Colin Charles Agenda

Zembly: write applications for Facebook, and the same thing applies for the iPhone or Meebo, or as a widget on your blog. Build stuff within the web-browser. This is a Sun-sponsored project, and looks very interesting.

Zembly: An Open Platform for iPhone and Mobile Browser Widgets
Prakash Narayan, Sun Microsystems Inc

Firstly, we’re entering a new world: software development is already changing, involving mostly software engineers to new models that involve everyone. Identify new opportunities for SE experts to reach many times more users by enlisting the masses to build on your work

Applications come in all sizes and shapes (Amazon.com, widgets, shell scripts, etc.). Widgets are built on platforms (a piece of software that enables applications).

A platform is the fertiliser for ecosystems of applications built upon them. Applications enrich the platforms they run on. Crowdsourcing enrich platforms in ways that the original developers didn’t imagine.

Zembly.com is a place for collaboratively building services, widgets, social applications, etc. for Facebook or the iPhone platform. Only tool you need to build your applications, is the web browser. Hosting is free!

Zembly is a community, and has “always live” development (using open services, widgets and mashups). Its like Wikipedia for code (freely create, edit, publish and find public services, widgets and mashups).

A new paradigm for developing applications. You’re not edit, compiling and debugging. As soon as you edit your code, its live (you then participate, and use applications).

A demo is now shown… Same application running on Facebook and an iPhone.

Try Zembly? Definitely. I just signed up for it.

One of the interesting things about conferences is the fact that there are usually parties associated with the conference. This usually means free food and drink. Sometimes, it usually means free t-shirts[1].

Anyway, its a great way to mingle and network, share and learn new things. So come to the OpenSolaris-MySQL-Zend OSCON Bash located at the DoubleTree Hotel (Lloyd Centre), on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 from 8pm-midnight.

Jesse Silver (excellent party planner – I found his skills amazing at the OpenSolaris Developer Summit earlier this year, in Santa Cruz, back in May), has assured us that it will be “carnivalesque”. Boxing, tricycle races, shooting galleries, pool, and an open bar :)

[1] – Good, since I’ve had to visit Target to buy some yesterday – thanks to United’s great efforts of leaving my bag in LAX and for some reason not getting it to me. Apparently, I’m not the only one in the MySQL Community lacking clothing – JetBlue has played a number on Sheeri, too.

Its worth noting that MySQL will have a big presence at OSCON 2008. All this, thanks to Sun, as Sun’s a fairly big sponsor (Platinum Sponsor), and we’ve got a humongous booth!

There are booth talks, that you must attend! They range from getting started with the MySQL Community, MySQL 5.1, MySQL Workbench, MySQL Cluster, and many more. Expect to see the schedule up at the booth (and yes I know, there are a whole heap of already interesting talks in the program, but a lot of the talks at the booth are also scheduled during breaks).

Today, I saw the ad copy, which reads “Our Booth is Your Booth”. “We have whiteboards, tables, electrical outlets and fresh coffee. Come to converse, share ideas, participate or simply to vegetate.”

Seriously, that’s advertising that bodes well with me. Note that OpenOffice.org will also be there. See you at OSCON :)

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am not a big fan of Malaysia Airlines. However, I have to hand it to them, with their new blog, titled Living Malaysian Hospitality (eating, breathing, sleeping MH; MH, their airline code, is now being themed as Malaysian Hospitality, something I think is utter bollocks from their service quality, or lack thereof).

Powered by WordPress 2.5.1, the blog is well-themed, and has been going on since April 2008. For a government-linked company (GLC), I am impressed that they’re embracing modern web technologies, and starting to speak to their customers. They’re giving the company a visible face, and going by the buttons, are not afraid to support Digg, del.icio.us, myspace, and Facebook. They are even hosting videos on YouTube!

They’re brave enough, to print customer letters (from our guests). So far, its all rosy, and they naturally reserve the right to publish only articles that put them in a good light, but Idris Jala has stated: “We want to hear from the customers, whether good or bad.”

This in my opinion can open up the floodgates of complaints, which can then help improve services eventually. There are 30 bloggers at present, and while the blog will not be published in real-time (it takes 24 hours for “approval” – pretty good for a corporate blog), I’m wondering why “Both comments and pings are currently closed.”

Congratulations on opening up MAS, and I sincerely hope that comments will be opened up soon as well. Remember, the whole idea of a blog is not a one-way conversation, which in itself isn’t a conversation. Note that your great competitor, AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes, already writes comments on random blogs…

In Singapore the last few days, I found some time to visit Orchard Road on Sunday. I thought about the best place to get an iPhone 3G and headed to Lucky Plaza. To my surprise, zip, zilch, nada.

Disappointed, as a long-time Apple user and developer, who has bought a lot of Apple gear, and been to several WWDC’s, and still continue to buy Apple gear (latest acquisition: MacBook Air), that Apple constantly assumes that there is no world outside of the USA.

So I asked myself over a very late lunch, why am I roaming the streets of Singapore, just to get myself an iPhone 3G, and have to go thru the hassle of “cracking” it? I am a legitimate user, who’s willing to pay the actual fees, yet I’m shoved for being in the wrong country.

Sub-Rant
I’ve recently changed my location from Melbourne, Australia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is a problem for the iTunes Music Store, because while the iTunes Music Store is commonplace in America, it wasn’t long ago that it came to Australia. It still doesn’t exist yet in Malaysia. In fact, my Malaysian-issued credit card is discriminated against by Apple’s online store.

This I consider to be a large failure – I guess this will change at some stage, as the iPod Touch is sold legally in Malaysia, and applications for it must be available now (I haven’t checked this week, I’ve been pre-occupied).
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I was extremely overjoyed that I got invited to a Facebook group (this doesn’t happen often, believe me), called iPhone 4 Malaysia. Louis Pang compares Malaysia against Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Madagascar, showing the number of mobile phone users, GDP per capita, and population of each country. Impressed I was, seeing the Malaysian statistic:
Population: 25.3 million
GDP per capita: USD$13,000
Mobile phone users (2006): 19.4 million

77% of Malaysians have a mobile phone! This statistic is surely a fib (I think; then again, some people have more than one mobile phone), as the adult population in Malaysia is nowhere near 77% (I’m unsure what the statistic is, I’m wondering where the census data is…)

Then again, if true, how is it possible that Apple is selling iPhones in these other countries, and not in Malaysia?

Naturally, I looked at the article at The Edge Daily, and Sharmila states that Maxis gets right to distribute the iPhone 3G. There is no reason to speculate, but the cost is expected to be under RM1,000. Will this happen by year end? Who’s to say…

So, if you’ve read this far down, and you’re Steve Jobs (or someone close to him, and will pass the message on), here’s my advice:

• Give Malaysians access to the iTunes Music store – Seriously, you’re missing out on a good opportunity. With disposable incomes amongst the large majority of the iPod toting crowd, buying music via the iTunes Music Store will definitely be easier than firing up a BitTorrent client, and waiting for the download, thanks to the throttling of traffic
• Malaysian credit cards are not fraudulent – Amazon, Paypal, and the list goes on, they all have no issue accepting a Malaysian issued credit card. Why should you be any different, Jobs? With the proliferation of Visa Debit cards, surely you can’t be worried about fraud?
• Don’t cripple access to the iTunes Music Store – by this, I mean, it should not only be for applications for the iPod Touch, but also music, TV shows (I imagine people buying BBC’s Top Gear rather than downloading it), and movies

After all, proliferation of broadband is great. There is already a large amount of users who are on the Internet. There are more and more Mac users, after all, there are a tonne of new shops selling Macs (Apple Authorised Resellers/Partners). Everyone in urban areas is using the latest, greatest, mobile phone (I dare say, the average Malaysian in urban areas are more mobile phone crazy than the average Australian in urban areas),

Make a bang with your presence, Apple.

— Current multiple-time Apple customer, dormant Apple developer, iPhone 3G owner-to-be

Update: There’s also an online petition to sign. And the Facebook group is standing at 1,019 members now…

Never having had a problem downloading Skype before, I’m faced with an unusual problem, and have no solution. With getting my MacBook Air, I’ve been trying for weeks to download Skype (usually via mobile broadband, or via Wifi hotspots) and I’ve been failing. I get the usual “mounting failed” error. Annoying.

I filed a bug with Skype, and I have no idea if they’ll look into fixing it. My other option is to search thru my backups from my other Macs and look for a .dmg. All in all, pain

Mounting failed

OS X can’t recognise it at all. For reference, the md5sum is: MD5 (Skype_2.7.0.330.dmg) = dfe1cb2286eccc906d642fca1325fef2.