Entries from March 2008 ↓

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/