Send videos without killing your PC

Sounds a pretty good service. I'm sure we have all experienced problems with large email attachments. Hate sending them. Hate receiving them.

Form the article
Pando earlier this year launched it service that lets consumers send 1GB attachments with email. Basically, the download gets send across peer-to-peer networks. Now the company has released plug-ins that let you add the attachments without leaving your email application.

"In the first version, you installed the software. Then you opened the application and typed in an email address. We had a standalone product," said CEO Robert Levitan. "Now you can go to Yahoo email or utlook or Gmail, hit attach and go.

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Police Fine Driver Who Supplies His Own Speed Camera Via YouTube

Funny, but what an idiot. There's a more important question to be asked here. What are the police doing watching YouTube? Do they have a special YouTube task force?

From the article
Lots of people dislike for speed cameras that have a history of malfunctioning, but it's another thing altogether to basically turn a speed camera on yourself. Following in the footsteps of others who have been arrested after documenting their misdeeds on MySpace or YouTube, a young man in Norway has been given a $1,300 fine for speeding after he posted a video of himself driving at speeds up to 150 mph, more than twice the legal speed limit in Norway. If anything, the police seem to have let him off easy, saying they could only prove he had averaged 86 miles per hour, and set the fine at that speed. Once again, though, it just goes to show that just because you get away with something, you still can get in plenty of trouble if you post the evidence online for everyone to see. However, it certainly does fit with the rise of exhibitionist culture these days.

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BBC News launches first user-generated programme

What an excellent idea. I wonder if I can watch this show over the net? I can see more programs like this being made.

From the article
BBC News 24 has launched a news programme based entirely on user-generated material.

Your News, which began a pilot run on Saturday, will feature stories, features and video proving most popular with viewers on TV and the internet.

Kevin Bakhurst, controller of BBC News 24, said: "Your News will make use of the huge range of material being sent to the BBC by the public, some of which has already provided real newsgathering value.

"Your News will reflect the stories catching our audience's eye and talk to them directly about the issues they feel really matter."

BBC News website receives around 10,000 emails a day with story suggestions, comments and pictures from the public.

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iPod To Hold All The World’s Video

Well that’s the prediction of Google. It’s a pretty big call and it’s like Google endorsing the iPod, as if the iPod needs endorsing. What’s everyone’s thoughts on this? Will the iPod stand the test of time and become even more dominant?

From the article
The idea of fitting your entire music collection into a single device the size of a packet of cigarettes might have seemed outlandish 15 years ago. But that was before the iPod. Now, one Google exec is predicting the iPod will lead a further media transformation of similar magnitude in the coming decade.

Speaking at the FT World Communications Conference, Nikesh Arora, Google's VP of European operations, told delegates that, in the coming years, the plummeting price of storage and its increasing volume-to-size ratio will give iPods almost unlimited potential to hold music and video.

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Do you need a Web publicist?

So ware you in need of an identity makeover?

From the article
'Identity managers' act as agents, lawyers, enablers – and enforcers – for lives lived increasingly online.

John Joseph Bachir is a programmer. He's also an amateur filmmaker. He has a blog and is involved in a series of software projects, some of which he runs. He sometimes records an audio show about odd Wikipedia entries. He even submitted a photo of penguins to Cute Overload, a website overrun with cuddly animals that make you think "Soooo cute!"
You can discover all this by checking JJB's (he often uses initials online) profile on ClaimID, one of many start-ups allowing a user to manage his online identity. Through ClaimID, Mr. Bachir consolidated information about himself available online, rather than letting a search engines decide what comes up when someone types in his name.

"My ClaimID changes with me," Bachir says. "Google doesn't change with me."

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The Soul Of A New Microsoft

Microsoft is going to have to change. What will it change to?

From the article
Edgy thinkers like J Allard are looking far beyond Windows for the next big thing

At 3:32 p.m. on Oct. 19 an e-mail flashed across the screens of the 230 Microsoft employees working slavishly to bring the Zune music player to market. The sender was their brash team leader, J Allard, 37. The message included a link to an old video of Steve Jobs on YouTube, mocking Microsoft's creativity. "The only problem with Microsoft is that they have no taste," the Apple Computer boss says. "They have absolutely no taste."

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Student Sells Virtual Items and Gets Deported

Seems pretty harsh. I hate it when someone shows some enterprise but gets punished for it.

From the article
"He started selling items such as weapons and currency for online games through an Internet auction site in April this year, without obtaining the appropriate residency status. Wang, living in Kumamoto, has admitted that he sold the virtual goods for about 6 million yen ($US 1.3 Million), in violation of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law. A bank worker became suspicious when Wang regularly sent money back home to China and alerted police in August, prompting Kumamoto police officers to investigate the student."

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Chicago Sun-Times Unloads On The Zune

I am yet to see any good press about the Zune. Could this be the flop of 2006?

From the article
Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, Andy Ihnatko unloads on the Zune with both barrels, calling it a "complete, humiliating failure" and a "colossal blunder," because Microsoft has taken the user out of its design considerations and put the music industry (in the person of Universal's Doug Morris, "a big, clueless idiot") in their place.

Yes, Microsoft's new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. I've spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.

"Avoid," is my general message. The Zune is a square wheel, a product that's so absurd and so obviously immune to success that it evokes something akin to a sense of pity...

The Zune is a complete, humiliating failure. Toshiba's Gigabeat player, for example, is far more versatile, it has none of the Zune's limitations, and Amazon sells the 30-gig model for 40 bucks less.

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Best High-Tech Stocking Stuffers of 2006

An interesting mix of the cool and the odd. What's your favorite?

From the article
Holiday gift buying has never been more exciting. Portability has gone wild this year, and a stunning array of innovative audio and video devices have appeared that let us carry our music, movies and television programs anywhere.

After reviewing dozens of the hottest products, we settled on seven of the coolest devices as our top picks.

Our selections range from the newest video gadgets and MP3 players to portable devices that stretch entertainment to new levels of fun. We even found the ultimate listening, viewing and game-playing comfort chairs.

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Mobile e-mail heading for the masses

The future is mobile. As soon as it’s as cheap as regular Internet I’ll be hopping on the bandwagon too.

From the article
Accessing e-mail from a cell phone is no longer just for corporate bigwigs. New services are arriving that make it easier and more affordable for everyone, from soccer moms to college students, to check and send messages from regular mobile handsets.

On Thanksgiving Day, a start-up called Berggi will launch a service that is intended to make accessing e-mail and sending instant messages easier on low-cost mobile phones.

Babur Ozden, chief executive of Berggi, said the service aggregates all personal e-mail and instant messaging clients into a single interface, for simpler access. And the service can be used on just about any handset, offering a less expensive alternative to corporate-based e-mail services from companies such as Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry handheld messaging device.

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Truck Full of Xbox 360’s Stolen

I presume to sell on eBay or something like that. After all you can only use one console at a time. Maybe Microsoft orchestrated it in an attempt to show how popular the Xbox is.

From the article
A lorry, containing £750,000 worth of Xbox 360s, has been hijacked by thieves near a depot in Staffordshire.

The robbery, no doubt inspired by the oncoming Christmas rush, is the second in a week. A trailer containing £260,000 worth of 360s was stolen at a depot owned by the same firm - Hellman Worldwide Logistics around a week ago. At the moment police are treating the two incidents as separate.

In the most recent incident thieves managed to convince the lorry driver that something was caught under his wheels. Upon pulling over he was taken from the driving seat, beaten and left on the side of the A38 at 5am on Monday morning. The gang, who were initially driving a Range Rover and Rover Saloon then dumped the lorry, obviously minus the gaming consoles.

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Firefox vulnerable to password-stealing attack

I'm sure they will fix it. Firefox is still the best browser out there.

From the article
A flaw in Mozilla’s Firefox browser makes it easy for cybercriminals to steal user information on Web sites where users create their own pages, such as MySpace.com.

The flaw lies in Firefox’s Password Manager software, which can be tricked into sending password information to an attacker’s Web site, said Robert Chapin, president of Chapin Information Services. For this attack to work, attackers need to be able to create HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) forms on the Web site, something that is allowed on blogging and social networking sites.

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Podcasting Is On The Rise

I love podcasts. I download Audio ones to listen to while I am at work and video ones for when I'm at home.

From the article
When Robert Walch started podcasting in December 2004, it was a pastime embraced by only the hardest core of geeks. ``It was the lunatic fringe,'' Walch recalls. ``That was before early adopters.''

Skip ahead two years. One of roughly eight baby boomers heading into their golden years has downloaded a podcast, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project released Wednesday. These streams of audio, and increasingly video, can be downloaded directly from a Web page or subscribed to via software like Apple's iTunes.

``We are at a crossroads of a major transition in the way media content is delivered,'' said Mary Madden, a senior research analyst who worked on the Pew survey.

The survey, done in August and including 2,928 adults, found there had been a significant increase in listening to podcasts earlier this year.

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Web chief warns of domain name chaos

I can see this being a problem. There needs to be some control over this and if this does go through I hope it's throughly tested.

From the article
Plans to fast-track the introduction of non-English characters in website domain names could "break the whole internet", warns ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey.

To date, website names can only be registered using Latin characters, which effectively alienates countries using Arabic, Chinese and other foreign letters from registering internet addresses in their native tongue.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a non-profit body responsible for, among other things, administering the domain name system (DNS).

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Web 2.0 Describes an Era, not a Genre

There is a lot of misuse of the term Web 2.0. I'm not sure anyone really knows what it means.

From the article
Jon and I were answering some interview questions for an email interview we’re doing with the folks over at VoodooVentures a few days ago. One of their questions was about how we defined Web 2.0 and whether we thought we were a Web 2.0 application. The idea of Web 2.0 has bugged us for a long time, but we could never really put our finger on why. Working on the answer for their interview focused our thinking, and I thought I would share what we talked about. You’ll see an abbreviated version of this in our VoodooVentures interview, but the long version is below.

As far as we’re concerned, Web 2.0 defines an era. When people try to put together functional descriptions of what a Web 2.0 application is, the end result is that they don’t exclude a whole lot of applications developed in the past 3 years. Web 2.0 encompasses too many ideas ranging from usability to social software to business models to specific technologies to really be meaningful. It turns out that most modern web applications include some of these ideas.

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iPod Shuffle Becomes Best Selling iPod

All comes down to it's size and price. While the Shuffle is not for me I can see the appeal. Also good to give someone as a gift.

From the article
After it was announced, there was an uncomfortable wait before Apple’s 2G iPod Shuffle shipped. No word on what caused the delay, but the miniature iPod finally found its way into the retail channels just a few short weeks ago. Priced just right to be a gift, the Shuffle is proving to be far more popular than Apple probably anticipated.

So popular, in fact, that demand for the clip-on player is outstripping supply, and the Shuffle has become the best-selling Apple product, surpassing the iPod Nano last week for the crown.

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Getting Paid to Receive Spam

Can't see this working. Will be interesting to see what the feedback is like from people who give it a try.

From the article
A new e-mail-forwarding service called boxbe.com tackles spam using an economic approach: users charge a fee for access to their inboxes.

Boxbe, in turn, provides users' anonymous demographic information to advertisers, says Thede Loder, the San Francisco-based company's co-founder. The goal, says Loder, is to give boxbe users control over messages they receive, ultimately giving them access to ads that are more in line with their tastes, and, in the process, letting them collect a couple of extra bucks each month.

The idea of managing e-mail by leveraging economics has been tested before. Recently, AOL announced an initiative to charge senders of bulk e-mail a fee to ensure that senders are legitimate. The system, which uses Goodmail, authenticates e-mail, ensuring that certified bulk mailings make it into AOL users' inboxes.

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Yahoo, newspaper groups in Web ad deal

Maybe we will see that start of a Yahoo revival as a result. Good move and hopefully it pays off.

From the article
Yahoo will work with seven newspaper groups to share online advertising in a deal that could help newspapers tap into the lucrative online ad market.

A total of 176 newspapers in 38 states will participate in the deal, reported Sunday on the Web sites of The New York Times and some of the newspapers involved.

The groups that have signed on include Cox Newspapers Inc., Belo Corp., Hearst Corp., the E.W. Scripps Co., MediaNews Group Inc., Lee Enterprises and the Journal Register Co.

The partnership will start in December with Yahoo's HotJobs service and move to other types of online advertising.

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Walmart Getting A Lot of Zune Returns?

Is the Zune temperamental? I know the iPod can be sensitive at times especially if you drop it! Has anyone bought a Zune yet?

From the article
I returned the Zune and Everex laptop to Walmart today. It's been awhile since I'd purchased electronics from them and had to return something, so I wasn't too surprised when they had to call up someone from that department to come to the service area to check things out. I figured it was for the laptop, but I specifically asked what the return policy was for it and was told 15 days. I wasn't worried at all about returning the Zune. When the electronics dept. lady got to the area, she asked if I'd opened the laptop. I said yes. She asked why I wanted to return it, and I told her it was because I had purchased it to use with the Zune and apparently the Zune was defective. She didn't even open the laptop box to see if everything was there, but she did open up the Zune. She asked me what was wrong with it and proceeded to tell the customer service girl that she was going to check it out. She connected the earbuds and then told me that she didn't know how to use it and asked me what was wrong with it. I told her that the hard drive might have a bad sector, because most of the music I synced to it skipped. So I queued up a song and told her to listen for a few seconds.

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Tech leaders assess future of innovation

The Tech industry thrives on innovation. Innovate or die in this industry.

Form the article
Some of technology's biggest names shared the stage at Stanford University on Wednesday to discuss the future of American innovation.

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and legendary Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capitalist John Doerr were among the members of two panels moderated by talk show host Charlie Rose, who also led Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates through a question-and-answer session.

The third annual innovation summit, where industry leaders talked about emerging trends and government technology policy, was organized by TechNet, an advocacy group that lobbies on behalf of technology executives.

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Yahoo Internal Memo Urges Major Shake-Up, Job Cuts

These are worrying times for Yahoo and this is a further sign that all is not well. Where is Yahoo headed?

From the article
Yahoo Inc. needs a dramatic organizational shake-up and cuts in its work force of up to 20 percent, according to an internal memo written last month by Senior Vice President Brad Garlinghouse.

Garlinghouse, a second-tier Yahoo executive who has taken increasing powerful roles in the company since joining 3 1/2 years ago, argues that Yahoo suffers from a lack of consistent leadership, business focus and a "single cohesive strategy."

"We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company," Garlinghouse writes. "We want to do everything and be everything—to everyone."

The document was published in the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal. A Yahoo spokesman confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but declined to comment directly on details contained in the memo or in the newspaper story.

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Google in talks to acquire StumbleUpon

It’s a great site and an opportunity for Google to get it at a reasonable price, if you can call $50m reasonable.

From the article
Two sources have confirmed that the rapidly growing StumbleUpon recently approached Google to be acquired. The asking price was $50 million. This is chumpchange for a company like Google, and can give Google ad buyers the ability to not only buy ads to their site but actual site impressions which would probably fetch a pretty penny on Adwords. StumbleUpon has turned into a massive traffic generator for new sites and helps users find fresh content by Stumbling. Stumbling is like flipping through the channels on a TV, with content recommended by other users.

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Jason Calacanis Says Adios to AOL

Is his leaving a loss or a gain for AOL?

From the article
We just heard from a source that Jason Calacanis has resigned from AOL. Jason joined AOL just over a year ago when his startup, Weblogs, Inc., was acquired. Most recently, he took over management of Netscape, which relaunched earlier this year as a Digg-like news portal.

I just spoke to Jason briefly on IM - his response as of now is “no comment”. He also spoke to me off the record but that’s, well, off the record.

Calacanis wrote a long post on his personal blog today mourning the departure of AOL CEO Jon Miller. He called Miller “one of the few mentors I’ve had in my life.”

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Lycos Launches Social Networking, Video Mashup Site

As I have previously stated, video on the net is the hot product at the moment and everyone wants a piece of the action. An interesting move by Lycos but it’s up against some stiff competition.

Isn’t MySpace already doing the video / social networking combination?

From the article
Lycos is getting interactive, creating an online video channel for broadband customers that lets users watch movies online - and simultaneously chat about them.

The service, called Lycos Cinema is Lycos's attempt to combine two of the hottest internet sectors, online video and social networking, Reuters reports. Lycos says it will start allowing users to upload videos they have created as soon as next month or early next year.

Lycos Cinema now offers only about 1,000 mostly obscure titles for viewing, but Lycos is planning extensions of the service, including a similar model involving television programming; the company says it has almost reached an agreement with a major record label to allow Lycos to debut one of its artists with the service. Users would be able to view the artist's music videos while commenting on them in real time.

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Top 5 Google Weaknesses

Weaknesses in Google? Surely not. Nothing is ever perfect and Google is just like anything else. While Google has many strengths it does have weaknesses and this is what keeps life interesting. Google are constantly trying to innovate and improve and will continue to do so.

Form the article
One of the most common questions people ask about Google is whether the search-cum-media company is friend or foe. [1]

The answer, of course, is both. Like the guitar starship on the cover of a Boston album, Google looms. The company's business is almost a carapace of computing power, surrounding any form of content and threatening to monetize it in the most effective way possible: advertising.

This dynamic frustrates traditional media companies to no end. But Google does have weaknesses.

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Mark Cuban courts YouTube foe

So just what is he up to? Is he trying to position himself so he can take on YouTube / Google head on?

From the article
Mark Cuban, one of YouTube's most outspoken critics, has expressed interest in buying a news organization that has filed a lawsuit against the video-sharing company.

The company Cuban is eyeing is the Los Angeles News Service, a relatively small television news operation based in Los Angeles. The company's owner is Robert Tur, a famed helicopter pilot and journalist, who alleged in a lawsuit filed last July that YouTube encouraged users to violate copyright law. Tur filed suit after finding that someone had posted some of his footage, including images from the 1992 Los Angeles riots, on YouTube without his permission.

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Interview With Kevin Rose Of Digg

An interesting interview.. I wonder what's in store for Digg? Is taken a bit of a bashing in some quarters lately.

From the article
In this interview, conducted at the Future of Web Apps Summit, Sarah Drew talks to Kevin Rose, founder of digg

Topics we cover in the interview
1. What’s the creative process behind digg?
2. How do you think up new features? Do you use a digg-like consensus approach to them?
3. How have you seen digg affect traditional media?
4. How will digg-spawned sites and web apps be in the future?

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Google Closes YouTube Acquisition

Wow they went through with it. There was always the chance that they might back out at the last minute. So let the games begin. When will we see the first changes to YouTube?

From the article
Google announced today that they have completed the previously announced acquisition of YouTube.

The final price included $15 million in cash, 3,217,560 shares of Google Class A Common Stock, along with an additional 442,210 shares of restricted stock and warrants. The number of shares was determined by dividing the acquisition price, $1.65 billion, by an average value of Google stock over the last thirty days (this is a standard way of handling public company acquisitions). 12.5% of the stock is being held in escrow for one year.

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The 50 Most Influential People in VoIP

Interesting list. VoIP has certainly taken off and plenty of companies have sprung up. What's in store for it next year?

From the article
The world of VoIP changes as fast as it grows. This list represents the people, companies, and entities we believe will exert significant influence on IP Telephony in 2007.

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The Danger of DRM

DRM, the curse of online music. I say remove DRM all together but I guess that will never happen.

From the article
The market for digital music was repressed for nearly a decade prior to the arrival of Apple's iPod. Here's why digital music languished for so long, how Apple was able to build a digital business, and why rivals are struggling to turn back the clock and return digital downloads into a legal black hole of onerous restrictions. The Music World Before DRM Throughout the 1980's, the word for portable music was Walkman. Sony introduced its compact cassette tape player in 1979, and maintained the popularity of its trademark for nearly twenty years. Sony's Walkman was simple, small, and easy for users to figure out. There was no copy protection. The cassette tapes used in the Walkman and similar players were actually originally introduced by Phillips in the early 60's. Both blank and prerecorded cassette tapes were easy to find, relatively cheap, and worked in a variety of players, including non-Sony personal players, larger portable boom boxes, and home console stereo systems. It was easy to create mix tapes from records, radio, or live recordings.

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How to "bus-proof" your open source project

Some important advice in this article. Also your whole project team shouldn't fly in the same plane.

Form the article
People often talk about a software project's bus factor -- the number of people on your project that need to get hit by a bus to leave you with no one familiar with your codebase. In the open source world, the disappearance of even one developer can herald the death of your project -- if you don't prepare in advance.
The most important thing you can do to bus-proof your project is to attract a strong developer community for it. Since open source developers usually first get involved in a project as users, you need to attract users for your project. This means that you need to create something that people want to use and then listen carefully to the user feedback. Today's user may turn out to be tomorrow's release manager.

Start by creating something that people want to use. If you create a project to scratch a particular itch, you may attract a few contributors, but unless it's something that people actually use, it will succumb to bit rot after the initial itch is scratched. Interest in something built only for its own sake can only last so long.

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Doctors should use Google

Cough Cough…I’m not so sure about this. I would be worried if my Doctor was relying on Google for a diagnosis, especially as it seems Google only serves the correct diagnosis half the time. Not a great success rate. Yes I can see the benefits of using the Web but you have selected sites that have been rated, reviewed and that you know are correct.

From the article
Australian medical researchers have concluded that doctors would be well-served by searching Google prior to making a tricky diagnosis -- entering symptoms produced a correct diagnosis more than half the time

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Motorola to buy Good Technology

A good move by Motorlola. After Nokia’s purchase of Intellisvnc earlier this year this will help keep Motorola up with it’s competitors.

From the article
Motorola plans to buy Santa Clara wireless software startup Good Technology for an undisclosed amount, the companies said in a joint statement Friday.

Good currently provides e-mail software for the Schaumburg, Ill., mobile telecommunications company's Q smartphone.

The deal will give Motorola direct access to technology that could help it compete with Research In Motion's BlackBerry among corporate users of mobile email. Arch-rival Nokia bought Intellisync, another mobile e-mail provider, in February.

``They want to be a major (big business) enterprise player,'' said Jack Gold, principal analyst of J.Gold Associates. ``The way you become a major enterprise player is you get a device that enterprises want. The Q is good right now, but it's not yet the device that enterprises want. It hasn't sold in the volumes they thought it would.''

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A rude awakening for Zune

I think David Pogue sums it up nicely with his comment "What exactly is the point of the zune?". A question that I'm sure is on many peoples lips.

From the article
Forget brown. The true color of the Zune is black-and-blue.

Microsoft's music player has been taking its share of hits for some time now, ever since the first details emerged over the summer--including that peculiar option in the color palette. Now, with Zune's November 14 retail launch finally upon us, the reviews are in, and they're not pretty.

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Is the current spam war a Microsoft creation?

It’s easy to point the finger at Microsoft for the woes of the computing world, rightly or wrongly.

From the article
In recent weeks the number of spam messages crossing the internet has nearly gone through the roof, getting to the point where spam accounts for up to 80-90% of the traffic on numerous mail servers across the US and the world. I’ve even seen a big hit on my own server. Some blame it on botnets connected to spammers and scammers out to increase their profits in an already lucrative scam and spam market. Some think that the spammers are at war with the anti-spam groups in an effort to marginalize or cripple them to open wide avenues through which they can successfully pass on their trash on to end users. There are still others who think this a war between the spammers for bragging rights. IE, whoever can successfully spam the most and rake in the greatest bundle of cash is the winner.

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The Limitations of YouTube

I’m sure Google are on top of the problem of how to make money with YouTube. They certainly would not have bought the company if they didn’t think they could make money and have some idea on how they would do that.

From the article
Citing a recent IDC survey, she said about a third of PC users are watching videos on their computer screens, and a majority are seeking user-generated content of the type found on YouTube. Such videos outrank movie trailers, music videos, news, and sports videos in terms of popularity at the moment.

Most viewers are young men, a demographic that makes advertisers salivate. However, translating the current craze into a lucrative ad business is another story, and one that even YouTube itself has yet to solve, said panelists.

In fact, many of the most popular videos play to the lowest common denominator, said panelists—such as the experiments with the explosive combination of Mentos and Coke that became a viral video success. Ms. Levitas also pointed out that if it weren’t for online pornography videos, the current revolution in user generated content might never have happened.

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Skype 3.0 beta released

Some nice new features and tweaks but is it going to be enough to keep Skype at the head of the pack.

From the article
Windows-using Skype fans can now download beta 3 of the venerable VoIP application. Skype 3.0 sports a handful of new features, including Skypecasts, Public Chats, Click-to-call, and a redesigned user interface.

Public Chats allow Skype 3.0 users to create and join large text chatrooms that appear to operate much like IRC chatrooms. Moderators can direct conversation topics, kick users, and determine who can participate in chats and to what extent. Public Chat links can be included on web pages, allowing surfers to jump into conversations via Skype.

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How to Prevent Form Spam Without Captchas

Spam is the plague of the internet. Some good ideas to help prevent this in forms and keep the regular user happy.

From the article
Spam submitted to web contact forms and forums continues to be a huge problem. The standard way out is the use of captchas. However, captchas can be hard to read even for humans. And if implemented wrong, they will be read by the bots. The SANS Internet Storm Center covers a nice set of alternatives to captchas. For example, the use of style sheets to hide certain form fields from humans, but make them 'attractive' to bots. The idea of these methods is to increase the work a spammer has to do to spam the form without inconveniencing regular users.

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Eclipse Is Still Going Strong

IBM have actually produced something of substance. Eclipse is now a powerful platform.

From the article
It was five years ago that IBM invested $40 million in software development to help create an open-source integrated development environment focused on empowering the individual Java developer.

In the intervening years, the Eclipse open-source development platform has grown well beyond the IDE space, branching out into areas such as reporting, modeling, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) development, SOA (service-oriented architecture) tooling, RCP (rich-client platform) technology, team development, and support for other languages beyond Java.

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YouTube In Talks To Open TheirTube Services

Although this initial deal is just with Verizon, I'm sure (hoping) it won't be long before you can get YouTube videos on any mobile. Just hope that Google don't put too many ad's in the mobile content.

From the article
Reports this morning say YouTube is in "advanced talks" with Verizon to set up a deal giving Verizon Wireless subscribers some sort of access to YouTube from their mobile phones, as well as Verizon TV customers on-demand access to some YouTube content. Clearly the biggest challenge for YouTube is to parlay its popularity and traffic into revenues, and the line of thinking behind the Google buyout was that its advertising technology and expertise would help on this front, since Google's the undisputed champion of turning free services into massive revenues.
Although this is initially just for Verizon Customers I'm sure it won't be long before YouTube is available on all mobile phones. Cool, as long as there's no annoying ad's that come with it.

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Little Known Ways to Repair Windows

Re installing windows and then all the software can be a hassle. Try some of these fixes if you are having problems with windows.

From the article
From my other hard drive I googled around and found lots of complicated methods but none of them suited my particular case. I suspected that the integrity of my copy of Windows just wasn't up to snuff so I opted to just repair it.

Some of you might not be aware of Windows XP's ability to repair itself and it has saved my a__ more than once. Some purists out there recommend that you just format and reinstall Windows all over again, but when you have a gagillian, bazillian software programs like I do that is not a prospect I take lightly.

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Newspapers invest $15 million more in Topix.net

Is this an acceptance by traditional media that they need to adapt to the new wave of social media? Maybe or they see Topix as a way of pushing there traditional stuff out to the audience via another method.

From the article
News aggregator Topix.net is set to announce Monday that it has received an additional investment of $15 million from the three newspaper groups that already own a majority stake in the company.After the latest funding, the Gannett and Tribune companies each own 33.7 percent stakes, and The McClatchy Company owns an 11.9 percent stake in Topix.net. Last year, Gannett, Tribune and Knight Ridder--which was acquired by McClatchy in March--jointly purchased a 75 percent stake in Topix.net. The second round of funding boosts their combined total stake to 79.3 percent.

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The Future of Cell Phones

The cell phone has changed a lot in the few years that they have been around. Today practically every body has one. It seems there is newer more powerful models coming out all the time and I don't see that slowing anytime soon. What does the future hold for them?

From the article
The face of the phone is going to change, according to Bob Iannucci, head of the Nokia Research Center (NRC), in Helsinki, Finland. The NRC is hard at work, along with other branches of Nokia, on software and hardware for future cell phones.While your current model might seem like the digital version of a Swiss Army knife, Iannucci sees lots of room for improvement. Novel displays and myriad coordinated radios could make your cell phone a lot more entertaining and useful.


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Comcast Bringing YouTube to TV?

Sweet. Good move by Comcast. I'm sure Google also see potential in having YouTube on the box, ie more advertising.

From the article
Comcast has entered discussions with YouTube and Revver about using some of their user-generated videos for its on-demand cable television service. According to the Wall Street Journal, Comcast wants to include the popular video web content with on-demand options in order to stay at the forefront of interactive television. They’re also considering the development of their own service for gathering user-generated video content. This all fits nicely with their growing on-demand services as well as their portal Comcast.net.

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PeopleSoft founder takes on Oracle, SAP with start-up

I'm sure Dave's new venture will be a success, after all PeopleSoft was. He better do a better job of protecting it though so the Oracle crowd or someone else don't get there dirty hands on it like they did with PeopleSoft.

From the article
When most people hit their 60s, they think about retirement.Not Dave Duffield.The founder of PeopleSoft tried to fend off a hostile takeover from Oracle -- and lost.Nearly two years later, Duffield and former PeopleSoft Vice Chairman Aneel Bhusri are bouncing back with Workday, a new venture with software aimed at improving the way companies manage staffing, billing and other operations. The Walnut Creek start-up -- which officially launches Monday -- will compete in a market dominated by multibillion-dollar software companies Oracle and SAP.

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The Web Designer in 2007

Times have changed in this business. Websites have certainly evolved over the years going from “simple” designs into very complex ones that we are seeing these days. All this change has meant that the web designer has had to change to. What will we see in 2007?

From the article
The Web Designer has probably been around for over ten years now. But with all the developments this year alone, what does the Web Designer have to be and do in the coming year to able to stay relevant in the I.T. industry?

Probably a decade before, it was sufficient to have a background in graphic design, working knowledge of a graphics program (such as Photoshop or Paintshop Pro), and sufficient understanding of HTML for someone to deserve the title “Web Designer.” In 2007, the Web Designer has evolve into a more well rounded professional, skill-wise:

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Beyond Vista, Microsoft's plan to dominate Web 2.0

Should we be worried?

Microsoft is a changing company. What they do after Vista is crucial to there survival. Will Vista be the last version of Windows?

From the article
No company has as much to lose from this shift as Microsoft, which dominated the client/server era on the strength of its Windows operating system. Microsoft is currently enjoying a moment in the spotlight thanks to Vista (the latest version of Windows), the fruit of five-plus years of development and what Microsoft COO Kevin Turner calls the biggest R&D investment in the history of Microsoft and arguably the history of business."

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Eight Open-Source Windows Applications You May Not Have Heard Of

We all like better software and some of the apps in this list are excellent. Give them a go for yourselves.

From the article
Whether you despise Microsoft’s monopolistic grasp on the operating system market, or you are fine with Windows but would still like to use free alternatives to common applications; there may be some programs you are missing out on.

Here are eight open-source applications that run on Windows that you probably are not currently using.

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Global Internet forum closes with call against online repression

A good topic for the forum to close on. I am in total support of free speech on the Internet and removing tough censorship such as is in place in China.

From the article
The world's first-ever UN forum on Internet governance logged off after four days during which prominent Western corporations were accused of helping Chinese authorities to suppress dissidents.

"We have not heard a public commitment from companies on human right values," Erica Razook, a legal advisor to the rights group Amnesty International told AFP.

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Nintendo Wii to have 62 titles

This is a few more than PS3 are planning to launch with. Off course it’s one thing to have more titles but another for the games to actually be better than competitors. We won’t really know which is better until PS3, Wii & Xbox 360 are all out there. Good times if you are a gaming addict.

From the article
Now that you know all about the Wii system’s virtual titles, its time to find out more about the next gen titles coming for the Wii. Nintendo Wii will have a total of 62 titles by the end of the year, 32 of which will be next gen titles (other other 30 are virtual titles). From what we’ve heard so far, there are enough Wii titles to hold gamers over until there are enough PlayStation 3 consoles to go around (for those planning on buying a PlayStation 3). The bad news is that most of these games are going to ports, meaning they will be made available to every console, not just the Wii. We’ll probably find Wiimote functionality on these games to be more of a “thrown on” feature. Plus, on the display side, the other next gen consoles will display these bi-platform games much better than the Wii.

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Business to get Office & Vista early

Depending on your experiences with Microsoft you could regard this as good luck or not for Businesses. With Businesses getting there hands on the software early we should have some feedback from the real world on how they view the new releases before they are released to the public in January.

From the article
Microsoft plans to mark the business launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007 with an event in New York on Nov. 30.

Microsoft also plans to launch Exchange 2007 at the "New Day for Business" event, to be held at the Nasdaq stock exchange and starring CEO Steve Ballmer. "This event will mark the business availability of three major releases from Microsoft," the software maker said in an invitation e-mailed to a set of journalists on Wednesday.

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Microsoft Remakes Vista Packaging, Less Pictures of Happy Windows Users

I wonder why Microsoft have less pictures of happy windows users on it? Probably because it’s hard to find any these days. Still the packaging is irrelevant it’s the software that matters.

From the article
As we all recall, Microsoft has been famous for slapping all kinds of crazy crap on their product boxes. Well, that’s about to change, possibly because they can’t find any pictures of happy Vista users.

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Google acquires JotSpot

Another Google takeover. Wonder what there plans are for this company?

From the article
Google has acquired JotSpot, a Palo Alto company that makes Web-site pages called wikis, for an undisclosed amount, according to separate posts today on both companies' blogs.

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