July, 2008 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for July 2008

While I’ve had no qualms of mucking about Windows registries for the past half-dozen years, I’m still cautious in Terminal on the Mac. Call me a baby, but … Read More »

SMSGupShup, an SMS-based group messaging/microblogging service from Webaroo, is close to announcing that it has raised $10 million in new capital from Helion Ventures and Charles River Ventures. News of pending deal was first reported by some blogs in IndiaIn its original form, … Read More »

 
 

Mobile tech often adds additional pitfalls in terms of security. Not that working solely at home is 100% secure, but when you’re out and about or on multiple devices daily, … Read More »

A Meditation on the Pending Starbucks Closings

How is my life as a Web worker affected by the closing of 600 Starbucks nationwide? Let me count the ways. But seriously, I’m sure there are many a Web worker lamenting the possible closure of their … Read More »

Independence Day weekend might be over but the presidential candidates are still debating energy independence. The Republicans have gone on the offensive and launched an attack ad aimed at Obama’s energy plan. However, their candidate McCain seems to have trouble pronouncing the name of his own … Read More »

MobileMe Transition: July 9th

If you have .Mac already, you are no doubt familiar with the .Mac status page which lists services that are available. (Hopefully, you won’t have to be familiar with the page when MobileMe takes over because there won’t be as much downtime.) Just below … Read More »

With Summize, Twitter to Buy a Clue

The big buzz of the evening is that Twitter, a San Francisco-based startup that allows anyone to post short (up to 140 characters) messages to its platform and thus broadcast them to one or many using different media such as web and mobile, is … Read More »

If it takes three of anything to make a trend, then video-sharing site Vimeo is definitely trendy (though they would pelt me with rocks for calling them that) with three months of almost hockey stick-like growth. According to Compete, Vimeo’s site traffic more than … Read More »

“I’m not here to make friends,” you’ve probably heard more than one reality show contestant say. But how often has that cliche popped up? YouTube user richfofo has a montage of the best and brightest. Also, in Karina Longworth’s words, “In terms of sheer … Read More »

The Daily Sprout

Big Apple to Spend Billions Cutting Greenhouse Gases: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today that the city will spend $2.3 billion to cut greenhouse gas emissions from municipal buildings and operations by 30 percent over the next 30 years – Reuters. “Europe Reconsiders Biofuel … Read More »

SpotMixer just let us know it will be the first self-serve online video advertising creation provider included in Google’s television ad toolset. It’s a coup for the new service, which is part of personal media startup One True Media, in terms of getting exposure to … Read More »

iPhone App Preview: Exposure

Connected Flow, makers of the crunchy goodness that is FlickrExport (casts pix from iPhoto or Aperture to Flickr) has jumped the shark a bit and pre-announced Exposure, a forthcoming iPhone application that will bring Flickr to your iPhone or iPod Touch in … Read More »

More Must Reads

The move to 4G will not be cheap. Carriers must consider network upgrade costs and a refresh of their handsets, not to mention the issue of backhaul. Will they attempt wireless backhaul? Wait for fiber? One way or another, by 2013 carriers worldwide will … Read More »

When most of us web workers choose to adopt new software applications, they’re often big, robust programs. However, if you pay attention to small, mission-critical applications too, you can find a lot of really useful gems. One of my favorite sites for trolling for these is … Read More »

Kevin and I had to shoot a geek session since it’s iPhone 3G week.  This video finds the pair talking about everything from the iPhone 3G to Andre Agassi.  You’ll have to watch to understand the Agassi part.  You’ll also find a warning for those … Read More »

Earth2Tech: More VC money for wireless mesh for smart meter readers. NewTeeVee: Announcing NewTeeVee Pier Screenings 2008, with NY, LA on the menu. NewTeeVee Station: WhenP-Diddy meets YouTube, you get DiddyTV. WebWorkerDaily: 5 rules of thumb for Web … Read More »

Nothing like a little mobile-tech analogy for the late afternoon, I always say. When I started my "web-only" challenge by living life in a browser, I installed … Read More »

(Let me preface this post with a warning that tweaking unpublished settings can break your system and applications.) While I am a fan of the Terminal, sometimes remembering (or Googling for) the proper “defaults write ...” undocumented setting to tweak a feature on a new build or … Read More »

We’ve discussed the hassles of dealing with multiple timezones and distributed web-working teams before. New site World Time Engine (in open beta) tries to bring order to this chaos. At root, it’s a huge database: type in a location … Read More »

Some of you might remember the beleaguered company Planktos, which was looking to fertilize the world’s oceans with iron in an attempt to stimulate phytoplankton blooms and reduce carbon emissions. Come on, you remember — its dreams went dead in the water back … Read More »

Old media isn’t seeming so stalwart after an analyst at Lehman Brothers this morning downgraded shares of Disney, CBS and News Corp., sending them down as much as 3.8 percent, 6 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. The report, written by Lehman’s Anthony DiClemente, looked at declining revenue … Read More »

In the pre Web Worker era, many of us looked to professional organizations for networking, support and a chance to establish ourselves as experts in our community. As we have moved to more virtual work environments in our professions, we have tried to fill this … Read More »

Last summer I had the pleasure of dining with Michael Connick and he’s one of the nicest mobile-tech guys you’ll ever meet. That’s why I … Read More »

Given the state of the antiquated power grid, there are dozens of options that will help the grid get smarter. One of those tech choices is wireless mesh networking, which can intelligently route information to and from distant meters in an efficient manner and is … Read More »

I don’t think this news bodes well for the Readius from Polymer Vision, but we’ll have to see how it pans out. The New York Times has info … Read More »

I fired up front row the other day for the first time after getting a Time Capsule, and sure enough my Time Capsule movies weren’t indexing. I first tried using the settings inside of Front Row to map the folder, but there was no mapping … Read More »

Dell is distributing a new research report from the Ponemon Institute titled “Airport Insecurity: The Case of Lost Laptops.” Their headline finding is simple: business travelers lose more than 12,000 laptops per week in U.S. airports. Given that many web … Read More »

A silly little idea about the homonyms “pier” (where our San Francisco office is) and “peer” (the growing community of online video producers) turned into a series of events last summer that gave us some of the most special moments in NewTeeVee’s short history. … Read More »

NBC Buys The Weather Channel; the peacock, along with private equity firms Bain Capital and the Blackstone Group, have reportedly agreed to pony up just shy of $3.5 billion for the channel. (NYT) Local Online Video Advertising to Grow; Kelsey Group says revenues will hit … Read More »

NBC will be mining 3,600 hours of coverage from the upcoming Olympics in an attempt to figure out how people are consuming the games beyond traditional oldteevee. Our question is, If NBC is delaying the webcasting of the most popular events until after they’ve aired … Read More »

Symbian, which recently agreed to be acquired by Nokia, is part of a growing number of mobile platform makers — Apple, Google, LiMo — that are all are vying for the attentions of the mobile developer community. The company sent over an email this morning … Read More »

I’m trying to get back on track with these posts and, as always, do not hesitate to post your top picks from the previous week in the comments, especially if I missed something major (usually an app that I do not use or did not … Read More »

Late last week, I heard from a reader who was looking for a very specific mobile solution. Jeff has a .Mac account and … Read More »

Hands up: who’s still patiently waiting for T-Mobile’s U.S. 3G network to be lit up nationwide? If TmoNews is correct, it looks like your long wait is coming … Read More »

In the WWDC ’08 keynote addressSteve Jobs announced that the iPhone 3G would be available for $199. Naturally this was a cause of excite for many who were looking to purchase the iPhone. The news also caused speculation because many believed that it would be … Read More »

As web workers, we shy away from paper. But as a developer, sometimes I’m faced with a client who absolutely requires paper for some process – say, a dunning letter to a client. That’s where newly-beta PostalMethods comes in. They … Read More »

Now that I’ve got my batteries recharged from a long holiday weekend, it’s time to get to work. In my "infinite wisdom" however, I scheduled an appointment for service on the … Read More »

According to several reports, Toyota’s next-generation Prius, due out next year, will have the option for solar panels on its roof. Japanese newspaper Nikkei and Reuters are reporting that Kyocera will provide the solar panels, which would be able to power part of the … Read More »

Remember back in the Dark Ages before text messaging, when a teenager (let’s call him Jerry Yang) might get a best friend (maybe call him Carl Icahn) to call another friend (say, Steve Ballmer) using three-way calling? With Yang sitting silently on the line, the … Read More »

Top BitTorrent TV Downloads Week Ending June 30, 2008 Rank Last Week Title 1 4 One Piece 2 1 Lost 3 2 Prison Break 4 3 Heroes 5 6 Smallville 6 5 Grey’s Anatomy 7 7 South Park 8 10 How I Met Your Mother 9 8 Desperate Housewives 10 11 Supernatural 11 12 Dexter 12 14 The Simpsons 13 13 Family Guy 14 9 Battlestar Galactica 15 16 My Name Is Earl 16 15 House, M.D. 17 17 One Tree Hill 18 20 Stargate Atlantis 19 19 Kyle XY 20 18 Weeds The Japanese Animation One Piece tops the list of the most BitTorrented TV shows for the … Read More »

One of the great strengths of the global coworking community is the willingness to share knowledge and best practice without restriction and with openness wired into the very values of this community. Recently a member of the global coworking mailing list, Joseph Holsten) … Read More »

So how do we ‘get to work’ when our hearts aren’t in it? Read More »

Polaroid was long the icon for instant photos starting back when all photos were viewed on paper.  How many of us can remember how amazed we were the first time … Read More »

Recently the social web has begun to morph into something altogether different from what it promised to be. The latest example is life-streaming service FriendFeed, which is offering up well-known Internet personalities as “friends” its users can choose to follow. Read More »

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