"sendRPCDone" now known as "Suggest_apply"

Thu Oct 11, 12:05 pm in Technology

I discovered today that Google has changed the function name this time from “sendRPCDone” to “Suggest_apply”. Having looked closer at the new javascript file at http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en it seems that it has changed quite a bit. There seems to be some new fun stuff with JSON objects as well.

A quick fix to the old ac.js like this will get the results back, kind off.

window.google = new Object();
window.google.ac = new Object();
window.google.ac.Suggest_apply = sendRPCDone;

However, they’ve also changed the array structure so that keywords and number of results now comes in the same array in consequent elements. So greater code changes are probably required as the changes in the new ac.js file suggest.

This is what the Suggest_apply response looks like.

window.google.ac.Suggest_apply(frameElement, "k;", new Array(2, "kmart", "4,280,000 results", "k n", "3,850,000 results", "k swiss", "17,400,000 results", "k n filters", "1,860,000 results", "k lite", "10,900,000 results", "k lite codec", "3,690,000 results", "k n air filters", "1,580,000 results", "k g", "310,000 results", "k lite codec pack", "3,090,000 results", "klove", "4,060,000 results"), new Array(""));

I guess there are other response formats too such as a jsonRPCDone and maybe also the old sendRPCDone format. I will try to figure out how to trigger each response (url parameter flag). Comments on implementing Suggest_apply and the other potential new response formats are welcome.

Comment [2225]

Jamie Cullum – What a talent!

Tue Nov 15, 10:34 am in Misc

We went to see Jamie Cullum yesterday at Royal Albert Hall and came out breathless. The talent of this young guy and his band is nothing short of amazing. After a quite sedative warm up act Jamie came on stage around 20.30 and left it first 2.5 hours later – 2.5 hours of high beat non-stop entertainment.

He went through most of expected songs from his previous and new albums. He also played a new song yet to be recorded. Though I find his songs great it was all in the delivery. Every song was delivered with some kind of twist like being sung without an amplifier and only supported by a double bass in the middle of the audience. These guys really gave a lot of them selves and it was very clear that they loved every minute of it.

Jamie Cullum is surely a man of some considerate talent. Besides having a great voice, some serious piano prowess, playing the guitar and the occasional drum he managed to build up a complete song by drumming with his hands on a piano frame, only inserting the occasional chord and it was a great experience. The rhythm is just there, it’s like he can pluck music from thin air. His drummer also demonstrated some of this ability when going off on a 5 to 10 minute drum solo around the stage. Tapping away on mike stands, drums, the floor, a double bass and then making a high hat out of a cymbal flipped upside down on the floor. Some people just have it and this gang does in bucket loads.

The show concluded with the cover version of Radiohead’s High & Dry. Towards the end of it Jamie managed to convert the whole Royal Albert Hall audience to a two voice backing choir. I’m not sure but I think he improvised that move just to play and experiment with the acoustic qualities of the Royal Albert Hall – enjoying himself immensely and hence entertaining us even more.

If you can get tickets for tonight’s show just go! If not get the his records and make sure not to miss his next concert. This guy is going to be around a long time.

Jamie, thank you for the music!

Comment [423]

Classic Italian - Veal/Chicken Scaloppini a la Marsala

Fri Nov 11, 04:38 pm in Food

Ever been to an Italian restaurant and had Veal Scaloppini a la Marsala? Tender pieces of veal in a rich Marsala wine sauce. Tastes great looks great. The best things is that it’s dead easy to do at home and it comes out looking great as well. It’s a great dish when you’re having friends over and don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen. Plus you’ll probably impress them as well.

I usually use chicken breast instead of veal but its the same workflow for both types of meat.

First mix some cracked black pepper with wheat flour in a dish. Trim of the chicken breast and get rid of any skin on them. If the fillets are really big try cutting them in half making two thinner fillets. You can try to gentle pound them to flatten them a bit as well. Pad the fillets dry with kitchen paper.

Next turn over the meat in the flour mix so that the fillets are completly coated in flour. Shake of any excess flour. I usually don’t add any salt to the mix as it draws out the juices from the meat making the flour coating soggy.

Heat up butter and olive oil in a thick bottom pan at medium to high heat. You want to use quite a lot of butter and oil it as it will form the base of the sauce. When the fat is piping hot and the butter bubbles have settled start frying your fillets. Also sprinkle some coarse sea salt, such as Maldon, over the fillets. The fillets should turn golden quite rapidly. After a 3-4 minutes or when the fillets starts to turn brownish turn over the fillets and fry the other side. When there is still some time to go pour a generous amount of Marsala wine directly in to the pan. The wine will mix with the butter and start boiling quite lively. Turn over the fillets several times so that they are totally covered in sauce. Also scrape and stir at the bottom of the pan so that any flour stuck to it is mixed with the boiling butter, oil and wine mix. Of course the flour and the fat is what makes the sauce go thick. Let the sauce continue to boil until the color of the sauce turns to a caramel colour and the texture is smooth and thick. You should almost not be able to pour the sauce from the pan.

Transfer the fillets directly to some waiting plates and scrape the remaining sauce over them. You’re done!

If you’ve used chicken the fillets will have a slight crust and be juicy and tender in the middle. Usually we only have some baby spinach salad with it but I guess you could use pasta or rice as well for a slightly more filling meal.

The dish all in all should take no more than 15 minutes to prepare so it’s really quick and easy. Another tip is to cut the fried fillets in small pieces with the sauce and use in a chicken sallad with some avocado and red onion.

Comment [643]

The next quite probable thing

Mon Oct 10, 11:52 pm in Business

What is the next technology innovation that will open up a new field of opportunities for businesses and start-ups to capitalise on? Well, who cares? It is not only a very speculative question but also extremely difficult to get right. The ones who have got it right usually have had an unflawed logic and more importantly a lot of luck or the clout to create at least part of that prosperous future. A more, if not as sexy, approach is probably to look at businesses that will provide services to those next big things. Yes, here come the tents, pans and pots to the gold rushers again.

John Battelle’s book The Search about Google and the search industry just gave me such an idea. In the book Batelle describes a scenario where our search history is analysed and merged with our TV subscriptions (such as TiVO) to allow advertisers to plug downloaded TV shows with highly relevant commercials. The key point that Battelle points out is that this will change the fundamental economics of TV advertisements. It will turn TV into a new sales channel rather than just a marketing channel. Increased conversion ratios could make the economics viable enough for even smaller firms to use TV commercials. In addition to the scenario described by Battelle several other channels that will be more and more based on interactive services and moving pictures and hence suitable for tailored TV like commercials. Video on Demand services replacing DVD/VHS rentals, multimedia mobile phone messages, online games etc. all of these services will in one way or another be viewed by audiences with a known customer profile or even well described individuals driving the validity of Batelle’s proposed new TV commercial economy. The number of conversions should go up.

Provided that the above development starts to happen there will shortly be an increased demand for production of small and specialised moving image commercials. Who’s going to make all of these? The budgets of today’s commercials are starting to build up to small movie budgets. Does today’s production houses have the flexibility, nimbleness and desire to produce small and cost effective commercials? What about a production house working with a skeleton crew, fast cost effective digital production techniques and re-useable media assets to provide professional adverts at a minimum of lead-time? I think this can be a very interesting and lucrative area over the next 10 years.

Comment [4074]

"Proper" Pasta Carbonara

Wed Oct 5, 10:20 pm in Food

There are some dishes around that when you order you never know what you’re going to get. I’ve been served Ceasar Sallad with Rhode Island dressing, Salad Nicoise with ham and pineapple and Pasta Carbonara in a wide array of versions but always with cream. There are probably as many interpretations of Pasta Carbonara as tourist restaurant chefs. However after careful research, eating tons of pasta, I’ve found that in a proper Carbonara there is no cream. In at least the northern parts of Europe cream and fat is almost the synonym of Pasta Carbonara.

To make a “proper” and slightly healthier Carbonara this is what you need.

Take one egg for each person and beat them in a bowl until frothy. Mix in equal parts of grated Parmesan and Pecorino. Use plenty of cheese to get a thick sauce. Add salt and coarsely ground black pepper. At the same time fry the Pancetta in some olive oil just until they start to turn golden brown. At that point quickly take the pan off the stove and pour some cold water over the Pancetta to stop the frying process and soak up all the taste in the pan. Do not put too much water, just so that each Pancetta bit gets a good splash.

Boil the paste until al dente. If you overcook it, the pasta goes mushy and the nutrients in the pasta goes from good slow carbohydarates to fattening unhealthy carbs. I find that usually half the recommended cooking time is enough.

Always cook pasta in plenty of water with salt. (Comment: It is totally pointless to pour olive oil in the water for the pasta to be less sticky. The reason it is sticky is because it’s overcooked. In addition, the oil will always float to the top as it’s lighter than water and hence can’t mix with the pasta.) The best way to get the pasta perfect is to taste it. With dry pasta I start tasting it after 5 minutes and then every half minute until it’s good. When bitten through it should feel springy and get firmer towards the middle, of course not hard but firm with a bite. Once the pasta is ready pour out the water quickly and drop all the pasta into the bowl with the egg mix. Not the other way around, you want to expose the egg mix to aas much heat as possible. Pour the bacon on top and mix it all very quickly making sure that all the pasta gets in contact with the eggs and the cheese. It is important that this happens quickly so that the pasta doesn’t lose too much heat but is able to coagulate the eggs and melt the cheese.

Serve immediately with grated parmesan on top and black pepper to your liking. Enjoy!

Comment [1180]

What is "One more thing..."?

Wed Oct 5, 02:51 pm in Technology

Apple has according to MacCentral this week sent out invitations to a special event in San Jose next week (12th Oct). The invitation says “One more thing…” So what is it?

Lately there have been reports about a last update to the PowerBook line before the Intel machines arrive, new iPods and of course something video. A Powerbook update is probably due and following the success of the Nano and the new design there is probably more iPods in that form factor to come.

But are they of the gravity that Apple wants to announce it at a special invitation only event? Usually, when Jobs uses the words “One more thing…” it is for something significant. Like a new product. like video.

What if this is the launch of Apple’s much anticipated entry into the movie distribution business. iTunes are already letting users browse for music videos and trailers as well as playing them in iTunes. The MacMini comes with a DVI output so that it can connect directly to a new television set in HDTV. Apple by now have a large loyal customer base that are just waiting for Apple to put them in awe again. If next week’s event indeed is about video I think there could be two scenarios unfolding with some common parts.

The commons

I guess there are a range of factors why this should not be happening right now. Bandwidth would be the first one. How many people can download multi gigabyte files in a reasonable time today? Sure there could be a scheduled service that let’s you download during the night etc. but then it’s not really Video on Demand.

Serving the Mac user base

Doing something really cool for everyone else

There seems to be some technical challenges to be overcome before movies are going to work smoothly and be attractive for normal customers. Bandwidth issue, remote control, processor requirements to play full screen HDTV/mpeg4 movies. Apple may have worked there magic again or are they are building up to it and the release next week is a “just” a new generation of Wi-Fi enabled iPods – now that would still be way cool.

Connect at a Hot Spot to Apple Music Store, play it over an Airport Express to your home/car stereo and Sync and share files wirelessly and so on…

Well, it’s always fun to speculate. However, if they release anything of the above be sure to find me beating down the door at my Apple Store.

Comment [673]

RAW Uploader Drop Script

Sun Oct 2, 03:54 pm in Photography

To simplify the task of uploading RAW and JPEG images taken in the RAW/JPEG combo modes I’ve developed a small application that does it for your whilst populating the IPTC metadata fields.

When shooting in the RAW/JPEG mode I’ve found it quite cumbersome to go through the whole card uploading process as my camera puts both file formats in the same folder. The uploading breaks down in to a series of manual repetitive steps.

  1. Create a new directory in my Pictures directory
  2. Copy across all files from card to new directory
  3. Append static meta data
  4. Sort on extension to seperate out the jpgs from the RAWs
  5. Create JPEG directory and copy across filtered JPEGs
  6. Look at pictures

Surely, this could be easier done by say… my computer. Using RAW Uploader I just drop the picture directory from the card on the desktop icon and I’m done. Directory creation, jpeg sorting and metadata population done!

The script, RAW Uploader, creates a new unique directory in your picture directory and copies and splits RAW and JPEG files in to seperate directories. (Copying JPEGs first so that you can start reviewing your pictures whilst the RAW files finishes copying in the background.) The script also populates the IPTC metadata (Name, Copyright Notice, Email, Phone) whilst uploading so when they appear in your image browser you’re ready to go.

It is as easy as that. I’m providing the script as-is and you can go ahead and make changes to it as long as you share your new version.

Go ahead and download it here: RAW Uploader v1.0b

So far the script is very low tech and not fancy. There is for example no user feedback unless you don’t want to launch the Console.app.

Wish list:

I would of course be really keen to get feedback on the script. Let me know how it works in your workflows and set-ups. I’m using a Nikon and have hence not been able to test it on the Canon cameras yet. I’ve included support for .CRW and .CR2 files so it should work. – Well, let me know.

Comment [790]

Still Lives by John Kenny

Sun Sep 25, 10:51 pm in Photography

My friend and fellow photo buddy John Kenny have had one of his pictures selected for The Times’ Picture of the Week this Saturday. -Well done!

John spent much of this year travelling across China, Mongolia, India and Cambodja shooting documentary photography. He’s shoots lovely black and white shots and really have a knack for capturing the decisive moment. He collected an amazing set of pictures through out his trip. They are now on show in London at Portobello Gold on Portobello Road. Well worth a look if you are in the area.

If you can’t make the exhibition check out his web site here.

Comment [16]

Not all roads lead to ROIC

Sun Sep 25, 10:44 pm in Business

One of the most popular continuous business improvement techniques is Working Capital Reduction initiatives. The idea is straight forward – Minimise your capital in places where it is not generating a return. It is not obvious however that this translates into greater shareholder value. The danger is that the released capital is not put to valuable use.

Working Capital is defined as the difference between Current Assets and Current Liabilities. Current Assets consist of Operating Cash, Accounts Receivables, Inventories and Other current assets. Current Liabilities of Accounts Payable, Short term debt and the Current portion of long term debt and Accrued Liabilities.

There are four key strategies for reducing working capital.

  1. Reduce inventories
  2. Improve Order-to-Cash processes to reduce Accounts Receivables
  3. Work with suppliers to obtain more generous payment terms resulting in a slower turn-over of Accounts Payables
  4. Move operating cash to a non current item in the balance sheet. (E.g. pay off debt, invest in new products/markets, pay dividends, buy-back shares etc.)

Whilst all of these, if executed successfully, will result in reduced working capital only Strategy 4 will directly impact the Return on Invested Capital and hence Shareholder Value.

Strategy 1-3, if successful, will result in a reduced requirement of operating cash used to cover the duration between having to pay the company’s stakeholders and getting paid from its customers. The reduced cash requirement will eventually manifest itself as surplus cash. Management must take a conscious decision how to use this extra cash to generate the sought after additional shareholder value. If it’s allowed to just sit there this very tangible benefit will not contribute to an increase in value creation.

Shareholder Value is created from Working Capital Reduction when it results in the difference between required operating cash and operating cash is positive and that surplus cash is used to reduce invested capital or increase the net operating profit less adj. taxes. I.e. the company has more cash on hand than it needs to run its operations and can hence use that cash to reduce dept or equity liabilities or invest in new products or markets to increase net operating profit.

As a value oriented business improver it is not enough to successfully deliver a reduction of working capital we must also ensure that released capital is deployed where it can generate optimum shareholder value. Why not use the released capital as a ticket into the CFO’s office and your next big sell?

Comment [167]