grandeffectmaster

What Services Would You Pay to Use?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:51:16 -0700

“Sooner or later people are going to get addicted to some of these services and they’ll be willing to pay for it.” - John Malone, the chairman Liberty Media, quoted by The Guardian about his belief that consumers will eventually pay for their favorite online services. His comments begs a few questions: 1. what online services would you [...]

The Buzz About Google Chrome OS

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:31:31 -0700

If a picture tells a thousand words, then the screen capture below of the front page of Techmeme illustrates the interest and excitement in Google’s new operating system. Keep in mind this screen shot was captured 24 hours after the initial announcement, which goes to show how much attention the news continues to receive - amazing [...]

Attack Of The Chrome

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:29:06 -0700

Earlier today I was on G4tv’s Attack of the Show live to talk about Google’s Chrome OS. Good times, had never done live TV before — though it was just me sitting in a room talking to a camera (they film it in LA). And no, the Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t really behind me, though if you zoomed in a bit from my apartment windows, that’s basically the view I have.

Video Games – E3 2009 – Attack of the Show

Surprise, Surprise (Not): A Google OS

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:34:40 -0700

Last night, I was thinking about some of the products I’d like to see Google develop (e.g. a blog publishing tool and iPhone apps for Google Reader and GMail). In mentally considering other possibilities, one thing that I didn’t thing about was an operating system. So, it was interesting to wake up this morning to [...]

Google Prepares To March Into Microsoft’s Capital

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:28:38 -0700

Sources: Google OS lives (and it’s coming to a netbook near you)

Heh, so I’m in the middle of writing up how interesting I think this rumor is, when the official bomb drops.

This is just so fucking huge. Granted, there’s still a lot that we don’t know about how this is all going to work, let alone play out, but this is tech news at its best in my opinion. Google and Microsoft are in the midst of an all-out war for the future of regular (non-mobile) computing. Brilliant.

Now, what I had written before the confirmation:

So, this is very interesting to say the least.

Nearly everyone I know who has a netbook runs Windows XP on it. Nearly every single one of them qualifies that by saying something like “yeah it runs XP but I just use Chrome on it.”

Again, not Vista, XP. An operating system that is nearly 8 years old. Again, 8 years. And so many people are running it on brand new netbooks because Vista sucks.

So why not cut out the middle man, right? Especially when that middle man is your biggest rival.

And at the same time you give people even better performance out of under-powered netbooks, because you’ll be giving them a barebones OS built specifically for these machines. Not an OS built for Pentium IIIs and Pentium 4s.

I find the 13-inch aluminum MacBooks to be just about the perfect travel machine. And now that it’s called the MacBook Pro with huge battery life, it’s even more perfect. I never had a real desire to buy a netbook except that they’re so cheap and I wouldn’t mind having something really, really small that ran Chrome. But I never did because I had no desire to go back to using Windows. Now, I won’t have to.

The iPhone’s Killer Apps

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:39:39 -0700

Having spent a week in Montreal on vacation, it was interesting that I didn’t use a digital camera. It didn’t mean I didn’t take any photographs; it just that they weren’t taken with the Casio XSlim camera that was left at home. Instead, I took a few hundred photographs using my iPhone, as well as an [...]

Police: we can’t tell you what operating system we use

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:36:01 -0700

I have been reading Freedom of Information Act requests recently and I came across one filed to Merseyside Police, in February 2007, that I had to share. I apologise if someone has already reported this; I found the information in the public domain and Merseyside Police removed the name of the person who filed the [...]

Free Content Starting to Erode at the Edges

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:09:57 -0700

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that something has to give if newspapers are going to stick around. The most obvious problem is the availability of free content that doesn’t attract enough advertising to provide newspapers and magazines with enough of a financial return. As a result, a few things have to happen: 1. Business models need to be [...]

Hitler Enraged Over Michael Jackson’s Death

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:37:29 -0700

YouTube – Hitler finds out Michael Jackson has died.

These just never get old.

“Anyone who does not own Thriller, Bad or Dangerous — Leave now.”

“I’m going to puke my fucking mustache off”

“And change my Facebook status to ‘RIP MJ’”

Bixi Bicycles Booming in Montreal

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:13:10 -0700

There are lots of things to like about Montreal - the nightlife, restaurants, cafes, parks, shopping, et al - but the thing that has really impressed me over the past week has been a system called Bixi that lets people use bicycles when needed. There are stations scattered throughout downtown Montreal where you can pick up [...]

Arment On Instapaper

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:18:22 -0700

Video Interview: Marco Arment of Instapaper – The Steve Rubel Lifestream

Arment lays out exactly how and why I use Instapaper. I love reading longer articles, but it’s just too hard sitting at the computer all day with so much else going on. When I see a longer one I really want to read, I hit the bookmarklet, save it and read it later on the iPhone or on the Kindle.

I love this app. So simple.

Twitter Bling on Bing for Famous People

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:29:58 -0700

You have to give Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, a lot of credit. Since the launch last month, it has done a terrific job of winning over a growing number of people with some savvy public relation efforts. The latest is the launch of results that show Twitter updates….as long as you’re famous. Dipping its toe [...]

Social Media Shouldn’t Be a Chore

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:00:21 -0700

Chris Brogan is a smart and insightful blogger and one of the leading social media consultants/practitioners but his recent post on establishing an online presence and building relationships should be taken with a grain of salt. The problem - at least the way I see it - is his prescription for social media success comes across [...]

Can Travel Sites Truly Leverage Social Media?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:10:30 -0700

The New York Times had an article last Sunday on how personal recommendation services are becoming more popular - driven by the belief that the best advice comes from people you know and those in your digital and personal networks as opposed to a service such as Yahoo Answers. For anyone using Twitter or Facebook, [...]

Blogging Still Rules the Social Media Roost

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:03:26 -0700

Steve Rubel caused quite the stir last week when he proclaimed he was leaving blogging for lifestreaming and a focus on social networks - a stance he appears to have retreated on already. Not surprisingly, it led to some people to wonder whether blogging is passe if a high-profile and well-known blogger is abandoning ship. Computer [...]

Testing BlogWriter on the iPhone

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:09:41 -0700

Just testing BlogWriter from the iPhone. Looks like it works pretty well (assuming this post shows up).

Is Faster Better? Or is it Just Faster?

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:57:09 -0700

After last night’s news about Michael Jackson’s passing, everyone is once again praising the speed of the internet, blogs, and Twitter for trumping traditional media in delivering the news. Gossip site TMZ broke the news and it swirled around Twitter for hours before CNN would even confirm the story themselves. But was this another example [...]

Avatar Hyperbole Or Awesomeness

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:55:25 -0700

Early Buzz: 24 Minutes of James Cameron’s Avatar Screened | /Film

James Cameron screened 24 minutes of his new movie, Avatar in Amsterdam. Word about it is leaking out. All of it isn’t just good, it’s extremely good.

“Jawdropping”

“Mind blown”

“Stunning”

“Amazing”

“This will change movies forever”

The movie supposedly cost around $300 million to make. I am most excited.

The Apple Chocolate Factory

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:09:52 -0700

“Secrecy at Apple is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture. Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas.

Work spaces are typically monitored by security cameras, this employee said. Some Apple workers in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful, he said.

via Apple’s Management Obsessed With Secrecy – NYTimes.com

This reminds me of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. And I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Everyone likes a surprise, and in a world where everything is leaked, Apple is still good at providing those. And also at making sure Slugworth doesn’t get his hands on the goodies.

On The Line Between Personal Privacy And A Fascinating Sub-Story

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:37:24 -0700

John Gruber of Daring Fireball just published a great, in-depth look at the whole rather odd scenario of how the story of Steve Jobs’ liver transplant broke, or how it may have broken.

While I did put a couple sentences about the opportune timing of the story in my post on it, that was the most immediate thing that jumped out at me when I first heard it. But I really didn’t want to fully go there. To be honest, I have never felt all that comfortable covering someone’s health woes (though I do agree that in this case, it is news). But Gruber does a classy job at dissecting this situation.

I have absolutely no knowledge about this situation beyond what I’ve read or heard from third-parties, but in my mind there is also no doubt this was leaked to WSJ, by someone involved with Apple in some way. The timing was just too perfect.

It was late Friday night. Just hours after the iPhone 3G S had a very successful launch. And hours after the stock shot up. And with the market not opening again until Monday, it gives optimal time for everyone to freak out about this, then calm down when they realize that the bottom line is that Jobs is going back to work within days. And even if isn’t returning at a full capacity, it gives people a chance to remember that Apple has been kicking just as much ass with Tim Cook at the helm.

Gruber lays out 3 scenarios of how it may have went down: A doctor leaked it, Apple leaked it with Jobs’ knowledge, or an Apple board member leaked it without Jobs’ knowledge. He seems to favor the third in thinking that Jobs, who is very secretive about his health, wouldn’t want anyone to talk about this.

But I would guess it was something more along the lines of (and this is all speculation, of course) the Occam’s Razor answer: Everyone at Apple knows this is going to get out eventually, and they know there will be no better timing, so someone at Apple was instructed to tell the WSJ but only give the very basic outline of what went down. And the WSJ went digging from there to try and connect the dots backwards for a story it knew to be true but had basically no details beyond: This happened, here’s around where it happened, and here’s around when it happened.

And in connecting those dots, the reporters talk to some unrelated doctors who give the juicy details that such a surgery isn’t always effective, and even somewhat imply that it may not have been fair for Jobs’ to get the new liver. And so they have to mention that, but don’t really want to (or have time to) delve too deeply into it, and away from the already huge story they have. And maybe Apple even asked that the on-the-record comment be a basic no comment, which it was.

Again, that’s all speculation, but that would be my guess. This whole thing is odd. But admitedly, facisinating.

So Smooth

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:54:23 -0700

Joe Hewitt – The “S” Should Stand for Smooth

While a lot of the 3G S differences are subtle, and may not be hugely obvious to an end-user, I have yet to hear of any developer who doesn’t absolutely love the 3G S. And that is of course good news for Apple.

Sounds like the new Facebook app should be fast as hell. I just hope it finally includes goddamn events. (It will.)

CNN’s Love Affair With Me Continues

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:46:22 -0700

iPhone 3GS launch has app developers seeing gold – CNN.com

Contrary to what you see in almost daily articles and now on TV, I don’t work for CNN.

The Smartphone Wars

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:37:26 -0700

New iPhone 3GS heats up smartphone wars – CNN.com

Some commentary from me on CNN about the mobile wars.

Keep a comment blog with Amplify

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:20:57 -0700

A few weeks ago, Eric Goldstein, CEO of Clipmarks, invited me to his new website: Amplify. Amplify allows users to share clippings (like excerpts of text or images) much like Clipmarks, but encourages its users to comment on it and then the combined commentary and clipping are displayed together on a blog. The uses are interesting. [...]

Coming Soon to Your iPhone: Social Ads with Search Built In

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 06:55:23 -0700

Mobile advertising company AdMob is announcing today their latest innovation in advertising technology designed specifically for the iPhone. Starting in July, advertisers will be able to create new ad units that offer integrated social networking features, built in search, and more dynamic content which can be viewed without having to leave the ad unit. Today, AdMob [...]

More copyright craziness: NYTimes: Music Industry Sees Nightclubs as a New Source of Revenue

Sun, 31 May 2009 09:57:29 -0700

From The New York Times:

Music Industry Sees Nightclubs as a New Source of Revenue
By ERIC PFANNER

As the music industry tries to make up for plunging CD sales, it is pushing to generate new revenue from nightclubs, restaurants, radio stations and karaoke bars….

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/media/01iht-music01.html

Posted via email from Newsgrange

Can a community grow too large?

Tue, 12 May 2009 15:22:07 -0700

I often blog about Wikipedia, but I have recently started to contribute to Wikinews. One thing that immediately struck me was that Wikinews’ community was much warmer than Wikipedia’s, but naturally it is much smaller. As communities grow larger, generally more disputes arise. As more disputes arise, ways in which to resolve them must develop. With thousands [...]

This is what HD Video was made for

Thu, 07 May 2009 11:49:32 -0700

via youtube.com

Super Slo-mo Surfer! – South Pacific – BBC Two

Posted via web from Newsgrange

So which one is it, Microsoft?

Thu, 07 May 2009 09:19:12 -0700

Posted via email from Newsgrange

Pixel City – Procedurally generated city

Tue, 05 May 2009 10:06:08 -0700

Pixel City

Yours Truly on the Radio

Fri, 01 May 2009 18:02:24 -0700

I did a short interview about Wolfram Alpha with Jon Gordon from American Public Media’s Future Tense earlier this week, and Jon just posted the piece, which will be heard on about 100 public radio stations.

My first radio interview! Yay!

Best Infomercial Parodies and Dubs on YouTube

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:37:45 -0700

Talk about a smart way of using Flickr…

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:16:21 -0700

The original page is at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/norby

Created with Skitch from plasq – http://plasq.com

Love these informercial remixes on YouTube – Slap Chop Rap

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:20:57 -0700

via youtube.com

Posted via web from Newsgrange

Subspace Computing With Inbuilt Web

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:15:26 -0700

They will be capable of faster than light communication and if much of quantum theory turns out to be correct you could just construct your platform here on earth and have mirror constructions using connected particles looking after themselves in remote spatial locations.

Does reviewing an email help you?

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:18:00 -0700

The other day I read a post on Lifehacker about revising emails, the main point of it was to revise the email more and more, the more people you send it to. They quoted David Silverman from Harvard:

1 to 5 recipients = 2 to 4 revisions
5 to 10 recipients = 8 to 12 revisions
Company-wide or to Executive Committee = 30 to 50 revisions

Do you think such revision is needed? Maybe I take the wrong approach, but in 95% of my emails I don’t really care in the sense that it’s not my problem if people don’t read my emails. I’m all for revising emails, but sending an email to 20 people and doing 20 revisions? Come on!

Generally speaking I would say you should revise your email once, to make sure you didn’t make any factual mistakes. If you’re sending to a wide audience, maybe you could revise once more to make sure everything is clear, but noone really cares about the odd spelling mistake, or anything like that. I mostly email my clients with project updates and such, they care about the project status, not the correct placement of commas. They are perfectly happy with a completely garbled email, as long as I do what I need to.

Obviously there are scenarios where careful wording and extreme revision is needed (job offers, investment opportunities, etc), but I think in the day to day email business there is no need to be so meticulous. Yes, you will make some mistakes, but you won’t spend all day revising your simple email.

15 awesome iphone-like icon sets

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:02:54 -0700

Oh yes, I do love icons, and I found a great list of 15 free icon sets for your iphone on Make Use Of today. The title might be a bit misleading, you can use these icons anywhere, they just look like the icons that the iphone uses.

While many of these icon sets look similar they are all beautiful and each one is subtly different. I especially like Chalkwork which is a great take on the standard iphone like icon design, and Aquaticus Social which I have known for quite some time now, and have used on many sites.

If this isn’t enough, I also use two great icon search engines, Iconlook and Iconfinder to find icons, if you need a specific one, your best bet is searching these sites, or doing a Google search. I also showed you some beautiful and free icons from Jordan Michael before, take a look!

Gmail adds tiff and ppt viewing power

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:34:03 -0700

PDF viewing has been with us in Gmail for a while now, and since many times I just need a quick info or two from a pdf, it became quite comfortable being able to open it right in my browser from Gmail. The Official Gmail Blog just announced that they have added tiff and ppt support as well!

I don’t really use tiff a lot, but scanned files are often saved in tiff, which can be a multi-page document that some software has problems with. I didn’t try this myself, but apparently Gmail will have no problem with these documents, they will open in the same way as they were intended to, multi-page images.

The ability to view presentations on the fly, in the same viewer, is also great, no need to download and open with office, or go to a separate viewer, it will open right there in your browser. Again, on my end I usually do not need to actually have these saved, I use ppt-s for data flow information and so on, no need to have them constantly on my hard drive.

Find free alternatives to commercial apps with osalt

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:29:13 -0700

It’s always surprising to see the amount of awesome free software out there, but often it isn’t that easy to find the tool you need. For each need, there is usually a well known commercial software though, like Photoshop, Outlook, OneNote, their free counterparts however are not always such “icons”.

Osalt is a site which suggests a lot of open source alternatives to widely known software, or the other way around, showing you the commercial borther of free software. With 11 categories, a searchable database, multiple suggestions and system config notes, the data you can find is very useful.

You can also find a short description for each app, links to the homepage, rss options, tags and so on, so you’ll find what you need in a jiffy. I like this site a lot because it doesn’t just point me to one open source item, but many, allowing me to choose from a wider range. I would love to see some commenting options on there, although a star rating is available. Some filtered comments would make it easier to choose without downloading, but I’m not complaining, a great service regardless.

Hack Your Day facelift and upgrade

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:48:28 -0700

A facelift was very much needed for the blog for a while now, there were so many missing features I wanted to add. The first thing I changed is the typography which was way too small, reading Hack Your Day should now produce occular pleasure in the extreme. I also added search functionality and a few pages at the top.

You can now also follow the blog on Twitter, or you can click the super friendly and inviting RSS link at the top to follow via RSS. If you have anything to say, any comments, suggestions, post ideas, please let me know in the comments, or you can drop me a line any time at daniel [@atsign@] hackyourday [dot.] com.

Advanced comment filtering on YouTube

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:21:34 -0700

A typical day on YouTube. You find a cool music video, say a Dave Matthews one and you love the song. You then scroll down, the first comment states that Dave Matthews is a fraud because Puccini writes better violin pieces, and then you see 20 comments about the current political situation. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t really go to YouTube for political debates.

If you’re not interested in some comments, YouTube has implemented a new filter system that lets you hide them altogether, or filter them so only comments with a rating of 1 or better are shown for example. You can also hide profanity and racial stuff, so you might just get some relevant comments if you’re lucky.

Personally I go for vids, not comments, so I don’t really mind, but if there would be any interesting comments it would be great to see them. It’s great that they’re trying to raise the user experience bar though, I hope they think up some even better mechanics, allowing video posters to close comments to profanity, they just wouldn’t show up at all.

Working on the go

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:56:57 -0700

I am on the train right now, writing posts, and I just lost my last post (rewritten since) because of some saving stupidity. When on a train I’m less at home, mostly because I don’t have a mouse handy, which means I’m more prone to mistakes. This has happened to me more than once now, so if you’re in a similar situation, I have a tip which could save you some time.

If you’re writing posts, write all of them in the same file and save it regularly. This will mean that you only have to handle one file, you won’t loose the contents so easily. Also, if you work in Notepad, not a more resource hungry app like Word, you can probably prolong your battery life too.

I actually hate writing posts in Notepad, or anything else that is not code for that matter, but it beats having to rewrite it from scratch, especially since I always feel that the second edition isn’t as good.

Creating text snippet macros with Notepad++

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:55:12 -0700

Notepad++ is one of my favorite applications, it is lightweight, flexible, and has all the tools I need to do my job. One of the great options it offers is a built in macro recorded, which among other things, allows you to create easily insertable text snippets into your files. Let’s take a look at how to insert an HTML comment (””) with the push of a key combination.

First of all, open notepad and click the record button, which can be found toward the end of the toolbar, a big red circle. Once you clicked it, the app will start recording, so it’s time to type what you need, in our case: “” (without the quotes). Once done, press the save button, which is the right most icon in that group and give it a title (eg. HTML Comment) and add a keyboard shortcut, in my case this was ctr + shift + c. Once saved you can press that combination any time to paste an HTML comment.

There are two things to watch out for when recording. First of all, don’t copy paste, since the copy paste action will be recorded, not the actual clipboard contents, so next time you invoke the action, the actual clipboard will be pasted. Secondly, your actions are all recorded, so pressing the arrow, or backspace and so on. This way you can record the same comment by pressing back 4 times after you typed it, and saving like that. This will place your cursor between the two dashes, which is where you will write your comment, saving your the time of pressing back every time you insert a comment.

This allows for a lot a fancy macros, but for now you can create simple text snippets. I’ll be covering a lot more advanced macros a bit later though.

The best screenshot tool ever made

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:38:51 -0700

I rarely cover the same app on two blogs, but having recently reviewed PrtScr on gHacks, I thought I’d let Hack Your Day readers in on this awesome tool as well. PrtScr is a screenshot tool which takes the process to a whole new level, mostly by looking really good and handling really well.

Once you install it, you can use the print screen button to evoke it, it will drop a gray canvas over your screen and you can select any area of the screen. Pressing print screen again will take a shot of the whole screen, but you can also draw a freehand shape, or a rectangle.

The shot taken will hover to the right of the screen while you can choose options on the left. This part looks extremely impressive by the way, it is a joy to look at when I take a screenshot, seriously. You can choose to copy to the clipboard (you can also choose to do this automatically in the settings), you can choose to edit it, or save it to the desktop.

The coolest thing is that the hovering image can be drag and dropped, so if you want to edit it in Photoshop, just drag it onto the Photoshop taskbar entry, and then onto the canvas. You can also save it like this, dragging it onto the desktop, or any other folder.

There are a number of options available, but really this is a just an extremely new and cool way to take screenshots, and if you do this regularly, you will find PrtScr a joy to work with.

Maker’s Notebook, the Moleskine of DIY

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:26:53 -0700

If you’re an avid DIY builder, a builder of gadgets, or a soldering master you could use a Moleskine to catch your thoughts, but there is a specialized notebook out there for you guys called the Maker’s Notebook.

It contains 150 pages of engineering graph paper which you can use to jot down ideas, notes or whole wiring diagrams if you need to. The really cool thing is how the notebook is printed to help organize. It has page numbers which is quite rare, a two page, pre-ruled table of contents, and also blank fields on each page for project names and so on. This makes it really easy to find everything later on, which is a part of note taking many people overlook.

Apparently this notebook is pretty populer with DIY project people, like Tom Igoe, creator of the popular Arduino board. Customizing the front end is also a big deal, a lot of people use stickers and other items to mod theirs.

It’s a tad pricier that the Moleskine, but since it is a highly specialized notebook, and quite thick with 150 pages, the price seems well worth it to me, a Moleskine in Europe would probably be priced the same.

The Technological Singularity

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:37:30 -0700

Roger Andre is doing some guest posts on Webby’s World. He’s doing a few posts about future tech. He also writes on ZDNet UK. Are we approaching a point when machines may wake up and become self or seemingly self aware? Vernor Vinge in 1993 seemed to think so. He refered to this event as the “technological [...]

Why I Didn’t Get to See FriendFeed’s Redesign

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:37:39 -0700

Last week, while in San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Expo, I was invited to go check out the new version of FriendFeed. Not being from the area, and to be honest, not having time to figure out how far away the office was from the Expo, I didn’t even pull up the address for [...]

Come on Microsoft – that ad doesn’t even make sense (aka: Why I just bought a Macbook)

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:40:43 -0700

The Windows vs. Mac discussion never stops to amaze me. That’s probably because I’m pretty agnostic when it comes to my operating systems. I’ve used Windows 3.1 to 7, Ubuntu was the main OS on my laptop for the last three years, I wrote some of my best stuff on an LC 630 Macintosh back in the day, and last weekend I bought a Macbook to replace my dead Dell laptop.

But Microsoft’s latest ad campaign, which made its debut today, just…

Show Off Your FriendFeed Subscribers with a New Widget

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:05:40 -0700

Alan Cheslow, a FriendFeed fanatic whose entire personal web site is built around the service, has just created a new widget which FriendFeed fans are definitely going to love. Unlike the official FriendFeed widgets that show off your stats or your feed, this new widget shows off your friends instead. The FFavatars widget is sort [...]

Why Facebook is Failing Me

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:52:46 -0800

Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook as much as the next guy, but lately I can’t help but feel like it’s not living up to my needs. The problem? I want to use Facebook both professionally and personally. I want my one Facebook account to serve both my “real life” friends and those [...]

Friendfeed is for Early Adopters. Why? Because Nobody Else Needs It

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:41:37 -0800

<rant> Allen Stern wrote a nice, concise rant about Friendfeed today, where he argues that FF still has to fix a lot of usability issues before it can ever go mainstream. I mostly agree with Allen, but I think that FF’s real issue goes far deeper than just usability.

Sadly, being a big fan of Friendfeed in the past, I have to agree with most of what he says (except for the gmail part of his rant).

Allen is right that conversation on Friendfeed…

Twitter Goes Hollywood

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:46:28 -0800

Have you heard the news? Celebrities are adopting Twitter right and left these days. And no, I’m not talking about Britney, a Twitter account managed and maintained by a team of experts - I mean real, honest-to-goodness stars maintaining and updating Twitter on their very own. Recently, the internet-savvy Ashton Kutcher introduced wife Demi [...]

It’s a Windows 7 Love Fest

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:30:38 -0800

On the fence as to whether or not you should install Windows 7? If you’re hesitating, let me help you get up on this here bandwagon. I love Windows 7, yes it’s true, but remember that I was someone who didn’t entirely hate Vista – it had its quirks, mind you - but nothing [...]

Did Google Just Get a New Favicon?

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:49:05 -0800

Not much of a news story, but I just noticed a different favicon for Google in my browser. Is this new?

A Retweet Mapping Tool Emerges

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:14:39 -0800

I just stumbled upon a new tool that maps out the re-tweets occurring on Twitter. It’s called, simply, the ReTweet Mapper. (Actually, I didn’t Stumble Upon it, I found it on FriendFeed, of course.) The ReTweet Mapper is a tool created by Dan Zarrella, who calls himself a social and viral marketing scientist. He describes [...]

Happy New Year

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:05:48 -0800

I’m not blogging today, but just wanted to wish everybody a Happy New Year.

I’ve got some new things planned for this blog, which pretty much went into hibernation after I started blogging for ReadWriteWeb, so stay tuned for that!

As always: thanks for reading and subscribing! Without my readers and commenters here, I surely wouldn’t be where I am right now and I’m deeply grateful for that!

We Don’t Need Authority on Twitter

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:39:35 -0800

Twitter Authority

What the Heck is Going On with Facebook email?

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:08:11 -0800

I just tried sending an email on the Facebook site and I got a message in red saying that it could not be sent. Thinking it must have been some kind of fluke, I exited the page and returned to my Inbox to try again. This time the email went through, but displayed the following [...]

Five Web Apps that Deserved More Attention in 2008

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:36:03 -0800

Even though 2008 isn’t exactly ending on a high note, we have definitely seen our fair share of interesting new web apps and online services this year. Some of those, however, never quite caught on, even though they are really interesting and cool. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why these things happen – could be because of the day they launched (or even the time of day they launched); could be that people didn’t quite get the purpose of the…

How To Fix The New Google Reader

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:43:30 -0800

As you’ve probably heard by now, Google Reader was updated yesterday with a completely new UI. After the initial shock (change is scary) and once I realized that all the features were still there (I thought they had been removed, but they were just hidden), I was able to calmly assess the changes and [...]