Category Archives: web

Windows 8: Week 2 – The honeymoon is over.

For the most part, I’m OS agnostic. I can do most of my work from any computer or tablet running almost any OS. I can use Windows if I chose too, but one of the reasons I switched to Mac was how much less time it took me to do the work I needed to do. After 6 years, none of that has changed with Windows for me.

I don’t dislike Windows, I just find it counterproductive. This week I found myself trying to do some actually work. After I installed what I needed, I was spending all my time in the legacy desktop. This is where the sparkle of the Metro UI and Windows 8 faded for me. It’s the same old Windows but now without a Start menu. I found myself spending more time switching windows and looking for things than actually work. I started to miss Mac apps and in some cases I couldn’t find an equivalent at all.

I also got the time to sit down with a Surface this week. No review here but it did help me realize one thing. Windows 8 for PCs and Windows 8 for Mobile should have stayed separate. For now at least.

iTransmogrify! – Watch embedded YouTube Videos on the iPhone

One feature missing from the iPhone and iPod Touch is Flash support for MobileSafari. Go to a page with an embeded YouTube video on it and all you get is a broken plugin icon. iTransmogrify! is a browser bookmarklet that allows embedded YouTube videos to play in the native YouTube player on the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can see it in action in the video above. Until Flash is officially supported, this is the best way to view embedded YouTube videos.

Twitter Stats for 2007

2007 Twitter Stats

2007 was the first year I used Twitter extensively. I started off heavy, lost interest then picked it back up in the middle of the year thanks to programs like Twitterrific and Twitterberry. Now thanks to Damon Cortesi, who hacked up a quick and dirt script, you can see a visualization of my Twitter activity for 2007 above.

Feel free to add me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/the8thsign

Google acquires Jaiku

Jaiku-1

So Google gobbled up Finish microblogger Jaiku today. I’m a user of Twitter but I do have a Jaiku account and actually like what Jaiku is doing. They offer more of a Twitter+LIfestream experience that Im interested in but just like Pownce, all my friends are on Twitter so thats where I am. One of the more interesting features that Jaiku does is Jaiku Mobile, which offer integration into your cell phone. Only Nokia phones are supported at this time but here is an excert right from Jaiku about what Jaiku Mobile is:

Jaiku Mobile works like the phone’s regular phone book, and enhances the standard contact list with presence information. It displays the buddy icon, availability, latest Jaiku message, and location for you and your Jaiku contacts in your contact list. It enables you to

* Browse and post Jaikus
* Add comments
* Share your availability based on your ring profile (green light = ringing, yellow light = vibrate, red light = silent)
* Share your location (neighborhood, city, country) based on cellular network towers
* Share your calendar events (if you don’t want to share your calendar, Jaiku only displays your status as “busy” when an event is active)
* Share who you’re with based on nearby Bluetooth devices

Imagine that you pull up a contact on your iPhone and it shows the person is at work based on the cell tower they are on. But it also shows that their last update says “Lunch” so you know you can call. Or it reads their calendar and marks them as busy because they’re in a meeting. That’s epic. There has been a lot of take about a gPhone from Google and I can only wish something like this makes it into there. Even better would be Google and Apple getting together to make this work on the iPhone.

I’m going to wait and see what Google has in-store for Jaiku just like everyone else but if you are on Jaiku and would like to add me, my username is the8thsign. If you a Mac user, check out the Twitterific-esque client Juhu.