Toshiba quits HD DVD ‘format war’
“Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer manufacture HD DVDs, effectively ending the long-running battle with the rival Blu-ray for a dominant high-definition format.” Well I guess it is about time, but I just think the name ‘Blu-ray’ sounds funny. Come on.. it made/make sense when one says “I’m going to go buy/rent a video/dvd” and I can see where saying the same with highdef-dvd sounds good, but “Hi I’d like a Blu-ray” sound like a fruity cocktail drink.
Toshiba quits HD DVD ‘format war’
“Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer manufacture HD DVDs, effectively ending the long-running battle with the rival Blu-ray for a dominant high-definition format.” Well I guess it is about time, but I just think the name ‘Blu-ray’ sounds funny. Come on.. it made/make sense when one says “I’m going to go buy/rent a video/dvd” and I can see where saying the same with highdef-dvd sounds good, but “Hi I’d like a Blu-ray” sound like a fruity cocktail drink.
Just picked up an HDTV tuner
We just got the HDTV tuner converter box from Zenith (DTT900). It is amazing the quality change. Our old non-HDTV Apex Digital TV barely got 2 channels clearly before now gets all 14 channels available in HD, totalling to close to 40 channels. And they all come in clear. The tuner even sports an on screen guide. Let the TV watching commence (and still with out cable).
update: if anyone is curious why I didn’t wait to get my discount coupon, I bought my converter at Circiut City… 30 day no questions return policy. I can simply bring the box back with my coupon, return it and re purchase it. That plus the Daytona 500 is tomorrow and I wanted my picture to be clear.
Alternative to Cygwin for Unix on Windows
I used Cygwin up until the point I made the full move to linux, but I always recommend Cygwin to those who need Unix in their windows. Here is an alternative that looks to be shall we say ‘lighter’. UnixUtils seems to be a set of window binaries for most/many Unix commands with out the Unix Cygwin layer. They work straight in your regular Cmd. Basically Unix without BASH. So if you need this kind of solution… I guess give it a try… I’ll stick with my Linux System (Ubuntu is what I’m currently running).
Microsoft to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion
Microsoft has offered to buy the search engine company Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.4bn) in cash and shares. WTF?
All I can say, if this happens, Yahoo, I’m out of here. I’ve been a yahoo mail user for a decade now, and for that same period, I’ve stayed away from most things MS. So again if this goes through… Google will have my email business.
Nokia acquires Trolltech, goes cross-platform
I wonder what this will mean for the mobile market and for Symbian. I also wonder what are the real plans for the TrollTech product line. TrollTech is the maker of Qtopia but also QT the cross platform windowing package, which until recently KDE was based on. I can see where this move works with the linux tablets, but Qtopia is also linux-based and meant for phones…. do you think Nokia has plans on merging the two? or shifting away from Sybian, or do you think they may just do what they’ve done with every other mobile app company they bought… maintain for a year or two and then shutdown…. They did it with IntelliSync and a few others?
Draft of HTML 5 Hints at a Brave New Web
This week, the HTML Working Group, which is the arm of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) charged with updating HTML, published the first official draft of HTML 5, which will eventually supersede HTML 4.
And here I am, trying to learn XHTML and CSS, yes I know I’m way behind schedule but then again for the last 10 years or so I’ve been developing behind the scene applications and Java applications… my web dev days are long out of date… so yes here I am trying to learn XHTML and CSS, trying to refresh my JavaScript knowledge and pick up Ajax, plus looking into Python/Jython, but again that is more for behind the scenes… I’ve already worked with J2EE an Servlets, didn’t like JSP, but now to have to worry about HTML5…. couldn’t they have released this a year ago so that I could just learn it… oh well such is the life of a programmer… always having to learn new technologies and always one day behind….
Open ID, first there weren’t enough, and now there are to many
For those out there who have been following the whole OpenID, it has been pretty interesting. First the whole idea in my opinion is great, one ID to track your web-based life. At sites that support OpenID, simply setup your account and then link it to your OpenID, and then ‘never’ worry about all the passwords again.
My first thought was that this was great, and it would be great if this was link to say email or something. I was looking forward to when Yahoo (my primary email provider) would start supporting OpenID, but over the last month or so… I’m skipping ahead. So when I first heard about OpenID there were only a handful of providers. I found out about it through Plaxo. They recommend MyOpenId.com, so off I went to explore… and create my first ID. That too is when I thought about the fact that I wanted to connect my ID to my email…
So like I said.. OpenID it suppose to help sync and simplify our online identities, of which I have many. I have my Blogger/Google id through this blog, I’ve got my email id via Yahoo. I’ve got my blogroll id through Bloglines (well I didn’t initially consider that an ID, but they do provide personal blogs so). And if you consider Bloglines and identity, then I’ve also got Del.icio.us, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then there is also Plaxo.
Well so here I had my OpenID at MyOpenId.com, then Bloglines announced they were providing ID, and I think they (and Ask.com) may have been the first to provide such ID. Then a few weeks ago as groups started announcing there 2008 line ups…. many others just started announcing they were going to provide IDs. This week was the most interesting, if not just the last 2 days. Late last year OpenID2.0 was finalized, and then yesterday both Yahoo announce that they were going to provide ID (link) and Google’s Blogger has done the same (link). So now here lies the dilemma… I’ve been using Yahoo as my personal email for years… starting back in HighSchool so while I have a nice alias that points at my yahoo id, my ID is an old highschool name from my BBS days…. Now my Google/Blogger ID I’ve been using is more of the kind of web ID that I’ve been using as of late. Most new account logins use the same username especially sights that I comment on and such. So which to use….
Well that brings me back to my topic… at first there weren’t enough ID providers, and now there are too many to choose from. The funnier part is that the one company that introduced me to the notion of OpenID and OpenSocial for that matter was Plaxo. Plaxo is a my synchronization of life. My yahoo, google, aim, and local addressbooks and calendars are all synced through Plaxo. My blogs, del.icio.us, flickr and twitter, are sync through Plaxo Pulse. SO if anything, Plaxo is my single ID, so while they accept OpenID and were one of the first to do so… why don’t they provide??? Oh well I guess even with all the syncing and simplifying Plaxo and OpenID do, it makes sense to not connect your OpenID to a very public arena. I guess having a OpenID only provider will help insure security… The bottom line is, while it is a good thing that OpenID is now out in the open with thanks to BigWeb (Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc)… I’ve decided I like my quieter OpenID provider MyOpenID.com . That all said, I think if I ever did switch my OpenID to another provider, at this point it will only happen if Plaxo becomes a provider.
OpenID: what it is
List of OpenID providers can be found here.
List of site allowing OpenIDs here and here.
Open ID, first there weren’t enough, and now there are to many
For those out there who have been following the whole OpenID, it has been pretty interesting. First the whole idea in my opinion is great, one ID to track your web-based life. At sites that support OpenID, simply setup your account and then link it to your OpenID, and then ‘never’ worry about all the passwords again.
My first thought was that this was great, and it would be great if this was link to say email or something. I was looking forward to when Yahoo (my primary email provider) would start supporting OpenID, but over the last month or so… I’m skipping ahead. So when I first heard about OpenID there were only a handful of providers. I found out about it through Plaxo. They recommend MyOpenId.com, so off I went to explore… and create my first ID. That too is when I thought about the fact that I wanted to connect my ID to my email…
So like I said.. OpenID it suppose to help sync and simplify our online identities, of which I have many. I have my Blogger/Google id through this blog, I’ve got my email id via Yahoo. I’ve got my blogroll id through Bloglines (well I didn’t initially consider that an ID, but they do provide personal blogs so). And if you consider Bloglines and identity, then I’ve also got Del.icio.us, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then there is also Plaxo.
Well so here I had my OpenID at MyOpenId.com, then Bloglines announced they were providing ID, and I think they (and Ask.com) may have been the first to provide such ID. Then a few weeks ago as groups started announcing there 2008 line ups…. many others just started announcing they were going to provide IDs. This week was the most interesting, if not just the last 2 days. Late last year OpenID2.0 was finalized, and then yesterday both Yahoo announce that they were going to provide ID (link) and Google’s Blogger has done the same (link). So now here lies the dilemma… I’ve been using Yahoo as my personal email for years… starting back in HighSchool so while I have a nice alias that points at my yahoo id, my ID is an old highschool name from my BBS days…. Now my Google/Blogger ID I’ve been using is more of the kind of web ID that I’ve been using as of late. Most new account logins use the same username especially sights that I comment on and such. So which to use….
Well that brings me back to my topic… at first there weren’t enough ID providers, and now there are too many to choose from. The funnier part is that the one company that introduced me to the notion of OpenID and OpenSocial for that matter was Plaxo. Plaxo is a my synchronization of life. My yahoo, google, aim, and local addressbooks and calendars are all synced through Plaxo. My blogs, del.icio.us, flickr and twitter, are sync through Plaxo Pulse. SO if anything, Plaxo is my single ID, so while they accept OpenID and were one of the first to do so… why don’t they provide??? Oh well I guess even with all the syncing and simplifying Plaxo and OpenID do, it makes sense to not connect your OpenID to a very public arena. I guess having a OpenID only provider will help insure security… The bottom line is, while it is a good thing that OpenID is now out in the open with thanks to BigWeb (Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc)… I’ve decided I like my quieter OpenID provider MyOpenID.com . That all said, I think if I ever did switch my OpenID to another provider, at this point it will only happen if Plaxo becomes a provider.
OpenID: what it is
List of OpenID providers can be found here.
List of site allowing OpenIDs here and here.
The power of Apple
News stories like this one from BusinessWeek are all over the place with Apple and its iPhone. They all make it sound like Apple created the idea of using a touch screen. And far be it from Apple from admitting that they were not the first. Yes way back Apple had the Newton, but Palm (or back the as part of 3Com) had the first PDA the Palm Pilot with a touch screen too. Then in the late 90s HandSpring released the first Treo, which was a phone/pda and yes with a touch screen….. Over the years Palm has release a number of Treos (I think to date we are up to 11 maybe more), even Microsoft has release a number of touch screen based phones (including some by Palm), HTC has been at the forefront of their hardware. But then Apple comes along and they decide that buttons are a thing of the past…. and thus the iPhone is released and now the whole world talks like they created the touch screen, heck they even created an iPodTouch and tried to trade mark the use of the name Touch with handheld devices… Anyways… I like Apple as much as the next, heck I’m even an MacOSX admin, but I’m a bit tired of all this articles about Apple and how its iPhone with a touch screen has revolutionized the market. That is not to say that is hasn’t had an affect on the market, heck its affect has been one of the greatest… but history…. tells all.
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