March 31, 2007
March 30, 2007
Techpopuli Podcast #15
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March 29, 2007
Techpopuli Podcast #14
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March 28, 2007
Techpopuli Podcast #13
- Paper, no plastic
- Yahoo storage goes infinite
- PlayStation-3s providing surprise assist in Alzheimer project
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March 27, 2007
Google Map View now shows some buildings
Just checking on the location for tonight's BostonNOW meeting on Winter street, and I noticed that the map view of google maps now shows the outline of the buildings in downtown Boston.
They're only shown in a limited area of the city. And there are some interesting idiosyncrasies: eg. a temporary tent on City Hall Plaza in the satellite view is shown as a regular building in the map view.
But it's an interesting development.
Those Google folks are always up to something.
Techpopuli Podcast #12
- Vista sells 20 million
- Mixed messages about Leopard 1 2 3
- Justin TV (wired article)
- No broadcast flag in digital radio
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Introducing the Techpopuli Podcast. Each weekday I'll spend a few minutes reporting on the tech stories I think are important and interesting.
I urge you to subscribe to this podcast through one of the podcatcher programs like iTunes or iPodder, or Juice.
Check us out in the iTunes Store.
[Note: As of now, the RSS feed for the podcast is still being set up. So you can't actually subscribe yet. RealSoonNow.]
[UPDATE: OK, assuming I've done this right, you should be able to subscribe via this feed.]
This episode, #12, is the first public episode. #1 - #11 were the alpha/beta versions of the podcast. They were my practice runs to help develop a style, and see if I'm up to a daily schedule.
Over the next few days I'll be posting those past episodes so you can collect the entire set.
Send your feedback about the podcast to podcast @ techpopuli . net
March 25, 2007
Mac OS Timeline Updated
Following up on my post a couple days back about Mac OS X's birthday. Here's an update of my list of the longevity of each of the Mac's OSs over the years:
version first release (age when superceded)
======= ============= =====================
1.0 January 1984 (1yr 3mo)
2.0 April 1985 (9 mo)
3.0 January 1986 (1yr)
4.0 January 1987 (9mo)
5.0 October 1987 (11mo) src
6.0 September 1988 (2yrs 8mo)
7.0 May 1991 (6yrs 2mo)
8.0 July 1997 (2yrs 3mo)
9.0 October 1999 (1yr 5mo)
OS X
10.0 "Cheetah" Ma 24, 2001 185days (6mo)
10.1 "Puma" Sep 25, 2001 333days (11mo)
10.2 Jaguar Aug 24, 2002 426days (1yr 2mo)
10.3 Panther Oct 24, 2003 553days (1yr 6mo)
10.4 Tiger Apr 29, 2005 695days (1yr, 11mo) so far
10.5 Leopard due "Spring 2007"
Overall, OS X has been around for 6 years. On about May 24, OS X will become the longest lived "whole number" Mac OS version ever.
My Playstation1 RIP
I still have my Playstation 1 from years ago. Once a year or so I'll dig it out to play GranTurismo or CrashBandicoot.
It's been a while since my last session with it.
Yesterday my niece discovered it, and wanted to play Crash'
Blew off the dust, hooked it up, popped in the disc, and nothing happened. Well, the "read from memory card? or play CD?" screen came up. But no Bandicoot.
After quite a bit of fiddling, including opening the case and poking at the switches, I've concluded that the motor that spins the CD is toast. It seems to try to spin up, but coughs, then peters out.
Too bad.
Time to upgrade.
March 24, 2007
Mac OS X Turns Six
Today is the sixth anniversary of the release of Mac OS X.
Version 10.0, which later was publicly given the cat name of "Cheetah", was released on March 24, 2001.
Techpopuli Podcast is coming
Just what the world needs, another tech podcast.
But this one is short, less than 4 minutes daily, highlighting a handful of the most interesting tech stories of the day.
I've been doing run-throughs of the podcast for two weeks now, to make sure I was up to the daily grind. I'm still not sure, but I'm going ahead anyway.
Check back early next week.
March 21, 2007
Adobe Apollo
I'm trying to figure out what the deal is with Adobe's new application platform, Apollo.
World's worst definition of Flash
"...Adobe Flash, the technology that allows MySpace and YouTube users to watch video clips in real time online."
From a story by Ryan Blitstein in last Monday's San Jose Mercury News.
March 19, 2007
BumRushTheCharts experiment later this week.
Christopher Penn's fascinating experiment in fundraising, and promoting new music, is coming up later this week.
On Thursday we're all encouraged to spend a big $0.99, help a good cause, and make a statement.
One lucky band is gonna make some money, much of which they've promised to donate to the Student Loan Network for college tuition, the the SLN will raise more money through affiliate links of the promotion, and we'll have made a statement about the power of new media, and new music.
We can do better. We can match and exceed the reach of big media, corporate media, labels, and the entrenched interests. On March 22nd, we are going to take an indie podsafe music artist to number one on the iTunes singles charts as a demonstration of our reach to Main Street and our purchasing power to Wall Street. The track we've chosen is "Mine Again" by the band Black Lab. A band that was dropped from not just one, but two major record labels (Geffen and Sony/Epic) and in the process forced them to fight to get their own music back. We picked them because making them number one, even for just one day, will remind the RIAA record labels of what they turned their backs on - and who they ignore at their peril.
Audio statement from the band: MP3
March 18, 2007
At BarCampBoston2
For the past two days I've been attending version 2 of BarCampBoston. I had a terrific time at #1 last June, and this one is no disappointment.
The session types are a little different this time. But it's all still good.
March 15, 2007
Techpopuli Podcast #4
- Digital TV story correction
- Augmented reality
- Viacom lawsuit could be a big deal
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Tivo now says they will fix Series One DST bug
UPDATE from my story last Monday. Series One owners just got a message from Tivo saying that they will be fixing the DST bug. More on this soon.
March 14, 2007
Techpopuli Podcast #3
- TV Welfare
- Apple releases 10.4.9
- Leopard in late april?
- Filesharing by mail, the old fashinedd kind:
- Joost
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March 13, 2007
Techpopuli Podcast #2
- Is this the Google phone?
- Democracy becomes Miro
- Cringely on h.264 hardware in every Mac
- 8-core Mac
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March 12, 2007
Techpopuli Podcast #1
- StumbleUpon
- TiVo's DST bug
- Digital Bedouins
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TiVo not gonna fix Series One DST bug
As I hope you all know by now, we changed over to daylight savings time early here in the US this year. I love that, but it HAS caused me one problem
Late last week, at the last minute, TiVo announced that their Series One PVRs had a bug that made them uncompliant with the new time change, and they said they were not going to fix it.
This is pretty disappointing of TiVo. Another black mark against what once was an innovative, customer-centric company.
[ As for why a tech savvy guy like me is still using an antique Series One Tivo, well hey, it still works just fine, and few of the features of the newer series two machines have been attractive enough to make me change.
AND, Tivo still takes my money every month for using the Series one so they must think it's still OK too. ]
Anyway, the bug is this: Although season's passes and shows programmed to record with the builtin directory will continue to record OK, from now till the April 7 -- the original date for the time change -- the clock on my Tivo will be off by an hour.
The clock is off when showing me the time of day, and when displaying the times for all shows in the program guide.
Plus, any shows which I program it to record using the so-called manual settings -- that is, by manually selecting the channel and time -- will have to be programmed to be off by an hour for the next three weeks, then changed back to the correct times.
Tivo describes this as "only a cosmetic issue", which is just... well... this is a family website.
But, displaying something pink instead of blue, or round corners instead of square, that's a cosmetic issue. displaying the wrong time, in a system which is so much about time, is plain and simple a bug, and ought to be fixed.
On their website Tivo says that their engineers had looked for solutions for this and that "none exist".
As a programmer my first thought is that this seems unlikely. That they could fix it if they wanted, and that they just decided they didn't want to.
I suspect that's what's going on here.
But at dinner the other night, a programmer friend suggested that since it's been years since they've done any updates to the series one software, they might not have anyone on staff who knows the software well enough to fix it. or worse, they may not even have the source code anymore -- which would be a sad commentary, but it's not impossible.
In any event, this is a disappointing way for Tivo to be handling this whole thing. it feels worse for me 'cause I used to be one of those people who was proud to say I loved my Tivo.
Well, I still love my PVR, but I don't love Tivo any more.
Websurfing with StumbleUpon
If you like to surf the net for interesting websites that you've never seen before, StumbleUpon may be just the thing for you.
StumbleUpon, is a Firefox extension which, when you click on its button in your menu bar, it takes you to a website which it thinks you might like. You can then rate that site with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Or simply click again to see a new site.
Initially it shows you websites based on a list of subjects which you told it you're interested in. But as you use it, marking sites with a thumbs up or down, it starts to learn more about what you like and it gets better at suggesting things.
From time to time StumbleUpon will ask you other questions to fine-tune its ideas on what you like.
According to its website, StumbleUpon also has a social component, in that it will help you meet people who like the same kinds of websites that you do.
I haven't gotten into that part yet... we'll see... but as Chris Penn would say, you can't have too many friends.
I've been playing with StumbleUpon for a couple of days now and it's taken me to a bunch of fascinating sites. For a change of pace in your websurfing give stumbleupon a try.
Download the firefox extension from www.stumbleupon.com/
March 11, 2007
Podcasting Directories
Here's what looks like a really good list of podcasting directories.
If you're a listener, check them for interesting new podcasts. And if you're a producer, get listed on them.
I'm a Digital Bedouin
Erik of foneshow.com pointed me to this SF Chron article about the increasing number of us who do some of our work at the local coffee place.
The founders of Web video startup Dovetail Television were meeting there one day, griping as usual about how hard it was to find talented programmers.
"I'm looking around and there's gotta be 50 people with laptops," said Brett Levine, 31, a co-founder and the company's lead programmer. "I got on a chair and yelled, 'Hey, are there any ActionScript programmers in the room?' People at the counter looked at me glaringly, but a couple of people looked around and raised their hand."
They lined up for interviews. None were actually hired, but it cemented in Levine's mind the notion of where the talent pool lies.
Here in Melrose I use Bruegger's Bagels. I also occasionally settle in at the Public Library where the wifi is also free.
When I was visiting Berkeley back in January I bought my caffe mochas at Tully's Coffee on Shattuck, but they were blocking outgoing email, which was a drag, so I would also occasionally sneak into one of the big reading rooms at the Cal library.
March 06, 2007
BOOK REVIEW: "Podcasting Hacks"
Jack Herrington's "Podcasting Hacks" (O'Reilly) is an excellent collection of tips, tricks, and explanations about making, publishing, and enjoying podcasts.
Although the book is primarily aimed at people who are creating podcasts, it also contains some info on the tools and techniques for finding and listening to them.
The O'Reilly "Hacks" books are structured as a series of specific projects, "hacks", that you can implement, but most every hack also includes a valuable explanation of the technology or expertise it uses.
The hacks in this book fall into both technical and non-tech categories. There's plenty on microphones, mixers and mp3 files. But also a lot on interviewing, blogging and getting publicity for your 'cast.
The book's first Chapter is the only one specifically for podcast listeners. It talks about sites and directories for finding the podcasts that are of interest to you. It also describes systems for downloading them, and the software for listening. Although the chapter contains much good info, it seems a bit out of place to me, in a book which is mostly of interest to people already looking to produce podcasts.
Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are "Starting Out", "Quality Sound", and "Formats". They dive into the gear and technology of recording and producing your podcasts.
Chapter 5 "Interviewing", and 7 "Publicity", tell about how to collect valuable and useful content, and how to get the word out to your potential audience.
Chapter 6 "Blogging" covers how to use a blog to publicize and distribute your podcast. It covers the most popular blogging systems like Movable Type, WordPress, Drupal and others. It covers using an existing blog, or setting up a new one. Also creating and managing the all-important RSS feed for your podcast. It also talks about internet hosting services which specialize in providing online storage and bandwidth for podcasts, which, because they are larger-sized files, can be a burden on traditional hosting arrangements.
Chapters 8 & 9, "Basic Editing" and "Advanced Audio", expand upon the post-production and audio tech material already covered. And Chapter 10 "On the Go" talks about recording podcasts out in the field.
"Podcasting Hacks" was first published in 2005, before the boom in video on the net, so it is short on info for video-podcasters. Though much of the discussion on interviewing, distribution, publicity, and hosting are directly applicable to video 'casts. Chapter 10 "Videoblogging" touches briefly on what was then an infant medium.
All in all, "Podcasting Hacks" a very useful and informative book, for both new and experienced podcasters.
"Podcasting Hacks", by Jack Herrington, 453 pages, softcover, US$24.95
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/podcastinghks/
March 03, 2007
Coworking Boston
I'm not sure how recently anyone has thought about this. But it's a good idea.
(Pic is from the Hat Factory co-working space in SF.)