Been busy lately, so here's a few entries from around the internet the past
Cute little lego version of Steve Jobs (of Apple fame):
PodBrix Minifig - Keynote [PodBrix via Gizmodo]
The XMLHttpRequest object is a handy dandy JavaScript object that offers a convenient way for webpages to get information from servers without refreshing themselves:
Guide to Using XMLHttpRequest [WebPasties via Gadgetopia]
Interesting article by Spaceship No Future (SNF) on how they replaced the Movable Type login system with their own custom solution:
Integrating custom authentication into Movable Type [Spaceship No Future via Six Apart]
Word on the street is that Bungie is hard at work on Halo 3 (no surprise there), but Kotaku is reporting that they're (Bungie/MS) apparently is targetting the Sony Playstation 3's release date.
Yeah, I found that funny too.
Halo 3 in the Works [Kotaku via Gizmodo]
OK, so Apple announced newer versions of the iPod mini and iPod photo yesterday, and although the mini's didn't include a color screen or bluetooth abilities like many speculated, they did include a moderate increase in storage space (4GB up to 6GB) and a massive increase in battery life (8 hours up to 18 hours). Other great news on the iPod mini front was that they lowered the price from $249 US to $199 for the 4GB model. But, what I did find curious, is that they also removed some of the bundled accessories, and force you to buy them separately now.
More info after the jump.
iPod mini (1G)
iPod mini (2G)
So, the migration from 1G to 2G iPod mini, you benefit from a significant increase in battery life (8 hours versus 18 hours, a 225% increase!) as well as the obvious jump from 4GB to 6GB (150% increase) for the same price point. But, what really interested me, apart from the price drops was the fact that they did so at the expense of the accessories. The first generation iPod mini included a belt clip, earbud headphones, power adapter, FireWire cable and USB 2.0 cable, and iTunes 4.6. The second generation iPod only includes the belt clip, earbud headphones, USB 2.0 cable, and iTunes 4.7.1 (a mere 1.02% increase in iTune version numbers). If you want the missing power adapter or FireWire cable that came bundled with the first generation iPod mini, you got to pony up $29 US and $19 US respectively. So, although they reduced the price of the 4GB iPod mini from $249 to $199, they seemingly removed about $48 worth of accessories, which isn’t a horrible deal as you can choose which accessories you’d really use and only pay if you needed them. The only other mysterious change between first and second generation iPods is the mysterious disappearance of the color "gold", which no longer seems to be an option.
The new iPod mini seems like a fantastic improvement. Although you get less bang for your buck, unbundling the accessories allowed Apple to introduce the iPod mini at a lower price point.
OK, not Flash related, unless you're into RIAs or ever need to use a database, but it would appear that Microsoft has lifted the lid on SQL Server 2005.
This may have already been blogged to death, but I just noticed the info on my Google News homepage. Microsoft is now offering four versions of SQL Server 2005, ranging from a free "Express" version, all the way up to their $13,500 (or $25,000 per processor) "Enterprise" version.
Check out the Microsoft site for all the details. You'll be glad you did. Or maybe you won't, what do I know?
SQL Server Home [Microsoft]
Expanding the SQL Server Product Line [Microsoft]
SQL Server 2005 Features Comparison [Microsoft]
Unfortunately, the story seems a lot more interesting than the actual pictures, but it appears that some enterprising fellow decided to drive from New York to San Francisco, and take photos every mile. Sounds like a great idea, albeit after about 6 days and 3,304 photos, I'm betting it wasn't oodles of fun in the end.
Matt began his roadside tableau in New York City, where he framed the Statue of Liberty and shot his first photo. Then he headed west to San Francisco on as straight a line as possible, a camera at his side clicking away at precise one-mile increments, for 3,304 miles.
And:
When Matt got to San Francisco and shot the Golden Gate Bridge at mile 3,304, he celebrated with a pizza and a beer. It was a Friday, six days after he left New York. He dismounted the camera, drove home, and was back in his office on Monday morning.
Check out his photos (in a not half-bad (or half good, I guess) Flash thing-a-ma-jig. Kodak also has a QuickTime movie of all 3304 stills in what must be the biggest slideshow ever.
Check out the photos and "Meet Matt", over at Kodak's site. The "Meet Matt" bit is actually a lot more interesting than the title suggests. It is more of a "How'd they do that" bit, explaining how he automated his SLR (yeah, it wasn't even a digital camera!) to take shots every mile.
Taken On The Road-American Mile Markers [Kodak via Lifehacker]
I'm sure this has already made the rounds, but I just noticed it in my Google Alerts email folder from last Friday.
Macworld UK (who seemingly sports ColdFusion!) reports that Macromedia is expected to debut new products in its industry-standard MX range by "late summer" (or so says an analyst).
Macromedia - new MX products in late summer [Macworld UK]
So remember folks, you heard it here... errr... last, probably. Yes, Flash-MX, bringing you yesterday's news today!
Big news coming out of the Macromedia camp as they ink deals with Samsung and Nokia to include Flash on certain high-end phones.
BusinessWeek has an interesting article which posts some numbers and figures (if you're into that kind of thing), but they also had those juicy bit:
So what does that amount to? To get an idea, consider Nokia's smart phone, the Series 60, which has 20 million customers, and whose sales are growing 100% per year, says Antti Vasara, head of Nokia's mobile-software sales and marketing.Before these deals, Flash was on about 20 million phones, the bulk of which were part of NTT DoCoMo's (DCM ) network in Japan, a Macromedia partner since 2003. In Macromedia's fiscal third quarter, which ended in December, it made $5.9 million from the inclusion of Flash in mobile devices.
While that sounds like a small amount, consider the massive market opportunity on the horizon. Nearly 200 million handsets shipped in the fourth quarter, according to market researchers at IDC. And for the year, shipments were up 30% from 2003. Some analysts estimate nearly half the phones shipping next year will have enough memory to run Flash. If current growth rates keep up, that's roughly 500 million phones with Flash potential.
Wow! It looks like Flash and mobile devices are set to [finally] take off over on this side of the ocean! Now would be a good time to head over to the Macromedia store and pick up that developer release of Flash Lite 1.1!
Macromedia Looks Flash in Cell Phones [BusinessWeek]
OK, this news seems to be making the rounds today on ye jolly Interweb, but it would seem that Sony is about to add a new feature to its popular Everquest II game:
You're in luck - pizza is just a few key strokes away! While playing EverQuest II just type /pizza and a web browser will launch the online ordering section of pizzahut.com. Fill in your info and just kick back until fresh pizza is delivered straight to your door.
The idea itself is genius, and seemingly the way that the industry (at least gaming industry) is heading. With in-game billboards and all sorts of advertising throughout a lot of current games.
What I think would be nice would be if Macromedia started following suit. For example, how about typing //pizza in your Flash Actions panel and having a "Pizza Hut panel" appear? Macromedia could build a fancy Flash/Flex based ordering system where you could drag toppings onto your pizza and then possibly collect commissions/kickbacks from Pizza Hut. Heck, we could even assign the panel a keyboard shortcut! WHO'S WITH ME??!
EverQuest II - /pizza [Sony via Boing Boing]
The best just got, well, incrementally somewhat better-ish.
I noticed on Gadgetopia (yay FeedDemon!) that Google has released a beta of their ever-so-popular browser Toolbar. New features include (but not limited to):
Sounds pretty cool, although AutoLink sounds a bit sketchy, but I'm sure it can be disabled (or just never click the button). The features page offers a bit more info on AutoLink:
New! AutoLink
The online review of a great new restaurant has the place's address but no map. You could type the restaurant's street, city, and ZIP code into the search box, but why bother, when clicking the Toolbar's AutoLink button will automatically create a link to an online map (US addresses only)? AutoLink can also link package tracking numbers to delivery status, VIN numbers (US) to vehicle history, and publication ISBN numbers to Amazon.com listings.
So there you have it.
Google Toolbar 3 beta [Google via Gadgetopia]
Found this link on Gadgetopia today, TinyApps is a nice little site dedicated to small programs that specialize in one single task, and do it well.
The site is also lite on content to quote, so here's a large portion of the front page:
Welcome to TinyApps.Org, a guide to very small software for your PC. Virtually all of the programs listed here are free of charge and for use under Windows (Palm and OS X pages also exist). If this is your first visit, please read the FAQ.
If we do stroll over to the FAQ, we see a bit more info:
To qualify for TinyApps, a program must:
* Not exceed 1.44mb
* Not be adware
* Not require the VB/MFC/.NET runtimes. Also, preference is given to apps which are 100% self-contained, requiring no installation, registry changes, etc.
*Preferably be free, and ideally offer source code. Shareware will only be listed if there is no freeware alternative.
It is a pretty good list of software, I noticed a few apps that I've been using for years (yay LeechFTP -- a great FTP client which is known to sometimes return all your error messages in some foreign language -- possibly German).
TinyApps.org [via Gadgetopia]
Microsoft flexes it's mad documentation skillz, and writes a "good" article designed to help parents understand what their kids say on the 'net.
And I quoteth:
While it's important to respect your children's privacy, understanding what your teenager's online slang means and how to decipher it is important as you help guide their online experience. While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short. Leet (a vernacular form of "elite") is a specific type of computer slang where a user replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically - creating the digital equivalent of pig Latin with a twist of hieroglyphics.
And yes, it gets funnier...
A parent's primer to computer slang [Microsoft.com via Ars Technica]
OK, I know a lot of people in the Flash/Macromedia community have Xboxes, so this is somewhat worthy of a blog post. Apparently some Xboxes (very few, mind you) are possibly likely to catch fire and burn you to death while you sleep (or something like that).
Microsoft isn't charging for the replacements (as far as I can tell) and they seemingly don't ask you to send in your current cable while you wait the 2-4 weeks while your replacement cable gets shipped to you, so there isn't really a "downside" to checking it out.
Why are Xbox replacement power cords needed? The replacement power cords are designed to protect consumers and their Xbox consoles from rare electrical component failures that can pose a fire hazard.How great is the risk? Fewer than one in 10,000 consoles have experienced these component failures. In almost all instances, any damage caused by these failures was contained within the console itself or limited to the tip of the power cord at the back of the console.
Check to see if your Xbox applies by entering your serial number and manufacturing date over on Xbox.com. And naturally, if you don't know those numbers off the top of your head, they have a handy GIF that explains where to find the 411. There, you've been warned.
Although the article is somewhat old (Feb 2, 2005), the article is actually a pretty decent read. Surprisingly, I've only heard of two of the books, and only have one of them on my bookshelf. All of the books selected are centered around web design, so no Flash books listed.
I've put together a list of the four best Web design books that you might have missed. Some are a few years old, but they’re still worth a look -- especially if you are new to Web design.
The Four Best Web Design Books You May Have Missed [Digital Web Magazine via Nick Bradbury]
Just to ruin the punchline, here's the four books that they selected (with New Riders taking 3 of the 4 results):
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
ISBN 0789723107
Steve Krug
New Riders Press, 2000, 195pp.
$23.10 USD
Designing with Web Standards
ISBN 0735712018
Jeffrey Zeldman
New Riders Press, 2003, 456pp.
$23.10 USD
Unusually Useful Web Book
ISBN 0735712069
June Cohen
New Riders Press, 2003, 408pp.
$23.10 USD
Web Analytics Demystified
ISBN 0974358428
Eric T. Peterson
Celilo Group Media, 2004, 266pp.
$59.95 USD
Found this while browsing Boing Boing, but RockRage seems to have a pretty good list of fonts used by various bands.
They have a pretty good list ranging from AC/DC all the way to Whitesnake, so if you've been holding off on making that Scorpions fanclub site because you couldn't find the perfect font, today is your lucky day!
Rock and Roll fonts [RockRage via Boing Boing]
According to various news sources around the interweb, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft will be releasing their newest version of Internet Explorer this summer.
CNET News offers the following tasty morsels:
A beta, or test, version of Internet Explorer 7 will debut this summer, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect said in a keynote address at the RSA Conference 2005 here. The company had said that it would not ship a new IE version before the next major update to Windows, code-named Longhorn, arrives next year.
Analysts attributed Microsoft's change of heart to the progress of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, which has made incremental but steady market share gains against IE in recent months. In a survey conducted late last year, Firefox nudged IE below the 90 percent mark for the first time since the height of the browser wars in the 1990s.
Reversal: Next IE update divorced from Windows [CNET News]
Microsoft to Release New Internet Browser [Yahoo News]
UPDATE:
A few more interesting sources for the same information:
Internet Explorer 7 beta due out this summer [Ars Technica]
Bill gates announces a security push and a new Internet Explorer [UberGizmo]
And, in other browser related news...
Ask Jeeves wants Firefox browser [Ars Technica]
IE Is Costing You Money - An Angry Rant [Gizmodo]
Update redux:
Misinformation about the IE7 announcement [Digital Web Magazine]
Do you want to install FlashLite 1.1 on your cell phone so you can start developing moble apps? Macromedia has released the Flash Lite profile for used for developing on mobile phones. Flash Lite has seen explosive adoption by Japanese consumers and developers alike, and now it is quickly gaining adoption from operators and manufacturers outside of Japan.
According to the Flash Lite 1.1 FAQ:
Who should buy the Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 player?
Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 is targeted towards developers to enable them to jump their development for Flash Lite content for the mobile platform. The player is not targeted towards consumers, but there is nothing stopping consumers from purchasing the player for installation on their handset.
This product is available for specific handsets only. The player installer is specific to each phone. It cannot be transferred to another handset. The following handsets are supported only:
Series 60
UIQ
* Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 player supports English only via the online store.
So, there you have it. Head over to ye ol' Macromedia store and pick up a copy of the Flash Lite 1.1 player.
Today Apple released an update to OS X, bringing Panther up to 10.3.8.
Key updates include (but not limited to):
Feel free to download the update at About Mac OS X Update or check out the full details of the update over at the aptly titled, About the Mac OS X 10.3.8 Update, page.
Or, you can always just the handy Software Update (Mac's vastly superior version of Windows Update), but then where's the fun in that?!
Although I'm a diehard fan of FeedDemon ($30 USD), I'm trying to find a solid RSS reader for MS Outlook 2003. In my FeedDemon I have about 120 feeds in about 10 different categories, but there are times when you just want to follow a small handful of your favorite feeds (or even create a feed of recent comments on your own blogs). I've found a few good Outlook plug-ins for reading news feeds, but was wondering if anybody else out there reads news feeds in Outlook or if they use other tools (such as free online readers or other apps).
So far I've tried a few different Outlook plug-ins, from RSS Popper (free) to NewsGator Outlook Edition ($30 US).
Although I found RSS Popper to work in most cases, so far I'm leaning towards NewsGator instead as it seems a bit more stable and polished.