Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

Michael Wesch's youtube post is interesting in that it tries to make key distinctions between the use of traditional manuscript against the use of hypertext, but it's misleading in a number of ways I find particularly troubling. Let's be blog-a-rific and not compose these in any meaningful, synthesized way, and just list 'em out in the order they pop from the fingers.

1.) The fade from the white page of pencil to hypertext can be interpreted in one of two ways. The first is that there is a continuum between paper-manuscript and digital cultures, and the second is that there's a stark break. You watch as the actor moves from saying that digital text is different because it moves or can be changed in some strange way, but the editing continues until linking/hyperlinking/hypertext is settled on as the key distinction. Unfortunately what we just saw in the paper-manuscript suggestion was already doing a great job saying that this is not the case. There is no Web 1.0 or 2.0. Each set of technologies, whether keyboard, text editor and browser or pencil, paper, and printed page have their own means of remediating the dynamic functions depicted in that video. Read Heather Jackson's Marginalia and then tell me manuscript culture didn't have the same functionality as digital text. Both are compositional forms where the method of composition is the same as the method of publication, both typically allow avenues for easy coauthorship by readers/consumers/audiences, etc.

The differences seem obvious enough, and they are useful ones. Digital media (with enough infrastructure -- server/proc speed & RAM, software, bandwidth) can quickly scale to allow for "flash mobs'" worth of interest, for example, whereas books with particularly impressive marginalia are much harder to share with millions at once. Yet these are differences, not strengths deserving 1980's style synthesized background music promising intellectual liberation. One allowed for the flourishing of the Tuesday Club, and the other allowed for Matt Drudge. The real difference between the two is the ability to move from a controlled, known audience to a potentially anonymous one, which I often rant about when people try to argue that privacy has been lost online. It's not so much that any of this is privacy but the expectation of anonymity... what are the ramifications for culture whose cities include the potential to walk down the street arguing personal matters with your spouse knowing that the comments aren't likely to be heard by anyone which you know personally? It would seem digital communication is only now catching up with the changes in the gross urban populations that have increasingly become the rule. Certainly the community of the shared gossip fence has died (and the gossip has likely gone digital without it).

Which moves us from unearned break number one (as it becomes clear Wesch would rather argue a paradigm shift (meaning a quantum leap) between the abilities of paper-manuscript and digital text rather than something that does the same work differently) to unearned break number two -- the video's implication that HTML and XML are such totally different animals -- he trivially makes the case that you can't consider the format without the human behind it (a concept key for understanding any digital standard, like HTML, XML, and their SGML brethren), but the impression for the uninitiated is a dangerously misleading one, which I guess I'll talk about later. In brief. to say that HTML caused a static Web 1.0 and that XML allows for a dynamic Web 2.0 where form completely separates from content is horrendously oversimplistic. Makes for a groovy video, but does not, as presented, invite needed inquiry. (And as if Web 2.0 as currently conceived is an improvement...) It also tends to overlook that html was initially conceived as a means of providing markup whose display would be regulated by the way the browser's user set the preferences. I should find an older browser, but for now you can see a few vestiges in Netscape Communicator 4.77, which I had handy.

EDIT: Here's a picture from Netscape 2.02. The operative option is highlighted (and it's in v4 as well) -- "Always use mine."

-- I'd also add that one of the biggest changes from my undergrad days to today is the rigid policing of access to academic journals. Fifteen years ago, anyone could walk off of the street into their state university and have, within reason, the same journal access that their university professors had. Now, access to online journals are very carefully tracked, thanks to the power of databases and digital delivery/publication systems, and online-only subscriptions mean that access can be stolen away at any moment, shoved back into an exclusive virtual rare book room.

Labels: acad, web 2.0 shiite, youtube

From a Macrumors.com post called Apple iTunes Still #1, but Amazon Gaining - Mac Rumors:

Amazon, however, saw a rise in ranking from #5 to #4, which NPD attributes to both strong CD sales as well as Amazon's introduction of their MP3 music store. The digital rights management (DRM) free solution provides iPod users a convenient and compatible alternative to Apple's iTunes.

Apple's still #1 when it comes to selling digital music (ie, CDs + downloads), Wal-Mart's two, and Best Buy's three, but Amazon is 4, apparently passing Target.

Several months ago I mentioned that "Keeping DRM free 'not Apple' is the only bargaining chip the music companies have," and that I thought it was a smart move by Universal to hedge their bets by going DRM at the iTunes Music Store and DRM-free at Amazon.

I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing -- or even the primary thing -- going on with Amazon's move from 5 to 4 (even if Amazon's online store stole 10% of iTunes' customers). Instead, what we're likely seeing is that CD sales and music download sales are relatively unrelated markets, and adding an online store was a gain for Amazon all the way around. Even if Amazon only sells a quarter as many online downloads as they have CDs in the past, that's a 25% gain [minus a small number of CD buyers moving to online downloads]. If anything, Amazon's online music store is probably helping them sell more CDs, especially if the NRD counts used sales from 3rd party vendors. The CDs are just a link away from the mp3s. I imagine anyone on the chart could move a bit with that sort of change.

I was interested to see that a company in the UK offering the following music subscription service for ISPs to install:

Scant days since UK music labels reached a deal with six of the country's leading ISPs to begin turning the screws on the nation's estimated six million file-sharers, 7Digital has entered the fray, offering ISPs a range of services designed to let them offer music to their customers as part of their subscription.

This is Web 2.0, as the corporations want to see it. The UK ISPs are already throttling back on people who use p2p.

The deal - which has been agreed to by BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse - also means file-sharers could see their broadband connections slowed, or removed altogether.

And then we see something like 7Digital's suggestion, above, that these same ISPs could license what essentially becomes a free or easily controlled subscription music service on what amounts to their own intranets. This is exactly the kind of control net neutrality seeks to remove.

I have to think universities would start doing something similar. I mean, if you don't want 18-22 year olds trading music illegally, what can you do? Give on-campus students all that music for free, using a plan just like the 7Digital one for UK ISPs. Except that it ain't free; the licensing fee is going to be thrown in with tuition. And what's great? Once you leave school (or, more generally, your ISP or what-have-you), all that music you once could listen to drops right back into the virtual rare book room. You graduate, and your music is gone. Want to listen again? Pay again.

Personally, I don't want tax dollars going to license pop music for teenagers, much less tax dollars earmarked for "education" going to only temporarily license that pop music, but I'm not real optimistic that it won't happen.

This also has some real repercussions for the possibilities for smaller ISP start-ups. If Web 2.0 style controls like this one become popular, how are they going to be able to make the same deals with ~~record~~ music companies? They probably won't, at least not for the same prices per client.

Okay, as always, buy used books, trade for all your digital music, and if you're out tonight, don't forget, if you're on your bike, always, always, always wear white. (I was doing this before TK, thanks very much. Well, at least independent of.)

Labels: amazon, DRM, iTunes, online distribution, wal marts, web 2.0 shiite

Sub MacroPaste()
'
' MacroPaste Macro
' Macro created 6/6/07 by Bailey
'
'http://word.mvps.org/Mac/PasteText.html

'
' equivalent to Edit>Paste Special>Unformatted Text and to using
' the smart button in Word 2004 to select "keep text only"
'
Selection.PasteSpecial datatype:=wdPasteText

End Sub

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!! Back-up your data and, when you bike, always wear white. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links in green.
x MarkUpDown is the best Markdown editor for professionals on Windows 10. It includes two-pane live preview, in-app uploads to imgur for image hosting, and MultiMarkdown table support. Features you won't find anywhere else include... MarkUpDown Multiline Table & Bootstrap Grid support. Beautiful Easy Actions that keep the Markdown flowing. HTML paste to paste HTML source into your documents. You've wasted more than $15 of your time looking for a great Markdown editor. Stop looking. MarkUpDown is the app you're looking for. Learn more or head over to the 'Store now!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Not the biggest fan. You know, I don't yet know that I don't like Mr. Obama and am inclined to feel the opposite, but this from the NY Times drives me crazy: The crowd in the Pepsi Center roared as one and then began to chant, "Hillary, Hillary, Hillary." Argh. It's everything that's wrong with the US. (No, it's not the Hillary luv either. Bad guess.) I like the Times. I really like that they still call everyone "Mr. Obama" and "Mrs. Clinton". It's nostalgic and, well, genteel. You shouldn't have to talk that way, but it's good to know that the register of life in the US uses language in a style that your grandparents would approve. But, well, I think there's only one thing left to complain about. And it drives me freakin crazy. Esoteric rant comprehensible only by the author over. EDIT: Okay, here's a hint. The convention moves from the Pepsi Center to the 70,000-seat Invesco Field for Thursday night’s acceptance speech by Senator Obama. I hate that twice as much. Labels: Other Stuff posted by ruffin at 8/27/2008 08:10:00 PM

Monday, August 25, 2008
MS nice to Macs? Here's what happens when the iBook goes and tries to Install Photosynth: Unfortunately, we're not cool enough to run on your OS yet. We really wish we had a version of Photosynth that worked cross platform, but for now it only runs on Windows. Trust us, as soon as we have a Mac version ready, it will be up and available on our site. I'm not sure if they're mocking me or honestly apologizing, but I do know that either way that that's the most human response I've seen coming from Microsoft to say that something only works in Windows. posted by ruffin at 8/25/2008 10:45:00 PM

Pandora prepares to close, iTunes Watsons Pandora iTunes 8 and iPod Nanos on Sept 9th? - Mac Rumors: Rose also claims iTunes 8 may have the ability to make music recommendations based on the user's music library. posted by ruffin at 8/25/2008 04:31:00 PM

I'm an old fogey. University should keep its own email. From UNC's student newspaper: Google has created a new program specifically designed for college students. The education edition of Google Apps includes e-mail service in addition to applications like Google Calendar and Google Talk, an instant messaging service. ... Unlike a campus e-mail service, Google Apps comes at no charge. Arizona State University, which switched to Google Apps two years ago, paid $400,000 a year to maintain their old system, Keltner said. Well, why Google is interested in providing the service for the university makes perfect sense -- most will likely use Google's own web application to interface with email, and that means lots of ad revenue. And I suppose as long as you can use POP3 or IMAP to view your Google-hosted mail, I shouldn't complain. Still, what are the chances that Google stands to net more than $400k a year from your students? That is, could the university not invest in making its own, ad supported online interface and come out ahead in the long run? I would prefer that capitalism kept its sorry grubby hands away from academia, even if the university made the cash -- as if a capitalistic state institution of higher learning were still an option. Labels: acad, business, email, ethics, gmail, Google, market posted by ruffin at 8/25/2008 02:03:00 PM

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Raiding the archives From <Glazblog/>: Firefox is the root of the buzz, the root of the income, the root of the success, the root of the massive hiring process Mozilla started. Seamonkey is not a part of it any more, xulrunner is not a part of it any more, I hardly see how webrunner fits into that strategy, Mozilla just does not care about the editing companion to Firefox whatever its name Nvu or Composer, and Thunderbird is itself taken out from under the wings of Mozilla Corporation. The whole thing is about Firefox. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying it's bad or good. It's factual, period. So the modernity factor, the quality factor, the freedom factor and the coolness factor are NOT attached to the name 'Mozilla' for the public, sorry to say. I mean, I kinda got that feeling already. What I suppose I didn't quite understand is that not only has any sort of brand recognition with Mozilla been ditched, it's been ditched because it gives inferior performance in public considerations. Mozilla is not a neutral, relatively obscure brand, it is, instead, negative, dated, and unuseful. There's a reason it's called the browser war, I suppose. But what does this say about the place of html authorship and email in the public? And we're back to the question of what is [that hated moniker] Web 2.0 supposed to mean? iMovie to YouTube takes the place of Mozilla Composer to your geocities site? Labels: business, firefox, mozilla, web 2.0 shiite posted by ruffin at 8/21/2008 09:39:00 AM

Quick Wesch Critique Michael Wesch's youtube post is interesting in that it tries to make key distinctions between the use of traditional manuscript against the use of hypertext, but it's misleading in a number of ways I find particularly troubling. Let's be blog-a-rific and not compose these in any meaningful, synthesized way, and just list 'em out in the order they pop from the fingers. 1.) The fade from the white page of pencil to hypertext can be interpreted in one of two ways. The first is that there is a continuum between paper-manuscript and digital cultures, and the second is that there's a stark break. You watch as the actor moves from saying that digital text is different because it moves or can be changed in some strange way, but the editing continues until linking/hyperlinking/hypertext is settled on as the key distinction. Unfortunately what we just saw in the paper-manuscript suggestion was already doing a great job saying that this is not the case. There is no Web 1.0 or 2.0. Each set of technologies, whether keyboard, text editor and browser or pencil, paper, and printed page have their own means of remediating the dynamic functions depicted in that video. Read Heather Jackson's Marginalia and then tell me manuscript culture didn't have the same functionality as digital text. Both are compositional forms where the method of composition is the same as the method of publication, both typically allow avenues for easy coauthorship by readers/consumers/audiences, etc. The differences seem obvious enough, and they are useful ones. Digital media (with enough infrastructure -- server/proc speed & RAM, software, bandwidth) can quickly scale to allow for "flash mobs'" worth of interest, for example, whereas books with particularly impressive marginalia are much harder to share with millions at once. Yet these are differences, not strengths deserving 1980's style synthesized background music promising intellectual liberation. One allowed for the flourishing of the Tuesday Club, and the other allowed for Matt Drudge. The real difference between the two is the ability to move from a controlled, known audience to a potentially anonymous one, which I often rant about when people try to argue that privacy has been lost online. It's not so much that any of this is privacy but the expectation of anonymity... what are the ramifications for culture whose cities include the potential to walk down the street arguing personal matters with your spouse knowing that the comments aren't likely to be heard by anyone which you know personally? It would seem digital communication is only now catching up with the changes in the gross urban populations that have increasingly become the rule. Certainly the community of the shared gossip fence has died (and the gossip has likely gone digital without it). Which moves us from unearned break number one (as it becomes clear Wesch would rather argue a paradigm shift (meaning a quantum leap) between the abilities of paper-manuscript and digital text rather than something that does the same work differently) to unearned break number two -- the video's implication that HTML and XML are such totally different animals -- he trivially makes the case that you can't consider the format without the human behind it (a concept key for understanding any digital standard, like HTML, XML, and their SGML brethren), but the impression for the uninitiated is a dangerously misleading one, which I guess I'll talk about later. In brief. to say that HTML caused a static Web 1.0 and that XML allows for a dynamic Web 2.0 where form completely separates from content is horrendously oversimplistic. Makes for a groovy video, but does not, as presented, invite needed inquiry. (And as if Web 2.0 as currently conceived is an improvement...) It also tends to overlook that html was initially conceived as a means of providing markup whose display would be regulated by the way the browser's user set the preferences. I should find an older browser, but for now you can see a few vestiges in Netscape Communicator 4.77, which I had handy. EDIT: Here's a picture from Netscape 2.02. The operative option is highlighted (and it's in v4 as well) -- "Always use mine." -- I'd also add that one of the biggest changes from my undergrad days to today is the rigid policing of access to academic journals. Fifteen years ago, anyone could walk off of the street into their state university and have, within reason, the same journal access that their university professors had. Now, access to online journals are very carefully tracked, thanks to the power of databases and digital delivery/publication systems, and online-only subscriptions mean that access can be stolen away at any moment, shoved back into an exclusive virtual rare book room. Labels: acad, web 2.0 shiite, youtube posted by ruffin at 8/21/2008 12:03:00 AM

Is that an iPhone in your pocket? Just what the iPhone needed -- a 6x zoom that's nearly as big as the phone itself. Labels: iphone posted by ruffin at 8/21/2008 12:00:00 AM

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Education, tech, and the presidential race Official Google Blog: Bring the political process to life in your classroom: With technology producing such dramatic changes in American politics, we want to make sure it's easy for teachers to bring some of the best Internet tools into the classroom to help students get engaged. Working with the National Student/Parent Mock Election, we've pulled together a site called Elections Tools for Teachers where you can find descriptions and suggested learning activities for tools like YouTube, Google Maps, Elections Video Search and Power Readers, which we announced here yesterday. Labels: crd704 posted by ruffin at 8/20/2008 06:17:00 PM

*Wow, it zings* music? WOW.** From Dell to Try to Take on Apple's Online Music Dominance? at Mac Rumors: The software handles behind-the-scenes translations so that content can be 'zinged' between computers and other compatible devices. Dell hopes to announce the Zing software as a feature on small, cheap laptops expected in September and to have the software installed on all of its consumer PCs by the end of the year. Wow. Now there's a description that's going to woo venture capitalists. Hope nobody's yet patented "zinging" bytes across a network. IN-credible. Okay, now for a more mature reaction based on Dell vs. Apple: Why It May Be Personal from businessweek.com: The idea, which Dell plans to unveil as early as September, is to create a broad standard, more open than Apple's, that will give people greater choice in how they buy and consume music, movies, and podcasts. ... 'Customers want access to content from a broad variety of sources—how, when, and where they choose,' says CEO Michael Dell. Apple looks nearly invincible in the market, but this in itself may be its most serious vulnerability. Today, record labels grumble about Apple's tight grip on their business, and many consumers are frustrated because the iPod works only with iTunes, at a time when there are many ways to get digital content. Imagine if you could download a song from Amazon.com and send it to the mobile phone of a friend or the car stereo of someone who has satellite radio. By creating one uber-market, Dell and its partners hope to persuade consumers to try new devices and services. 'Apple wants to lock you in,' says Robert Enderle, a consultant who has been briefed by Dell. 'Dell wants to lock you in to choice.' Gosh, I hope there was a pause between "lock you in" and "to choice" there. Didn't I see Enderle on The Office? Dell is starting to sound a little like Microsoft. They had some pretty neat looking iPod clones a while back, and iirc, they're mostly gone; I haven't seen one in the catalogs Dell keeps spamming to my snail mail box in months. Now they think that open standards will beat Apple? Though Dell is following along the logic I mentioned a while back that using open standards is the only way to fight Apple, they are going to have a heck of an uphill battle to beat what Amazon's already got. I mean, we've already got the means to put jive on most any hardware node, phone, computer, mp3 player. TCP/IP plus mp3 == music anywhere. At best, this is a value added proposition. At worst, they're going to try to wrest the dominance of iTunes the jukebox. The fact that it's not being positioned like that by Dell at the start of this article shows they aren't visualizing the latter. More later, I guess. Labels: iTunes posted by ruffin at 8/20/2008 01:52:00 PM

Thursday, August 07, 2008
Microsoft's core business is what again? Right, OSes. I'm a little tired of all the banter about Google and Silverlight: Silverlight is a Microsoft product. Allow me to reiterate, Silverlight is a Microsoft product. Realizing that, Microsoft watches Google form advertising deals on its own platform and then releases a statement in the Google press release saying that it’s happy to see DoubleClick has made an “investment” in Silverlight? What a joke. Sure Silverlight works on Mac and there's an implementation coming for Linux. Guess where it'll work best -- and guess who has a big leg up designing the platform that powers it? Who gets to decide when Silverlight 3 comes out? Yep. And everyone else plays catchup. I think Google getting ads onto Silverlight first, and likely best, doesn't show that Microsoft's a bunch of idiots. Sure, the team at MS working on ads has lost, but the core MS business is making their OS and .NET, and here Windows Server in particular, the most attractive platforms for business. "Windows Server 2015, now with support for Silverlight 7!" When NBC and Google get together via Silverlight (itself just a .NET box), Microsoft does win. Labels: microsoft, Silverlight posted by ruffin at 8/07/2008 08:16:00 AM

Wednesday, August 06, 2008
It's the power of DRM, and the dangers of "Web 2.0" shite From a Macrumors.com post called Apple iTunes Still #1, but Amazon Gaining - Mac Rumors: Amazon, however, saw a rise in ranking from #5 to #4, which NPD attributes to both strong CD sales as well as Amazon's introduction of their MP3 music store. The digital rights management (DRM) free solution provides iPod users a convenient and compatible alternative to Apple's iTunes. Apple's still #1 when it comes to selling digital music (ie, CDs + downloads), Wal-Mart's two, and Best Buy's three, but Amazon is 4, apparently passing Target. Several months ago I mentioned that "Keeping DRM free 'not Apple' is the only bargaining chip the music companies have," and that I thought it was a smart move by Universal to hedge their bets by going DRM at the iTunes Music Store and DRM-free at Amazon. I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing -- or even the primary thing -- going on with Amazon's move from 5 to 4 (even if Amazon's online store stole 10% of iTunes' customers). Instead, what we're likely seeing is that CD sales and music download sales are relatively unrelated markets, and adding an online store was a gain for Amazon all the way around. Even if Amazon only sells a quarter as many online downloads as they have CDs in the past, that's a 25% gain [minus a small number of CD buyers moving to online downloads]. If anything, Amazon's online music store is probably helping them sell more CDs, especially if the NRD counts used sales from 3rd party vendors. The CDs are just a link away from the mp3s. I imagine anyone on the chart could move a bit with that sort of change. I was interested to see that a company in the UK offering the following music subscription service for ISPs to install: Scant days since UK music labels reached a deal with six of the country's leading ISPs to begin turning the screws on the nation's estimated six million file-sharers, 7Digital has entered the fray, offering ISPs a range of services designed to let them offer music to their customers as part of their subscription. This is Web 2.0, as the corporations want to see it. The UK ISPs are already throttling back on people who use p2p. The deal - which has been agreed to by BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse - also means file-sharers could see their broadband connections slowed, or removed altogether. And then we see something like 7Digital's suggestion, above, that these same ISPs could license what essentially becomes a free or easily controlled subscription music service on what amounts to their own intranets. This is exactly the kind of control net neutrality seeks to remove. I have to think universities would start doing something similar. I mean, if you don't want 18-22 year olds trading music illegally, what can you do? Give on-campus students all that music for free, using a plan just like the 7Digital one for UK ISPs. Except that it ain't free; the licensing fee is going to be thrown in with tuition. And what's great? Once you leave school (or, more generally, your ISP or what-have-you), all that music you once could listen to drops right back into the virtual rare book room. You graduate, and your music is gone. Want to listen again? Pay again. Personally, I don't want tax dollars going to license pop music for teenagers, much less tax dollars earmarked for "education" going to only temporarily license that pop music, but I'm not real optimistic that it won't happen. This also has some real repercussions for the possibilities for smaller ISP start-ups. If Web 2.0 style controls like this one become popular, how are they going to be able to make the same deals with ~~record~~ music companies? They probably won't, at least not for the same prices per client. Okay, as always, buy used books, trade for all your digital music, and if you're out tonight, don't forget, if you're on your bike, always, always, always wear white. (I was doing this before TK, thanks very much. Well, at least independent of.) Labels: amazon, DRM, iTunes, online distribution, wal marts, web 2.0 shiite posted by ruffin at 8/06/2008 07:24:00 AM

Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Paste in Word without formatting `Sub MacroPaste() ' ' MacroPaste Macro ' Macro created 6/6/07 by Bailey ' 'http://word.mvps.org/Mac/PasteText.html ' ' equivalent to Edit>Paste Special>Unformatted Text and to using ' the smart button in Word 2004 to select "keep text only" ' Selection.PasteSpecial datatype:=wdPasteText End Sub` Labels: Word posted by ruffin at 8/05/2008 10:33:00 AM

Friday, August 01, 2008
New chip for Apple is... a new chip? I generally dislike Cringely, but he might be on to something here: The NTT chip is not just an H.264 decoder, it encodes, too, which is what makes it so special. The last I heard NHK was claiming the chip could compress a 1080p video and audio stream into four megabits per second, down from the 20 megabits normally required. If we assume Apple will apply the same kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge transcoding to 1080p that they've already applied to 720p in the Apple TV, then it is within reason to expect they'll claim to distribute 1080p over iTunes in two megabits per second. Now this is a smart explanation for the upcoming new chip action in Macs. Rather than using a new type of main processor (which nobody thinks is coming) or a new chipset for Intel (which everyone thinks is coming for some strange reason, though, as I just blogged, I hope Nvidia does show up), this is putting a dedicated video chip into many Macs, which is brilliant. It's like Altivec all over again, but outside of Intel. As Cringely says... If we assume Apple will apply the same kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge transcoding to 1080p that they've already applied to 720p in the Apple TV, then it is within reason to expect they'll claim to distribute 1080p over iTunes in two megabits per second. Getting faster video downloads is a big deal. If Apple can do it first and well, they'll've done something. posted by ruffin at 8/01/2008 10:56:00 PM

Thank heavens, Apple moving towards Nvidia Well, they're moving towards Nvidia if you believe all you read: The evidence has been mounting over the past weeks and now I can say with reasonable assuredness that future Apple notebooks, among other products, will likely have NVIDIA chipsets and graphics solutions in them come this fall. I've been impressed with my experience with nvidia integrated graphics and not so much with Intel. If the MacBook gets Nvidia integrated, that's going to be really good news for casual 3D gamers. It's waaaay overdue; the mobile gaming tax to move to a MacBook Pro left a hole in the MacBook line. posted by ruffin at 8/01/2008 07:09:00 PM

Mesh networks and the iPhone This iPhone "tethering app" mentioned on Mac Rumors is great to hear about. The $9.99 application promises to allow you to share your iPhone's network connection with your computer. Share your iPhone's EDGE or 3G Internet connection with your computer using NetShare. NetShare provides a SOCKS5 proxy for your computer to connect to. Here's the upshot -- now it would appear that someone could write an application to share out your 3G network connection to anyone in wifi range... who could then share that connection to anyone in wifi range, ad infinitum. Instant mesh network. With smart, connect when needed networking, one day we could see alternatives to the monolithic Internet. With the corporate incursions into the idea of "Web 2.0", it's going to be a Very Good Thing to have offline alternatives. If iPhones (and iPod touches, and your old Linux laptop, etc, etc, but starting with a good, increasingly ubiquitous, mobile nodes to the Internet proper like the iPhone) could be made to be nodes on that network, we'd be in business. Of course I realize that the iPhone has some serious issues running applications, the biggest here being that it won't, without some finagling, run apps in the background. Battery concerns are also dealbreakers. posted by ruffin at 8/01/2008 07:01:00 PM

<< Older \| Newer >>