Hi everyone!

I’ve got a ton of stuff running around at the moment, so I’m not going to beat around the bush – I’m having a bit of trouble primming the blog as of recently.  However, as usual, I’ve also got stuff being planned for the future – and it’s really drastic stuff.  Like, life-altering stuff.

Anyway, firstly: I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.5 – and wow.  While WordPress 2.3 focused on mainly functionality, WordPress 2.5 definitely re-worked the GUI.  I’m very impressed by the control panel change, and I’m not even exaggerating.  Like – wow.

Secondly, I’m planning on an opportunity to start another blog – one more targeted, because I realize that it’s an uphill battle when one man decides to try to take on the entire tech industry.  I’m not giving up the war, but fighting the battle with a different strategy.

Finally, thanks for being so patient with me, as usual, my readers.  However, I’m surprised – my ZLoop community is a lot more quiet than I thought it’d be – where’s the spirit?  Haha.

From,

Herbert

As an internet junkie and a blogger, you can be pretty sure that I’ve found some ways to spend time on the internet. Sometimes, when I lack inspiration or just a topic to write about, I decide to drop by one of these sites. They are either my current regulars or have been in the past – in fact, I probably visit them a lot more than I should.

Disclaimer – these three types of places can concentrate your focus rather than dilute it, so don’t plan on multi-tasking.

1. Tower Defense

First and foremost, you can definitely not start the list without Tower Defense. It’s an extremely addicting game and can get frustration right out of your system – if you win. It also takes a lot of brain power, so I guess it’s safe to say that it trains your analytical thinking. Right.

2. Other Blogs

To be specific, I drop by two blogs at least once a day:

• Problogger
• Copyblogger
  
• Engadget
• Gizmodo

Surprised? Yep – I focus on blogging more than technology. I figure that news is one thing, but crafting and creating the whole article is a complete other. Besides, I find much more interesting news on Dailytech. Who needs more tech blogs around (har har)?

3. Forums

I’ve got three forums to tell you about:

• APH Networks
• Neowin
• Howard Forums

Each of these forums have contributed individually to my understanding and insight on technology as it is today – and I do constantly and consistently learn more information from them on a regular basis. They’re all great communities, but with very different ideals and cultures.

Still Bored?

Visit CutEdge and check out the WorthWhiles, my archives, or post comments or give me some e-mail love, I always appreciate it. Better yet, tell me what you like to do when you’re bored on the web.

Drawing more information from the well of Dailytech, I’ve discovered to my delight that Motorola will definitely remain in the mobile phone game.  In fact, Motorola’s so dedicated that they’ve decided to split into two separate companies – one dedicated to mobile phones and the other focused upon broadband and mobility services that the corporate companies and governments are just eatin’ right up.

This is great news.  A few months ago, I wrote about this predicament mostly with pessimism and regret because of the seeming lack of hope for the company.  However, I must say that I’m awed by Motorola’s resiliency and dedication to the business.  Damn, I feel good.

Now I don’t mean to be rude, but I hope they finally succeed this time around.  They need a revolutionary product like the original RAZR, one that challenges everything that we’ve come to define a cell phone as.  Sure, they can improve upon the products and step the camera’s megapixels up all they want – but I think all that has already come to a peak.  Someone out there is going to figure out an excellent idea, and once they do, they’re going to make their company extremely rich people.

Source: http://d.yimg.com/…fault-512×365.jpg

Visit:

http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp?globalObjectId=9430_9359_23

After acquiring some information from Dailytech, I’ve learned that Sony BMG is developing an all-you-can-download buffet style subscription program.   The files will be DRM-free, possibly even after the subscription has canceled.  That’s the absolutely galling part – could someone march right in there for a month and download all the songs from the Sony BMG catalog, and then cancel and never pay another dime.  …Right?

Source: http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/7696_large_Rolf%20Schmidt-Holtz.jpg

I think that it’s definitely a shame we’ve underestimated CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz and the entire Sony team to such an extent.  If they ever plan to use such a service, I highly doubt that the downloads per month (or day) would be unlimited – perhaps they will adopt a similar pricing scheme as eMusic’s.  Basically, you pay a certain price for 25 downloads per month, a higher price for a higher number.  Not a bad idea, to be honest.

The only question is if this is going to be implemented into the MusicPass program.  And to this, I really have no idea – on one hand, MusicPass looked as though it was an alternative to just CDs, but now I think it’ll be easy to spread the branding to an online store.  I hope that they have success with this DRM-free idea, as it’s going to be the way of the future.  No strings attached.

No, I know how to spell I. I just thought it’d be more interesting if I wrote it up like this, haha. Anyway, lately I’ve been getting back into the whole Internet TV thing and found a nice competitor to Joost, called Miro. Apparently, it’s been considered the Firefox of Internet TV. That’s a huge name to live up to.

I would thought that Miro’s installer came in quite a decent, acceptable size at 24.5mb. I’ve heard rumours of it being bloatware, but I figure that Miro 1.2 has stepped up the game a bit. Installation on my Vista machine was a breeze, and within five minutes of the whole process I was ready to go.

Why I tried Miro

Lately, I’ve been finding Joost very unresponsive and sluggish. To be honest, this is the case with many pieces of software out there – however, this is absolutely unacceptable when it comes to watching media, when I transform from the logical-minded blogger into the irrational, emotional, human being just enjoying a good video.

Miro works very differently in comparison to Joost – where Joost streams videos (and there might lie the problem), Miro downloads them – and even though I’ll admit it takes a while longer to download, it’s much more responsive overall and thus I can admire and appreciate that. Plus, an added goodie – some clips that are downloaded are already in .mp4 format and so can be put on my iPod Video (Glassy) for additional viewing.

Also, Miro acts as a medium for playing clips that can be found on huge video networks such as Youtube and Veoh. The quality isn’t that great, but there’s definitely a lot more material available. Ahh, so many clips to choose from.

Does it Work?

It sure does – pretty darn smoothly, in fact. I was able to download a few of their HD clips from their servers in less than half a minute, which is a great, fast time. Not as fast as real TV, but a hell of a lot faster than Joost was for me. Also, thanks to my widescreen format, the videos fit pretty nicely onto the screen – but shucks, not on the iPod’s.

There’s a huge variety of stuff available – from the tech-savvy channels to discovery. The content is interesting if the subject floats your boat, and they’re all pretty good quality.

The other movie clips you decide to download from Youtube and Veoh take an amazingly long time though – for their small sizes, they’re very sluggish (around 30.1kb/s). I’m definitely not impressed, but this can’t be helped by Miro because they have nothing to do with such a speed – they’re just the mediums, after all.

At the moment, I haven’t gone through Channels yet, but I’ll be adding that to the article soon enough.

Another interesting aspect of Miro – you can upload your own channel on there! Now I’m not sure if CutEdge is going to have its own RSS video feed on Miro anytime soon, but for all you aspiring directors and/or producers, this is a great opportunity for all of you.

Conclusion

Miro – if you’ve got more than 3Mbps connection, I’ll definitely recommend you get it. However, if you’re on the lower end of the spectrum, I suggest that you leave your computer on at night to download some of this stuff. If you haven’t got cable television (or digital cable) or just want high-quality videos to download to your computer or iPod for viewing, give Miro a try!

Visit:

http://www.getmiro.com/

http://www.getmiro.com/create/

The social networking landscape is growing bleak. With Facebook and Myspace dominating the market, developers hoping to break into this potential gold mine are forced to do it with a new approach. An example of a successful new concept being implemented into the internet would be Ning, a portal where users can create their own social networks. Recently, I came into contact with a new social network called ZLoop, and you’re just going to have to keep reading to see what sets it apart from the rest of those darned social networks. Trust me, it’s definitely interesting.

A week ago, ZLoop evangelist Mr. Brett Meyers contacted me and made me aware of a new up and coming social network, called ZLoop. ZLoop’s main feature that sets it apart from all the other social networks is called a Loop, which is essentially a group or community of people. Membership is purely invitational, which sort of limits the amount of undesirable spam users. Through the Loop, you can transfer files, hold discussions, and potentially meet new people within your Loop. Now that I’m done conveying the main idea of ZLoop to you, I want to move on to issues that you will perhaps have encountered.

Another Facebook?

After talking to a few friends about ZLoop, I was asked what the difference was between ZLoop and Facebook. I actually posed such a question to Meyers through our pre-ZLoop question/answer session. Let’s not beat around the bush – they’re both extremely similar:

• Facebook and ZLoop both use a single GUI in order to keep order and adaptability. Otherwise, a well-intentioned “theme is self-expression” mantra would end up leading to the cluttered, messy, and very disorienting space we call MySpace.
• Facebook and ZLoop are both used to replicate real life relationships – it is a Facebook faux-pas to add friends online that you don’t know in real life, and the same goes for ZLoop. In fact, I think it’s somewhat impossible to add friends that you have no connection with through ZLoop, because you won’t be able to find them.

However, this is where the differences lie:

• What kind of relationships do each focus upon?
  • Facebook suggests you join a network during the sign-up process. However, that can be completely negligible and you will probably still be able to find your friends. Thus, I’ve concluded that Facebook focuses on one-on-one relationships. Sure, there’s the network – but you don’t do anything with the people in it. Sure, there are groups – you join what you believe in, but you have no real connection with the other people in the group asides from the shared beliefs – which hasn’t kept members from becoming awfully hostile.
  • ZLoop on the other hand, rallies the network together. It is more of a community-based network instead of an individual-based one, as you are required to join a Loop in order to join ZLoop, and thus you already start off in a Loop. Even though there still could be people you don’t know, the discussions are moderated carefully by the administrators as well as members – as members are given the power to report a post. It’s much more like a forum, but it’s got a lot more functionality (ie. again with the file-sharing, event-planning, etc.).
• Privacy
  • Facebook allows you to see practically anybody’s profile in your network – as long as they don’t have privacy set up. I can’t tell you how the thought of some complete stranger reading about my hobbies and interests disturbs me – I don’t know why, it just doesn’t seem right.
  • ZLoop’s relationships are much different. There is no public wall. In fact, the relationship is very similar to a Loop with just two people in it – that way, nobody can see the conversations the two of you held, or the files you transferred, etcetera.

Hopefully, that clears up the confusion about ZLoop being another Facebook. They’re completely different, asides from having a few common, but minor traits that made Facebook famous.

Copy-Ning?

I’m embarassed to admit it, but I somehow got the impression that ZLoop and Ning were very similar. In terms of nature, they might be quite alike, as they draw communities together – but again, Ning is a networking site to meet new people with, whereas ZLoop replicates real-life relationships and takes it to an online dimension. ‘Nuff said.

Back That Loop Idea

If the Loop idea is still a bit fuzzy to you, I’m hoping this next segment will be able to clear things up a bit. To re-iterate, a Loop is a community where you replicate your online relationships. For example, you work for Company A, which has just created a Loop. Company A sells aPods, and you’re a junior designer. You join the new Company A Loop after hearing it announced at work, and then your buddy Joe tells you that he created a Loop just for Company A’s junior designers. You end up joining that Loop too. Your father tells you a few days after that he, too, has created a Loop – this time, for the family. So now, you’re in three Loops – and will probably end up in a bunch more.

Let’s stick with the Company A Loop:

• Thanks to Company A’s encouragement, everybody from Company A joins the Loop. The CEO sees that it’s time for the annual barbecue – he can:
  • Hold a conversation asking what everyone thinks of the proposed location and date.
  • Upload a .pdf file, which is an invitation showing the location and date.
  • Create an Event showing the same thing.
  • After the barbecue, display the photos on the Loop.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg – something similar could happen with the family, or with those junior designers. The Loop makes everything so much easier – it’s all in one universal location, not laid out through different forums and groups, and event-listings. And – dig this, you can join as many Loops as you want!

Privacy Protection

I’m really pleased with how far ZLoop went to protect user privacy. With all the buzz about Facebook profiles being scoped by potential employers, I figure they’d be darned if they didn’t do something about it – especially for such a social network that could end up so corporate-oriented. And so, ZLoop created their identity manager:

• Essentially, you start off with two identities: Professional and Social.
  • Your Professional identity allows you to choose what you want people that you maintain professional relationships with to see – not those embarassing photos, but your more serious side.
  • Your Social identity is the exact opposite, and lets people in on your real side.
• That’s not all – you can create more identities to serve different purposes – don’t want your company or your family to see that embarassing picture that you only want your graduating class Loop to see? Create a new Identity, and make the picture the avatar.

I’ve also already mentioned about how ZLoop doesn’t let any third-party view your profile or conversations with others, whether it be a curious friend or a scary stalker. Relationships in this case are a Loop between two people, basically. Simple enough to understand – you can hold conversations, transfer files, and do everything else you can in a Loop with that individual.

The Future

With the growing popularity of widgets, ZLoop has began development of their own widgets, called Portlets. Examples of Portlets would be the Conversation Portlet and Event Portlet that we have already spoken of. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. With the growing popularity of ZLoop comes the development of more Portlets to suit the needs of its users.

Conclusion

I’ve started a CutEdge Loop which I’d love for you all to join by visiting this URL here. By doing this, you’re not only joining the CutEdge Loop and showing your support, but also gaining access to possibly the newest revolution out there. You can then also create your own Loops, and invite family members and friends and co-workers on board.

Although I’m not sure if this CutEdge Loop idea would work – as we don’t have any real-life relationships to maintain, I have a feeling that we’ll still turn out to be a strong community – something like a set of forums, but also as a way to get new people to meet and share their ideas and opinions through conversations. I hope to be a major participant through ZLoop, if enough people join (my expectations are low, so please sign-up).

Thus wraps up my somewhat comprehensive view into ZLoop. Hopefully, I didn’t bore you half to death – I looked through my previous draft, and ended up cutting half of the material out, but still found this to be a relatively long article. I hope you do give ZLoop a try, even if not through the CutEdge Loop, which is a great way to gain access to ZLoop. Also, pardon the lack of images – there aren’t any Loops I’m part of to show you – yet. And remember – ZLoop is unique, not just another pretty Facebook or Ning.

If you want more information on ZLoop, they’ve got a great Help/FAQ page to help the non-users get started and educated.

Visit:

http://zloop.com/

http://zloop.com/help_index/

https://www.zloop.com/portal/Login.html?loopkey=cutedge&keypassword=cutedge

Apparently so, according to Dailytech.  The latest version of SlySoft AnyDVD HD came with the ability to rip the Blu-ray DVD’s movie in high-def.  As both a tech enthusiast and a pretty stereotypical asian, I must say that I’m pretty interested in such a piece of news.  However, let it be known that I don’t pirate.  After all, if I started pirating, it could wreck the delicate balance between the two worlds of legitimacy and piracy.

Source: http://img.infotropic.com/i/061224_1g.jpg

What does this mean?  Since Blu-Ray’s defense has been cracked before, I suppose that Sony will be forced to invent a third method of encrypting the data.  And they’ll have to do it soon – because if they let this go as rampant as the forging of fake DVDs do, the Blu-Ray market will be saturated with cheap, fake copies of movies in their original high-definition format.  What a nightmare for the movie industry.

As a loyal movie fan (not a fanatic, just a fan), I suggest that you be very careful about which side you decide to take.  Sure, the piracy might seem much more affordable, but if everyone thought like that on a larger scale, we wouldn’t have any new movies to watch because the companies would all go broke.  They’re still fatcats – for now, but let’s face it: they’re not as fat as they once used to be.

2008 has been a huge year for Ultralight PC’s.  First and foremost, we saw the Asus EEE PC hitting store shelves and selling like hotcakes.  Their success has motivated Asus to create a whole line of computers based on the EEE branding, actually.   Then, at MacWorld ’08, Steve Jobs announced the coming of the Macbook Air.  Now, Lenovo’s hyped-up X300 is seeing its debut.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2008/01/x300.jpg

The Lenovo X300 isn’t exactly the most well-hidden surprise of the year.  The picture right above this paragraph is one of the few that had been leaked and publicized by blogs such as Gizmodo a couple of months ago.  Many a critic had complained that the Lenovo X300 doesn’t look as “sexy” as the Macbook Air – and I find myself agreeing.  However, contrary to skepticism, I find myself thinking that the Lenovo X300 doesn’t have to look pretty to sell.

Source: http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2008/02/x300_small.jpg

It’s a corporate product – simple as that.  In fact, since when was the last time Lenovo (or IBM for that matter) popular with the mainstream consumer world?  Probably around the same time you purchased your old beige IBM box – around eight years ago, when StarCraft was still popular.  In fact, I’ve got very vivid memories of purchasing it, one of the most exciting and defining moments of my life (I was wow-ed by the fish and maze screensavers on the Windows ’98 though, I feel obligated to admit).

Back on topic – thanks to its business appeal, it doesn’t have to look good.  All it has to do is perform, be affordable, and work.  That’s it.  The two products are directed towards different crowds, which is why they look so different event though they’re both ULPCs.  Hopefully I didn’t come off to angry, I just felt the need to express my own opinions urgently.  Besides, my first computer was an IBM – so get off their backs (ha ha, just kidding – hate them all you want, I assure you that I don’t mind).  Also, its got an optical drive: a DVD-burner, in fact, for copying those secret documents.  Oooh, aaah.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/706311.jpg 

What this does mean, though, is that Lenovo has made a strategic move in capturing the market.  With Apple focused on the mainstream markets, Lenovo snuck around them and went straight to the corporations, and this will perhaps decrease the number of Macbook Airs being bought for company purposes.  Even though they do fit into the Manila envelope.

I haven’t explained the Lenovo X300 much, so I’ll let the official site do the talking.  Who knows, maybe you’re one of the few ordinary consumers that want one.

Visit:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/…

Looking to take advantage of the new Windows Presentation Foundation?  Hate iTunes?  I’ve got the alternative media player just for you today – a relatively new entry to the market, but one already gaining steam.  It’s called ViewOn, and it specializes in integrating WPF into playing music, radio, and video.

In my brief experience of using it, it’s been pretty cool.  It’s somewhat unique, and doesn’t take as long as iTunes to start up – I haven’t tried syncing my iPod with it yet though.  The only pain I’ve been having with it is with the album art – darn, seems like it can’t read the album art iTunes or WMP11 applied to my .mp3 files!  This really does take away from the overall look and feel of the media player, making it feel somewhat last-gen.

I’ll probably write a full-blown review on it later on, but right now I’ve got quite a stack on my plate right now so I’m trying not to bite off more than I can chew, while at the same time provide material for you loyal readers.  Pardon the briefness – hey, if you’re tech-savvy, I suggest you try this yourself!  Just remember, you have to have .Net framework 3.5, which took a while to download and install on my laptop.  I wish you all the best.

Visit:

http://viewon.tv/

So far into the series of iPod Touch competitors, I’ve taken a brief look at four alternatives and how well they stack up against the iPod Touch. They’ve all been very tough competitors, but I think that this one is the toughest and most promising of the bunch. Released at around the same time as the iPod Touch, Samsung looked to capitalize on the same niche of the market with their product, the P2. From what I’ve found, there are three things that make the Samsung P2 exceptional.

Source: http://www.gadget-paradise.com/news_images/000071_samsung-p2.jpg

Aesthetics

The Samsung P2 definitely succeeded the most in this department in contrast to the rest of the iPod Touch competitors – it’s arguably the darker, sleeker, smaller twin brother of the iPod Touch. Its GUI looks great – typical Samsung quality (which is meant as a good thing, although some can interpret otherwise). It sports a 3″ screen – smaller than the iPod Touch’s 3.5″, but larger than the iPod Video’s 2.5″; the resolution is similarly slightly smaller in comparison to the iPod Touch (480x272px vs. 480x320px). The Samsung P2 is definitely a looker.

Video

I know that the Archos brothers play movies very nicely on their 800x480px screens, but the Samsung P2 is no wimp. Sporting a 480x272px screen, as mentioned a couple of sentences ago, it’s got a nearly perfect 16:9 resolution. With all this talk of widescreen and hi-def nowadays, the Samsung P2 sounds more like a device from the future than the norm.

Source: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1159/1406111980_f6b6c5ce29_o.jpg

The Future of the P2

It’s got Bluetooth 2.0 integrated into it, which allows it to connect it to wireless headsets – ones similar to the headsets used with cellular phones. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg – rumour is Samsung plans to incorporate file sharing, between other P2s and PCs, which is actually a very feasible addition (all they’d have to do is mod the firmware, since the hardware is all ready to go).

A Couple of Cons

There’s only eight gigabytes of storage on the Samsung P2 – comparable to the cheapest version of the iPod Touch, but the difference is vast when the full potential of the iPod Touch is acknowledged (the maximum storage on the iPod Touch is thirty-two gigs – whopping, eh?). Also, there is no wi-fi incorporated into the P2 – I’m dearly hoping that Samsung retains the sleek shell of the P2, but incorporates wi-fi connectivity and more storage the next time around. All-in-all, it’s not too bad.

If you’re serious about how your gadgets look on the outside, or if you need something that just plays music or has a touch interface and you’re on a budget, the Samsung P2 is for you. However, if you desperately need wi-fi connectivity or have a huge multimedia collection, move on up the list of iPod Touch competitors, because this is the last.

[youtube j_2d32qkyIw]

It’s been great writing this series, but I’ll probably be leaving the runner-ups alone. To be honest, I’ve gotten pretty sick of writing about personal media players/digital audio players, and I’m pretty sure you’re just as sick of reading so many of them in such a short time. It’s ok – I’ve got a more broad variety of material planned for the next week or two.

Other iPod Touch Competitors:

1. Olympus M:Robe 500i
2. Archos 605 Wi-fi
3. Cowon Q5W
4. Archos 705
5. Samsung P2

Runner Ups:

• Cowon iAudio X7
• iRiver Clix 2
• Microsoft Zune