Software Lets Bloggers Post via Cellphone – New York Times
“A handful of companies have begun offering software that allows people to read and write blogs on cellular phones. The concept, known in some circles as moblogging, lets bloggers take pictures, record sound and type in text while on the go.This month, the Intercasting Corporation, which is based in San Diego, became the first mobile blog company to enter into a partnership with a major cellular phone provider, Verizon Wireless.“
BBC to Release Video Codec as Open Source
New Scientist Breaking News – BBC to launch free online video system
“The BBC codec, named after British physicist Paul Dirac, is likely to be a serious threat to the existing systems because, unlike these systems, it will be free for anyone to use. The source code for the codec has also been released for free, enabling anyone to build a player or adapt the codec for any computer platform.“
Tracking Down Folksonomies
Folksonomic Discovery
“Gataga will display its folksonomic search results as an RSS feed (just as Technorati does), which is very useful: you can subscribe to stay updated. But there are big missing pieces in this application. For one thing, it doesn’t include 43 Things and Flickr, off the beaten track of social bookmarking spanning web content, but far and away my favorites for fun and utility as self-tagging folksonomies.“
Get Podcasts for iTunes now!
MAKE: Blog: BadFruit – Get Podcasts for iTunes now!
“You don’t need to wait for iTunes 4.9 to get podcasts through iTunes for your iPod! Badfruit is a plugin for iTunes (Windows) that allows you to browse thousands of podcasts right from iTunes 4.8. “
Yummy, BadApple! Note: Uses central directory of podcasts; doesn’t appear that you can add your own podcasts:(
WebObjects Now Free To Tiger Users
Slashdot | WebObjects Now Free With Tiger
“Macworld reports that has Apple released WebObjects as a free application. From $50,000 to free, the software used to build the iTunes Music Store and Dell’s original online store is now available for free to Tiger users via Xcode 2.1.” From the article: ” The software has historical importance to Apple-watchers: it was originally released in March 1996 – but not by Apple. In fact, WebObjects was developed by NeXT Computer and became Apple’s software only when that company acquired Steve Jobs’ second computer company later that year. While not software on the tip of every Mac users tongue, WebObjects sits behind several significant implementations – the most famous current example being Apple’s iTunes Music Store.“
IPPFP: interface preprocessor for PHP
freshmeat.net: Project details for interface preprocessor for PHP
“The ippfp library provides methods for creating and rendering user interfaces in PHP independent of output format. It features XHTML, GTK, ncurses, and PDF. You can create input masks such as forms for databases.“
DittyBot: iTunes on Your Phone
Plastic Bugs – Home of the ‘Original’ GIMPshop » Blog Archive » DittyBot – An Applescript Adventure
“You send a text message from your mobile phone to your POP email account. Your text message should contain the keywords of a song title (and possibly an artist name) that you want to hear. DittyBot finds that email (he checks Mail every 45 seconds) and copies the song name into a text file. The song name is then copied into iTunes and a playlist is created from your search. Next, DittyBot loads Skype (the internet telephony app) and begins calling your mobile phone. Your mobile phone rings and when you pick it up, you should hear your song start playing in all its compressed glory. “
Picked this up via MAKE blog. While it is all about using AppleScript for cool iTunes stuff, it does provide a bit of a road map on how we can get Classcaster to route around complex menuing issues. Following the Dittybot map, a student sends an email to a specific address including the name of a lecturette in the message. We grab this via POP, extract the info, locate the MP3 and then have Classcaster call the number associated with the from address and play the lecturette. Will require user registration, but it could be a cool feature.
Why Is RSS So Important?
particletree – The Importance of RSS
This essay started out as an explanation for Google’s foray into personal portal pages, but morphed into “a comprehensive breakdown of the state of RSS, taxonomies, advertising, and how it relates to the future of Google.” What follows is the result of several months of observation, notes and contemplation.
Good article. Raises the question: are RSS subscriptions the next search? I guess I better get to work on my social aggregator…
Microsoft Releases June Patches
Microsoft offers three ‘critical’ patches in monthly security update – Computerworld
“In its monthly security bulletin update, Microsoft said the three critical patches should be applied immediately to guard against remote attackers being able to take complete control of a user’s compute“
New Linux Kernel Release
InformationWeek > New Linux Release > Linux Fans Greet New Kernel Release, Version 2.6.11.12 > June 14, 2005
“For users of the kernel, the more interesting feature may be the addition of Xen, which is a virtual machine monitor, which enables multiple operating system images to execute concurrently on the same platform. Xen is included with the 2.6.11.12 kernel as a standard configuration option, meaning it doesn’t have to be added in manually via a cumbersome series of packages and patches.“