The BFF

Google editions e-books! This is how it should be

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:28:27 PDT

I just can't tell you how much I dig what Google is doing here with Google editions. No hardware vendor lock in, you buy an ebook, read it anywhere. Even better, you can store it in the cloud and using Google gears store a cashed version locally an read it when you are offline. It should work on Sony's reader, Amazon's kindle, ze iPhone or nearly any other reader that has internet access :) Sarah Perez has more on the lowdown over at RWW. This is how it should be. Amazon, do this or perish. Your vendor lock-in is ugly.

Twitterborrel in Leeuwarden, Thursday October 29, 2009 at 5:30pm

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:20:22 PDT

View Irish Pub Eetcafé Paddy O'Ryan in a larger map

Warning: The twitterborrel is on Thursday the 29th of october. I mistakenly posted that it was today :) Apologies

The next Twitterborrel in Leeuwarden is taking place at Irish Pub Eetcafé Paddy O'Ryan, Tweebaksmarkt 49, in Leeuwarden. Paddy O'Ryans has just moved to a new location so please :) Don't go looking on the Goveneursplein as the old building empty still :) The twitterborrel starts at Thursday October 29th, 2009 at 5:30pm

Chrome plugin should work not just in IE6, but also Safari, Firefox and Opera :)

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:42:49 PDT

I guess Google does hope that 'all your base all belong to us' when it comes to their new plugin ;) I have already posted that I don't see this plugin being a success. I'm sure they mean well (yuk) but the Google system blog now has a post 'Chrome Frame, Not Just for Internet Explorer'.

What makes me laugh is that you can install Chrome in Safari! You can do but why? They are both webkit browsers :) And then the related banter/ propaganda :)

Microsoft: Google Chrome Frame makes IE less secure
IE 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in (tested by Computerworld!)

The Big Picture: Dust storm in Australia http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/dust_storm_in_australia.html

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:44:02 PDT

A hugh storm has changed Sydney into a town on Mars. The Boston Globe's big picture has another amazing photo report and this time its 26 photos of the dust storm in Sydney.

Google chrome plugin for IE6 is too clever for it's own good

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:17:47 PDT

Top story today on Techmeme and the nerd community is Google chromes plugin for IE6. But this brilliantly dastardly plan wont work simply because it's far too clever for it's own good. Why have those bastard sys admins never gotten off their lazy asses and replaced that piece of IE6 crap? (Oh dear.I'm beginning to sound like PPK).

Because the whole system might break?
It's not easy?
It's scary as hell?
They are there to run the system not change it? (I know! I'm bitter and cynical)

The only people who will do this are cheeky grandchildren who will hack granpa's browser.

Microsoft is heading back towards the death star

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:01:40 PDT

Bill Gates last six months at Microsoft and Ray Ozzy stepping more into the limelight gave me hope that Microsoft were becoming more open.

After all:

Microsoft have contributed GPL code to Linux
Made a skit about themselves (If Microsoft designed iPod packaging). And they learnt that! Have you seen the new Zune HD and packaging! It was brilliant, very funny and a breath of fresh air.
Microsoft became a sponsor of the open source Apache server
I like the Seinfeld ads (am I the only one? :p)

But behind all the light, dark stuff still happens like:

Advertising while apps preload on the new Zune HD (that's an low down evil intrusion) = FAIL
Ray Ozzy's attack on Google wave, calling it anti web!

And then there are other perceived problems:

Windows mobile. Launch is Oktober. But Motorola and Palm have left the pack, and HP and Toshiba don't count for much in retail brand land. At least not on the mobile front. I feel that once Android sales really take off HTC, LG and Samsung will drop you as well! You have only 2 hopes to succeed. Make something awesome or else just grab 'em by the balls and hold tight.
Mesh! It might be cool... but it ain't happening. I see nothing and I hear nothing about it.
Zune HD might be awesome but will it be on sale outside of North America? I have never seen one in Europe in all the years it has been out.

And guess what! I don't live under a freaking stone :p
3 more peves:

Going after Google Books. It's cheap and negative and just trying to damage some awesome new possibilities. The deal may not be perfect but it sure ain't evil! With the DOJ (Justice Dept.) weighing in on the deals shortcomings it might work out better. But Microsoft is not involved to make it work! They are there to stop Google even though the idea behind the deal is brilliant!
Is Apple the Enemy of the TV Industry? Microsoft Thinks So. The logic is such crap! The problems described here are real, but the conclusion is such a load of shit. Recent history is littered with wide off the mark accusations by Microsoft execs. You are doing the market, your customers and yourselves no favours here.
You might not use DRM on your products, but you have never championed customer rights in this respect. And because of that you still come across as a sleezy old style giant. It was Steve Jobs letter lambasting the music majors which brought the major shift here. But to be fare, the new Zune HD has a lot to offer music wise. As I said earlier, I just hope we can find it on the shelves of electronic stores across the world.

I've use windows, linux and Mac OSX, IE, webkit and Firefox. It's not about taking sides. It's about making things work. It's like the difference between redesigning and realigning. When you realign you look at the public's needs and you deliver mind blowing stuff. The iPhone is that and now Apple Inc. sells more phones than it does computers :) Half the battle imo is attitude. Being open, aiming high, delivering. So please :) Stay away from the death star.

15 Best Practices of Social Media Implemented by the Top 100 Brands

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:22:03 PDT

15 Best Practices of Social Media Implemented by the Top 100 Brands. This is an important read. It shows how you have to think of engagement. Don't expect the users to come to you. You need a clear vision about what you want to communicate and also where you are going to communicate it.

Whether you are a museum, library, starting band :), business startup or a government department with a new project that demands public engagement for success. You need to plan strategy. People won't look you up! You need to chase them down and engage (no hard sell, just conversation and let them know what you are doing (enthusiasm without killing the moment), see if you can interest them). This article talks about commercial brands, but everything is a brand is someway! So your museum, business startup and government project is a brand as well. The article is about strategy, what works, about hard work! I really recommend this, you'll learn lot's from it :)

An amazing TED Talk: Talks Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:19:19 PDT

An amazing TED Talk: Talks Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?

Thanks to Michielj for the tip :)

Web browsers - how they stand and which ones will fall

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:53:00 PDT

First off, I'm doing a lot of thinking out loud here. So if you think I'm talking shit, then let rip :)

Microsoft! We have been moaning for years about IE6. It's incredible! It just refuses to lie down and die. When I see how many firms and government departments still using IE6, while pushing for web 2.0 services that IE6 has trouble using. It's amazing. And the IT departments continue to refuse to update a 10 year old piece of software. The situation is even more dramatic that Microsoft trying to get XP users to upgrade to Windows 7. So a question? Does IE8 not have some fall back IE6 display mode. You could build it and ship it as IE8 the enterprise edition. The rest of the happy world does not need an IE8 shipping with and overhead of legacy support. If corporate customers just want to stick with a Microsoft browser they can and the internet developers can move on on roll out more new services for their customers. Services which have a more cost effective development as won't have to develope for IE6 any more :) IE is in trouble anyway as recent figures published on ZDNet show that IE's market share is dropping, though it is 66.6% with no.2 Firefox trailing at 23.3%.

I can also see that Google Chrome has passed Opera by with market share. I'd totally write off Opera if it were not for Opera mini, a product that could be Opera's redeeming product in the future. Firefox should be very worried in this respect. They might have Fennec, which has been (too?) long in development. But does anyone use it. Hardly anyone talks about it (remember the adage, there is only one thing worse that being talked about! That's not being talked about). I also think Firefox might need to take a lesson from ahem! car manufacturers :D Adding a turbo button, which automatically switches off all the addon's a cricks up the normal speed anyway by at least 2-fold, might be way to combat 'mighty mouse' Google Chrome. I used Firefox for nearly 7 years. I have switched to webkit as my primary browser, because I need something quick and snappy! I only use Firefox when I develop websites (where it stil truly rocks). Chrome should be ok on the mobile as Android already has a webkit based browser, except they don't call it chrome? It is a webkit browser right? So why not have the Chrome brand there as well? Anyone?

WTF: Google ready to unleash spiders and expose your Google Docs

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:30:24 PDT

While Google is getting very excited about spidering documents! I think it is totally stupid. Seemingly there are opt out options but they crude :( The Next Web has more details. When people create Google documents they don't intend sharing them with everyone. If you want to share you can stick it on a blog, Social networking site or even a website. Google should stick to that. By taking this route they are imo damaging Google docs reputation and stuff will end up online causing people red faces somewhere.

I hope they change their minds about this not so great new feature.

A VC-induced cancer that’s infecting our industry and killing off the next generation

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:33:45 PDT

37 Signals Jason Fried let's rip on VC induced sellout's. VC's are evil :) A necessary evil. Sometimes a company just wont be able to move on withouttheir help. But Jason argues the other side about their ultimate goal, which is obviously return on investement. That means selling out to recoup funds, even when that is not the best move for the company. TechDirt's Mike Masnick has a different take to VC funding. I find his take a very common sense approach to the whole subject. He explains when it makes sense to use VC Funding and when it´s better do bootstrap :)

But anyway Jason has let rip. The main gem from the blog post is imo
They were everything their main competitor, Intuit, was not. While Mint was inventing, Intuit was out of it. People used Quickbooks/Quicken out of habit and legacy. People used Mint because they loved it. Intuit was disgruntled, Mint was disruptive.

Enhancements to Georgia & Verdana Typeface Families Announced

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:29:35 PDT

Here is some good news! Ascender Corporation, Carter & Cone and The Font Bureau, Inc. will be working on enhancements to the Georgia and Verdana typefaces on behalf of Microsoft. The new versions are expected to be released as early as the first quarter of 2010. Some of the main objectives are:

New weights and widths beyond the original four fonts in each family
Extensions to the character sets
Extensions to the kerning
OpenType typographic features for enhanced typography

For a fuller explanation of the plans read Ascender Corporations press release

Posterous Theming: It's here and it's live :)

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:29:54 PDT

Totally fresh from the press Posterous has theming and it's very good :) It is tumblr compatible for those who want/ need that. What I love though is that it is totally customisable and that means that I can sadly leave blogspot behind me. Blogspot has been great and I'm not leaving this week, but I need that sidebar and with posterous I can now have it and more.

So why is posterous so good then

It can now really be my blog.
Posting photos to facebook, flickr or my posterous blog is the easier than posting to facebook!! Also I can post to all three in one fell swoop and The slideshow format on the posterous blog is totally awesome.
Embedding maps... it's so easy it makes me want to weep ;)
Embedding mp3's or videos, slideshare, pdf's you name it
I can and will import my old blog in here... maybe Robert Scoble should as well (You can start a private blog as well just for back up purposes)
The prime feature is posting via email! It's so lofi and so easy.

So get playing around :) It's easy. I need to do some extra stuff, mainly for me :) I just need to make a theme, change my rss feed over at feedburner, import the old content and add this rss feed to friendfeed... oh yeah and add my openid stuff :)

Getting started on twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:30:59 PDT

I'm on my third year on twitter and it's no longer the realm of geeks. So many people are taking to it these days. But I see many get stuck very quickly! Sure it's weird, buy you need to stick with it and you need the right tools and the right strategy. So lets cover some stuff to really get you going.

You need an account - Go to twitter.com and sign up ok!
Twitter won't work for you if you have nobody to talk to! So here are 2 ways of finding someone to chat to. What do you like talking about? Football?, knitting? Jogging? Linux, lawyers... use search on the twitter (in the right hand column on the homepage). Say we search for Liverpool :) OK who has something clever to say and who is talking shit? Any funny guys around? OK follow the clever ones and the funny ones. Who are they chatting to? Is that cool? See the @username, click on it and follow them as well. TIP: Do not follow more than 20 people for starters. I'm a hypocrite I follow 380+, but that is difficult and at the start it's too overwhelming. Also follow news sites like breaking news online, bbcnews, cnn or your local news. Here in Holland we have the @nos and even local newspapers like waldnet or the leeuwarder courant are pushing news to you. That is what makes twitter so good. You don't have to follow the news! It comes to you via twitter :)
It's also cool if you can follow people you know, so go to find people in the top menu and click on 'find on other networks'
OK So you have some interesting people to follow. But you are behind your computer pressing F5 to refresh the twitter page and life sucks right! If you use Mac OSX twitteriffic is good, on the mac there are lots of good ways of twittering.
My favourite is seesmic. They have 2 tools, a desktop app which I find slowish, but they also have a web page which live updates (no more hitting F5) and it displays reply's so you can follow the conversation immediately :) Hit the black message button and you can see direct messages and hit the green button to get back to the normal screen. You can log in securely to twitter via seesmic. It will not compromise your password as it is handled with a technology (oAuth) which is deemed secure at the moment. Hopefully other commenter's will offer advice here as well. Be critical. I have used about 5 different apps as my tastes changed over time. Tweetdeck is another very popular program/ app which you can use to tweet from. But if you have a mobile phone and mobile internet (be careful of additional charges, contact your telecom customer care first for more information) you will have lots of fun.

Ask lots of questions and we will see what answers I and other readers can provide. Have fun :)

Crossing the radar [20090916]

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:27:36 PDT

4 Awkward Moments in Facebook "Likes" http://bit.ly/1DvrwG via mona
Mythbusters RFID episode banned http://bit.ly/PO4ek
Google Supporting Facebook Share and RDFa for videos to improve search results http://bit.ly/VDOP
kudos to @google and @dataliberation for the data liberation project | Google unlocks data restrictions...http://bit.ly/1jQ78v
How To: Backup Your Tweets and Make Them Searchable with Google Calendar http://bit.ly/qSr3C | I use it and it is excellent :)

This is fabulous: OmniGraffle Wireframe Stencils from Konigi

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:30:25 PDT

Konigi has amazing wireframe stencils available for download, which you can use in OmniGraffle. If you wireframe or deal with UI design then check them out. Their blog posts are especially good. Thanks to MichielJ for the tip :)

Online connections and what works for you then?

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:13:39 PDT

The ultimate guide to LinkedIn by Lauren Fisher on simplyzesty.com is a great read about how to get LinkedIn to work well for you. While LinkedIn is an amazing Networking site it is also quirky. I started using a service last night that is in beta called Gist and while I could import contacts from facebook, email and twitter I had to create a csv file of my linkedIn contacts to import!

About Gist. It's unpolished imo, but it has a lot of potential. Essentially it's a contact hub but where you can cross reference networks and also see what they are at online, including recent blogposts. That works quite good. What I was surprised to see (and I'm not sure I like it) is that email attachments are visible within the Gist web environment. Anyway they are first impressions.

Steve Rubel had a post on his blog about two weeks ago about "Facebook is the New Address Book" I have to admit I think he is completely right except :D that both Steve and Robert Scoble do not have all their contacts in Facebook as far as I know. And does Facebook not impose a maximum limit on the number of friends you can have. For some users that will mute Facebooks 'rolodex' function.

Any tips, opinions and advice on how I/ we can do it better are appreciated :)

Photowalk in Harlingen

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:59:58 PDT

Slightly smaller flickr photowalk that usual… but it did not rain on us and we had a good time. It was very very busy in places because it was also th e ‘visserijdagen’ (fishermans days). While going out amoung the crowds worked in Leeuwarden last december, it was more of a challenge this time. I was happy though meeting everyone again and we got some good photos. And we had an impromptu twitter drink up as well :) Thanks to (among others) @hdv, @Jo0Lz, @somefoolwitha, @robinpapa, @srcr, Eric, Erik44, for turning up :)

Photowalk Harlingen- the route

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:03:57 PDT

View Flickr photowalk harlingen in a larger map

I went up to Harlingen to check out the route we will be taking for the photowalk in Harlingen. It should be busy as there is the visserijdagen taking place. That means there should be a goot atmosphere and plenty of chances to stop somewhere for a bite to eat and/ or a beer. We meet at 2pm (14u) at the train station in Harlingen. hope to see you there.

Steve Ballmer signs the Microsoft-Yahoo! agreement

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:58:44 PDT

Steve Ballmer signs the Microsoft-Yahoo! agreement, originally uploaded by Yodel Anecdotal.

so far, 2/3rd say selling search will hurt yahoo. you can still take the survey http://bit.ly/gWVaz - Danny Sullivan on twitter

Photo Walk in Harlingen Saturday, August 29, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:42:35 PDT

To celebrate the 50th of fish festival in Harlingen and also to enjoy the atmosphere we are holding a photowalk on Saturday, August 29. We come together for 2pm (14h) at Station Harlingen (Harlingen Port Station is closed). Then we walk a route around the city, we deal with the occasional beer and we 'when ever' back to the station.
Sign up at Flickr, or UPCOMING or FACEBOOK

More details will follow soon :)

Mobile markets are seperate continents!

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:27:29 PDT

It's strange really just how fragmented the world market is for mobile devices. Cellphones that are hot in Japan don't even make so much as a blip anywhere else. Nokia just can't make it happen in the US and the Palm pre is taking too long to make it over here (to Holland). And the iPhone! It's wiping out the competition. Before the summer I was hoping some devices would catch up on the iPhone, but Steves gang have just sat in deeper in the driving seat, flicked into 5th gear… resulting in a 6 week wait here in Holland for new iPhones because they are sold out. I am no slavish apple fanboy… but even my jaw has dropped and yes it looks stupid - duh!

So this week I sat up and took notice of Nokia's latest handset. No! It will not hurt iPhone sales, It won't make the US market happen for Nokia. But I would be surprized if in Europe the new Nokia 6760 Slide does not sell well. It has 2 factors which pack real punch.

Price! €199 before subsidies and taxes. That is incredibly cheap because
It has a 2.4-inch QVGA display, 3.2-megapixel snapper and support for up to 8GB of storage with microSD, A-GPS, Internet connnected (twitter, facebook, www, Google talk, Windows Live messaging). It hit's the market in Q3 which is basically between now and september.

And no I'm not a Nokia fanboy, but this is still pretty cool :) But on the android front John Biggs over at Mobile Crunch has practically fallen in love with the new HTC Hero, which he claims is better that the Palm Pre (ouch!). There will be alot of Android phones appearing in the next 6 months. Still think Nokia should jump on the Android bandwagon because they do not have a wipeout scenario for any of thier competitors and symbian is past it's sell by date. That does not take away from the fact that the 6760 is a great phone for a great price

Even in the summer the music industry keeps diggin' deeper

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:20:05 PDT

While British music boss says: we should have embraced Napster (Ars Technica), Metallica’s Lars Ulrich is Proud of Napster’s Destruction (TorrentFreak). All I can say is Metallica's sales have obviously not gone south since Napsters demise, wonder what his secret is?
Seemingly the RIAA has realized that DRM is dead, for music. E-book sellers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon still think we are fools with their device lock-in crap.
Musician angry after BPI forces YouTube to pull his video (Ars Technica) "British musician Calvin Harris was none too pleased to see that one of his original music videos, which he posted to YouTube, was removed due to a copyright complaint from the British Phonographic Industry."
And the best 'til last!, really another knife in the back of record labels and this should really hurt! The New York Times is reporting "Artists Find Backers as Labels Wane" as physical sales fell another 20% last year, companies like Polyphonic are offering Artists real alternatives to the fucked up major labels way of doing things.

Crossing the radar [20090721]

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:45:13 PDT

I have been posting lots of links via my @thebff twitter account. But not here… So let's get cracking again

Posterous is a new service and it's amazing imo. It's like a central hub where you can post stuff and send it onwards from there. But it's also a blog, and you can just email it stuff and it does the rest. Email it an mp3 file and it posts it on your blog with an embedded mp3 player, videos idem ditto, photos are turned it to very nice galleries, and you can even email photos to flickr+facebook@posterous.com and it will post your photos to facebook and flickr in one fell swoop. That is cool, so here are Ten Tips to Get the Most Out of Posterous
10 Reasons You'll Actually Miss Newspapers (not one has to do with content!)
Could new Google Docs be interface for GDrive? | ZDNet.com
Now this says a lot! Amazon: sales of Windows 7 in the 1st 8hrs it was available outstripped Windows Vista's entire... pre-order period.
Facebook Connect Is A Huge Success -- By The Numbers
Not really cheap… but totally awesome Lacie IamaKey ($35.99) a really thin 8Gb usb
Alex Payne | Fever and the Future of Feed Readers
Very clever css trickery here SlickMap CSS is a simple stylesheet for displaying finished sitemaps directly from HTML unordered list navigation. This guy is gonna get plenty of good karma I hope :)

Pirate bay has a future? - sweet dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Don Crowley) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:53:52 PDT

I admit to being as shocked as anyone else by the sale this week of Pirate Bay To GGF (Global Gaming Factory). But it gets crazier. He want's to go legal which is driving away many former users. He wants to enter negotiations with the music industry. He also seemingly wants to sell user bandwidth to make money, I have even heard somewhere (?) that he may use users music tracks to resell, possibly paying users.

Sounds crazy and it is. I am totally going to forget his plans of making money off the network itself. I don't think that will succeed, but I don't understand Ryanair either. But one mistake he is already making is with the music industry. Yo can't negotiate with them. They will bust your ass so bad. Sure they should embrace selling online and they are failing miserably. Even with Geoff Taylor admitting that ‘we should have embraced Napster’. They should have been selling music online over eight years ago, they have destroyed their market. The only way things will ever change is if Artists join together and create their own sales organisations and sell to iTunes, Amazon and anyone willing to do a deal. But the artists must not be greedy and greed seems to be the flavour of the decade. Any price above 50 dollar cents a song is a customer ripoff. If you know anything about customer and distribution costs you'll know I'm right. Sure I might be lambasted… they love themselves when they do that, that's why we refer to them as wankers sometimes :p Seriously since digital, those costs have become a dream come true. But théy don't care about money. This is all about power, which is funny really because they have made themselves so weak. They want total control and nothing will ever change until their last pathetic gasp of breath.