Que es?
The Weblog of Brett Singer. Bringing the world what it needs most - a blog.
Note: Sorry about all of the 'hot deals' entries (someone referred to this blog as
CorporateShill.com).
The deals and things are being fed into Multineedia.com. We will
soon move the deals category over to Multineedia so you don't have to read it, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
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Mon, 08 May 2006
MySpace also say F YOU to Non-IE users
This shouldn't be a surprise, but MySpace's videos only play in IE:
Sorry, we currently only support Internet Explorer browsers with Windows Media Player 9+
Actually, they don't play there either, but there's no error message. A commercial will play, then no music video (which is what you came there for). Great stuff! I guess $500 million onlu buys you a web site that works PART of the time.
Update: it played the third time I tried.
Note: I don't care that much about the content, I was exploring the site because I was told by a Music TV personality that MySpace was THE place for new bands. Not news, but I figured I would explore their "services".
Wed, 26 Apr 2006
Moved Nowhere
More brilliant web programming:
Found
The document has moved here.
"Here" is this:
http:// (with a third slash).
That's not a typo. Nothing personal, I just like to show that even big sites that have a staff and a budget can screw up sometimes.
Mon, 06 Mar 2006Eric S. Raymond's HTML Hell Page is amusing, but dated. Thanks to template-based software to make blogs, there are fewer and fewer painfully ugly web sites around. They still exist, but the irritations are different and, I think, less frequent.
Wed, 22 Feb 2006If there were a Saturday Night Live that focused exclusively on the tech indisutry, this would be a top story on the fake news.
Basically, this a white paper that tells us to use better paper in our printers. It creates better quality for our customers and improves our bottom line. ISO 9000 and shit. I don't know.
Once tech hypermeisters are focusing on paper, I think we've hit rock bottom.
Tue, 21 Feb 2006
(Make your own cards here and here.)
We now return you to our regularly schedule blog entry.
MashupCamp stokes the Web app fire, from ZDNet Blogs, seems to be a forum for application developers. For example, This morning's session on monetization and business models for mashups and API revenue extraction attracted the most attendees so far.
I'm all for people making money from, well, anything (shoot, this guy does okay, as does this fella). This is just to continue to point out how the tech industry desperately needs to name things, and in this case, 'mashups' seem to be a phrase du jour. Without knowing too much about it, it appears that the concept was co-opted from the musical mash-up community, which I don't think is sitll considered cool, but has certainly become more mainstream (and maybe those two things went together - lack of coolness and mainstreamness). Here's an example of a mashup, at least as they are discussing it in this ZDNet entry:
Weatherbonk, for example, integrates 21 data feeds and overlays some of them on Google maps. For example, with the real-time weather radar feed overlaid on the map, you can see the fog rolling into San Francisco. You can also click a set of points along the map and see the weather patterns of the route plotted. Users can also add Web cams to the maps, and there is a mobile version of the both mashups.
Okay. So it's mashing up feeds, data, etc. from multiple sites and making stuff happen with it. Okay, that is cool. And the term is even descriptive. But you know what? It isn't COOL the way rock bands are COOL or movie stars are COOL (you may not think those things are COOL, but I think you know what I mean - COOL in the way that James Dean was once COOL). It's all HYPE. MAKE ME SOMETHING I CAN USE.
More to the point, try not swiping a term from a subculture that's gone totally mainstream and doesn't have much coolness left in it. Here's a thought: make up your own term! Then we can all play some Buzzword Bingo.
Mon, 20 Feb 2006
AJAX! (hype) IT WILL SAVE US ALL!
Through various news lists, I get an email like this at least three times a week:
story
Five Earth-Shattering Things You Should Know About AJAX and You Don't
Of course, you already know everything about AJAX, don't you?
Ajax is hotter right now than Nicholas Carr's backside after coming out of Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 woodshed. You have heard, haven't you? If you're not sure then go Google "Ajax" right now. You can read over 23 million detailed entries all about it. Literally. Though you will have to skim a bit.
This isn't exactly news, that AJAX is being hyped beyond belief. I just think it's funny how the tech industry, especially where this old Interweb is concerned (I think that's the hip thing to call the Web/Internet), has a need to HYPE SOMETHING AT ALL TIMES. MUST CROW LOUDLY ABOUT TECHNOLOGY OR I WILL FEEL LIKE I AM IN A LOSER BUSINESS.
Um, we're all in loser businesses at one time or another. Take a chill.
Fri, 17 Feb 2006
Your Next Phone Might Be Running Linux - Should You Care?
More about Linux going mobile:
Right now there is a Linux handset for every 13 people in Japan. So speaketh Linux World Magazine.
OSDL Mobile Linux Initiative
From Linux World Magazine.
Linux breaking into the Mobile OS market is kind of like the Democratic Party trying to take back the White House from the current Bush Administration: if they can't make any headway, they should pack up and go home.
AJAX
It looks like AJAX is officially the next big thing in web programming.
Web irritation of the day redux
Once again, it's web sites that JUST START PLAYING AUDIO. THERE IS NO OFF BUTTON. NO WAY TO MUTE THE SOUND. IT IS ALMOST AS ANNOYING AS WRITING THAT IS ALL CAPS.
Actually, it's more annoying, because writing that is all caps can't distract you from a phone call, cause you to miss instructions on a long-winded voice mail loop, or just give you a headache.
There should be a feature in all browsers that allows you to block all sound that is generated by said browser.
Wed, 16 Nov 2005
No stupid flash games for you!
Once again, Rupert Murdoch manages to interfere with my life.
I AM RUNNING WINDOWS YOU STUPID...
Wouldn't you think Fox Sports would have the resources to make their stupid little time-waster game work with Firefox, or at least know that it doesn't work with Firefox?
Oh wait. It's MSN. Microsoft hates Firefox. There you go. Still stupid. Bad error message, bad design, and so on. It's embarrassing that a major media company can't deal with their site better.
Tue, 15 Nov 2005News flash: Internet radio still sucks.
I'm in my office and decide to drown out the external noise with some music. Easiest way is via web radio. So.
First stop, AOLRadio.com. Asked to sign in with my AIM account. Do so, no problem. Plugin doesn't seem to want to work with Firefox. Okay. Try Internet Explorer. Not asked to sign in, but right after getting their Player window (which is a pop-up, which the Google toolbar blocked, as did FFox earlier), am told that the plugin is too old to work and I have to download it again. Give up.
Tried Yahoo Radio, Launch, whatever it's called. Asked to sign in, do so. "We don't support Netscape" (although I'm using Firefox). Annoyed enough to decide I don't even want to bother using IE or download their resource-hogging Yahoo Music Engine.
Next stop: the typically reliable shoutcast.com. Tried to load a playlist on another PC, but Winamp chokes. Download new version of Winamp, with built-in radio browsing. Winamp chokes. Uninstall Winamp from that machine and decide to deal with it later.
Finally resort to Winamp on my laptop, which has crappy speakers and isn't well positioned in the office in terms of group listening, but at least it worked.
This is way too complicated. The truth is, if it were just me, I would've gone straight to Webjay, but the differentness of the music there can sometimes be off-putting to the uniniated. Still, listening to a stream should simply not be this complex. I would have tried Rhapsody, but I'm trying to ween myself off of that since it's not free.
If AOL, Yahoo, and the rest want to get ad money by offering free streaming media (and that's exactly what they want) they'd better try and actually use some of their services before inflicting them on the rest of us.
Mon, 14 Nov 2005Kickin' it old school:
DAVID BERLIND
Bricklin's WikiCalc: Way beyond wikis and spreadsheets
Electronic spreadsheet co-inventor Dan Bricklin has gone public
with plans to release WikiCalc - an open source browser-based
solution that weds the most powerful features of spreadsheets
with the most collaborative features of Wikis. But, the alpha 0.1
version of WikiCalc isn't just a marriage of Wikis to spreadsheets.
With its three-tier architecture, it also lays the foundation for very
simple yet powerful thin client applications the likes of which we
haven't seen yet.
The Dan & David Show: Bill and Ray memos, WikiCalc, root kits and more
Thu, 03 Nov 2005
Quick Rant about browser crashing scripts and applets
Lately I have encountered a lot of web pages with elements that crash my browser of choice, which is Firefox. The biggest culprits are sports sites, such as NFL.com or CBS Sportsline. These pages tend to have a lot of multimedia elements, specifically Flash and other embedded videos. The most crash-prone seem to be MS-based protocols, but that's not a scientific observation.
It's not limited to the big guys, though. I was just on a small-ish site and tried to use the Check Spelling button on a forum post. Within seconds, Firefox crashed, the little error reporting window popped up, and the pages I was looking at were history (and not stored in the browser history). Why is this? Is it bad code? Is Firefox just too buggy for prime-time? As much as I hate (HATE) Internet Explorer for all of the ills it has foisted on the world, it does tend to render these bad pages better. Obviously this is because site designers are targeting IE users, which are plentiful. But is it really that hard to test your code on Firefox, which is becoming more and more popular (9.7% on the BBC's website, for example)? Do the site owners know that this is even happening? Maybe notifying the Firefox people (via the error tracking pop-up) isn't sufficient. Could the error tracker somehow connect to a whois lookup and then email the admin/technical contact for the domain where the site crashed? Easier said than done I'm sure, but my point is that Firefox shouldn't be trying to make itself work with every site that is poorly coded, badly designed, and/or annoyingly full of embedded media elements. The sites should just work better.
Gonze Link Love: iTunes Podcasting Letter
Dear Apple,
You did it wrong. Please fix it.
Sincerely,
Lucas Gonze
Oversimplification, but that's basically what Lucas has to say. I will add my link per Lucas' and others request.
iTunes one-click subscription a godawful mess (Gonze.com)Mon, 24 Oct 2005
Lucas Gonze Speaketh the Truth About Web Video
For reasons that shall forever remain unknowable, audio/video developers think that users want doodads and chrome, whereas what users really want is for the damn song to come out of the speakers without having to mess around with plugins and codecs. The song is the point, not the software.
Why? I'll tell you why. They're all annoying. Plus they don't test their apps on anything other than a local machine, so they have no idea how hard it is to load a video. The most extreme example is Real Player, which works about 70% of the time. That's just unacceptable. Windows Media Player works more often than not, but it's limited to a few files, and will show you tons of crap that you don't need unless you tweak the hell out of it. VLC was described to me as 'user-hostile', but I actually love it. If/when they start supporting XSPF, that could be interesting.
Hey, video developers, here's an idea: put the ads that we all know are driving the stupidity of your software in the content itself. And don't make it too obtrusive. Otherwise people will keep trying to figure out ways to watch the video without your crummy proprietary player, and then nobody sees the message from the person who pays for the content. Or you could charge for it. That might not work (I think iTunes isn't going to sell a lot of videos at $1.99 once the novelty wears off, but I could be wrong). Straight to DVD could be the way of the future, and guess what? I can play that on my TV without mucking around with crap software.
'Tis here, but yet confused...
Tue, 11 Oct 2005Two items from eweek - Yahoo gets into podcasts, and gada.be, which is a meta search engine - pulls in search terms via RSS. It does seem to work, and it would be handy on a mobile device since the page is very spare.
New Search Engine Optimized for Mobile
It uses RSS, and doesn't even require a trip to a search engine. The interesting Web application lets you embed your search term in a URL, which makes it easier to find somethingwithout loading a separate Web page. It's not necessarily the future of search, but it sure is an interesting experiment
--and it works just as well at your PC as on the go. Our story has details on where to find it, how to use it, and the wacky inventor who thought it up.
New Search Engine Concept:
link
Yahoo's Brave New Podcast Frontier
Looking for your favorite Podcast? Want to add a new one to your MP3 player? Now there's a new game in town: Yahoo. The huge search engine company has added a new ability to searchfor these pre-formatted audio files, but there's a hitch-the company relies on author-supplied descriptions. Why is that a problem? What else does the service do? Read our story for details on Yahoo's brave new Podcast frontier.
Yahoo Launches Podcast Search:
link
EWeek has a story about Sprint and RealRhapsody planning to bring Real's audio service to cell phones. Real's been talking about this for awhile (I spoke to a Real rep about it at TechXNY two or three years ago), but it needs a reasonably powerful phone and better bandwidth. That said, I can listen to streaming audio on my Treo with PocketTunes on a slow-ish Verizon cellular connection (that is, not the Ev-Do service, which is faster). How slow? Dial-up, maybe 28.8kbs. But on low bandwidth audio, it works great. Listening to streaming audio while walking down the street makes you feel like the Celestial Jukebox is a real possibility.
Is Ubuntu the next big name in Linux? from ZDNet. Plus, Microsoft confirms next XP service pack, SP3. Why are these things related? Gee, I dunno.
Wed, 28 Sep 2005
10 Worst Products of the Decade
Will they call it secure-secure digital?
News: SanDisk Launches Secure Memory Card
SanDisk unveiled a new range of memory chip cards that
incorporate an anti-piracy software chip to lure the
entertainment market to a new storage medium.
Let the word go forth: Yahoo Messenger trashed my Windows installation beyond repair. How do I know it was Yahoo? Well, I was suspicious when it started demanding that I upgrade to Yahoo Voice. But the real test was that after booting to Safe Mode, going to Add/Remove Programs and then selecting Yahoo Messenger - BAM! Reboot! This was the problem originally, spontaneous rebooting. Anyway, I reinstalled Windows, and everything went fine. But DAMN.
So what's the answer? Use GAIM. Works fine. Doesn't install random crap. Is not ticware.
Sun, 25 Sep 2005Keeping Skype @Bay from InternetNews.com:
Atlanta-based Verso Technologies last week announced the introduction of a carrier grade tool or 'application filter' designed to let cable operators and other IP service providers "selectively disable undesirable network traffic and improve service levels on their networks," according to a press release. The product is aimed specifically at peer-to-peer (p2p) applications, such as VoIP, instant messaging, conferencing, and other types of streaming media.
Skype is the poster child for such 'undesirable' traffic, from the point of view of facilities based network operators, as the VoIP technology provider and its peers bring no network capacity to the party; they essentially piggyback on others' pipes.
Wonder if this is going to matter. Will enough ISPs adopt it?
Thu, 15 Sep 2005
A Better Punishment for the Hilton Hacker
Hilton hacker sentenced to juvenile hall
Teenager who admitted to hacking mobile-phone operator T-Mobile and
posting data from Paris Hilton's Sidekick on the Web will serve 11 months in a
juvenile facility.
I have a better punishment: he has to read the book Paris' dog wrote.
Researchers claim they have found ways to exploit a serious flaw in
Firefox and Mozilla browsers, a sign that attacks could be on the way.
Time to switch to Opera? (That's my commment, not ZDNet's).
Gates Talks to News.com, even if Google won't
Bill Gates takes on Google - is it fair to take on Google in a place that Google won't go to?
Mon, 12 Sep 2005eBay to buy Skype
Eventually, Skype software may allow buyers at the auctioneer's site
to click to talk to a customer service agent.
Story from ZDNet
Hm. Interesting. I didn't see that coming. It'll definitely make Skype more mainstream and get them tons of users. Prediction: Verizon and other telcos sue eBay for, I don't know, something.
Thu, 08 Sep 2005
More things for Ballmer to freak out about
Vinton Cerf, Internet Pioneer, Joins Google. Steve Ballmer attempts to hire Al Gore, is told that Gore did not actually invent the Internet, flips out and kills ten Microsoft employees.
Okay, only the Vint Cerf part of that is true.
Must... Stifle... Competition...
Steve Ballmer apparently wants to "Kill Google". This is according to court documents.
Ballmer is out of his fucking mind. Wouldn't you think having that much success would mellow you out a little bit, or at least get you to a place where you can filter out certain comments that could come back to haunt you?
Developers, developers, developers...
Links:
Um, Steve? That's gonna be really hard to fit into my pocket.
Thu, 01 Sep 2005Cat Schwartz is now doing a "show" on Engadget. MPEG format, easily downloadable. Does this mean that eventually bigger companies like CNN and MSNBC will let people download their content without tiresome custom players and DRM? Nah.
DigitalLife TV - TechTV lives!
DigitalLife TV is actually offering downloadable versions of their shows. For free. No streaming. No DRM. Patrick Norton, formerly of The Screen Savers on TechTV, is the host, and Kevin Rose appears to be on there as well. So its, like, the same show with no Leo (who is now podcasting) and really low production values. I like that G4 bought TechTV, fired everybody, eventually cancelled the show, but they're all still doing the same thing, but on their own. The age range is varied too: Leo has been around forever, Patrick is somewhere in between, and Kevin is like, 12 years old. He also appears to be podcasting and 'vidcasting', the latter of which is a new one on me. Is this how we'll get our audio and video content in the future? Maybe. Mostly I like that these guys want to do a tech show (video and audio) and they just do it. Martin Sargent is around too, although I don't know if he's on "air" anymore. There's a term that doesn't really apply: on-air personality. What will the new term be?
An excerpt from the Extreme Tech book Hacking Firefox : More Than 150 Hacks, Mods, and Customizations. Read the chapter on speeding up the browser here.
Wed, 31 Aug 2005This seems weird to me. Especially since the issue is kind of almost over. I guess CNET wants to be, y'know, cool. Not sure this is a good way to do it.
Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt part deux
A few tools to protect files on a Windows PC. Other than, you know, switching to Linux.
Fri, 26 Aug 2005
That's a lotta data on one lil' DVD
Hitachi Unveils World's First Terabyte DVD Recorder. Oooooo. I want one.
Paper: Sony, Toshiba Give up on Unified DVD Format.
This is not a surprise, but it does kinda suck. Unlike DVD-R and DVD+R, the two competing formats in this 'battle' have different capacities. The new Playstation 3 will feature a Blu-ray drive, which should give the format a leg up on the competition.
Opinion: Perhaps Microsoft could have foreseen the insecure future to come, but it still might not have changed its behavior, and it would have been hard for the company to do so.
Wed, 24 Aug 2005
US Military Networks under attack from China
Defense Department finds its networks under attack from China. Found here.
Huh?