Google announced a couple things over the last several days. First, Aza Raskin announced his project, "Ubiquity". A couple days later we heard about the new Google web browser, "Chrome".

Let's look at Chrome first. Introduced in the form of a mailed-out comic book (by Scott McCloud, no less! Reminds me of Sir Richard Attenborough in Jurassic Park, "We spared no expense!"), Chrome is Google's upcoming take on what a web-browser should be. Citing webapps and increased use of the browser by end-uses, Google claims that we need them to step in and show us what a browser should be like. They're working on some cool stuff, like process management, javascript interpretation, and task management. They're also doing some stuff that they claim will be amazing, but sounds kinda "meh" to me, like putting the tabs above browser navigation. They're a wacky bunch at Google.

What I'm really excited (and, consequently, frustrated) about, though, is Ubiquity. The potential usefulness is huge, and the potential is absolutely there to change how people interact with the internet. I won't recap it for you, as the best option would be to install it and play with it yourself. I have, and it's cool. The trouble is, until it reaches a point where implementation of Ubiquity on websites matches its name, it'll be kind of a waste for most people.

For example, I don't use Google Calendar or Gmail, though I have an account of each for sharing, synching, and spam-filtering purposes. And, because of that, anything I create with Ubiquity can't actually be used. There's no way, at the moment, for me to tell Ubiquity to create mail in Mail.app, using my Address Book contacts. There's not even a way for me to tell it to use the MobileMe service, instead of Gmail/Google Calendar. So I'm kind of out of luck. Granted, I'm 100% positive that Gmail has way more users than MobileMe does, plus it's being developed by Aza at Google - it makes sense that they'd integrate first with Google products.

My point is kind of different, though. Aza's goal is to make a framework that allows for use of the internet like you'd talk to a secretary. "Joe, I need you to book me a flight tomorrow to Denver, then email my contacts at work, in Denver with my itinerary, and add the event to my calendar." And it gets done. This is the internet for people who are either a) afraid of the internet, or b) don't want to spend the time to figure out how multiple web-apps should best be used together. Ubiquity should take care of that.

But these people aren't hip to Google, necessarily. My Dad would love this, but he's a Mail.app guy. I doubt he even knows about the MobileMe web apps. It's perfect for those people, but they aren't going to get anything out of it, unless Google can do some crazy-magic.

I'll quote John Gruber, as I often do. "That’d be incredible. I’m not holding my breath."

Posted by jehan at 11:27 AM | Permalink

Handbrake updates to 0.9.2, and the feature list is not small. Now, if they'd only fix that damn icon.

(Via http://www.macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=20501.)MacWorld UK

Posted by jehan at 10:09 AM | Permalink

The Mozilla Foundation launched a new entity, today, called Mozilla Messaging. Aimed at making online communication - in many forms - better, it sounds to me like Mozilla is aiming at pulling technologies together to put Exchange directly in their sights.

(Via Wired.)

Posted by jehan at 9:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

One of the major hangups that caused the extended lack of content you've seen (since the inception of the site, to be honest, but I'm specifically talking about the past couple months) was the inability to find a blog editor that I liked. Like most people, I started out by simply using the web-interface of Movable Type. After a couple months of this, I shied away. I learned that I'd rather have something on my desktop, rather than having a web-browser constantly open to MT. At the time, MT was prone to wiping out my entire post without notice, on a simple reload of the page, or Safari crash. Whatever.

So I looked to developers of software I liked. After trying out a couple others, I fell into Ecto. Developed by Adriaan Tijsseling, I was a big fan of his RSS reader, "Endo." Also, the names kick ass.

At first, it was great. The feature set was awesome, and once I got it configured, it rocked. At first. With each update came a couple fixes for outstanding issues, but it seemed each one had a host of quirks and problems that went with it. Most recently, I couldn't reliably attach categories or images, which meant that for every post I was logging back into the web interface to set a tag, or to fix the image. That got old, and quick.

As a result, I abandoned the blog for a good long while. I had other things to tend to, so it fell to the back of my mind. If you've tried to start a regular blog, you can relate, I'm sure. Months passed.

Last week, I wiped my comp. Reinstalled apps, and when I went to install an RSS reader, I defaulted to my old standby: endo. Except it was different. It was suckier. Didn't have the features I was used to. So I checked the website. I guess it's free, now. Which is good. But, I am a little blown that while I bought a full license, the new, free, ecto feels crippled compared to what I've used in the past. So I threw it in the trash, and decided to replace it with NetNewsWire.

NetNewsWire expects MarsEdit as a desktop blogging client, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Here we are, all caught up. And over the next couple days, you'll see more activity over here, and a full writeup of the differences between Ecto and MarsEdit will be forthcoming.

Posted by jehan at 4:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by jehan at 3:30 PM | Permalink

Dave Caolo from TUAW sums up the rotten fruit of NBC's ditching iTunes for a home-brewed webcasting solution. The end result is an effective kick in the balls for everyone.

It requires Internet Explorer, the NBC Direct Player (Windows only) and the latest .Net framework. Videos are available for only 7 days after they initially air, and disappear from your computer 48 hours after you begin watching them (unless you remember to renew your license before then). Also, videos will only play on the computer used for the initial download.

Mac users cannot use the service, though NBC says a Mac version is "...planned for 2008." Finally, downloads cannot be transferred to portable devices.

Awesome.

Posted by jehan at 8:19 AM | Permalink

A vulnerability in Apple's Mail.app that allows commands to be executed in the terminal without warning. It's been found. Again. Boo, Apple.

[From Apple Mail in Leopard with the same old error - heise Security ]

Posted by jehan at 2:49 PM | Permalink

As assembled by Mark Pilgrim.

[From The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts) [dive into mark]]

+1

Posted by jehan at 10:23 AM | Permalink

Kindle is all the talk, today. Here's Gruber's take on it, he did what he does, and put it very well.

So the Kindle proposition is this: You pay for downloadable books that can’t be printed, can’t be shared, and can’t be displayed on any device other than Amazon’s own $400 reader — and whether they’re readable at all in the future is solely at Amazon’s discretion. That’s no way to build a library. [From Daring Fireball]

Essentially, Amazon is asking you to give them four hundred bones to have the privilege of buying files from them can't be shared, and may not be any good in the future. Oh, and you get an ugly-ass reader, too. Seriously, that thing looks like ass. The screen might be awesome, sure, but those keys? Thick white border? It looks like it was designed in 1994. Actually, it looks like the Simpson's Newton.

Posted by jehan at 9:11 AM | Permalink

I think the most standout of the things wrong with Amazon's new e-book device and service is its name. And I'm definitely not one for burning books.

[From Amazon.com: Kindle]

Posted by jehan at 8:46 AM | Permalink

On Monday, FileMaker Inc. released a public beta version of their new app, Bento. This much we know. John Gruber of Daring Fireball put together a nice write up of exactly what the app does, who it's for, and speculates about how the app came to be. It's an excellent write up, and if you're at all interested in a kind of "at home" database to keep track of, well, everything, then you should absolutely take a look at this.

[From Daring Fireball: Bento]

Posted by jehan at 10:24 AM | Permalink

Kurt Suther released the b1 of his excellent Chax enhancement for iChat. I used to use it primarily to add tabs, but the big good feature, now, is auto-accepting text chat invitations.

As with beta software, there was a hitch getting the damn thing installed. I tried a couple things with no luck, then decided to read the comments (novel idea!); commenter Zev recommended installing Plugsuit to track down any old version of Chax I had installed, then reinstall. Worked like a damn charm.

[From Chax » Blog Archive » Chax 2.0 Beta 1]

Posted by jehan at 9:53 AM | Permalink

Daniel Miessler's website (aptly named dmiessler.com) is a solid resource for intorductory knowledge on lots of stuff, and more in-depth knowledge for lots of other stuff. In this episode, he tackles something near and dear to my heart: horsepower v. torque! Awesome!

I learned a couple things in this article, and if you're at all into cars, it's nice to see the correlation broken down like this.

[From dmiessler.com | study | horsepower]

Posted by jehan at 12:53 PM | Permalink

Essential Keystrokes put this up some time ago, and I actually just happened upon it, today. It's funny, 'cause this was the first time I've switched hosts, and this was what I did. I just didn't have the logical structure that is laid out in these 6 easy steps.

For most hosts, the biggest trouble will be making the backup (which is made easy by phpMyAdmin (if your host rocks the cPanel) and getting that backup restored on your new host. After that, it's all more or less a wait and see game. You make a change, wait. It takes affect, you wait. You make another change, and it starts again.

If you're going to switch hosts, definitely look into this. Worth reading, probably worth saving.

[From 6 Easy Steps to Making a Web Hosting Switch]

Posted by jehan at 4:28 PM | Permalink

I don't think I ever got into the problems I had with my old host, 2MHost. Honestly, I was pretty worried that if I put any honest reviews about them online, they'd make my dealings with the even more of a trainwreck than they already were. Now that I've moved on, though, I'm going to give you a taste of what it was like.

This exchange took place last Thursday. I was "Live Chatting" with a CSR over there, trying to get my domain transfer expedited. Not an uncommon request by any means.

(16:05) me: requesting chat
(16:05) me:
(16:05) me:
(16:05) me:
(16:05) me:
(16:05) me:
(16:05) me:
(16:05) me:
(16:05) tech. support: chat request accepted
(16:06) me: sweet.
(16:06) tech. support: Hello
(16:06) me: Hi.
(16:06) tech. support: How can I assit you?
(16:06) me: I've been waiting for contact from sales since early this morning. I need to check the status of my ticket
(16:07) me: #11802
(16:07) tech. support: Please place a ticket for that
(16:07) me: THat doesn't make any sense at all
(16:07) me: I've already placed a ticket
(16:07) me: I provided you with a ticket number
(16:08) me: now, I need it resolved.
(16:08) tech. support: they will update you on ticket
(16:08) me: It's been 6 hours.
(16:08) me: I really cannot wait.
(16:08) me: well, 4 hours.
(16:08) me: my mistake.
(16:09) me: regardless, it's been long enough.
(16:09) tech. support: Sorry for the inconvinonce caused to you but thich is a technical support department and we do not have access to to the sales department
(16:10) me: You should have access enough to be able to escalate this to someone who can help me resolve this.
(16:11) me: I appreciate your help, but the lack of any type of phone communication is a real pain.
(16:11) me: Because I can't convince anyone aside from you, Tech Support, to talk to me.
(16:12) me: And, honestly, I have no idea if you're a real person or not. Every time I've contacted tech support, I'm told to put in a ticket.
(16:12) tech. support: I am sorryfor the inconvinionce caused
(16:12) me: Honestly, you'd fail a Turing Test really quick.
(16:12) me: so. Let's resolve this.
(16:12) me: apologies do me no good.
(16:13) me: can you provide me with a company phone number?
(16:14) tech. support: Sorry we do not have phone no.
(16:15) tech. support: Is there any thing elese I can assit you with ?
(16:15) me: you can get me a manager
(16:16) tech. support: He is not available right now
(16:16) me: easy for you to say. managers are never available over there
(16:17) tech. support: Session closed by staff

And that's where we were. I'd just gotten hung up on by my host, for requests that are far from unreasonable. Typical of them, though.

Honestly, that's the only thing I didn't like about 2MHost. The price wasn't bad, I got all the typical features, and billing was as you'd expect, and the uptime was excellent. They responded quickly when the website got hacked a couple years ago. But, their customer service is terrible. God awful. Pretty much the worst ever. No phone support, no emailing with one person, and all communication has to go through a "Live Chat" or the ticketing system. And nobody seems to even come close to speaking English well, despite their supposedly being based in New Jersey (my server IP, though, showed an empty lot outside Houston).

Also, "Live Chat" keeps going in quotes because the scripts the CSRs use are so bad and predictable that I seriously doubted I was talking to a person. I still don't think that a person even looks at the chats until after "Please place a ticket for that." Christ, my blood boils just thinking about it.

Posted by jehan at 10:36 AM | Permalink

I moved us over to A Small Orange (finally, 2MHost can fucking suck it) and took the time to upgrade to MovableType 4.01. Regular (irregular?) posting will start up again tomorrow, and I have some new pictures! Woo! Looking forward to it.

Posted by jehan at 10:51 PM | Permalink

Sums it up perfectly.

If wishes were iPhones, then beggars would call [dive into mark]:

Technorati Tags: apple, hardware, iPhone, iPod, hacks, society

Posted by jehan at 10:16 AM | Permalink

Interesting quote on Gizmodo's mention of the new Zunes. Apparently, the president of the division in charge of Zunes knows where he stands. He's planning on getting to #2 in the DMP world by June '08, now that the Zunes are "where they probably should have been last year, when they launched."

Gizmodo says it better. Follow the link below.

Zune: Microsoft Aims Zune at #2 Spot - Gizmodo:

Technorati Tags: iPod, marketing, Microsoft, movies, music, DMP, tech

Posted by jehan at 3:51 PM | Permalink

And the Zune 2 has been announced to a resounding "meh. " Microsoft brought out the new social, today, introducing the flash-based versions, and the upgraded hard drive based Zune. The breakdown is as follows:

Flash-based Zunes

• 4 gb and 8 gb capacities
• Available in red, green, pink and black
• Screen size not yet available. (But, from the pictures on the website, it's smaller than the big Zune)

Hard drive based Zune

• Bumped up to 80 gb
• Only available in black.
• 3.2 inch screen, diagonally mesured
• Includes "premium" headphones.

Both versions now support wireless synching over Wi-Fi, which is pretty awesome, as well as the squirting of songs from one device to another. Both versions are now controlled by "Zune Pad" but nothing denotes the difference between Zune Pad and the controls on the previous Zune.

Jon Gruber's analysis at Daring Fireball is pretty solid:

So, compared to the iPod, the prices are the same, GB for GB, but the Zunes have larger screens and can sync over Wi-Fi. But there’s nothing to compete with either of the two flagship iPods: the 160 GB Classic or the fancy new Touch. Wi-Fi synching is cool, in concept, but the devil is in the details — Wi-Fi song-sharing between devices is a cool idea, too, and we all know how well that feature worked out for Microsoft last year.

The footnotes on the new Zune website are pretty telling, especially footnote 2:

[2] The Zune to Zune sharing feature may not be available for all songs on your device, and works only between Zune devices within wireless range of each other. This feature allows recipients to play full-length sample tracks up to 3 times.

Which essentially means that, just like in the pervious Zune, record companies can opt-out of letting their songs be squirted. And, more than that, it implies that even DRM-free songs that you, the owner, rip will be slathered in DRM prior to squirting. Awesome. Gruber backs this up in his update to the above-linked analysis, quoting this New York Times article.

However, Gruber doesn't mention that the DRM on squirted songs has been relaxed. Where songs that were received from one Zune would expire in 3 days regardless of if the songs were played, and songs received from a Zune couldn't be passed on from the recipient Zune to a third Zune; the DRM is now much less restrictive, removing the expiration date entirely, and allowing for songs to be passed endlessly from Zune to Zune. Received songs, however, can still be played only three times. It's a change for the better, but it's another case of offering ice water to people in hell. "Thanks, Microsoft, for letting me almost do everything I see fit with my own property."

And, I'll wrap up with Gruber again:

And, lastly, no word yet on whether the new Zunes work on Macs. I presume the answer is no, but, seriously, why not? Look at these much-publicized photographs of a lecture hall taken earlier this year at the Missouri School of Journalism. In the past, notoriously, Microsoft has made new products Windows-only as a competitive bludgeon, but in the case of the Zune, who is hurt by keeping them Windows-only? Just Microsoft. Apple can sell iPods to anyone using a Mac or Windows; Microsoft can sell Zunes only to Windows users

+1

Technorati Tags: apple, internet, Microsoft, music, preview, software

Posted by jehan at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Amazon announced a "public beta" of their new MP3 download service "Amazon MP3." It's actually a decent looking service, with EMI (who offers DRM-free downloads through iTunes), and Universal (who seems to despise Apple with a fiery passion) both on-board. Prices seem to be $.89 or $.99 per song, and very from $4.99 to $9.99 for most albums, occasionally going higher in some instances.

I decided to give it a shot, and started looking for a particular album: Stars - Set Yourself on Fire. I typed "Stars" into the search field, and came up with these results. Stars, the band, is nowhere to be found in the list of results, so at least for the moment, search is useless. There's no point in having a search function if it's not properly polling.

I got a little frustrated, and started reading my usual music blogs, trying to find something to download. In the end, I wound up sifting through the new release section, and that's when I stumbled across Stars' newest album, In Our Bedroom After the War. I was a little surprised, and followed the Artist link back to, finally, find the album I wanted to buy in the first place. The interface is obviously clunky, search is broken, but with enough poking you might be able to find what you're looking for.

After a few minutes of poking around on the albums page, I figured what I pretty much already knew, and decided to buy the album. I didn't find any small-print about their definition of "DRM-free" being different form the actual definition of "DRM-free" so I was willing to plunk down my eight bucks and buy the album.

Now, when you're buying a whole album, you're required to use the Amazon MP3 Downloader software. It's essentially a download manager that works specifically with Amazon. You can bypass it if you're buying individual songs, but if you're getting a whole album, they require you to use it. I thought that was a little frustrating, as I don't really want to have to have software on my computer so I can simply buy music from one particular store. I've already chosen iTunes to be my music library manager, and I don't really want to use anything other than Safari or Firefox to manage my downloads. And, if I did, I'd want it to manage downloads from more locations than just Amazon.com. But, I gave it a shot, anyhow.

The fact of the matter is that the software isn't incredibly heavy, and you can quit it cleanly after your download finishes, plus you can pause your download if something incredibly important comes up. So, it does safeguard your download, which is pretty nice. I'm sure that Amazon developed it so that they could better guarantee that the songs I purchased were downloaded, therefore I don't get a refund or another download on their bill, but I do see it having an amount of customer-protection included, so I won't hate on it. It's just one more application I don't really need sitting on my hard drive.

Upon finishing the installation, Safari relaunched, and picked up where it left off. It asked me which of my two Amazon-registered credit cards I'd like to use, or I could add a new one. Thank guys. The actual purchase was uneventful and easy. Definitely the most pleasant part of the whole thing.

So the songs are downloading, and that's pretty great. Poking about in the Amazon MP3 Downloader preferences shows that the files are downloading to ~/Music/Amazon MP3/Stars/Set Yourself on Fire/ , and they're being automatically added to iTunes. This will be an unseen annoyance to a lot people in that they'll wind up with 2 copies of the album on their computer (as I did): 1 in the Amazon MP3 folder, and 1 in the iTunes Music folder, since by default iTunes copies added music to the the iTunes Music Folder. Personally, I like this setup, since it lets me easily take music I bought on my Laptop and move it to my Desktop at home, which is my media server. It saves me a step, and I can delete the folders from the Amazon MP3 folder, later.

The music is all Variable Bit Rate, but that's no big deal, because it seems to all be encoded with LAME3.97 which has a "VBR -0" option that produces a very high quality product - not lossless, but just about the quality of 320 kbs non-variable bitrate files.. 600 x 600 px album art is embedded into each file, so Coverflow looks sharp, and each file is fully-tagged. Ok, I'm pretty impressed.

My take-aways form the experience: Amazon followed the trend by offering a "Beta" product to the public. It's close to ready-for-prime-time, but it's not quite there. I will use it again, and I'll definitely be comparing iTunes to Amazon prices when I'm purchasing music. But when I'm using Amazon, I know that I'll have to double-check search results, and I'll have to take my time looking if I can't find what I want right away. I'll also have to remember to delete the contents of the Amazon MP3 folder every once in a while. All in all, Amazon has put together a good product, and I'm sure I'll use it in the future. It'll give iTunes some healthy competition, which Apple has so desperately needed recently. Well played, Amazon, and just in time. I'd been thinking, recently, that I use you significantly less than I used to, and it's nice to see you looking out for the consumer.

Technorati Tags: apple, first impression, internet, music, review, software

Posted by jehan at 4:06 PM | Permalink

I've been playing with the new Apple keyboard on my MBP for only a few hours, now. I was scared of hooking it up for a couple reasons. First, I was in anticipation of the keyboard taking a big adjustment. Typing would be weird because of the low-travel keys, and a lot of the functions I was used to had been moved around. On top of that, I use Synergy to share my keyboard and mouse between my MacBook Pro, and my desktop PC, and I wanted to switch my configuration so I wouldn't lose the functionality of the Exposé, Dashboard, and iTunes keys. That was gonna be little bit of work, and I didn't feel like jumping into it in the middle of the workday.

This morning, I decided to take on the task, and thus far it's totally worth it. I was a big fan of the MacBook keyboard, and I like this every bit as much. The low-travel isn't a bad thing at all. It's actually very easy to get used to, and the tactile response is pleasant, ending each keystroke with a solid but gentile "thud."

It takes a matter of seconds of looking at and using the keyboard to realize that we're dealing with an whole new animal. This isn't some incremental upgrade of the keyboard. It's totally different. And, while it looks like it'll be pretty easy to keep clean, there's no more putting your keyboard in the dishwasher.

It didn't take me long to miss my old Exposé keys. I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out a way to set up keyboard shortcuts that would work for situations where I have my external keyboard plugged in, and when I have only the laptop keyboard. While playing around with this, I learned that ⌘+F3 exposes the Desktop, the same functionality that F11 used to have (and still does, if I don't have my keyboard plugged in). But, even better to figure out, there's an fn key! There it is! Right above forward delete! So, that gives me the same functions that are on my laptop keyboard. HA. Sucks to be you guys who bought the amputated Bluetooth keyboards!

The iTunes keys are awesome to have. I've always wanted them, and refused to buy a non-Apple keyboard, and refused to set up keyboard shortcuts because I couldn't get them perfect. I'd use Quicksilver as the next-best-thing.

Anyhow, my initial impressions are this: the keyboard is overall good. But it's going to take some getting used to, and re-wiring the parts of my brain that have become instinctual for certain things.

UPDATE: In the Keyboard and Mouse pref. pane, checking the "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" will allow you to do as you'd expect. Use the "old" keystrokes (e.g., F9-F11 for Exposé) when you do not have the fn key pressed, and the new functions by pressing fn+[fKey]. That's how I want it to behave. I like this keyboard. I might need one or two for home.

Technorati Tags: apple, first impression, hardware, keyboard, review

Posted by jehan at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Looks pretty good! Might be enough to get me back using flickr again.

FlickrExport 3 teaser screencast - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):

Technorati Tags: software, photography, photos, flickr

Posted by jehan at 10:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A very stylish and compelling Wired article that explains the mystery surrounding the 2006 disappearance of Nina Reiser.

Hans Reiser: Once a Linux Visionary, Now Accused of Murder :

Technorati Tags: tech, puppy, relationships, sex

Posted by jehan at 5:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

And it's terrible that any person who has used Windows in any capacity for more than a few years will probably be able to come up with half a dozen more to add to the list. For those of us who have given up the OS (at least as much as possible) it's a read that reminds us why we left Microsoft behind. For anyone who still uses it, the article will likely bring to mind a question: Why?

PC World - The 20 Worst Windows Features of All Time:

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, humor, history

Posted by jehan at 12:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It's not often that I'll link to Penny Arcade. I kind of think that Penny Arcade needs no linking. It's one of the web sites that, among geeks (and, of the very few people who read this website, I'm positive that 100% are geeks) is ubiquitous. Everyone knows of this Penny Arcade.
Well, Tycho's post today touches on the Nintendo v. Sony v. Microsoft thing. You know, the one that Nintendo just came out on top of? And he mentions a few things worth noting. I think the last paragraph is the most pointed.

With the compact E3 about to begin, the tactical nature of the conflict will become more brutal. People get even nastier when they're vying for second place than when they're fighting for first. When you're playing for scraps - and rest assured, dear readers, that you and I are the scraps - you have to get all of them to make it work. Nintendo has simply skipped the first phase, building the brand with us and then making the mainstream play. It's worked flawlessly. And it's made their competitors increasingly uncomfortable.

Yes, he hit the nail right on the head. That's what makes me so damn happy about all of this. Nintendo was seen as almost dead. A fish laying on its side, only its tail touching the last remaining water of a tide that had receded to carry the Sony, and newer and fancier Microsoft boats out to sea.

Thing is, that fish was really a whale, but it was really far off in the distance, so it only looked like a fish, and now it's close and huge and when you get a little closer to it, you can see that there's like 100,000 people riding this whale, all having a huge party and all their friends came over, and Grandma and they're bowling and playing tennis, and stuff and it looks like a lot of fun, and you really wish you weren't on this stupid Sony boat, I mean, it looks good, but it's really not doing anything cool. And the Capitan of the Microsoft boat just turned his engine off, and they're kind of just drifting around. So you call a friend who is on the whale, 'cause you want to ask if you can come over, you'll even stop and get some pizza, but he's too busy playing Zelda to hear his phone. And you're stuck.

Well. That's that. Too bad you are a dick with no friends.

Penny Arcade! - Superb Technique:

Technorati Tags: videogames, games, Microsoft, fun, Nintendo, Sony, awesome

Posted by jehan at 3:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Just in case anyone was wondering exactly how kick-ass the Wii is. The answer? It's the kick-assiest.

Nintendo pounds Sony and MS in sales - (37signals):

Technorati Tags: Nintendo, games, puppy, puppy, fun, awesome, videogames

Posted by jehan at 12:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Wow. There's no such thing as hard business anymore. They're both charming, though.

VIDEO: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Highlight Reel | D5 | AllThingsD:

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, technology, Apple

Posted by jehan at 3:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

India's largest automaker will begin production of a car fueled entirely by compressed air. A much safer alternative to the compressed natural gas engines that are very popular in cities worldwide.

Zero emissions? Fantastic. And with speeds up to 68 mph, and a range of 125 miles, this thing could make cities greener than the contents of my fridge.

Air Car - First Air-Powered Car - Zero Emissions - Behind the Tech - Popular Mechanics:

Technorati Tags: puppy, technology, travel, awesome, cars

Posted by jehan at 9:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

To borrow a bit from John Gruber, Paul Thurrott is being a bit of a tool. Reporting on Amazon's decision to sell DRM-free music (awesome) he says

"I guess this means that Amazon is the second EMI DRM-free music licensee. But Amazon is going to use MP3, which is wonderful, given it's compatibility with every single device on the market."

Don't mistake me. He's being accurate, but the implication is there that Apple's files are somehow only playable on an iPod.

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus - A technology blog:

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, tech

Posted by jehan at 1:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Bill DeRouchey writes up a great overview of the first widespread TV remote controls, the Zenith Space Command models. It's very cool to see how they work.

History of the Button » Blog Archive » Zenith Space Command: unboxing a mystery:

Technorati Tags: history, tech

Posted by jehan at 7:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Freakin' awesome! This sub generates its own breathable air and purifies its own drinkable water. Plus, in 25 years of operation, I'll never need to be refueled. Bad. Ass.

Astute: Astute Submarine Looks like a Whale, Never Needs Refuelling - Gizmodo:

Technorati Tags: military, awesome, tech

Posted by jehan at 4:25 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

My heroes at Sony decided it would be cool to kill a live goat, and use it as a prop at a God of War release party. These are the same geniuses who brought you racist advertising, and honest-to-god lies. It's possible that any one of these things could be overlooked, but this many? It's like their advertising department is looking for ways to fuck up. When you remember that they also rootkitted our computers, and punched your sister on her birthday, we realize that Sony truly is an evil empire.

Technorati Tags: bad idea, evil, marketing, Sony, tech

Posted by jehan at 7:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Smoking Gun reports about a teacher who was denied her degree because of the least scandalous photo on My Space. This is crazy-talk.

College Sued Over "Drunken Pirate" Sanctions - April 26, 2007:

Posted by jehan at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Two new Ad-Council PSAs try to warn of the dangers of posting too much info online. I called 'em "MySpace PSAs" because they rather specifically try to appeal to the MySpace crowd, but the second of the two is both a little more universally-applicable, and a lot more creepy. Go see, and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Posted by jehan at 9:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

People pay attention to the wrong things.

Posted by jehan at 12:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From Apple.com:

CUPERTINO, Calif., April 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple today
released the following statement:
iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests
and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can't wait until
customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a
revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most
sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on
time has not come without a price -- we had to borrow some key software
engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS(R) X team, and as a result we
will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference
in early June as planned. While Leopard's features will be complete by
then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers
expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of
Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can
do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be
well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're
sure we've made the right ones.
NOTE: Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh and iPhone are
trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of
their respective owners.

As of this writing, this is neither on Apple's PR page, nor does it have a linkable article on Hot News. Anyone else find this odd?

Posted by jehan at 9:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Jeff Jarvis on the silly “Blogger code of ethics” story that made the front page of today’s New York Times.

Here’s my proposed rule: Don’t be an asshole. Note that because my rule makes no mention of “blogs”, it can be applied to any medium.

The great thing about "Don't be an asshole" is that it's not restricted. It applies to absolutely everything

Link to Jeff's original article.

Posted by jehan at 9:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Redmond seems to be planning on going DRM free sometime in the near future. Shocker.

It's a good move, but it's like Microsoft isn't even trying to hide they're following Apple's lead anymore. Oh well. HOORAY DRM-FREE REVOLUTION!

Posted by jehan at 4:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Since the day the AppleTV came out, geeks have been taking them apart and modding them like crazy. Bigger HDs, full versions of OS X, added video support, all sorts of cool stuff.

Apple told Engadget that they aren't fighting back against the hackers, and they don't really care what you do, so long as you don't come crying to them when you break something. That's the stance a company should have on modding their products, I think. Well done, Apple!

Posted by jehan at 5:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A blog post by Brent Simmons (admittedly, not a blog I normally read) about people's instict to make simple things more complicated. I'm not a Twitter user (well, I have an account, but I don't update it), but the concepts apply to way more than Twitter.

Posted by jehan at 3:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I caught this little snippet on Newsvine. I agree with the commenter who said "if you didn't report it because it didn't bother you, then it's not sexual harassment."

Honestly, I think we're a little too sensitive about sexual harassment.

Posted by jehan at 9:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Turns out that the 'ol Jobserino isn't giving us the run-around. Which is pretty freakin' cool. The summary of the big news is that EMI took Jobs up on his offer to sell DRM-free music in the iTunes Store. The deal works out by having two versions of EMI music available for purchase. The $.99 songs in 128-bit AAC with DRM, and $1.29 songs in 256-bit AAC.

Apparently, the offer is open to every major and indie label. Freakin' sweet.

If you ask me, it's a no-brainer. I'll buy the $1.29 songs virtually 100% of the time. The higher quality alone is worth the price, but bypassing the DRM is fantastic. Being able to have copies of my music on several computers, all available to me? Yes. That's what I want. And that's what I'm alright with paying for.

Posted by jehan at 12:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I've disabled comments to try to get a hold of the junk that's been passing through the filters. I'll re-enable them, eventually, for sure. But, for right now, just email me if you have something to say. I'll always read another email :-)

Posted by jehan at 11:43 PM | Permalink

Faith has a pretty cool post up regarding her experiences getting a new job. At the end of her post, she says this:

The corporate world sucks guys, stay away from it if you can. Companies are only out for themselves. There’s no loyalty, you’re replaceable, and they let you know it loud and clear.

Here's what I'm finding interesting. I've known Faith for years. We dated in high school, and I've been lucky enough to be able to keep a friendship with her. Of all of my friends, she's easily the one with whom I relate most closely on a professional level. And we are both learning the same stuff about working in corporate society, we're learning in different ways.

Something we've talked about in the past is that the modern workplace works in a way that does not value employee loyalty. Employees constantly feel underpaid, overworked, and undervalued. Raises are hard to come by, and it's harder still to get genuine respect from managers who are given more and more to deal with in less time. The end result is that since employees don't feel like their work is valued or appreciated, they go somewhere else and make more money. Eventually the cycle either repeats itself, or other circumstances force that person to leave the new position, and it's not uncommon for the person to wind up back at the original company, doing the same job for quite a bit more pay.

And that's how our generation has been labeled a generation of mercenaries. While our parents and grandparents might start at a company and work there for twenty or thirty years, it's not uncommon for us to change jobs as often as every 18 months. Actually, 18 months was the average length that an IT contractor would stay on a contract just two years ago. While this used to be looked at as a sign that a person couldn't keep a job, it's not just "one of those things," and it's hardly given a second thought.

Another factor is training. Or, I guess it might be said that another factor is a lack of training. Employees are constantly looking for more training to make them more valuable to their company and to other companies. But employers are hesitant to give training because they think, "Well, what if we train Jane? She'll be awesome! Then, some other company will give her more money to leave!" It's been said before and it'll be said again. Employees need to be qualified. And they need to be compensated accordingly. If either of these criteria aren't met, there's gonna be turnover. Take that, bosses!

Add to this that companies are cutting benefits to save costs, and that cost of living has gone up dramatically over the past 10 years, and you've got a picture of how tough it's getting to be to get started and on your feet in this age. I don't know if it's bad; you have to know you love what you're doing to be successful, now; but it's very different than it was even just 15 years ago.

Posted by jehan at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) |