New Apple Products - iMac "Front Row", Video iPod, iTunes

2005-10-13 00:00:00 -0400

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jduprey

Apple announced an all new iMac.  Its thinner.  Built in iSight video camera - means video converencing.  It also comes with a new remote control and interface for playing music, photos, video, etc - "Front Row".

New iPod does video.  30G($299) and 60G($399) models.  Available in  white or black. 

 200 million copies of iTunes with 84% market share.  iTunes 6.  Interesting features:  "Just for you."  This suggests music based on your past buying habits.  Adds music video support.  $1.99 for the videos.?  I'll pass on that, thank you.  No CD or DVD burning of videos allowed.  I'll pass.  Ahh, but they also offer TV shows.  Five shows offered from ABC (aka Disney) - "Lost," "Desparate Housewives," etc.  You can buy current episodes and past episodes.  Current episodes are available the day after the air date.  10 - 20 minutes to download (about the size of 5 albums).  $1.99 an episode.  That may be useful.

 

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The Internet Archived Forever - aka The "Wayback" Machine

2005-10-12 00:00:00 -0400

Why I'm Switching to WordPress

2005-10-09 00:00:00 -0400

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jduprey

September 19'th 2004 marked the day that I officially started blogging again.  For years prior to that I had a PHPNuke and then a  Postnuke site that I hosted with my personal computer.  I don't really count these because I didn't really use them.  They basically satisfied my curiosity in content management (CM) systems.

So I've used LJ for a year and it has been a relatively positive experience.  I like LJ's community model and its open development spirit.  Many of my friends use LJ and its a great way to keep in touch and share our thoughts.  That being said LJ has some serious short comings.  It doesn't have easy online searching of your posts.  It lacks aesthetics.  There are no beautiful styles/themes to choose from.  There's a lack of good WYSIYG clients for the Mac or web browser.  In fact the only one I'm aware of is Deepest Sender and at least for the, Mac, it wasn't stable.

Enter WordPress. Breaking the idea that I wanted to get away from maintaining my own blog serving software, I installed WordPress.  It has everything that LJ does not have - searching, WYSIWIG editor plugins, beatuiful themes. 

After years of usage, I know what I want and need in terms of "sharing" on the internet.  Photo's.  My family takes lots of pictures and we like to share them.  If I look at my usage over the past 5 years, I primarily post pictures and sometimes attach a story to the picture.  I've used Gallery to manage my photo's online for years.  WordPress has a number of plugins that will allow it to integrate with Gallery.  This should make it easier for me to attach those stories to my pictures.

Who doesn't like to have their cake and eat it too?  With the WordPress plugin, LivePress, I should also be able to cross post to LJ!  So far this seems to work.  If you are reading this on my LJ then it, indeed has.  Well, I guess time will tell if this is *the* solution or yet another tangent.  :)

 

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Google Reader vs. Newgator

2005-10-09 00:00:00 -0400

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jduprey

Google has released a web-based feed reader.  It uses an AJAX-based UI similar to Google Mail.  However, unlike gmail, Google reader still seems to have some UI issues it must work out.  I know that the Mac version of Firefox (1.0.6) has a number of "glitches" - none of them critical.

 I have been using the commercial version of NetNewsWire for aggregating my feeds.  This native Mac app really does a nice job.  It was recently accquired by NewsGator - an online feed sync'ing and web-based feed aggregation service.  The announcement: "NewsGator acquires NetNewsWire".  It'll be interesting to see how it turns out for NetNewsWire users..  Well there are plent of other good, clients out there for the Mac - see NewsFire.  I wonder if NewsGator is feeling any pressure from Google.?  If google started providing sync capabilities between desktop feed readers... there'd defintely be competition.  As it stands now, NewGator has the better web UI.. I think.

Is Google the next IBM/Microsoft? 

 

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Test Post: LivePress Plugin - LiveJournal Synchronization

2005-10-08 00:00:00 -0400

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jduprey

Maybe I can have the best of both worlds.  The LivePress plugin syncs your WordPress posts to LiveJournal.

 

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