Filemaker's Support Problem

Most product documents (brochures, manuals) requiring frequent updates require, in turn, a database of some sort to power the underlying changes. Makes sense, and content management systems (CMS) have been out for a number of years.

Which makes one wonder if Filemaker, the company, has a bigger problem.

ODBC Error: [iODBC][Driver Manager]Data source name not found and no default driver specified. Driver could not be loaded


trying to reconcile an issue with setting up System DSNs in Filemaker Server 12 trial. The documentation (http://www.filemaker.com/support/product/docs/12/fms/fms12_help.pdf ) states:

Mac OS Start the ODBC data source administrator. The ODBC Administrator utility is available
with Mac OS X (in the Applications/Utilities folder).

Wasn't this discontinued in OS X 10.6 several years ago? If so, why are these details outdated for a product that shipped under 10.7?

CardDAV, or how to get iCloud contacts on Android

For years, the fine folks at Calconnect.org have been making calendar sharing and synchronization easier for everyone, based on a derivative of the WebDAV specification called CalDAV. But it's only been a few months since Google—one of the leaders in standards-based calendar sharing—has jumped on to the second Calconnect bandwagon: contact card sharing using the CardDAV specification.

Those who remember early card sharing will recall vCard, the Microsoft-centric way of sharing contact information. CardDAV provides a consistent standard for two-way synchronization, with a push model that keeps everything in sync on a real-time basis.

Real-time synchronization was lacking in meta-sync programs like Apple's Address Book app (AddressBook.app for those of you on a Mac OS X machine, renamed Contacts.app for the iOS crowd) and even some of the more popular and expensive synchronization tools (SyncMate, anyone?).

The problem with synchronizing with an application, rather than at an operating system level, is that the applications must all be open and connected to the interwebs at all times. Otherwise, changes to a contact on two offline devices resulted in synchronization nightmare, and changes on one online and one offline device in the same time period added an even more complex synch issue.

It's no wonder the late Steve Jobs famously said, of mac.com and MobileMe, that Apple hadn't done it right. Once Apple decided to do it right, they embraced CalDAV and CardDAV, and iCloud was born as a central repository for all things synchronized. While iCloud still has its growing pains, Apple's move to CardDAV in particular pushed Google to figure out how to integrate with Apple as tightly as the search giant had integrated with Microsoft.

Microsoft's version of both calendar and contact sync, for real-time updates, is Exchange, and Google licenses EAS for use in Google Apps for Your Domain (which was free, at least until the end of 2012). EAS is also found in iOS devices, at least for paid email accounts that support Exchange.

For mere mortals, though, the Google move to CardDAV opens the way to have your iCloud contacts on both an iOS device as well as an Android device. It isn't seamless but it's a good start.

Given the recent support by Google, it's certain we'll see integration of CalDAV at the operating system level for Android OS at some point in the future. For now, consider using the free or paid beta versions of Marten Gajda's CardDAV-Sync (and even his more mature CalDAV-sync).

If you use CardDAV-Sync, remember you'll need three important pieces of information: server URL, username and password.

We'll supply the first one for you here, if you're synching your iCloud contacts down to an Android device: type https://contacts.icloud.com in the Server name field.

We also suggest you enable SSL, needed for the https secure server noted above, and—for the time being—keep the one-way synchronization turned on so as not to mess up your iCloud contacts while Marten gets the kinks worked out. It's the check-box option after you enter your iCloud username and password, just before you name the newly created sync within CardDAV-Sync.

Happy real-time synching!

Cleaning up behind Adobe Edge Preview

Over at Labs.Adobe.com there's a new release of Adobe Edge (Preview 5). For those who want to try it out, but have already used Adobe Edge Preview 4 (or prior) we want to share some important news:

It's not enough just to drag the Edge folder to your recycle bin and empty the trash!

Ok, why not? Turns out that elements of Edge (no pun, for those who have used this JavaScript-based HTML5 interactivity tool) remain on your computer in various places.

Consider this typical request for help from one of the Adobe forums (based on the error message "A conflicting or prerelease version of Adobe Edge Preview exists on this computer. The conflicting version must be removed before installing from the current media"):

I removed Edge Preview n by trashing and emptying the trash, not by the uninstall. That message persists. I can find nothing in the Libraries (I’m running OSX Lion on my iMac) either under Application Support or Preferences that is leaving a trail that would show the installer that Edge 3 still exists on the computer. How can I solve this problem and install [the next preview version of] Edge? 

Anyone who has faced this problem has seen this error screen:

The answer to the vexing problem (not necessarily solved by reading the above error screen)comes in the form of an older, smaller application (around since the beginning of the Adobe Creative Suite 5 - CS5 - days): the CS Installer Cleaner Tool more formally known as the Adobe Creative Suite Cleaner Tool.

Launching the cleaner tool presents the user with a few options:

In this case, the user had vestiges of Adobe Edge Preview 1 still on the machine, so the cleanup tool worked by selecting "Adobe Edge Preview 1" and clicking on "cleanup" to eliminate those pesky Preview 1 elements.

One piece of confusing information: upon choosing Cleanup, the software prompts you to try an uninstall first. It's sort of overkill, as you wouldn't be using the cleaner tool if dragging the folder to the recycle bin and emptying the trash had worked in the first place, but feel free to click "Try Uninstall" before clicking the "Cleanup" button.

Once the Cleaner Tool works its magic, the machine will install the next version of Adobe Edge Preview n with no problems and you're underway. A few quick pointers about Adobe Edge Preview 5 can be found in an article we wrote for StreamingMedia.com (direct link to article here).

Logitech Revue now an endangered species

A bit late on this topic, and it's not necessarily good etiquette to speak ill of the dead after they're buried, but The Verge reported a few days ago that Logitech Revue sales dropped significantly in Q4 2011.

"Unsurpisingly, Logitech cites the Revue as part of the reason for its eight percent decline in American sales, noting that Revue sales were down by $15 million this year, partially due to the pre-announced discontinuation, and partly due to the significant price cuts the Revue experienced since it launched."


The term "unsurprisingly" may have as much to do with the fact that Logitech CEO, Guerrino De Luca, had scapegoated the Google TV-powered product (or should we say, partially Google TV-powered product, since Logitech never fully implemented the 1.0 or 2.0 Google TV specs).

It's odd that the Logitech, which had a $100 million revenue loss in Q3 due to EMEA missteps and the Revue, would choose to cut off its own sales for the Q4 holiday shopping season. Something doesn't add up, but it's now looking like the EMEA misstep was the real issue for Logitech and the Revue was the convenient red herring to deflect from the strategic missteps in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The good news for all those who still want a Revue box is that the price has dropped. We'd mentioned the $79.99 refurbished units on Amazon, but there are also new units now for $99.99 from Tiger Direct (while supplies last, of course).

Streamlining Android Interfaces

During our Streaming Media Europe 2011 presentation on video challenges and opportunities for the Android OS, an audience member raised the question of UX (or user interface) designs being inconsistent.

As I showed in my presentation slides, and detailed in response to the audience members question, we had to add additional time into our testing methodology to compensate for the hodgepodge of UX designs—a problem that's consistently plagued the open-source operating system spread across dozens of handset manufacturers and hundreds of wireless service provider networks

Scott Main, lead tech writer for developer.android.com, put together an informative blog post ("Say Goodbye to the Menu Button") on the need for streamline interfaces.

The post was published on Tim Bray's blog and has garnered attention for the more consistent and, one hopes, minimalistic approach to Android interfaces .

Now that Ice Cream Sandwich is gaining steam—and not just for its use of Apple HTTP Live Streaming, or HLS—Main writes that it's time to retire the overused fourth wheel, the Menu button catch-all that impacts so many pre 3.0 Android device interfaces.

"If I had to put this whole post into one sentence," wrote Main, "it’d be [this]: Set targetSdkVersion to 14 and, if you use the options menu, surface a few actions in the action bar with showAsAction="ifRoom"."

It's about time we moved Android UX to a consistent approach, and eliminating the fallback Menu button is a good first step...

Does Logitech Revue Android 3.1 Honeycomb update intentionally eliminate video playback options?

In a series of well-publicized comments last month, Logitech CEO ..., lambasted Google for providing "beta software" (his term for Google TV) for the Logitech Revue. The remarks were widely publicized as a condemnation of Google TV in general, and I was even swayed that way for a StreamingMedia.com article.

Yet when the Revue firmware update rolled out earlier this week, ostensibly supporting Google TV 2.0 (Android 3.1 or Honeycomb) on the Revue, it lacked some of the basic Google TV 2.0 video features that rival set-top box manufacturer Sony chose to include these codecs in its award-winning NSZ-GT1 (a Wi-Fi-enabled 1080p Blu-ray disc player featuring Google TV).

It appears Logitech may have no one to blame but themselves for the Revue sales fiasco. In research for a new StreamingMedia.com article about the Revue update, to be published later this week, I came across two interesting facts: first, there appeared to be frustration within Google with Logitech even before Google TV 2.0 was announced; and second it's now apparent that Logitech itself chose to eliminate some of the support video codecs and protocols from the Revue update.

What was the frustration that Google faced with Logitech? According to a blog poster a little over a month ago, at least one Googler expressed frustration with the fact that Logitech wasn't implementing the full Google TV 1.0 specification:


I spoke to a friend who works at Google last night. He said that even though Google TV may support a format, the Logitech Media Player is the gating factor and at least in 1.0, this has really sucked. . . . Here is the official Honeycomb/TV 2.0 format support. It's satisfyingly complete, but it remains to be seen how well the Logitech player does.

This isn't a validated claim, but reading through a few interview answers from a Google TV product manager, Larry Yang, in the days following the most recent Revue update, it's easy to infer that the same level of frustration is still below the surface.

So what did Logitech choose to eliminate from the Revue? Two major findings, as noted in a new StreamingMedia.com article reviewing the Revue update, are M2TS (MPEG-2 Transport Streams) and the MPEG-2 codec.

One could argue, I suppose, that it is logical that these were eliminated, as the Revue itself lacks of  DVD or Blu-ray player. Yet that falls short in two areas in my mind.

First, the lack of a DVD player means that many consumers may choose to play backup copies of their physical DVDs on a media player precisely like the Logitech Media Player on the Revue. To do so at original quality, though, they'd need to transfer their wedding or bar mitzvah or graduation DVDs using a non-intermediate codec and a container format that supports both.

Using a program like the one recommended by PC World, which copies either MPEG-2 or H.264 codec-based content bit-for-bit into the open-source Matroska (MKV) container format supported by Revue, the user should be able to view this backup content on the Revue at the same quality as the original DVD.

Yet, while this scenario works on the Sony  NSZ-GT1, it no longer works on the Revue, because Logitech doesn't allow MPEG-2 content to decode on the Revue.

Second, the ability to support popular MPEG-2 transport stream-based streaming delivery is another key reason for the Revue to support M2TS, .ts and the MPEG-2 codec. Anyone out there own both an iPod, iPad or iPhone AND a Logitech Revue? Thought so.

In an email interview with GTV Box Player creator, Alexander Kolychev, I learned that the original Google TV Honeycomb beta supported M2TS and Transport Streams and Primary Streams on the Revue, but that Logitech has chosen to "shut off" that support.

Read the portion of Alexander's interview where he fingers Logitech for turning off MPEG-2 and .ts support at StreamingMedia.com, but read on for a few more comments he'd made...


Q.  If I used the same GTV Box app on both the Sony and the Revue units that I have sitting here for testing, only the Sony would play a DVD turned into an MKV-based format file, correct? 


AK: Yes, the same app will react differently on the Logitech Revue or Sony NSZ-GT1.  If you watch  an MKV file [with H.264 codec-based content], it will play on both Logitech Revue and Sony NSZ-GT1, but... if you have MPEG2 video codec inside your MKV, you will have only sound, not video on Logitech. The Sony NSZ-GT1 will play it perfectly. 


The same is true if you try to play VOB or TS file: it will play on Sony, as the NSZ-GT1 has native support for M2TS, but it will fail completely on Logitech.

Q: Can you get any more information on why Logitech would eliminate the ability to use the MPEG-2 codec or primary / elementary streams (PS / TS)? It seems odd that they'd eliminate a key ability in Google TV as they try to "improve" the Logitech Media Player...

AK: Google's developers are having Hangout next week with some senior engineer of Google TV. I am going to ask them questions about all this things... 

[Update: while we've not received a statement from Logitech, it's interesting to note that Amazon is now selling refurbished Revue units at $79.99 with Prime shipping, pushing the unit to #22 in overall Amazon Electronics sales. It's not dead yet...]

DASH it all?

MPEG-DASH has been ratified by 24 national bodies, a topic covered in a recent StreamingMedia.com article and also at StreamingLearningCenter.com (run by Jan Ozer).

Now that we, as an industry, have reached a tentative agreement on how to handle adaptive streaming over HTTP through consistent parsing of manifest files (MPD or Media Presentation Description in MPEG DASH parlance) there's another question remaining: what's next?

The next two steps, as noted in both the Streaming Media article and our own white paper, is the acceptance of a common file format and a common encryption scheme (CENC).

Following ratification of CENC and adoption of the common file format, there's a huge need to deal with interoperable, DASH-compliant players. In fact, this element may be the biggest challenge of all—getting encoded content to consistently play back on every device or platform.

It's the same issue we faced during the two reports (1, 2) on Android handset and tablet video playback, where core services of Android didn't necessarily translate into consistent playback of RTSP or even YouTube videos on a variety of playback devices from the same handset manufacturer.

So Transitions is issuing a challenge, as part of our 2012 Q1 Best Workflows testing: bring us your DASH-compliant player, whether it's in beta or gold master, and we'll put it through its paces against other DASH-compliant players, using consistent fMP4 and M2TS content. Here's looking at you, Qualcomm, Ericsson and even Microsoft and Adobe...

The Laws Of Gravity Do Not Apply...

When the AT&T and T-Mobile USA merger was announced back in March 2011, the reaction was different between two rivals: Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint, declared it would be bad for competition, while the CEO of Verizon Wireless, Lowell McAdams, said it was inevitable.

McAdams went so far as to say, at an analyst meeting in September, that it would happen just like a particular force of nature always occurs. He spoke of it in the past tense, according to Boy Genius Report, as if it had already occurred:

“I have taken the position that the AT&T merger with T-Mobile was kind of like gravity. It had to occur."


Apparently the rules of gravity no longer apply, as AT&T last week withdrew its application to the FCC to merge with T-Mobile USA.

Is it a dead matter? Not yet. See this StreamingMedia.com article on the nature of the issues facing AT&T.

Why are fMP4 and MPEG-DASH so important?

Quote from a white paper Transitions just completed on fragmented MP4 (fMP4) and MPEG-DASH:

Proponents say that the Common File Format (CFF) and Common Encryption (CENC) scheme will represent two important steps toward large-scale online video distribution via adaptive delivery of fragmented elementary streams.


Since CFF can also be used outside of the bounds of UltraViolet, significant interoperability may also exist between UltraViolet disc-based playback and online video platforms, in much the same way that the DVD Forum’s published specifications for DVD playback guaranteed interoperability between DVD players. It’s not out of bounds to think of CFF as the DVD standard for the web.


To get a better understanding of the power of fragmented MP4, first look at the sidebar in the white paper on "combinatorial complexity" for which Netflix contributed a real-world example. Even without CFF and CENC, Netflix is proving the case that fMP4 scales much better than the HLS approach (with a far lower asset management impact).

The white paper has been several months in the making, starting first as separate concepts by two key companies in the streaming space: Adobe Systems and Microsoft Corporation. Each has their proprietary solutions, but both are committed to seeing fragmented MP4 (fMP4) offer a potentially viable alternative to legacy streaming solutions.

After several meetings, both companies chose to jointly work with Transitions to create a white paper noting the benefits of fMP4 and, to a slightly lesser extent, the potential benefits of MPEG-DASH (a proposed standardization of dynamic streaming over HTTP that I mentioned in a prior blog post).

Special thanks to Microsoft and Adobe for providing financial resources and access to subject-matter experts, who spent time expanding on key concepts and the ever-changing nature of fragmented MP4 and the MPEG-DASH ratification process.

The full white paper can be found here.

[Addition: Adobe and Microsoft have both published blog posts, outlining their support for fMP4 and mentioning reasons for working together: Adobe's Kevin Towes blog post  Microsoft's Chris Knowlton blog post]

Flashless for Mobile? Not Exactly

There's quite a bit of confusion about the impact of Adobe's decision (or what exactly the decision was) in regards to Flash Player of Mobile. Rightfully so, as the company didn't spell out its intent to its users at the same time it pushed out news to analysts during the 9 November analyst day briefing.

Besides the StreamingMedia.com article titled "Into (not so) thin AIR" (self-plug) there are two Adobe blog posts that may help explain where the company is going...or at least what it plans to still support:

Pritham Shetty's "Adobe Flash for Premium Video" blog post spells out what's in and what's out.

Mike Chambers's blog post, "Clarifications on Flash Player for Mobile Browsers, the Flash Platform and the Future of Flash" does a good job explaining the "why" of unsustainable growth in complexity Adobe faced in the wild-west atmosphere surrounding Android forking.

We conjectured, in the "thin AIR" article posted on StreamingMedia.com, that Android forking complexities could cause Adobe's costs to run rampant. It was helpful to get confirmation a few hours later, when Mike posted his Clarifications blog post, that Adobe had indeed seen this Great Wall of Android that it had to scale, and chosen a wiser path.