I have my favorites, and now I’m going to share them with you. This isn’t meant to be a compendium of great video blogs, but you’re more than welcome to share your own in the comments. I’m listing the top five I look forward to seeing the most. These are in no order, of course.

1. 1938 Media
My good friend Loren Feldman is a genius. I know he’ll get all annoyed at me for kissing his ass, but I’ve had a few chances to talk to him and the guy is just as funny in person as he is on the web. It’s comedy and commentary without a net. Loren is a true genius of his craft. He almost singlehandedly wrecked Shel Israel’s show on Fast Company.tv. That speaks volume for the sway he holds. Glad to consider the guy a friend.

A sample of one of his best below:

2. Mahalo Daily
Even though Veronica is gone, the idea of Mahalo Daily is one of the best I’ve ever seen. A general interest show (read: NOT TECH) that can entertain and inform you, and might give you an interesting piece of trivia or information you can happily use in your next bar bet. Count me in! They’re currently searching for a host to replace Veronica (as if that’s even possible), but I have complete faith Mahalo Daily will still be a great video podcast to continue watching.

Here’s one of Veronica’s best (and the one I find myself talking about most often):

3. Forkyou.tv
Scott and Marisa are geniuses. The food is always interesting and the instructions simple. Marisa knows her way around the kitchen and Scott is great at lightening the mood. The nice thing about these two is that they manage to keep the food down home and traditional, but often toss in a few upscale gourmet type recipes. I’ve learned everything from making some interesting Rissotto to some amazing macaroni and cheese.

One piece of advice, though. NEVER watch on an empty stomach!

My favorite episode ever:

4. Moblogic.tv
I can’t imagine what it must be like editing the footage of this show. Lindsay gets some true gems to answer her questions, and despite the volume of criticism I’ve heard leveled at this show, it’s quite entertaining and looks amazing in HD on the AppleTV.

A fave episode of mine:

5. Real World Green
With everyone telling you that you need to ditch your car, recycle your mother, and rid yourself of your horrible oppressive lifestyle, Real World Green is a bastion of common sense in an environmental frenzy that rarely contains any. It’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to do some real practical things to save the environment without committing to the craziness that often accompanies the green movement.

A great episode right here:

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As I said, this list isn’t exhaustive. It isn’t the greatest most comprehensive list ever. What it is, however, is a list of my favorites and the ones I look forward to the most. Like I said, if you think I missed any, share them in the comments. I’m always up for learning something new!

The idea of getting an inexpensive laptop into the hands of all the poor people of the world is a good one. By itself, there’s no reason to not like the idea, and the opportunities it would open up for people. In the real world, however, the project has been put off, delayed, changed, and so on.

At this point, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the OLPC XO is dead. How could such a promising idea turn into such a huge failure?

1. It took too long to get into people’s hands.

2. When it did get into people’s hands, it wasn’t at the $100 price point that was originally hyped.

3. Nick Negroponte and his people believed the open-source zealots and went with an open-source operating system that’s just a joke beyond all comprehension of the term. It’s non-standard, and provides no real analog to the Mac / Linux (with a desktop manager) / Windows metaphor that the rest of the world is used to. In a nutshell, it provides a nice introduction to computers for people that don’t have one, but provides no real world marketable skills to the people using it.

Unfortunately for the OLPC group, they realized this too late because Intel and Microsoft partnered up on the Classmate PC, and that will be the final death knell for the OLPC. While the OLPC group seems to be leaning toward maybe opening up to other operating systems other than it’s silly included OS, Intel is already out making deals and while I don’t relish the idea of kids only learning Windows, it is a Windows world in which we live, like it or not.

The OLPC failed because the Cory Doctorows of the world got to Negroponte, plain and simple.

When it finally goes away, no one is going to miss it.

If you’re using Wordpress 2.5 (and really, you should be, it’s pretty damn awesome), you need to know this if you upload your media (pictures / sounds / videos) to a folder outside of the normal Wordpress configuration. Prior to 2.5, it didn’t matter, and most software could handle it, but if your software posts images through the XML RPC interface (in other words, if you have software and you don’t need to set FTP information to upload images / etc), this fix is for you straight from the Wordpress Codex…

The default upload path can be changed by adding a line of code to your wp-config.php file.
Just BEFORE the line that says `require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);`
add this line:
`define(’UPLOADS’, ‘wp-content/myimages’);`
In the example above, this will result in uploads being placed in your `wp-content/myimages/2006/01` folder. Note that 2006 is the current year, and 01 is the current month, in this case January.
If the myimages directory does not exist it will be created as long as the parent folder `wp-content` is writeable. An unwriteable parent folder will cause a message similar to this:
“Unable to create directory `/sample.com/wordpress/wp-content/myimages`. Is its parent directory writable by the server?”
A plugin alternative to enable uploading like WordPress 1.5.2 is available with Filosofo’s Old-style-uploads: http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/old-style-upload
See also, Changing File Permissions and a related Forum Thread http://wordpress.org/support/topic/55954

I was having this problem with Ecto and MarsEdit, but this fixed it.

I should note, of course, that I wasn’t having this problem with Stuffr, but then again I never have problems with Stuffr. In fact, the only problem I have with it is that there isn’t a Mac version.

Those bastards at Apple have done it again. They’re leveraging their installed base of iTunes to optionally have people download Safari for Windows!

HORRORS!

The thrust of the problem for most people is that the app “sneaks” it’s way into your machine by way of Apple’s Software Update app that keeps iTunes and Quicktime (and Safari if you have it installed) up to date. Apparently, the people complaining don’t understand the concept of a checkbox, though, because the fact that you can click it and turn it off means it’s not required. Nowhere in the dialog does it say it’s required, and Apple gives no indication that the update is required at any point.

In other words, this is a complete non-story, but don’t let that stop you from commenting all you Apple pundits out there. Here’s a sampling of the reactions I’ve seen in the blogosphere. First, from Joshua Schnell at Macgasm:

The idea of mac’s came up and virus’s and I began explaining to him some reasoning behind why it’s a little more secure, I brought up Internet Explorer and active x controls. When I explained to him that he could use firefox he was dumbfounded. He literally thought Internet Explorer was the “internet”. To him they were synonymous, the same thing, no difference. To us this seems completely unlikely, but we’re not in this normal demographic, we lay outside of it. Now, back to the matter at hand! Do you honestly see these users knowing what to do with an automatic download of safari? I don’t, and I really think it’s a bit of a slap in the face to users who know. If they want safari they’ll download it. They don’t need it shoved down their throats.

Instead of tricking people into using it, why wouldn’t apple focus on making it the best browser available? It originally worked for Firefox, so why wouldn’t it work for Apple? If they make a superior browser people will use it. It’s that simple.

It’s not an automatic download unless you just click update update update to everything. As he mentions, most people aren’t smart enough to read screens they’re presented with and often just click “ok ok ok ok ok ok” until the dialogs go away. But at the same time, is that Apple’s fault? No. The checkbox means it’s optional, and people who don’t understand that shouldn’t be updating and maintaining their own computers at all. I’m sorry, but a certain basal understanding of checkboxes is probably a good idea if you’re going to be using a computer.

I don’t think Apple is “tricking” anyone, and the only people likely to be “tricked” are the ones who don’t pay attention to things like warnings and dialogs anyway.

Mac Daily News seems to think similarly…

What Apple did was present the user an option to install and/or update Safari. Users did not have Safari installed and/or updated if they did not want it. That said, Apple should not use the word “update” for all users. Apple should change the nomenclature depending on whether or not Safari is actually installed on the PC. Say “install” if it’s to be an install and say “update” if it’s to be an update. If that single, minor change were to be made, we’d have no problem whatsoever with Apple using Apple Software Update on Windows PCs to offer new software while updating existing Apple apps, including having the “install/update” box pre-selected.

Now we run into conflict, because if, as Joshua says, people don’t read dialogs anyway, what’s going to make them pay attention to the difference between install and update? Seems a fine refinement to me geared at people who would get nothing out of it either way.

This reaction, however, is the most ridiculous:

Apple’s approach is atypical. For example, I use Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox on my Vista PC. Mozilla’s software updater automatically downloads Firefox updates, but it doesn’t prompt me to download Thunderbird, which isn’t on the laptop.

Already, Apple uses iTunes as a mechanism for distributing QuickTime. One requires the other. The updater isn’t a required install with iTunes, and it can later be removed. But the strategy of using the updater to deliver other Apple software is an aggressive encroachment into the Windows desktop. It’s smart business, but is it good for enterprises?

There are reasons why IT organizations use tools like WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) to control and manage software updates. But what about rogue updaters that come with products like Adobe Reader, Firefox or iTunes? Policies can be set to restrict new software installation, but not every IT organization uses them. And where should that line be drawn? It’s one thing to let employees install iTunes and something else for Apple Software Update to offer another Web browser.

Where to begin.

Firstly, Apple’s approach is certainly not atypical. Mozilla doesn’t implement it, but Microsoft and Adobe certainly do. If you’ve ever gone to Windows / Microsoft Update, you’ll see downloads for Silverlight, Media Player, and so on. Last I checked, they weren’t required components of a Windows install. Adobe consistently tries to foist its Adobe Photo Album on you every time you update Acrobat.

That, however, isn’t even the weakest part of his argument. The talk about Enterprises easily wins that prize.

If an Enterprise allows lowered security for something like, say, an installation of iTunes, then they’re opening themselves up to employee discretion as far as what to install on these company-issued computers. The idea that Apple is somehow wrong here is laughable, seeing as the ultimate responsibility for allowing application installs falls on the user and the organization that issued the computer! Imagine that.

Enterprises have a different set of standards for what is and isn’t allowed. In our company, for example, everyone is on complete lockdown. Nothing gets installed without our okay. iTunes? No problem. We’ll set that up for you. If you try and update it, it’ll fail because you don’t have admin rights. Same if you tried to install Safari; no go.

Citing the challenges of an enterprise environment as reasoning for chastising Apple is weak, at best, particularly since the apps in question theoretically don’t belong in an enterprise to begin with.

I’m not pleased that Apple chose to distribute software over their update mechanism, but I’m not completely surprised. They’re certainly not the first to do it, and they won’t be the last to do it. In fact, if I was a shareholder, I’d be livid that Apple didn’t try this a whole hell of a lot sooner. Not taking advantage of the millions upon millions of iTunes users to increase your reach into their digital life would be considered by anyone, or at least anyone looking at this with a clear eye, as a major epic fail and a terrible business decision.

Apple isn’t the first to do this, and they won’t be the last. Time to get over it and move on.

I’m not a violent person. I do a lot of tough talking, and I have a habit of utterly dismembering people when they piss me off (I have a history in this area that’s undeniable). In the last few days, however, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that popping Robert Scoble right across the bridge of his nose would do wonders for my sanity.

Now, I should preface this by saying I’m actually a fan of Robert’s. I do enjoy his videos and I’ve been introduced to some great Web 2.0 stuff because of him. He’s a very good canary in the mine of Web 2.0 and always has his ear on the railroad tracks ready to move on to the next great shiny thing. In other words, an alpha-geek. In the last week, however, he’s aggravated me to the point where I’ve dropped him from Twitter and Facebook and couldn’t care less what he has to say, at least for now and the foreseeable future.

Last week he did something so insanely stupid that I had to take a step back, soak it all in, and try to believe it all because I couldn’t believe he even did it. Without rehashing that which has been rehashed over and over again and again, Scoble used a script on his Facebook account to scrape the names, e-mail addresses, and birthdates of his 5,000 followers on Facebook. Buy itself, that wouldn’t raise any red flags, right? And if Facebook decided they were within their rights to ban him on the spot, who could argue with that either?

That’s not the way things work in the brave new Web 2.0 world, though. In this case, Robert used a script provided to him by a company called Plaxo.

Who is Plaxo?

If you don’t know who Plaxo is, you were probably asleep through the early part of the 2000’s. Plaxo finagled its way onto lots of systems with the promise of keeping your address book automatically in sync with people’s changes. If I was a Plaxo user and changed my e-mail info, your address book would update automatically. All this sounded good to a lot of people who installed the app, only to find out that the business plan also included Plaxo spreading virally by spamming the address book of people who had it installed. On top of that, people became concerned at the sheer volume of data that Plaxo had sitting in its databases, and the service utterly collapsed.

Recently, the company had an epiphany, and with the introduction of the Open Social initiative, a conglomerate of companies in the social networking space focused on data sharing and open borders digitally. Conspicuous by its absence from this coalition is Facebook. Plaxo, however, took that opportunity to introduce Plaxo Pulse, a product that promised to do what Plaxo did for address books in 2004 to social networks in 2008.

So what’s with the fisticuffs?

Basically, Robert keeps missing the point over and over again. There are a lot of people that are seriously pissed off at him right now, and justifiably so.

Here’s a quote from Judi Sohn that really summarizes the problem with what Scoble did beautifully.

Robert Scoble valued his relationship with Plaxo more than he valued his relationship with his “friends,” otherwise he would have posted to them what he was doing with an experimental, alpha-quality and untested script before he did it…or he wouldn’t have done it at all.

So why does Plaxo scare me?

Because it’s a matter of trust, and I don’t trust them. Fine, you say, don’t give them any data. Oh, but that’s the scary part…it’s not my choice.

Right this minute, Plaxo probably knows your email address, your phone number, and where you work. You may have never visited their site, but if you’re online and with their how many million members there’s a good chance that someone who has you in their address book with accurate data has shared that information with Plaxo.

This is what Robert doesn’t seem to understand, and this is why I feel the need to punch him in the face. In doing so, I would hope to be rattling his brain back into place so he understands just why what he did was wrong.

Robert has contended that people shouldn’t have a problem with him doing this because it’s the same as people taking the data and entering it into their Outlook address book or their G-Mail address book. He’s also repeatedly called the reaction excessive and even has one of the Plaxo guys sitting in his comments and telling everyone that Plaxo is a nice company now. Really. Finally, he had the audacity to claim that he’s not doing anything with the data, that it’s living in a private account, and that he never had any intention to use it. He even went as far as saying he did this to “prove a point,” presumably about how Facebook’s data isn’t portable.

Let’s address these issues.

Who has the right to my data?

This is one of the central questions in the debate, so let’s address it first. Robert claims that sliding my e-mail address into Plaxo’s network is no different than putting my e-mail into his mail client or G-Mail address book. As far as I’m concerned this is the most asinine thing he’s said during the whole debate.

While it’s true that I may or may not have a problem with my data being plugged into Google’s servers, it’s your mail client, and I’m willing to accept that my address may end up in a mail client with a company I don’t particularly care for (mind you, this is all theoretical; I love Google and use every one of their products daily) since you’re free to use the information I’m sharing with you to get in touch with me.

But to say that giving the data to Plaxo is the same thing is simply stupid. Plaxo has a history of abusing customer data. You can tell me how much they’ve changed and how they’ve learned their lesson, but in the end Plaxo is a scumbag company with a scumbag history that wouldn’t even be around had it not been for the data they mined 3-4 years ago from unsuspecting user accounts. Anyone who knows the name Plaxo (except for Scoble, apparently) isn’t comfortable with them holding any personal data of theirs which is why this whole thing got started to begin with.

Robert got in bed with slime and woke up looking slimy.

But is it really my data?

Absolutely it’s my data, and absolutely I have a right to say what’s done with it.

To a point.

But Robert, of course, takes that to a whole new level and in trying to defend himself makes the ridiculous assertion that we need “Friend DRM”…

What if I wrote down Judi’s email and then manually put it into my Outlook’s contact database. Wouldn’t that have been exactly the same thing that I tried to do with Plaxo’s script?

Second, if you add me as a friend I assume you want me to send you emails and interact with you. But, it’s clear that some of you didn’t really want me to do that when you added me as a friend. Maybe we need DRM for friends.

No, stupid, because doing that doesn’t involve Plaxo. I’m sure he sat there and made that stupid laugh he makes in all of his videos as he wrote that. “I got her!” he thought, completely missing the point. There comes a time when you’re so sucked into every shiny new gadget and service that you can no longer objectively comment on any of them. I think Robert has hit that point.

He also makes another strawman point:

So, to Judi, why is it OK for Facebook to import all my Gmail email addresses? Why aren’t you screaming bloody murder about THAT? After all, did anyone on Gmail approve me to import their email addresses to Facebook?

[snip]

Is Plaxo a social monster for trying to import? That’s for you to decide, but why weren’t you all up in arms when Facebook imported your data and your friends email addresses from Gmail?

Again, it’s not the same thing for two reasons. 1: You can choose not to do it, and 2: Facebook isn’t storing your imported data for people you don’t connect with on their service.

Punching Robert in the face.

So the other day, after watching him continuously miss the point like some kid with really thick glasses on a little league field misses a baseball, I got angry and posted on Twitter that Robert’s latest post on his blog made me want to punch him in the face. The web is nothing if not efficient…

You might be thinking that this was a bit of hyperbole on my part, and of course it was. I don’t think I would ever punch Robert in the face. I still like him even if he is completely clueless about what exactly was wrong with what he did here, but what made me want to punch him in the face is the fact that despite a large chunk of people telling him what he did was wrong, and how they didn’t like it, he insisted that everyone else was wrong and what he did was no big deal.

I’m not one to succumb to crowds and have a popular opinion just to avoid controversy. Any long-time reader on this blog knows I love shredding people. Yesterday, on SRD Radio, I absolutely demolished Michael Crook’s idiotic argument that soldiers are getting rich off their military salary and made him look completely stupid in the process (you can hear that here; it’s toward the middle of the show). I’m not one to back down just because my opinion isn’t popular or because it faces strong objections or reactions.

That being said, sometimes you do have to know when to apologize, suck it up, and shut up. I’ve done that too. Just because you think you’re right doesn’t mean you are, and in this case Robert thinking he’s right is utterly meaningless because most of the feedback he’s gotten that I’ve been able to see has been negative. Whether or not you think you’re wrong, that means you might want to apologize, particularly to people who you call “friends.” If friendship to you means that I give you my data and you can do what you want with it because we’re “friends,” then it works the other way too and when you hurt your friends or disappoint them, you also have an obligation to man up and apologize to them rather than making excuses. Even though you don’t think you did anything wrong, lots of people apparently do.

One last thought

Data portability isn’t really the issue here. Do I like that my data lives and dies with Facebook? Not particularly, no. That being said, I’m not losing any sleep over it either. This issue was never about data portability, though. It’s been about who Robert chose to share his “friends’” data with since the minute it came out that the reason Facebook canned him was for a script he was running that was authored by Plaxo. You can spin it anyway you want, and you can turn yourself into a martyr for data portability if that makes you feel better and, in your mind, justifies what you did, but we all know the truth.

You screwed up. You gave people’s data to a company they don’t like and or trust and a company that has a history of abusing customer data. For that, you owe the community, the people you call friends, an apology.

Stop justifying and rationalizing and start apologizing.

Photo courtesy of Will Pate via Flickr.

How did I not know that Google Docs could post to weblogs?  This might be the coolest feature ever!

Don’t duh me about it, either…

73%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

Interesting point from Griffith (at this point, it’s almost cliche for me to say how much I love Forever Geek and particularly Griffith’s writing) on the difference between Leopard and Vista…

Apple has officially announced Leopard’s shipping date, and Apple has re-lit it’s advertising campaign for the eagerly awaited 64bit Operating System. They were even kind enough to place most of those 300+ new features on a single page.

Besides all of the invisible work done to the OS, like making it 64bit, and increase it’s security. There is a list of over 300 new “palpable” features in it that you can actually see and use.

Yep. There sure is. But that isn’t the point of the story…

…I hoped[sic] over to Microsoft’s Vista website and managed to find a link which should have had the answers for all my questions, Microsoft’s 100 Reasons you’ll be speechless.

After reading most of those reasons, I have to say I was speechless. Not because I was wow’ed by the list, but because there just wasn’t much to say about them. Most of the features, or reasons as they call it, aren’t really reasons, but just clever marketing phrases such as:

You choose the fun—TV, games, music, movies, home videos, or photo slide shows—Windows Vista has all of your entertainment in one convenient place. Enjoy it on your PC, or gather friends and family around your home entertainment center, and let the good times roll!

Name one thing from the phrase above that you can’t already do with your 6 year old Windows XP

There are a few unsexy changes under the hood of Vista, but Griffith’s point is well-taken. Apple introduces 300 solid new features and overhauls a bulk of the OS in a point-release. Microsoft makes very few changes and a few tweaks, calls it a new version, charges way more for it, and many new features mean nothing to a bulk of their audience.

I may have to go through their list of great amazing spectacular new features so I can have a laugh.

Another post for another day.

Technorati Tags: geeky, mac, vista, osx

One thing about David Chartier. For those of you who don’t know who he is (and shame on you if you don’t), he used to write for TUAW and now writes for Ars Technica. He even came up with the greatest tip ever written about Photoshop. Okay, maybe not the greatest ever, but the biggest time saver anyone has ever shown me.

Anyway, he had an article recently demonstrating something he calls “jackass marketing” and here’s the attached image demonstrating it:

David makes a couple of assertions about this kind of marketing, faulting designers for designing this kind of advertising, and marketers for requesting it. That’s true, but as I pointed out on his site, it’s more than just those two; it’s site owners / operators for allowing this kind of thing on their site, and it demonstrates something I’ve been saying for a long time. Many site owners have a feeling about their users that range anywhere from outright contempt to complete indifference.

Site owners over the last few years have gotten more and more intrusive with their advertising. From the contextual highlighting of text inside a post (by companies that do those green double underlines) to the popups as soon as you click on a page to bring its window into focus, site owners have been making browsing miserable for the one group of people it never pays to make the experience miserable for. Readers.

Chartier’s admonition of the practices in the picture speaks volumes, really. Users are not going to accept that a crappy experience is just the way of the internet anymore. RSS is now the de riguer for any serious internet consumer, and the more sites people get used to visiting, the less likely they are to return to a site that provides a poor experience; whatever that poor experience entails. Intrusive advertising, paid linking, and so on, are more a hinderance to your site than anything else. You may reap some benefits in the short run, but no one on the internet produces such unique content that users won’t just go somewhere else.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Technorati Tags: cable, cablevision, geeky

Since my first post got so much attention, including from #3 who thought it was an honor to be on the list (believe me dude, it isn’t, so don’t flatter yourself), I thought it would be appropriate to do a followup with the web people who help me get through the day. Without further ado, here’s the 5 web personalities I can’t do without.

1. Leo Laporte: The Godfather of podcasting (Adam Curry, if it weren’t for Leo no one would know what a podcast was), one of the smartest names in tech, and one of the few people who (even when I disagree with) is worth listening to even when the topic isn’t something you don’t care about. Leo has a fresh attitude despite having longevity in the business, and most importantly he understands that production can be as important as content. Oh sure, content comes first, but ignoring the production quality and hoping content can carry a show is just pointless.

2. Michael Arrington: The man has a bullshit detector that’s second to none for the most part. He does occasionally get sucked into the hype, but for the most part he does a good job of avoiding it and the marketerspeak that’s been flooding the internet for years. A true example of a no-spin zone. Read it. Learn it. Know it.

3. Loren Feldman: Yeah I know… I’m kissing his ass. Frankly, you can go screw if you don’t like me plugging Feldman. He’s a cranky, funny, interesting guy who makes me laugh and isn’t buying into all the shit either. The nice thing about 1938 Media is that it isn’t a bunch of stuffed shirts and talking heads doing videos. Loren, Michelle, Yue, Pam, Gloria, and the others are real people, really funny, and worth watching. Loren’s stuff may not be safe for work, but frankly nothing entertaining ever is.

4. Ryan Block: If all the other gadget sites on the internet went away, I wouldn’t care. If Engadget went away, I’d be crushed. Ryan runs the show over there and does a great job. He’s also a friend and has always been gracious when I IM him or ask him for an interview. Class act all the way who does great at what he does.

5. Scott McNulty, Erica Sadun, and the team at TUAW: Frankly, if you’re an Apple blog, this is the standard you have to live up to. Period. End of discussion. If you don’t, don’t waste my time. There are a few exceptions, but nothing out there rings my bell the way they do. They’re on top of news, rumors, products, software, and how-tos, in a way that no other site is. Scott runs a great site, and Erica’s technical know-how is second to absolutely no one.

There are other people out there who are friends that I didn’t add to this list (Like my good friend Scott Bourne, for example) who I don’t consider a “web personality,” but a personal close friend and I didn’t want that to color the list.

by Vincent Ferrari
Apple Phone Show Producer

On This Week in Tech and on his blog, Leo Laporte insisted that this analogy is very similar to what Apple is doing with the iPhone:

Read More »

My bud Jose and I went down to Javits today to catch Digital Life 2007. It’s an annual show meant to highlight products for those of us interested in the “digital lifestyle” meaning there’s some kind of tech product throughout the show to help make your mundane non-digital life more digital. All in all, a geek like me should totally be within my element there, but I have to say the show was massively disappointing.

First of all, the show didn’t even take up the entire main hall of the Javits center. That in itself was ridiculous to me. I can only imagine what they were charging exhibitors because a parade of people paying to see your products and only seeing half a convention center sends a bad message: that companies aren’t interested. That, of course brings me to my second point: No one showed.

Here’s what we saw…

Microsoft, Intel, Logitech, HP, Nokia and Toshiba were the big names there. Other companies like Logitech, Palm, and Dell had booths that were nothing to write home about, although Dell did co-sponsor a massive tractor trailer setup with Intel. Other than that? Not a whole lot to see.

HP had a nice booth. We got to check out their new MediaSmart TVs and they were seriously impressive. Big smart televisions with wide screens, WiFi, and all kinds of other goodies. If you’re a computer-centric TV geek, this isn’t a bad move for you at all.

Toshiba was showing off some amazing televisions. Heroes looked ridiculously good in HD; something I had never seen before. Their booth had a lot of their computers including a line of laptops that was laughably large. One of the machines we saw on the high end had a gorgeous 17 inch screen and a full keyboard, but probably weighed about nine pounds! Overall, Toshiba’s presence was really large and they showed off a lot of products from HD DVD players to TV’s to computers. Even their media players impressed, but frankly, the fact that they run Microsoft’s Plays for Sure means, at least to me, that they’ll never gain any real traction except for the “I want anything that isn’t an iPod” crowd.

We went over to Nokia’s booth, but there wasn’t much going on there. It was barely 15 feet wide and had a few shelves with some products. We played with the new N95 3G for the US (a welcome improvement) as well as the 8 Gig Black version. I was impressed by the N81, which is a sleek slider that the N95 should look like (that’s one of the phones in the video. Take a look at it and you’ll see what I mean). Jose enjoyed the E90, and I’d have to agree. Despite it’s humongousness, it was still a really nice phone with an excellent screen and keyboard. We wanted to see the N800 internet tablet, but the one other guy in the booth was standing there looking at it. Gee thanks, Nokia. You could’ve moved him along especially considering most of his time was spent standing in front of the N800 and not actually doing anything with it. Oh well.

We tried to eyeball the new Palm Centro, but for some reason neither one of us could find it at Palm’s booth. The truth is the word has gotten out about how it’s Palm’s last hope because CBS was there talking to someone about it (he had one in his hand). Frankly, I hope Palm stays around if for nothing else than their historic significance to the PDA world. The Centro might keep them alive, though. It’s going to be really inexpensive and run on Sprint’s EVDO network. And it’s small. Really small. We did catch one in a display case at the Digital Village and I was wholly impressed.

IZ3d was showing off their 22 inch 3D gaming monitor. No, not red/blue 3d. Real 3D with gray glasses. I have to say that I was skeptical before putting the glasses on but a believer within three seconds. Watching the Quake IV demo in 3D was mind blowing. In fact, after one frag with blood flying, a stepped back a bit. It was that convincing.

A surprise for us was the booth for a company called ZipIt Wireless, and they were demoing their new IM WiFi handheld called the Z2. It’s a small device with a full QWERTY keyboard. No recurring monthly fees, and it connects you to Yahoo, MSN, and AIM for all your IM needs. It worked nicely, was small enough, and at $149 seemed to be priced right. It’ll be available on 10/1, so if your cellular carrier does what most do and burns you on SMS charges when you send IM’s, this is for you.

We also spent a lot of time talking to the folks at the Neuros booth. Neuros is a favorite company of the Open Source community, namely because they open up their source code and beg for programmers to hack it. Their newest product, the OSD is a promising standard-definition media extender / recorder. Think Apple TV, not high-def, but with a lot more features and a strong programming community behind it. The community is so active that they even developed a YouTube plugin so you can watch YouTube videos right on your TV. The OSD saves files in MP4 format to an SDD card or Memory Stick you can plug into any device that uses them, and be on your way. You can even share files over the network or hang any USB Mass Storage class device off the USB port to save files directly to an external HD. All in all very impressive. It’s priced a bit high at $239, but I spoke to the media contact there and a review unit will be forthcoming shortly. Stay tuned for more details on that when it does.

We got a few minutes to eyeball the Supacam DVi. Had I not just bought my camcorder, this would’ve left with me. It’s a very small and really slick solid state camcorder. Jose seemed impressed by it also, but also said that he’d be leery of any company called Supacam. The guy barking promos into the mic told us to Google the company to see the amazing reviews their last product got. I wonder if he read them at all? Macworld Expo loved it, but they seem to be the only one. In any case, the DVi is a nice cam, and I wouldn’t mind owning one for on-the-go video.

Finally, the most interesting product at the show for us was the Novint Falcon. It’s a ridiculously cool device that, while I don’t see a use for it right now, could change the way we interact with games even more than the Nintendo Wii and that’s saying a lot. Don’t think that the demo and quotes on the site are hype. They’re not. It really is that cool. I don’t know how practical it is, but the experience is sensational.

Overall the show wasn’t too bad, and maybe I over-hyperbolized when I said it was massively disappointing, but we did cover the whole show floor in 3 hours which seems, at least to me, a bit ridiculous. I would’ve liked to have seen Panasonic, Sanyo, Samsung, and Sony there, but they were nowhere to be found. Guess if I want to see what they have to offer, I’ll have to head out to CES this year. We shall see. Maybe having been to CES is what spoiled me to begin with, huh?

Until next time…

Technorati Tags: digital life, dl, ziff davis

Andrew Baron once told Jason Calacanis that he knew nothing about business and that he (Baron) was going to be the next Rupert Murdoch. Fast forward a mere year or so later and while Calacanis isn’t exactly tearing up the charts (Mahalo has potential but I’ll leave it at that), Baron seems to be downright struggling to bring one show into the advertising world.

Unattractive product?

I highly doubt it. RocketBoom gets tons of viewers day after day. While they may have taken a bit of a hit in the post-Amanda days, the show is solid, interesting, and entertaining. Joanne brought with her a sense of confidence and professionalism that Congdon lacked. The content is better (siding more with news and less with weird) and the pacing is quick and attractive for people who don’t have a ton of time. The fanbase is huge and getting those engaged eyeballs to look at your stuff seems like an advertiser’s dream.

Yet, so far, Baron’s move to become Rupert has fallen flat. An ad buy from an ATM manufacturer disappeared and didn’t signal in a trend. Occasionally, we’d see a post-roll spot, but that ended. Now we hear about the new partnership with Blip, a company I have a great deal of affinity for. The difference? Well now Blip gets the ads and runs them on RocketBoom in an ad overlay while you’re watching the show. No more pre-roll or post-roll.

Blip explained the reason for the overlay method to TechCrunch:

Blip.tv has offered pre-roll and post-roll ads on video downloads for about a year, but this is the first time a mid-clip overlay is available. Overlays, which usually look like a banner that pop up during the video, are preferable because, Hudack tells TechCrunch “pre-rolls have the potential to turn off viewers and post-rolls don’t get watched.” Eventually, blip.tv will have the capability to track how many times each ad is viewed or clicked on as well. Up till now, such metrics have been more common for streaming videos than for downloads.

I don’t fault people for making money with their content, but I do find it interesting that Baron went to a distributed form for RocketBoom which, incidentally, includes the embedded player on RocketBoom.com. The next Rupert Murdoch would’ve probably come up with a home-grown self-hosted solution if given the opportunity, but this isn’t the next Rupert Murdoch, it’s the first Andrew Baron; a guy with great content and a big audience without the foggiest idea of how to monetize it.

Not that I care about anything I ever read in Slate, but this article was particularly funny…

The iPhone is definitely a cool, sexy gadget. As I wrote in January, it’s less a phone packed with extras than a full-fledged computer for your pocket. Its big display and touchscreen interface make Web surfing and video watching a whole lot easier than on any other smartphone. It bundles support for Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo! Mail. It doubles as an iPod. It does YouTube. And it’s even more hackable than a BlackBerry. Along with this week’s price drop, Apple has added a built-in iTunes Music Store, so you can buy and download tracks whenever you’re in range of a Wi-Fi network. At $400, an iPhone is incredibly tempting.

But in my career as a writer, I need my phone to do work. I have tight deadlines, and I need to communicate with lots of people in a hurry. When I’m in a tight spot, my BlackBerry always helps me out. It also sends a subtle signal to my correspondents that I’m getting a lot done. An e-mail that says “Sent from my BlackBerry” gives the impression that you’re on the move but still chained to work, e-mailing from the elevator. An e-mail that says “Sent from my iPhone” conjures an image of a doofus who wants you to know he has an iPhone.

Okay, I get it. So now it’s all about which phone makes you look busy rather than which one actually helps you get things done. His objections to the iPhone are the standard run-of-the-mill iPhone hater crap, so they aren’t even worth delving into.

What I find interesting is this appearance of being busy thing. Let’s ignore the fact that you can change the pretentious signature on the iPhone to be the same as the pretentious signature on the BlackBerry. The mere fact that he likes how the BlackBerry makes him “look” busier proves to me what I’ve known about most (not all) BlackBerry users for years. They aren’t actually more productive, they just whip out the BlackBerry so it looks like they’re working at all times.

For all the talk about the cult of Apple, I’d like to point out that the cult of the BlackBerry is every bit as bad if not worse.

Technorati Tags: slate, blackberry, iphone

1. Molly Wood: Seriously, Molly. I don’t have any problems with you, or the fact that you don’t like Apple and their hardware, but if you could just put a bit of an effort into trying to learn about what you were talking about, that would be great. For example, Word and Excel are not Apple apps, Mail is not an iLife app, and so on. At least keep your stuff straight before you go on a rant. Your bitching about everything Apple is fine with me, but please just do your best to make sure that when you do uncork, you do so in a way that proves how much you know, not how little.

2. Andrew Baron: I watch Rocketboom daily, but that’s in spite of Andrew. Andrew is a seriously annoying human being who once told Jason Calacanis (surely you’ve heard of him; I think everyone has) he didn’t know anything about running a business. A year later, Calacanis now has Mahalo which is reasonably successful, and Andrew? Well, he can’t seem to give ads away on Rocketboom in spite of the fact that Joanne is an amazing host and the content is better than it’s ever been.

3. John Foster: Personal confuser, that thing, that thing 2, and doorbell. Those are his cutesy “I’m too cool for the room” terms for a computer, the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and his cellular phone. Seriously John. Cute euphemisms are so 1985. Although, you might be led to think John agrees, seeing as he scolded one TWiT forum reader for daring to call a Panasonic camera the “Panny” citing the fact that it makes forums harder to search. Yeah. Those cutesy nicknames are only good when you’re not the one using them. And telling me to “F. off” doesn’t make anything I’m saying any less true, John.

4. Xeni Jardin: Honestly… The lisp, the dye job, and the stupid posts on Boing Boing really combine to make this woman a trainwreck rolled into one spectacular catastrophe. CNN hunts her down for commentary as if she’s super-relevant, and frankly, I don’t know why. She’s got the stupid mid 90’s cyberpunk look so I guess if you’re looking for stupid stock footage of what the world perceives “web people” to look like, go with Xeni.

5. Dave Winer: Dave, seriously. We owe you a lot for RSS. If you weren’t such a jackass all the time, we’d be happy to worship at your altar, but you are, so we’re not. Stop crying for attention and bitching about not getting the recognition you think you deserve. And, while you’re at it, please stop bringing up Userland. It was the absolute worst piece of unusable garbage ever made which is why everyone but you succeeded at getting their software out there to the masses. Oh yeah, and your logo had a fricking cactus in it. ‘Nuff said.

Are there more? Of course there are, but these are the folks that make me smack my head into my desk every time I hear their voice or read their words somewhere. I’m sure everyone has a list like this, too. I’d love to see more of ‘em, frankly.

Technorati Tags: molly wood, andrew baron, john foster, xeni jardin, dave winer

via WaPo

Michelle over on Dell’s blog made a quick little post about how Dell is now offering an option to not have them crapify your new PC with all their useless trialware and other crap that various companies pay money to have shoved onto your desktop.

Regarding Google tools, a quick clarification—Google tools that are pre-installed on Dell systems are a bit different from google.com, and can’t be easily compared. Blog posts like this one express concern about the URL Assistant specifically. The purpose of this utility is to handle a mis-typed URL by responding with a webpage of suggested links that contains both sponsored pages (paid placement) and typical search result links, versus returning an error page with no results or guidance. Some folks prefer the suggested information, some don’t. For folks who are interested, click on the Remove the URL Assistant link in this Knowledge Base article for instructions on how to remove it.

Are you bloody kidding me? That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever read.

The Dell adware garbage doesn’t give you relevant results; it gives you paid crap, relevant or not, way above the actual search results. Check out this screen cap from the OpenDNS blog. It’s what you see when you connect up to a mistyped domain and you have Dell’s crapware installed.

Notice all the sponsored and irrelevant links at the top of the fold, right there for you to see. Now compare that to what OpenDNS does:

Now let’s ponder that. Michelle claims that some people prefer the suggested information and some don’t. What I don’t get is who does prefer that? Secondly, if Dell’s only motivation is giving customer’s relevant information and not milking a few cents with pay-per-click ads, why not do what OpenDNS does?

Calling that adware “guidance” proves just how deeply out of touch Dell really is.

Here’s Scott Finnie’s analysis for High-end and mid-range laptops and desktops:

High End: Assuming that you want a high-end notebook PC designed to work, play and be your everyday machine with style, the MacBook Pro is a surprisingly good value. The models that I compared it with, the Sony and the Dell, had some extras here and there, but they were also more expensive. The key to the perception that Macs are more expensive is that Apple offers very few in-between models.

Mid-range: When you configure low-end and midrange notebooks and desktops, you’ll find that except at the very bottom of the heap, Windows machines are roughly comparable in price to Macs. There are fewer Mac models, so if your needs vary from what Apple has decided on, you may find a Windows model that costs less for you. But Apple’s choices make a lot of sense for most people, and when you do the point-by-point comparison, Apple is actually a better value for some needs.

Or, to summarize, there is no brand that is more expensive than the other by default unless you’re a simplistic idiot.

Technorati Tags: mac, apple, osx