to say that this is nonsense. Businesses move out of Berkeley because:

1. The rates are too high. Places on Shattuck are trying to charge $4 per square foot per month for the space. In contrast, most space in San Francisco is under $2 per square foot per month, and space in the valley has dropped below $1.50 per square foot per month.
2. Parking is a mess. Berkeley is full of 2-hour limit residence zones, expensive parking garages, and impossible-to-find metered parking.
3. Homeless people hang out at your business entrance. Yes, our office in Berkeley had homeless people hanging out in front of our office door and refusing to move when people need to get in the building. Rumor has it that Inktomi started in the same office as Moteiv, but had to usher high-profile guests in through the garage so that they wouldn't have to walk pass the homeless contingent.
4. The university drives up rates. It isn't just the business lease rates, but the cost of living to be close to work. Rates in Berkeley are as high as in San Francisco, and most people realize that they'd rather live in San Francisco than Berkeley if it costs the same.
5. Very few startups are in Berkeley. It is a community thing--the valley has a ton of venture funded startups, and with web 2.0 making the .com irrationality come back, San Francisco is booming with small techie firms trying to build the next best hosted service with fancy web graphics.

To read an article that poorly covers the Berkeley office space situation, check out SFGate's analysis.

Web 2.0 is the new Dot Com, only a few years later. Things like "Web 2.0", "Ajax", and "RSS" are the new buzzwords, with venture capitalists all over the world investing hundreds of millions (possibly billions) in this new craze reminiscent of the dot com bubble in the late 90s. For those who aren't familiar with these fancy tech terms, Web 2.0 and Ajax are the things that power Google Mail (Gmail), Google Calendar, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and any other technology where you can interact with a webpage in real time. Sure, the technology is cool, but I never got the innovation that is supposedly part of "consumer internet" companies. Luckily, there's a (fairly biased investor in consumer internet) venture capitialist from Bessemer who keeps a blog on consumer internet stuff. The blog is called "Who has time for this?" Ironic, isn't it?

Oh, and in the dot com era, all the dot com companies were located in the South Park neighborhood of San Francisco, also known as Multimedia Gulch. It is located about 4 blocks south of Moteiv's South of Market office (we almost signed up for office space in the same building as Wired). The San Francisco Chronicle has this article about the resurgence of companies in Multimedia Gulch due to Web 2.0.

Now I realize I'm just promoting another web browser, but here it goes... I've downloaded flock which is really just a modification of the Firefox browser that adds a bunch of useful stuff--like auto blogging from within the browser...

Will someone please fix Mozilla Firefox from leaking memory? After about 6 hours of use, Firefox is using over 500mb, sometimes up to 1gb. There's a number of proposed fixes online, but none actually work. Sigh....

How to write the introduction to a wireless sensor network research paper: Choose from one of the following first phrases Recent advances Recent developments Recent technological advances Recent technological developments Add one of the following in integrated circuit technology in...

My Xbox 360 arrived today. What a sweet piece of machinery. must...purchase...HDTV...(salivating)...

For those of us that still buy CDs, it appears that CDs are becoming less and less a means for distributing and audio and more a means for distributing applications. In Europe, almost every CD has the words "Copy Controlled"...