WD mybook into itunes server

I am not going into details on how to do make your MyBook an iTunes server - you can find the details here. But basically you’ll have to:

• Enable SSH
• Disable Mionet
• Download and install FireFly
• Copy over the iTunes libery
  

I worked like a charm for me. Not sure how long the copying of files lasted as I started it just before I turned in one night. But now the setup is working, and all my music is available in my local network. So what is the next part of my computer stuff I want to remove from my laptop and make available in my network at home?

Do you care about blog traffic?

Sometime I check my Google analytics page, and I find it interesting to see that blog post have had traffic a good time after it was posted. The main part of the traffic comes directly after I publish feed/twitter notifications make up a majority of the traffic within in few hours after I press “publish”. But I have seen some growth on old posts that has been picked up by search engines. This traffic gives me some hits also the days where I don’t publish any new posts.

So the key question is – should I blog more about the posts that generates traffic over time from search engines – or should I just continue to blog about what I want – when I want? I have decided to continue with my thing; and let traffic be traffic. Hopefully the reader that reads my blog because I write the posts will stay in majority – even if traffic from Google is welcome too.

We don’t need printed money!

Last week a helicopter was involved in a bank robbery in Stockholm. There was discussion if more than 120 million dollar worth of Swedish currency was stolen. This amount was kept in the location as it was the central for all the ATMs around the Swedish capital. What should be done to reduce the use (and need) for printed money? Why use it at all?

Chips credit cards can be used to “hold” money to replace the need for “change”. Bigger amounts can be deduced from your bank account using what-ever-system available in your country – so why do we still use these printed versions? Give everybody an incentive to stop using printed money by increasing the tax on transactions using non-electronic payment methods. This way printed money will be less valuable, and it will be easier to push people away from this old financial instrument.

Sell SAS to Lufthansa, and buy some Norwegian Stocks!

It is time for Norwegian government to sell their stocks in SAS. There is no need for the government to own transportation utilities that operate in the commercial sector. The government can influence the market by giving incentives to operate on routes with less traffic. They can also govern the market to ensure that there is a healthy competition between the airlines. The best would be if SAS gets sold to Lufthansa; a major airline with the power to manage the works unions. German efficiency would be appreciated by the travelers


Norwegian has grown to become a solid competitor in the market place. It will be interesting to see how there international strategy will change the company. They currently build hubs in other countries as a part of their growth strategy – changing the company from a point2point airline to a hub-airline. This strategy is commonly used by the network airlines that normally has higher cost baseline. But maybe a low fare airline can become a network airline without increasing the cost? If they mange this transformation will they soon become a larger airline than SAS.

Mobile coverage fail

I started writing a blog post about my cellphone coverage. But I decided to delete it. It got to emotional. So I decided to write a bit more neutral about it and in more general terms. When you decide for a mobile operator – what is the key factor? As long as the base functionality is the same will the key factor be price. But when the provider changes the technical factors (to the better or worse) will the value change – and therefor also the price the operator can charge.

So from a technology perspective, what is the key functionally you demand from your phone? For me the key functionality is talk, sms and data. When I get out of a plane, I would like the coverage to be “back-on” as soon as I turn my phone on. I never want to get “network busy” when I try to call a customer. And I would like my sms to be delivered as I send them, and I only want them to arrive once. I want 3G to be enabled on my phone to get better speed on data.

A colleague who currently is assigned to a customer location in Finland working for a technology firm in the mobile industry contacted our operator telling them about coverage issues. The response was that it probably was his phone; maybe he could borrow another phone. His phone showed full coverage, but all incoming calls ended up in his voicemail.

Calls made my mobiles have become a part of our infrastructure, just like electricity and water. Providing less than perfect service is not an option in 2009.

Buying airline tickets - got a credit card

Some weeks ago I ordered some airline tickets from norwegian.no. I have travelled with Norwegian before, but only for work (and then we order tickets using Amex Travel). So this was my first time using their website. I read about the Norwegian card – and being where loyal to all airline loyalty programs (that is the point –isn’t it?) I decided to order a Norwegian card. Not being very careful reading the content on the website I ended up getting a Norwegian card combined with a VISA credit card. I don’t need another credit card, but I made me thinking

Is it THIS easy to getting credit cards?

MasterCard, VISA and Amex should have a centralized system where they know how many credit cards each individuals hold. The amount of credit I can get if I add all the cards together is just too high. And why do we need one plastic card per brand? Why can’t somebody make a master RFID, Bluetooth or what-ever technology card that can combine all my credit/debit cards? When I put it in the ATM I decide what card to use. This card could be slightly ticker as you could drop a lot of plastic in your pocket – making room for inbuilt pin-code generator.

Cutting edge technology

I enjoy running beta software, or even better technical preview. Currently my setup is Windows 7 build 7600 and Office 2010 technical preview. At work we use Lotus, and I am a member of the technology adoption program, where I get the latest from big blue. This includes the last version mobility clients, lotus notes (8.5.1) etc. Early adopters like to use cutting edge technology – some bugs aren’t a problem –we just restart, or find a workaround.

The technical preview of office is very stable, and the interface is about the same as office 2007. The biggest issue I have with it is that when I send a “nice” excel file to a customer – the color scheme and fonts are converted in their office 2000-2003 making it look very bad. Having a higher version has a cost in terms of backwards saving. Using the latest in technology shows that you are updated. Still running Windows XP (ten years old) is not a good sign when being a management consultant from an IT firm.

Perfect work day…

I don’t use the standard IBM VPN client, but one that supports different operating systems (including symbian, OS X, Linux and Windows 7). This weekend (plus Monday) has been scheduled for maintenance of the VPN-server. As I work from a client side I really need the VPN client for business mail, but a day without has been great. A day without email increased productivity; but now when the VPN-client is up… my email is a pain. So I need to unclutter it to get ready for tomorrow. So maybe something in between would be good? Maybe block some hours each week to just work – no email, no phone and no meetings? Just work with some great music on the iPod.

Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone

Mac Rumors reported that Apple has approved the Commodore 64 emulator for the Appstore. The application is named C64. This is a cool new way to get classic games to the iPhone. What game would you like to play on your iPhone? And what other console would be cool to integrate this way?

Naked domains

During the change of the domain on my blog I got an error from Blogger (blog service). I couldn't activate the service with a naked domain. I had to register the blog with a subdomain (IE: www or blog). But I don’t want my blog to be hosted on a subdomain – I want a clean domain without the prefix “www”. But this isn’t support on blogger. So I had to register it with the prefix, and then redirect the “naked domain”. Don’t like it – but on the other side – it works.

Bit.ly takes a j.mp

Bit.ly posted a blog post about their new domain. Bit.ly now gives you the option to make your links even shorter using j.mp. And the name is better: J.mp (jump) is what bit.ly does. The name is better than the original. I’ll update the script on nicolai.no to use this new domain when posting my links to twitter. Shorter is better, and the new domain (j.mp) could become the new word for this type of service – just like Google is the search-word.

Blogging made a bit more personal

This summer the Norwegian Domain Authorities (Norid) canceled a lot of domains due to violations of terms of owning/registering domains. One of these domains was nicolai.no. I have followed the registrations site on-and-off over the last month. And this week it changed status from “blocked” to “no match” – and I sent in a request to register it. And now it is mine.

So, as of this blog post will the home of my blog move from nicolai.rygh.no to nicolai.no. My web projects, contact info will stay on rygh.no. Maybe a separate domain for my blog isn’t really news, but it is a change to something more personal.