You may or may not know that my day job involves bitwrangling for Datacom, using Microsoft development platforms (yes yes evil empire yadda yadda – give me a break). As such, I’m excited that Tech.Ed New Zealand is a mere two weeks away. Tech.Ed is the 3-day conference where Microsoft developers (developers! developers!) and systems people get the low-down on the latest development tools and techniques.

Yes I know, among the gems lie some turds (“Look! Here’s how you can convince customers to spend MORE money on MORE Microsoft licenses (that they may or may not need)!”), but quite frankly that comes with the territory. You learn to pick the good sessions. Besides, every good developer knows the warm fuzzy feeling from a well-implemented system completely obliterates any debate about license cost vs FOSS. Just look at TradeMe and Xero. Do you care that they aren’t LAMP sites?

There’s more to come on the Tech.Ed front – myself and Mauricio will be blogging and vlogging from the show floor.

And then there’s Code Camp. Even if you aren’t attending Tech.Ed, if you’re a developer you should get yourself to Code Camp on the Sunday. It’s free for everyone, not just Tech.Ed attendees. You can sign up here, and session details are here.

I’d be at code camp with bells on if it weren’t for a certain wee 2-week old girl.

Disclaimer: Datacom are gold sponsors for Code Camp.

Popularity: 1% [?]

We have voted no. Regardless of my personal vote, the democratic outcome is that a vast majority of votes cast were of the opinion that smacking as “part of good parental correction” should not be a criminal offence. I’m not going to fiddle with numbers as some others have done to claim an apathetic majority. That’s not how democracy works. If you don’t vote, you don’t get a voice.

So then. A few months ago I made my personal opinion clear. Reading that post again, I still stand by it, with some clarification. After discussions with many people I hold to be wonderful parents with truly incredible kids, I’ve changed part of my opinion. You may not care, but purely for positioning, I accept now that smacking should not be a criminal offence in all cases, and frankly I’m a little ashamed that I’ve said otherwise. I truly do not wish criminal charges against any of the people I know who happen to smack their kids. Hopefully you can accept that one man’s dogma can be altered by exposure to fact.

The law, as it stands, clearly allows for “justifiable force” in several instances. These cover the range that most people would hold to be reasonable: avoiding danger, stopping disruptive behaviour, etc.. What the law does criminalise, and what I remain against, is the use of physical punishment for correction after the fact. I’d love to hear from the majority if they intended their “No” vote to enable physical punishment for correction, as opposed to instantaneous intervention.

If the question had been “Should a smack, as an instant intervention requirement, be a criminal offence”, I would have voted no. Would you have voted “Yes” if the question were “Should a smack, as a premeditated action intended to correct misbehaviour more than x minutes after the event, be a criminal offence?”. Or am I utterly barking up the wrong tree?

I ask this because as I read more and more online discussions about smacking and physical correction, the misinformation is utterly baffling. I’ve seen the argument that all mammals use physical correction, so it’s natural. I don’t however remember seeing a mammal hit its offspring some hours after the original event took place.

Please, this is not judgemental in any way. I’m truly, deeply interested in how to make this work, because it’s obvious that a minority of us don’t understand. You the majority owe me nothing, but I’d love to chat about your intentions so I can learn.

P.S. I remain a bit offended at Larry Baldock cheering like a madman at the result, after he was quoted as saying “I’m not opposed to the wooden spoon or ruler because you can control things with that better than you can with an open hand.” However I do understand he is on the fringe and not representative of many people who voted “No”.

Popularity: 4% [?]

It’s no secret that I found the Navman S200 appallingly irritating. So you can imagine my trepidation when I was accosted by a charming PR person (do they come in other flavours?), bubbling about the new Navman range, now with integrated traffic information for New Zealand. Casting aside my black mood towards GPS units, I grudgingly accepted the offer of a review unit.

First big change: the unit comes with a giant sticker over the screen, advertising the solution to one of the more irritating UI issues: lack of responsiveness. You can see the sticker at right. It informs you that you can either use the slidey-glidey menus, or turn on the more basic “tap-touch”. The ironic thing is that the screen on the MY500XT is massively more responsive than the S200, so the slidey-glidey menus actually work quite well. Bouquets! Having said that, I can see that the tap-touch menus would work better when on the move (not that anyone uses a GPS device when on the move, right?).

Navman have also removed the inane and utterly pointless “don’t click there, click here!” video on startup. It has been replaced by a nice clear tutorial, with a big “never, ever show me this tutorial again” option on the first page. Bouquets!

The map display in general appears to be tidied up. Road names appear clearly and almost all upcoming roads are named. This is important when you’re running in non-routing mode and looking for an upcoming side road. I loved the way TomTom did this, but Garmin do it very, very badly. Navman’s new software is right up there with TomTom. Bouquets!

I’ve yet to have a proper play with the traffic options in anger, but I’ve seen a demo and I’m impressed. All the bits and bobs are there, including options to route around bad traffic or road closures. The traffic data itself is of cours sourced from Geosmart and completely out of Navman’s control, but the display and layout of traffic info is done well. Bouquets!

Now the big, aching brickbat. Whoever designed the mounting bracket and power plug arrangement on this device is an intellectual dwarf of the lowest order. They should be locked in a padded cell covered with Navman mounting brackets and forced to plug and unplug MY500XTs continuously for the rest of their living days.

Look closely. There is no possible way to plug the Navman in before mounting it on the bracket. None. Am I being picky? How about you sit in your car with the MY500XT on its bracket on the window, where you can’t see the mini-USB socket on its underside, and try plugging it in. Do that every. single. time. you hop in your car.

Navman, please, if you are reading this: open every single MY500XT box you have in your warehouse, remove the power cable, and replace it with one that bends the other way. It’s a simple fix. I’m begging you.

Conclusion: lovely device software. Pity about the lack of attention to detail.

Popularity: 46% [?]

If you have a dedicated in-car GPS unit, and don’t frequently travel to unfamiliar destinations, I’m betting the unit is in your glove box, where you left it for security about 3 months ago and haven’t bothered to re-mount it. Mine is.

Sure, I use the device when I’m travelling out of town or to an address that I don’t know. The rest of the time, I honestly wonder why I bought the device at all. That’s not entirely true: I know that I bought it because it makes the car feel like an aeroplane or a spaceship. VROOM!

One thing that does live on my dashboard any time I’m in the car is my iPhone. It slots into a snug holder, and plugs into the car stereo’s AUX input. Coupled with a nice Bluetooth handsfree kit, this means I can listen to music or podcasts, and take calls easily. When I leave the car, it goes in my pocket, as my main phone and mp3 device.

I think TomTom secretly understand the shortcomings of a dedicated in-car GPS. A one-use device. Yes you’ll find that higher-end models have additions like Bluetooth handsfree and FM transmitters, but quite frankly the ones I’ve tested have been poor.

Rather than battle to add more features to their dedicated GPS units, TomTom have taken the alternative route: add GPS to your existing all-in-one device. TomTom for iPhone (iTunes link) looks and feels like a dedicated GPS unit, but it is running as an application on your iPhone. It uses the internal GPS chip in your iPhone 3G or 3GS, and it just works.

The app fires up in seconds on a 3GS, and gets a GPS lock immediately under clear skies. I had no issue with reception. The app is a mix of familiar TomTom presentation (the summary bar below the screen) and iPhone usability (scrolling menus, contacts integration). You can listen to music while navigating, and the app saves state (destination settings etc.), when switching to other apps or taking calls. Turn directions are loud and clear, and even in a gen-yoo-inn keewee accint for the New Zealand version.

TomTom is also releasing a dedicated cradle that apparently has an external GPS receiver for better reception. I’m unsure if this enables navigation on a non-GPS device like the iPod Touch. In my experience, any iPhone cradle will be fine.

The one thing missing from TomTom for iPhone (in New Zealand at least) is traffic. TomTom does have “IQ Routes” which use historical travel time data to determine best routes, but not true realtime traffic info. I’ve got my hands on the new Navman MY500XT, which does do realtime traffic, so will be interested to see how it helps.

Conclusion: if you have an iPhone 3G or 3GS and are thinking about getting in-car GPS: don’t. Just get a cheap cradle and the $120 TomTom app.

Gallery of TomTom UI Shots:

Popularity: 33% [?]

Please forgive the lack of posts for the next couple of weeks. I’m deeply involved in the circle of life at the moment.

Dad passed away on Wednesday, and we’re expecting baby 2.0 this Wednesday. Both a blessing and a curse all in the space of a week.

Wallace Gracewood

My engineer brain can’t help but observe the feelings I’m having with deep interest. I often marvel at the cognitive dissonance when you imagine diving into the sea on an acid-cold Winter day. Yet that same grey, icy sea is so welcoming in February.

Perhaps the only way to truly appreciate life is to witness death first hand? Or the best way to understand the warmth and love of family is to have a member torn away from you too soon?

Hard and Soft. Yin and Yang.

Death and Life.

Popularity: 2% [?]