GPS Loggers and Macs

I've been looking for a GPS logger for a couple of months. A GPS logger can be used for attaching GPS information to your digital photos. This way, you can display your photos on publicly accessible maps in Flickr or Google Earth. More and more of those GPS loggers are surfacing on the market [Sony GPS-CS1 / GPS-CS1KA, Globalsat DG-100, Qstarz BT Q-1000, GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr, WBT-201]. But they all have one problem; None of them seem to work (natively) with an Intel Mac running Leopard (source). Some of them require open-source drivers to function. The downside of that is that an update from Apple or an updated firmware in the GPS logger might cripple the functionality. Why is it that GPS manufacturers won't create a GPS (logger) device that simply works on both platforms. It couldn't be that hard. Just create a GPS device that is also recognized as a external drive, containing the raw GPS data in the most common format (e.g. NMEA). This way even the Linux users are not left out.

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Symcaimport and Windows Mobile Devices

It seems that my little upload / download page for adding root certificate authorities Symbian phones is also a big help for those who use Windows Mobile Devices.

Very strange that there are millions of smartphones on the market, and that everyone, regardless of the phones they have, experience the same problem. Why won't Microsoft (Windows Mobile) and the Symbian people simplify the interface of adding root CA's?

Warning Labels in the US

Everything is possible, but nothing is allowed. A typical description of the United States. A country where everyone sues everyone else. This is the reason why manufacturers place the most absurd warning labels on their products. Just in case someone is lacking plain old common sense (like a lady who put her dog (or cat) in the microwave to dry the animal.....) and sues the company for millions of dollars. Check the most ridiculous warning labels here. You can even buy a book [amazon, bol.com] with the 101 most stupendous warnings.

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VDSL Roll-out Starts in 2008

W00t... KPN is finally starting to upgrade their network to support VDSL. This COULD mean a major speed upgrade for me. Currently I only have a 4Mbps ADSL2 line (but with a 1Mbps upload, thanks to XS4ALL). This is the maximum throughput for me, since I live too far from the distribution hub. Other interesting news is that KPN won't charge their customers for MOBILE data connections made from the 21st of December till the 30th of December 2007. So, it's all you can download via GPRS, UMTS :-)

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PGP v9.7 released

The release of the beta PGP v9.7 a couple of weeks ago, made me kinda curious if I had to pay for the new update. I bought v9.0 officially, and every update 'swallowed' my old license info. And what happend today, when I installed the newly released full version of PGP 9.7 Desktop... It swallowed my old license. B.t.w. the original purchase was for the Windows version of PGP, but the license also works on the OSX version of the software (it always did). So it's not necessary to buy a new license when you switch platforms. There is a downside though; It's not possible to download a full version for the license holders. You need to download the 30-day trail version. And you'll only get it when using a valid e-mail address. In the old days they had some restriction on how many times (and in what time frame) you used an e-mail address. Major bummer: the sign and encrypt buttons are no longer available in the Apple mail.app. So you need to use the builtin PGP proxy. So basically, there is no way of manipulating single messages (other than using the clipboard). There is no need for me to sign every mail I send, nor is there the necessity of encrypting every mail I send to a certain person.

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