Gotze.eu

Category: Netlife

  • Fuzzy Point of Failure

    Apple, Oracle, the Danish banks and the Danish government, today demonstrates how vulnerable we digital citizens are.

    I went to my online bank today. It told me I need to update Java, so I did (even if it is just a week ago I last did that, but hey, it’s Java so…). After doing so, I was met with this when I went to the bank:

    bank-blocked
    My net bank today. “Blocked accessory”

    The banks and the government use the same “One for All” identity system, NemID, so I tried logging in to the citizen portal, but am told:

    Government single signon is also blocked.
    Government single sign-on is also blocked.

    It took me a while to find out what was happening. I couldn’t find any information on the web at first, and ended calling my bank’s support, who quickly pointed out that there exists a problem with Mac due to a forced update last night. Mac-brugere i problemer: Netbank virker ikke.

    This particular problem’s root cause: Apple again blocks latest version of Java through OS X anti-malware system.

    Java is today seen as a deprecated standard for NemID, and next version of it will be based on javascript. But next version is next year. Apple pulled the trigger too fast.

     

  • My iPhone

    I just had to have one …
    iPhone

    On my recent trip to the US, I couldn’t resist dropping by an Apple Store to buy an iPhone. Of course, it had to be hacked and jailbreaked to work here in Denmark. But thanks to Ulrik and a TurboSIM-card, it now works with my Danish SIM-card, so whenever you call me, you call my iPhone.

    And what a cool gadget it is! Stunningly great design.

    It works seamlessly with my wifi (something my other mobil phones never managed to; the iPhone just plugged in…), and the Safari browser experience is not too bad at all. Of course many webpages are unreadable, but the zoom function is great. There are some but not many websites that offer special iPhone versions, that the browser jumps into. An example of a site optimsed for iPhone users is this one. Oh, and Google Apps rock! My own blog also now servers iPhone users, who get a completely customised theme (thanks to this plugin). Expect to find more iPhone services here soon 🙂

    So far, I have just installed one application. I chose the Book application. And then got Lessig’s book. I’m not sure I’m gonna read it in this environment, but I do see a potential for lighter reading. Could see myself checking news and blogs here, and must check some of the iPhone applications out there. Any recommendations?

  • OpenID disabled

    I have upgraded the WordPress installation running gotze.eu to its most recent version. Little did I realise that this would mean I broke the OpenID service I had running here, allowing commenters to login using their OpenID. And now I can’t get it to work again :-(  I also think I messed up some of the feeds.

    Then I decided to try out the new Movable Type 4, which claims to have OpenID support by default. I decided to make it my Danish blog, which is now up and running. But lo and behold, the OpenID support doesn’t seem to work!

    Hmmm. Is there something wrong with my server?

  • SOA This. SOA That.

    When I a month ago prepared for a lecture about architecture, I found some interesting videos on YouTube. My students loved them. So, when I today gave a talk to a group of Danish CIOs, I thought of showing at least one of them, but on site decided not to because there wasn’t internet access.
    I first found the video Meet the Architects, an example of viral (or maybe not so viral) marketing from a place called scyscrapr.net, but by and large, a decent “light” way of applying the urban planning metaphor to describe architectural work. I’m sure there was a more subtle campaign site there, but now it points to Microsoft’s skyscrapr, “a new site on MSDN where you can learn about software architects and architecture”. Skyscrapr seems to be a pretty cool information service, see for example their Archipedia, which offers brief descriptions of (software) architectural terms.

    And then I found Greg the Architect: SOA This. SOA That. and Greg the Architect: ROI of the Beholder. This is Tibco‘s award-winning viral SOA marketing. I’m not sure about SOA Now, the magazine the videos promote, but I love the videos.

  • Sharing a bit of identity

    That was easy. First, I claimed it, then checked it, then mapped it and then checked it again, and now I guess I can claim my identity is gotze.eu. My public persona is currently at gotze.myopenid.com. I’m playing with my own IdP, but that’s not ready yet.

    OpenID is cool. To show you just how cool it is, try this: Using your own OpenID, try making a comment to this entry. You should be able to identify yourself with OpenID on this blog. Thanks to this great plugin.

    I wonder if anyone can recommend Perl libraries for OpenID? I notice there’s also a MT-plugin which I guess use Perl-libraries. Got to try that out. But in general, if anyone could explain what kind of work will be needed to OpenID-enable a web application, please holler!

  • Planet Gøtze

    Next phase in the transformation of Gotzespace has begun. Since my blog now resides at gotze.eu, the gotzespace.dk domain (web) is now used for my new Planet Gøtze. Its named that because it is using a planet aggregator, and because it tracks the inner and outer Gøtzespace (my blogs, my tags, etc.).

    Usually planets track technologies (such as Open Office, Debian, and GNOME) or blogsubspheres, but in my case, the planet just tracks my space, and that’s its only purpose. I don’t think my server could handle my complete reading list anyway.

    I just wanted a simple planet, and ended up using Lilina. I removed a number of its features, such as the google lookup, which slows down the page too much.

    On a general note, I notice that many bloggers have started to include their del.icio.us or whatever tags in their blog feeds. That’s in my opinion a bad idea. If I want to subscribe to people’s personomies, I can do so at del.icio.us or whereever they tag. Blog feeds are for blog entries!

  • WordPressing GotzeBlogged

    Transformation time in Gotzespace! I’ve decided to switch to WordPress, and have nearly finished the transition. This includes the introduction of a new domain for GotzeBlogged, gotze.eu. Existing Gotzespace.dk links should however still work, but redirection of the blog and its feeds is permanent. I have gone through some efforts to not break any links, but do let me know if anything is missing.

    One of the reasons I decided to leave MovableType was that I didn’t feel anything happened to it. Ironically, just as I had made my decision, SixApart announced a new version of MT. It’ll have to be a significant improvement, because I’m very satisfied with WP now, and see no reason to go back to MT.

    WordPress is a very nice product. It being open source is an important criteria, but my choice is based on the quality of the product, and it just simple beats MT on all accounts I have prioritised.

    My Atom feed is a valid Atom 1.0 feed: [Valid Atom 1.0] (thanks to these instructions).

  • GotzeTools

    Tools for GotzeTagged is a collection of productivity tools for GotzeTagged, my personomy.

    The tools are implementations of some browser tools, for example a useful enhancement of the context menu:

    ConQuery

    Another cool tool is a reinvented editor bookmarklet that works with the current application api and http requests. I created the original bookmarklet 5 years ago, but had to change method as the application was updated over the years. I started using a robot plugin, but it didn’t work well. So, when playing around with the most recent LSQL it was a pleasant surprise that the old method can now be used again.

    The tools are created for Firefox, my preferred browser. If you use anything else: Switch!

    I am still learning how the sidebar works, and the sidebar tool I have released is in pre-alpha state.

    As for sidebars and tabs in Firefox, I cannot get Firefox to transfer http request info between the tabs. I can get Firefox to transfer some content (user in Mycroft), but not stuff like location.href. If I open my bookmarklet in a new tab, I don’t get the same result as I get if I just click it open (new window, which Firefox hides).

  • Tracking on

    Huh? It seems my blog is playing tricks. I recently updated the site design and the MT-backend. There must be some old links somewhere here, because it seems that Trackbacks – I got two today: From Recent notable stuff (GovTechNews) and from EAI maturity (Rage on omnipotent) – calls up the old design.

    I’ve brutally killed the old MT-engine. The damage should be limited to these two trackbacks that are gone (sorry about that).

    So, could I ask anyone reading my blog to check their URLs? – and mine 😉

    My blog is at http://gotzespace.dk. It is reachable via other links (I aim at no link rot, but keep moving around stuff …), but really the preferred URL is gotzespace.dk.

    My feeds are at:
    RSS 2.0: http://gotzespace.dk/index.xml
    Atom: http://gotzespace.dk/atom.xml
    RSS 1.0: http://gotzespace.dk/index.rdf

  • Denmark is the e-readiest

    Alan: England 2 – Denmark 1. That’s not the scores from a football match, but the rankings in a new survey that IBMs Insitute for Business Value and the Economist Intelligence Unit have published: The 2004 e-Readiness Rankings report (or here) .

    Coverage: Alan pointed to FT: NATIONAL NEWS: Britain beats US in annual ‘e-readiness’ rankings. I found a few other sources: Reuters: Denmark Is Web-Savviest Nation, U.S. Drops -Survey, BBC: Denmark tops e-business rankings, The Register: Only Danes more ‘e-ready’ than UK and ZDNet: Survey: Denmark is Web-savviest nation.

    Anyone in doubt about who’s the e-readiest? 😉