News Bites
« Previous Entries Next Entries »SplashCast comes to WordPress.com
Friday, March 2nd, 2007 According to sys-con media SplashCast will soon be available to use on WordPress hosted sites, sounds like very Shiny news indeed!
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SplashCast enables anyone to create streaming media 'channels' that combine video, music, photos, narration, text and RSS feeds. These user-generated channels can be played and easily syndicated on any web site, blog, or social network page. When channel owners modify their channel, their content is automatically updated across all the web pages 'tuned' to that channel.I haven't had a chance to try it out myself yet, but you can bet I will be trying it soon!
Upgrading WordPress to 2.1.1
Thursday, March 1st, 2007
Once again it is time to upgrade WP with the latest fixes, nothing too major though:
We’ve got a new bugfix and security release for both of our actively maintained branches of WordPress. Version 2.1.1 includes about 30 bug fixes, mostly minor things around encoding, XML-RPC, the object cache, and HTML code. It’s available for immediate download on our download page.
Fortunately Mark Jaquith has kindly prepared a smaller .zip file that just includes the updates that are needed if you already have 2.1 installed, though if you have downloaded that file previous to today you may need to do it again as a couple of files were apparently missing from the previously available .zip Thanks Mark. :-)Open ID, your Passport to the net?
Friday, February 23rd, 2007
On the heels of the Windows® CardSpace™ general availability launch in Windows Vista™, Microsoft demonstrated momentum with industry partners that are working to apply this technology to help consumers realize a more confident online experience. This includes the announcement of collaboration on use of Windows CardSpace with the OpenID 2.0 specification. Through the support of the WS-Trust-based Windows CardSpace experience, consumers can take advantage of increased security against phishing attacks without adding complexity to their identity management experience. Also at the conference, Wachovia Corp., Arcot Systems Inc. and Corillian Corp. showcased a proof of concept demonstration using Windows CardSpace to deliver a simpler and safer online banking experience for customers.With AOL signing on, Firefox 3.0 promising integrated OpenID support, Yahoo getting in on the act and up-and-coming sites such as Digg, NetVibes and SmugMug signing on it looks as though this one might be here to stay. Some still have worries over the security of the project but most concerns appear to of been addressed, so I went and signed myself up with an account at MyOpenID.com. General Info. Brad Fitzpatrick who kicked off LiveJournal is the original developer of the current system. Simon Willison has posted a Quicktime Video demo of how openID works that you can view here. As a P.S. for those who feel they will miss the opportunity to create all those new accounts in the future, don't despair, go get yourself a Useless Account, which does. . . absolutely nothing! :-)
MyBlogLog and Spam-a-lot.
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 Apparently the weekend was a good time for spammers, they hit-up MyBlogLog users big time with an exploit in their set up. According to the MyBlogLog Blog:Saturday evening, a member discovered an exploit where you could send someone a request to join their community as a co-author and then automatically approve the request. In other words, someone (dare I call them a jackass) could force you to be a co-author of their community. I have no idea why they would do this, other than a negligible bump in marketing, but who ever said jackasses made sense?They are introducing several new security features to try and keep things under conrol in future:
- We're going to post an official Terms of Service (ToS) and hold people accountable.
- By default, you now see only message from your own contacts.
- We will include the text of the comment and associated controls (delete,reply, etc) in the alert email.
- We will limit users to only five requests for co-authors a day.
- We will limit users to join 15 communities and add 15 contacts during any day.
- After the first five are complete, we will set up a comment approval system.
About MyBlogLog You probably know a ton about your favorite bloggers - what they think about the subjects they write about, maybe some of their work and life history... you may even know what toothpaste they use. But how much do you know about all the other people who read their blogs? And how much do they know about you? For all this talk of a global conversation throughout the blogosphere, there's a lot to be desired. It's a two-tiered system, with bloggers talking amongst each other and the majority of the readers looking on from the fringes. You may get to call out something from the sidelines by leaving a comment, but things could be so much better. For everyone. MyBlogLog is launching this new Communities service to empower authors and readers to operate at the same level. For the first time, everyone who reads a web site or blog can learn about and engage with one another, and in the process take the conversation to a whole new level. Readers can become friends with other people who read your favorite blogs. See what else they're reading. Check out their MySpace and Friendster profiles and view their Flickr photostreams. Authors can learn more about their readers individually and as a group. What do they like and what are they ignoring? What are they reading elsewhere on the Web? MyBlogLog enables you to take advantage of your existing presence on the Web and ties it into communities of like-minded readers and authors to add context to the conversations in which you take part.You have probably seen their widget around, it's on quite a few blogs these days.
As it seems to be more and more prevalent I thought I would give it a try, see how it works out for a small blog like this one and see if it helps build some relationships around the Blogosphere.
I was very impressed with the founders reactions and the sense of community they have. The plan they have put forward may be a little "stop-gap" for now, but they are prepared to listen to their users and fine tune it as things go on.
In the near future I will add their widget to my side bar, perhaps giving me a chance to find out a little more about some of the people who drop by.
Are you a MyBlogLog user? How have you found their service? What benefits are you gaining?Fancy A Guinness?
Monday, February 19th, 2007
Marmite and Guinness? Either a match made in heaven or your taste buds ultimate nightmare! Marmite is a yeast extract that Wikipedia describes thus:
Marmite is a British savoury spread made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing. It is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, powerful taste that polarises consumer opinion. This is reflected in the company's marketing slogan: you either "love it or hate it".When I saw the article in my Google reader from BoingBoing about this I just had to click through to find out some more about it. ;-) Now this may not be to everyone's taste, but I must admit to a little tingle of excitement and anticipation at the sight of this Limited Edition marmite variant. Sure, they are acquired tastes, but ones well worth cultivating. Shame that it is only a limited edition. Thanks to Cool Hunting and The Sunday Times (sorry, I couldn't locate the original article).
News on WordPress 2.2
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 "Ella" has been avilable for a litle over three weeks now and the WordPress community seems to be prety happy with the improvements, but already there is news about what we can expect in v2.2! Over at "Mark On WordPress" there is news of an excellent added feature, a plug-in "sandbox" facility:So the feature I’ve put into WordPress 2.2 is what I call plugin sandboxing. Before a plugin is activated or a plugin is edited, it is tested in a temporary fashion (that is, without being permanently activated). If it passes the test, it is activated for realA very useful feature indeed for plug-in developers and addicts. ;-)
Google mail for all!
Thursday, February 8th, 2007 It looks like Google have opened up their e-mail service to everyone, according to C-net. Until now it has been by invite only. The service is still in Beta but if you haven't had a chance to give it a try yet, go get yourself a new addy! Thanks to 901am (again!) for the info. Google mail (or G-mail as it is called in many areas) is a very good service that I thoroughly recommend. As you would expect from Google the search function works excellently, your e-mails can be saved in to labels and if you choose to reply to any messages they are then automatically saved in to "conversations" which I find to be a very useful function. With 2814 mb of space you can accept and store some pretty big attachments if you need to, and not have to worry about your inbox filling up too quickly and bouncing that important e-mail. One of the best things in g-mail is their spam filtering, it seems able to catch everything that it should and nothing that it shouldn't. Another benefit is that you gain access to Google Talk as an instant messenger which also allows you to use voice if you have access to a mike and the ability to send files if you need to. Which e-mail service do you prefer to use?LastFM just got even better!
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
Do you use lastFM? I am not much of a fan of the social networking sites like Livejournal and MySpace (though I have accounts, of course ;-) ), but lastFM is one that I really do enjoy. At least it seems to serve some purpose.
But now it's got even better! According to Reuters:
LONDON (Reuters) - Warner Music Group has signed a deal to allow its entire catalogue to be played over the fast-growing social networking music service Last.fm, the innovative site that links music fans to new and old hits. Thanks to 901am for the heads-upAnd even more good music could be heading our way as apparently lastFM are also in talks with the other three major labels. Though this is excellent news for us users I hope it doesn't lead to the other smaller independent labels it has deals with being overwhelmed. Are you a lastFM user? Or do you prefer one of the other music sites such as Pandora?
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