The Tech News Blog

3 brilliant tech sites you need to check out!

Jim Connolly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:39:26 +0000

Here are a few technology related sites / blogs I highly recommend you check out.

TWiT – This week in tech

Top of the pile by a mile is The TWiT network. TWiT is a collection of over a dozen tech related podcasts; from the daddy of tech podcasting: Leo Laporte.

Leo is probably the most respected (and copied) podcaster / broadcaster in the business and has won every award worth winning. His wide range of tech knowledge and his broadcasting style are, in my opinion, unsurpassed anywhere.

Leo’s podcasts (which he often refers to as netcasts) pull in huge international audiences and because of his reputation, Leo attracts top people from the world of technology and tech news on his shows. Regulars on his shows include; Patrick Norton, John C Dvorak, Jason Calacanis, Steve Gibson, Paul Thurrott, Roger Chang, Molly Wood and Tom Merritt – Plus many, many more.

The TWiT network is easily the best collection of tech related podcasts available anywhere and I can’t recommend it highly enough. By the way, you can also watch Leo’s shows being streamed live, which is always well worth watching if you get the chance!

Side note: Leo Laporte is also one of the inspirations behind me starting this tech blog (Thanks Leo.)

Crave

Crave is cnet.com’s UK gadget blog and the quality of writing there is consistently excellent. Written in a slightly different style to cnet.com, Crave offers news and reviews of the latest gadgets and also gives expert opinion on tech related news.

Bloggers include Nate Laxnon (their senior editor), Rory Reid, Rich Trenholm, Flora Graham and Ian Morris.

I highly recommend you subscribe to the cnet.uk podcast – especially if you already love Buzz Out Loud from Cnet.com.

The BBC website technology pages

The technology section of the bbc.co.uk website is essential tech reading for one extremely good reason: It’s fully independent!

Respected worldwide for its journalistic independence, this is perhaps the best place to find out what’s going on – without wondering if what you are reading is being written or altered, to keep a sponsor happy. For those who don’t know, the site carries no sponsorships or advertising, so is free to say what it believes, without having to spin anything out.

Whilst I would like to see it updated more regularly, the quality of the writing makes up for the lack of content.

There’s also a tech news blog called dot.life, which is worth checking out. My favourite writer there’s Rory Cellen-Jones.

I hope you find these recommendations useful. If you do, please share them!

Image credits: Leo Laporte, CNET & The BBC

Tech news providers on Twitter

Jim Connolly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:49:43 +0000

If you read this blog, you are obviously interested in technology news. That’s why I would like to share my Tech News Providers Twitter List with you.

By following that one list on Twitter, you can keep up with Twitter updates from the tech news providers, who I trust for their opinions (and entertainment value in a few cases too.) By the way, if you look at the Twitter widget on the sidebar of this blog, it’s a live feed of all the people on that list.

If you want to add the Twitter List widget to your blog, you can get it here.

So, is there anyone missing from this list that you think I should add? If so, let me know!

Twitter.com about to get stickier!

The Tech News Blog moves to Headway

Jim Connolly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:32:52 +0000

As regular readers will notice, the Tech News Blog has changed a lot this week.

Originally, the blog was on the Thesis theme; which is one of the cleanest looking Wordpress themes on the planet. However, I found Thesis way too hard to adapt and modify myself.

For a few months, I tried using a glossy looking theme, but it looked way too glossy; like a technology website (CNET / ZDNET) – rather than a tech news blog (Scobleizer / LouisGray.Com)

Whilst I wanted the clean simplicity of Thesis, I needed a theme that gave me 100% freedom to design, tweak and modify the blog myself – without having to learn HTML/CSS or hire a expert. So, I decided to use Headway (I’m now an affiliate) instead.

On Thursday, I added the Headway theme to the blog and in less than 30 minutes, everything was ready!

You know what? I’ve often spent twice that long looking for how to make one change to a blog, than it took me to configure this whole blog using Headway. The design you see right now may not be what you personally like, but I assure you it’s exactly the way I want it to look – with zero compromise.

Quick overview of Headway

I am not going to bore you with an insane list of what this theme can do, so here’s a tiny example of things that I was able to do in less than 60 seconds. Nothing I have done here required me touching the code – it’s all drag and drop baby!

With 2 clicks of a mouse, I can change where the top navigation menu sits; either above the header, below the header or turn it off and have it some place else completely.
I can also add drop down menus to the navigation bar.
Oh, and I can drag the navigation buttons into whatever order I want.
I can change the size / dimensions of the blog in seconds.
In seconds, I can resize any content area, simply by dragging it across the screen with my mouse.
The same is true of the sidebars.
Plus, I can make sidebars look totally different on each page. For example:
- Imagine you have a page on your blog, which sells your services. The sidebar for that page could be an animated list of testimonials.
I can change the header image in seconds. No FTP access required and as with everything else in this list, no need to touch the CSS either.
As far as I can see, I can change the colour of everything / anything in seconds.
Simply by pointing and clicking, I can change the font, font size and font colour of text.
I can also change the colour of hyper-links to anything, in just 2 clicks.
I can add a new header image in seconds, without even using FTP!
I can set the blog to automatically send each new post to Twitter, as soon as it’s published.
There’s stacks more things I could add here.

If you are a blogger and want full control over your blog, using drag and drop – you need to check out Headway(affiliate link.)

Full disclosure

Headway is the first theme I have ever been an affiliate of and the first product I have ever promoted on this blog as an affiliate. It’s simply amazing and has transformed the way I blog. It’s also saved me hundreds, by being able to do everything, in minutes, myself. As you will have seen, I give full disclosure when I link to an affiliate site. It may look weird, but I believe in total transparency.

If you want to take control of your blog and get great, professional results (without having to wait for or pay for professional help), I strongly recommend you take a good look at Headway.

Check the video’s out by clicking the banner below!

Twitter.com about to get stickier!

Jim Connolly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:09:55 +0000

I was reading this post on mashable earlier, from one of my favourite tech bloggers, Jennifer Van Grove. It’s about a new ‘tweet notification’ feature that Twitter are planning to add, for people who use the Twitter website to tweet.

Twitter business model to include advertising?

This got me thinking. In recent weeks, Twitter has made a number of significant improvements to the functionality of the main Twitter website. Most recently we saw the addition of the superb Twitter Lists feature, but Twitter are ALSO working on a new retweet feature too. These improvements have one thing in common; they render web-based apps like Tweetdeck and (my favourite) Seesmic Desktop less and less essential.

Both Tweetdeck & Seesmic Desktop are superb apps, but they are also a lot more resource hungry, than simply using a browser to access the Twitter website. Now that users are able to get all the core functionality direct from Twitter.com, using their favourite lightweight browser – There’s less motivation for NEW Twitter users to bother installing the aforementioned Twitter apps.

The Twitter team are actively, suddenly doing everything they can to make Twitter.com stickier. Obviously, this keeps MORE new users on Twitter.com.

Here’s why I think these recent moves by Twitter are so interesting, from a business model point of view.

Twitter’s business model puzzle

One of the biggest challenges Twitter has had to deal with, is how to turn the popularity of the service into an effective business model. A big reason that this has been such a challenge, is that only a small percentage of tweets are sent via Twitter.com. As a result, Twitter gets just a small percentage of the ‘eyeballs’ it could have; rendering Twitter.com far less attractive for potential advertisers.

I believe the recent introduction of Twitter Lists, project retweet and now the new ‘updates’ feature, show that Twitter is focusing hard on developing a key part of their business model around advertising on Twitter.com. As I mentioned some time ago, Twitter users in some Asian countries already see small banner ads on Twitter.com.

Conclusion

Whilst many longer term users will want to stick with their favourite Twitter desktop apps, there’s less and less reason for new desk-based users to want to use them. This should see a significant increase in the number of people using Twitter.com and as a result, transform the site into a more attractive platform for future advertisers.

Very few users of Twitter are likely to object to ads, particularly if they are somehow targeted around the user’s tweets, so they are relevant. Maybe Twitter users with an objection, could opt to pay a fee to have these ads removed; like wordpress.com do for their users.

What do you think?

BTW: You can follow me on Twitter here @thetechnewsblog

Why Windows 7 should have been offered FREE to every Vista user!

Jim Connolly — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:21:51 +0000

So, Windows 7 finally hits the streets and the early signs are promising. It’s not hard to see why, when even the least Microsoft friendly reviewers have been raving about it for months.

DSGi, one of the UK’s biggest computer retailers, said that they have had more pre-orders for Windows 7 in the past 3 weeks than they had for Windows Vista in a year!

Windows 7 free upgrade from Vista – The argument

As long time readers will know, I believe Windows 7 should be given to Windows Vista users, as a free upgrade.

Many Windows Vista users feel they were unpaid beta testers and that Microsoft has used their time and their error reporting with Vista, to help them produce Windows 7. I agree! In fact, many people have suggested that Windows 7 should have been rolled out as a Service pack for Vista.

These users should either get a free copy of Windows 7 OR AT LEAST a massively discounted copy.

Microsoft’s Windows 7 PR blunder

Microsoft’s latest OS is superb and if you are a Widows user, you will almost certainly love it. It’s just a pity that Microsoft didn’t use the launch of Windows 7, to win back some good faith from millions of angry Vista users. These people are now using an inferior OS and have to cough-up if they want to use an OS, which I believe they deserve for free. I blogged about this here.

What do you think?

Should you have to pay for Windows 7, if you already own Vista?

Friendfeed’s Paul Buchheit confirms no more features coming to Friendfeed!

Jim Connolly — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:49:04 +0000

Friendfeed’s Paul Buchheit has just confirmed to me that the next ‘big’ new feature coming to Friendfeed, will be the last. This comes a day after Buchheit issued a confusing statement about the future of the platform he co-founded.

Here’s what Buchheit just told me, in full:

Jim, there may be a few new things, but as I said, the team is mainly working on fb platform and openness, so it’s unlikely that there will be any big new features of ff (except maybe one that I’ve been thinking about for a while…).

So, whilst reports of Friendfeed’s imminent death seem to be premature, Buchheit’s message suggests that the platform is no longer being actively developed.

This news is of little surprise, coming just weeks after Friendfeed was acquired by Facebook in a multimillion dollar buy-out.

Friendfeed’s Paul Buchheit talking in riddles over future plans

Jim Connolly — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:08:06 +0000

As long time readers will know, I have been a champion of Friendfeed for quite a while. I have almost two and a half thousand subscribers there and have connected with some amazing people.

Friendfeed after Facebook’s acquisition

However, following Facebook’s acquisition, Friendfeed has been left to gather dust. Certainly, many of the users I used to connect with, have either left Friendfeed or hardly use it now. Take Robert Scoble for instance.

Scoble is the most followed or ’subscribed to’ user on Friendfeed. Here’s what he said recently;

“I can’t keep focusing on a site that isn’t getting developed. Sorry. That’s not what I do.”

Friendfeed co-founder Paul Buchheit talking in riddles

Scoble is not alone! Last weekend, a number of other high profile users started openly debating its future. This was Friendfeed’s opportunity to kill the rumours. Instead, a PR-Speak message was left by Friendfeed co-founder Paul Buchheit. Sadly, Buchheit has raised more questions than he answered.

Here’s what he said:

There was a lot of chatter about the future of FriendFeed this weekend. The short answer is that the team is working on a couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world. Transformation is not the end. Consider this the chrysalis stage — if all goes well, a beautiful butterfly will emerge :)

Friendfeed users ignored

After that comment, Buchheit was obviously asked to clarify what on earth he was saying – ya know, in English!

Sadly, he declined. In fact, at the time of writing this, he’s not replied to a single question. It’s worth remembering here that most tech commentators saw Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed as a ‘talent grab‘ – a way to buy great quality people. Few people believed Facebook had any interest whatsoever in the Friendfeed platform.

For example, is his reference to “bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world” saying, as some suggest, that they are exclusively developing Friendfeed as an ‘add-on’ for Facebook (the larger world) now?

Equally, these riddles and the silence that followed, are of no help to the developer community, who have asked if they should still be investing their time, developing apps for Friendfeed. Again, no reply.

Friendfeed – Not so ‘friendly’ any more

It’s sad that many of the users that Paul Buchheit (and his colleagues) are now ignoring, are the same Friendfeed users, who helped him build the platform’s user base – A platform they have reportedly sold for tens of millions of dollars. Way to treat your users guys!

Whilst I now spend hardly any time on Friendfeed, I’m NOT deleting my Friendfeed account. I am going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Who knows? Like most people, I have no idea what Buchheit was talking about and the future of Friendfeed remains to be seen. It is still an amazing platform.

Do you speak Buchheit’s language?

I’ve spoken to half a dozen people about what Buchheit has said and none of them could agree as to what his actual message was.

What’s YOUR take on this. Get in touch!

Balloon boy hoax, CNN and Twitter

Jim Connolly — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:30:22 +0000

So, as most people realised within 30 seconds of hearing the unlikely balloon boy story, it was a hoax.

Balloon boy was a non-story from the start

The father’s decision to call a TV company on thinking his child was missing in a weather balloon, rather than the emergency services, sounded strange and should have alerted CNN that this was a publicity stunt from the very start.

Image Credit: The Daily Telegraph

Then, when the networks find out within minutes, that the father was also a contestant on a reality TV show, (and that he had his children performing on Youtube), it seemed even more like a publicity stunt from someone obsessed with being famous.

The odds of there ever being anyone in that balloon were close to zero. BUT this did not stop CNN covering the event live – AND let’s face it, there’s plenty of REAL news happening right now.

Why broadcast the balloon boy story when it was so flimsy?

A few years ago, stories were researched before they were broadcast and that’s the first we would know of them. Today, every time a big story breaks, it’s picked up on Twitter first and the news companies / TV networks are left playing catch-up. This is BAD NEWS for the networks, as it means they no longer get all those valuable viewers / listeners to advertise to. Remembering, advertising revenue is what funds the networks. (Excluding The BBC here in the UK.)

Whilst Twitter is a super fast way of getting breaking news, it has one well-known, massive weakness – It’s extremely unreliable as a news source. You hear of a celebrity dying, (like Jeff Goldblum recently) and you know there’s a good chance that he’s probably water-skiing or in the gym training for a marathon. Like most people, I’ve lost count of how many disasters I have seen on Twitter as breaking news, which never actually happened.

That’s why whenever a big news story breaks on Twitter, the first thing most intelligent people do, is check to see if the news networks are confirming it. The news might break first on Twitter, but like the boy who cried wolf, we never know if we can trust it or not.

News outlets playing to Twitters strengths

The strength of the established news outlets and TV stations is their highly trained staff, their network of contacts and their researching skills. However, rather than play to their strengths, the news outlets and TV stations are trying to compete with Twitter on speed – a race that they can not win, if they want to remain a trusted, reliable source. That’s why we can expect to see more balloon boy non-stories in the future. From here in, I think I’m going to refer to this speed over facts bullshit as ‘ balloon boy journalism.’ (You saw it here first folks!!)

I’m hoping that this dumb-ass story isn’t the starting pistol, as the news outlets take their places for a ‘race to the bottom’. Yes, there has always been political bias in the news and yes, the news outlets have often got things wrong. However, focusing on speed rather than facts is hardly going to improve the quality and reliability of the news we watch or hear.

Balloon boy journalism plays into Twitters hands

If this really is a sign that the news outlets are going to focus on speed, rather than facts, Twitter could become our most valuable news outlet. At the moment, the only thing Twitter has over the traditional news outlets is speed. However, if the news outlets become just as unreliable, no one will bother checking a story out via their TV, radio or the website of one of those currently, trusted outlets.

People will see a story break on Twitter and stay there, until it’s either called out as a hoax or confirmed as a fact. After all, as in the fake Jeff Goldblum death story I mentioned earlier, many TV stations report Twitter hoaxes as facts anyway. Surely, for the news outlets to compete and survive, they need to play to their strengths and spare us more balloon boy ’stories’?

What do you think?

Someone PLEASE turn off the Live Blogging hosepipe!

Jim Connolly — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:30:42 +0000

Once again, hundreds or maybe thousands of people, attending the SAME event at the SAME time are ‘live blogging’ the SAME content to (mostly) the SAME people.

So-called ‘live blogging’ was once a useful practice, where a small number of people attending an event, would send key messages via Twitter, to their targeted followers.

Live blogging Blog World Expo #bwe

However, today – when almost every attendee at these events is tweeting everything they hear, live blogging has become (at best) a nuisance for Twitter users. The deluge of duplicate messages coming from is week’s Blog World Expo #bwe is the latest example.

At one point yesterday, I saw the same Tweet on my screen 7 times in around 3 minutes. Yes, of course I unfollowed the culprits!

Live blogging from the gurus

There is something REALLY funny, about listening to the worlds leading ’social media gurus,’ spraying the same hosepipe of identical information to their followers. After all, THESE GUYS are the self-appointed experts. Their inability to realise how pointless it is, to tweet the exact same ‘news’ as the guy sitting next to them is laughable.

Maybe they need to read their own books on how to use Twitter, (great value at just $9.99! with coupon code #bullshit.)

Live blogging does still have a place, as was very powerfully demonstrated at a number of recent, under-reported world events. But to sit in an air-conditioned exhibition venue, surrounded by thousands of people already tweeting every point made by every speaker is insane. If these people REALLY want to provide something of value, surely it would be better to write a blog post, based on THEIR unique understanding of what they discovered?

Am I being unfair here?

Autistic UK hacker loses latest appeal

Jim Connolly — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:39:10 +0000

Gary McKinnon is to be sent by the UK government to the United States for trial, following the failure of his latest appeal against extradition.

McKinnon has a form of autism, which his legal team and doctors claim will lead to “disastrous consequences” for his health, including possible psychosis and suicide; if he is extradited.

McKinnon admits accessing the United States military computer network, though has always claimed this was to find proof of alien fuel technology. Prosecutors claim his access caused close to a million dollars worth of damage; which has bee hotly contested by McKinnon’s legal team.

The 43 year old hacker faces up to 60 years in prison if found guilty. His case has been championed by human rights groups and a number of celebrities, including; Bob Geldof, Chrissy Hynde and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.