tOMPSON’s blog

Due to a lot of things going on in my life you may have noticed that I am updating my blog not as frequently as I did the last years. I never quite understood why people wanted to be able to update their blog from their mobile phone - now I want to do the same. At least I want to update my “online-me” when I am away from my PC.

I am doing this by using twibble as a mobile twitter client on my BlackBerry Bold or by uploading pictures taken with the BlackBerry directly my facebook profile or flickr account.

Instead of posting comments about posts I read in my Google Reader I just mark them as shared so you can see my filtered interests on my shared feed page or on friendfeed. The same goes for youtube videos - I mark them as favorites and they are listed on my facebook profile and friendfeed page.

The latest thing I tried is to consolidate all my online actions into a “soup” by using the service soup.io (created in Austria!) - so check out my soup under http://soup.dertompson.com/ - maybe the day comes when it replaces dertompson.com

Found on CrackBerry.com:

The Javelin looks very nice compared to the Bold. Still going to get the Bold as soon as possible.

While I updated my BlackBerry 8800 with the OS officially released by vodafone some days ago different web sources share the information about new builds available. I installed 4.5.0.37 while the new versions available are 4.5.0.42 and 4.5.0.46.

So far most things work quite ok while I had some troubles with the upgrade. Google Maps 2.2.0 does not work correctly, the application hangs on startup at 90% progress. I had to download a new build of MiniSafe because the old add in did not sync anymore inside the BlackBerry Desktop Manager 4.5.

The good news are: it seems like the european BIS servers have already been upgraded to version 2.5 because I am able to see rich content inside my emails. I hope there will be a SP5 version of my BlackBerry Professional software soon.

News are making the round saying the Bold will be delayed. Boy Genius has information from AT&T. Seems like RIM still has problems with battery lifetime and temperatur of the device. I hope this does not affect the release date of european providers to much!

I am using Eclipse Ganymede for about three months now (since RC5 or RC6) and I am really excited about the new version. Here are my favorite improvements:

1. Performance
   • Java compile on multi-CPU machines – the Eclipse Compiles now takes advantage of multi-threading capabilities of multi-CPU machines. Builds are a lot faster!
2. UI improvements
   • I am a Firefox user so I am happy that it is now possible to close tabs by clicking on them with the middle mouse button
   • Focus on tooltips on mouse over – this means you do not have to press F2 to focus a tooltip. It allows selecting text inside a tooltip just by moving the mouse into it.
     
   • Quickfixes are focused on mouse over too. No double clicking on the small warning icon in front of the code line anymore – just moving the mouse over the wavy line below the bad code and click on the hyperlinked quickfix.
   • Debug tooltips show more detailed information – like in the variable view.
   • Values of constants are shown in tooltips too on mouseover
     
   • Rearranging code elements by drag and drop in the outline
     
3. Coding
   • Code completion helps with casts – it reads the type of the instanceof condition and automatically offers more methods
     
     Afterwards it adds the necessary cast
     
   • Convert to StringBuffer quick assist – is useful sometimes when refactoring bad usage of String concatenation
     
4. Formatting and cleanup
   • Format edited lines only – this setting allows you to format the code you added or changed and leaving the rest of the class untouched
   • The new cleanup settings allow to correct indentation and adding unimplemented methods automatically
   • Undo formatting for a set of Java elements – If you format your whole source or a package it can be undone again
   • Comments are formatted at the same time as code is formatted – happens in one pass and is a lot faster (for big classes)

See the New and Noteworthy for the whole list of new features.

There are a lot of plugins that are released simultaneous in new versions:

• Web Tools Project version 3.0 – now includes a very nice JavaScript editor that allows to format JavaScript code in the same way as it is possible with Java code
• Subversive version 1.0 – the official SVN plugin the Eclipse project chose
• Mylyn 3.0 – no list of changes available until now

Thanks to the Eclipse team for bringing us this exciting new version of such a great tool!

Guitar Hero World Tour is coming fall 2008:

A lot new information for us BlackBerry fans while the WES is going on. While the BlackBerry Bold was officially announced on the first day:

BG wrote about another BlackBerry device coming out this year: The BlackBerry touchscreen device (codename Thunder) many rumors this year already talked about. Although I am quite sure I would prefer the Bold against the Thunder I am very curious about how the Thunder will look and feel like.

Meanwhile the first “sepcial customers” get the Bold while rumors predict that the Bold will be available some when between October and December this year. This seems way to far away - I need one now!

Another two interesting things from the WES: There will be multiple battery covers for the BlackBerry Bold in different colors feeling like some sort of leather. Unify4Life shows some interesting kind of software for the BlackBerry that allows to control your home entertainment system.

Something funny at the end: I think this video of the RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie shows that he has a lot of humor:

Microsoft Research brings us the WorldWide Telescope. It is not released now but I can not wait until we will be able to try it the first time. Why am I so excited about this? Why is Robert Scoble so excited about this?

We all know Google Maps and Microsoft Live Maps. We are able to zoom in and out and to see many places of our planet in brilliant details. But the universe … you can zoom in, and in, and in, and in, and in, and in, and in … it does not end. I am really curious about how good the quality of the images will be. There are so many places in our universe nobody else has ever seen - and maybe we will be able to see them soon on our monitors.

UPDATE: If you got some time left have a look at this video that demonstrates what the WorldWide Telescope will look like. I am really fascinated.

As I stated out again yesterday my favorite program is Launchy. Because one of the other programs I use the most is Putty I created a workaround that allows me to open my saved Putty sessions with Launchy. Therefor I created shortcuts in my start menu that start putty with

putty.exe -load “sessionname”

Yesterday I did a search for Launchy plugins and came across this Putty plugin for Launchy. It allows you to open connections to a specified host or saved sessions from Launchy so I do not have to create shortcuts for that anymore.