Tech4Communicators

For anyone that has a job that involves using technology to communicate.

Thursday, October 30, 2003

Palm vs. Pocket PC. William Hungerford of Palmtops.About.com ventures into some dangerous territory and takes a stab at the whole Palm vs. Pocket PC debate, laying out some of the facts and misperceptions about both operating systems. Read... [Gizmodo]
7:52:19 PM

First DVD recorder that can play Windows Media files. Arriving even earlier than we had originally predicted, the first DVD recorder that will support the playback and recording of Windows Media 9 video files is here. Using Windows Media 9 means that over six hours of DVD quality video can be squeezed onto one disc, and the DiVA 489, which is being built by Malata/Wanlida (yeah, we'd never heard of them either) but will be sold under the Polaroid brand name in the US, can also play Windows Media content that's streamed or downloaded over the Internet. Read... [Gizmodo]
7:52:03 PM

Now available: Radio UserLand Kick Start. Radio UserLand Kick Start arrived in stores this week and had the highest first-day Amazon rank of any book that I've written -- it was at around 2,300 when I decided that three hours was enough time to spend reloading the page like a crazed day trader. I've sold around 30 copies on Amazon this week to Workbench visitors.

I mention all of this because I'm eager to prove that UserLand Software's products are a viable topic for book publishers. This is only the second book on a UserLand product after Matt Neuberg's excellent Frontier: The Definitive Guide from 1998, and one of the first devoted to a specific weblogging tool. Sams Publishing is taking a chance on the subject with this Radio UserLand book, and I'd like to gloat about my savvy publishing acumen as soon as possible.

To mark the occasion, I've put a chapter online about my favorite aspect of Radio UserLand: the outliner. When I began using Radio as a version 7 beta tester three years ago, I thought it was heresy to create Web content -- much less source code -- in an outliner. These days I'm an outliner junkie, writing programs, magazine articles, and everything else I can in either Radio or the Java Outline Editor (JOE). The ability to see as much or a little of a document as needed -- by expanding and collapsing outline subheads -- is a huge timesaver, especially when it needs to be reorganized.

With the release of the book, the Radio UserLand category of Workbench will be picking up again. I took a few months off writing about the subject after filing the manuscript -- I was spending so much time on Radio that I began having dreams about bees. [Rogers Cadenhead: Salon Blog Tips]

5:01:07 AM