I became intrigued with where UML 2.x has gotten to and have been looking for a good concise description of the new syntax but this appears harder to find than you would think.  To me OMG does itself a disservice by not putting something together for this end.  UML is heavily criticized for being overly complex and a good part of this is in how it is described.

Wikipedia did lead me to this link which I really liked http://www.holub.com/goodies/uml/ Hopefully the author will continue to extend his work.

I cannot say enough good things about GoodReader.

Essentially, I think apple did a terrible job of connectivity with the iPad.  Their strategy is to steer everything through iTunes and it makes sense with their view of this tool way multi-media device.  I want it for a business document reader mainly but will take advantage of the fact that you can do other things with it to have one piece of device that can do most of my needs.

GoodReader probably takes advantage of apples existing document viewing capabilities.  What it adds is the ability to organize documents in a hierarchy, and even more importantly, to get documents from your PC into that hierarchy.

So far I have used GoodReader to grab documents by:

• emailing them to myself and using GoodReader to grab them from the email account
• dropbox
• using good reader to turn the iPad into a netfolder
• via iTunes, sadly you cannot transfer directories this way

The last feature should have been provided by apple!!!!

Some suggestions for improvements:

• support deleting multiple files at once in dropbox, or marking them as downloaded

I was really liking my iPad but it has gone down a couple of notches.  The looks, form factor and feature set are all great but apple is making some mistakes that just bug me.

• The iTunes app in the iPad is really primitive.  I am not sure if it is a hold out from the iPhone but with all the hype about apple creating such great software I thought it would be better.  For instance, it seems like it should allow me to just use a flick of my finger to scroll through huge lists of apps, yet it only shows me a couple of apps at a time. 
• The iTunes PC app wiped my iPad of all downloaded data and applications.  I synchronized to get some pictures on it and instead of backing up what was there and adding to it, it got rid of everything.  This is particularly annoying given that I used GoodReader to download lots of pdf content to it to read.  I mentioned this to a group of engineers who had iPhones or iPads and they all shared similar stores and added their own complaints about its poor UI. 
• Jobs is wrong about the importance of Flash.  Yes there are lots of videos, etc in HTML 5 but there are lots of websites that use Flash.  I hit one at least every other time I use my iPad.  The latest was Ford resulting in me being unable to check out a new truck.
• Photo software on the iPad is really primitive.  I see no way to create new folders and organize my photos.  Even my black berry can do that.  My current opinion is that apple must be riding its rep from days past for elegant HW/SW products.  I would say that right now, much of their software appears simplistic.  Perhaps, I should borrow a mac to see if some of he generalizations I am making about apple are really fair.

Now I find myself paying attention to Android for the first time.  Some of the new droid phones seem to be pretty capable and it seems like only a matter of time before somebody copies the iPads key features.  Add a front facing camera and I would not look back…

I received my new iPod by mail last weekend and am very happy with it.  I thought I would write some things about it.  In the end I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.  Read on if you care why …

First, in my opinion the iPad hits a mark (almost) with respect to a a new product category.  Companies have been trying to create a new product category for a while.  Palm did it very successfully for a while with the Pilot and did so by delivering just what people needed instead of trying to reach too far.  MIDS, UMPC, tablets (pre-iPad) and even netbooks never got the formula correct.  Amazon’s Kindle did get it correct and generated an e-reader market but it also set the stage for the iPad to be even more successful by giving it another application.

People always ask what is an iPad for:

• First, it is a toy
• It is a web-surfers dream (more portable, easier to hold on the couch, huge battery life, instant on, easy to use)
• It is a great video player for the traveler (portable, great video/audio, connects to the web for content, iTunes delivers selections, don’t need a second device)
• It can be a great business document reader, at least for pdf ( See comments on GoodReader, Great Pdf support, ok at word, Kindle books, iBooks)
• It can be used to do regular computer stuff for low end uses, great for travel (mail, address book)
• Great calculator (PCalc)

To me things that set the iPad apart (in the good way) from its competition are:

• Battery life is exceptional
• Size, screen resolution are great
• Instant on makes it a treat to use
• Good built in software for pdf, networking, email, web-browsing (caveat here later), video, etc
• Ability to get lots of fun apps and content from others at really cheap prices ($0.99 apps to $9.99 so far for awesome utility)
• It got here first (it beat the HP’s iSlate and also Plastic Logics e-reader,…)

That all being said, the reason I give it 4 out of 5 is for what it lacks:

• Flash support.  Lack of flash is ridiculous.  It just works everywhere else.
• Camera.  Seems strange that this feature did not make it in.  Cameras are shoved in everything these days and open up video conferencing.   This was the one of the uses I had wanted and will miss.  The suspicious person in me thinks that a camera enabled version will come out within a year frustrating all early adopters like myself…heck, every pre-release version I have seen on TV or the web includes a front facing camera…
• Lack of connectivity via USB to get content on the device.   This is frustrating for me as my primary use is a business document reader.  GoodReader saves me here.
• Inability to charge via a PC USB port.  This must have been known but was never disclosed ….

I have been waiting for Plastic Logic to release its new ereader and now I give up…. Essentially, I just read an announcement that it has been delayed yet again until the summer.  This means I go to the dark side and get an iPad.  I am not a big apple fan but I don’t see anything else that really interests me.

When I tell people I work for a company that makes pacemakers and defibrillators, people often wonder what they are.  This video gives me a lot of pride in my work and really illustrates how important such devices can be. 

The caption on YouTube reads:

"Anthony Van Loo (Roeselare Belgian first division) got a heart attack in the 44th minute of the game. He has a heart condition and he got an implanted defibrillator. This automatically gave his heart a shock after 4 seconds (that's the movement you see) and this saved him."

He is actually experiencing Ventricular Fibrillation which means his heart is beating so fast and so erractically that it can nolonger pump his blood adequately causing him to collapse.  The defib then shocks him, terminating the bad rythm.

Check out this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PwpSFDbCZY

This is pretty darn close to what I wanted yesterday….

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Amazons-Wireless-Generation/dp/B0015TCML0

Looks like it is only in the pre-order stage and I will want to read reviews on how well the pdf display works.  The main weakness I see now is the lack of SD/Micro-SD card support.  Seems silly to not include that although I am guessing it is intentional based on the desire to charge for most content delivered to the device.  It does have a USB connector though, which would indicate you can download content to the internal memory which would be not support my guess.

I am an avid reader of technical books although I often struggle in that my interests outstrip my time to read.  Now I am finding my interests outstrip my storage space so I am tempted by the concept of a Kindle.  I keep holding back for the following reasons:

• I can often get a heck of a deal on used books so the Kindle sales price is very expensive in comparison.   Seems like electronic books change the dynamic here in favor of the publishers rather than the consumer.  For example, you can’t buy an electronic book second hand but if you could there would be no degradation in quality so if reselling was allowed it seems like you could get full price for it.  As reselling is not allowed, you should get the electronic book at a steeper discount in my mind. 
• I really want Amazon to give me electronic versions of all the books I have purchased through them.  While not the reason I am holding back, it would be a HUGE incentive for me to move forward.
• Some of the reviews of the kindle seem poor. 
• In the end, my killer app is not an electronic device that helps me read books but one that lets me read pdf, word docs, etc.  The bulk of my reading is currently work related and not just book reading.  Thus pdfs are the most important electronic content and not a secondary one.  This extends from displaying pdfs too getting content onto the device in the first place.

One product that may meet my desires is www.plasticlogic.com.   It is a bit early to tell as I really need info on the software performance rather than just the size, form-factor but what I see looks promising.  It is due out in 2010. 

My other idea for serving this need is to get some sort of tablet pc netbook but here the problem is long boot times.  To pick up a book to read, you don’t want to wait 45 seconds for boot up.  Here again, I encouraged by some work by intel on a device with a 2 second boot time.  A PC like device should be able to handle pdfs no problem and with a big enough battery I could get the reading time I want.  We will see…

At CES they leaked lots of information for it and as far as I can tell, none of it was true e.g. No GPS, no mention of multi-touch mouse, no digital TV support, no built-in wireless broadband, etc.  On top of that, the buzz on the net is that it is limited to 1GB not expandable memory which is just crazy given most users will want to do what ever they can to boost performance.  I hear more version are coming but cannot help but think the phased roll-out is more for marketing reasons than anything else.  

So in my case, I held off purchasing the mini 9 for the mini 10, the mini 10 is not as good as they hinted so I will now not buy either.  Great way to attract customers!!! 

For the longest time I listened to the radio going to and from work and have been more a less resigned to nothing on.  I listen to AM 1410, AM 750 and 91.5 FM.  Generally, I am looking for news but frustratingly I often end up listening to Talk Radio.

I have managed to break from this and have ventured into generating my own programming by downloading podcasts to my blackberry.   With a 2 GB mini-SD card I can load quite a bit of content all at once and listen to it for several days before searching for more.  While, at some point, I will start looking for something quality news sources, I am starting off with tech topics.  Here are the current podcasts I am looking at:

• Software Engineering Radio – This is great and my current favorite.  So far I have listened to several pods and have learned something each time.  Probably the most interesting ones I have listened so is there second post on concurrency and Model Driven Software development. 
• Hanselminutes – My second favorite.  Scott tackles a diverse set of topics from the perspective of a developer questing for more.  Very diverse, from Mocking to Hiring.