Domain: readwriteweb.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to readwriteweb.com.
Comments · 183
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Re:Hurrah!heya,
Sorry, I'm going to have to call you out on this.
Firstly, your "sweaty linux nerds" comment was completely pointless, and paints you as a little bit shallow and bigoted. I *work* with Linux in my day-to-day job, not sure if that qualifies me as one of your "sweaty linux nerds". It's just a petty little insult that's unneeded. Also, this is a bit archaic, but normally we refer to it as animals that "sweat", human beings are said to "perspire".
Back to the main point, YouTube commands a large percentage of mindshare. Sorry, let me rephrase, YouTube *dominates* the online video market. Combined with Google Video, they pretty much wipe the market.
This is from 2008, but I doubt it's changed much, if anything, it probably dominates more:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/youtube_dominates_video.php
If they changed, and combined this with a "use Google Chrome, or ChromeFrame", and they introduced the codec into Chromium as an auto-update, I'm pretty sure the market penetration of VP8 would escalate quite quickly. Realistically, they'd probably phase it in, much as they did with dropping IE6 support.
Cheers, Victor
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Re:Holy Shit Are You A Fucking Piece Of Garbage
Marketing sells a product. It's rather meaningless after the product is sold since the user doesn't have to rely on marketing to form an opinion. They form them from using the product directly. Claiming Apple is 'shitty' and then admitting that people think they are good is a bit contradictory. The simple fact is, that they have some of the best satisfaction rates in the industry, and THAT is money you can bank on.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/survey_apples_app_store_customer_satisfaction_android_close_second.php
http://internet2go.net/news/hardware/apple-retains-customer-satisfaction-crownThere were over a million apps downloaded to iPads the first day of it's release and over half a million sold in a week. Exactly what sort of distortion reality are YOU standing in?
Apple also controls a huge share of the mobile browser market by huge margins. It doesn't matter how much hardware is out there in the mobile market, but who's actually using it to browse the web. When it comes to mobile devices, Apple DOES have a say in future mobile browsing trends:
http://www.tipb.com/2009/03/02/iphone-mobile-browser-share-67/
Try harder...
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Re:NTP-servers...
I know all the tech savvy Ubuntu users either 1.) don't use forums, or 2.) mainly stay on the official Ubuntu forums.
Both apply for me anyway, i use the ubuntu forums only passively, i dont bother asking for help there
As for windows users, i think you fail to understand the stupidity that signifies most windows drones when it comes to computers/internet. For a good example, check this link:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php
check out those comments
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Re:Process/Objective Inversion
There are two different objectives here [...]
I can think of a third objective.
Imagine Microsoft and RSA, the security division of EMC seeing the Cloud as the latest cache of IT gold, and imagine those players identifying security (particularly security compliance) as the only real barrier to that gold. Now its easy to see the third objective - those players doing their utmost to remove that barrier.
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Re:He didn't address suitability of it as a ereade
Taco may have skipped this issue, but other reviewers haven't:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/193389/ipad_as_ereader_glaring_problems_promising_apps.html?tk=twt_strohmy
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ipad_ebooks_kindle_for_ipad_ibooks.phpBased purely on my iPhone (also known as "the precious"), I would skip the iPad and get a Kindle if reading is your primary goal. If you want to do all sorts of stuff, and read books too, then you may be happier with the iPad.
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This is just about price increases
Posting anonymously because I'm an employee, but in the short-term, this is simply a way of extracting more money from existing customers who will be forced to pay the "Oracle tax". Oracle raised prices in 2008 and 2009, but this year we were told "you have to increase revenues, but can't just keep raising the product prices". The solution? Sell more of existing product or sell new products. The trouble is, any new products (either developed or acquired) need some time to get traction. What better way to boost revenue than to find critical Oracle-owned components that we aren't charging for and beginning to charge? Sure, customers have a choice technically, but in reality any company heavily invested in Solaris will find it too costly to switch in the short term.
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Re:It helps to be honest, as well
From time to time, I try out the following query on Bing: "Why is Windows so expensive?"
The day that the first result returned is NOT a site about Macs being expensive is the day I'll start to take Bing seriously. Until then, I'm sticking with Google, which is at least honest enough to properly index anti-Google queries.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/bings_bias_tinfoil_hats_dont_seem_neccesary_yet.php
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Re:Yeah...
He is either stupid or just trolling. Newer Windows are just as secure as Linux/BSD. It's the users who are dumb and as a mainstream OS and the one that everyone uses, there's going to be idiots.
To see how clueless people actually are, see comments on this article. People were googling for "facebook login" and suddenly that page jumped on top of results.
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Re:Internet on TV? Really?
Microsoft apparently claimed the WebTV branding why not have an offering by Google? It appears that from now on what Google does Microsoft will do and vice-versa.
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Re:WTF?
Actually they're probably googling Facebook.com instead of just typing it in the address bar.
Well, yes. That was the entire point of my post, it was a reference to the ReadWriteWeb incident mentioned by other correspondents. Sometimes I wonder if slashdot users are any more intelligent than those who tried to log in to Facebook via the ReadWriteWeb article.
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Re:WTF?
Actually, they are googling for facebook and getting hilariously confused with the result:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php
After that article went up dozens of people found it googling for "facebook login", and then proceeded to leave scathing comments about the "new" facebook design.
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Re:A link to the article would be nice.
And I thought that people mistaking a blog post about Facebook for Facebook meant the end of humanity. Now articles are getting posted without links? Of course we can google everything, but what are we lazy people going to do if we don't know what a URL bar is and only use our internets to play Farmville?
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Re:The stats from October
Back in Oct 09 there were 4 million jailbroken iphones, of those at 38% have at least one pirated application. The numbers are real and growing. In order for the app store to be a viable business Apple has to protect the IP of the app holders. It's really sad, because there are great free uses of jail broken phones. It's too bad the pirate community ruined things for the free software community.
So I suppose you support DRM too. Sheesh
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Re:I don't believe it
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The stats from October
Back in Oct 09 there were 4 million jailbroken iphones, of those at 38% have at least one pirated application. The numbers are real and growing. In order for the app store to be a viable business Apple has to protect the IP of the app holders. It's really sad, because there are great free uses of jail broken phones. It's too bad the pirate community ruined things for the free software community.
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This has already happened
Already happened, and we have proof: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php#comments
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Re:It wouldn't be a problem
I've also worked in one company that used only MS software because they had a huge contract and preferred the one-vendor solution, even when some cases would call for a better solution from another source
It will more likely be the "one-vendor" solution with tons of third party support.
The corporate accounting program that integrates seamlessly with Excel. That sort of thing.
"Better" doesn't always have the same meaning to the office manager or department head that it does to the geek.
The geek doesn't have to recruit and train the clerical worker.
He remains relatively distant from the core issues of productivity in the office environment.
It's fair to say that the emergence of something like Sharepoint can still take him by surprise.
Newsgator has always had deep ties with Microsoft. it began as a news aggregator that embedded into Outlook. In recent years, Newsgator has transformed into a collaboration provide that is clearly focused on integrating with Sharepoint. Tomoye was founded in 2000. Its most significant installation is with the U.S. Army, where it has 150,000 users. Customers include the Federal Reserve Bank, The United States Air Force and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Newsgator Acquires Tomoye - Deepening Sharepoint Ties [Jan 20]
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Re:Big Battle
If I had moderator points, I would mod you up.
You and so many people that forget how Microsoft got here. Any other search engine as garbage as MSN would have been forgotten by now. Microsoft has driven their search engines through many generations each of which was terrible. If there was real competition in the IT market, other search companies than MS would be able to compete with Google.
The thing to remember is that Bing is great at everything except actually delivering search results. In your search results you want something you can trust and understand, but as we've discussed before. Even today, when Microsoft has tried to hide these problems, when you search for "Why is Microsoft Windows so expensive?" you'll find that on Microsoft's results the page "Why are Macs so expensive?" is high in the top ten whilst doing the same search on Google manages to find plenty more on topic material.
Microsoft amnesia is astounding. Take the last example; Microsoft has biased results, they get caught; they change their results to hide the bias better. Within days we have postings all over the internet denying they were ever biased.
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Re:Check for the signed label!
However, in Pinch Media's case, the user tracking goes a bit further according to one iPhone developer. He says applications using Pinch Media track the following information:
* iPhone's unique ID
* iPhone model
* OS version
* Application version (in this case, camera zoom 1.x)
* If the application is cracked/pirated
* If your iPhone is jailbroken
* Time & date you start the application
* Time & date you close the application
* Your current latitude & longitude
* Your gender (if Facebook enabled)
* Your birth month (if Facebook enabled)
* Your birth year (if Facebook enabled)What's worse is that you're often never told that the app will be performing this level of detailed tracking and you're often never given the opportunity to opt-out. The data recorded is continuously tracked every time you use the application. This violation of user privacy is so egregious that the developer even goes so far as to call Pinch Media "iPhone spyware."
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/dear_iphone_users_your_apps_are_spying_on_you.php
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response to Chromium has been rather lukewarm
"It's the morning after the big Chrome OS event
.. now that the news is out, has Chrome OS lost its shine?"
Chromium OS has been out one whole day and already you can tell it's reception is lukewarm. Maybe you should be doing magic future prediction acts on television, like Derren Brown predicting what the lottery results are going to be. -
Re:Security
I don't hear anyone complaining about security breaches, viruses, spyware, and malware in general on the iPhone
Then you haven't been paying attention. Any iPhone app can read your entire contacts list and upload it to the internet, including your own phone number and details. This hasn't just happened once. It's happened more than once. Who knows how many of those 100,000 apps do this?
It's a fallacy that the app stores approval process can catch malware. Apples inspections aren't deep or focussed enough to do that and there are examples of this problem in action. Contrast this to Android. If an app reads your phones data Android tells you that up front when you install it. Apps cannot access that data if they don't have permission to it. That's how real security works - the idea that overworked reviewers who spend less than an hour on any given app are a replacement for sandboxing is crazy.
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Re:Pussy. There, I said it.For those who haven't figured it out, the summary is wrong. It's not "feline-inspired".
In the comments section of the article, one user posted a single word response referring to a part of a woman's anatomy. Of course, the site's moderators quickly deleted the comment but it soon reappeared - obviously this juvenile was intent on having their say.
A guy's sitting on a plane and - HOLY SMOKE - the POPE is in the next seat!
Not wanting to disturb his Holyness, the guy discretely looks, and sees the pope is engrossed in a crossword puzzle.
A minute later, the pope clears his throat and says "Excuse me, do you know a 4-letter word for a woman that ends in 'u-n-t'"?
The guy turns red, embarrassed. Finally, he realizes - "AUNT"!
The pope thanks him, then says "You wouldn't happen to have an eraser?"
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Re:"We reserve the right"it could just be a hoax. from the comments:
Just a month ago Greenbaum wrote an article and tweeted about hoaxes in the media. What motivates people to do them, etc.
Now, it sounds like all the details come straight from Greenbaum. ...http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/leaving_a_vulgar_comment_online_might_cost_you_your_job.php#comment-169438 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/leaving_a_vulgar_comment_online_might_cost_you_your_job.php#comment-169602
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Re:"We reserve the right"it could just be a hoax. from the comments:
Just a month ago Greenbaum wrote an article and tweeted about hoaxes in the media. What motivates people to do them, etc.
Now, it sounds like all the details come straight from Greenbaum. ...http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/leaving_a_vulgar_comment_online_might_cost_you_your_job.php#comment-169438 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/leaving_a_vulgar_comment_online_might_cost_you_your_job.php#comment-169602
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One commenter is spot-on
The comment on the article above is spot on in their observations. A line was crossed by Greenbaum and he should be sued and his employer should fire him.
Read the comment. He violated the terms of service.
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Re:Bit.ly?
bit.ly is huge on twitter. It has mostly replaced tinyurl there. It became the default url shortener for twitter earlier in the year.
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It's Been Done.
It's been done, at least to a certain extent. Buzzeromatic. From a post I wrote about them on ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/09/filter-your-front-door-buzzero.php Apartment-dwellers, rejoice. Seattle-based startup Buzzeromatic is letting you take control of your own front door in a way that's smart and flexible. The premise is simple: Using Twilio's VoIP API, Buzzeromatic allows subscribers to grant access to visitors, allow delivery folks to leave voice messages,and create passwords for frequent guests, all from a web interface with SMS commands for when users are on the go. And yes, there's an app for that: The team told us their fully functional iPhone application is in the hopper. Co-founder Andres Krogh told us that he and a friend bootstrapped their startup. "The only reason we're able to pull it off is because of the explosion of commodity VoIP APIs like Twilio lately that make it somewhat cost effective." Users can customize their building buzzers' behavior from the web interface at any time. Krogh explained, "You can set up passwords for folks to let themselves in with, or have it call a bunch of numbers until it finds you (similar to Google Voice), or both. You can also let people leave voicemails at the door, if all else fails." They feel the password function will be particularly useful for those who have party guests or others, such as family members or a cleaning service, who need to be granted regular access to a user's apartment. Access can also be narrowed to a particular time of day; for example, your maid's password would only work during the day, but your pizza delivery guy's password could grant him access any time between noon and midnight.
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Re:Security issues with Google Chrome?
Most, yes, but there were a couple leaks (I believe with docs?) that didn't revolve around this.
Anyway, since I've actually been encouraged to do the research, my point can stand without relying on comparison to their security in more long-running products...
Actually, looking over the articles, I believe there are only three distinct flaws reported in this set, but my google search seemed to indicate there are more.
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Re:Security issues with Google Chrome?
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Re:Security issues with Google Chrome?
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Re:That was a good example.
On the second point, in fact it's EASIER to set parental restrictions on linux. Case in point, a quick google search brings up a firefox plugin:
Glubble
Install this, a few chmod's later, and your kids won't be able to do anything but browse the intarweb on websites you want them to. They could easily download chrome on windows, isntall it locally (or get a firefox/chrome version that runs from USB drive and run an unmodified browser). GL @ that if the parent who wants to impart "control" actually knows anything about linux. -
Re:Free speech and democracy?
Google owns Youtube which is into providing specific government content and the first place to receive some of the content. Google is also directly involved with the government as a company as well as Google's founder had given extreme amounts of money and support to Obama. The pay off, well that's somewhat of a question but Obama put Google for government together, here is the US site and is expected to endorse quit a few laws that Google favors. There was even a pay off attempt.
Some people even believe that Google manipulated search results and canceled account of blogs critical of Obama. I'm not sure how accurate that is but here is something should be noted. I found in other blogs (which I can't seem to find right now) that at least with the accounts being canceled, the official Google reason is that people are filing complaints about them being spam blogs or racist speech and somehow no one at google is checking it before deleting the accounts, information, or posts.
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Re:Free speech and democracy?
None of the images you linked get to the heart of this issue, which is copyright. We only have evidence of one photoshopped Obama image being pulled, and it also happens to use a TIME magazine cover as its source. Regardless of their political motivations, about which I make no claim (yet!), copyright violation of TIME's image is a valid reason for them to pull the cover. Others including the submitter have mentioned that the image is parody, but not every manipulation is parody and I don't think the case for parody is obvious here--what aspect of TIME are they parodying?
The parody would be of times support and advocacy of Obama. Oboma has been on the cover of time magazine 7 times since he took office with another issue coming soon to make it eight. In 2008, he was on the in time mag almost 30 times with a total of 23 times to date on the cover since 2006.
Now here is something of concern. Copyright law explicitly protects flickr from copyright actions based on third party users of their service. Secondly, if Flickr was legitimatly concerned with copyright, then why are they ignoring all the other posted photos of Time magazine's covers. No DMCA take down has been claims as the core reasoning for the concern here. To date, it is just Flickr attempting to claim a concern in an area they hold legal protection from. But this isn't Flickr's first time protecting the administration.
This is, as others have said, perfectly within Flickr's rights, but the Streisand Effect has taken hold and it will probably bite them in the ass now whether the image is infringing or not, especially if the fact that there are tons of other infringing images remaining is spotlighted. It would be interesting to hear comments from Flickr about the takedown, though the article states that they won't respond. Tsk tsk.
I'm not entirely sure it is within their rights. Flickr holds some exclusive contracts with the government and is the only source for a lot of government information. Before I go further, I want you and anyone else reading to imagine a situation were all video content and speeches made by Bush was only availible at Fox News.
Anyways, without the content being availible on other sites as a matter of government policy, I'm not sure how they can promote political favoritism or specific political ideals. If it isn't illegal (as in using government resources for political gain), it should be and It's probably unethical for both flickr and the federal government to be in a practice where the sole source of some public information forces the exposure of certain political ideals and methodologies. I think it would be more obvious if you could only find white house pictures at the republican national comity website. I don't see this as much different when it is apparent that Flickr is pushing a political message. I mean they have taken down images and obliterated accounts of people critical of obama. I'm not sure how that isn't a kickback for those contracts in the least.
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Re:Free speech and democracy?
Well, lets take a look really quick.
on the home page for flickr, I simply types Bush in the search box and found these results in the first few replies.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bar-art/1549247793/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inkvision/43028237/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrwaldo/309309512/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eduardo_dacosta/511117225/I think the one that probably shows the most evidence of this is this one.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmj/5799991/
Notice the caption "it's true, photo's don't lie".Yea, it's obvious that they are protecting Obama. Probably because Obama has decided to steer a bunch of government money/usage their way with making the government sites on Flickr.
BTW, when I searched for Obama, it was about 10 pages in before I found the first photo criticizing him.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/3834570613/It's nothing more then a re-posting of the pulled photo with a story under it about the action. I wonder how long it will stay there?
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Worse than bait-and-switch
1. Provide a good service, a tool, a format.
2. Make it cheap.
3. Wait 'til everyone uses it because it was cheap.
4. Jack up the price.
5. Profit.eBay paid $2.6B for Skype, so I think the handful of people that created it made a (ridiculous) profit. eBay bought Skype and let the founders keep the rights to part of the software which is amazingly stupid IMHO. TFA doesn't even say why Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis revoked the license, but after getting $2.6B they better have a damn good reason. This blog seems to imply the founders want to buy Skype back. [1]
[1] Preview didn't show the line, so just in case:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/skype_as_we_know_it_may_not_exist_much_longer_ebay.php -
Let me try to understand something
is your APP pure HTML, or does it contain JavaScript code like the PhoneGap project uses?
If it contains JavaScript code, maybe Apple didn't like the way it was designed as it was similar to the old PhoneGap code they rejected, did you update your JavaScript code to the new PhoneGap codebase that was approved, or did you remove the old PhoneGap code with different JavaScript code?
If your APP is HTML with JavaScript, Apple might have an issue with that. Sometimes JavaScript code can do nonstandard things that locks up a web browser or causes incompatibility issues. When I programmed in JavaScript I had to keep changing my code to changing Web browser standards, as soon as a new web browser was released, the way JavaScript worked would change and I had to change my code to accommodate it.
If it is pure HTML, there might be tags you are using that Apple finds non-standard and thinks they might run exploited code.
Here is a story on why Apple rejected the PhoneGap framework in the first place.
Yeah I know, Apple wants to protect their users and set quality control standards high, and they include such rules as not using third party or open source frameworks, and Apple does not want the APP modified on the iPhone after being bought, Apple does not want the APP to run on a competitor's phone (HTML and JavaScript applications can easily be ported to another format), and PhoneGap type applications may not work on future iPhones, it is all a matter of risk management. Apple does not want to risk anything so it sets strict guidelines on what an iPhone APP can and cannot do.
Yeah ironically Apple has exchanged freedom for security, and in doing so shut out developers like yourself. Even something as simple as HTML code and/or JavaScript has to be reviewed and has a possibility of being rejected. It goes against the open source philosophy, I don't know what else to say. Even Microsoft is not that strict on what can and cannot be done on their smart phones or Windows OS. Except to say that Microsoft's products are more prone to exploits and viruses and other malware, and maybe Apple is doing this kind of thing to prevent exploits in their iPhone?
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Re:And yet...
He's an idiot for using a system he knows Apple don't allow. It would only be capricious of Apple if they have no reason for rejecting PhoneGap apps. Clearly they DO have reasons.
Here's some possible reasons.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_is_apple_rejecting_phonegap-built_iphone_apps.phpBut really it doesn't matter what the reasons are. To keep submitting an app that uses a framework you know isn't allowed is just dumb.
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Back up the Data Files to the Cloud
Ghost Virtual Machine gives 15gigs of Amazon.com data storage and right now if you use the promotion code of "launch" you get 10Gigs more as a bonus for 25Gigs. If you want to give me a referral my id is orion_blastar there, and each person you referred grants you 5Gigs more in a bonus.
Google Docs also has document storage but does not give as much as G.ho.st does. The Ghost Virtual Machine can access your Google Docs drive as well.
Here is a review of the top 5 online cloud storage sites so you can take your pick.
MyBloop offers unlimited free storage, but I am not 100% sure of that or their privacy policy.
Lifehacker talks about using your Yahoo Mail account for unlimited storage and also that Google's GMail almost offers the same service as well.
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Re:Let me be the first one to say it ...
Because copyright law has continually gotten fairer for the individual and there is not a single case of industry pushing for new legislation to strengthen the right holder's side of an an already extremely unbalanced system.
If you don't believe the system has changed that much then just look here
If you need to know exactly what changed here is the wikipedia article on the U.S. DMCA which was copied in one form or another by most other first world contries.
It's even gotten so extreme now that they have even passed a law to get the government to enforce what is basically a civil matter. Seen here -
Re:Twitter?
Because it couldn't possibly be that Apple users like the products, is that the thinking?
The messages are all identical.
Image FTA: Apple tweets
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Seems to be affiliates, not the main companies
Following a path of links from the article gets to the original research behind this.
From the comments on there it seems that the advertising is coming from affiliates, not from the companies themselves. This still makes it a problem for those who use Twitter, but it's a case of "MS Software cheap" or "Get a free MacBook Air"-style spam rather than the major companies themselves making use of this. Well, for the moment at least anyway.
It's not the first time I've come across it - a recent Mac promo (MacHeist? Think so) offered a free copy of DevonTHINK to anyone would would put certain text in their feeds. I'm not a Twitter user myself and didn't want to sign up to do that, but it does represent the first time I saw a "please spam twitter" call going out.
Cheers,
Ian -
Re:Meh
Firefox is going to switch the tab ordering (which I agree seems to be a better way to do it).
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Last fall
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Contradicts Another Study
I find this story confusing as it contradicts another study that the best time to post a new blog post is Thursday - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_study_shows_best_and_worst.php
While the worst time is on the weekends. -
Re:Read as: "We've got tons of talented engineers.
No offense, but I think we differe a bit on what we term a 'product.' Google docs is a great start to a possible future product; unfortunately, it has egregious shorcomings. Does Google say its ready? No, so it's ok that it's missing incredibly basic features (see http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_docs_fail.php for an example of many ridiculous things you cannot do - although Google has fixed a couple of these over the past year.) The spreadsheet app is the best of the lot from Google and it still needs TONS of work to be an actual product (ignoring the very serious issues of expecting people to trust a public company with private data more than they have to.)
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sleep disorders
In the news recently:
1. Sleep talking
2. Sleep walking
3. Sleep eating (ambien)
4. Sleep emailing
what is next?
5. Sleep texting
Gmail Goggles could be helpful, but has not been field tested yet. -
Re:Here's what'll happen
INCORRECT, it depends on Silverlight. Quote: "Microsoft clarified in an email that these apps will use HTML and AJAX, but also Silverlight components." --Source
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Re:The real key is AJAXMicrosoft Office Web involves SILVERLIGHT . SilverLight is patent encumbered and Novell could only make their MoonLight equivalent with deals in Microsoft.
This is not AJAX other than treating JavaScript as a bootstrap loader for SilverLight's
.Net VM. It only works in Firefox and Safari in the same way that Flash or Java Applets do. -
Re:same ol, same ol
Let me know when there's a nice ipod-like device with 8-16GB of flash, a nice touch screen (with or without keyboard), sans-phone that runs Android, for about $250. Then I'll get excited about Android. In the meantime my ipodtouch is everything I've ever wanted in a PDA, except that the open source ecosystem is very stunted, thanks to Apple's controlling view of things, and also the so-called shareware scene that has always pervaded Macdom. Paying a buck for some stupid little app doesn't sit well with me, especially when I'd often write the app for myself for free based on OSS if I could, but I can't. I don't own a Mac that I can run Xcode 3.1 on, I don't want to pay apple for a provisioning key.
So why not go the next step and jailbreak your iPod Touch? It is still a valid option, and there's tons of little apps (many of which Apple obviously won't allow in their app store). If you had an iPhone, you could download a tethering app rather than pay for NetShare (which is gone). Heck, Podcaster started as a jailbreak application. And given the installer of choice is Cydia, well, apt-get and dpkg are your friends. And you can develop your own apps, too!
Here's a small list of 10 must-have apps for your jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch. In particular, I do recommend MxTube - download and watch YouTube videos (rather than stream the videos). I don't think there's any other mobile platform that has a YouTube app that downloads the videos for later replay (offline).
Sure it's not a true open platform, but more like console systems that everyone finds fun in hacking.
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Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . .IOW, he sent them the message that they need better DRM so he has no choice but to pay in order to play.
I don't think even EA would be that dense.
Spore is still one of the worst rated games on Amazon. Since its release it has been given a rating of only 1 star by more than 50% of its reviewers. The majority of these ratings address problems with the DRM system.