Archive for the 'applications' Category

The Sound of Silence (Don’t let it happen!)

Published
by
Ehren
on June 26, 2007
in Interests, applications, fun, marketing, music, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Honestly, I deal with the silly web 2.0 stuff too much at work to talk about it here when I’m home but if there is one thing out of the whole web 2.0 bubble that I believe is truly amazing and worthwhile (aside from blogs), it would have to be the introduction of the new Internet radio. The Music Genome Project (now Pandora) and Last.FM are huge achievements for the music industry and serves as fantastic opportunities to market music directly to the individual’s tastes. The consumer also gets the chance to find music that they actually like and listen to it in full.

Of course this is too good to be true right? The music industry just has to kick and injure itself because they fail to see the opportunities. This time all Internet radio stations are being forced to pay royalties based on how often a song is played, something that does not happen in other kinds of “radio stations” and is not realistic whatsoever. I’m sure they (the music industry) did their typical SWOT analysis in their little strategic planning meet and greet, but they focused on the threats. Stan Schroeder of Frantic Industries makes some excellent points on what the RIAA and its pals are worried about and the downfalls of failing to see what consumers really want. It’s just like digital rights management all over again!

For me, unless satellite radio becomes free … I doubt I will be listening to it and radio stations are beginning to be rather bland as they have to pander to the many taste buds out there. What Internet radio provides is an excellent alternative for people like myself who want an easy way to find and discover new music or even older music that we may not have known about.

What should we do … what should we do? Well go on over to Savenetradio.org and tell those folks in the U.S. Congress what you think. I would help, but I’m Canadian so I’m just trying to help spread the word. Another reason to blog…

At least there is still Amie Street, an independent music seller.

Share This

CBC dips into Web 2.0 with exposure

Published
by
Ehren
on June 25, 2007
in Mentions, Ponderings, applications, marketing, technology, video and web 2.0
. 1 Comment

Actually the CBC was involved with Web 2.0 before web two point zero became “Web 2.0″ rage. Ahead of their time, the CBC show ZeD combined a very interactive website encouraging user-generated content with a regular night time television show.

ZeD

Now ZeD is leaving us. Goodbye. Farewell. You’ve served the Canadian alternative media well. You provided a method for independent as well as up and coming artists to perform in a very different manner. What was alternative has become mainstream. Welcome to exposure.

Exposure is the result of the CBC working with Yahoo Canada to develop a uniquely Canadian “Web 2.0 community”. For that, I guess I can give kudos to the CBC. At the same time, I can’t help but feel that everyone is simply jumping on this so-called web 2.0 bandwagon. Exposure essentially is Canadian version of YouTube but with connections to the television network, oh and Yahoo. Keep an eye on it — it starts July 29th at 11pm.

exposure on CBC

Share This

Retrain Your Brain

Published
by
Ehren
on May 31, 2007
in Interests, Mentions, applications, fun and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

I discovered Lumosity on digg (someone dugg the post from TechCrunch) this afternoon and I thought it was great. Along the lines of the Brain Age game that is available for the Nintendo DS, but much much better on the big screen and not to mention on the odd occasion when you’re looking for a quick boredom fix! You can always check out what your LumosIQ is … I think speed was my problem… especially when they change the game to fit the size of your monitor! I think those with widescreen monitors are at an advantage. Anyways, here is a glimpse of one of the games below.

It essentially involves bird watching while also watching the center of the screen for a letter of the alphabet to show up briefly for a second. You will then have to recall where the bird was and click on the location (more points the closer you are), and in return you have a chance to guess which letter it was that briefly made an appearance in the box at the center of the screen. Quite difficult as they begin to have other random things pop up on screen tricking you to thinking that it’s the bird!

Bird Watch

tricky… go and try it out

They’re also currently deciding on a logo as well so hop on over and help them decide!

Share This

Review of Joost coming soon…

Published
by
Ehren
on May 3, 2007
in Interests, applications, fun, marketing, technology and web 2.0
. 3 Comments

Thanks to Stan Schroeder of frantic industries, I received an invite to Joost. What is Joost? Think television over the Internet. Over the next week, I should have a review posted.

Joost Countdown

In the meantime, if you are interested in receiving an invite to check out Joost. Just post a comment with your first and last name with your email address, and I will send one out to you. But do share accordingly as well. Stan noted that every Joost beta tester gets 999 invites. Hurray!

Share This

Wasting Time — again…

Published
by
Ehren
on April 29, 2007
in Interests, Mentions, Movie, Ponderings, applications, fun, philosophy, web 2.0 and work
. 1 Comment

So I’ve finally finished the first course to web programming with many more to go!  I just hope I’ll have more time and energy when I take the second course.  But then again, it will likely be a little more active rather than reading and writing.

 The Last Stand - Hurray we survived!

I survived 20 nights of zombies, can you?

So with some time to breathe, I am wasting time and reading blogs or catching up with whatever I haven’t had time to do over the past week (*ahem* … studying?).  So I wander over to Darren Barefoot’s site again and he found yet another great game!  Not as addictive as the last one, but nonetheless pretty spiffy, I guess it’s a good start in preparing for Resident Evil 3.  Darren Barefoot mentioned 28 Weeks Later (the sequel to 28 Days Later) and I had no idea they were bringing out a sequel so it sounds interesting, however I hope it will be better than the first one.  I thought 28 Days Later was rather bland, mainly after the few stranded survivors were brought to the safety of the remaining bunch of “elite” and “disciplined”soldiers at some camp who thought they were the sole survivors and apparently there were no other women in the world (or so they thought … even though it’s only been 28 days and apparently they see a female survivor and all moral judgment fails?).

Speaking of zombie games, Darren inquired on his blog as to whether or not there are any good zombie games out there, ones that aren’t first person shooter.  I ran across this article from IGN, listing out the Top 10 Zombie Games (PC and console).  I hadn’t heard of a number of those games, but Hunter: the Reckoning is one heck of a great co-operative zombie killing game.  It actually deserves to be better than listed as #10.  Dead Rising is listed as #1 and according to my friend, it seems like it is worth checking out.  Another new game on the horizon that may be of interest is Left 4 Dead, which I am not sure whether will be a first or third-person game but it has potential.

I noticed IGN listed #4 as Zombies ate my Neighbours which I had totally forgotten about but would love to play again!  Sure it’s old, but this game is a classic!  I wonder if there’s a port for the PC or something.  Screenshot below courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes.

Screenshot from Rotten Tomatoes

—

On a more productive tone, I ran across an interesting article by Mark Hinkle of Enterprise Open Source Magazine that noted a question that a guy by the name of William Hurley of posted concerning the ability for open source software to continue to be truly viable.   Hurley makes a good point that there are a lot of people and organizations who simply leech off of the open source community and re-sell the software as “improved” on their own without contributing these improvements back to the community.  The idea of open source is about working together to develop a better software that everyone benefits from.  There are likely features that are likely to be initially proprietary and held back, but these should be released into the open source realm after a time period.  At least, that’s my perspective.  Other less major features, but more so fundamental improvements on the backbone or structure of the software in development should be released immediately.  In agreement with Hurley, those who hold back their own developments thinking that it is beneficial from a personal or proprietary standpoint should realize that the return they get from releasing their “improvements” into the open source realm is substantial because fellow contributors will be able to help build upon your idea and improve or enhance it.  You gain, they gain, and you gain again.  It’s almost cyclical.  I was about to say circle of life, but perhaps that may be a little grand…

Share This

Quick Glance at Adobe, Microsoft and Google … oh and Yahoo

Published
by
Ehren
on April 17, 2007
in Mentions, Ponderings, applications, economics, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

It seems like everyone’s busy this week trying to position themselves to dominate the market these days…

  • Microsoft wants the government to scrutinize Google’s purchase of DoubleClick (a rather large internet banner advertising agency in simple terms) — claiming monopolization. This is after Microsoft of course has strategically attempted numerous times to monopolize the PC, office applications, media players, game consoles, developer applications, internet browser … and most recently … media and design applications. Not too long ago, Microsoft introduced a line up of programs that compete against Adobe’s Creative Suite. We’ll see how that turns out. Competition is good, price war would be even better for consumers considering Adobe’s pricing strategy. That being said, price wars are never good for corporations.
  • Adobe has been pushing it’s Apollo, flash technology that further integrates web programming with the famous code that allows us all to stream video and animation on YouTube and numerous other sites. In fact, Adobe wants web developers to become pretty much application developers. If Apollo becomes widely accepted by software developers, suddenly we no longer need windows. Ironic isn’t it? But that’s also why Microsoft feels threatened and has introduced their own version of flash as well as another version of the portable document file (aka. the renowned PDF).
  • The direction that Adobe and Microsoft are taking is looking like sooner or later, anyone can build their own application with relative ease. I’m exaggerating … or am I?
  • Meanwhile, Google is busy pushing ahead to become the leader in advertising … oddly enough. But not without Microsoft grinding teeth and pointing fingers while Yahoo makes a leap and works on deals with more of the print media industry. Google has also stepped on Microsoft’s toes by announcing a powerpoint work-a-like.  Yahoo also decided to step on Google’s toes by introducing their own version of Google Checkout, except with Paypal.
  • Intel, the big chip company that brought the Core 2 Duo to Apple computers has been testing the waters by dipping its feet in Web 2.0 collaboration by partnering with some well-known rich internet application developers such as SixApart and Socialtext to bring the world SuiteTwo. That’s right, not one … but two.  And Intel is also pushing forward the flash-based portable computer.

So all in all it seems like it’s nothing out of the ordinary … in the life of big competition that is.

Share This

Digital Scrapbooking - Does it work?

Published
by
Ehren
on April 6, 2007
in Interests, Ponderings, applications, fun, reviews, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

While I was still attending Centennial’s Book & Magazine publishing class, we had to develop an idea and the marketing plan for this book that we had the idea for. We had to pretend that we were working for Firefly Books. My team put together a great trendy book for scrapbooking fans … appealing to beginners and pros. We had the most difficult time figuring out what it should be called until we fiddled around with the idea of the “ultimate guide to travel scrapbooking”, and UGTS became the name the book. Here’s a glance at the book cover that we conceptualized and designed.

ugts cover design

I’d probably change a few things now, but I still enjoy the concept very much. Anyways this is beside the point, although this is related to scrapbooking. I ran across Darren Barefoot’s site again and noticed his post about Scrapblog. I checked it out and I have to say scrapbooking fans can forget about buying programs to help them scrapbook digitally! To be honest, I am not a big fan of scrapbooking although I can understand the nostalgic point behind the hobby. I have to agree with Darren that the name scrapblog does not represent what it really is. Nothing to do with blogs.

Scrapblog is really a new web application running off of Adobe’s well-invested flash technology (when they purchased Macromedia). I have my reservations about Flash technology but it is improving drastically from its initially humble beginning and is doing much better than Java. On top of that, it is also an attempt at turning scrapbooking into a web 2.0-like social network community. Admirable and ambitious, but I question how effective it can really be. We are looking at people spending quite a bit of time on scrapblog, which automatically makes it compete with other websites for the user’s time. Tabblo is probably the closest competition that Scrapblog has. Tabblo is less ambitious and does not employ such a complex web-based application experience, rather they are focused on having users layout their photographs in a more magazine-like fashion. Both services offer the user the ability to print off their creative works.

Scrapbook


Tabblo

 

My own experience? I gave scrapblog a try and as a photographer, I find digital scrapbooking (online) too much work. I do collect materials that have sentimental and nostalgic value during my trips anywhere, although I have never assembled anything in a scrapbook. But to do it all digitally and to have to assemble everything via the control of a mouse would drive me insane. Nevertheless, I think people interested in scrapbooking should take a shot at it because they may find it enjoyable. But my final opinion is that scrapbooking is about having something solid in your hands, materials and photographs. It is having that paper foundation yellow and crinkle with time with a three-dimensional feel that makes scrapbooking a growing hobby and form of storytelling. Somehow I don’t think that coated paper and professional printing with the flat images of both the materials and photographs really compares.

All in all … impressive web application … but it really is just another way of sharing photographs!

Share This

I’m hitting the fan! I’m totally hitting the fan!

Published
by
Ehren
on March 22, 2007
in Mentions, Ponderings, Unthinkables, applications, fun, policy and work
. 0 Comments

Only a Gordon Korman fanatic like myself would understand that phrase. Particularly if you read Korman’s book No More Dead Dogs

You would probably hit the fan too (or something along those lines) if you went through what I’ve been dealing with lately. I’m not an IT guy, I just happen to be somewhat knowledgeable in that area so of course as a generalist, I found myself knee deep in issues that needed to be sorted through at work.  Here’s where there is a lesson to be learned.

So finally we get computers but of course something has to go wrong.  That’s Jardine’s luck, another GK-ism.  Even when you get the new computers, don’t be absolutely satisfied with what has been accomplished until the software that you are transferring from the old computers will actually install on the new computers! We had purchased three Dell computers with Windows Vista Business installed on each one and after setting up two of them, we realized that Microsoft had somehow screwed us again. The OEM software (i.e. Microsoft Office Basic 2003) that was installed on the older computers were not recognized as valid on the new Vista.

The problem was not Vista. The problem was the fact that we were trying to transfer over OEM software. Because this software came with the original computer, it refused to be installed on the new Vista primed PC. Ugh.

Note to self: Don’t buy any OEM software if I own a business.

So what now? We may have to return the computers if Dell won’t let us buy the Microsoft Office Basic 2007.  That’s of course after spending five billion years waiting for the customer care call centre to actually forward calls to the right person. Thank you Microsoft and Dell for making my life that much more difficult and wasting my time.  To be continued…

A great tribute from Linux to Microsoft

Why Dell Sucks

I guess this is why Dell’s support sucks…

This fellow wrote a pretty amusing blog post about his experience.

Share This

Close
E-mail It
Clicky Web Analytics