Ted Ritzer: Gotta Try or Visit

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:43:55 GMT

UK service shames your MP into being transparent. Cory Doctorow: HearFromYourMP is a new UK direct democracy tool in the same vein as WriteToThem.com (a service to easily send mail to your government reps from the local level to the EuroParliament) and TheyWorkForYou.com (a service to track all the things your lawmaker says and does in Parliament).

If you enter your details, we'll add you to a queue of other people in your constituency. When enough have signed up, your MP will get sent an email. It'll say "20 of your constituents would like to hear what you're up to - hit reply to let them know". If they don't reply, nothing will happen, until they get an email which says there are now 100 people; 200 people; 500 people - until it is nonsensical not to reply and start talking.

Link (Thanks, Tom!) [Boing Boing]

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:43:07 GMT

American Idiot mashed up. Cory Doctorow: American Edit is a concept mashup album that combines American Idiot with lots of eclectic material. I love the remix with the Dr Who theme! Link (Thanks, DD8!) [Boing Boing]

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 23:27:27 GMT

Google Weblog. The latest news on everyone's favorite search engine. [Most popular feeds from Syndic8.com]

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:43:13 GMT

Open Source Multimedia Center For Windows. An anonymous reader writes "A new opensourced multimedia center for Windows has been released. Media Portal boasts the ability to turn your PC into an advanced HTPC (Home-Theatre PC) and PVR/DVR (Personal/Digital Video Recorder). It allows you to listen to your favorite music and radio, watch all your video's and DVD's, view, schedule and record live TV and much more. The software is a port of the homebrew Xbox Media Center software which requires a Modded Xbox to run." [Slashdot:]

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:38:59 GMT

Podcasting mechanics. After I posted yesterday's audio interview, Paul Schaeflein wrote to point out that I ought to be using RSS 2.0 enclosures in my feed so that enclosure-aware aggregators can download media objects. ... [Jon's Radio]

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:16:57 GMT

Personal soundtracks. Online: Ben Hammersley on how audio programming led to the rapid spread of the podcasting phenomenon. [Guardian Unlimited]

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 01:57:17 GMT

BBC: Blog picked as word of the year. Slow news day. [Scripting News]

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 01:43:32 GMT

Decentralizing Bittorrent. An anonymous reader writes "Exeem is a new file-sharing application being developed by the folks at SuprNova.org. Exeem is a decentralized BitTorrent network that basically makes everyone a Tracker. Individuals will share Torrents, and seed shared files to the network. At this time, details and the full potential of this project are being kept very quiet. However it appears this P2P application will completely replace SuprNova.org; no more web mirrors, no more bottle necks and no more slow downs. Exeem will marry the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program. Currently, the network is in beta testing and already has 5,000 users (the beta testing is closed.) Once this program goes public, its potential is enormous. " [Slashdot:]

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:38:21 GMT

October 27, 2004.

Pure CSS Slideshows

CSS expert Eric Meyer came up with a pretty awesome slide show system called S5:

ìS⁵is a slide show format based entirely on XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With one file, you can run a complete slide show and have a printer-friendly version as well. The markup used for the slides is very simple, highly semantic, and completely accessible. Anyone with even a smidgen of familiarity with HTML or XHTML can look at the markup and figure out how to adapt it to their particular needs. Anyone familiar with CSS can create their own slide show theme. It's totally simple, and it's totally standards-driven.î

Even cooler, CityDesk expert Brian Cantoni created a very slick CityDesk template for S5 so you don't even have to know HTML. CityDesk is free for sites with less than 50 files which should be enough for most presentations, so this is a pretty cool free, standards-compliant improvement on PowerPoint that lets you put your presentations on the web.

[Joel on Software]

Google Local is sooo cooool

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:17:57 GMT

Google Local. Better than the yellow pages [Cool Tools]

like the man says, my wife and I like East Indian food, typed in that put in our city, Edmonton, Alberta and bingo bango a map with a list of East Indian food restraunts.

I will never let my fingers do the walknig again!!!!YAHOO FOR GOOGLE LOCAL!!!

Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:58:18 GMT

iPod Photo is Alive.

It lives: iPod Photo. Back in a minute with details.

Lots of tasty details in this post, if you're coming in from a direct link.

iPod Photo: First Details [Gizmodo]

[Gizmodo]

Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:56:07 GMT

Yahoo, Adobe Team Up for New Web Services (AP). AP - Stepping up the heated battle of online search and services, Yahoo Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. have joined forces to tap each others' customers and put Web search features into Adobe's popular Acrobat Reader software. [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:54:12 GMT

Google Desktop Outshines Windows' File-Search Capabilities (washingtonpost.com). washingtonpost.com - Google is famed for its Web search engine, but over the past few years it has acquired a different role: Microsoft's No. 1 foreign aid donor. First, Google fixed some of Internet Explorer's worst defects with its Google Toolbar, a free add-in that blocks pop-up ads and provides a shortcut to (naturally) Google's search engine and an auto-fill option to complete Web forms. Now it has released the Google Desktop, another free program that fixes an equally glaring weakness of Windows: its woeful file-searching capabilities. [Yahoo! News: Technology]

Mon, 25 Oct 2004 06:54:58 GMT

Trying out FeedBurner / Flickr.

This weekend, I was trying to extend my web design skills, so I was crawling through the code of my friend Caterina's site (I've always admired her site design) and noticed that her RSS feed was linking out to FeedBurner. Then, just this morning, one of my colleagues asked me what I knew about FeedBurner, and I said, "Not much." All this after I had meaning to go back and look deeper into the Flickr / FeedBurner announcement several weeks ago that slipped by while I was on vacation. FeedBurner, FeedBurner, FeedBurner -- time to check out FeedBurner.

I decided to redirect my RSS feed over to FeedBurner. Subscribers shouldn't notice anything -- I inserted a temporary redirect into our Apache config while I'm trying this out (so please don't subscribe to the new URL!):

Redirect temp /dickerson/rss.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/infoworld/dickerson

After an hour using FeedBurner, I'm already really pleased with the stats reporting on my RSS feed: click-throughs on individual items and the number of subscribers (something I could easily get for Bloglines, but not as easily for the general universe). So far, so good for something that is pre-alpha.

Incidentally, if you have a digital camera and you have friends (and here's hoping you have both), you have to sign up for Flickr -- now. I don't know quite how to explain the visceral thrill of using Flickr to post photos, share them with friends, and gather their comments. Not to mention your window into the photo streams of people you don't know who have made their photos public. You have to use Flickr to really get it. You can subscribe to an RSS feed that alerts you when someone has commented on your photos, which is really nice. (Full disclosure: the Caterina mentioned above works for Ludicorp, the folks who you bring you Flickr, but I'm posting this only because I think Flickr is really cool. Flickr seems to be percolating around InfoWorld right now -- Jon Udell ties Flickr into a discussion of enterprise knowledge gardening in his latest InfoWorld column.)

[Chad Dickerson]

Mon, 25 Oct 2004 05:44:31 GMT

Firefox - The Platform. Strudelkugel writes "Business 2.0 reports Firefox is becoming a problem for Microsoft. But FF is not just a problem as a browser; its potential as a platform is significant. From the article: 'It all adds up to a business opportunity for startups, established software companies, and Web giants alike. Though Ross and the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation don't stand to make money, Firefox's open platform gives it enormous potential to hatch a new class of applications that live on the desktop but... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

Mon, 25 Oct 2004 03:14:58 GMT

Sun, 24 Oct 2004 16:25:14 GMT

Zope 2.7.3. Application server for building web sites. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

Sun, 24 Oct 2004 16:18:40 GMT

More podcasting noise.... One of my favorite writers, Rory Blyth, takes on the podcasting hype and anti-hype. Meanwhile, Carl Franklin is starting another audio show, since his first one, .NET Rocks, was very successful. They are having a contest to figure out a tagline for the show, which is named "Mondays." In another post Carl defended podcasting. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

nixMoneyMachine-Sticking it to the Status Quo!

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 18:16:36 GMT

nixMoneyMachine-sticking it to the status quo!

this new category, came about as a direct result of my disgust with a recent headline about Microsoft releasing a product which has been called an iPod Killer! Fuck it, I have had with this kind of BS, where monopolies that don't have an innovative fiber in their being, watch the market and wade in after an innovator like Apple creates it out of nothing, and then ends up losing it, just because of the monoolie's sheer size and money reserves!

Microsoft did this against the Mac, then against Netscape! Do we as consumers have to keep supporting greedy monopolies!

I remember when Mosaic first came out and for me the Internet was a place where the little guy could innovate and create a decent living, and in some cases create fortunes based upon creativity, hard work and luck! The iPod Killer headline is so cynical, and it assumes that the only thing the consumer cares about is money, and that the only thing the producer concerns themselves with is money too!

Well how bout this, why don't we come up with some truly innovative business models that put the power in the hands of the content producer, and in the process create cheaper content, get more people producing digital content, and get more developing nations into the digital economy as well!

Accoring to Robert Young found of Red Hat:

"You can't compete with a monopoly by playing the game by the monopolist's rules."

Well fuck the old models, the old rules and the old approach to operating systems, software and digital content!

I have just had it with this bullshit, and this is what nixMoneyMachine is about, proposing new economic models to stick it to the status quo!

Stay tuned!

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 17:49:00 GMT

Michael Moore endorses file-sharing of his movies. Here's a wild video of Michael Moore at a Q&A session, being asked if he minds people on file-sharing networks passing around rips of his movies. His answer, in a nutshell: "Share away!"... ... ... I don't agree with copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it...as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labor... ... I make these movies and books and TV shows because I want things to change, and so the more people who ge... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 17:25:20 GMT

Global broadband keeps climbing. Broadband technology is fast becoming one of the quickest growing technologies in history, analysts suggest. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 16:43:04 GMT

I don't agree with copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it...as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labor...
I make these movies and books and TV shows because I want things to change, and so the more people who get to see them, the better.

5.4MB DivX Link (Thanks, Kolano!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 15:09:49 GMT

Spectrum Conference.

You can now register online for this month's Project Safecom spectrum conference in Salt Lake City. It will be held on January 22nd. Registration deadline is January 15th. Anyone involved in the UWIN project should be interested in this seminar.

With all of the meetings that we hold in government, it is important to try to maximize the benefit and reduce the amount of time spent and reduce time spent on less than meaningful activities. Val Oveson has brought in David Spann, a certified facilitator and director of the MBA program at Westminster College to teach a short course on facilitation. Hopefully, this can improve the quality of our meetings.

Randy Hughes, the new state information architect is working to formalize RSS as part of the state's information architecture.

[David Fletcher: Utah Government]

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 04:46:15 GMT

Epson P-1000 Photo Viewer. CES 2004: Epson has today announced the P-1000 Photo Viewer, a 10 GB storage unit with a large 3.8" VGA LCD display designed as an advanced portable digital photoframe. The P-1000 has a Compact Flash slot (other media supported via adapters) and TV out as well as connectivity to Epson Printers for direct print. But the features keep coming, the P-1000 can also be connected directly to a computer via USB for transfer or a USB CD writer for archival. This product has been available... [Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 04:38:41 GMT

Competitor for Visual Communicator?Apresso

Not sure that this is really a competitor for Visual Communicator, but the Apresso product has been receiving glowing reviews from a number of sources. What it does is create the ability to easily create copies of your PowerPoint presentations that capture your presentation in both audio and video. All you need is a mic, webcam and the Apresso software.

Once I get a chance to try this, I will update my Visual Communicator story, but in the meantime, I will still go with Visual Communicator. If you would like to read that article, try it here.

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 19:38:13 GMT

Holy Grail of Inexpensive Laptop Alternative!

My daughter wants to be able to write articles for her university newspaper, but can't afford a laptop!Dana may have the answer running on Palm! So if you want to check this laptop altnernative, check out their website.

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 19:20:06 GMT

Social Networking One 2003 IT Stories:

this info seems to have struck a chord with the blogging community, and there are of course lots of blogs with their social software links. For a good introduction into this phemonena check out Anne Kandra's article at PCWorld.

The Linux Switch Experiment!

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 19:13:14 GMT

The PCworld Linux Switch Experiment:

this article is based around the idea of taking away Windows from a non-geek, and replacing it with Linux for a month to see if they could be productive using Linux, and secondarily to see if they would immediately switch back after the experiment.

The punchline, OK, I can't resist, and for you Linux people, the punchline is this Windows user had not yet switched back, but as he says the jury is still out on the complete switch scenario! That said though you will really want to read the article, and track the wouldbe Linux user's switch or not story.

But to me this seems like a cop out, if after a month you choose to stick with Linux, I would say you by your actions have already made the choice!

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 19:02:48 GMT

Guide to Online Photo Albums

So you got a digital camera for Xmas, and want to share those digital photos you took of the tree, etc with your family and friends. But your family is spread out around the world!

Well Lincoln Spector at PCworld wrote and article that just may have some great advice!

Lincoln researched the use of free and almost free online albums, if you would like more info on this approach, check out Lincoln's article.

Sun, 28 Dec 2003 01:33:03 GMT

Some of brightest writers found in the National Review archives

Windows XP users-chat & share photos & music with new application

Sat, 27 Dec 2003 23:50:44 GMT

you can use your XP equipped computer to chat, and share music and photos with a new application.

Check out 3 degrees at:

http://www.threedegrees.com/

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 18:20:09 GMT

Researchers Outline Microsoft's Top 10 Challenges For 2004 (TechWeb). TechWeb - Even giants have problems--and gigantic software maker Microsoft has at least 10 of them. [Yahoo! News - Technology]

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 17:54:48 GMT

Merry Christmas from the Accordian Guy worth repeating:

Stole this file from the above site, cause I think it really does capture some of both the frustration and the joy of Xmas.

All the best from WIFLblog and enjoy the Accordian Guy's Christmas story, and don't forget to visit his site:

the Accordian Guy Christmas story now follows:

Merry Christmas, and I mean it in the nice sense of the phrase

by Joey deVilla on December 24, 2003 12:13PM (EST)

This is from last year (with a little polishing up), but it's worth repeating.

While I do believe that some traditions should be put to rest, I also believe that a lot of tradition-bashers are poor-impulse-control cases. Having abandones any actual tradition or culture of their own, they fill the void with a couple of < href="http://www.utne.com/">Utne Reader platitudes, a mild revulsion for anything even vaguely Judeo-Christian, even if it aligns with their beliefs, a pro-pot slant and a half-formed belief in eye-for-eye karmic payback.

Standing for almost nothing, they tend to fall for just about anything.

Chris Baldwin's summed it up pretty handily -- and perhaps unintentionally -- in a Bruno comic from last year:

To borrow the line about Klansmen and Martin Luther King Day: C'mon, Bruno, how hardcore a secularist must you be to not want a day off?

Of course, those of us who celebrate Christmas would argue the exact opposite: here we took a beautiful Christian holdiay and destroyed it through corportization and "We're white, we're straight, we're sorry!" guilt.

(There's a Randroid who would take another tack and say "here we took a beautiful commerical holiday and destroyed it in usual religious fashion." Haven't we developed some kind of Ayn Rand repellent yet?)

In the end, I believe that intent counts.

I'm certain there is no malice, no implicit "convert or die" message and no forcing of one's beliefs on others when someone wishes someone else a Happy Chanukah, Eid, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Tet or even Festivus, the actions of certain vicious zealots notwithstanding. Balanced minds do not see any implied Hitler overtones at Oktoberfest nor Hirohito/Tojo insinuations at the sushi house, and neither do they see the Crusades in Christmas.

When people say "Merry Christmas", most of them are really saying "Happy Holidays, and I'm celebrating them Christmas-style. You do your thing, and I'll do mine. Come by for drinks."

That what I'm really saying, anyways.

No matter what you believe, enjoy the break from the hustle and bustle of 21st century life. Be nice to each other. Hug someone you love.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 19:59:41 GMT

Linux Toys Projects
check this out if you want some projects for you and your kids

Linux Toys Projects

Music Jukebox
Home Video Archive
TV Recorder/Player
Arcade Game Player
Home Network Server
Home Broadcast Center
Temperature Monitor
Digital Receptionist
Mini ISP
Web Hosting Service
Doghouse Linux/BSD Games
Toy Car Controller
Digital Picture Frame

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 02:00:10 GMT

O'Reilly's Best of 2003. This year we published nearly 100 feature-length articles by O'Reilly book authors. Based on visitor statistics, we've come up with our top 10 most popular articles of 2003. But wait, there's more. We've also gathered our favorite tips pieces of the year. And where would we be without the books themselves? So we've also compiled a list of the year's top-sellers. What's wrong with a little shameless, year-end promotion? Enjoy. [O'Reilly Network Articles]

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 23:59:58 GMT

Real Goods

This is such a great place to browse for planet friendly products!!

Well worth checking out if you are at all interested in using things that are gentle on the earth!

http://www.realgoods.com/

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:35:10 GMT

Most popular Quizillas?

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 06:26:48 GMT

City Of Austin Migrating To OpenOffice.org. An anonymous reader writes "NewsForge.com has a story up this morning about the City of Austin and the results of their pilot program on OpenOffice.org. The ... [Slashdot]

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 06:17:33 GMT

New Freeware Downloads - SofoTex.com. Freeware Downloads - SofoTex.com [Recently approved feeds from Syndic8.com]

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 05:39:51 GMT

ABC Amber PowerPoint Converter - PowerPoint converter to any document format.. Powerful and easy to use MS PowerPoint converter to any document format. [New Entries at Datamation Product Watch]

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 16:45:23 GMT

Canít find the perfect gift for someone special this holiday? Give them the gift of software freedom:

Download the free GNU Knoppix and burn some yuletide cheer! The CommuniquÈ is proud to offer the English edition ISO image of Knoppix 3.3 (2003-11-19), and as an added special bonus download a ready-made CD label in PDF for the 8694 format from Avery-Print (or you can do your own)

Knoppix 3.3 is a fully-functioning multimedia Debian-based GNU/Linux bootable filesystem on CD featuring:

Linux-Kernel 2.4.22
KDE V3.1 with K Office and the Konqueror browser
X Multimedia System (xmms) for MPEG-video, MP3 and Ogg Vorbis
Internet connection via kppp, pppoeconf (DSL) and isdn-config
Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 1.2
Utilities for data recovery and system repairs, even for other operating systems
Network and security analysis tools
OpenOfficeô 1.1 office suite
many programming languages, RAD tools and libraries
over 900 packages with over 2000 programs, utilities, and games

In short, a complete GNU desktop demo that runs direct from the CD without disk partitioning or installation. They just insert the disk, reboot and enjoy!

note: other localized editions are available at The Knoppix Homepage where you can also download by BitTorrent.

Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:22:40 GMT

Access2MySQL Sync - Converter/Synchronizer. Bi-directional convertion and synchronization of MS Access and MySQL databases [New Entries at Datamation Product Watch]

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 14:24:52 GMT

Legend launches handheld computers. Xinhuanet Dec 8 2003 11:35PM ET... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 14:23:16 GMT

Tech Gifts a Luddite Will Love. What to buy for the dad who loves movies but still can't program a VCR? Is there any hope for these non-geeky relatives? Check out our techie gift guide for non-techie types. By Katie Dean. [Wired News]

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 14:20:37 GMT

Social Bookmarks Manager

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 03:50:36 GMT

The World's Cheapest Destinations

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 02:59:52 GMT

Go Get ActiveWords!. Get ActiveWords - FREE!

"Check this out ó ActiveWords is doing a promotion of sorts with Chris Pirillo, and it turns out that for a period of time you can get ActiveWords for free.

This isnít a demo version of the product, time limited version, etc. Itís the real deal. As an AW user, I can absolutely vouch for its utility ó it will make everything you do on your computer easier, faster, more effective. And itís got to be the easiest application in the world to demo: show someone what it does once, and they immediately have the ìah ha!î moment." [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]

I've been remiss in not writing up my own experience with ActiveWords, but I will take this opportunity to urge you to download this program if you're a Windows user. If you were intrigued by or downloaded the Searchy plug-in, then you have an idea of how ActiveWords works.

Basically, it lets you set up keyword macros that work anywhere in Windows to substitute text (email addresses, passwords, etc.), open files or folders, navigate to a web site, and much, much more. I haven't even touched the advanced scripting options, but this program has saved me hours of re-typing the same information over and over and it's made me more efficient for just getting to things.

I will note a disclaimer that I got my original copy of AW for free from the company, but it's become valuable enough to me that I would pay for it. You've got a chance to get the basic version for free - grab it!

[The Shifted Librarian]

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 02:52:30 GMT

Toronto skyline at high speed. This is a breathtaking 24h time-lapse film of the Toronto skyline. The sunrise, in particular, is spectacular. 5.07MB Quicktime Link (Thanks, homerj!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 02:51:51 GMT

Public Pot Company's Pipe Dreams. An Internet maverick plans to take a marijuana distribution company public on the Canadian and Nasdaq stock exchanges. A few things, including the law, stand in his way for now. By Charles Mandel. [Wired News]

Sat, 29 Nov 2003 05:23:18 GMT

Canada viewed as test bed for government use of
Linux-like Windows alternative

By Joab Jackson
GCN Staff

An economic development agency of the Canadian
government is testing the LindowsOS operating system.

Lindows.com Inc. of San Diego touts its LindowsOS as a
low-cost alternative to Microsoft Windows. The
operating system is based on the Linux kernel.

For the past two weeks, four Nova Scotia Regional
Community Access Program centers has been running
LindowsOS on six computers the offer the public access
to the Internet the South West Shore Development
Authority.

"They are working beautifully," said Peter Dugas, the
program's chief technical officer.

Dugas also is director of international governmental
relations for Lindows.com. The company and the
regional economic development agency, which is based
in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, signed a partnership to
foster use of the LindowsOS by Canadian agencies.

Eventually, the team foresees the OS being used by
government agencies worldwide. In Canada, the team
expects up to 30,000 copies being deployed by the
government, Dugas said.

"We believe it will help the government cut costs," he
said.

http://gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24291-1.html