Top 100 Items from Top 100 Feeds

Rumors suggest Google is set to open scientific data store

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:50:00 +0000

In the process of helping scientists exchange large datasets, Google's been keeping a copy for itself. A rumor suggests that Google's ready to make that data available to the public.

Early Yahoo and Google (and Brian Lent)

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:48:40 +0000

Richard Brandt in his Stanford Magazine article from 2004 -- "Net Assets: How Stanford's computer science department changed the way we get information" -- describes how Brian Lent, PhD student at Stanford in the 1990s (and today CEO of Medio.com), kind of missed out on both the early Yahoo and the early Google... even when he was around both projects. First, Brian saw Yahoo come about: The first Stanford students to make a commercial success out of helping people find things on the Internet were David Filo and Jerry Yang, who started Ya ...

The UGC limb, day 2

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:29:47 +0000

Following up on yesterday's piece on UGC as a business model.

Lots of commenters, including John Furrier, who asked what I meant by: "We could and should be cutting more fair deals with the people who create the value on the net."

Here's what I meant...

We should be sharing more than kudos with the creative people and more than revenue too. That's the next bubble that bursts, imho, it'll soon be possible for people to set up their own server systems and route around the scams that get people to write stuff that's worth $100 and get paid $10 (and often $0).

It always works that way throughout history with technology. What's difficult and mysterious in 2002 is commodotized in 2008.

I think Amazon S3 and SimpleDB and EC2 etc point in that direction. Scalable apps are quickly becoming commodities. The priesthood of developers who can make scalable apps is about to burst into flames.

I've been around this loop too many times to not recognize it.

I could just have easily made this piece about any one of a number of different people who have set up boundaries that I'm not supposed to cross. I don't have any upside in not talking about them, other than some anonymous cowards will post comment spam here if I cross the lines. Big (expletive) deal, I say.

Now, what would be more fair deals?

1. First and foremost -- equity. If I'm going to pour my creativity into your business, I want the same upside you give a key engineer, or the massage guy or cook at Google. There's an invisible line that Silicon Valley hasn't figured out how to cross, yet. Some startup will figure it out, they'll give equity to their key users and community members, and their business will get all the good content.

2. Control of my own data. The clearest sign that a company thinks I'm a sharecropper and they're the bossman is that they won't let me move my data where I want it to go. If you give me the power, that doesn't mean I'll use it, btw. It might mean quite the opposite -- empowered to use my data in more meaningful ways, I might be happy to leave it where it is. Imagine if Fidelity wouldn't let you move money to Schwab. I don't imagine too many people would put their money there. Great writing and art work the same way.

Now what are the key trends to watch for?

1. As I said above, the key elements of scalable systems are being commoditized. It's amazing how many apps are migrating to S3. Why Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, to name just a few, aren't getting into this business is a mystery. It can't be much longer before one or more of them do.

2. The next step after that will be packaged applications that deploy through Amazon that you can buy for shrinkwrap prices. Yesterday I downloaded a Jabber server from Jive Software. Nice, but it would be so much nicer if, instead of installing as an app that runs on one of my machines, it deployed to run on one of Amazon's. If would take care of backing itself up, controllable through a web interface of course, to S3. Give me a small, simple desktop app that burns a DVD of my data, so I can have something local to put in the safe deposit box, guarding against the possibility that Amazon goes away or S3 loses data. This is so rational, we have to be going in this direction. When we do, it'll mean that the magic of the backroom scaling expert will become a commodity you can buy cheap. Another priesthood goes poof.

And here's the key point, all that will be left will be the creativity. The users won't need you. So you'd be better off investing in users instead of priests. Or hedge, and invest in both.

Apple store down: pink iPod nano and Canadian iPhone rumors swirl

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:27:00 +0000

Yup, it's down again... on a Tuesday... just hours before they announce their quarterly financials. We've been hearing about new pink iPod nanos all morning which have apparently been shipped to big box retail locations. Might we also see Penryn MacBook Pros and even a Canadian iPhone launch? What's that iPhone tab, pictured above, doing on the Canadian site anyway? Hang with us, we'll know shortly.

[Thanks, Adam H.]

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Pub/Bar Trick !!

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:20:12 +0000

Pub Trick. Here a great pub trick. You can use this pub trick to win bets. So with this pub trick you can get a lot of free beers. Remove the bill from underneath the bottle without touching the bottle. A really nice pub.

Physical Gesture Remote Control Concept is Like Playing Cards to Change Channels [Gadget]

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:13:08 +0000

This remote control design is inspired by a deck of playing cards, with two card-shaped halves that slide in different directions. By gripping it and sliding it up and down you can change your TV's volume, and a twisting gesture changes channels or tracks on your DVD. Designer Sungwoo Park has gone for clean white curves and minimalist control option, and I like its tactile slide design as an antidote for all the touchpad/screen action going on at the moment. [Yanko design]

Analysis: Sparks fly in most contentious debate

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:03:13 +0000

John Edwards threw his own punches but was unable to firmly position himself in the middle of the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama scrum. While that probably works to his advantage, the only clear winner in the Democratic slugfest is Republican John McCain.

Crocheted dinosaur skull

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:00:28 +0000

Nice find over on Etsy! -

Hand-crocheted 12 1/2" x 9" (at top of snout) dinosaur skull. This piece was made using 100 percent acrylic yarn, but was also covered with some acrylic paint and plaster to give a bone-like texture. The skull was then sprayed with some matte medium to ensure that the plaster would not crumble too much. Still, this is a fairly fragile piece and should be handled carefully. Makes a stunning display piece stand or no-stand.

Crocheted dinosaur skull - [via] Link.

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eBay's Whitman To Retire; Donahoe As Leading Candidate (Rafat Ali/paidContent.org)

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:55:12 +0000

eBay's Whitman To Retire; Donahoe As Leading Candidate — Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay (NSDQ: EBAY), is finally planning to retire, and John Donahoe, the president of the compan;s auction unit, is the leading candidate to succeed her, reports WSJ, citing sources.

Source: paidContent.org
Author: Rafat Ali
Link: http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-ebays-whitman-to…

Techmeme permalink

Proposal to extend Euro copyright, and to force ISPs to spy on customers dies! EPIC FAIL!

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:44:30 +0000

Yesterday, I blogged about the upcoming vote in the EU's CULT committee on a proposal to extend copyright for sound recordings for another 45 years, and to force ISPs to block sites that "infringe copyright," to spy on their customers to block suspicious traffic. Today I have good news -- thanks to your phone calls and emails to the right MEPs, the proposal was defeated! The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Danny O'Brien sez, Just got word from the European Parliament all three of the filtering/copyright extension amendments were defeated or withdrawn in the committee vote. We're still waiting on the official record, but if that's true, it's an amazing victory -- one was originally proposed by the original author of the report, Guy Bono himself, one was voted in by the powerful industry committee, and one was drafted by an EPP-ED member, the largest bloc in the parliament. We're sure copyright extension, ISP snooping, and any number of foolish policies will pop up again in the EU process or national governments: but together we'll kick them out every time. Link...

Microsoft Unveils Virtualization Strategy

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:28:00 +0000

billstewart writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft will be announcing a virtualization strategy on Tuesday. Of course there's plenty of focus on the competition with VMware, including the obligatory reference to Microsoft's entry into the browser wars prior to cutting off Netscape's air supply. The pieces of the picture will include: an alliance with Citrix Systems, owners of XenSource; acquisition of privately held Calista Technologies of San Jose, which has software that speeds up the performance of applications running in a virtualized environment; and lower price for Windows Vista used on virtualized computers. Microsoft also reversed its earlier position and will now allow the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista to run under virtualization. The company confirmed its plans to deliver its Hyper-V hypervisor within six months of the launch of Windows Server 2008 (betas available now), which is expected this quarter."

meatball sundae [part two]

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:23:43 +0000

Recently I did an interview of Seth Godin about his new book, "Meatball Sundae". As Seth described it:Meatballs are commodity products, built in a factory, advertised all over. Stuff we need. All the same. Average products for average people....

Freemium Models For Video Games -- Coming To Annoy At A PC Near You?

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:01:00 +0000

As we've noted before, Electronic Arts has already tested giving away games for free and selling virtual items to players for small fees. The business model works (in South Korea, at least) -- and EA's CEO is looking to expand this 'freemium' model to more and more games. According to the New York Times, EA CEO John Riccitiello is ramping up the strategy with the release of 'Battlefront Heroes' which will introduce ads and virtual goods to subsidize the free version of this online game. And Riccitiello is quoted, saying "I've always envied the movie industry when they put a film out in the cinema, then they go to retail with a different business model and then to pay television and then free TV. They have the same content reaching different audiences with different models, and we could never figure out a way to do that. Now with higher broadband penetration, we can use the technology to reach a broader audience."

Hopefully, Riccitiello isn't too envious of the movie industry, and EA has a longer term view for the future of its game production. An easy trap to fall into would be for EA to try to charge for every little thing, hindering the enjoyment of video games with annoying reminders to buy virtual ammo. On the other hand, EA could remember to treat gamers well and charge for its games in way that keeps players happy -- but if 40% margins are the goal, the temptation to squeeze gamers for every microtransaction may prevent EA from playing nicely.

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Microsoft in new e-government push

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:15:00 +0000

At its Government Leaders Forum in Berlin, the company touts tools to help municipalities provide citizen services online.

Yahoo, Please Put Up A Fight

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:00:50 +0000

Yahoo can become the jewel of Web 3.0. It already has strong, or at the very least interesting positions in numerous verticals. But it needs more of them, and it needs to thoroughly monetize them.

Reinventing the Clipboard

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:59:59 +0000

Over time, I've become something of a desktop mimimalist. Sure, I'll change a few settings to my liking, but I no longer spend a lot of time customizing my desktop configuration. I've learned that if the defaults aren't reasonably close to correct out of the box, then the software is probably doomed anyway. For most users the default settings are the only settings.

One of the things I always have to change, much to my chagrin, is the default clipboard behavior. I originally wrote about this in 2005:

In this era of 3 GHz processors, 1 GB memory, and 500 GB hard drives, why is the Windows clipboard only capable of holding a single item? Sure, you have fancy multi-level undo and redo in applications like Microsoft Word and Visual Studio. But not the clipboard. It holds exactly one item. Copy another item to the clipboard and your previous clipboard item is irrevocably lost.

The only improvement since then, sadly, is in the PC specifications. Three years later, we're stuck with the same old single-item clipboard model. The clipboard isn't some obscure operating system feature, either. People use it all the time. There's actually hard data to back this up, at least for Word 2003:

Top 5 Most-Used Commands in Microsoft Word 2003

Paste
Save
Copy
Undo
Bold

Together, these five commands account for around 32% of the total command use in Word 2003. Paste itself accounts for more than 11% of all commands used, and has more than twice as much usage as the #2 entry on the list, Save.

Granted, we're talking about a word processing program here, but we live in a copypasta culture. I find that even when I'm not writing, per se, I rely on my clipboard throughout the day. The clipboard is so important that Walter Mossberg specifically mentioned it as a negative in his iPhone review:

There's also no way to cut, copy, or paste text.

This is on a phone, mind you. I'm totally with Walt on this one; it applies to all smartphones. I was surprised how quickly I ran into situations where I wanted to copy and paste something on my Windows Mobile phone, but I couldn't figure out how to. It's not a crippling limitation, but it does illustrate how fundamental the clipboard is, even for the smallest of computers.

It always seemed strange to me that applications had to implement their own oddball per-app clipboard queues to spackle over deficiencies in the operating system's braindead "I can only remember one thing at a time" clipboard implementation. We've long since left the days of applications writing their own quirky little file open dialog behind, but it's somehow OK to implement your own wacky clipboard behaviors in Visual Studio, or Office?

If, like me, you'd prefer operating system level improvements in the clipboard, there are quite a few options out there. I've been quite happy with ClipX. After installing this lightweight little app, instead of pressing

Ctrl + V

to paste a single item, you can opt to press

Ctrl + Shift + V

whereupon you're presented with a menu of recent clipboard items, in a nice visual menu browser format:

Your clipboard history is dynamically saved to disk and will survive a reboot, so you can begin to rely on your clipboard as a sort of quick and dirty digital scrapbook. Isn't that how it should have been all along?

I've become terribly reliant on this improved clipboard behavior, so I always install ClipX on any machine I'm working on. It has some additional default clipboard functions that I've also found quite useful:

Ctrl + Shift + G

perform a Google search using the contents of the clipboard.

Ctrl + Shift + N

open a browser and navigate to the address in the clipboard.

It doesn't matter whether you specifically choose ClipX. It's these three key improvements in the operating system clipboard that I think are important:

history
persistence
visual browser

It's a mystery to me why none of the major operating systems have bothered improving the clipboard. It seems entirely possible to add these enhancements without breaking the simple clipboard paradigms that have been around since the days of Xerox PARC.

Ebay’s Meg Whitman to Step Down After a Decade as CEO

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:27:10 +0000

It is not just Yahoo that is going through some rough times. After a decade at the helm, eBay CEO Meg Whitman is preparing to retire, reports the WSJ (subscr. req.). John Donahue, the president of eBay Marketplace, who was trotted out on a press tour about a month ago, is said to be [...]

Greg Brady Launches Network on MyLifeBrand

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:06:09 +0000

The Brady Bunch was arguably one of the most popular shows, pretty much of all time. While you’ll currently find more reruns of the Fresh Prince on Nick at Nite than The Brady Bunch, the show from the 1970s is a staple in our culture. Thanks to VH1, childhood stars from the show [...]

Monocle 1.5

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:46:22 +0000

waffle software released Monocle 1.5, a search engine launcher: “As you type, suggestions and preliminary results (both from Google) appear in a list right below, so that you can hone your query or go right to a result and cut out the results page.” Cool app. (We’ve been using betas. It’s donationware.)

At least he won’t have to eat that too

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:48:57 +0000

Here’s the last paragraph of a story about a trapped man who survived by eating rotting animals and blowing a whistle at wolves and coyotes: A hospital official said Mr Hildebrand’s injuries were not life-threatening, but the newspaper, quoting an Emergency Medical Services official, said one leg that was pinned might have to be amputated. Via Guy [...]

Mac OS X 10.5.2: Optional Translucent Menubar, DVD/CD Sharing

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:48:30 +0000

Some screenshots of the new features found in the Mac OS X 10.5.2 seed have been detailed by BabyGotMac.com. Amongst the new features:

- Transparency in the menu bar is now optional and can be set in Desktop Preferences:

What’s the best NAS right now?

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:34:57 +0000

As I mentioned earlier, my current network-attached storage (NAS) box took a hit in a power outage. This is what it looked like after I took it apart to swap in a new hard drive. So I’m looking for a new NAS. Price isn’t really a concern at all, but here’s stuff that I require: Ability to [...]

Look, I Was Just Three Weeks Late...Ebay's Whitman to Retire

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:27:49 +0000

Remember my predictions last year? Remember when I said this?: 6. eBay will have a major change in executive leadership. This feels overdue. Well, I was wrong, it didn't happen in 2007. But, it is happening three weeks into 2008: TECHNOLOGY ALERT from The Wall Street Journal. Jan. 22,...

Hundreds of Layoffs Expected at Yahoo

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:21:17 +0000

Yahoo plans to lay off hundreds of employees to increase profitability, prop up its deflated stock price and focus on a smaller number of key areas, people close to the company said.

Olympus SP-570 UZ

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:02:00 +0000

Pre-PMA 2008: Olympus has today announced its 20x zoom SP-570 UZ as a replacement for the SP-560 UZ and by doing so reconquered the sole number one spot in the race for the longest superzoom lens on a compact camera. The lens has 'grown' at both ends and is now covering the astounding range of 26-520mm (35mm equivalent). Inevitably there has also been an increase in resolution, from 8 to 10M

We7: Getting Closer to a Workable Model for Free Music Downloads

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:01:29 +0000

The music industry is in desperate need of new models and an interesting one got some financial support today. We7 announced today that it's raised $6 million from Peter Gabriel and Spark Ventures.

The UK site offers DRM-free MP3 downloads with super-short ads preceding each song - for the first 4 weeks after download. Once a month you can select 20 tracks to remove the ad clips from, any additional ad removal will cost 20 pence (about 39 cents) per song.

I find this model just fascinating and apparently a fair number of other people do too. The company says it's seen 1 million downloads from more than 100k users. Right now, there's nothing much on the site unless you're a fan of "unsigned" rockers from the EU and older recordings (like decades old) from US stars. There aren't even any Peter Gabriel songs! That's ok, the model is worth a close look and the recent infusion of cash will likely be spent on licensing major label music more than on anything else.

Downloads are easy, right now all the songs I listened to had We7 promos instead of commercial ads. It's a solid little site - but what we're looking for in any music acquisition experience is the shortest path from discovery to rock.

Too complicated

So again, here's how the routine works: you either pay for songs or download them for free, with free downloads having a short ad before each song - for the first 4 weeks after download. After 4 weeks you can select 20 songs (presumably that you got a month ago) to remove ads for for free - and any other songs you want to remove ads from will cost you 20 pence (about 39 cents).

I gave We7 the girlfriend test - my girlfriend is very smart but she does not get as excited about tech for its own sake as I do. She said, and I think many people will likely agree, that this model is too complicated. Also, though it's not technically feasible with truly portable music, an ad played every 5 to 10 tracks would also be much more acceptable for consumers than an ad between every song. That's something that a whole lot of people are going to reject, violently. In other words, this is still too intrusive. In our house we listen to Pandora, we buy DRM-free tracks from Amazon MP3 and we find MP3 files shooting out the behinds of angels (but I swear we do pay out the nose for concert tickets!).Though interest was piqued by We7 - it's not enough to make us change our current habits.

None the less, this kicks the snot out of Spiral Frog - a company burning through money with a plan to require users to view advertisements in order to listen to DRM laden major label music. There's ads everywhere, account creation is required and the whole thing feels insulting and burdonsome to me. We7 isn't entirely different, but it's certainly trying.

Somebody, someday, is going to find a good way to make money on music again - even though the internet is wild and free. For now, the Peter Gabriel-backed video project Witness is still far cooler.

Compatibility and IE8

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:01:00 +0000

In Dean’s recent Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone post, he highlighted our responsibility to deliver both interoperability (web pages working well across different browsers) and backwards compatibility (web pages working well across different versions of IE). We need to do both, so that IE8 continues to work with the billions of pages on the web today that already work in IE6 and IE7 but also makes the development of the next billion pages (in an interoperable way) much easier. Continuing Dean’s theme, I’d like to talk about some steps we are taking in IE8 to achieve these goals.

I’ve been on the IE team for over a decade, and I’ve seen us apply the “Don’t Break the Web” rule in six different major versions of IE in different ways. In IE 6, we used the DOCTYPE switch to enable different “modes” of behavior to protect compatibility. When we released IE 6 in 2001, very few pages on the web were in “standards mode” (my team ran a report on the top 200 web sites at the time that reported less than 1%) – few people knew what a DOCTYPE was, and few tools generated them. We used the DOCTYPE switch in IE6 to change the box model to comply with the standards and enable developers to opt-in to the new behavior. We’d already seen so much content written to IE5.x’s non-standard interpretation of the CSS2 spec that we couldn’t change it without causing a slew of problems.

In IE7 we made a lot more changes to improve IE’s standards compliance, particularly with CSS. We limited these behavior changes to IE’s “standards mode” only, and we expected that this would help limit compatibility problems as it had in the past. Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly to us, this wasn’t true; many of those changes made IE incompatible with content that was already part of the web. It turned out by the time IE7 shipped in late 2006, roughly half of the top 200 US web sites were in “standards mode”. Many of those sites had been “opted in” to standards mode by a tool that generated their content; many of them had probably been hand-coded by someone who was trying to do the right thing, and make their HTML code valid according to the W3C. Regardless, users of those sites expected them to keep working the same, even when they downloaded a new version of IE. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

But wait, a lot of people say at this point, why isn’t this a problem for Firefox, or Safari, or any other browser? The answer is that developers of many sites had worked around many of the shortcomings or outright errors in IE6, and now expected IE7 to work just like IE6. Web developers expected us, for example, to maintain our model for how content overflows its box, even in “standards mode,” even though it didn’t follow the specification – because they’d already made their content work with our model. In many cases, these sites would have worked better if they had served IE7 the same content and stylesheets they were serving when visited with a non-IE browser, but they had “fixed their content” for IE. Sites didn’t work, and users experienced problems.

In short, there was an expectation that even under standards mode, IE would keep working the same way. Because sites expected IE6 behavior, the DOCTYPE switch failed to protect compatibility in the real world when we changed behavior under standards mode to become more compliant. We realized that “Don’t Break the Web” should really be translated to “Don’t change what developers expect IE to do for current pages that are already deployed.” (Of course, for content that is developed to a later standard that isn’t deployed yet, you can expect different things.)

With this painful and unexpected lesson under our belt, we worked together with The Web Standards Project (in the WaSP-Microsoft Task Force) on this problem. I can’t give them enough credit for this work; it’s tough to step into the shoes of a browser vendor that ships to half a billion users to figure out what the best thing to do is, when you really just want to sit down and write code to the standards. We started from a simple statement of “enable (and encourage) interoperable web development, but don’t force IE to break pages that work properly in IE today.” I think we all want to converge to a world where a web developer doesn’t have to spend much time at all testing and recoding their site for different browsers. At the same time, we can’t break the web experience on current sites for users like my mom, even for as good a reason as improving standards compliance. With all the great styling and layout changes we’re working on in our new engine for IE8 to be much more standards compliant, that’s a lot of potential breakage. (More details in the near future, but the Acid2 announcement gives you some idea.)

We realized that the model for web development was really “write to the standard, then test against and fix problems in the most popular browsers.” This meant that the web developer had one crucial piece of information we could make use of – what version of IE they had tested against, and after much discussion in the WaSP-MS task force, we ended up with a -based “opt-in to the browser version I tested with” strategy.

Aaron Gustafson, one of the members of the WaSP-Microsoft Task Force wrote an article detailing where we ended up that was posted on A List Apart today; I highly recommend reading it for a different perspective. I’ll summarize, though, that:

“Quirks mode” remains the same, and compatible with current content.
“Standards mode” remains the same as IE7, and compatible with current content.
If you (the page developer) really want the best standards support IE8 can give, you can get it by inserting a simple element. Aaron gives more details on this in his article.

We believe this approach has the best blend of allowing web developers to easily write code to interoperable web standards while not causing compatibility problems with current content. We also think this approach allows developers to opt in to standards behavior on their own schedule and as it makes sense to them, instead of forcing developers into a responsive mode when a new version of IE has different behavior on their current pages. I’m excited by all the standards work we’re doing in IE8; I’m even more excited that we won’t cause a lot of compatibility problems for our users and web developers.

Chris Wilson
IE Platform Architect

Comic for 22 Jan 2008

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:01:00 +0000

iGoogle’s New Themes API

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:03:37 +0000

If you've ever wanted to create your own custom iGoogle theme, there's now an API from Google that will let you do it.

Just How Much Greenhouse Gas Is Released When a Cow Burps?

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:45:00 +0000

A Swedish university will investigate how much methane a cow releases when it belches. Methane, a greenhouse gas believed to contribute to global warming, will be measured in the air around the cows in the study by special collars.

Behold the 24th Anniversary Mac

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:30:00 +0000

Filed under: Hardware, Mods, Mac mini

Forget the TAM. I want this thing.

David Clausen decided to celebrate the Mac's longevity by making something special. So, he gutted the case of a 512K Mac (the case is in great shape, by the way), then inserted the workings of a Mac mini and a grayscale monitor. Add to that a LS-120 floppy disk drive and a custom-built USB microcontroller (to use the original mouse and keyboard), and you've got one badass compact Mac. For more detail, check out the Flickr Set.

All because he wanted to "...experiment with creating a custom USB device." That's one heck of a device. Hey Dave, if you decide to sell these, let me know.

[Via Adam Tow]

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Pownce goes live

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:45:00 +0000

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services, VoIP, Social Software

As of 12 AM PST, Pownce, the Twitter-esque social messaging tool created by Kevin Rose, Daniel Burka and Leah Culver, leaves private beta and becomes open to the public. Pownce became open to a limited group of users in June of 2007 and has thus far amassed 150,000 users.

Although the developer has repeatedly claimed that Pownce is "not a Twitter clone," it is hard to look at the two services and not see the similarities. Both offer a way to send a message to a large group of people at the same time and have similar friend/follower structures.

The differences are that while Twitter can be highly integrated with mobile devices and SMS messaging, Pownce can only be used from the web site or the Adobe AIR client. However, Pownce allows user the ability to share files (up to 10 MB for free users, 100 MB for Premium users), invitations and set-up personalized groups. When Pownce goes live, it will also make it easy to import friends from services like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

Pownce's Main Messaging Page

Several of us here at DownloadSquad have been playing with Pownce on and off for quite some time, and while we think the service show considerable promise, Twitter still has our heart. The inability to use Pownce from an IM client or SMS outweigh the benefits of being able to share a file (we prefer e-mail or a link to a service like box.net anyway) or send out a group invitation. We do like the grouping feature and really wish that Twitter would implement somethign similar.

In the end, for us, it will all come down to what service our friends are using. As of right now, all of our friends are on Twitter; however, now that Pownce is open to the public, that could change. Check out Pownce and tell us what you think.

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Sanyo offloads cell phone arm to Kyocera, but brand will survive

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:54:21 +0000

You'll still be able to get a cell phone with Sanyo's name on it, if that's what you want. But now, the troubled Japanese electronics manufacturer will be selling its mobile phone business to Kyocera for around $374 million.

This happened while Choire was minding the store so apologies if...

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:50:08 +0000

This happened while Choire was minding the store so apologies if you've seen it already, but Flickr's new Commons program is quite interesting. For a start, the Library of Congress has put 1500 photos with "no known copyright restrictions" up on Flickr for people to tag and annotate. The LoC's extensive online image repository has always been exceedingly difficult to use so making images available on the easy-to-use Flickr is a great step forward. The response so far has been pretty good.

(link)

Lifehacker's Exclusive Line of Productivity Software [Lifehacker Code]

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:02:55 +0000

Not only do the editors here at Lifehacker feed your head with a feast of posts every day, every once in awhile we put our programming chops to good use and build custom software for our readers. If you've missed any of the Lifehacker Code line of applications, scripts, and plug-ins, here's your chance to get caught up.

All of the Lifehacker Code projects listed below are free to download, and they're licensed under the GNU Public License with source available, so we invite you to use, modify, and enhance to your heart's content.

Windows Applications

Texter (text substitution)
Save countless keystrokes by automatically replacing abbreviations with commonly used phrases you define, like email signatures and common acronyms.

Swept Away (automatic window minimizer)
A simple system tray utility that automatically minimizes applications that you aren't using.

ClickWhen (timed mouse clicks)
Set up an automated mouse click to run on a window after a user-defined period of time.

Rocker (navigation utility)
A mouse navigation tool that lets you perform common tasks, like moving forward and backward in your browser, by simply rocking your fingers across your left and right mouse buttons.

Dropcloth (desktop background)
Instantly blank out your desktop and all of your running apps with Dropcloth, a Windows copy of previously mentioned Mac-only app Backdrop.

Belvedere (rules-based file processor)
Automatically runs user-defined actions on folders and files (like deleting files X weeks old from your Downloads folder.)

Firefox Extensions

Better Gmail
Enhance Gmail with some of the best available Greasemonkey scripts which add over 30 additional features like keyboard shortcuts, saved searches, secure access, conversation previews, attachment icons and more. Translated into over 25 languages.

Better Gmail 2
Enhance Gmail's new interface with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available, which add keyboard shortcuts, secure access, attachment icons and more.

Better GCal
Enhances Google Calendar with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available in a single interface.

Better GReader
Enhances Google Reader with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available in a single interface.

Better Flickr
Enhances Flickr with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available in a single interface.

Better YouTube
Enhances YouTube with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts for YouTube available in a single interface.

About This Site Bookmarks (dynamic, page-based bookmarks)
Quick access meta lookups about the web page you're viewing. (Featured in PC Magazine)

Command Line Tools

Todo.sh (shell script to-do list manager)
Manage that todo.txt file sitting on your desktop with a simple shell script that makes adding, prioritizing, editing, and marking tasks as complete simple from the command line.

Typeroom

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:35:00 +0000

Typeroom is a web content management suite focused on simplicity of use and innovative ways to solve common content management problems. [Private Beta]

Embedding apps in wifi finders

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:46:00 +0000

Filed under: misc hacks

[Matt] sent in this excellent wifi finder reverse engineering project. The goal is to enable custom embedded apps that take advantage of the independent operating mode of the wireless adapter. One of the chips lacked any useful manufacturer markings, so he got some guys at a lab to etch the top of the chip off and get a partial chip id. So far he's got boot-loader access, so now it's just a matter of some development.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

"No Links Please" drains HREFs, discourages web fiddling

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:11:35 +0000

James Clarke – No Links Please!

Here’s a fun one. Our old pal (and the coiner of “life hacks”), Danny O’Brien, passes along an extreme attention aid that might be regarded as the heir apparent to his wonderful “Webolodeon” script for GreaseMonkey.

No Links Please will do its part to keep you from mindlessly surfing the web:

No Links Please! breaks the web by removing hyperlinks from all pages apart from Google. Without the knowledge or temptation of links you are free to devote all your time to real work and never roam the web again.

Oh, man, what a crazy way to be forced to see the web. But, if you’re “that guy” today and can’t stop dicking around on the web, this is much less dramatic than having to shut off the router. Try it, for fun; it’s amazing how ingrained our clicky-linky behavior is.

Pitching a VC -- The Basics Revisited

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:43:46 +0000

When I first started writing VentureBlog, I used to talk a lot about entrepreneurship. At the time, not a lot had been written about pitching VCs or the Venture Capital process, so there was lots of virgin territory. Since that time, dozens of VCs have started blogging and much has been said about what it takes to get a VC down the isle. Bits and pieces here and there -- a good Google archeologist can pull it all together. But having spent the week pontificating about PowerPoint and the likes, I've decided to take one more swing through the basics of pitching a VC.

As I thought about the process of pitching a business, it struck me that no matter what the stage, the information was essentially the same. A good elevator pitch contains the same content as a good executive summary contains the same content as a good PowerPoint contains the same content as a good business plan. The distinction among these business descriptions is not the substance, it is the degree to which the essential elements are fleshed out. Each document contains slightly more detail than the preceding.

Elevator Pitch --> Executive Summary --> PowerPoint --> Business Plan

This makes good intuitive sense. There is no reason that the things that are most compelling about your business would change based upon the nature of the business description. Nor would an investor be interested in different things by virtue of the form that description takes.

What, then, are the essential elements that make up a good PowerPoint, a persuasive elevator pitch, a compelling executive summary? I have no doubt that VCs will differ somewhat on the precise list, as well as the order and the emphasis. But at its core, I believe that a successful business description should include the following elements:

1. Introduction
2. Team
3. Product
4. Market
5. Business Model
6. Competition
7. Financials
8. Conclusion

If you are pitching a VC, start with these 8 slides. If you are writing an executive summary, start with these 8 headings.

Obviously some businesses will require additional information that is outside the scope of these basics. I am not suggesting for a second that you should always pigeonhole your business into these categories alone. But they are a great starting point from which to build a persuasive description of your business.

ACME Workhorse Bags

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:33:07 +0000

These reusable nylon bags are about the size of a plastic grocery bag, but are stronger, can hold a lot, and they pack into a self-contained pouch attached to the bag. They become very small when collapsed/packed and are very lightweight (1.5 oz). It takes me around five seconds, to stuff one back into its pouch (I think I've even done it in two). I find I can easily keep three ACME's in my not-huge handbag so I don't have to remember them; a lot of my shopping is done walking, so the car isn't the best place for them. I use them multiple times per day because of their convenient size and weight. Unlike the reusable shopping bags sold at grocery stores, these don't have a logo emblazoned on them, so I feel comfortable bringing them into any store. They're cheaper than similar bags of this nature I've seen. They also come in subdued colors -- I have three in black (I originally ordered four, but my boyfriend nabbed one as soon as he saw them! I also just ordered four more in a different color). Before purchasing I was concerned that they don't have a flat bottom -- I thought they might spill all over when I do throw them in my car. Turned out not to be a problem, because it's very easy to knot and unknot the handles. Because ACME's handles are part of the body of the bag, there are no seams to get stressed by the load. I definitely haven't maxed mine out, but ACME advertises it can hold up to 25lbs. I've mainly put things like a gallon of milk, plus other stuff - definitely things I would have doubled up a regular plastic bag for.

I save about 3-4 plastic bags or 2-3 paper bags each trip to the grocery, about 12 plastic bags per week, not counting all the other non-grocery places I pick up additional bags. I used to have a few of the Whole Foods-style reusable bags, but don't use them at all now. The ACME bags are far more portable. Helping the environment feels good, and I find the concept of reusable/self-contained things to be elegant, but the main reason I am so happy with the ACME bags is how much they've reduced the clutter in my life. I have a tendency to carry a lot of "junk" from place to place--home to car, work, and even within my house--and then I end up with large numbers of bags hanging around the house/car/work. Having only three ACME bags in use at once forces me to empty them immediately so I can use them again. And then I don't have to wonder what to do with the plastic bags I get from the store.

-- Maria Blees

ACME Workhorse Bag
$8
Available from ReusableBags.com

Or $24, buy 3/get 1 free from ReusableBags.com

Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:

Gossamer Whisper Uberlight Pack

Ikea Tote Bag

Grocery Bag Panniers

Thailand’s AIS Negotiating with Apple for iPhone

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:22:45 +0000

Thailand’s Advanced Info Service (AIS) announced today that it is negotiating with Apple for the right to carry the iPhone on its network. Apple plans to expand the iPhone franchise to Asian countries this year. The popular handset is currently available in the United States and large European countries. “We are negotiating on details, including a [...]

Designing packaging for an album (a.k.a. how to build a troubadour)

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:12:00 +0000

So when I was approached by local Chicago entrepreneur and folk-rocker Al Rose about designing packaging for his upcoming album “My First Posthumous Release” I happily jumped on board. Having free creative reign on a project is always an interesting challenge. Before I could even start brainstorming, however, Al emailed me to say he loved an image I’d posted called Devil’s Own Day which was part of a continuing series of things that were a side effect of watching Ken Burns’ Civil War series too much. But with that, I had a path to pursue.

First thing, I had to find a different model. For my own obsessive reasons I couldn’t directly use my Sherman images, and I didn’t think he worked for what I wanted here anyway, so I went to my favorite source of quality Civil War imagery, Wikipedia, and poked around. Found some candidates but ultimately settled on fallen hero of Gettysburg, General John F. Reynolds. It was really the epaulets that did it.

I ran my selection by Al and he had some suggestions about the image. First he wanted to lose the cavalry saber and he didn’t like the hat. He wanted to avoid the image looking too overtly military, but happily I was able to sell him on the epaulets, too. So I went back to the internet for some hat research, and dug up a lot of shots of marching band attire on Google image search. Also via the Google, I found an image – high resolution, no less – of the exact Martin acoustic guitar Al plays. Maybe I’m too lazy, but I can’t imagine the amount of library digging and so forth finding all this source material would have required. And that is why we love the internet. So, I took all of these elements and a photo I shot of Al and quickly cobbled them together into a collage for approval.

Which approval I got. So then, I started drawing over top of the collage in Photoshop with on my tablet to try and turn it into a single image. I considered — briefly — keeping it all photographic and trying to turn it into a unified antique photo, but I didn’t think the quality of all my source material was up to snuff for that and also it wouldn’t have been the effect I really wanted. So the drawing. Unlike the “Devil’s Own Day” I used a fairly fine brush so I could do lots of hatching and build up and at simulate however faintly a period etching. It made the process quite a bit longer but I think the ultimate effect was worth it. Also, making the whole image as a drawing made things like changing the plume on the hat and making the guitar fit in much simpler.

Then: color. I kept the colors brighter than I actually wanted them in anticipation of the aging process later. Also I kept them fairly flat as they might be on an hand-colored etching.

One element was still missing, that being the sacred heart. Here I got to incorporate one small item of existing branding by taking the red spade from Al’s current web site, turning it over, roughing it up a bit, adding some assorted filigree and setting it on fire.

Late in the game I decided against using the dark, blank background used in the General Reynolds photo. I felt like it worked as background for a photo, but would make the drawing feel half-finished. So, once again the internet — in the form of Shorpy the 100-Year-Old photo blog — came to the rescue with the perfect image. With some more drawing and and some more coloring, everything came together…

...and became this. Not too military, not too Sgt. Pepper. I kind of like it. It’s good enough to let me move on to working on the frame, anyway.

The original frame I settled on came from the unstoppable iStockPhoto. But the unavoidable fact was that I still had to add text to this ornate frame which was going to lead to problems.

Like so. It’s not horrible exactly, but I could see that no amount of Photoshop massaaging was going to free the image of the unwanted sheen of fakery. So I decided on a different approach.

Mucking around with the channels on the above image I pulled out shadows, midtones and highlights and filled them in different layers with different shades taken from the original. Well, there was a little more to it than that, but that’s the basic idea. then I broke up these layers with a sketchy, streaky vertical mask to antique and grungify the image. The result is a less literal-looking object than the original stock photo, but something that I hope feels like an antique in a more authentic way.

So then the drawing required its own antique-ing: some layers of crumpling, some hue-shifting, stains and scratches. And with that, the transformation from 21st century singer/songwriter to post-bellum troubadour is complete:

If College-Themed Porn Were Real

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:17:34 +0000

Written by jake christie Situation One: The Naughty StudentCindi, an attractive student with a large rack, walks up to the desk of her professor.Porn:Cindi: Is there anything I can do to raise this grade?Professor: Some students do extra credit work.Cindi: (has sex with him)Reality:Cindi: Is there anything I can do to raise this grade?Professor: Some students [...]

$100 Hamburger at Merced and Air to Air Pictures

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:15:56 +0000

On Friday I got email from a few other pilots suggesting various fly-in ideas for the weekend. After thinking about it a bit, we opted to join Chris and a few others for a late morning flight to Merced Airport for the proverbial $100 hamburger.

If you're not familiar with the expression, Wikipedia captures it well:

A $100 Hamburger is aviation slang for a private general aviation flight for the sole purpose of dining at a non-local airport. Most often used by pilots who are looking for any excuse to fly, a $100 hamburger trip usually involves flying a short distance (less than two hours), eating at an airport restaurant, and flying home. "$100" originally referred to the approximate cost of renting or operating a light general aviation aircraft, such as a Cessna 172, for the time it took to fly round-trip to a nearby airport. Increasing fuel prices have since caused an increase in hourly operating costs for most airplanes, whether rented or owned.

So, anyway, Kathleen and I headed to Reid-Hillview airport on Saturday morning to get the Citabria ready for the adventure. While there we met Chris and his brother Michael who were flying their new [to them] Citabria 7GBCB (N8643V). Also joining us was Ryan, flying his Cessna 150 from Auburn, and Curtis flying his Cub along with someone whose name I've forgotten.

After getting the airplane ready and briefing the plan, we departed Reid-Hillview and headed down toward Hollister where the Cub had already departed.

As we headed past the Coyote Reservoir and toward Pacheco Pass, Chris began to catch up with us and we began the formation flying and air to air photography.

We got some good shots with the San Luis Reservoir in the background too.

After several minutes of that, Chris took the lead and shot some pictures of us. They're not on-line yet but check his web site (StickAndRudderPhoto.com) or Flickr photostream to see if they appear.

Then it was time to head in for landing at Merced...

Before long, we were tied down and ready to meet up with the others...

We all parked in a row and headed over to the Hangar Cafe for lunch. True to cliche, most of us ordered the burger. :-)

After lunch we spent some time checking out each other's airplanes before heading out. Most of the group headed toward a fly-in at the Tracy airport, but we opted for most sight seeing.

We headed out toward Pine Mountain Lake for a look around and a low pass.

On downwind...

Setting up for the low pass...

And then off toward Yosemite National Park for a look at Half Dome.

First, we saw some very blue lakes with the snow-capped mountains in the background.

Then we flew up the Yosemite Valley...

And then got some good looks at Half Dome.

First from one side...

And then the back side...

Once that was done, it was time to head back home to San Jose.

We had to cross the hazy Central Valley...

And then flew over Pacheco Pass...

Before flying over Silver Creek...

On our approach to Reid-Hillview, including the Eastridge Mall...

All in all it was a fun day of flying.

Ryan, the Cessna 150 pilots, posted his pictures here. Chris sent me a bunch of the pictures he shot of our airplane, but I haven't posted them anywhere (yet?).

I have more pictures of the flight on Flickr.

(comments)

Off to Davos…

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:10:18 +0000

You might have noticed that I’ve slowed down my posting here. That’s cause I crammed a lot of family time into the past week. Gonna be away in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum. Traveling today. I expect I’ll get lots of video up on Qik on my Qik channel. I also have a [...]

Best of the Sidebar: Yee-hawtf!

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:59:00 +0000

Originally posted by "jgoewert" ...

While everyone else was partying like it was 1999, I spent the night in my company's war room braced for any Y2K issues. Being naive, right out of college I took a job at a major railroad company doing green screen work. The mainframe was ready. The minutes ticked by. At 12:00:00, everything sat pretty with no major problems. A collective sigh eminated.

12 minutes later, the red phone rang. A nightly script had crapped itself with the error "Date out of Range". Programmers scambled and midnight phone calls were made. Systems were analyzed to see if anything else had died and just didn't report.

7 minutes later, it turned out that there was this one field in the code for the script that failed that needed to be updated yearly to say what year it was. (WTF? Anyone heard of getDate() or the COBOL equivalient)?) It was permanently fixed and calm settled again.

3 minutes later, the red phone rings again. This time, it was much worse. The entire Dallas, TX yard had lost power. Obviously, this wasn't a coding problem on our end, but our war room was the only phone number for support that was written down. Still, we started backtracking and tried to grab the sessions that the Dallas yard was running so that nothing was lost. Everything in that yard halted. Managers nervously watched the news to see if Dallas as a whole had lost power or if some nuclear facility was about to blow.

Nothing was reported.... we worked and waited....

Two hours later, we got the news. Some trigger happy Texan decieded to celebrate in the new year by firing off his 6 shooter and accidentally blew a hole in the power transformer that linked to the train yard. Yee-hawtf?.

Other than that, Y2K was uneventful. I wouldn't report it as a "dud" that the media called it because many qualified programmers, engineers, and other profesionals had worked tirelessly to prepare systems for Y2K and the "dud" was a testament to the quality of their work.

A conversation with Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg about Many Eyes

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:05:16 +0000

For this week’s ITConversations podcast I spoke with Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg about Many Eyes, a project at the forefront of a new category called social data visualization. I was particularly interested to hear about how civic or political argumentation, which tends to devolve into posturing — especially online — might improve when it’s [...]

How to be a Good Software Programmer

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:16:54 +0000

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I programmed a dog into this live video feed. Can you find him? Go ahead… I’ll give you a couple of seconds to look for him. I have a top five list submitted by Raleigh, full of tips to help you become a good Programmer.

Save your code often! You know what it’s like to be working on something only to have the power go out. Imagine losing several hours’ worth of code.
Back up your code. This is pretty much the same reason as #1. I backup every night after a day of coding, just as an extra layer of protection.
Write proper comments everywhere. Comments are very important. These are useful. WHat if you don’t look at the code for a year? These comments will be helpful later.
Keep your code clean. Separate your code into chunks, and use line breaks where you can.
Test your code often. Whenever you have made a simple part of code, test it. WHy wait until you’ve written four hundred lines of code before testing? If something doesn’t work… you’ll have to wade through all those lines to find your error.

If you have a top five list related to anything to do with “Geekery” or even something Non-Techie… send them to me! I’m always ready to pass on your knowledge to others.

The Fastest Way To Get A Job ... 100% Guaranteed!

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This year's Business of Software conference

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:31:37 +0000

The best conference I went to last year was the Business of Software Conference, organized by Neil Davidson of Red Gate Software over in Cambridge, England. It had a great lineup of speakers [PDF] including Guy Kawasaki, Eric Sink, Tim Lister (coauthor of Peopleware), Rick Chapman, Hugh MacLeod, and others, a great collection of real software businesses in attendance, and almost no fluff. Plus, my first 5.6 earthquake, experienced from the top of a highrise hotel. Great fun.

This year when Neil approached me about co-sponsoring the conference, I thought, why not? It's exactly the kind of conference I would organize if I were organizing a conference about the software business, which, thankfully, I'm not, but Neil is, and he's doing a bang up job.

So this year, it's going to be called "Business of Software 2008: A Joel on Software Conference." It'll almost certainly be in Boston some time in the fall, but nothing is even remotely final yet. Sign up for the mailing list at that site, and they'll let you know when a time and place are set.

Not loving your job? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

We invested in Twitter and are bringing them to Japan

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:44:17 +0000

I Twittered this but forgot to blog it. :-P

From the Twitter Blog:

Despite the fact that Twitter is in English, we continue to see exciting growth from all over the world. Japan, in particular shows a very strong and growing demand for Twitter services. Movatwitter and Twitterpod are great examples.

To support continued growth in Japan, Twitter has formed a partnership with Digital Garage to create the official Twitter Japan service. As part of this arrangement, Digital Garage has made an investment in Twitter, Inc and will commit engineering and other development resources to help us bring Twitter to Japan.

We're really excited about Twitter Japan because it's a big step towards our goal of becoming a worldwide communication network. We'll have more news for you about Twitter Japan and Twitter in other parts of the world as we make progress.

Gratz Rocky, Minami and the team who worked on the deal.

I am a co-founder of Digital Garage and I am on the board. Digital Garage is a strong supporter of CC and the main sponsor of my lab. While I continue to do some deals personally, most deals that involve active support in Japan involve my team at Digital Garage.

BTW, I'm Joi on Twitter.

Comment - TrackBack

The Big Picture

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:18:26 +0000

Up or down? That's what this week's Macworld show came down to for most news organizations. Would the new Apple products make the company's shares go up or down? They went down. Macworld was a bust, we were told repeatedly, as if it really mattered. I don't own Apple stock so I couldn't care less whether it goes up or down, nor could most customers. Apple was supposed to introduce another iPod or iPhone, or iSomething that would sell four million or 10 million copies in the next 200 days, driving share prices higher. But it didn't happen. Apple introduced some cool stuff, but nothing that would sell four million units this year, hence the letdown.

Hogwash.

A bunch of day traders that used to making a quick 10 percent on their money during Macworld week didn't make that 10 percent this year, so they were disappointed. A bunch of reporters eager to write about those day traders making their 10 percent were disappointed, too. Meanwhile, the rest of us who don't care about day traders were left without much perspective on what any of these announcements actually mean. So I'll do the heavy lifting here and gratefully get back to something non-Apple next week.

First let's look at the MacBook Air, which is a cool product with a bad name, though I guess it worked well for Michael Jordan, so what the heck. It is very doubtful that Apple will sell a million Airs in the next year. It is doubtful Apple will sell even half a million Airs and Steve Jobs knows this. What's important here is not the subnotebook computer but the bits of it that will likely make their way into much more interesting Apple products to come.

Take that specially packaged Intel CPU, how did that come about? Steve Jobs didn't beat the heck out of Intel CEO Paul Otellini to get a little CPU that would go into fewer than half a million boxes. Steve did what he always does. He beat the heck out of Paul Otellini with the promise that this little CPU -- for which we can expect Apple will hold some exclusive for the next six months -- will end up in millions and millions of Apple products, nearly all of them costing a lot less than a MacBook Air.

Apple is very important to Intel. Though nobody says it out loud, Apple is the last of the major computer companies that uses 100 percent Intel processors. And Apple's ability to do more with less has to be a continual inspiration to its competitors. As Apple slides further and further into the consumer electronics and networking markets, Intel will be right there, too. I still expect we'll see an Apple tablet this year, for example, and it will use this same Intel CPU.

How about that new trackpad with the multi-touch interface? Could that be the first look at that mouse replacement I predicted would be coming from Apple this year? Maybe. You can be sure we'll see a lot more of that baby.

What about the Air's lack of an optical drive? It's hard to find a place for an optical drive in such a thin computer, but isn't Steve Jobs the guy who when he returned to Apple railed against notebooks without removable media, like the PowerBook 100 and 2400 and the various PowerBook Duos? Why did Steve change his mind now? Because Steve wants to replace optical drives of any sort with bits provided over the network, preferably from iTunes. That's also why we didn't see an Apple Blu-ray announcement this week and -- if Jobs has his way -- we'll never see one.

Let's turn now to the second-generation Apple TV and the question I seem to be the only one asking: why did they drop the price to $229? Had they dropped the price to $99 I'd say, "Okay, they've decided to lose money on this thing to grow the rental market." But why $229? Did some focus group tell Apple there was price resistance to the Apple TV above $230? It's a set-top box! People don't want to pay anything for a set-top box and if they do pay something they sure don't want to pay $299 OR $229.

The entire Apple TV category is a minefield for Steve Jobs. It's a tiny Macintosh, remember, though with its innate Macness carefully hidden. Steve COULD HAVE blown the doors off Macworld if he had simply allowed the Apple TV to BE a Mac, albeit limited to HDMI displays. If you could buy a Mac that attaches to your HDTV for web surfing as well as all the other Apple TV functions, even at the original $299 price, it would have been a HUGE hit. But it might also have hurt Mac Mini and iMac sales, so Steve couldn't bring himself to do it.

In the long run I think the whole Apple TV product category will be subsumed into the television, itself. Here, too, is another minefield because people replace their computers a lot more often than they replace their televisions, so Apple going into the TV business (like Dell and HP have) might help sales at first but later hurt. The more likely move for Apple, therefore, is to eventually create the Apple TV Nano, which is an Apple TV built into a CableCard. This is technically feasible right now and 18 months from now it will be a no-brainer. The big HDTV vendors would jump on that one like crazy since it would drive CableCard-equipped HDTV sales, which have been less than stellar.

Apple's movie rental service offers a lot to talk about, too, though the part I find most interesting is simply the likely impact on broadband ISPs. It's not just Apple, but also Amazon, Netflix, and others that will drive this impact, though those competing efforts are accelerating right now because of Apple.

The broadband ISPs are already jostling for advantage, talking about limiting throughput and making people pay $30 for the bandwidth to download an HD movie. They simply don't want to pay for the additional backbone capacity required to support this level of traffic. But the even bigger reason why the ISPs are moving right now is they perceive a perfect storm that will allow them to RAISE PRICES. Whether we are talking about a cable company or a phone company, these ISPs make more profit from selling broadband than they do from selling their original service, whether it is phone or TV. Cable prices keep going up, true, but nearly all of that goes for increasing costs for content. Internet content costs an ISP nothing, but that doesn't mean they won't try to charge us more if they can.

What's crazy about this is that most of the HD content we're getting upset about is static. It is perfectly reasonable to put every movie ever made on a server and put just such a server in every cable company or DSL machine room and never have to touch the Internet backbone for that content, which is exactly what I've explained the big ISPs are already starting to do through IP multicast. But now they'll want to be paid for it. The dark horse here is Google, which has spent a couple years positioning itself to offer to handle this service on behalf of ISPs and consumers alike in exchange for us watching some commercials. If it is up to consumers, Google will succeed.

And Steve Jobs knows this, because with their interlocking boards, Apple and Google have to know precisely what the other is up to.

So Macworld was just another step in a very measured plan to establish global media dominance for Apple and probably for Google, too. But it's a plan that requires patience, which the press can't -- or doesn't want to -- understand. So it is up to us as individuals to decide whether this is good or bad. I'd say the jury is still out on that one.

In the Wild for January 18

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:58:49 +0000

Here are some of the stories and happenings that have caught our eye since the last “In the Wild” post: YUI’s Nate Koechley on the TWiT Podcast: Over on the TWiT network’s “Free and Libre Open Source Software” (FLOSS) podcast, Randal Schwartz and Leo Laporte had YUI’s Nate Koechley on as a guest to talk about [...]

Free Apple Air laptops contest

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:10:00 +0000

I've ordered two Apple MacBook Air laptops to give away at Mahalo in some type of a contest. Looking for ideas of how to give away the laptops that generate MORE value for Mahalo then the actual ~$2,000 in cost associate with the laptop.

Some of the (obvious) key metrics we follow at Mahalo are:

1. Number of search pages created
2. Number of people signing up for Mahalo (i.e. registered users)
3. Number of user links submitted and added to Mahalo
4. Number of links *accepted* to Mahalo pages
5. Pageviews
6. Unique visitors
7. How To articles created

Does anyone have any ideas!??!

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Verizon FIOS TV - Review and Photo Gallery

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:11:50 +0000

We are finally out from under Comcast Cable and have just hooked up Verizon's new Fiber-Optic based FIOS TV. There's a long waiting list in my state, so I signed up in October and had it installed just this last week. We already had FIOS internet, with 15 megabits downstream and upstream (a premium service that costs an extra $10 a month) and have been very happy with it.

There is an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) (here's a network diagram) that is a installed on the outside of your house. This device is the bridge between the fiber optic cable that comes right up to your house but not inside and whatever wiring you have in your house.

If you have basic needs, often Verizon will just put a wireless router in your garage and call it done, giving you wireless Internet access as far as that router reaches. In the last six months, however, Verizon has started using routers that include a Coax connector such that the FIOS signal(s) can run over 75OHM Coax cable, switching from Fiber to Coax at the ONT - using the cable you likely already have running through your house into each room. The installer should do a signal test to check for loss over long runs and through splitters. My installer was very happy with the professional splitter I'd preinstalled in my wiring closet, saying that he wasn't able to measure that any signal was lost at all. He said that this speaks to good wiring and a good splitter. He had a certain level that we couldn't certify below, so make sure you ask your installer if the signal is sufficient for a glitch-free installation.

Since I had Verizon FIOS Internet already, hooking up the TV was easy for the installer. He used my existing Coax spliter and split the wire before the router. So, the coax comes in from the outside then splits and heads into all the rooms in the house, with one of the downstream cables going into the Verizon Internet Router's Coax connector. From there the router speaks TCP/IP over RJ-45 and supplies the house, but it also can hand out IP addresses over Coax to the DVR (Digital Video Recorders) that you'll receive with the FIOS TV Package.

There is an optional Media DVR option that will let you watch pictures and share video between the DVRs using the router and TCP/IP for transport, but I decided against that option since my XBoxen already do that fine.

Set Top Box (DVR)

Verizon uses the Motorola QIP6416 set-top box, that looks exactly like the craptastic Comcast DCT6412, but runs a TOTALLY different UI.

Just to make myself totally understood here, there is no way I could assemble a sentence, much less a paragraph, using the English Language to express the utter magical poopiness of the Comcast DVR Software. I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. Rest assured it's garbage. it is slow, buggy, and has a dozen subtle and horrible bugs that are well documented around the net.

Fortunately the software included with the Verizon box is completly different, written from scratch and it's a joy. It's really beautiful. It's got high-color (24bit?) graphics, very polished and curvy, a distinct contrast to the low-color blocky Comcast software.

The interface is very intuitive, but also includes a number of advanced shortcuts that you'll stumble on in the using. For example, when watching TV, selecting up, down, left, or right on the direction button will take you (as a shortcut) to different modes instantly. For example, up takes you to a TV Guide split-screen with TV on the left, down takes you to a half-screen floating guide. Hitting Guide once takes you to a full-screen guide, pressing twice goes to split-screen. Hitting info once gives you a small popup, hitting it again takes you to a full-screen info page.

The DVR will hold about 17 hours of HD or 60 hours of SD TV (Standard Defintion) or whatever mix of both you can manage. As with most DVRs you can set each recording to be "protected" (not automatically deleted) or to stick around in a queue with the last x recordings. You can select new shows only, or all shows including repeats.

Software

There's also a few "in progress" features like Widgets, that run on the DVR. Currently the software includes Traffic and Weather, and Notes is coming soon so you'll be able to leave notes for family members. It'd be nice if they did a calendar as well. I suppose it comes down to how far Verizon wants to push the envelope. I hope they are more progressive than Comcast has been. I'll be watching the version numbers closely to see when upgrades happen.

As of this writing my Comcast 6416-P2 is on Verizon's Release 1.0.4 Build 05.68. If yours is different, post it in the comments! The set-top DVR software has been very stable so far, easy to use and my Harmony 880 remote required no reprogramming as the IR codes are the same for all Motorola DVRs.

Recording

When watching Recorded programs they are sorted by Date Descending. This is the one place the aesthetic of the fancy interface kind of gets in the way. You can only see about 12 shows at a time because of the generous whitespace of the interface design. Additionally (this is my #1 and really only major gripe) the interface doesn't automatically take up the complete width of a 16:9 widescreen television. I wonder (and wondered before with Comcast) if this is a limitation of the hardware that overlays the graphics. It'd be nice if these interfaces scaled wider, particularly the TV Guide.

High-Def, Standard Def and Picture Quality

Each show that is High-Definition has a little "HD" icon by them, and if you press left while in the Full Screen Guide you can filter all channels to show just High-Def channels. On Verizon TV all the channels (currently) between 800 and 899 are Hi-Def.

In my neighborhood that makes for 26 high-def channels, including all the major US networks. I have no way to measure the sharpness or compression of the channels, but I've personally got an eye for these things (and I'm really irritated by motion artifacts) so you can take that for what it's worth.

I feel like the High-Def Channels on Verizon are re-compressed less than they are on Comcast. Most (every?) provider has to re-encode channels to get them to fit within their bandwidth. I don't know if Verizon has more bandwidth than Comcast, but I can say that I had Comcast Cable for 10 years, the last 4 with High-Def and that Verizon's FIOs High-Def streams seem to have fewer artifacts when viewed on the same TV. This might also be as a result of newer software or hardware in the Motorola Set-Top box.

Certainly the software interface is much nicer to look at as I mentioned before, above. The fonts anti-alias nicer, and the whole interface seems to be designed for high-def more than the Comcast DVR.

The box will push out 480p, 720p or 1080i. There's no 1080p option, but there's also no 1080p source media, so that's fine. I'm running over HDMI and it works great, even through an HDMI switching receiver like my Onkyo.

One thing I noticed was that Standard Definition television, like Jon Stewart on Comedy Central looks MUCH clearer than Cable. Like, I literally said, "wow." There is NO ghosting. This is the first TV experience I've ever had in a my adult life without ghosting on some channel somewhere. That said, the feeds for Standard Definition channels seems slightly more "digital" or "blocky" than Cable. It's subtle, but it's there. You know you're at 640x480, especially on a larger TV. Phrased another way, if there was a "smoothing" setting, it's set to sharp on standard definition on Verizon FIOS, while it seemed "smooth" on Comcast Cable. Your mileage may vary.

On-Demand Movies

FIOS TV has only been available for a month or so in my state, and the On-Demand selection is meager at best, and doesn't yet include HD movies. I had HD movies on Comcast and was happy with both the quality and selection, so I imagine that FIOS will step up in the coming months.

I am heartened, however, by the "AppleTV-like" interface of Movie Posters. It's very friendly and easily navigated. The WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) will be high on this feature.

Choice and Variety

There are also a number of International Premium Channels available, including:

Vietnam's SBTN
CCTV-4 and CTI in Chinese
TV Japan
ART in Arabic
MBC in Korean
TV 5 in French
Rang A Rang in Farsi
RTN and Channel 1 in Russian
TV Asia

There's also almost 100 Spanish Language channels available if you like, and over 45 movie channels. Now, before you tease me about having too many channels, these are just available ones. You can set your favorites, and we've picked <10 and filter the list to show those.

FIOS also includes almost 100 Music-only Channels from Urge and Music Choice. The wife likes this over the radio because it shows the name of the artist and album.

Cost

The Core Package is currently only $43 a month, and you can get a number of different DVR options, picking between standard, HD, standard DVR and HD DVR. We were paying upwards of $60 with Comcast and we just don't watch THAT much TV to feel good about that much money. The Premium Channels like HBO and Showtime cost the same as they do on Cable, likely because those channels set their cost, not a TV provider like Verizon.

Conclusion

All in all, we've been VERY happy. The picture quality is great, the set-top box just works, and I have high hopes that Verizon will keep updating the boxes with new software and more On-Demand Movies. This is just the first month Verizon FIOS TV has been available in my state, and I feel they are off to a good start. Recommended over local cable if you can get it.

Related Posts

The Album is Dead...

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:29:00 +0000

There once was a time when the release date of an album was exciting. For our favorite artists we knew when the last album came out and when the next album was due. If you loved the artist you bought it. If you didn't you either bought the single or you listened to the album with your friends and then decided.

As the price of records and then CDs increased year by year, spending 20 bucks for a CD became a purchase you needed to be sure of rather than a no brainer or impulse buy.

Then free became an option.
Then aggregating almost unlimited free music on a PC and then an IPOD became easy.

So here we are in 2008 and the only given in the music industry is that CD sales have and will fall. And fall. And fall.

Reading last weeks billboard, something interesting popped out at me. The song Low Rider by Flo Rida sold 467,000 units in a single week. There were 27 digital singles that sold more than 100k units in that week. The obvious trend continues that people are ready, willing and able to buy singles of songs they like.

So the question arises, why don't artists serialize the release of songs ? Why not create a "season" of release of songs, much like the fall TV season and promise fans that Flo Rida is going to release a new single every week or 2 weeks for the next 10 weeks ?

Sure, its not easy to come up with a great song every 2 weeks. But isnt that exactly the same problem you have with an album ? Maybe thats not the "creative process" for certain artists. That's a problem for them.

What we do know is that music fans will spend 99c and that its easier to ask them for 99c a week than it is to get 9.99 at one time from them for 10 songs.

Serializing the release of music also allows for the marketing arms to be in constant touch with sales and radio outlets. Rather than having to initiate marketing plans and hope to reinvigorate the interest in an artist, it becomes a digital tour that never ends.

If an artist commits to release music on a weekly or bi weekly basis, then consumers can make a commitment knowing they are going to get something new and hopefully exciting for their 99c. If the commitment is strong enough its feasible that artists could sell subscriptions to their serialized releases. My guess is that consumers will feel better about subscribing to an artist and getting a song a week or every 2 than dropping 10 dollars at a time for an album.

In reality thats exactly how I buy my music right now. I dont do it by artist. I go to ITunes and I go through the top 10 lists and listen to samples and thats how I determine what music im going to buy.

If there was an option when I bought a single to subscribe to an RSS feed that would send me a sample of that artists song when they released a single, I would add that RSS feed to my browser. Add a 1 click to buy, and chances are Im going to buy a lot more music.

Is this idea so great Im going to start a music label ? No chance. I wouldnt get in the music industry if you paid me. However, as a customer and a buyer of music , if I knew that my favorite artists were releasing music weekly, i would certainly check by every week or listen to what was in my RSS aggregator to see what new stuff they had for me.

Consumser are buying music 1 track at a time. I think people will pay 99c to get a single rather than steal it. I think people would rather steal a full album rather than pay 10 dollars or more for it.

Labels need to make the effort to get artists to deliver in a manner that realizes these perspectives.

The album is dead

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Simply JavaScript (Book review)

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:52:23 +0000

A book that is sub-titled "Everything you need to learn JavaScript from scratch" is obviously not aimed at experienced JavaScript developers. However I don't think Simply JavaScript is suitable for absolute beginners either, since it contains programming examples that aren't all that easy for someone without at least some programming or scripting experience to wrap their head around.

The authors, Kevin Yank and Cameron Adams, get off to a great start by explaining the three layers the Web is built on (presentation, content, and behaviour) and how CSS, HTML, and JavaScript should be used for each separate layer. When a JavaScript book starts by talking about unobtrusive scripting and even mentions that perhaps JavaScript isn't always the best way of solving a problem, you can be reasonably sure that it's been written by someone who knows about modern Web development.

Since this book is not aimed at JavaScript experts, there is a whole chapter devoted to explaining the basics of programming with JavaScript. Variables, statements, conditions and loops, functions, and objects are all talked about in an easy-to-understand way, accompanied by plenty of code examples and illustrative figures.

After the first two introductory chapters, the authors dive into some actual programming for the next several chapters. The DOM, events, animation, form scripting, finding and debugging errors, and Ajax are all discussed in one chapter each. The final chapter takes a look ahead at the future of JavaScript.

Throughout the book, the Core JavaScript library is used to make some common DOM scripting tasks easier. I hadn't heard of Core before, but it seems to do the job and is very lightweight. It's so small that the entire source is included in the book.

Overall I think the authors do a great job of explaining JavaScript. The examples and code are easy to follow and explained well, and the book is written in a friendly and inviting tone. I picked up a few tips and tricks from reading this book, which for me makes it worth the time it took to read it.

Revisiting the sub-title of this book, I think the audience that will get the most out of it falls somewhere in between the novice and expert levels. To me it seems best suited for designers or developers with a decent knowledge of HTML and CSS and some familiarity with JavaScript. If that describes you, I can recommend Simply JavaScript.

As with all SitePoint books, there are sample chapters you can download to find out if the book is right for you.

Simply JavaScript: Authors: Kevin Yank, Cameron Adams; ISBN-10: 0980285801; ISBN-13: 978-0980285802

Visit site to read or post comments…

Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.

Posted in JavaScript, Reviews.

Bloglines Beta Debuts Photo Widget

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:30:45 +0000

We have another treat for you Blogliners who have been patiently awaiting our redesign. Today's special surprise is the Photo Widget View available within Bloglines Beta.We've been experimenting with different views in the Bloglines Start Page. In this case, we display photos from Flickr inside a Photo Widget. Sure beats a text description. We currently only do this for Flickr, but in future releases you will be able to apply the photo view for other photo-oriented feeds.

Here's a little before and after.

Before

After

As a reminder, you can go to Flickr or other photos sites and create a feed tracking a specific topic or tag. In the example above our topic we tracked was "Europe." Or you can track a specific user on the site. So in other words, anytime a friend posts a picture on Flickr, you would see that picture on your Bloglines.

Have Fun!

- Eric Engleman and the Bloglines Team

.NET Framework Library Source Code now available

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:50:50 +0000

Last October I blogged about our plan to release the source code to the .NET Framework libraries, and enable debugging support of them with Visual Studio 2008. Today I'm happy to announce that this is now available for everyone to use. Specifically, you can now browse and debug the source code for the following .NET Framework libraries:

.NET Base Class Libraries (including System, System.CodeDom, System.Collections, System.ComponentModel, System.Diagnostics, System.Drawing, System.Globalization, System.IO, System.Net, System.Reflection, System.Runtime, System.Security, System.Text, System.Threading, etc).

ASP.NET (System.Web, System.Web.Extensions)

Windows Forms (System.Windows.Forms)

Windows Presentation Foundation (System.Windows)

ADO.NET and XML (System.Data and System.Xml)

We are in the process of adding additional framework libraries (including LINQ, WCF and Workflow) to the above list. I'll blog details on them as they become available in the weeks and months ahead.

Enabling Reference Source Access in Visual Studio 2008

Enabling .NET Framework source access within Visual Studio 2008 only takes a few minutes to setup. Shawn Burke has a detailed blog post that covers the exact steps on how to enable this in more depth here.

If you run into problems or have questions setting it up, please post a question in the Reference Source Forum on MSDN here.

Stepping into .NET Framework Library Source

Once you follow the configuration steps in Shawn’s post above, you’ll be able to dynamically load the debug symbols for .NET Framework libraries and step into the source code. VS 2008 will download both the symbols and source files on demand from the MSDN reference servers as you debug throughout the framework code:

Developer comments are included in the source files. Above you can see an example of one in the Dispose method for the Control base class.

Sometimes you'll see comments that reference a past bug/tracking number in our bug/work-item tracking database that provides additional history about a particular code decision. For example, the comment above calls out that a particular field shouldn't be nulled to maintain backwards compatibility with an older release of the framework, and points to a backwards compatibility bug that was fixed because of this.

Reference License

The .NET Framework source is being released under a read-only reference license. When we announced that we were releasing the source back in October, some people had concerns about the potential impact of their viewing the source. To help clarify and address these concerns, we made a small change to the license to specifically call out that the license does not apply to users developing software for a non-Windows platform that has “the same or substantially the same features or functionality” as the .NET Framework. If the software you are developing is for Windows platforms, you can look at the code, even if that software has "the same or substantially the same features or functionality" as the .NET Framework.

Summary

We think that enabling source code access and debugger integration of the .NET Framework libraries is going to be really valuable for .NET developers. Being able to step through and review the source should provide much better insight into how the .NET Framework libraries are implemented, and in turn enable you to build better applications and make even better use of them.

Hope this helps,

Scott

Photos from Apple's booth at Macworld Expo

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:13:16 +0000

SAN FRANCISCOApple is showing off the new MacBook Air and its other newly announced products at its booth at Macworld Expo. Think Secret has put together a gallery of photos from Apple's booth.

Never keep your emotions bottled up

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:09:42 +0000

Last week I was considering the purchase of a piece of software. I went to the vendor's website for pricing. It wasn't there. Annoyed, I filled out the form so that I could be contacted by one of their sales people. The following day I got a response:

Thanks for considering (product name deleted). Please write back to me with your phone # or call me at the # below -- we can discuss pricing as I learn about your application and how you plan to use (product name deleted) for development.

So I sent an email with the following response:

Hi (name deleted),

OK. Please bear with me for just a moment while I vent.

#ifdef FRUSTRATED_RANT

First, I hate the fact that you guys don't put pricing on your website. I looked up the old version of your site using archive.org, so I've got a ballpark idea of what the pricing was around six months ago. Mostly I just want to know if anything has changed.

Second, it's absurd that when a customer asks for pricing, you won't give it to them. Instead, you answer the question with a question. I'm not even the slightest bit interested in telling you about our application and how we plan to use (product name deleted) for development. I just want to know your pricing and your license terms.

And for the hat trick, it's incredibly frustrating that you want to do this by phone. I hate phones with a passion, especially when they're completely unnecessary.

Bottom line: I'm interested in buying your product. The only obstacle in my way is YOU. If your product didn't have such a great reputation, I would give up right now.

#endif

OK, sorry about that. I figured if I get all this off my chest then I'll have a much better chance of getting through our phone call without saying anything rude. Please call me at 217-XXX-YYYY. I promise to be nice. :-)

Eric

Fortunately, my "vent before the call" strategy worked out very well. The sales person called me and we had a very pleasant and cordial conversation.

Java and doneness

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:14:00 +0000

Ted Neward has an excellent post on the state of Java.

In general, I really like the piece a lot.

I do think Ted slightly misses the point when he talks about Bruce Eckel's statement:

Arguably one of the best features of C is that it hasn't changed at all for decades.

Ted cites C99 and D as flies in that ointment.

I don't buy it.

Just because a standards body can't recogonize done-ness and declare victory, that doesn't mean the fruits of that body have any bearing on reality.

Go look here for evidence. The average C developer doesn't even know C99 exists and probably doesn't care.

And as for D being so much better than C or C++, I would expect D to overtake C adoption right after WS-Transfer replaces HTTP on the public internet :-)

Java has achieved cockroach status and its inventors should be proud.

Mission accomplished.

Widgets and plug-ins for social sites

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:59:23 +0000

Matt Biddulph presents on how widgets and plug-ins were designed and built for Dopplr

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:05:22 +0000

For seven years, the @DOCTYPE@ switch has stood designers and developers in good stead as a toggle between standards mode and quirks mode. But when IE7, with its greatly improved support for standards, "broke the web," it revealed the flaw in our toggle. The quest was on to find a more reliable ensurer of forward compatibility. Is version targeting the answer?

Hide Your Shame: The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. Come shop with us!

Yahoo! in Sin City at CES

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:30:00 +0000

The largest annual consumer technology show in the world is happening next week and Yahoo! is in on the Las Vegas action. Yodel Anecdotal is covering Yahoo!'s presence at the show, including Jerry Yang's talk on the evolution of Internet technology and its impact on consumer technology products.

And, if you've stayed close to Yahoo! oneSearch-related news in the past, don't hesitate to stop by Yahoo!'s tent at the Central Plaza (CP3). You'll be able to demo the company's mobile products and speak with other representatives.

Good luck in Las Vegas...

Yahoo! Search Blog team

Help Make Duncan Famous

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:03:08 +0000

TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley is a finalist in a poll for Australia’s top 20 web celebrities. Please give him a hand and vote for him here.

The Daily Grind 1305

Mon, 31 Dec 2008 14:00:00 +0000

This is the final issue of the Daily Grind.

Google Safe Browsing Library for .NET Beta 2 - Using Google to detect naughty people on the net.
CodeRush and Refactor! Pro 3.0 Released - Good news from Developer Express.
ASProxy: Surf in the web invisibly using ASP.NET power - Proxy server built with ASP.NET.

Strongly typed custom configuration sections using XML serialization - Custom configuration is the text editor of .NET; everyone writes a solution.
Using managed code to detect what .NET Framework versions and service packs are installed - Some potentially-useful code.

December 2007 Web Server Survey - Almost 50 million more sites on the web than a year ago, according to Netcraft.

.NET Logging Tool SmartInspect

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Visit the SmartInspect website or take the screenshot tour.

Data Dynamics Reports

Data Dynamics Reports is a new reporting engine for .NET developers that adds significant enhancements to standard RDL-based reports!

Master Reports: Allow report authors to create living templates that automatically update when the master report is updated.
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Feet First floor mats

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:46:15 +0000

Reproductions of popular city manhole covers. Made from 100% recycled truck tires. Wants (I have an odd obsession with floor mats). #

8 + 2 = ☺

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:12:23 +0000

Christmas came early: Internet Explorer 8 passes Acid2.

Giant Global Graph

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:45:18 +0000

Well, it has been a long time since my last post here. So many topics, so little time. Some talks, a couple of Design Issues articles, but no blog posts. To dissipate the worry of expectation of quality, I resolve to lower the bar. More about what I had for breakfast.

So The Graph word has been creeping in. BradFitz talks of the Social Graph as does Alex Iskold, who discusses social graphs and network theory in general, points out that users want to own their own social graphs. He alo points out that examples of graphs are the Internet and the Web. So what's with the Graph word?

Maybe it is because Net and Web have been used. For perfectly good things .. but different things.

The Net we normally use as short for Internet, which is the International Information Infrastructure. Al Gore promoted the National Information Infrastructure (NII) presumably as a political pragma at the time, but clearly it became International. So let's call it III. Let's think about the Net now as an invention which made life simpler and more powerful. It made it simpler because of having to navigate phone lines from one computer to the next,you could write programs as though the net were just one big cloud, where messages went in at your computer and came out at the destination one. The realization was, "It isn't the cables, it is the computers which are interesting". The Net was designed to allow the computers to be seen without having
to see the cables.

Simpler, more powerful. Obvious, really.

Programmers could write at a more abstract level. Also, there was re-use of the connections, in that, as the packets flowed, a cable which may have been laid for one purpose now got co-opted for all kinds of uses which the original users didn't dream of. And users of the Net, the III, found that they could connect to all kinds of computers which had been hooked up for various reasons, sometimes now forgotten. So the new abstraction gave us more power, and added value by enabling re-use.

The word Web we normally use as short for World Wide Web. The WWW increases the power we have as users again. The realization was "It isn't the computers, but the documents which are interesting". Now you could browse around a sea of documents without having to worry about which computer they were stored on. Simpler, more powerful. Obvious, really.

Also, it allowed unexpected re-use. People would put a document on the web for one reason, but it would end up being found by people using it in completely different ways. Two delights drove the Web: one of being told by a stranger your Web page has saved their day, and the other of discovering just the information you need and for which you couldn't imagine someone having actually had the motivation to provide it.

So the Net and the Web may both be shaped as something mathematicians call a Graph, but they are at different levels. The Net links computers, the Web links documents.

Now, people are making another mental move. There is realization now, "It's not the documents, it is the things they are about which are important". Obvious, really.

Biologists are interested in proteins, drugs, genes. Businesspeople are interested in customers, products, sales. We are all interested in friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances. There is a lot of blogging about the strain, and total frustration that, while you have a set of friends, the Web is providing you with separate documents about your friends. One in facebook, one on linkedin, one in livejournal, one on advogato, and so on. The frustration that, when you join a photo site or a movie site or a travel site, you name it, you have to tell it who your friends are all over again. The separate Web sites, separate documents, are in fact about the same thing -- but the system doesn't know it.

There are cries from the heart (e.g The Open Social Web Bill of Rights) for my friendship, that relationship to another person, to transcend documents and sites. There is a "Social Network Portability" community. Its not the Social Network Sites that are interesting -- it is the Social Network itself. The Social Graph. The way I am connected, not the way my Web pages are connected.

We can use the word Graph, now, to distinguish from Web.

I called this graph the Semantic Web, but maybe it should have been Giant Global Graph! Any worse than WWWW? ;-) Not the "Semantic Web" term has been established for a long time, I'm not proposing to change it. But let's think about the graph which it is. (Footnote: "Graph" also happens to be the word the RDF specifications use, but that is by the way. While an XML parser creates a DOM tree, an RDF parser creates an RDF graph in memory.)

So, if only we could express these relationships, such as my social graph, in a way that is above the level of documents, then we would get re-use. That's just what the graph does for us. We have the technology -- it is Semantic Web technology, starting with RDF OWL and SPARQL. Not magic bullets, but the tools which allow us to break free of the document layer. If a social network site uses a common format for expressing that I know Dan Brickley, then any other site or program (when access is allowed) can use that information to give me a better service. Un-manacled to specific documents.

I express my network in a FOAF file, and that is a start of the revolution. I blogged on FOAF files earlier, before the major open SNS angst started. The data in a FOAF file can be read by other applications. Photo-sharing, travel sites, sites which accept your input because you are a part of the graph.

The less inviting side of sharing is losing some control. Indeed, at each layer --- Net, Web, or Graph --- we have ceded some control for greater benefits.

People running Internet systems had to let their computer be used for forwarding other people's packets, and connecting new applications they had no control over. People making web sites sometimes tried to legally prevent others from linking into the site, as they wanted complete control of the user experience, and they would not link out as they did not want people to escape. Until after a few months they realized how the web works. And the re-use kicked in. And the payoff started blowing people's minds.

Letting your data connect to other people's data is a bit about letting go in that sense. It is still not about giving to people data which they don't have a right to. It is about letting it be connected to data from peer sites. It is about letting it be joined to data from other applications.

It is about getting excited about connections, rather than nervous.

In the short, what-can-I-code-up-this-afternoon-to-fix-this term, it is about other sites following the lead of my.opera.com, livejournal, advogato, and so on (list) also exporting a public RDF URI for their members, with what information the person would like to share.Right now, this blog re-uses the FOAF data linked to us to fight spam.

In the long term vision, thinking in terms of the graph rather than the web is critical to us making best use of the mobile web, the zoo of wildy differing devices which will give us access to the system. Then, when I book a flight it is the flight that interests me. Not the flight page on the travel site, or the flight page on the airline site, but the URI (issued by the airlines) of the flight itself. That's what I will bookmark. And whichever device I use to look up the bookmark, phone or office wall, it will access a situation-appropriate view of an integration of everything I know about that flight from different sources. The task of booking and taking the flight will involve many interactions. And all throughout them, that task and the flight will be primary things in my awareness, the websites involved will be secondary things, and the network and the devices tertiary.

I'll be thinking in the graph. My flights. My friends. Things in my life. My breakfast. What was that? Oh, yogourt, granola, nuts, and fresh fruit, since you ask.

Saturday Subscriber Count Drop?

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:05:08 +0000

Update II (10-Nov-2007): Hopefully you're seeing Feedfetcher stats again in your subscriber count report for November 9th. Not all feeds may have their numbers back yet, but all should be restored starting with today's numbers, which will be summarized tomorrow morning, 11-Nov, CST.

Update (9-Nov-2007): We are aware that Google Feedfetcher has not reported subscribers for most FeedBurner feeds for the November 8th reporting cycle as well. FeedBurner is in direct contact with the Feedfetcher team and while we know the issue isn't yet resolved, we will post another update to this once we have an answer. Also, just to confirm, there is nothing about your FeedBurner account or feed settings that you should change at this time. Hang in there; we're on the case!

If you saw your subscriber count drop precipitously in your Saturday, November 3rd summary from FeedBurner, the reason is that specific subscriber stats from Google Feedfetcher were offline because this service was apparently out late with friends on Friday night, and well, it completely slept through Saturday. It appears to have rallied, however, and amid firm declarations of "I'm never doing that again", Feedfetcher has started diligently reporting subscriber numbers to us, early this morning Pacific Time. FeedBurner publishers' subscriber counts should be closer to what you'd normally expect starting with reports that will be available on Monday morning.

Forget Paper and Sign Contracts Online With Tractis

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:33:36 +0000

Tractis, which recently came out of private beta, allows you to negotiate and execute worldwide legally binding contracts online. Tractis’ focus is making e-commerce more safe by providing not only digital signing of contracts, but conflict resolution and micro-insurance services. Today, they officially open their doors for Spain and plan to eventually make their service [...]

.NET Rocks! - Live from the Canadian Vista Launch Events!

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:54:40 +0000

Carl and Richard were the emcees at the Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa launch events in December, 2006. Hear them and their guests Shane Miskin, Scott Howlett, Allan Vander-spek, Mohammad Akif, Robert Achmann, Jean-Luc David, and Tony Davidson.

Social software coverage now on Download Squad

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:42:00 +0000

Filed under: social software

Yes folks, it is the end of an era -- or at least, the end of this blog as we know it. Our Social Software coverage has been subsumed by a larger entity, although without the usual acquisition rumours, inebriated launch party (complete with Flickr RSS feed) or sudden influx of VC money. Our own Download Squad will be proudly taking over coverage of news in the social software space, so tune in over there for your daily fix; set your new bookmarks to the Social Software category or the main Download Squad site, and reorient your voracious newsreaders to the Social Software RSS feed and/or the Download Squad main RSS feed.

Thank you, and good night.

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