Stellarium 二三事

一直在默默的觀察 Stellarium 的開發,不過都沒有在這裡提起,簡單說一下囉:

  • 下個版本的 Stellarium (0.10.0) 會有全新的控制介面,光害模擬的部份也重寫了
  • 新控制介面似乎會直接去拿系統字型來顯示,好處是中文字型包可以功成身退了(?),壞處是新細明體(默)。
  • 因應來自於 Google Sky 與 Microsoft Research WorldWide Telescope 的挑戰,新版會有線上 SDSS 影像存取的功能(我還是覺得模擬比 SDSS 拼圖好看 >< 但是,唉)
  • 沒圖沒真相,但我實在是懶得擷圖… 所以自己去載 developer’s version 來試玩,在這裡
  • 中文開發的部份,之前在此處發布的中國星官考據計畫吸引了一些香港與中國(大陸)的同好的迴響,留下了一些個人初步的成果,有興趣可以看看

老實說我還滿想功成身退的 XD。這就是惰性呀(遠目)。

Apple MobileMe

While everyone is excited about the new iPhone 3G, or depressed because of the fact that it won’t be available in Taiwan for a year or so, what WWDC keynote really caught my attention was, instead, the new web service that would eventually replace .Mac – Apple MobileMe platform.

It’s funny to see how the software giants response the “access my personal (mail|calendar|todo…) anywhere” question. Microsoft’s answer to that is an Exchange Server with it’s special client, i.e. Outlook, on desktops and mobiles. It’s a very classical software company approach, which evolves building everything for every purpose. Google, instead, as a company providing web service, build their services on websites – wherever there is a device, there is a browser, services on browsers are indeed, accessible anywhere.

Apple’s approach is MobileMe. MobileMe works with native applications, from Outlook to Mail.app to iPhones – so it works like an Exchange Server. What’s more, MobileMe can be access via browsers anywhere – so it also works like Google Apps. Apple is bring the two worlds together under one platform – if you are willing to pay and get vendor lock-in-ed, it would “just work”, as Jobs puts it.

Of course, the two worlds is already merging, with or without Apple. Google Android will be available later this year, and Microsoft Exchange Servers are featuring web access a long time ago (with their dumb ActiveX object though). But no one had ever get this right from the start with completed features.

MobileMe is not officially started yet; no one knows whether it will really do what it claims. I am glad that all the companies are thinking like a web right now. It’s web! It’s about clients and servers, and accessability! We are at the turning point or history – in a decade or so, when we look back, we will never recognize how we handle our information today.

Firefox 3 預設新聞來源維持原狀

還記得之前播報過的,我們計劃把 Firefox 3 預設的即時新聞來源改到公視晚間新聞的事情嗎?這個部分最後還是要維持原樣,也就是繼續用 Yahoo!即時新聞。

為什麼會這樣的原因是因為北京的謀智網絡(Mozilla 基金會負責中文地區推廣與商業合作的單位)認為Yahoo!奇摩在台灣依然是佔有率最高的網路媒體,使用它們的服務「能迎合大家的需求」;所以希望我們能等到 Firefox 有顯著的市場佔有率之後再考慮改到公視。

簡而言之,MozTW 的看法是沒有變的,只是就像柏強這個 comment說的一樣:

  1. Actually we (moztw l10n team) still want to nominate PTS, but
  2. we agreed with Li and Jack to keep Y!News this time.

(Li & Jack 是兩位 MozillaOnline 的成員)

就這樣囉,Firefox 4 再努力啦。