Foul Writer’s World

News from this week.

• Microsoft removes IE 8 from Windows 7 shipping in EU.
• EU still hungry for Microsoft cash and decide to go to court anyway
• The end of Twitter and the world was avoided this week, when twitpocalypse came to nothing except if your a Apple user.
• Live Search rebranded as Bing.com to take on Google
• Hopes of many are dashed in Iranian elections and cause widspread discontent
• MadCap release Flare v5. I’ll be doing a review of the changes once I’ve spent more time with it
• FIA / FOTA war of 2009 is intensifying as the FIA continually push car manufacturers further and further away from Formula 1 (The FIA should just get rid of Mad Max Mosley, it would solve so many problems)
• Is Twitter’s dominance at microblogging is under threat from Google?

I am rushed of my feet at the moment. I’m the ony Tech. writer in the office at the moment and the wife is away on holiday leaving me stuck with the house work and the two cats.

Anyway, my weekly notes follow:

• Currently waiting for my Flare 4 upgrade license key so that I can start using Flare 4.
• Trying out Camtasia for the first time and liking what I see. May allow me to produce some better walk-throughs and is probably easier and quicker to produce content than the Captivate and Presenter options that Adobe supply.
• I have been looking at the possible usefulness of Swype. Should make writing on small touch screen displays more intuitive.
• Looking forward to seeing how the World Wide Web Foundation can make a difference to the internet.
• Fed up with Apple. I swear its launch cycles are getting smaller and smaller and each cycle sees less and less innovation.
• I am in love with my Sony PRS-505, currently reading a classic, 1984. Everyone that tries it wants one.

It has been reported that O2 UK have been selling the new 3G IPhones at a staggering rate, up to 13000 per second on Monday. Not surprisingly the O2 Website seemed to come crawling to a halt. It also seems that some existing IPhone users looking to upgrade will need to wait until Apple replenishes stock, because O2 have already assigned its current batch to the upgrade program it offered existing IPhone users.

O2 had the following information added to their website:

We had invested heavily to add a huge amount of additional capacity, 250 times its normal rate, and back-up systems. We tested this carefully in advance. The massive simultaneous crush exceeded even our worst case assumptions. Demand was at 13,000 orders per second. Frankly, we have to admit we just weren’t prepared for this unprecedented level of demand. No website is.

I am not an IPhone fan, but I am amazed at the popularity of the device. Why? It is not that it is a technical marvel, or that it is particularly suave anymore. A lot of companies have come out with similar or better designed products. Perhaps, it is the easy UI that customers crave or the phones music playing abilities. I have found it to be intuitive and easy to manage but nothing spectacular. At least the IPhone now has 3G and a few enhancement to the OS that make it actually useful. Like being able to pickup email from an Exchange Server. I think the thing that makes the IPhone so popular is the endless list of accessories and enhancements that have been released. I know I’ve often wished I had an audio docking station for my Nokia N82 or my HTC TyTn.

I am looking forward to trying out the new Samsung Tocca and i900, both are Windows Mobile 6 devices that looks as good as the IPhone and promises the same touch interface. The Tocca is also released on the same day as the IPhone 3G.

Or, another option being released soon is the HTC Touch Pro. Also powered by WM6 and unlike the IPhone has an integrated slide out QWERTY keyboard perfect for jotting down notes and sending text messages and emails.