Software
Obligatory Tech Prediction for 2009
TinyURL'd
If not only for the attempt of looking cool, here we go;
More companies will start joining Twitter
Recent news showed Dell making a good $1M, now, compared to the rest of the income, that is not necessarily a large quantity. But it was enough to show off, to both fan and exec’s, how useful advertising deals and the like can be.
Apple TV/ Mac Mini upgrade:
The Mac Mini has not updated in over an entire year, which at least in comparison to the iPod, looks like its death. Apple has been treating the Apple TV as more a hobby project, but has been doing well with it. Also, with the recent update to the HP MediaSmart to work with iTunes and Time Machine, a relative upgrade would seem appropriate, but since the Apple TV and Mac Mini are so similar, upgrading both would be redundant.
The iPod Classic won’t fit any more songs
A rule of thumb where buying an iPod, is that if its been a few months since the last update, wait a week or two and the iPod will be upgraded. When the iPod Touch was introduced, they dubbed the next generation of the iPod Video’s as the iPod Classic. The second generation of the Classic, if you can call it that, denoted the hard drive space from 160gb to 120gb, but what they really did was take out the 160gb hard-drive and replaced with a dual 60gb solid-state drive. The rumors of a iPod Touch-esque, tablet-esque Apple product just prove how whole-heartedly Apple is going towards the touch interface.
Kevin Rose will re-publish Pownce
To much anger and confusion, SixApart bought Pownce and hired the devo team. Although they did publish their plans to incorporate the Pownce software into their products like Vox, MoveableType and TypePad. But why did they close the original website? Well, SixApart has said that, in the new year, they will be releasing the Pownce engine for either purchase or beta. A large portion of the Pownce community was there just for the affiliation with Kevin Rose, and he definately has the cash to pick the software back up.
SMS in Canada will come back to Twitter
Or imma beat some ass, beat some ass real bad.
More countries will be turned into more TinyURL websites
Because we dont have enough; b65.us, c-o.in, dn.vc, faceto.us, fly.ws, hurl.it, is.gd, Just.as, x.se, LNK.IN, turo,us, Twitty.ms and Xil.in, and that is just the ones that use county URLs…
Sony PS3 will team with Blockbuster (or someone like that)
With release of Microsoft’s NXE for the Xbox 360, they included a NetFlix client; letting you order and stream their entire catalog of movies for no price in addition to a normal NetFlix account service. I dont use it for reasons that are legal in Canada, but I have heard nothing but praise from friends that do use it. Recently, it was announced that Blockbuster was (finally) doing an online service, and besides the fact that both of their main colors are blue (OMFG COINCIDENCE?!) I would not be alone in assumption that the PS3 will follow suit, as the only thing the PS3 has over the 360 is space, and movies take space. And people that bought a PS3 are going to be looking for cheap rentals for a while now…
9 Podcasts for 2009
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Although these all like to the iTunes Store, they shouldn’t be hard at all to find them on other Podcasting services by entering the same name.
Scene Unseen Movie Reviews is a new podcast that offers a unique spin on the movie review process. The catch? Every week one of our reviews sees a new release… the other does not. Also featured - “Letterboxing” banter, DVD picks and special guest appearances from professionals in the film industry.
Vancouver’s top comedy podcast? Hosted by Graham Clark and Dave Shmka, with weekly guests. Hilarious weekly guests? Yup.
EPIC FU is what happens when tech and culture get it on. It’s your weekly geek-out to the coolest art, tech, and music from the online and offline world. Subscribe to get a fresh new episode each week!
Mars Hill Church: Mark Driscoll -
Mars Hill Church in Seattle lives, breathes and is generally OCD about Jesus. Pastor Mark Driscoll is the lead preaching pastor for Mars Hill and regularly distribures video content via this channel, including sermons, event teaching and the occasional one-off video created for our internet audience. You can find more content like this by visiting our web site at www.marshillchurch.org
By Tech Fans, For Tech Fan! Product reviews, tech tips, viewer questions, gaming and great guests, all brought to you by Robert Heron and the DL.TV crew. We go live every Thursday, then we encode and make available for download.
Diggnation is a weekly tech/ web culture show based on the top digg.com social bookmarking news stories.
The Totally Rad Show is the summer blockbuster of geek news shows. Every week, hosts Alex Albrecht, Dan Trachtenberg and Jeff Cannata rip into the world of movies, video games, tv, comics, and more and pull out what’s rad.
Embrace digital technology. Join the Tekzilla cew and make your tech work better for you. Or you can go live in the woods with an axe. Every Saturday, Patrick Norton and Veronica Belont deliver product reviews, computer help, tech tips on everything from Ipod to camcorders, HD to the Internet, plus do it yourself projects.
The Hour with George Stroumboulopolous
Want a different look at the news? Watch to The Hour. The Hour isnt your average newscast, its more lik hanging out with someone whos really interested in the world. The Hour - a current affairs show hosted by George Stroumnoulopoulos. Watch new video clipos every weekday.
Skitching that Image Captioning Itch
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I was talking to a friend about the new setup I have around my MacBook, she asked me how happy I was with it and I responded in glee. After then I told her she was the reason I decided on a Mac, or at least, it was an application she often showed me; Skitch.
Skitch is a freeware Mac OSX program that does such a great percentage of the average Photoshop usage; screenshots, captioning and captioning screenshots. To best describe how it works, I have used it to describe itself;
And if those arrows look familiar, websites like Lifehacker use it in their tutorials all the time, as well on my own website (all the bloody time). A small but really nice feature, as well, is the drag me option there in the bottom, where you just drag it onto your desktop, and in the case of my use of TweetDeck and the integrated TwitPic, I can simply upload my Skitches. It is pretty handy.
Even when I am captioning my own photos, I just open it in Mac’s preview, take a shot of the image itself and then caption it, it’s pretty nerdy, and I accept this.
Skitch (Mac)
Tweetree Houses, galore!
TinyURL'd
I often brag of my vast and lazy intelligence - I get great ideas, and it automatically makes someone else make it. For a while now I had a great idea for a threaded Twitter client and, unfortunately, missed the Quotably boat. Well, in a reply to my last post, I was given a link to Tweetree.com by a good friend of mine, Niha Tiwari.
Twitter is a much-needed Twit-threader. I really have no idea why Twitter doesn’t have this built in already; it really does help follow one’s own conversation, as opposed to ctrl+clicking every in reply to… link. Better even so, it embeds images from sites like TwitPic amd videos from YouTube, a la Power Twitter on Firefox, as seen below.
Also, unlike FriendFeed, Tweetree lets you post from the page into your Twitter page, as well as reply into the respective Tweeters.
Tweetree, TwitPic, Firefox (Mac/ PC/ Linux), Power Twitter (Firefox)
Swap the TweetDeck’s!
TinyURL'd
There are very many Twitter applications out these days, the Twitter API is, undoubtedly, one of the major reasons for its popularity. And believe you me, there is a crap load of popularity! TweetDeck is one of the larger of Twitter apps, aeshetically, at least. But I like that, as a late user of Twitterific (and Twhirl, and Spaz, and Google Desktop, and Digsby), I did not feel as centralized. TweetDeck is an Adobe Air application, its layout is a series of very useful columns that can be moved around horizontally; All Friends, Group, Replies, Direct Messages, Search, Favorites, TwitScoop and 12seconds. As well as a vertically expanding Tweet section with a very nice TwitPic integration and a TinyURL-esque service as well… with more than enough URL shrinkers to your service.
I find it to be a very clean layout and for me, someone with a second monitor, it is very nice to have it maximized all the time. As a recent adopter of TwitPic , I found the integration fantastic, as well as how simple it is to follow your own conversations in the Replies column. But more than anything, I love the use of the TwitScoop column; as a blogger (talented or non) it is a fast way to see what the general Twitosphere is currently interested in.
And the great part about this all is that, by the time you read this there will be a new one out, just as damn good.
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© Andrew Littler, 2008
