Defenestrated

Stupid Google Voice transcriptions

I just tried Google Voice for the first time today, and it's a really interesting service, including the ability to automatically transcribe voicemails so you can pick them up in e-mail or on the web. I have a heavy English accent (nothing bizarre, like Brummies, but definitely not American, either) so I did a little experiment by leaving a voicemail for myself. Here's what I said:

"I'm just trying this out. Google Voice seems pretty cool but, you know, I'm not so sure if it can try andhandle the really complicated things that one wants to do with voicemail. So I thought I would say things like efficacious, and stupendous, and deliberative, just to see how the transcription might work. On the other hand, it could be really good, and I'll be amazed, and astounded, and flabbergasted by just how good the transcription could be. I'll also look forward to receiving the message in e-mail, and if the e-mail is good then maybe I'll transition all of my phone calls to Google Voice. It's difficult to say. But, one way or another, Google is going to take over the world, and I intend to be there when they do."

And this is what Google Voice thought I said...

"i'm just trying this out to avoid seems pretty cool but you know i'm not so sure if you can try and handled it really complicated things that one wants to do with voicemail so i thought i'd say things like applications and stupendous and did with crickets just to see how the transcription might work on the other hand it could be really good and i'll be in the east of this down did flabbergasted i just have a good the transcription today i'm also i look forward to receiving the message in email and if you email is good then maybe i'll try and get all of my phone calls to google voice the fact the war in iraq google is going to take care of the will i'm going to be there when they did"

If you'd like to try making Google Voice sound silly, call 202-525-6817 and leave a message! I'll post the interesting ones here.

UK government advocates open source

This is truly fantastic. The UK government has decided that, where there is little price difference between open source and commercial products, open source should be selected due to its inherent flexibility. The initiative is also promoting re-use of product evaluations, and has created an open forum where the public can view and contribute to the action plan. Great stuff!

Mozy for Mac - backup does not start [updated]

I've been a Mozy for Mac user for a couple of months now and my backup (which is admittedly very large) still hasn't completed for the first time, despite my machine being left on pretty much 24x7. I am backing up a LOT of data (over 85GB) so I knew it was going to take a while but one problem seems to have been recurring, preventing the backup even starting on many occasions. Here are two typical sections of the Mozy.log file.

iPhone now up

Seems like I suffered enough like everyone else, and my phone came back up and was restored with the luvverly version 2.0 software earlier this afternoon. It was definitely worth the hassle! If you're having trouble with either of the messages I posted earlier, stick at it; eventually you'll get through it.

iPhone 2.0 update - Apple's servers go kaput

When I tried to update my iPhone to version 2.0 today, everything went smoothly until it came time to access the iTunes Store. It didn't return any result for about 30 minutes, so I disconnected the phone from the cradle and reconnected it. I got this message:

"We could not complete your iTunes Store request. An unknown error occurred (-9838). There was an error in the iTunes Store. Please try again."

Yikes! "Happily" (hem hem) I wasn't alone in this, as this discussion shows.

After a while, iTunes seemed to be connecting to the iTunes Store and then I got this message:

"We could not complete your iTunes Store request. An unknown error occurred (-4). There was an error in the iTunes Store. Please try again."

And now I'm waiting waiting waiting... Very disappointing from Apple.

UK government launches data mash-up

This is a fantastic idea: opening up government data to enable users to create new ways of using it that might be beneficial to the country as a whole. The government's admittance that its people are smarter than itself is the first step to recovery. <grin>

Firefox 3 on OSX: Empty toolbar fix

I upgraded to Firefox 3 yesterday and it's certainly a lot faster on my MacBook and Mac Mini than Firefox 2, as well as being cosmetically a lot more pleasing. One perplexing problem, though, was the appearance of a gray bar at the top of the window, like this:

When a browsing action was taken, a spinning pinwheel (the "Activity Indicator", apparently) would appear in that gray bar. I couldn't figure out how to eliminate this gray bar for a while but then hit upon a "Duh!" solution that I thought worth documenting here, and on the Firefox support forums. The bar is there because, for some inexplicable reason, the upgrade process moved the Activity Indicator into a separate space from the rest of the Navigation Toolbar. To fix it, right-click on the toolbar, select Customize... and then drag the Activity Indicator into the regular Navigation Toolbar. Click OK and the empty toolbar should disappear.

Office 2007 converter for OSX

After receiving a lot of files with the dreaded ".docx" filename extension, I discovered that Microsoft has a converter available for OSX that transforms these Windows Office 2007 files into Mac Office 2004 format. It's not perfect (it's in beta right now) and doesn't work on everything, but worth having available. You can get it here. At the bottom of the screen, in the bottom-right-most window, scroll down to the "English (.dmg)" file. Download that, double-click it, and install the application, and then drag-and-drop files onto it to convert them. You can also convert a batch of files at one time using the menu commands.

Gavin & Stacey ringtone: "Oh, what's occuring?"

If you haven't seen Gavin & Stacey, a really fantastic warm hug of a sitcom from BBC Three, you're missing out on a treat. One of the support characters is Nessa, a truly tremendous comic creation, and a particular line of hers is becoming a catchphrase in our house. So I found a sample of the line -- "Oh, what's occurin'?" -- from Fun Fone Forum and turned it into an iPhone ringtone. You can grab it, and the MP3 original, here (right-click and "Save Target As" or "Save Link As":

• iPhone version
• MP3 version

iCal/iPhone sync issues - avoid spaces!

Just a quickie tip here: If you have an iPhone, you may be experiencing problems in syncing events with your iCal calendars. I know I was! I have a regular iCal calendar and then a CalDAV account with a series of other calendars within it. Only the regular iCal calendars would show up for syncing in iTunes, and not always reliably. I discovered that my problems were solved when I removed spaces from the names of all the calendars (iCal or those from my CalDAV account). Now all the calendars show up in iTunes and can be sync'd to the iPhone.

I still can't write new events from the iPhone into a CalDAV calendar (as Apple hasn't made that possible yet), but at least I can see when and where I need to be tomorrow!