The AppsLab

Found this while browsing through user agent strings, it was good. History of the browser user-agent string Rejoice.

On Friday, my Nexus S finally got its long-awaited Ice Cream Sandwich, i.e. Android 4.0.4, upgrade. One of the reasons I switched to a Nexus phone last year was to get to new versions of Android quickly. Google first showed ICS in October, and they released the upgrade in conjunction with the Galaxy Nexus release… Read More

Don’t look now, but Collaborate 12 starts less than 10 days from now on April 22 in Las Vegas. Collaborate is the annual user group conference that brings together several of the largest Oracle user group communities, OAUG (@oaug1), IOUG (@ioug) and Quest (@questusergroup). I haven’t been to a Collaborate since 2008 in Denver, and this time, I’ll be pretty busy, a good thing.… Read More

Although some people don’t agree, I think there’s value in reposting technical tips for a few reasons. First, I post content for my own information and reference. I’m not the only one who does this (e.g. @oraclenerd), and I’m not the only one who finds it useful as a personal history. Second, I find tons… Read More

Good news, for me anyway, Southwest (@southwestair) found and returned my lost iPad. Now that I’m back in the iOS fold, I can start yapping about apps again. So, let’s begin. Justin’s (@oracletechnet) post about the OTN content in the Oracle iOS app reminded me to check out the recent updates to the Oracle iOS… Read More

So, this is very cool. Erascan (h/t User Illusions) scans and saves content on a whiteboard as it erases, and it can send the scanned images via email wirelessly. Obviously, the whiteboard is a great tool for collaborating in groups, but inevitably, someone has to transcribe the whiteboard’s contents, onto paper, into notes or email… Read More

I always dread April 1, but there’s usually at least one good prank. This year, Randall Munroe’s xkcd comic provided an awesome example of something cool. The comic’s title, Umwelt, is explained in the alt text. Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem… Read More

For better or worse, we have a Facebook Page. Facebook recently turned on Timeline for Pages, which I enabled, but our page has been naked since then because I couldn’t find a suitably cool picture. So, I reached out to friend of the ‘Lab, Eddie Awad (@eddieawad) for ideas. Eddie is a shutterbug, and he has… Read More

I’ve been on work hiatus lately, i.e. too busy to write, but I’ve found some time to write about my new favorite shiny toy, WebCenter Sites. Sites is the new name for what used to be called FatWire, a company Oracle acquired last year. Sites does what’s now being called web experience management (WEM), but… Read More

So, news broke recently that Twitter was buying an old favorite of mine, Posterous. For the unfamiliar, Posterous made blogging dead simple by allowing you to post via email; just send a message to the email address they gave you and presto, you just blogged. I’ve been using it for a while, and I immediately… Read More

A List Apart has a great piece called For a Future-Friendly Web by Brad Frost (@brad_frost) that I highly recommend reading. Some highlights: Over the years, we’ve become the virtual equivalent of hoarders, tacking on content and features without stopping to clean house. As a result, sites and services have become obese and sluggish to adapt… Read More

Last week, I was surprised to read Don Norman’s thoughts about Windows 8, and I got excited to test-drive the consumer preview. Norman wrote the book on usability, quite literally, so his opinion matters. He and Jakob Nielsen have previously been critical of touch interfaces, so I had hope that Microsoft had managed to meld the… Read More

Back in the roaring 90s, I briefly held a position doing technical diligence for a company that wanted to do investments in startups. It was toward the end of the dot-com Bubble, and everyone wanted to strike it rich, like a VC boss. Startups were printing fake money at the time driven by IPOs, and… Read More

I was already excited to check out the consumer preview of Windows 8, having briefly test-driven it when it first dropped, but now, I’m really stoked. Why? Because Don Norman likes it. Yup, that Don Norman. Well, Microsoft is back. Windows 8 is brilliant, and its principles have been extended to phones, tablets, laptops, and… Read More

If you do design of any kind, read this post on ink traps. Calculated Errors – The Ink Trap | Blog | design mind Ink traps refer to printed typeface and are intentionally designed to account for ink soaking into paper over time. The goal is to preserve legibility after the type is applied to… Read More

It’s been a long week, and I’m just catching up on some reading. These three items all feel like science fiction come to life, and they all fit into one of my favorite trends to follow, the internet of things. Google to Sell Heads-Up Display Glasses by Year’s End (h/t TNW) This sounds like a cool… Read More

Remember OpenWorld last year, specifically the keynote announcing Oracle Social Network? Remember how I told you that OSN was part of the WebCenter family? Well, if your interest is still piqued, check out the following videos and get a more detailed preview of OSN. First, check out the OSN Fusion CRM integration: Next, see how OSN manages… Read More

Editor’s note: Reposted from the WebCenter (@oraclewebcenter) blog, comes an introduction to our new Oracle Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast Series from Christian Finn (@cfinn), the fearless leader of our WebCenter evangelism team. Read on for details and make sure to attend the first webcast, this Thursday at 10:00am Pacific Time. A few months ago when I joined Oracle,… Read More

In case you missed it, the WebCenter (@oraclewebcenter) blog has been featuring stories about Social at Oracle this week. These are five stories about how teams at Oracle use social for everyday work stuff; there are more that would be fun to read, and maybe someday, they’ll do another week or two. Anyway, here’s a… Read More

Nothing like this headline to grab attention: How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did A very interesting read, if only because it points to a much longer and more detailed piece in the NYT with a much more staid headline, How Companies Learn Your Secrets. I highly recommend reading both, especially… Read More