Posts by Techwriter10

The second Microsoft-Seinfeld ad was released Friday. It had a few funny moments, but once again left most people shaking their heads wondering exactly what Microsoft hopes to achieve. I'm not sure they know. Although they may have a game plan, it's hard for anyone to see exactly what it is.

We know this much. Microsoft has invested $300M on this new ad campaign to convince us that Microsoft (to paraphrase an old Animals song) is a soul whose intentions are good, but is simply misunderstood. Meanwhile the PR machines has sent out some big wigs to convince us that Vista is stable and in its current iteration is working fine. No really, it is.

Microsoft even went so far recently as to mask Vista as a new operating system called Mojave, and showed people's reaction on hidden camera. Apparently, people who claimed they wouldn't buy Vista were wowed by it when they saw it in action under a different name. The blind taste test might work for soft drinks, but there's more to an operating system than a quick taste. Let's let these people live with Vista for a few weeks, then record their reactions. Something tells me it wouldn't be very flattering.

It's gotten so bad in fact, that Business Week reported recently that mega PC maker HP "has quietly assembled a group of engineers to develop software that will let customers bypass certain features of Vista." …

Congratulations on the new gig and I look forward to your reports, especially the cell phone announcement. I happen to be in the market for one and have been a holding pattern trying to figure out which direction to take. Maybe this will help me.

Of course, that would assume I have illegal music on my machine. Even if that were that the case, I don't see Apple playing the role of pirate police for the RIAA. What would be the upside for them for doing that?

By the way, please try to refrain from name calling. It doesn't do anything to extend the conversation.

Apparently even people who weren't bothered by the requirement to send their information to Apple are still unhappy with the service suggesting tracks the writer already owns.

http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2008/09/13/itunes-genius/

Honestly, David, what would that mean to my journalistic integrity if I did that now. :)

Yup I know that. :)

What I object to here is sending my information to Apple. That's all. You can also build playlists and discover forgotten music in your library using the Smart Playlist feature without sending your information to Apple. Learn more here:

http://byronmiller.typepad.com/byronmiller/2007/04/stupid_itunes_t.html

JWenting:
No doubt I should have read more carefully, and I canceled the process immediately, as soon as I realized what I had done, but see my note to David below. I would like to use it, but not transmit info to Apple. And BTW, I find that Amazon feature creepy and annoying, especially when you order something for your kids one time then get suggestions about it for the next 6 months. :)

David,
I know it's optional, but what's not optional is the ability to have it check just your library or send your info to Apple. If you want to use Genius in the same you could use the filter, you are forced to transmit information. I wouldn't mind building "Genius" playlists from my library content, but I don't want to transmit info to Apple and I don't want iTunes pestering me about a movie or song I might like. That's the difference.

Thanks, David, That makes me respect you all the more knowing that you dislike Abba as much as I do. :)

But there are some differences here. With NetFlix, you have to tell them what you want in order to get the service. With TiVo, they make suggestions because they know what you're watching, which is still a little creepy to me, but the difference is, they aren't collecting this information on an individual basis (so far as we know).

With Apple, they could have made it a service that just checks your library or lets you share your info to get suggestions from the Apple store, but they chose to force you to send your information and that's what really bothers me. I wouldn't mind using it like the Filter tool. I just don't want them banging on me every time I open iTunes with new suggestions I might like. It's about choice. And they didn't give us one here.

The other day I downloaded the latest version of iTunes and discovered the much-heralded Genius feature is a not-so subtle way to sell content on iTunes. When I heard about the Genius feature, I mistakenly thought it was like Peter Gabriel's Filter tool, a very cool utility for iTunes, which enabled you to select some songs in your library, then build a playlist of other songs in your library automatically based on your selections, and while it does do that it, it's a bit more insidious. (The Filter tool, by the way appears to no longer be available as a download.)

When you turn on the Genius feature, it displays a dialog box explaining what it is. You should note the fine print here because it states that 'Genius will send information about your iTunes library to Apple.' If you click Continue as I did because I didn't read it carefully, it begins to transmit a list of the contents your library to Apple. While I like Apple products, I would prefer it didn't have information on my musical tastes in its databases.

In fact, that was a deal killer right there for me. I stopped the process immediately. But it still gave me insight into what Genius actually is, and while it's similar to Gabriel's tool, instead using just the contents of your library to build a playlist, it's a scheme to sell you songs and videos on the iTunes store based on your individual …

Another great post, Lisa!

Bill,
Anyone who can find a way to fit in the word 'codswallop' into a post deserves five stars in my book.

:-)

Ron

This morning EMC, Microsoft and IBM announced they had worked together over a two-year period to create a content interchange standard for enterprise content management systems. It may not sound like much, but it's meaningful on several levels. For content management customers, it means it will greatly simplify moving content across disparate content repositories, while also enabling IT departments to build applications for workflow, archiving and other tasks independent of the content management system developer. But I think the real story here is that three huge companies came together for the benefit of the many over the benefit of the one. It doesn't happen every day and it's worth pointing out.

When you're raising kids, you're told if they do something you like, 'praise them, praise them, praise them.' Well, this is positive corporate behavior and it's worth screaming from the rooftops that these huge corporations did a very good thing. Sure, there was an element of self-interest here, but in the end this cooperation benefited the entire marketplace. And Alfresco, Oracle, Open Text and SAP helped define the standard too.

What made them cooperate? Well there were several factors coming together. First of all, status quo was hard for the vendors themselves. They needed to communicate with one another's systems because in most corporate settings, chances are, you are going to find many different ECMs in place. They were finding it was expensive to get content from one repository to another. Certainly they were hearing …

According to a Gizmodo post published on Sunday, a British man claims he invented the iPod (or at least a prototype of what would become a portable music player) way back in 1979, the same year the Walkman cassette player first went on sale in Japan. Up to that point, the idea of portable music was an over-sized boom box you carried on your shoulder.

That is, until Sony and a Brit by the name of Kane Kramer came along in 1979 and reduced the size substantially. Sony's device played cassette tapes, while Kramer's apparently had 3.5 minutes of memory. The Walkman became iconic in the 80s (not unlike the iPod is today), but sadly for Kramer, his device never took off (probably because he was so far ahead of his time) and he let the patent lapse nine years later when he ran out of funds.

The story would end there, except for the fact that a company called Burst sued Apple a couple of years ago over a patent infringement involving, at least marginally, the design of the iPod among other things. A Mac World article on the lawsuit settlement described the patents involved as follows: "Burst alleged that Apple infringed four patents for transmission of compressed audio and video files in iTunes, iLife, QuickTime and the iPod."

The suit was eventually settled for $10M last November, but not before Apple called Kramer to testify on its …

I believe the US and EU courts found these practices predatory and illegal and ordered Microsoft to stop, so no, Microsoft could not get away with the same tactics today, which is part of the problem it's having right now. It can no longer bully the market into buying its products.

Also, I think the touch screen will a big part of Windows 7. Remember Bill Gates' speech a while back about the end of the need for a keyboard. I actually wrote about this in the post, Window 7 and the Incredible Shrinking Keyboard (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2528.html). HP is just a bit ahead of the game.

Finally, that HP thinks it needs to improve what Microsoft has done speaks volumes to the troubles users have with it.

Not just you, Guy. USB devices have been recognized as a possible threat for years. That the UK authorities are only just getting the memo is a bit puzzling to say the least. There are devices that sniff the networks for unusual activities on USB ports. It's not exactly new or unsolvable. Lots of companies have been working on this.

Do you think it's Microsoft Cake? :)

You're welcome.

"Jerry, I have to tell you something. This is the dullest moment I've ever experienced."
- George, watching laundry, in "Good News, Bad News" episode of Seinfeld.

I woke up this morning to find a Tweet from Startupmeme that the first Seinfeld ad for Microsoft had hit the airwaves. I followed the link with high anticipation. This, after all, is the work of the ad man genius, Alex Bogusky, the guy Fast Company calls a "hotshot." What I found was frankly shocking; an ad so brittle, so horrible, so not funny; it was actually puzzling. A true 'What were they thinking?' moment. In fact, Seinfeld's old TV sidekick, George could have been watching this ad when he uttered the quote above.

If this is the best Bogusky and his team can do to compete with the highly successful, and should I say, really funny, Get a Mac Campaign, Microsoft is truly throwing its $300M down the toilet because this is ad is pure crap. When I first heard about the idea to bring Seinfeld in for these ads, I thought it was misguided to say the least (as I wrote in Microsoft Seinfeld Strategy to Save Vista is Pathetic), but seeing the first ad just reinforces my initial thoughts. What you have is two paunchy aging Boomers in a shoe store (a shoe store?!) buying shoes. If you're wondering what this has to do with Microsoft or its …

Wasting little time coming out of the long US Labor Day weekend, Google released a shiny new browser aptly called Chrome. Why on earth would the world need another browser at this point in the history of the internet is unclear, especially another open source entry, but one thing is crystal clear, Google took a direct shot at the bow of Microsoft and Apple yesterday and the battle for world domination continues unabated. Whether the market will bear yet another browser is an open question, but it seems that for Google, this is more than a browser war, it's a fight for the soul of the desktop (and the hand-held for that matter). Chrome could mark the beginning of a Google OS and if that isn't a shot at its two biggest rivals, nothing is.

My head is spinning today with information about Chrome. At eWeek Jim Rapoza gushes about the newest browser entry, while his colleague, Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Watch warns that Google Chrome is full of dents. Security experts have already found a huge hole in the browser and it's only been available for less than 24 hours. (Thanks, for the link Char.)

In my own distinctly unscientific tests, it seems to load Google apps much faster, no surprise there, but I don't see anything so dazzling here in the first few minutes of use (I'm writing this blog entry on it). In …

To no one's surprise, except perhaps the New York Times, internet traffic is going global, and more so with each passing year. The result is that more traffic is flowing through servers outside the United States. The chief concern about this development, according to the NYT article, was the fact that it has made it more difficult for US intelligence agencies to spy on internet traffic.

Indeed, Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications.

That's precisely why many countries are bypassing US networks. The EU, for instance, has much more stringent privacy laws than we have in the United States. The Patriot Act only exacerbated the issue because it gave US law enforcement officials wide latitude to monitor data, data that's still protected in the EU. For that reason (and perhaps other more complex economic and political ones), EU countries are finding new ways to move data without going through US servers. If US officials are worried about this, they only have themselves to blame.

Whether US intelligence officials like it or not, the internet does not exist for them to to spy on incoming traffic. It has another …

You're right. Compared to that plan, 250GB sounds good, but it's the principle of the matter that they are restricting users for no good reason other than a misguided war against P2P traffic. Regarding competition, I have very few options where broadband is concerned. In fact my only other option where I live is Verizon DSL. If Verizon FioS service were available in my area, Comcast would have lost me a long time ago. For now, I'll stick with Comcast cable service, but I wish there were wider competition. In many areas, it's Comcast or nothing.

On a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, Comcast released its latest volley against its customer base, announcing a 250 GB monthly download limit. According to reports, after the first violation, you will get a message from your friends at Comcast warning you about your dastardly behavior (aka using the service you are paying for) and any subsequent violation of the limit would result in suspension of service for a year (or the less publicized punishment where you get sent to Dean Wormer and put on double-secret probation). This is a thinly-veiled continuation of Comcast's attack on P2P traffic.

Earlier this year, reports such as this one from Information Week began to surface that Comcast was blocking legitimate P2P sites such as BitTorrent in violation of federal rules. Information Week's Richard Martin wrote at the time:

Comcast has been accused of violating federal regulations regarding "reasonable network management" by jamming users attempting to share files via the BitTorrent protocol over its cable modems. Net-neutrality activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Free press say that amounts to discrimination against specific applications -- something FCC chairman Kevin Martin has said is verboten.

Comcast of course denied the practice and said it was "delaying," not blocking the traffic, but the FCC wasn't buying that line and on Aug 1 voted 3-2 ordering the ISP to stop blocking its customers from sharing files and videos online. 28 days later Comcast defined, or according to them, …

For the past couple of years I volunteered at my son's elementary school to set up blogs for his classroom, but the projects never got off the ground. Nervous school IT staff unable to find a platform that offered them the privacy and control they wanted, and knew parents would demand, always nixed the deal. Elgg, a new open source social networking platform aimed specifically at the education market, solves this problem by providing a safe, open source alternative to the popular blogging platforms such as LiveJournal and Blogger, and the even scarier (at least to them) Facebook and MySpace. What's more, Elgg gives users complete control over privacy.

As an open source tool, developers can use the Elgg core to build social networking functionality into any socially aware application, giving developers the ability to build social tools into an application in a similar way that Google Friend Connect enables web developers to add social functions to a web site. But what will excite educators is the full version, which includes several standard plug-ins including a blogging engine, a file repository for organizing files, bookmarks, a message board and the all-important 'Walled Garden' plug-in. The latter provides a way for educators to set up a private site (such as a classroom or a school) where only those registered for the site can access the content on the site.

This feature should resolve any issues a school IT department might have over privacy control because …

Web 2.0 came crashing into the enterprise a couple of years ago and was given the new moniker: Enterprise 2.0 (which was coined by Harvard Business School Professor Andrew McAfee). While business has come a long way when it comes to understanding social networking tools and how to use them in the enterprise to manage knowledge and foster collaboration (see Spooks 2.0: The CIA Turns to Wiki Technology), many businesses still don't have a clue about how enterprises can take advantage of this technology inside the corporation.

This is a multi-dimensional problem because employees (especially younger ones) want to transfer the same social networking tools they've been using for years to communicate with friends to work to communicate with colleagues in a business setting, something that only makes sense, but which many IT departments still fail to grasp. Some even try to shut it down completely, rather than use the new tools to build new ways to communicate. I asked Tish Grier, who has been working at community building since the late 90s and who has been blogging since 2004, about how business can take advantage of these tools.

RM: What do the terms Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 mean to you?

TG: To me, Web 2.0 (which was coined in ’04) refers to how people—just the general populace—uses web-based tools to communicate and collaborate. Enterprise 2.0 means that the big businesses—the ones that have complicated knowledge management systems and even …

Microsoft has announced a $300M dollar ad campaign, featuring 90s TV star Jerry Seinfeld, which according to multiple reports has been designed to save Vista and salvage Microsoft's battered reputation. There is so much wrong with this strategy, it's really hard to know where to start.

First of all, the problem is not just one of perception. A PR blitz suggests that Microsoft has produced a dazzling product in Vista, but the foolish masses have failed to grasp how good it is. All it will take is a funny ad and we all be lining up to get Vista. It's simply not going to work because the problem is that Vista is a flawed product and everyone realizes that.

That they chose a 90s TV star (one who Slashdot points out always had a Mac in his TV show apartment) only proves how myopic this company truly is. If they want to update the company's image, especially with young people, they might not want to choose a spokesperson whose TV show went off the air 10 years ago. Like Microsoft, Seinfeld's popularity peaked some time during the Clinton administration.

Not only that, the ad campaign is in reaction to Apple's highly successful "Get a Mac" campaign, which apparently really pissed off Bill Gates, who thought it was misleading. A commercial that's a defensive reaction to a successful campaign is behind the eight ball from the get-go and is doomed to be …

Microsoft products have always presented a paradox for organizations. On one hand they seem to be universally derided. On the other, they remain the corporate standard. Open source, SaaS/online and other alternatives have had a hard time gaining widespread traction in large organizations. That's partly because companies would likely rather deal with the devil they know, a de facto standard, rather than something else, and partly due to institutional inertia. It may not make sense, especially from a bottom-line cost perspective, but Don Lesser, who has been writing about computers since the early 80s, says that comfort level and the guaranteed ability to exchange documents internally and externally keep many companies on the Microsoft leash in spite of the known limitations of the products and the business practices of the company.

Lesser is in a position to speak intelligently about this subject. He has been writing about computers since before the first IBM PC saw the light of day. He has worked as a freelance technical writer, owned his own technical writing business (and actually gave me my start in technical writing) and since 1990 has run Pioneer Training, a company that helps train users, mostly inside businesses, to use Microsoft products. Lesser is also a food writer and accomplished cook and sees connections between technical writing and recipe writing. I recently asked him his opinions on Microsoft, corporate adoption of Vista and Office 2007 and the link between recipe writing and tech writing.

RM: You’ve …

Community journalism encourages members of the community to participate in the news process, not just as passive readers, but as active producers of the news itself. This direct connection to the product is similar in many ways to the kind of community building that goes on in open source development. Perhaps that's why it's not surprising that Patrick Phillips, who is Editor of the Vineyard Voice, a publication based in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts (an island off the coast of Cape Cod), has developed a community participation model for his publication while delivering the publication using the open source content management software, Drupal.

This dual role gives Phillips a unique understanding about the connection between the two communities and how each one encourages and promotes positive social interaction on the internet. I asked him recently about his use of these two types of online social systems and about the role of community in each of these projects.

RM: It seems many traditional journalists and publications are threatened by inviting the community into the conversation. Why do you encourage it?

PP: I think encouraging conversation is not the real threat. Yes, it may be a threat to the eyeballs to ads revenue model of traditional news. It changes the business model and potentially democratizes (distributes) the process of sharing news and information. But the real threat is the demise of the informed community that comes with a highly aggregated and controlled news product. As we …

I'm sure it's not new, only to me, as it's the first time I tried to get US TV shows on my PC when traveling outside of the country.

I'm on vacation right now in Germany, and I thought I could watch some American TV here on my PC. But I've learned that US sites consistently block their TV shows outside the US, a practice I find more than a bit curious. I tried the network sites. I tried alternative sites like Hulu.com, but all the shows I wanted to watch are blocked. It seems my only recourse is YouTube. Unfortunately, it has low quality (often illegal) copies.

When you log onto the internet, whether you realize it or not, your browser broadcasts your IP address, which provides the general area where you are located. Using this information, a site, if it so chooses, can present you with information in the language of the country of origin and to serve up ads for that county. I discovered that Google, for instance, is presenting me results with German sites at the top of the results list because my IP address is pointing to Germany right now. It seems logical, but for someone like me who just happens to be in Germany, it's annoying, especially so when the IP detection blocks content I want to see.

It got me thinking about the rationale behind blocking access to shows on these sites. To me, it makes little sense and actually encourages piracy because US shows are popular outside the country. If people want to watch them, chances are they are going to find a way and that way …

Many of the operating system tools that come with Windows are far inferior to free alternatives, and you can't beat the price. This post looks at some of my favorite free utilities.

Firefox – Web Browser
No round-up of free utilities would be complete without the fabulous Firefox, perhaps the best piece of free software ever designed. Internet Explorer just doesn't cut it, and Firefox does so many things so well. With version 3.0 it's easier to subscribe to blogs and bookmark on the fly. Getting back to a web site you visited before is a breeze with easy-to-read sites in the address bar drop-down view. If you go to a phishing site, it warns you before you do something stupid. In fact, it does so much, it's impossible to touch upon all of the great features in one paragraph, but suffice to say if you are not using it, run, don't walk to your current browser and get the free download. You will be glad you did.

Moffsoft FreeCalc – Enhanced Calculator
This free calculator provides far more functionality than its Windows counterpart. For starters, it keeps a running tab of all your activity, and it has features like a 000 button for thousands, a small but nice touch missing from the Windows calculator that makes entry much faster.

CodeStuff Starter – Windows Startup Utility
Windows apps have a funny way of putting all kinds of junk …

There’s an old saying, 'What do you want for nothing, your money back?' But the fact is there is lots of good free software out there. Much of it has a much smaller footprint than your typical Windows software from Mega Corporation (you know which companies I’m talking about) and these programs have great features. I’m going to share some of my favorites with you today.

Foxit Reader – PDF Reader
Yes Adobe Reader is free too, but one day I grew disgusted with the bloat of the Reader and the awful update system and went looking for an alternative. What I found was the Foxit Reader, a compact PDF Reader that suits my needs just fine without the bells and whistles you rarely use. It won’t work for shared reviews, but when you just want to read a PDF fast, it opens quickly and does the job.

FastStone Capture – Screen Capture and Editing Tool
If you need to capture screens, you have probably used a tool like SnagIt from Tech Smith. SnagIt is actually a fine tool, but it does cost money and I’ve found a free alternative in FastStone Capture. You can capture full screens or the active window. You can select the area of the screen you want and you can even capture free style (in any shape you like). After you capture the screen, it opens in a handy editor …

Alfresco released Alfresco Labs (Beta) 3 today and with it announced a new capability that enables businesses to leverage Microsoft Sharepoint functionality without buying additional Sharepoint licenses. Sound too good to be true? It’s not, and what has allowed Alfresco to do this is the 2004 EU Commission order for Microsoft to publish the Sharepoint protocol. Apparently, Alfresco is the first ECM vendor to take advantage of the Sharepoint protocol availability. I spoke to Alfresco CEO John Powell about the significance of this announcement.

“I think is really a game changing announcement,” Powell says. “The core of Microsoft growth is based around Office, the server products and Sharepoint. I think this is a huge announcement in terms of giving people the ability to choose.”

Alfresco is aiming straight at the heart of Microsoft enterprise dominance with this release. “We wanted to eliminate the advantage Microsoft has with the Office monopoly and this eliminates that advantage for Microsoft because now a user can choose to use Alfresco as easily as they would choose to use Sharepoint.” What’s more, Powell explains, even if you have an existing Sharepoint investment, you can start using an Alfresco repository along side it.

Powell recognizes he is taking on Microsoft head-on, and he frankly sounds like a man who welcomes the challenge from Redmond (or anyone else for that matter). [Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer] would probably stand there and say that Sharepoint is the better product, and if that’s true, he’s …

When you make changes to your site design, it’s not always easy to figure out how the changes affect traffic and visitor behavior. That’s where the Google Website Optimizer tool comes into play. You can experiment with two or more designs and see which one works best to achieve your design goal. Best of all, this tool is free.

The typical site design process involves some people sitting together and choosing the design they think is best. The decision is usually based on a gut feeling, rather than anything close to a scientific method. What’s more, few companies have the resources to sit with focus groups to find out which design most people prefer, so it comes down to opinion, and even an informed opinion is not always right.

Tom Leung, product manager for Google Website Optimizer, says it’s not always easy to know what drives traffic without a tool like Website Optimizer to help. “In the old days, you would just make [your] changes and hope for the best, or you might look at your traffic the next week and see if there were any changes in your web analytics dashboard.” The problem with that approach, Leung explains, is that you don’t really know why you saw a traffic change. Was it due to your design change or maybe you had a really popular blog post that week?

Leung says where Website optimizer fits in is that it lets you make those improvements with …

Guy Clapperton offers his own Apple wish list.

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2833.html

NYT weighs in on the Jobs health question.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/technology/23apple.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Apple Insider reports on Piper Jaffray's predictions, which involve lowering the cost of Mac Books.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/07/22/apple_may_be_eying_sub_1000_notebook_market.html

By most people’s measure, it was quite a quarter for Apple, but apparently not for the geniuses on Wall Street. While Apple sold almost a million iPhones in the first week (think about that for a second) and had what BusinessWeek called a “blowout quarter,” an off-handed remark by Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer sent stock prices tumbling yesterday. The reason for the panic was an announcement that margins could be slightly lower next quarter due to a future product transition that Oppenheimer couldn’t talk about in the quarterly earnings conference call. If recent history is any benchmark, that product announcement will only lead to more sales.

That future product transition question got people buzzing about what it could mean. Gizmodo speculated it’s going to be a Mac Book Touch, a tablet without a keyboard, sort of a large iPhone. Nice idea, but Gizmodo was far from alone. Joe Wilcox spoke to a bunch of analysts for his Apple Watch column on the eWeek site and came up with several other ideas including a low-priced laptop aimed at the student market or a revamped AppleTV. The folks who commented on the article were happy to speculate even further including an Apple-branded flat screen TV, an iPhone cell phone network, a new version of the Apple operation system (OS XI), or a video game system to name but a few.

Whatever it is, it seems to me that Wall Street is focusing entirely on …

In a promising technology mash-up, the New York Times (NYT) has entered into an agreement with LinkedIn that displays a list of suggested content for readers on the NYT web site based on information in their LinkedIn profile. For now, the service is confined to the Business and Technology section. (Thanks to my virtual colleague Tish Grier who pointed me to this story.)

The NYT has placed a LinkedIn widget on Business and Technology article pages. When you click the widget for the first time, a dialog box opens and you are prompted to either join LinkedIn or sign into your LinkedIn profile. I tried this and was directed to my LinkedIn profile page where it was unclear what I was supposed to do next. After some hunting and pecking , I refreshed the NYT Technology page and a list of suggested articles appeared in the right-hand column, which based on the information in my LinkedIn Profile was for Technology Professionals. So far, so good.

The Times takes this one step further, by including a LinkedIn choice in the Share tool. You click Share, select LinkedIn, then you can share the article with up to 10 members of your LinkedIn network. The obvious missing link here to me, is an option for displaying these same article links on your LinkedIn Home page so you don’t have to go to the NYT site to monitor them.

Paul Bradshaw writes of this in the

Hey Eddie:
I did an article about life casting for Streaming Media Magazine a while back that will be printed in the Fall and interviewed these guys. Just yesterday I considered writing about them in my DW blog, but you beat me to the punch. Nice job.

Ron

Is your vendor giving you trouble? Won’t respond to your calls? Won’t help with your problem? Who you gonna call? Well, when I spoke to Brent Leary, a partner at CRM Essentials, yesterday, Leary surprised me when he suggested if your vendor won’t help you, go on Twitter, find a person with expertise in the problem area, and ask them. You might find you get an answer, but you may also find that by publicly calling out the company, you might actually get some attention.

We live in a Web 2.0 world, which means you have a variety tools at your disposal that can give you access to an audience, an expert or like-minded individuals in a way that simply wouldn’t have been possible in the past, and Leary thinks it’s something you should definitely use to your advantage. “It’s a new era,” Leary says. “The power is in our hands.” He points out that you don’t have to go the New York Times today if you have a problem you can’t solve because you have popular social media folks who are human beings and you can contact them directly on Twitter, LinkedIn or a similar site.

In fact, this method worked for Blog Herald writer Chris Garrett, who wrote an entry this week called It Pays to Twitter about how he used Twitter to get his vendor’s attention to resolve an issue he was having. Garrett wrote …

Though nothing will
Drive them away
We can beat them
Just for one day
~David Bowie, Heroes.

That collective sigh of relief you hear this morning is probably the millions of YouTube users who are relieved that Google and Viacom have reached an agreement to protect their privacy. All I can say is thank goodness that common sense prevailed for once.

I am sure I was not alone in my anger and outrage when word got out earlier this month that a federal judge had ruled in a copyright infringement case against Google involving its YouTube property, that the plaintiff Viacom had the right to see YouTube logs to see which copyrighted material was used, but also included a free pass to access user names and IP addresses. In my view, if Viacom wanted proof of the perceived misuse of its content, then a list of its copyrighted content itself should have sufficed without seeing the viewing habits of each and every YouTube user. The judge, by the way, did see fit to protect YouTube’s source code from Viacom’s prying eyes, but thought nothing of trashing user's privacy.

Interestingly enough, according to this article in PC Pro, the agreement does not cover Google employees. Seems Viacom wants proof that Google explicitly knew about the copyright violations because individual employees were among those watching. Leaving aside, how that proves corporate knowledge, I can’t help but thinking …

Eddie,
You can get used the touch screen fairly quickly.

What bothers me is there is no external keyboard available for it yet. For some reason, Apple won't develop a driver for a third party blue tooth, collapsible keyboard. I'm sure it's because Apple is convinced that touching the screen is so simple, you don't need a keyboard, but for those of us who write things longer than a text message or an email, a keyboard would be nice.

I' m a big Apple fan already. You don't have to sell me, but if you produce something supposedly so superior, you make sure your ducks are in a row when you're ready to go to market. You may disagree and that's fine. I welcome all comments and don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to be ready to go to market when the day arrives on all fronts. Otherwise the end result is they look foolish and are subject to deserved ridicule. No, it doesn't take away from the quality of the iPhone itself, but it certainly ruins the initial experience for many and I think it could have been easily avoided..

I'm glad you could see the bright side of a long day and I hope you enjoy the phone, but it's precisely this feeling of good will that endures in spite of the experience that surprises me so much.

By all rights, iPhone consumers should be storming the gates of Apple headquarters this morning in true Bastille Day fashion after Friday's mishandling of the iPhone 3G launch, but as far as I know all remains calm in Cupertino, and consumers remain strangely silent over the whole affair.

In a post on Friday afternoon, my colleague Bill Andad (aka newsguy) rightly took Apple to task for failing to provide the necessary server capacity to ensure the iPhone 3G launch went smoothly. He's right of course. It's unthinkable that a company with the resources of Apple failed to provide a seamless experience for the loyal minions who waited in line, some for days, and were expecting after laying out the cash that, you know, they could use the phone. Instead the overloaded activation servers collapsed under the pressure and thousands of loyal customers were sent home and forced to delay gratification.

I almost feel sorry for the poor souls who waited so long, only to find out they had to wait even longer for the object of their affection to work. It had to be hugely deflating. I loved Peter Segal's line from the NPR game show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, who joked the iPhone upgrade would tell you it loved you too. But does Apple love you too, that's the question. Is this the way a company with billions of dollars in cash reserves treats its most loyal …

You're absolutely right. There is no excuse for this. They should have made sure they had the server capacity, period. They had to know what was coming, especially after the same thing happened last year. You have to wonder how long that goodwill that Apple seems blessed with is going to last. I would imagine most people are running of patience after today very quickly.

It's not always easy,
And sometimes life can be deceiving,
I'll tell you one thing, its always better when we're together
~Jack Johnson, Better Together.

AP is reporting this morning that Eric Schmidt, he being CEO of the great and almighty Google, thinks it would better if Yahoo! remained independent. Excuse me for a moment. I can't type I'm laughing so hard. Thanks. That's better. Nothing too self-serving there, is there?

Specifically, he stated:

"There is no question in our view that an independent Yahoo is better," Schmidt said. "It will provide more competition in search and other advertising markets, in particular in display advertising," he said.

Pardon me, Mr. Schmidt, but with all due respect, that's just nonsense by any measure. By some estimates, Google controls more than 75 percent of the internet text ad market. According to a February, 2008 comScore report, Yahoo! was the number 1 display ad player with 18.8 percent of the total market, followed closely by Fox Interactive at 16.3 percent. Microsoft was a distant third with a 6.7 percent share.

Now, I'm admittedly no math major, but if I'm Microsoft sitting back in third place with a 6.7 percent share and a pocket full of cash, and I see Yahoo! sitting pretty at the top of the heap, it doesn't take Ph.D. in mathematics to figure out if you take Microsoft's share and combine it with Yahoo!'s, you are going to have …

The other day, my buddy got a shiny new 32GB iPod Touch. This morning he was kind enough to let me play with it and I’m glad he did because I learned that using that touch keyboard takes some practice. The bad news: you can get frustrated in a hurry trying to type with your finger tip. The good news: after about 15 minutes of touch typing, I found I was getting pretty proficient and I’m sure my speed and accuracy will keep getting better with practice.

It’s not exactly a secret that I have been jonesing for an iPhone (pretty much since Jobs first announced it in 2007), but I’ve been patient and I’m glad I was. In the good timing department, my cell phone contract expires this month just about the same time those shiny new second generation 3G iPhones hit the stores. But I’m grateful I got a chance to play first because I’m sure I would have despaired, wondering what exactly I had gotten myself into, had I not had the opportunity to practice my iPhone typing before the fact.

It includes word recognition, which on first blush sucks. How can ‘after’ be ‘acre’ or ‘acre be act,’ but I quickly learned to put up with its idiosyncrasies. I’m sure I could write tweets (140 character Twitter entries for the uninitiated), but full blog entries could definitely be a challenge. But who knows? With some practice I think I could …

Nice job, Eddie.