July 2010 – SerendipityIdeas.com

Microwave ovens and your home wireless

Jul 282010

I am reviewing some training material for work that I studied some time ago. The material has been updated with information on wireless networks. Here are a few tips that should assist you on the domestic wireless front.

Channel 11 is most likely to suffer from microwave oven interference. So it would seem you should avoid it.
Wireless antennas are best placed 20 feet or 6.5 meters above the recieving device.
For less than $30 AUD you can buy better antennas that replace your built in one with a lead.
If you have more than one wireless router try connecting them by wire and configure the same SSID but different channels with a signal overlap of 10-15%
Another trick I found when running a cable into an area with no reception that the presence of the cable made the wireless work.

I would think there was a way to determine which channels have the least interference, dose any one know how ?

iPhones and open source rock

iPhone, Methods, Software No Responses »

Jul 252010

This is my first post from my iPhone using the wordpress app to my own blog.

I can see the possibility of taking notes on the road and blogging. Have to see if I can post photos. Note this post will also be geo-tagged.

I will add more info via my browser.

Ok, so the Test photo Sucks. I re-sized it once accessing the Blog via my laptop browser (FireFox is my choice).

But it was snapped in poor light and show the blog before the iPhone Post.

The great thing was I could control the status of the post on the local iPhone. No Need to type and post – take your time, edit then post. Not to mention have multiple WordPress Blogs defined.

I think it would be a good idea to have a private blog, login but not visible to the public as a personal Blog – or more like a traditional log or diary, not for planning but recording your life’s activities.

It does look if my current theme does not support the geo-tag.

Oh. And now edited from the iPhone.

Times essential place

iPhone, Methods, Photos, Software No Responses »

Jul 172010

I was looking into using GPS (Global Positioning System) Using great application on my iPhone called trails. I will post more details on that in the future. But one of the tips opened up a whole set of new ideas.

See http://trails.lamouroux.de/geotag-photos-using-iphone-trails.html

But what was marvelous to discover was most modern electronic equipment has a fairly accurate clock. Often this results in a time being recorded. For example when you take a photo, when you record a sound, send a message or create a task. the particular tip suggested using a GPS to track your location, then after the event you can see exactly where you were at a given time, when you review your photos you can see exactly where you were at that time you took each photo. This Time code is the connecting piece of data. In the tip it showed how to add this GPS location to the actual photo data.

If you think about it you can see that this is a rather powerful tip. Forget Wireless and blue-tooth and all those special connections to link two tools together use the time as the synchronizing value.

I will post more ideas on this once I get some into practice.

Website Hosting

Announcements, Services No Responses »

Jul 172010

Perhaps this is not the case for everyone but in my view;

The Internet and open source has come of age. It has never been easier to build a strong and dynamic Internet presence. The tools are just waiting to be used and a Website can be developed rapidly to meet so many requirements.

I now have a Hosting Account and can setup and deliver Internet sites quickly and efficiently. Sites most importantly must be easy for the content owner to update. Content is King – if you don’t have something to say, then don’t bother. So it is essential that you find website solutions you can attend to with the ease of emailing a friend.

Good website design in my opinion involves;

Technical knowledge and ability to rapidly deliver.
Being able to cut to the chase and really understand the REQUIREMENTS a site needs to fulfill, even when the customer is not so sure themselves.
The ability to educate people on what is possible so they may frame their needs in what is actually available.
An artistic or aesthetic appreciation (Personally I get help on this one – Know your weakness and get stronger)
Design skills

I now find myself in the position to do all these effectively. So can I help you ?

Finally – all this is only possible because we “stand on the shoulders of giants”, those people in the creative Open Source movement that precede us.

Coming soon !

Announcements No Responses »

Jul 172010

I am now working with a number of great Internet based solutions. I usually have to get novice users involved and I am learning from these users what the really need to know, and explain what advantages one thing has over another. The truth is you often learn by teaching so I will post here some of that material, and you can benefit from this if you watch my blog. Here are a few of the things I will post about;

WordPress
Using Google groups
Google Apps
Thinking tools
TiddlyWiki tricks and tips
Yammer
more

I will update this post as things come to mind.

TiddlyWiki – Not a game but lots of fun

Methods, Online Service, Software No Responses »

Jul 172010

To quote the official information;

TiddlyWiki is a reusable non-linear personal web notebook.

Some of you will be immediately interested in “reusable non-linear personal web notebook”‘, but may may miss the meaning in that simple statement.

So lets look a little further.

TiddlyWiki is a single html file which has all the characteristics of a wiki – including all of the content, the functionality (including editing, saving, tagging and searching) and the style sheet. Because it’s a single file, it’s very portable – you can email it, put it on a web server or share it via a USB stick.

But it’s not just a wiki! It has very powerful plugin capabilities, so it can also be used to build new tools. You have full control over how it looks and behaves. For example, TiddlyWiki is already being used as:

A personal notebook
A GTD (“Getting Things Done”) productivity tool
A collaboration tool
For building websites (the site is itself a TiddlyWiki file!)
For rapid prototyping
…and much more!

You can import and export data to and from all sorts of places. Check out some of the Examples of TiddlyWiki in use, and the Features that are available.

What does it mean to me ?, what do I use it for ? and why does it rate a mention here ?

One way is to check it out for your self, see www.tidlywiki.com and get it now for free. Now give yourself a little time to work it out. It is not that it is difficult, but once you realise its basic structure you discover it’s infinite promise and you could spend the rest of your life a devotee, as I am.

Basically, without programing you can get you self your own interactive website that can basically evolve with you as you customise it to meet your application needs. Yet this can simply be transported by USB in a single file, or as I do stored on DropBox and access it from any browser. But wait, no steak knives, however it may be a standalone file yet it can be made into a server based site, see tiddlyspot.com for your own free public or Private to interface with the Internet through HTML Java and other common web protocols or languages.

Back that up with a wealth of tools, the premier tools site is is in my opinion www.tiddlytools.com but wait until “you get it” before diving in there. Perhaps also use www.tiddlywiki.org as a good reference.

One of the best things is the community, I regularly see in our group forum new users posting that this is the best and most helpful community forum they have ever used. In the groups own words; New Users: Please don’t hesitate to post your questions. Elsewhere you are expected to wade through the archives before posting any questions. But it’s not like that here – just jump in.

See the TiddlyWiki Google group yourself, and there is a developer one for the hackers.

I will post on TiddlyWiki again, of that you can be assured. But I expect each time it will about how you can do something really useful. Oh, and before I post this there are a range of various implementations like pre-built Get Things Done, Presentation and other specialist ones for maths, genealogy etc…

I have an iPhone

Announcements, iPhone No Responses »

Jul 122010

This is not a prestige claim, I just got one when my old Nokia died. Fortunately I had access to a cost effective plan and despite considerable research showing the device had technical short comings I got the iPhone in part due to various time frame issues.

Fact is, “I Love it”, I have learned a very important lesson and that is technical superiority can be dwarfed by the usability, functional and the economies of scale (resulting from popularity). It is easy to use, reliable and fully featured – with a whole lot of inspiring applications that opens ones mind to possibilities of personal and mobile devices.

As a result you will see iPhone Posts in this blog.

ToodleDO

iPhone, Online Service, Software No Responses »

Jul 122010

ToodleDo is a todo list application with real power.

The customisability is substantial and I suggest giving it some for thought before adding too many tasks. I will post on some of my methods for using it effectively.

Some features are only available with the paid subscription but see connections below. The iPhone application is very good so my todo list goes with me everywhere, however it is available through any browser and has the ability to place it on iGoogle and other helpful places. Your todo lists are retained on the iPhone off line and you can sync only when you want.

I initially got it to synchronise with my own TiddlyWiki (Details in future posts) however I mostly use it in it’s own right.

Connections

From the ToodleDo site: Toodledo has the ability to connect to many popular services and devices to allow you to access your tasks from anywhere. You can also import and export your data in a variety of formats. It’s your to-do list, so you should be able to take it with you. You can manage all of your import, export and synchronization services from this page.

My Favorite software

Announcements, Software No Responses »

Jul 122010

In this category I will post information about my favorite software in the “Software Category”. Unless otherwise stated this will only be software I use deeply and often. This is in itself proof of it’s value.