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January 28, 2007
Giving Twitter a Try
Lately I've been hearing quite a bit about Twitter, the Web 2.0 equivalent of the IM status message. I was finally compelled to register an account (everythingdigital), and so far have had a mixed experience with the service.
I think the idea behind Twitter is excellent, and some of the third party apps that are being developed for it are really looking great (I use Twitterrific). The public timeline is very interesting to watch, especially during major events such as sports games or the Macworld Expo. I haven't tried SMS or IM updating yet, but I expect it would add a whole new dimension to the equation.
On the downside, there are a couple quirks with the web site that I find a bit frustrating. Most notable is the rather odd user search functionality, basically consisting of a text box on the home page. I have tried searching for a couple people with it, and it took me a good deal of time to realize that the miniature images that were appearing beneath the text box were actually the search results. This means that to find the person you are looking for, you must move your mouse over each image until a name pops up in the hover text and you can see if it is correct, not a very convenient way to perform an activity so central to Twitter.
Also, the 148-character limit on posts can be a bit restricting, although I can understand the need to keep updates short and sweet. What I have a harder time understanding is the 160-character limitation on direct messages to friends. I can't see what is gained by placing such a small size limit on what is essentially email within the Twitter system.
Despite these complaints, I do find Twitter to be an interesting and entertaining service that I recommend everyone try out, even if it's not going to replace your RSS reader and IM client.
Posted by Alan Joyce at 02:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 26, 2007
The Charades Generator
A late-night inspiration yesterday led me to the idea of grabbing lists of song/book/movie titles from various online retailers and mashing them up into a list of possible charades challenges. So now, I present to you the EverythingDigital Charades Generator.
The charades generator pulls in the Netflix Top 100, iTunes top songs chart, and LibriVox New Releases feed, all of which are updated frequently and therefore constantly provide a new stream of titles. It is most certainly still in beta, and will often return titles unsuitable for charades, so let me know if you have any suggestions for improving it or know of any additional RSS feeds of titles.
Posted by Alan Joyce at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2007
The Ad Generator
I stumbled across this website the other day. It's a part of an MFA thesis project, built with flash, that generates random (and often hilarious) advertisements. Here's the author's description:
The ad generator is a generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans. These slogans are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby generating fake advertisements on the fly.
Posted by Alan Joyce at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 09, 2007
The iPhone is Amazing
After years of rumors building up expectations for the Apple iPhone to a level that could never have possibly been met in reality, Apple has finally announced the product and it is as good, if not better, than the rumors predicted.
This device has everything. No really. Everything. Take the functionality of a conventional phone, add a stripped-down version of Mac OS X, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, audio and video playback, web-browsing, Google Maps, widgets, a 2.0-megapixel digital camera that can process video too, and a 3.5-inch multi-touch display. Wrap all this in an 11.6mm super-sleek case composed of pure Apple-ness and you've got the iPhone (tech specs here).
Now, to decompress a bit from my iPhone-induced Apple fanboy state, there are a couple things that the device is lacking. The most notable of these is expandable memory, followed by true 3G wireless data rates (through EVDO or something similar), and finally the ability to purchase and download iTunes Store content to the iPhone directly via Wi-Fi.
That said, the iPhone is really an incredible milestone in mobile technology. Check out some of these photos as well as some of the ones on Apple's site if you don't believe me. As an added bonus, take a look at this graph of Apple, RIM, and Palm stock prices today... notice a trend?
The iPhone will be Cingular-exclusive and retail at $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB model. Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to have to wait until June for it to arrive in the U.S., but at least there's the Apple TV and new iTunes Paramount content to look forward to for now.
Posted by Alan Joyce at 09:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack