u l t r a m o o k i e

So, the other night I was stoked that I found Zarafa, an Open Source server that emulated a Microsoft Exchange and had ActiveSync push.  I wanted to give it a shot because this would mean that I could host my own calendar and contacts server, with push capability to my iPhone.  Wouldn’t that be cool?
The [...]

So, the other night I was stoked that I found Zarafa, an Open Source server that emulated a Microsoft Exchange and had ActiveSync push.  I wanted to give it a shot because this would mean that I could host my own calendar and contacts server, with push capability to my iPhone.  Wouldn’t that be cool?

The feature set on paper looks fantastic:

• Microsoft Exchange “drop-in” replacement (their words).
• Full Microsoft Outlook compatibility through their own client.
• Web access through a rich AJAX client.
• iCalendar support for synchronizing 3rd party calendaring products (like Mozilla Lightning and Apple iCal).
• ActiveSync push (ie. iPhone push support for me).

I setup a quick Ubuntu server last night and got the software configured and running.  Here is what I discovered:

• The web interface is nice.  It acts a lot like Microsoft’s Exchange OWA.  The interface is also very limited in that you can manage your data, but you cannot export or import data from the interface.
• In order to import calendar data, I had to use Lightning with their iCalendar support.  I was able to get calendaring data into Zarafa.  But…
• The iCalendar support is awful.  Once the data was in, half of it could not be pulled out by the iCalendar support.  The data looked fine in the web access interface and also with Outlook.  iCalendar support is borked in 6.20.
• This is more an issue with Outlook than Zarafa, but there’s no way of bulk importing vcf contact data that I could find.  In Outlook, I had to import contacts one by one.
• Other than Outlook, there seems to be no way of getting data out of Zarafa.  That’s unfortunate since there are so many Open Source and open standards based solutions available.
• The Outlook Client software from Zarafa is what ties Outlook with the Zarafa server.  The client is tied, version-wise to the version of the server.  So, if any company were to do a big Outlook install using Zarafa server, they would have to install the client on all the boxes.  Worse yet, if they upgraded their Zarafa server, they’d have to go back and upgrade all the Outlook Client software to match.
• ActiveSync actually works and works well.  The only thing missing is support for multiple calendars.  If you create a second “folder” (ie. calendar), it will not get pushed to a mobile device.

So, while I’m not going to use Zarafa right now.  I will keep an eye out on the project.  It all looks very promising, but right now it is not ready for primetime.

Oh, “Zarafa” is Arabic for “Giraffe”.

For one split second, my iPhone was falling to the ground.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Then, whammo, it hit the metal part of a chair and flopped to the floor. When I picked it up, I saw that my Sena slipcase had protected everything except for the top and now my iPhone has a small dent in the aluminum.
Sigh.
Eileen [...]

For one split second, my iPhone was falling to the ground.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Then, whammo, it hit the metal part of a chair and flopped to the floor. When I picked it up, I saw that my Sena slipcase had protected everything except for the top and now my iPhone has a small dent in the aluminum.

Sigh.

Eileen let me get an Agent 18 EcoShield so that I can better protect my iPhone (and for me to secretly cover up that dent, which will always bug me).  The thing fits really (I mean really) tight with the iPhone.  Taking off the top portion takes a lot of effort.  And it feels like the case will definitely take most of the hits (except to the screen) for the iPhone.  And the nice thing is that it doesn’t seem to add much bulk to the iPhone.

I guess in the end, mobile phones are used daily and will eventually slip and fall — and get nicked, dented, and otherwise scratched. I just wish it didn’t happen so soon to my iPhone.

At least now I can add a Badtz Maru sticker to the back of my iPhone! Huzzah!

What do these countries have in common, Israel, China, Iran, Afghanistan and the good ole USA?
These are countries where prisoners are at risk of being tortured.
Canada has put the US on their list of countries that torture prisoners.
Sad, that the USA has let itself drop to such lows.

What do these countries have in common, Israel, China, Iran, Afghanistan and the good ole USA?

These are countries where prisoners are at risk of being tortured.

Canada has put the US on their list of countries that torture prisoners.

Sad, that the USA has let itself drop to such lows.

Blogging from my iPhone. Feel like crap. Ate something really bad. Ugh. My weak stomache sucks.

Blogging from my iPhone. Feel like crap. Ate something really bad. Ugh. My weak stomache sucks.

It is ashame that NBC decided not to order more episodes of the freshman show Journeyman. Journeyman got off to a very rough start, but the last few episodes have been excellent. The writers finally found their stride and started developing many of the storylines — and I was especially pleased that they [...]

It is ashame that NBC decided not to order more episodes of the freshman show Journeyman. Journeyman got off to a very rough start, but the last few episodes have been excellent. The writers finally found their stride and started developing many of the storylines — and I was especially pleased that they started to work out the time-traveling portion of the show. The last episode did give a lot of information and gave some closure to the short-lived series. But, it also left the door open, if some other network wanted to pick up the series. Happy travels Journeyman, thank you for the entertainment.

Ha! I knew it would happen (”My plead to Apple is that they take the iPhone platform and strip off the mobile phone portion.”). The biggest weakness of the iPhone is that it is a phone. I don’t need another phone. I don’t want to switch to craptacular AT&T. All [...]

Ha! I knew it would happen (”My plead to Apple is that they take the iPhone platform and strip off the mobile phone portion.”). The biggest weakness of the iPhone is that it is a phone. I don’t need another phone. I don’t want to switch to craptacular AT&T. All I need, and my guess a lot of other geeks out there, is a music player with Wifi and the cool touch screen features of the iPhone — like Safari and email. Apparently, with a $200 price drop on the iPhone, a lot of people out there agree with me: iPhone? Meh, don’t need it, don’t want it. So, what’s Apple to do? Of course, make an iPod version of the iPhone.

It is too bad the new iPod Touch is not what I had in mind and I am thinking, not what others had in mind either. Yes, it is pretty cool. But, instead of making the iPod Touch an iPhone sans the mobile phone functionality, Apple chose to strip the iPod Touch of many features — email being the biggest feature stripped away. Also, being Apple, the iPod Touch seems to be just like the iPhone in one respect: It is a closed system. You get what Steve Jobs wants you to get — nothing more. Sure, iTunes WiFi Music Store is neat. Sure, having mobile Safari is cool. But, it could have been so much more. How unfortunate. Oh, some of you may argue, it is an iPod and is made for music. It is not an internet tool. Oh, really? I would believe the whole “it is made for music” bit if it had more than 8GB or 16GB of storage (and of course, no way to expand via external memory cards).

Maybe Steve Jobs is having Apple engineers work on an iPad? Something that is an open platform where I can install apps: ssh? iChat? Yahoo! Messenger? Skype? Something where there is an email application that can keep my inbox synchronized whenever there is an active Wifi connection. I surely hope they are working on it. Heck, Apple could even integrate Bluetooth so that I can use a small Bluetooth keyboard when I want to. Oh, why do we have to wait for the mythical iPad? There’s already a pad that does all of that on an open platform — and even has developer tools. It’s the Nokia N800.

If you like that bottled water, you have been ripped off.
Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Desani brands of bottled water are: Tap water — the bottles are filled using “purified water sourced from public reservoir” (ie. the same thing you’ll get if you go and buy a Brita pitcher/filter and fill it up using tap [...]

If you like that bottled water, you have been ripped off.

Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Desani brands of bottled water are: Tap water — the bottles are filled using “purified water sourced from public reservoir” (ie. the same thing you’ll get if you go and buy a Brita pitcher/filter and fill it up using tap water.) Yay, so not only are you paying for water for your household use, but you’re paying an extra premium to get the same water to drink. Now, Pepsi is going to be labelling the source of water that goes into bottles. Coke will be more coy about it and only tell people about it on their website.

Bottled water hurts the environment and for no good reason. It takes a lot of energy to bottle and ship water around. It also takes a lot of landfill space because of all the discarded plastic bottles. Why hurt the environment when the water coming out of your tap is the same as the water in those bottles? Think again next time you’re going to get ripped off paying pay for bottled water.

How much water is sold? “U.S. consumers spent about $15 billion on bottled water last year.” Yikes! And it is not really for health or taste reasons, apparently, it’s for “convenience” — in other words: People are too frakking lazy to fill up a reusable bottle with water before heading out. Sigh.