a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
No secret I am not a huge windows fan, but you have to respect what is starting to happen with these Media Centers. More and more digital media is being created by the consumer and easy access to share it or simply view it in the living room is (or will be) desired.
At once both a powerful PC and a consumer-friendly device, Gateway’s FMC-901X Family Room Media Center goes to the top of the Media Center stack. [CNET Reviews]
So much for a smooth transition for Nokia…
Psion’s biggest shareholder on Thursday announced its opposition to the mobile computing company’s £135.7m sale of its stake in the Symbian joint venture and urged other shareholders to vote down the proposal next week.
Phoenix Asset Management Partners, which holds 56m shares representing a 13.1 per cent stake, said the conditions for an IPO of Symbian had been met and the management of Psion should instead pursue this option aggressively.
Phoenix is the first big investor to come out against the stake sale to handset-maker Nokia, although a number of private investors have suggested a shareholder revolt on online messageboards.
[FT.com]
Wednesday Nights 10:30 EST on Comedy Central – Set your DVR!
Why is Dave Chappelle’s malice so winning? [Slate Magazine]
A challenge, though, when watching Chappelle’s Show, is to resist the temptation to grant it—because Chappelle is black, and because he deals in harsh racial caricatures, and because you’re laughing your ass off, and because you want to believe you’re a progressive person—a political significance that it doesn’t have. New York Press film critic Armond White, for example, credits Chappelle’s Show with “subverting racism, sexism, and the clichés you might call blackism.” But Chappelle doesn’t “subvert” these things—he exploits them. That is, he takes eager advantage of an obvious double standard: White comedians have either to avoid race or treat it with exquisite caution, but black comedians like Chappelle are able to extract laughs from America’s racial hang-ups, not necessarily from a solemn underlying commitment to racial justice, but often with an unfettered and indiscriminate comic malice. I’m not complaining, though. At least somebody gets to do it.
This just allows mediocre 30 second spots to live on in a medium where people are already ignoring them. Nothing like innovating or simply altering your creative message and format for the channel in which you are communicating!
Unicast’s “rich” media format, where it allows TV advertisers to recycle creative meant for the tube, continues to find acceptance among major online publishers. CondeNet joined the club, along with biggies like ABCNews, About, MSN and Tribune Interactive. AdWeek reports. [Up2Speed]
Ditch your browser—RSS makes surfing for news a joy. [Slate Magazine]
This is one of the more out there ideas. I would think it would be easier to use an electronic device like a phone or PDA than to have a master card you morph into the card you need. How do you convince merchants you are not pulling one over…
An upcoming product promises to lighten your wallet in a good way — by replacing all those credit, bank and customer-loyalty cards with a single, programmable card. [Wired News]
Moving to Cross the Chasm…
The broadband phone provider moves beyond its early “geek” adopters, reaching its first deal with a national retailer to sell its services. [CNET News.com]
I sent an email to Six Apart today at 2:47 pm EST about my data corruption issue. I was given an email address to use as a paying customer for support and expected that I would hear back shortly, yet I have not even received an auto-responder stating that my message even got to someone’s mailbox.
Since you’ve made a premium-level donation of $45 or more, you are
eligible for a higher level of support. To initiate a help request,
simply email us at (withdrawn for now). Priority support requests
will be elevated to instant messaging as required, and you will receive
IM contact information in the event such support is needed.
Seems in theory that the system is there — but so far zippo from Six Apart. I expect prompt service as a paying customer (since it seems most people are not and simply rely on the P2P methods within the support forum), am I being unreasonable? The whole reason I decided to pay was for the support…
UPDATE – 11:11 pm …Just got an email from Ben at Six Apart. The help begins!
DVD is going to be single biggest roadblock for massive deployment of Video On Demand. Mike Walsh writes that, “After a decade of whispered promises, the prospects of video on demand are finally looking up. Certainly the current buzz about a possible Comcast/Disney tie up has started the rumour mill up again. But with Hollywood already addicted to the consumer love affair with DVD, is it too late for VoD?.” [GigaOm: Om Malik’s Broadband Blog]
Just my opinion here, but I don’t think so. VOD is pretty damn convenient and if they can get a deeper catalog going and even add HD, I don’t see it going away just yet. Sure DVD offers a great high quality experience, but you have to buy or rent it, which takes planning, when with VOD you can just click it with the remote. In theory, you could enhance the broadcast further with multiple streams and data layers… I think they are just beginning to get going.
Dirty Secrets?
Did Microsoft help fund SCO, and, by association, SCO’s lawsuits against Linux vendors and users? A new internal memo leads to that conclusion. [Technology News from eWEEK and Ziff Davis]
OK, P2P is ‘piracy.’ But Hollywood, radio, cable TV and, yes, even the music industry all sprang from different forms of thievery. By Lawrence Lessig from Wired magazine. [Wired News]
These look very slick!
Javoedge has a interesting set of new cases out for the Tungsten T3 and Zire 71. They are a clear plastic that wrap around the handheld for protection that also features a flip cover. [PalmInfocenter]
Useful stuff!!
Gallery Link Plugin for Movable Type: I knew it wouldn’t be long before these two platforms came together.
[This plugin] allows you to add graphical links to photos on your Gallery website in a way that required much less cutting and pasting and will probably save you much headache if you move your Gallery site.
Professor Lessig revists Eldred v. Ashcroft with this article on legalaffairs.org. [Lessig News]
The newsmaster is an individual capable of personally crafting RSS-based specialized information channels by utilizing technologies that allow hir to select, aggregate, filter, exclude and identify quality news, information, content, tools and resources from the whole universe of content, news and information available on the Internet.
Newsmastering is the ability of a human being to concert, orchestrate, edit, and refine quality search formulas that tap into the whole Internet content universe and beyond, and that filter out relevant information through selected keywords, source selection, ranking, heuristics, and many other possible criteria. [E M E R G I C . o r g]
Amazon recently turned on a whole bunch of RSS Feeds. Very cool. [Scobleizer]
Interestingly Clear Channel still feels Howard is good enough to use on air as voice talent for commercials he reads. Nice…
From the moment last week when Clear Channel Communications suspended Howard Stern’s syndicated morning show from the company’s radio stations, denouncing it as “vulgar, offensive and insulting,” speculation erupted that the move had more to do with Stern’s politics than his raunchy shock-jock shtick.
Stern’s loyal listeners, Clear Channel foes and many Bush administration critics immediately reached the same conclusion: The notorious jock was yanked off the air because he had recently begun trashing Bush, and Bush-friendly Clear Channel used the guise of “indecency” to shut him up. That the content of Stern’s crude show hadn’t suddenly changed, but his stance on Bush had, gave the theory more heft. That, plus his being pulled off the air in key electoral swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.
This week, Stern himself went on the warpath, weaving in among his familiar monologues about breasts and porn actresses accusations that Texas-based Clear Channel — whose Republican CEO, Lowry Mays, is extremely close to both George W. Bush and Bush’s father — canned him because he deviated from the company’s pro-Bush line. “I gotta tell you something,” Stern told his listeners. “There’s a lot of people saying that the second that I started saying, ‘I think we gotta get Bush out of the presidency,’ that’s when Clear Channel banged my ass outta here. Then I find out that Clear Channel is such a big contributor to President Bush, and in bed with the whole Bush administration, I’m going, ‘Maybe that’s why I was thrown off: because I don’t like the way the country is leaning too much to the religious right.’ And then, bam! Let’s get rid of Stern. I used to think, ‘Oh, I can’t believe that.’ But that’s it! That’s what’s going on here! I know it! I know it!”
Stern’s been relentless all week, detailing the close ties between Clear Channel executives and the Bush administration, and insisting that political speech, not indecency, got him in trouble with the San Antonio broadcasting giant. If he hadn’t turned against Bush, Stern told his listeners, he’d still be heard on Clear Channel stations.
So it appears that the database containing everything I’ve written and linked for the past few years (amazing how time flies) is corrupted, an unfortunately common occurrence in Moveable Type Berkeley DB installations. I can export my posts just fine, but cannot import them into a fresh install on a new server. I also cannot upgrade my existing Berkeley DB to MySQL, which would be my choice on this and the new host for the same corrupted reason.
I’ve checked the file and frankly things look good in the export. I can see the entries where an import halted and even after copying and pasting the next entry (yes creating a duplicate) things still eventually crap out again. I’ve done this quite a few times and been forced to reinstall MT on the new host too many times in order to maintain my permalinks for each entry. I’ve got to keep things the same if at all possible moving forward or risk some serious google linkage.
I’m stuck for now… Hoping eventually some helpful sole reads this or even replies to my calls for help on the MT support boards. I actually paid for MT so perhaps the staff at Six Apart can kick in some assistance. This sucks.
Xitel has announced its Ground Loop Isolator designed specifically to stop the ground loop hum that can result from connecting computers to home stereo equipment. “As the trend towards more and more consumers playing digital audio from their computers through their home stereo systems continue, many are discovering an annoying hum in their speakers. The most likely cause of this hum is not their PC or home stereo, but a ground loop in their home or apartment mains power wiring, which can occur through differences in resistance in the electrical system.” It is available for $30. [MacNN]