How To REALLY Get A Company's Attention
Forget blogging, tape a letter to their door! Looks like Nick Starr was tired of not having IMAP for Gmail and decided to go right to the source. Thanks for Steve Rubel's tweet.
Showing posts with label Geek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geek. Show all posts
Behind the News
But it's still sad when you find out. I hope that everyone that worked at MMORadio landed on their feet, I enjoyed the station and just found out when I went to put it on today. :/ If anyone knows any similar stations that are still on the air, or any places the DJs went, drop me a line.
The Lament Of Those Who Cannot Go.
Oh man am I tempted to call up Scoble and be all like "Hey man! I want in on the BlogHaus, can you send me some plane tickets? Oh and can I bunk with yas?" All the CES talk has me a bit bummed that I'm stuck here doing my normal, boring job stuff. Oh sure, I have CodeMash in a couple weeks, but it's in Sandusky not Vegas, and it doesn't have an adult convention next door. Poo. So a little piece of me dies every time Scoble picks someone else up in his limo. Looking through my feeds, it looks like there's a ton of bloggers there, alot that don't even necessarily cover consumer electronics regularly on thier blogs. I'm sure the face to face is wonderful, unfortunatly I can't afford in either time or money to go, hopefully there'll be something in the Midwest/East Coast some time soon. I'm looking forward to the Microsoft annoucements most of all, but every year is exiciting to see what toys I'll be buying in the next year or two. Well, while you are are out there enjoying the lights and booze, think of all the hundreds of thousands of bloggers that are stuck at home, wishing they could be out there having fun with y'all. At least CES is one of the most covered events on the web, with all the live coverage I'll at least feel like I'm almost there.
XBox361: Of Sales, HDMI, and Points.
With word on the next version of the XBox360 coming out "soon" with some nice upgrades (HDMI = yummy). I'm sure glad I didn't push to get my wife to let me buy one over the Christmas vacation. I'm definitely saving up now with the intention to buy one when it's available.
The real question is...how many other people are doing the same? How many purchases is Microsoft going to loose this quarter while people hold off for the XBox361? Of course with 2 million XBoxes sold during the holiday season compared to only 750,000 for the PS3 [source], the climb is probably insurmountable. But still, it should be interesting to see if there's a dip in XBox sales over the next few months.
I also believe that the inclusion of an HDMI port strongly points to the possibility of a HD-DVD drive being built in. If that happens, and Microsoft is able to keep the price of the XBox around where it's been, HD-DVD will win the format war handedly. Of course this would probably piss off the early adopters, and purchasers of the external drive, more then the hard drive upgrade.
Another interesting bit of Xbox speculation occurred at Scobleizer today. Robert speculates on Microsoft leveraging the XBox platform outside of the gaming world and throughout it's Live family. I personally think it makes sense, though achievements may not be the best way. Imagine instead micro-payments of Microsoft Points (notice that they are Microsoft Points and not XBox Points...hmmm), maybe instead of an achievement it's half a point or some such. If the console manufacturers ever decide to allow person to person point transfers (which Microsoft says they eventually want to allow), it would be interesting to see if a third party point system could develop. What if you could earn XBox Points that you could convert to Wii Points or whatever the Playstation ends up with? Or convert it to cash? A gamer point market seems like it would be fun, profitable, and good for all three consoles.
Google Waves To Digg And Others
With yesterday's post from the googlereader blog detailing how they've added the new personal stats feature, a number of people have speculated on Google releasing the information in an aggregate form. As speculated earlier on this blog and others, Google may be in a position to compete in the social web with the likes of Digg. Of course this would require aggregate data on individual posts (which I'm sure they're gathering). Another site that Google could easily compete with would be Technorati, the stats that they're currently showing are for individual feeds, which usually correspond to an individual site. It would be trivial to provide a listing of most read and most shared feeds, those would be some interesting stats I think. Maybe call it Feedorati? Regardless, I'm expecting with 2007 to be the year of the Social Web that Google will be adding alot more social aspects to their services, and this is likely a step in that direction.
Microsoft and Ford
It looks like Ford is partnering with Microsoft to release a new autocomputing platform next year. Since I bleed Ford Blue, and will be needing a new car soon, this is exciting news. I hope my Escort lasts one more year so I'm not limited to the Focus or the Five-Hundred. Oh, and please hold the "Fix Or Reboot Daily" jokes.
My Other Side...
I haven't actually seen this one around too much, looks like I'm Big and Bad and I like it!
Michael.NET's results are:Michael.NET is Apocalypse
| You believe in survival of the fittest and you believe that you are the fittest.  |
The SuperHero Quiz
Looks like I'm a Super Ironman...(coincidently two of my favourite superheroes growing up), this seems to be the popular thing to post lately, which one are you?
Michael.NET's results are:
Michael.NET is Superman
| You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.  |
Sharing Non-Feed Items Through Google Reader
With the recent talk about Google perhaps replacing Digg as a social news/link site, a lot of people made the point that you can't share non-feed items through Reader. While it's true that you can't click on a URL and add it to Reader, there is a work around. Admittedly it's technically a feed...but it's your own personal feed of links.
The first thing to do is to setup an account on del.icio.us (note: Originally I wanted an all Google solution, if there was a way to embed HTML in Spreadsheets (or if notebook had RSS feeds) then del.icio.us wouldn't be necessary, and if Google Bookmarks ever becomes shareable with an RSS feed then watch out), this will be where all the non-feed items you want to share will be put. After you've registered browse to your bookmarks (http://del.icio.us./username) at the bottom of the page they'll be an RSS icon, right click this icon and select copy link. Since Google Reader doesn't like del.icio.us feeds for some reason, we have to burn it. Go to FeedBurner and follow the directions on burning your feed. Add the FeedBurner feed to Google Reader.
Now, here's where the trick comes in, once it comes up in Google Reader, Click the Add to folder button and select new folder. Let's give it a good name like...Shared-Links. You should now have a folder that contains the feed of your bookmarked items. Now in order to share it just go to your Settings, click the Tags tab and you'll see a list of all your folders, including the newly created shared-links. There'll be a grayed out RSS icon and the word private in the third column. Simply click the icon and the folder will become public.
Click on the "view public page" link and you'll be given the URL for those items, in my case it's http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/17930628540914156026/label/shared-links . As you add items to your del.icio.us account they'll appear on that page. You can then spread both your Link Blog and your Bookmark Blog. Enjoy!
Google vs Digg?
Steve Mermelstein of /usr/bin/geek asks what would happen if Google started using some of the stats in their Google Reader app to pull up the most popular stories of the blogosphere (ie techmeme, technorati, et. al.). A couple of others have also picked up on it now. Google Reader's shared items and starred items certainly seem ripe for the picking, I'm surprised there's not already a "Most Starred" and/or "Most Shared" story page. Could Google Reader really be a stealth entry into the user-generated news business? With Blogger recently adding an easy way to put AdSense on their user's sites, you can definitely see Google wanting an easy way to draw people to their user's blogs. Remember, Google's primary business is Advertising, a site ala Digg, using blogs from their Blogger Service has the potential to draw a lot of revenue. Of course not everyone uses Blogger, but how many people use AdSense? It's really in Google's best interest to be driving as many people to as many blogs as possible, and putting a user-generated news aggregation service on their front page would sure do that, and nobody would even have to work that hard! No more "digging" just hit "s" or "shift-s" as you're going through your feeds. And there'd be no overhead for Google, everyone is responsible for their own blog! It's a win-win.
Post-Christmas Report
Christmas was very enjoyable. Since Marissa doesn't have to be on the apnea monitor 24/7 any more we got to take her out an about. The resulting activity caused her to sleep very well over the night! I also got my first chance to play the Nintendo Wii first hand, it really is a different experince. Wii Sports shows off the console and control schemes very well I think. It's also quite a work out in the end! Twillight Princess is enjoyable, but not quite as revolutionary as Wii Sports I think. The channels show real promise, but there's not alot there, browsing with the Opera browser (trial edition) is suprisingly enjoyable and functional (Youtube on the TV is a sight to behold).
In the Technology arena we have the whole Wikiasari news hitting, seems the founder of Wikipedia is setting out to revolutionize searching. TechCrunch posted a screenshot that purported to be an early beta of the service, but Jimmy Wales denied it's related to Wikiasari. Has one of TechCrunch's readers pointed out to them, the screenshot seems to be from this site. As Michael Arrignton asks, if WikiSearch isn't Wikiasari...what is it? And will Wikiasari contribute to the end of the Google Era? 2007 looks to be the year alot of sites go mainstream. Youtube get's sponsored by Chevy, and Myspace get's used by the Colts. The next week or two should be interesting...
RSS Patent Controversy: Microsoft Responds, Sorta.
Sean Lyndersay, Program Manager Lead for RSS at Microsoft, has responded to the RSS Patent Flap. Microsoft is essentially saying: "We only patented what we feel is some cool additions we invented, we promise not to try and take over RSS." Niall Kennedy has a good in-depth analysis of the patent application which essentially says "Most of this stuff is all obvious prior art, there's a few new ideas, but not many." He also asks the scary question of "What other "inventions" are yet to be unveiled as the patent system's 18-month privacy rolls forward?".
Oh Rudolph Won't You Guide My X-Wing Tonight
Stephen Griffen over at MSDN as discovered an easter egg in LEGO Star Wars II. The Santa Clause code was already known, but he discovered a Rudolph Code (using strings no less)! He's asking for your help getting a screenshot, so leave him a comment with a link to one if you can.
Happy Geekolidays!
Marcel Ortiz and Satish Mathew of the Windows PowerShell team posted this powershell script on the powershell blog yesterday. Save the script as a ps1 file, open up PowerShell and run. You'll be quickly in the spirt! If you don't have PowerShell, download it here. Then we have "Software Wonderland" from The Braidy Tester. WillItBlend asks if you want to drink your Christmas dinner. And last but not least, Happy Holidays To You! What geeky ways are you celebrating the season?
Is 2007 the end of the Google Era?
There's been a lot of buzz in development circles lately about Google deprecating it's SOAP Search API and replaced it with an AJAX widget. Dave Megginson laments the End of Open Web Data APIs, I'm not so sure about that. I think it's a bad move for Google, in that it 1) Makes it less easy for windows developers (as Scoble points out), and 2) It'll make developers less trusting of Google in the future. Obviously Google doesn't want to loose ad revenue, but that might be easily fixed by requiring AdSense on a hosting web page. Or via some other method. Good news though, some people are fighting back. I'm sure EvilAPI will be getting a C&D letter soon, but it's a valiant effort. Google is really shooting themselves in the foot here, Microsoft also still has their SOAP search API. I've recently started really drinking the Google Kool Aid (tm and all that) from an end user stand point, but now I'm really questioning taking the leap as a developer. My instincts say to stay with the 800lb gorilla that can't afford to drop things on a whim. In addition to that news, there's also word that Google is starting to deceptively advertise it's own products (specifically the one that this blog is hosted on) with the ads disguised as "tips" while you search. Maybe they forgot the "Do No Evil" part? It's looking like the honeymoon may be coming to an end. If developers jump ship, and people start writing more apps that utilize Windows Live services....Google may just fade into the background like Pets.com. As the man said, "Developers, Developers, Developers!". Microsoft loves them, Google can obviously care less. Regardless of what actually happens to Google in 2007 (I doubt they're going anywhere anytime soon), I get the distinct impression a line as been drawn, and perhaps an era has come to an end.
Scoble On Some Magazine's Announcement
One of Scoble's recent posts briefly mentions some announcement by Time magazine. I think I'm going to follow his lead...the blog world is just overrun with this news (Technorati lists 700 blog links), I can understand why, but it seems a tad narcissistic. So I'm just not going to link it myself.
A Day Late, A Dollar Short
Just as I decide to really start a blog, this news from the BBC hits. It seems that blogging is going to "peak" next year because "most people who would ever start a web blog had already done so". Here's hoping I'm just a late bloomer :)
CodeMash Conference
I guess I should explain the picture in the upper right hand part of the page. CodeMash a development conference that's actually taking place in the midwest! These things never happen close to where I live and this is right down the highway in Sandusky, Ohio! CodeMash is a way for developers of different backgrounds a chance to mingle, I look forward to learning something new. And at $99 you can NOT beat the price. If you still need to convince your employer that you need to go I HIGHLY recommend this blog post from Jim Holmes one of the founders, he lays the case out pretty well. And if you still need convincing..it's at the Kalahari Resort!
links:
CodeMash
Kalahari Resort
Why Conferences Matter, and How To Pitch To Your Boss - Jim Holmes
21st Century Santa
Microsoft announced today that the one and only Santa Claus was going to be available for live chatting exclusively on their Windows Live Messenger service. It's amazing to see the changes that occur to things within one's own lifetime. When I was a good the thought of a "modernized" Santa wasn't really widely thought of. Now he's using IM to chat with the kiddies...AND he has a blog (though Manga Santa is scary)! Simply amazing.
Back to the Future Timeline
Wow, the people on wikipedia have waaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands, it is uber cool though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_timeline
via digg
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