a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
This is theory at the moment, but could be a very nice standard way to show downloads, itunes status and new mail among others…
For users, this means that all your apps, if Growl enabled, will display pretty notifications in the same, uniform way. You can also use growl to work with any scripts you write in perl, python, and other things. You can also decide what applications may, or may not, send you a notification, and then the types of notifications it can send you. [Growl!]
Windows users….
America Online Inc. has released a beta version of AOL Instant Messenger that fixes a critical security hole that could open users to remote attack. [eWeek]
YouSendIt is a very cool way to share files that are normally considered too large for email. The service is essentially a web based drop box. You select a person’s email, choose a file on your desktop and then hit send. Your browser uploads the file and they send an email to your friend or work buddy to pick it up. It’s simple and works well even up to files that are 1GB in size.
I used it a few times today, first as a test with myself and then a few zips to a buddy of mine. Works like a champ – highly recommended if you or they don’t have easy ftp access. It’s free for now… files expire after 7 days.
Don’t feel like waiting for the CD to arrive or Windows Update to have magically downloaded … here’s your chance to get the XP SP2 update now.
In case you haven’t noticed, we at Downhill Battle big fans of BitTorrent– a filesharing technology that decentralizes the distribution of large files from websites. Last week we launched p2pcongress.org to distribute video from Congress’s hearing on the INDUCE Act. And today, we’re announcing:
It’s a site that links to BitTorrent files of the Windows XP Service Pack that Microsoft has announced. Microsoft is limiting their release of this update due to bandwidth concerns, and we’re taking this chance to show that p2p technology can get the file out to anyone who wants it, without massive server requirements. We’re not doing this to help Microsoft (believe me), but rather as a demonstration of why p2p is valuable. [Download the Windows XP Service Pack 2]
The software reportedly allows hackers to break into Gmail accounts by following a simple three-step process. Google, the report said, has already responded with the instigation of a visually-oriented anti-robot test. [Web Hosting Industry News]
I had previously mentioned Photopeer but only recently (yesterday) got a feel for how it works…
After installing, you get an iPhoto Plugin and a Menu Bar item which lets you control prefs, invitations and albums you’ve been sent as well as invitations you might be sending yourself. I had actually installed it and gotten distracted until I received a nice email from Photopeer (assume it was from Marketing) with an album to share and help me understand how it all works. Actually the email came while working on the work PC so it was not until I was back on the Mac that I really saw it in action…
The Menu bar item highlighted and a translucent window opened to notify me of the shared album invitation. I accepted the invite and over some time and in the background the images downloaded to my computer. As they did I got a preview thumbnail as they lit up in the floating translucent window. I navigated to the menu item this morning and saw that my images were ready to view and that’s when it hit me… this is a very easy way to move large image files between friends and family!
BTW – The coolest part is that this all works within iPhoto. Shared albums show up as though you are on a local network together and can easily be imported, printed etc right from within the app.
I guess I was not clear on how it all worked, as no one else I know has the app installed, and I guess that was the purpose of the email. Mission Accomplished Photopeer… very cool indeed! A windows version is coming soon.
I used Skype for the first time today and thought it was pretty cool… I’d used Voice Chat apps before (iChat, AIM etc…) but was wondering what the big deal with Skype really was until just now when I read a post from Dan Gilmore who was commenting on the FCC’s declaration and vote to tap VOIP lines like my Vonage line as they can with landlines…
This is a stunningly bad decision, and it is going to take us down a road we’ve already traveled.
It ignores reality. Consider Skype, which encrypts calls from end to end. It runs on peer-to-peer networks. In other words, law enforcement can’t eavesdrop — because VOIP is, for all practical purposes, a software application.
Unless we have new laws banning the private use of strong encryption, the FCC/FBI alliance here just means the bad guys will move their communications — if they haven’t already — to services that can’t be tapped. Then, only average folks will be monitored. [Dan Gillmor’s eJournal]
So obviously I don’t like the FCC decision (perhaps not so obvious to you new visitor), but the capability to encrypt my discussion through a P2P network is pretty slick and though I had read that when I first learned of Skype it was lost in time as I waited for a Mac version…. still waiting on the Mac version, but the PC version is here now and works quite well. Makes me think that it might make a better choice now than a softphone from anyone else especially given the encryption angle.
Yahoo on Friday confirmed that its recently released toolbar has mistakenly linked an alleged spyware program with a product that has nothing to do with the application in question. [News.com]
I did not have this issue… in fact the Yahoo toolbar spyware tool was the best thing I’ve used to remove my spyware. I found in the week since I’ve been seriously using the PC, that one small app (Grockster…yeah yeah) rendered IE helpless and that it was impossible to kill some of the pieces since I was told by the system they were in use. Why were they in use you might ask? Well, since the browser is bundled in the OS, it’s always friggin running and there is no easy way to blast crap out when it is being called for. The Yahoo spyware finder seemed to find things another app I tried was unable to and finally enabled me to squash the crap. I’m done playing there… The system gets way to wacked out from a seemingly small move.
This may get me using del.icio.us more again… easy to add and if you are reading my (feedburner) feed you’ll get this stuff automagically…
Introducing the next FeedBurner service: the Link Splicer! After we released the Flickr Splicer last month, we had a number of requests to splice in other kinds information, including online bookmarks. We couldn’t agree more … now, you can splice your del.icio.us bookmarks into your feed. [The FeedBurner Weblog]
So I’m about a week into using Bloglines as my primary (actually only) source for feed reading and I am totally into it. First, with a solid connection (like my current wifi connection at SFO), it’s incredibly quick and easy to use. I find that it’s in many ways quicker than some of the local readers I’ve tried. Of course there’s the read/unread status which carries regardless of what machine you use — amazingly good feature for people on more than one machine or platform.
The only negative as you might expect is that you are SOL when offline … that really does not happen all that often. On of the nicer bonus features when you do return online, is that your subs are already updated since there is no local downloading… it’s all been done on the server.
There are some nice things like the rendering you get with some local readers like my app of choice NetNewsWire on Mac, but since you can’t sync it to another platform it makes it tougher for me to use it when I am back on my home machine. I can easily maintain read/unread status through import / export of my OPML file, but I’ll be reading or at least seeing many items that I’ve read previously. Hopefully (I know I’ve mentioned this previously) someone will realize that a standard will greatly benefit many users.
This is quite handy and I did not see a limit… I’ve set up 2 already for fun. You’d be amazed (though perhaps not) at what was already taken… I tried quite a few profanities as well as a few funny things I was thinking of, but dammit someone got rickjames@mac.com already.
“You can use email aliases instead of your .Mac email address to keep your .Mac account private (such as when purchasing online) or to easily recognize and organize incoming emails from various sources. Simply deactivate or delete an email alias to keep unwanted email from arriving in your Inbox. [The Cult of Mac Blog]
The T-Mobile HotSpot Connection Manager is actually quite good in my quick tests. I am able to not only see but also connect to hotspots from my hotel that I was not able to do so prevoiusly the past few nights. It’s easy to scan and connect and seems to work with the VPN software I’ve got for remote access as well. It’s a combo stumbler, connection manager… I am not connected to a TMO hotspot at the moment, it’s just called SF and I honestly have no idea where it is… Guess I could have saved a few bucks this week if I’d only thought to try it earlier…
I’ve been using the hotel broadband connection – $9.99/24 hours which is 5 bucks less than last week when I was at the W Hotel here in San Fran. No idea why the W thinks they can charge so much more… guess since we choose to pay it to connect and work — or play.
Any give the TMO Connection client a shot if you like…. I like that my damn wireless connection manager has finally shut up now down in the task bar as an added bonus. Hate those pop-up notices…
quick update… 30 minutes later I really dig this connection manager. I tried pretty hard the past few days to get a connection I could really use, you know not walking about the room, but actually at the desk working or reading. I found the answer tonight with this thing. I’ve maintained a 20-40% signal connection to the same hotspot without issue now. It’s been great and works as you would want – it just does. Not sure what’s up with the built-in stuff from IBM, Cisco and Intel. I’ve got a Pentium M in here – not a centrino so I not sure if that’s any different with connectivity.
I’ve been really itching to try OneNote on my work PC in order to keep all my info organized and tagged as I’ve heard you can do. Microsoft released a 60 day demo download and just announced a price reduction ($99), but with all this I am still running into a wall. It seems that regardless of the number of times I download the demo installer I get a fatal error during installation. That’s literally the error I get while the .exe upacks itself.
Searched the MS forums and the only thought has been to delete cache from IE (done a few times) and try again. I’ve tried using Firefox to download but I get the same error. Not sure what the issue might be… it’s quite frustrating though.
In related news I also downloaded a demo of GoBinder which is a competitive product but in addition to completely nuking my Palm sync, it never ran since they never emailed a reg number for the demo.
Not exactly sure what’s up with this particular software market, but something’s missing…
I’ve noticed that even though I have set a different browser as my default on the PC – Firefox if you must ask – IE will still acquire links I click if it happens to be open. I need it for some intranet related pages…
I just caught this item from Mark Cuban …
Im working with a company called IceRocket.com. (http://www.icerocket.com). IceRocket is a brand new search host that combines the best of spidered search, meta search, and what we hope are some unique and different features that make using the engine more efficient and addictive. [Blog Maverick]
I shot over and gave it a shot, skipping the usual search on the page stuff and heading right for some of the unique features which immediately appealed to my mobile senses. You can search via email for search, news and pictures with an email to either search@icerocket.com, news@icerocket.com or pics@icerocket.com. I did one of each for a work project on the search and news and decided to see what might come back with pictures of the “Treo 610.” I was disappointed with the results.
Search works… I can see using this on occassion, but you’ll still have to click through to get detail greater than a search result. News came back blank, with a link to click for the next 5 items… not too cool considering the same topic is something I track with Google News and have gotten a few alerts already today. Pictures though was by far the most interesting and unfortunatley disappointing… My “Treo 610” search came back with links to overweight people and some other random stuff…not even close.
I’d say Google still has the edge.
This week has been interesting for me on a variety of levels not the least of which is my switch to using Windows for work as I previously mentioned. As a result, I’ve been thinking about how to manage my digital bits across worlds and try to make things not only easy on myself but as seemless as possible.
For browsing I am using Firefox on Windows though on Mac I’ll stick it out with Camino instead as I like many of the Mac features embedded there. Email will be interesting to see… for now on Windows, I am running Thunderbird which can easily be run on Mac as well. I’ve been pretty partial to the Apple Mail program which I could easily continue to use thanks to IMAP, and will certainly use it for permanent local storage. This weekend I’ll probably spend my time in Thunderbird on Mac to see if I like it there as well. I could have certainly used Outlook as I am for my new work address, but figure I’ll keep the camps separate for now even though a small amount of personal connectivity is taking place.
RSS… This was a tough one at first. For the past few days though I’ve been living through bloglines and think it’s a total winner. While I really like NetNewsWire and have been actively working through the beta for the next round (exciting stuff coming!), the ability to seemlessly manage my subscriptions and what’s been read on any machine is very cool. There’s even a mobile version that works on the Palm which is even cooler allowing for total connectivity as well as total detail management with my pretty vast subscription file. Tonight I even discovered a nice feature which lets you use a random bloglines email address for newsletter (or anything really) subscriptions and pulls them through the UI as well. This rocks!! In an ideal world there would be a sync standard like IMAP for RSS but we’ve got a ways to go.
My Palm syncs to both well which is a nice bonus so I can maintain a sync to outlook as well as my mac on which I maintain a much more complex set of conduits. All good.
I won’t have a chance to mess with this until I get back from SF as I am using me issued Thinkpad at the moment, but I am excited at the future of Mac sync for Palm. The old way has worked, but is pretty tired. This week I’ve been syncing on Windows and the speed alone is a shocking difference…
Mark/Space today began shipping version 4.0 of The Missing Sync for Palm OS, their highly-anticipated successor to PalmSource’s HotSync Manager for Mac OS X, with support for PDAs and smartphones from companies including AlphaSmart, Garmin, palmOne, Samsung, Sony and Tapwave.
The Missing Sync for Palm OS v4 goes far beyond providing the basic functionality of HotSync Manager –the software component that allows data to be exchanged between a Palm OS device and a Mac — by introducing a host of new capabilities that Mac users have been asking for, such as network sync over Wi-Fi/AirPort, SyncMinder, which reminds the user when it’s time to synchronize, and wireless internet connection sharing over Bluetooth.
[Missing Sync for Palm OS v4] Other new features include Conduit Profiles that allow the user to easily turn on and off groups of conduits, drag-and-drop install targets that send files directly to the internal memory or expansion card and a standalone MemoPad application that allows Address Book and iCal users to synchronize handheld memos. Longtime Missing Sync favorites, such as desktop mounting and iPhoto/iTunes integration, are also included. [PalmInfocenter.com]
I imagine this is only the beginning…
Starting next year, users of Apple Computer’s iTunes music service will be able to play songs on some Motorola cellphones. The new cellphones will ship with new Apple software, called iTunes Mobile Music.
For Apple, the deal could help it keep the lead in the online music market, which promises to get even more competitive later this year with the arrival of Microsoft.
Customers of iTunes will be able to transfer possibly a dozen to a few dozen songs from their PC or Mac to their phone over a cable or wireless connection, said Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive. [The New York Times]
Gotta love how technology can help close the distance of travel…
As I’ve mentioned I am in San Francisco, and for the first time I am away from my family since Hannah was born. Through iChat with our cameras though we can still talk and see each other which is really a great thing! Hannah can see me and I get my daily fix of my daughter…(and wife of course) 😉
Looks pretty interesting…
Photopeer helps make photo sharing seamless by allowing iPhoto-to-iPhoto and iPhoto-to-Windows sharing over the internet. Sharing digital photos no longer requires complicated steps, resizing of images, bounced emails, etc. Photopeer allows you to “simply share”. [Photopeer]