I want to thank Chris M Johnson again for suggesting Music Alerts to me. It does what it needs to, it gives you album release date notifications through an RSS feed, and although it works just fine there are still some issues with it.

The biggest problem with Music Alerts is it’s input method. They give you a text box to list your bands seperated by commas. But, once you input the bands there is no way to be sure that the bands were typed in correctly and there is no way of knowing that they were recognized. One of the bands I listed, “Callahan,” was instead recognized as an artist named “Bill Callahan,” not exactly what I was looking for.

Which brings me to the next problem with Music Alerts, you can’t remove bands from your feed. The only solution they have for removing a band from your feed is to copy the description tag from your old feed (which contains all of your listed artists), remove the artist you no longer wants updates for, and paste it on Music Alerts’ website to make a new feed. You can add bands to your feed but not being able to remove them is a real bummer.

The last suggestion I have is iTunes Genius style recommendations for bands that a user might be interested in, this isn’t a necessity, just icing on the cake.

Music Alerts is still better than nothing. But, I hope that they will either improve or another service becomes available that has all of the features I’m looking for.

Ambrosia Software may have to compete with Apple in the screen recording space. In recent betas of Snow Leopard the QuickTime X Player has had a “Screen recording” option added to its File menu.

The QuickTime X implementation of screen recording will function similar to other screen recording applications. When the option is chosen a prompt will appear on screen asking you to start the recording. When the recording begins the prompt disappears and a small menu bar icon will appear, clicking on it will let you end the recording.

Apple has the habit of killing third party applications with new features in operating system releases. This of course worries me, I don’t want to see another Virtual Desktop and Spaces situation. I like third party developers and I want them to continue development but once Apple brings similar functionality into their OS the ability for the developer to justify further support of the app just simply isn’t there, and the sales disappear too. Ambrosia Software has a lot of other applications in their arsenal but how many small developers need to be put out of business because Apple decides to add some unique functionality to their operating system?

AppleInsider | Snow Leopard to offer screen recording via QuickTime X Player.
Image credit to feber.se.

Update 6/10/09: Apple officially announced QuickTime X at the WWDC keynote, but screen recording was not part of that announcement. We still have a few months before it gets released so it is still a possibility.

All of those upset HD-DVD owners that chose the wrong format now have a shoulder to cry on. Although that shoulder will cost them $11.90 per disc it is still cheaper than buying new media at Wal-Mart.

Warner Bros. is now allowing HD-DVD owners to send in their Warner Bros. HD-DVD titles and they will send back Blu-ray copies of those movies. The cost is just $4.95 per title plus $6.95 shipping and handling.

The whole process from sending them in to receiving your new Blu-ray discs takes about a month but I’m sure many early adopters would rather wait a month than have obsolete discs.

This is the first program of its kind and I would like to see similar programs crop up with other movie studios. But, then again, I guess I don’t understand why everyone is unwilling to just buy an Apple TV and make it easier on themselves.

Downloads are so much easier than discs.

Red2Blu – Upgrade Your Warner Bros. HD-DVDs for New Blu-Ray Discs.

USA Today reports that Apple is in talks with Verizon to bring the iPhone to their network in 2010. This would contradict the “5 year exclusivity agreement” that everyone always claims to exist between Apple and AT&T. But, as many forget, the idea that it was a 5 year agreement came from an analyst prediction and not from either AT&T or Apple, meaning its validity was questionable from the get go.

If this report is indeed true (and it appears to be) the customers would be the real winners. AT&T wouldn’t be able to sit on their butts anymore, surely the simple fact that two cell carriers would have the iPhone would force both of them to compete and ultimately drive prices down.

I urge everyone to remember that this news doesn’t claim that Apple is actually going to release the iPhone for Verizon. It simply states that Apple and Verizon are in talks, but whether or not the iPhone will be released for Verizon is yet to be determined.

I’ve dropped Twitterrific like a hot potato and am using Tweetie full time now as my Twitter client of choice. The app is clearly better but it does have its flaws.

• I would like to be able to remove the Tweetie icon from the dock. The menu bar icon is good enough for me.
• Why can’t I hide my avatar in the sidebar? This feature is probably useful for those with multiple accounts but is just clutter if you only have one account.
• There isn’t a favorited items view. And, along those lines, why do I have to right-click to favorite a tweet?
• There aren’t any notification sounds.

Tweetie is still better than Twitterrific but it would be (nearly) perfect if the above flaws were addressed.

Rumor has it that Apple has advised their authorized resellers to begin putting both the Apple Composite AV Cable and the Apple Component AV Cable on clearance. PhoneNews.com claims to have sources saying that Apple will be consolidating these cables soon.

The upcoming cable is known only as the “Apple AV Cable” and will function similar to the Xbox 360 Component AV Cable, that is, it will support both component and composite output through the same set of cables. One of the major complaints of the current cables is that you would have to purchase both the component and composite versions if you wanted to connect your iPod or iPhone to an HDTV and a SDTV (forcing you to spend nearly $100), this is precisely why I haven’t purchased either one of the cables yet.

PhoneNews.com also claims that the next generation iPhone will be capable of playing back HD video with 720p and 1080i output modes.

So far PhoneNews.com’s rumors all seem plausible but then they move into crazy Apple rumors territory by claiming that the next generation iPhone and iPod touch will be able to playback video from sources over the Wi-Fi network using Bonjour to find video content on other computers. They also claim that the iPhone and iPod touch will offer a 10 foot interface, similar to that of the Apple TV.

Personally I would love to 10 foot interface on an iPhone or iPod touch but I just don’t see it happening. Apple has had the opportunity to do this for so long and still hasn’t. since the 5th generation iPod users have been begging for a 10 foot interface, why would Apple do it now? The Apple TV does what those users want to be able to do and it is a fair price, if users are really interested in purchasing content through iTunes and watching it on their HDTV they will buy the Apple TV. The current functionality of the video output on iPods and iPhones is good enough and I don’t see Apple complicating things by adding a user interface that would be displayed through your TV.

Apple Consolidating AV Cables Ahead of iPhone HD Launch | PhoneNews.com.

Update 7/30/09: It has been over a month since the iPhone 3GS launch and not only does this new iPhone not support HD video, Apple also hasn’t consolidated their AV cable offerings.

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about Twitter becoming as useless as MySpace, or the worry that it might. The problem with every other social network in the past is that once the non-tech savvy start to show up the usefulness of the service seems to drop (I’m sorry but this has just been my personal experience), there just becomes too much noise and trying to find useful information becomes very difficult.

But, the difference with Twitter is that you only see people you choose to see. John Gruber (@gruber) put it perfectly:

The genius of Twitter: you pick who you follow, so every illiterate in the world can join (and they are) and it doesn’t change your stream.

The current cause for concern amongst the people I know is that all of Oprah’s fans are going to ruin Twitter. But, how can that affect you unless you follow those people, even if people you follow start to make mentions of uninteresting users you can always just unfollow them.

Twitter really is the kind of service where it can be useful or completely useless, it is all up to you. As long as you follow interesting people you will only see interesting tweets.

So the short answer, no, Twitter won’t become as useless as MySpace.

Regarding Asustek and Garmin’s smartphones:

a source with direct knowledge of the project, speaking on condition his name not be used because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said the plan was to begin shipping the first LiMo phones in June

Although Reuters doesn’t mention the source by name, this is Reuters, so for better or worse you should probably trust them.

It has taken two announcements and a year and a half but it now appears we have a release time frame (other than “soon”) for the Nuvifone G60.

Update 8/7/09: TWICE is reporting that the Garmin-Asus Nuvifone G60 is “on track to launch in the U.S. in the fourth quarter”.

Update 10/3/09: AT&T and Garmin have announced in a press release that the Nuvifone G60 will be available for AT&T on October 4 for $299.

Airfoil is an amazing application by Rogue Amoeba, it allows you to send audio to AirPort speakers from any application you wish. I’ve been using Airfoil ever since I purchased my AirPort Express, but have been dreaming of a day when I could send audio from Airfoil to my iPhone. You see, Rogue Amoeba also makes an application called Airfoil Speakers that allows you to use that as a destination for audio through Airfoil, just install Airfoil speakers on a computer within the same network and it becomes an destination for audio from Airfoil.

Airfoil Speakers has been available for Windows, Mac, and Linux but now Airfoil Speakers is available for the iPhone and iPod touch as well. I haven’t spent too much time with the app but I already know that I love it.

It is a very simple app, all the control you really have access to is volume. All of the audio source control is on the computer that is sending the audio.

What is really great about this app is that I can now open up Twit Live in Firefox and send the audio to my Apple TV, my AirPort Express, my iPhone connected to a speaker dock, and still play the audio through my computer. This is whole home audio at its finest.

Airfoil Speakers Touch is available now and is completely free. You do need Airfoil for the Mac or Windows (available for $25) to use Airfoil Speakers Touch but if you are at all interested in whole home audio you probably already own the app.

Under The Microscope » Blog Archive » Introducing Airfoil Speakers Touch.

In the most recent episode of MacBreak Weekly (episode 136: EULA Schmeula) Andy Ihnatko, regarding the Palm Pre, said this:

The mac isn’t a home run in terms of commercial appeal, and yet it can do very very well with 8 or 9% of the market. The Pre doesn’t have to beat the entire smartphone market, they don’t have to beat the iPhone, they don’t have to beat the blackberry. All they have to do is establish credibility and that they have a platform that is going to last at least 2 more years. I think that their goal for this launch should be to get people to think twice about switching to an iPhone or switching to a BlackBerry, so long as they are a part of the decision matrix, they get a win.

Wrong. Unfortunately Palm doesn’t have the luxury of being able to treat the Pre this way, they need it to sell, fairly well, or Palm might be over. When we are talking about a company (Palm) that has steadily been losing market share over the past few years they really need a true winner. Just because Palm is in the decision matrix doesn’t mean they win, even if they are involved in someones decision making process for purchasing a smartphone, Palm doesn’t win unless someone actually buys the handset.

Palm’s goal shouldn’t just be to get people to think twice before buying a smartphone. Why would anyone want to buy a cell phone from a company with that kind of goal? Especially when there are cell phone companies out there whose goal it is to make the best phone available.

I’m not saying the Palm Pre has to sell gang busters, I’m more or less asserting that Ihnatko’s idea of what Palm’s goal should be, is obviously wrong. The Mac has proved that a company can exist with a relatively small market share. But, Apple is one of those companies that wants to make the best device available, Palm needs to want that too.

It appears to me that Palm thinks they have a home run on their hands, but I’m hoping that they want this to be the best cell phone available, even if that is true just for the people that buy it. Macintosh computers are where they are today because the people who use them, love them, Palm needs to gain that type of customer loyalty with the Pre, they at least need to strive for that, otherwise I don’t know how they could ever pull themselves out the this hole.

Update 6/4/09: Reviews have started to be released for the Palm Pre. So far I’ve found reviews by the following writers: Walt Mossberg, Joshua Topolsky, David Pogue, Jason Chen, Bonnie Cha, Steven Levy.

Just like many others who enjoy Twitter and use an iPhone, Tweetie for iPhone is my absolute favorite way of interacting with Twitter. There have been dozens of times where I was sitting at my computer and wishing that I could just use Tweetie on my computer rather than have to go in the other room to grab my iPhone.

I’ve used Twitterrific since it was released but it just doesn’t have the feature set of Tweetie. Well, the one man shop (atebits) behind Tweetie released a video of an upcoming version of Tweetie made natively for the Mac.

The app will let you easily navigate through various views such as replies, your timeline, direct messages, and even conversations. The video appears to depict conversations as a way to view a conversation thread between yourself and another Twitter user (as long as @replies are used).

Drag and drop image files into a the app to post to TwitPic, click on a TwitPic link and rather than being sent to the web page (as you are with Twitterrific) a Quick Look-like window will pop up with the image inside it.

It has integrated search functionality and easy link sharing capabilities. The app will be released this Monday April 20. There will be a free advertisement supported version and an ad-free version for $14.95.

TechCrunch has managed to get their hands on a copy of it and will have a full review of the app on Monday. I, on the other hand, will have to wait until Monday to get my hands on the app.

I was a little furious with Time Warner Cable when they announced that they were going to test out metered/tiered pricing in certain regions. I live in upstate New York, a couple of hours south of Rochester. Although I wouldn’t be part of the metered boardband test I am in a Time Warner area. And, there are only 2 other options for broadband, DSL and Earthlink (which goes over the same cables as Time Warner does).

I plan on moving about 10 miles away this summer and see this as an opportunity to consider changing around my broadband set up a little bit. I will still have the same options as I have now (except I might not have DSL is an option because the new house is in a more rural area). I was thinking of getting Earthlink, this way I wouldn’t have to deal with caps (at least for a while) and I would be sending a significantly smaller amount of money to Time Warner each month (Earthlink still has to pay Time Warner to use their cables).

I was also considering just staying with Time Warner but making sure not to make any long term commitments just for a lower price per month, this way if metered service does come to my area I could drop them immediately and move to another provider.

But, with recent news of Time Warner (at least) holding off on their plan to meter bandwidth I will be choosing Time Warner for my broadband access.

I will still make sure that I don’t get into any commitments, just in case they decide to reintroduce metering again sooner than I hope they will (I’m sure they will, it’s just a question of how long we’ll have to wait), but in the mean time I’ll save a little bit of money each month by combining my cable and broadband bill.

I do want to commend Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Eric Massa for their disapproval of Time Warner metering their broadband service. I don’t think Massa’s proposal to ban metered bandwidth is exactly the right idea, I actually think Schumer’s plan to instead protect consumers without completely banning it is a much smarter solution. I’m just glad that both of them seem to care about consumers.

By the way, in case the title fooled you, I definitely still hate Time Warner Cable.

Time Warner halts metered billing tests | Wireless – CNET News.

Update 6/2/09: Recently Time Warner has changed their terms of service to be little bit more friendly to bandwidth tiers. As a result of this I’m once again, angry at the company.

A display maker by the name of Collins America has announced 19, 20, and 24 inch “CinemaView” displays with Mini DisplayPort connectors. The displays are very reminiscent of Apple’s current Cinema Display and iMac lines (by the way, I’m not wrong when I say these are ugly right? The CinemaView displays, not the Apple ones, something about those rounded edges and tall stand).

I’ve read a lot of about Mini DisplayPort in regards to connecting a computer (say, a MacBook Pro) with Mini DisplayPort to a DVI monitor but I haven’t seen enough about the issue of having to connect an older computer to a Mini DisplayPort display.

I have a previous generation aluminum iMac and would like to purchase one of the new 24″ Cinema Displays for it, but since there currently isn’t an adapter for Mini-DVI to Mini DisplayPort I am out of luck. I’ve considered purchasing a used 20″ Apple Cinema Display on eBay but don’t want to deal with that hassle and am not fond of the mystery involved with purchasing used gear.

I don’t understand why Apple insists on cutting off support for computers that were only purchased 8 months ago. My computer is still fairly new and I should be able to buy a display from Apple that I can connect to it. I know that MonoPrice has released an adapter to connect a computer with Mini DisplayPort to a non-DisplayPort monitor but I wonder where the Mini-DVI (or just DVI) to Mini DisplayPort adapter is.

Update 7/17/09: Collins America has updated their (still yet to be released) CinemaView products. They now have bigger sizes and a TV tuner available. The first of these products is said to be coming in October but I wouldn’t hold your breath for them.

Don’t you just love it when someone claims something that they have absolutely no solid evidence to back up?

The CrunchPad is looking pretty darn good if you ask me, but it’s important to bear in mind that this thing may not ever appear on the market. There are lots of factors involved and let’s hope that Arrington and crew get them all in line and that the CrunchPad does make it to market.

That quote above is all JKonTheRun (linked below) says about the CrunchPad not coming to market, yet the title of the post is “CrunchPad: Looking Good, May Not Happen.” If you can read (which you must be able to, since you are reading this) you can tell that the closest James Kendrick has to evidence is stating that there are a lot of factors involved, this dances around the idea that Michael Arrington can’t pull this off because it seems like too much work. But, remember that Michael Arrington started TechCrunch, a (seemingly) profitable blog that has since started its own conference and has also launched many other blogs about various topics in the technology space, I would say that this would be difficult too, but Michael Arrington made it happen, let’s wait and see what happens with the CrunchPad.

I have admitted that I was skeptical about the CrunchPad, but I must also admit that the device looks pretty solid and has a very clear path to the market.

CrunchPad: Looking Good, May Not Happen.

Update 6/5/09: Even after the recent concept designs the doubtful James Kendrick is saying “let’s hope it makes it to market.”

Update 7/31/09: There is even more evidence that James Kendrick doesn’t know what he is talking about; the CrunchPad specs have been revealed.

Update 11/8/09: Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that higher-than-expected costs are causing the CrunchPad’s delay. The implication is that the project is dead, which means James Kendrick may have been right. But, I would like to point out that the basis for his argument was that “there are lots of factors involved” and although cost is definitely a factor, Kendrick’s piece seems to imply that it’ll be too much work for Michael Arrington to pull it off.

Although I no longer plan on purchasing the CrunchPad (if and when it is released), I still don’t believe that the project is dead.

I’m sure many of you have this problem, you are bored sitting at home one day and decide to look up a band that you haven’t heard from in a while. You go to their website or do some web searches and find out that they released an album 6 months earlier that you didn’t know existed. Obviously the next course of action is to go listen to it (by any means necessary).

But then, some of you might have thought, “that their must be a solution to this problem,” I know I have. No, I’m not releasing any new web service, and no, I’m not pointing you to one that exists, because to my knowledge this doesn’t exist. But, it should.

I want a web service that I can sign up for, and all I have to do is tell it what bands I’m interested in and it spits out an RSS feed or an email subscription sign up form. The only items that appear in that RSS feed are announcements for when new albums by your favorite bands get have release dates, and you will also receive an item in that feed on the day the album is released.

The RSS feed would be automatically created for you and will only show you albums by bands you are interested in. You could remove or add bands whenever you want and that change would be reflected in the RSS feed. It’s that simple, and I ask that if anyone decides to makes this, go ahead, just let me know about it.

In regards to this service, the question on all of the business blogs would be “what about the business model?”

I’ve already thought about that (although not for very long, since I’m not actually building the service), the links in the RSS feed would have affiliate codes in them pointing to Amazon, so the service would get a kickback on each album sold through those links (maybe they could even use affiliate links for iTunes as well). And, of course they could also go the route of charging record labels for advertisement space on their website to push new album releases.

I am really only writing about this because I want this service to exist, I love listening to music and would like to keep track of when new albums are released but don’t want all the crap that comes in bands RSS feeds and email newsletters. All I want to know is that a new album is coming out and to be reminded the day it comes out.

Update 4/23/09: Chris M Johnson has Music Alerts in the comments. I haven’t had enough time with it to be sure it is exactly what I want but it looks incredibly promising. I’ll let you all know how it goes in a few weeks.

Back in July Michael Arrington announced a tablet project. This tablet was originally set out run Firefox on a large touch screen display, and, that’s it. But, their goal for the price was $200.

The last we heard of the TechCrunch Tablet the name was changed to “the CrunchPad,” it had a 12″ 1024×768 touchscreen, 1GB of RAM, and a 4GB flash drive.

The latest prototype, shown above with more pictures through the link below, still has a 12″ touch screen that we now know is capacitative. They haven’t disclosed any more information but claim to be announcing more details next week including videos of the UI in action.

I admit that I was a little doubtful that this thing would actually make it to market but with each iteration I can see that I was wrong. But, my major bone of contention was the original price point, and I wasn’t exactly wrong to think that way, the last price that Michael Arrington publicly disclosed for the device was $222 to manufacture, with the profit margin and cost to ship it I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a $299 price at launch. By the way, when is this thing going to be released?

TechCrunch Tablet makes an early debut.
Image credit to Michael’s (Arrington) posterous.

As per usual the build up to WWDC is being filled with rumors about future iPhone hardware. Developers have been digging into beta versions of iPhone firmware 3.0 and finding some interesting things.

Not only have developers found mentions of unknown hardware model numbers but they have most recently found driver support for Broadcom Wi-Fi chips that would suggest that future revisions of the iPhone or iPod touch could be receiving support for 802.11n. An interesting finding by 9 to 5 Mac is that this chip may also give the iPhone and iPod touch the ability to not only receive but broadcast FM radio signals.

Other firmware findings show that Apple might begin to support video recording on the iPhone. It is unknown if all iPhone models would support the feature or just a new revision but there does seem to be some evidence of video editing functionality.

And finally DigiTimes is reporting that component suppliers for the upcoming iPhone revision have already begun shipping parts for the new device.

Remember that these are just rumors, and may or may not actually happen. My first impression of them however is that we will probably see video recording in the next iPhone hardware release, I don’t expect to see FM radio functionality, and video editing seems unlikely.

MacRumors and The Boy Genius Report both have screenshots of supposed video recording and/or editing functionality.

Update 6/2/09: The Green Room has posted a single image with a rundown of every 2009 iPhone rumor. A great reference for what to expect on Monday.

Update 6/10/09: FM radio functionality was not part of the WWDC keynote announcements but video recording and editing was.

Mint is a self hosted website statistics package created by Shaun Inman. For me, it has replaced both Google Analytics and FeedBurner for my websites statistics. Although Mint costs $30 per site it is still (in my opinion) the best option out there for anyone who is serious about their website.

Installation

Mint is self hosted, which means you have to download some files and upload them to your own server to make them work. There are some server requirements to getting Mint working but Mint’s website offers an easy to use Server Compatibility Suite that you can upload to your server before purchasing Mint to make sure that it is compatible with your server.

Installing Mint is incredibly easy, and if you’ve ever installed WordPress you’ll feel right at home. Just input some database information into a configuration file, upload the Mint directory to your server, visit yourdomain.com/mint, and follow the browser based instructions.

Using Mint

A default install of Mint already does practically everything you need it to, it will track page view, unique visitors, search keywords, referrers, views on individual pages along with the ability to backup or restore your Mint database. But, similar to WordPress, Mint has a plugin architecture called Pepper that allows you to add new functionality.

Mint’s website has an area called the Peppermill, it is a directory of all of the Pepper available for you to install in Mint. My favorites, in no particular order are:

• Bird Feeder Pepper – Highlights subscription trends across multiple Feeds and clicks on individual feed items.
• User Agent 007 Pepper – Shows what browser, OS, and what resolution your visitors have.
• Attention Span Pepper – Displays bounce rates and pages per visit.
• Locations Pepper – Displays the geographical location (based on IP address) of your visitors.
• iPhone Pepper – Gives you an iPhone-friendly version of your Mint stats when visiting from an iPhone or iPod touch.

The extension of Mint doesn’t end at Peppers, you can also install new “styles” for Mint so you can view Mint in any color scheme you want.

Mint has a very clean design that makes viewing your stats very comfortable. All of your different stats are organized into Panes that are can reorder from the preferences page. Although the default preferences for Mint makes it difficult to minimize white space just by reorder panes, a little bit of tweaking will get you an even cleaner look to your stats with very little white space. I had to turn on “fix pane height and use scroll bars” otherwise I would end up with one row of panes much longer than the others, it didn’t look very good, and since I’m a little bit of a design nut I had to fix that.

Gripes

However, there are some downsides to Mint.

The font size on Mint pages is a little small, I could easily use my browser to increase the font size but that would increase the font size for the entire domain, and since Mint is on the same domain as this site it would also increase the font size for me here.

There aren’t any quality graphing options available to visualize traffic throughout the history of your site (I kind of prefer line graphs). The Fresh View Pepper comes closest but it always displays a graph including the current day, which means the end of the graph is always significantly lower than the rest of it (depending on the time of day you are viewing it of course), and there isn’t any way of ignoring the current day when viewing the graph.

There isn’t anyway to view statistics history. You can view page views and uniques by day, but only within the past 6 days, you can view them by week, but only within the past month, etc.. I’m sure I could see day by day stats if I looked into the database but I shouldn’t have to do that. I should be able to (just like Google Analytics) select a period of time and see statistics for it.

Conclusion

Mint is clearly the best option out there for those who want good statistics, clean design, and more control over where your stats are stored (i.e. not on a large company’s server, like Google’s). There is also a great community around Mint. Mint’s website has a fantastic forum filled with people ready and willing to talk about Mint and help you with problems that might arise while using it. The forums even has a section dedicated to Pepper ideas, so if you have an idea for a Pepper but don’t have the skills required to build it you can offer it up to someone in the community to build. Since most of the problems I have with Mint could easily be fixed by Peppers I will probably help contribute by inputing my ideas into the Pepper ideas section of the forums.

By the way, did I mention that the domain for Mint is “haveamint.com?” Just based on the name alone, how could you not buy it?

Update 4/9/09: If you were wondering how I got Bird Feeder to track my RSS feed stats, I didn’t actually edit any of WordPress’s core files, I just installed the Bird Feeder for WordPress plugin.

Update 7/26/09: I’m currently using the Clearmint Ice style and here’s a full list of my Pepper:

• iPhone
• User Agent 007
• Bird Feeder
• AttentionSpan
• Locations
• Errors
• SERPs
• Durations

As I had previously predicted a new Apple job listing implies that an upcoming hardware revision of the iPod touch will include a camera.

The job description says: “The iPhone Engineering Group is looking for a Camera Engineering Project Manager (EPM) to drive the design, development and integration of camera modules across iPhone and iPod.”

Yes, that does say “and iPod.” Those 3.2MP and 5MP image sensors will most likely be coming to the iPhone and iPod touch respectively, later this year.

The original job posting was placed on March 16 but the references to iPods has been removed. Although the removal of these references could cause many to conclude that the removal is as good as a confirmation, but it is also possible that Apple removed it because it wasn’t supposed to be their to begin with (and the job actually doesn’t have anything to do with iPods).

DigiTimes has a little tid-bit of a rumor saying that Apple has ordered 3.2 and 5 megapixel CMOS image sensors from OmniVision. The 3.2MP CMOS image sensors are said to be for the next generation iPhone while the 5MP chips are said to be for “another Apple product expected to be launched later in the year.”

I don’t necessarily believe these rumors, DigiTimes is hit and miss when it comes to their track record. But, let’s just assume for a moment that the rumor is true. This doesn’t mean that the images coming from your iPhone are going to be any better, bad optics are still bad optics, even if you have a bigger chip, it just means you are going to get poor quality images that are high resolution.

Now that that is out of the way let’s focus on those 5MP image sensors. One would assume that these are for a new Apple product (a tablet or dedicated digital camera perhaps), but what is the likelihood that Apple would introduce a brand new product that would have a 5MP camera in it? Not very likely. My suggestion is that they could be for the iPod touch. Giving the iPod touch a camera that is better than the iPhone’s would give people a little more incentive to purchase the iPod touch, and help put it more on par with the iPhone when comparing them based on price.

Let me be clear though, I don’t think this rumor is true. That doesn’t mean I don’t expect 3.2MP cameras in the next iPhone, because Apple may very well introduce that, but, I don’t think DigiTimes has a reliable source with this particular report.

OmniVision lands CIS orders for next-generation iPhone.

Update 5/15/09: Hardmac adds more validity to my prediction that the iPod touch will be gaining a camera in its next refresh, saying “Apple should refresh models for the iPod nano and touch in september. Both should now include a camera, similarly to the iPhone.”

Update 5/27/09: iLounge has posted an artist rendition of upcoming changes to the iPod nano, which not only includes a camera but also a larger display with a 1.5:1 aspect ratio.

Update 6/2/09: The Green Room has posted a single image with a rundown of every 2009 iPhone rumor. A great reference for what to expect on Monday.

Update 6/10/09: We now know that those 3.2MP CMOS sensors are being used in the iPhone 3GS announced at the WWDC keynote, but we still don’t know about those 5MP sensors.

If you are reading this blog you probably know what URL shortening is, but for those of you who don’t (and that’s okay) it is a service that takes a normal URL and shortens it (pretty simple huh?). Lately there has been a lot of talk about URL shortening and the possible security issues regarding it.

The first (and sometimes only) reason I hear when I ask about the insecurity of URL shortening services is the possibility that someone would post a shortened link that points to a malicious website. Obviously no one would click on this link if they could see the URL it is pointing to but adding that extra layer of the URL shortening service increases the chances that someone would clicking that link. But, if you are careful you can still be relatively safe.

I don’t know about all of you but I don’t click on shortened URLs unless they are either in an email or in a tweet, and they must be posted by someone I either know or trust. I don’t go around clicking on shortened URLs willy nilly, and neither should you. In fact when it comes to email you probably shouldn’t click on them at all, unless you were expecting to get a link from the person that sent it to you.

The other reason that seems to crop up often is the idea that someone would send you a shortened URL that is hiding an affiliate link. Affiliate links are great ways to make money but some people get a little upset when they are “tricked” into buying a product through an affiliate link that doesn’t appear as one. The fact is, if you purchased something through someones link they probably should get a kick back for it, for all intents and purposes they convinced you to buy something so why not let them have a commission for that sale? The worry that these complainers have is that the person posting the shortened affiliate link would lie about the quality or features of the product in an effort to convince you to buy it. But, we are all adults (last time I knew you had to be an adult to get a credit card, which is necessary to purchase something online), why can’t we take responsibility for our own purchases? Do your research before you buy anything online and make sure you are getting opinions about it from a reputable source, affiliate link or not. A lot of people using affiliate links give their honest and true opinon (but let’s not get into that can of worms).

The best thing you can do to keep yourself safe when clicking on shortened URLs is to only click on them if the person who posted them is trusted, and don’t click on them if there isn’t any good reason for the link to be shortened in the first place, Twitter’s character limit is a good reason to shorten a URL, there isn’t any reason anyone should shorten URLs posted on a forum or on a social bookmarking site.

The two things that make my suggestion a little more difficult to completely trust in is the possibility that the trusted person’s account or the URL shortening service itself is compromised. This poses a much more serious problem but unfortunately the only thing you can do to keep yourself safe from those situations (that is if you want to continue using shortened URLs) is to use up to date software.

But there are a couple of things that services like Twitter can do to keep you safe from shortened URLs pointing to malicious websites. Twitter could unshorten URLs sent to the service and only keep them short for users that receive tweets via SMS where there are character limits . Twitter could also build its own URL shortening service that would (seemingly) be much harder to hack than a smaller “rinky-dink” URL shortening service that might not have security on its mind as much as Twitter does. An unintended (but fantastic) consequence of Twitter implementing any of these suggestions would be that if a URL shortening service ever fails or ceases to exist the links would still work, because Twitter would have saved them in their database as unshortend versions.

But, no matter what anyone does URL shortening services will always be the subject of scrutiny by the security conscious. There is always a trade off of security for the sake of convenience, so if you want to continue using shortened URLs you will have to deal with a little bit of risk.

Biz Stone posted on the Twitter Blog yesterday saying (emphasis added by me):

It should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects. Our goal is to build a profitable, independent company and we’re just getting started.

This quote is also backed up by a recent interview Biz had with Stephen Colbert.

Stephen: Are you going to make money off of this?
Biz: Yes
Stephen: How?
Biz: We are going to become a strong, profitable, independent company. We are going to stay based in San Francisco…

It seems as though everyone in the world is going crazy about this whole acquisition rumor. Some other writers have cited sources saying that the talks between Google and Twitter are only “product-related discussions.”

The fact is that we really don’t know what Google and Twitter are talking about, but there are strong indications that they are in fact talking. But, even though Michael Arrington’s knee jerk reaction is to believe that Google is going to buy Twitter (he seems to love spreading rumors about acquisitions) the likelyhood of that happening is fairly low, it doesn’t appear that either Biz Stone or Evan Williams are ready to sell the company off just yet.

Palm has announced that they will begin taking names for potential early developers for webOS. These developers will get an early look at the Mojo SDK and presumably be some of the first to release their apps for the platform.

Palm has also announced “Mojo Messaging Service” which is a service that will allow developers to write apps that can move data to and from the cloud. This sounds a little bit like a slightly more robust Push Notification system. It will obviously have more features since webOS will allow you to run more than one app at a time.

The most interesting piece of news about Palm webOS is that MotionApps will be releasing a Palm OS emulator for webOS that will be available at the launch of the Palm Pre. This is crucial for Palm’s success of the webOS platform. Palm is faced with the task of competing with the iPhone, which undoubtedly has much more support behind it when it comes to third party developers. Not only does Apple have more support, but they also have a significant lead over Palm and proof that third party app developers can make some serious money developing for the platform. Palm needs some apps at the beginning, and this is the sort of thing that will add hundreds of apps to the pot with relatively little work. It will also give some incentive to current (or previous) Palm OS device owners to move to the Pre.

So far Palm has made all the right moves in regards to the Pre and webOS, I hope it will continue. I have been skeptical in the past about the success of this device but everything is looking great so far, the final piece to this puzzle would be for Palm to release it before Apple even announces new cell phone hardware, hopefully stealing a little bit of mind share back.

Palm Developer Network.

Update 7/17/09: Craig A. Hunter regarding the Mojo SDK:

While the webOS SDK allows access to raw accelerometer data, it’s limited to a 4 Hz sampling rate (that’s four samples per second). Applications like gMeter and greenMeter need 50-100 Hz to even be practical, and most games need at least 20 Hz for smooth inputs that won’t lag too far behind typical graphics framerates. A low rate of 4Hz is not usable for dynamic motion where high fidelity is desired. Accelerometer support in the webOS is suitable for detecting basic movement of the phone for interface rotation, but that’s about it.

Update 7/20/09: in a job posting on Mary-Margaret Network:

Palm is looking for developers who are passionate about gaming, handhelds, mobile communication and the possibilities for Palm in the gaming arena.

Late last night Michael Arrington posted a rumor claiming to have three sources (unnamed of course) that say Google is in talks to acquire Twitter.

Twitter has already turned down an offer from Facebook for $500 million, but most (if not all) of the money that Facebook would pay to Twitter would be in the form of obviously overvalued Facebook stock. Google on the other hand would pay in cash and/or publicly valued stock.

This would be a good buy for Google, especially with the growth of Twitter over the past few months, it is going to be an incredibly popular service very soon. Biz Stone and Evan Williams have already sold one company to Google, Blogger, and it seems logical to believe they would at least be in talks about an acquisition.

But, I don’t believe this would be a good move for Twitter. Twitter appears to be one of those companies that is going to be vital to communication in just a couple of years (it is already vital for some of us) and the value will only go up. What worries me most is that Google had already purchased a similar service (Jaiku) that they haven’t done much with. The purchase of Twitter by Google would give Biz and Evan a great payout but I think that Google would eventually be a detriment to the service.

I know that Google is search and Twitter is incredibly valuable as a search related asset but I would much rather see Google do a search deal with Twitter and build a business relationship in that way than see Google buy the company outright. Doing a search deal would help both companies make money without giving Google too much control.

The original creators of a service are really the best ones at steering the ship, giving Google too much control would end up with too many bad decisions being made, as is the case with most web acquisitions, even ones done by Google.

Sources: Google In Late Stage Talks To Acquire Twitter Updated.

If you are currently using a FeedBurner feed then it wouldn’t be a bad idea to subscribe to the new feed.

http://initialcharge.net/feed/

I recently started using Mint to track all my stats here, I have installed a few “Peppers” (Mint’s name for plugins) and one of them allows me to track RSS subscribers. In my quest to keep everything simple here I’ve decided to stop paying attention to the stats on FeedBurner and start supporting the feed above exclusively.

The old FeedBurner feeds should continue to work but I can’t make any promises for the future of the feeds, I will no longer be actively supporting it. There are no indications that it will quit working but if any issue arises with them in the future fixing it will not be my highest priority.

Thanks to all who have subscribed and I really hope you continue to enjoy the content on this site.

I, like many other Mac users, prefer to use Firefox over Safari. Safari is fast but the extensions in Firefox combined with better tab controls and preferences keep me from moving to Safari.

For those who use Safari it’s easy for you to move bookmarks from one Mac to another but for Firefox users you either need to install an extension or copy your Firefox profile to the other Mac (you can also copy your profile to a Linux or Windows computer but for now I’ll focus on OS X).

The steps are pretty simple, you will only need a working copy of Firefox on both Macs and a way to copy the files between computers (e.g. a USB thumb drive, a CD-R, or a folder shared over your home network), I’m going to use a thumb drive.

• Quit Firefox on both computers
• Locate your Firefox profile, which can be found in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/
• Inside of the Profiles folder will be another folder named “somethingSomething.default”
• Copy the contents of that folder (not the folder itself but the stuff inside of it)
• Paste those files onto the thumb drive
• Now locate the Firefox profile on the second computer (found in the same location as above)
• This time drag the contents of “somethingSomething.default” into the trash
• Now copy the files from your thumb drive to “somethingSomething.default”

The next time you open Firefox all of your extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, and saved passwords should be on the second Mac.

I do this every few months when my MacBook’s Firefox install falls behind my iMac’s in terms of saved passwords and bookmarks. This helps me keep both computers Firefox environments identical making for a much better experience when I don’t have access to my iMac and I can’t remember the password to that new website I signed up for a few months ago and haven’t logged in since then.

Like I said above, I know that there are extensions that will let me do this same thing but most (if not all) of them require me to sync all of my bookmarks and saved passwords to a 3rd party server, not exactly the mose secure option out there, I’d rather my login credentials not be located on yet another companies server.

Today is the day that internet lovers either hate or love. I haven’t done any formal polling but my insticts tell me that most people laugh at the first April Fools joke they see and then hate everything they see afterwards.

Every year on April 1 there are thousands of popular website that attempt to make their users laugh, but there aren’t as many lols as there are ANGRY CAPS -LOCKED COMMENTS WITH TOO MANY EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m sure many of you readers have already figured this out, so this post is directed towards the countless websites that don’t get it yet. But before you regular people quit reading, don’t Twitter about fake stories or jokes, stop giving these guys attention for annoying their users.

You probably aren’t funny, so you probably shouldn’t attempt to be. This especially goes to websites that have a very diverse audience. You might be able to get away with it if you have an incredibly niche audience who will get the joke, but don’t take that chance. You are only upsetting and frustrating many of your users. And for God’s sake don’t do that thing where you report on something as if it is a news story, when it is obviously an April Fools joke, because every single person who reads it has to take about 20 seconds out of their life to second guess the validity of the story.

Let’s all hope that there isn’t any actual news released today. Companies, if you planned on releasing anything today or announcing anything today, do everyone a favor and wait until tomorrow, it isn’t worth the hassle trying to explain to people that the news is actually real.

For the internet, April 1 is the wild west, nothing can happen today without everyone either ignoring it or calling it fake. And, yes, I know that every other day is like that too, but April 1 is worse… much worse.

Now, let me be clear, I understand that to a lot of you April 1 is the day that everyone can have fun and joke around. But, if you finish this learning only one thing I hope is that you shouldn’t publish April Fools jokes on respected websites, it’s just wrong.