I just read an interesting column by Dvorak over at PC Magazine about the increasing size of crap on our drives. One of the things I’m missing in his article is the size of todays operating systems. I manage to remember the times of Windows 3.1 and Dos which came on a bunch of floppy disks. Today we need DVDs to install our OS and applications.

Also look at games, years ago a CD was enough to ship an awesome timekiller. Today they arrive in the form of dual-layer DVDs or a Blu-ray Disc. We just don’t really care about the size of an application (or game) anymore. Just insert a new drive and install away. Drives are getting larger and at the same time the cost per gigabyte is coming down. (more…)

So over here in Germany there has been this Facebook clone StudiVZ created in October 2005. The people behind it ran with the template, translated it to German and started their very own social network (another word to add to the ugh-list), with a different color, of course. I’ve been a member for almost two years now and while other services expanded, changed and got better - or died -, this one didn’t really do any of the above. The biggest changes were the addition of more and more advertisments, some privacy changes that got them into the major news concerning selling personal user information, etc., and the ability to share your status. Guess where they got the latter. Yip, exactly.
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While listening to No Agenda #28, Adam and John came accross the subject of the so called user generated content whilst talking about the recent name change of Podshow to Mevio. This change, by the way, resulted in the same reaction for me as it did for John: “Yeah, new name, great, lets move on”.
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Sometimes you drive around town, even on your regular way to or from work. At some point you see that building, that special event or even that flower on the side of the street. For me it was the building above that I drove by almost every evening when coming home from work. It never popped into my eye until the days got shorter this year and they somehow started to light the building the way they do now.

Granted, that photo might not look anything special for anyone but me, but it just gives me the good feeling that I took the time to look at it through my viewfinder. Maybe I’ll stop there again some time soon, but for now I’m trying to find new things in town. Having lived in Cologne for almost two years now, streets and places really are still connecting in my head. Have I mentioned I don’t particularly like this city? Well, I don’t like this town. (more…)

So tonight I accepted the fight and updated my iPhone to the most recent firmware 1.1.2. If you’re interested in the process, read on…
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