Google Throws a Swingin' Party!

I've seen this video on a number of blogs and on Digg, and I just think it's an awesome representation of what different web users are like on their respective websites. Check it out:
(via Cracked)

More articles coming your way soon!

Edit: Video link restored!

MacWorld > CES

Yeah, I said it. Just read the title again....

It's not that I'm really a Mac fanboy, but CES was as lame as it usually always is (though Veronica Belmont did do a cool interview with a robot with weak AI). Ok, CES wasn't even lame...I'd flip out if I won a trip out there or something...but while my east coast but stays here in the east coast, gadget-heavy events without any major announcements will always be a little tough to get excited about from afar. There were some shake-ups in the high-def format war (Blu-ray seems to have stolen over a lot more partners and I have heard some shout that the format war might be over), but even that really didn't do much for me.

MacWorld on the other hand, which I'm not really that interested in once Steve Jobs' Keynote is over, proved to be as cool as it usually is every year. Of course the iPhone didn't come out this year (I fear that the space-time continuum may not ever let it be released again for the first time), but Apple didn't disappoint attendees already weary from an unspectacular CES. Here are a couple of the things that "Mad Dog" Steve Jobs brought out of his magic hat:

• iPhone firmware update: included moving around of home-screen buttons (finally), creation of home-screen buttons (fairly useful), pseudo-GPS in Google Maps (very awesome when it works; was released a few weeks ago with most other mobile devices that can use GMaps), and texting to multiple individuals (they didn't have it already?!?!?).
  
• Time Capsule: pretty much a home server that acts as a wireless router as well, nifty for people who want only Mac products in their home, comes in 0.5 and 1 terabyte drive capacities.
• Macbook Air: a subnotebook that is small enough to fit into a manila envelope and has fairly decent specs; some people think the notebook is too restrictive and too hard to replace the parts of, but I would say that this could be a very important move for Apple, even if their first try isn't dead-on.
• iTunes Store Movie Rentals: like pretty much everything else listed above, this was leaked out pretty far in advance (surprising actually how much got out this year), but the big surprise was that they have every major movie label on board and that means this won't suffer from some of the growing pains that its other services have had in the past; movies can be kept for 30 days and must be watched 24 hours after the beginning of viewing...a tad bit restrictive, but the prices seem reasonable.
• "One more thing...": there wasn't one :(

So, what's my take on MacWorld? Well I agree with pretty much everyone else who has been echoing the "not a revolutionary year but an evolutionary year" mantra (I think the CNet people coined the phrase initially). Both CES and MacWorld were developements of new directions and enhancements of preexisting products. Is this bad? No. Is this less fun? Yep.

Resources:
Image from Flickr user benjibot under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic CC License.

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New Year, New Tech!

Happy New Year from Mason Tech Beat.  Get ready for some exciting changes this year.  The Consumer Electronics Show may hold some untold jewels and my syndication will probably be changing from Broadside Online....(more details to come).  Beyond that, who knows!  With a Presidential election coming up, MacWorld, and some burgeoning technologies on the rise, it promises to be a very interesting year.

All the best!
Jimmy

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What IS a YubNub?

I came across this nifty little web artifact at the suggestion of a friend and since then I have found its uses many and indispensable. The system is known as YubNub (I know not why) and it is a simple "command line for the web" that is also "social." I'll go over each of these separately.

First of all, YubNub operates in a way similar to command line code. This is the code used to directly control the aspects of an operating system (often Linux users are heavy command line users). YubNub commands are similar to these OS commands in the sense that anything you can do the long way in a browser, you can do the short way with a simple command.

Here's an example:
Let's say I want to do a Google image search for pictures of dogs. I could go to Google's Images website and enter "dogs" as my query:

While this is all fine and dandy, if I routinely do this, going to the site every time does take up a good number of page loads. What if I could just go directly to the results and skip going to the Google Images page? With YubNub I can.

First of all, I have made up a little shortcut for entering commands. While they can be entered directly at YubNub.org, I find this defeats the purpose so I have installed the YubNub search engine plug-in in my search bar for Firefox (actually I use Flock, but the process is the same). I should note that incidentally the guy who suggested YubNub to me wrote this particular plug-in.


Once I have the plug-in installed, it's easy to find all the pictures of dogs I want. I simply type "gim dogs."


And presto, I have results:

While this code does have a certain syntax to it, it is easy to learn. This is because of the "social" aspect. Each prefix code was invented by users who simply had a need for quick access to some site. Examples are "g" for Google Search, "gim" for Google Images, "gifl" for Google I'm Feeling Lucky searches, "wiki" or "wp" for Wikipedia search, and "ls" which lists the other thousands of available codes. Don't see a rather obvious code for a site you frequent? There is a feature to add new codes as well. The best codes are selected by the people who run YubNub and are known as "golden eggs," indicating their intrinsic value.

I hope you guys like this service as much as I do and please leave comments about what you think of it.

Note: Screenshots via Images.Google.com, YubNub.com, and my browser (Flock).

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Never fear...finals are almost over!

I just want to assure readers that there will be more posts coming soon...finals are almost over and then I'll be good to go with all the holiday tech news you can handle.  Specificially look forward to a bit about YubNub and the new Hulu video distribution system for NBC shows.

Hope everybody got through their finals alright!

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Even the Internet Memes are on Strike!

While I'm stressing over finals, I thought I'd put up a nifty little clip that tells of the strike being held by the various internet meme animals. If you don't know, a meme is basically a piece of media or culture that gets passed around by people...see Star Wars Kid. Anyway here's the video and yes that some version of Chocolate Rain in the background. Support the strike!

Here's the original link from YouTube user meowdorable. Mentioned on Twitter by writersstrike.

As a side note, I've done some digging and determined that at least with YouTube videos, it is quite legal to play embedded videos on one's blog. Basically the only provision is that you not make the video the entire selling point of the website (which I HOPE is not the case here...). Anyway, if you're bored, here are the sites I researched to find out this fun piece of info:
YouTube Terms of Service (do a word search for "embed")
Embedded Video and Copyright Infringement (from the Citizen Media Law Project)

I love good, solid online resources. Later!

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Tech in the GOP YouTube Debate

So, the Republicans had another debate? Does it really matter...who won...who lost? Sadly, if you want to know THAT you'll need to Google it (or actually watch it...), because I'm going to discuss the technology aspects of this new debate format. You see, this debate was different from most because it was comprised almost entirely of questions sent in via YouTube. The idea of this is to allow "regular citizens" to get their questions answered directly by the people they are to vote for.

(screenshot from the list of YouTube questions asked)

My first criticism actually occurred a few months ago as I mentioned the Democratic YouTube debate. Do follow the link, but basically my complaint was that CNN made a poor choice by videotaping a screen playing a low-res video. Not only did this further wash out the picture, but it also made it even smaller than we're used to. This time, thankfully, CNN chose a different layout and played the video in picture, but at a size appropriate to the viewer's screen. The videos were much easier to make out. If they really want to up the ante next time they should display the videos at their original higher resolutions (which YouTube has mentioned they keep when videos are originally uploaded).

The next thing that irked me was the way in which the debate was actually disseminated. I was unable to watch the debate live because I had to go to a meeting in the middle. This meant that I was completely at the mercy of YouTube and CNN if I wanted to actually watch the debate. After it ended, I expected to be able to find the debate on CNN.com. Of course, I was disappointed and had to settle for some random clips of it that had been assembled instead. I wasn't completely suprised by this because often networks don't post their shows directly after they air. Even still I was unable to partake in their content and I can't see why they would want that. Next, I searched YouTube and was surprised to see that either no one posted it up or YouTube had taken down all relevant clips. [Thanks to the magic of blog editing and the help of a commenter, I need to correct this last bit...it turns out that YouTube did post the whole debate, it just wasn't clear to me that it was not just the questions asked, but the whole debate...sorry YT!] It was not until about 18 hours later that CNN was gracious enough to grant us fully continuous files of the debate. I think this turn around time is far too long to be excused by the need to edit or reformat the video. Also, the files downloaded fairly slowly because of their size, which makes me wish the networks understood why torrenting is so popular.

I will say that I enjoyed the debate, or at least as much as a moderate like myself can enjoy watching Republicans fight over who is more conservative. The questions did seem to be a little more carefully picked than last time and did not produce any really explosive arguments. The one content-related thing I didn't like was that contrary to the Democratic YouTube debate, where the candidates used their own videos as a way to describe themselves (in the sense of an introduction), the majority of the Republican created videos which were blantant attacks against the others standing next to them. That came off to me as cheap.

Anyway, enough editorial. This is my last "syndicated" article through the Broadside Online until the end of winter break, so if that's how you've found Mason Tech Beat, please add me to your RSS feed list or bookmark this site! I'll still be writing some throughout the winter, but I'll go ahead now and say have a safe and happy holiday!

Links:
Download the GOP YouTube Debate
Watch the Individual Questions Asked

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