internet

Links
November 14, 2010
Links Round Up for 11/14/10
- Olbermann & the Dangers of Partisan Media: The media is supposed to be the government watchdog for the people, and they by and large are failing us. And as illustrated (in exuberance) by Rachel Maddow’s quote. If she really thinks that Fox has a bias, but MSNBC does not, she shouldn’t have a job or consider herself a journalist.
- Damn You Auto Correct!: Here’s the, “Site that will take up all of my time” of the week.
- What’s Kik Messenger All About?: Â Kik is a new IM service for Android, iPhone, & Blackberry that relise on data (Internet) instead of txt messaging. It’s supposed to be like a cross platform BBM. BGR gives us a rundown of it.
- If You Begin a Sentence with Well, there’s a Good Chance You’re Lying: Well, I’ll certainly be more mindful of this.
- Facebook’s GMail Killer, Project Titan, Coming Monday: Pretty interesting. I do think that Facebook email would cater to a different crowd than gmail though.
- New Tech lets You Pee on Your Phone to Check for an STD: Just try to avoid the sticker that indicated water damage.
- [Why] Netflix [is not] on Android: The good news is rumors indicate we’ll see it on some newer Android phones in 2011
- Feds say Firing for Facebook Posts is Illegal: There is a debate on whether or not what you post on Facebook could be considered protected speech. I would argue it is. If you say something in a public area for others to hear, it’s still protected. Why should Facebook be any different?
Recommended listening for the week: Christina Perri. Her current single is ‘Jar of Hearts’
Thoughts
November 9, 2010
Small Business Websites
Yesterday I read a very interesting article in the USA Today about the 7 Deadly Sins of Website Creation. The article (actually entitled, ‘What should a small business’ website do?’) talks about just how important a good website is for a small business. After reading it, I couldn’t agree more. A while back the local paper published a story about how the writer was able to set-up a sufficient website for a local business completely free of charge using wordpress.com, and I was prettyÂ appalledÂ at the article. I knew it clearly wasn’t written by a professional web developer, just a hobbyist. In any case, I took this article to my students to see what they thought about it and to get their thoughts on websites in general.
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Gear
November 5, 2010
USA Today, WSJ, and NYT iPad Apps
Earlier in the week I said the iPad is best for consuming information, soÂ it only makes sense that I’d mention the top three news apps for it: USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and NY Times. I haven’t used all of Â them extensively though I did want to compare some of the basic features of each. I’ll cover: how intuitive the apps are to use, how much content they make available, and how well they integrate the ability to share stores on Facebook & Twitter.
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Gear
November 3, 2010
My Review on the iPad
A couple of weeks ago I picked up the 16GB 3G iPad as sort of a birthday gift from me to me. It’s something I’ve been contemplating for a while and finally pulled the trigged. I promised quite a few people a review on the device now that I own it and while I didn’t do rigorous testing, I used it in the most common testing environments- my house, other offices, the train, meetings, and using it for travel instead of my laptop. You can see my thoughts after the jump.
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Links
October 24, 2010
Links Round Up for 10/24/10
- Dropbox’s Y Combinator Funding Application: Y Combinator is an investing firm for tech companies. This is the application Dropbox submitted to them and ultimately won funding with.
- Above the Fold: “Above the fold” is a term used in newspapers for when you fold a paper in 1/2. The most important stories should be on the top half, or above the fold. People try to apply this to websites by wanting to put everything important before you have to scroll. You do not have to do that. People can scroll just fine.
- Oct. 18, 1985: Nintendo Entertainment System Launches: See how awesome Oct. 1985 was? NES launched just 2 days before I did. I was destined to play video games.
- FaceTime for Mac: Apple launched a beta of their popular iPhone app for the Mac. Allows you to make FaceTime calls to other Macs or iPhone users.
- The Truth about Burning Bridges: This is something I’m often worried about, but have found about the same results.
- After 31 Years, Sony Ends Production of the Walkman: The Walkman was awesome. It let you take music with you. How crazy is that? I had one, which I used to listen to Green Day, mostly.
A new personal splash page service called About.Me entered beta this week. Here is my profile. Also, I saw Muse last night in concert. If you ever get the chance, you should most certainly go. Finally, I bought an iPad this week. Expect a review in the near future.
Links
October 17, 2010
Links Round Up for 10/17/10
- $918,856 Federal Study: Bar Fights Tend to Happen in Darker, Dirtier Bars Frequented by Heavy Drinking, Less Agreeable People: Really groundbreaking stuff here. I’m glad nearly $1 Million of tax money funded what I could have told you from being in college.
- HTML5 Draws Concern Over Privacy Risks: I hate to break it to Ms. Vega, but anyone writing a website can store a lot more than they think, especially since we are constantly logged into social networks like Facebook. Also, I think this is mostly sensationalism since browsers implement the HTML5 spec.
- Jersey Shore RPG: Their final move is a great one.
- The Guy at Home in his Underwear: Really cool online/social media campaign to raise money for a man who has testicular cancer.
Some cool purchases I made this week: Bit Monsters by Simple Bits and Envato’s WordPress Pack ($250 worth of online/electronic goods for $30).
Gear
October 6, 2010
Do We Trust 3rd Party Apps Too Much?

Photo by iowa_spirit_walker
The other day I installed Sparrow, a GMail desktop client for Mac (review on that soon). Without thinking anything of it, I put in my username and password. When it told me I had the wrong username and password, even though I did not, I started to get a little worried (turns out it’s because I didn’t have IMAP enabled in GMail). You see, I was willing to give this brand new software a try without knowing anything about the developers or the software, except that it looked cool, and I willingly gave the username and password to my primary email account of the last 6 years. That got me thinking about how many of us just trust 3rd party applications.
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Site News
September 18, 2010
Avast!
September 19th is International Talk like a Pirate Day! This is the first year I’m celebrating, thanks to the reminder from Alex King, and the Text Filter Suite from Dougal Campbell.
So Pass the Rum! Eat, Drink, and be Merry! And most importantly, you better talk like a pirate!
Gear
September 13, 2010
Live on YouTube
For today and tomorrow only, YouTube will be testing live broadcasting with 4 of their partners. The most interesting part about this test is the ability for live comments, which lets users interact directly with the broadcaster.
I think this will be a very interesting test, I think it will do well, and I think coupled with Google TV, it will change the way live TV is done. Check it out!
Business
September 10, 2010
The Web is Dead
In Wired Magazine’s latest issue they proclaim, “The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet.” I was prettyÂ intriguedÂ by this and decided to read the article (and subsequently subscribe to Wired. Well played, Wired). It’s divided into 2 parts, Blame Us (consumers) and Blame Them (corporations), and is very well written. I decided I’d have my students read it so we could discuss it in class; I wanted to get their perspective as college freshmen- people who have been using the Internet probably since 2003 or 2004 (age 11 or 12). I think it was around here that we really started to see the web change (MySpace was 2003, Facebook 2005), so it would be interesting since what we have today is the Internet as they know it. This will work Â the same as the last class discussion on Facebook Places. I’ll pose my questions, write the class consensus, and then my thoughts.
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