Toshiba A2 HD DVD Player for $200 at Circuit City
[Thanks to everyone that sent this in!]
a collection of things i like and want to remember. by "scrapbooking" it on my blog i can go back and google it later
Posted by Augustine at 10:43 PM
Sprint has become the first American CDMA wireless company to begin unlocking their hardware once contracts have been honored. The move will allow other unlocked handsets to function on Sprint's network, but whether the reverse will occur with the other carriers is yet to be seen. For ex-Sprint customers who are happy with their phones but want to move to a different provider, it will not be imperative to purchase a new handset for the switch. This is because the unlocked handsets will function on all compatible carriers across the board. Well done to Sprint for being the first out there to get the, now inevitable, mass unlocking phenomenon well underway. [Boy Genius Reports]
Posted by Augustine at 10:43 PM
If you're running Leopard and you've got an external hard drive, you will back up your data, even if that wasn't your intention when you bought the drive or plugged it into your Mac. That's because Leopard's system snapshot mechanism, Time Machine, is dead simple to enable—and Leopard prompts you to turn it on the moment you plug in your FireWire drive. You'll think, "why not?" and why not indeed.
In System Preferences, Time Machine has exactly two settings: the On/Off switch, and what backup drive it should use. Once it's on, it creates hourly, daily, and weekly snapshots of your Mac, and automatically deletes the oldest ones when you run out of space on your drive—no user configuration required (or even possible, as far as I can see).
That terrible day you delete a file you need, to restore a past snapshot you'll use Time Machine's overwrought interface to fly back through space and time to that happy day when your file did exist. Gimmicky? Sure. But Mac guy John Gruber says that's a good thing:
Apple has made something so effect-laden and so extraordinary that users want to see it in action—the fact that that something is backups, which, let's face it, is effectively a chore, is a noteworthy achievement. Making backup software that people can't wait to try, and which, once activated, just automatically kicks in and does its thing on a regular schedule, is like making people want to go ahead and sign up for life insurance.
In short, Apple's used the best productivity trick in the world: to make the right thing to do the easy thing to do. Leopard's release will no doubt bring on an uptick of Mac users who diligently back up their system and data without even thinking about it.
Posted by Augustine at 10:36 PM
We had written a very smug, Macs rule PCs drool post reporting that PC users could run Leopard. And then our Mac froze up and we lost it all. So now you just get the news straight, without our giggling. The news, once again: OSX Leopard has been hacked to work on all Intel PCs, and the process is ridiculously simple, requiring a small .zip and a touch of blank media. [UPDATE: And it looks like you need Tiger pre-installed, too.]
Of course, by installing Leopard on a PC, you are endangering the stability of the space/time continuum, risking not just the future of the Earth and our own humanity, but the existence of everything in the Universe. And we could never condone anything that Back to the Future told us was best avoided. [ OSx86]
Thanks Jason!
Posted by Augustine at 10:35 PM
2007 has been a milestone year for video advertising with a gamut of companies attacking the opportunity from every which way. Today Adap.tv, a relatively new entrant into the contextual video advertising space, is announcing a new initiative with potential to propel it to the front of the pack. Adap.tv is letting advertisers without any video advertising experience jump right in with practically no effort, and zero production cost.
Generally speaking, advertisers face a number of challenges in respect to in-video advertising: Pre/Post rolls typically cost in the $10-$30 per CPM range. On top of that, producing the ads themselves is a costly endeavor. Then there's the matter of being able to convey only a single message. Lastly, the inability to safeguard against ad placement in questionable content is a major deterrent for many advertisers.
adap.tv's new offering tackles most of these issues head-on, with the most interesting aspect being support of keyword and product datafeeds—routinely used to structure search engine marketing campaigns. This is significant because it means that advertisers can reuse existing datafeeds by importing them right into adap.tv for instant targeted video advertising campaigns. Advertisers using AdWords or Overture can easily export their campaign structures to CSV format, upload them into adap.tv, and presto: instant video ads.
On top of datafeed support, adap.tv is also introducing:
Amir Ashkenazi, CEO, claims that publisher and viewer growth is doubling month-over-month and that the company serves ads and pays publishers on almost every video view. Advertisers now include the likes of Amazon, Kayak, EVOgear and Let'sTalk.
The race for UGC video monetization is in full throttle and while it's hard to pin-point a clear leader at this point, adap.tv is certainly positioning itself as a player to keep an eye on. VideoEgg and others are also strong contenders, and YouTube is the 800 pound gorilla.
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Posted by Augustine at 9:57 PM
Jailbreaking the iPod touch/iPhone is now an utterly simple, one-click affair—which means if you've been waiting to jailbreak your iPod touch or iPhone (since the 1.1.1 firmware upgrade), the time is now. Just point your Safari browser to http://jailbreakme.com/ and click the Install AppSnapp link. It may sound scary, but the web site takes advantage of a mobile Safari exploit to install Installer.app (the gateway application for installing more applications) to your device. If you give it a try, here's what you can expect.
After clicking the Install AppSnapp link, Safari will close (or at least it did for me) and your phone will eventually return to the "Slide to Unlock" screen (it could take up to 5 minutes, depending on your connection speed—the whole process literally took less than a minute on my phone). The AppSnapp instructions state that once you slide, you'll see the Installer.app icon, meaning you're ready to go. When I tried unlocking my phone with the slider, it froze up, so at this point, I just restarted my iPhone. When it finished booting up, there was Installer.app in all it's glory, ready to install all sorts of goodies on my iPhone. "What kind of goodies?" you ask. Applications like these, for example:
The iPhone/iPod touch applications available have actually improved and broadened a lot since just last month when I made that iPhone app gallery, so there are still a whole lot of great apps available that aren't included in the gallery. As you may remember, we showed you how to jailbreak your iPhone using a couple of different methods several weeks back, but this one-click Safari hack requires absolutely no hacking skills—or even advanced computer skills. As always, proceed at your own risk. This method does exploit your phone and could potentially give access to your info if malicious forces were at work. However, one of the particularly interesting things about this installation method is that not only does it install Installer.app, but it also fixes the exploit that allows this to happen.
Posted by Augustine at 9:56 PM
Posted by Augustine at 9:51 PM
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Posted by Augustine at 9:50 PM
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Posted by Augustine at 9:50 PM
Windows only: Freeware application DriveImage XML creates and restores images of any drive or partition on your system. That means that next time you freshly install Windows on your computer (whether XP or Vista), you can back up that clean and sparkling system state with DriveImage XML. If things get messy down the road, you can just as easily restore that fresh system state with the program's simple interface. We've given you the complete guide to system partition imaging and restoring from the open source perspective, but the freeware, Windows-only DriveImage XML offers a much more user-friendly alternative for the faint of heart.
Posted by Augustine at 9:49 PM
Ever since Google updated the web-based Google Talk gadget, I've firmly felt that the web-based Google Talk is head and shoulders above the desktop client (if you don't need file transfer or voice calls, that is). Last week we told you about Prism, Mozilla's update to the stripped-down browser and web application environment WebRunner. Put the two together (using this URL when you create the Prism application) and you've got what feels very much like a desktop version of the Google Talk gadget. Prism is still very early in development, currently Windows-only, and—honestly—requires way more memory than I'd like (around 30MB for my Google Talk), but with more time and development, the single-use approach to web applications as desktop apps could catch on. Thanks Jon!
Posted by Augustine at 9:48 PM
Amanda Mooney has a great idea: Google (GOOG) should build "capability to import my Outlook, Ziggs, LinkedIn and Plaxo contacts into my Reader account and have Google instantly subscribe to news and blog feeds related to my people." In other words, they can implement some sort of "auto discovery" and turn Google Reader into a life stream aggregator ala Facebook. The only negative: Google will have even more information about us. What do you guys think?
Posted by Augustine at 5:12 PM
See also: Anti-counterfeiting treaty turns into maximum copyright free-for-all
Update: A reader writes, "The Torontoist blog points out that in the same issue, the Star ran a lengthy story on how to find a knock-off bag in New York , complete with directions."
Posted by Augustine at 5:06 PM
from Engadget by Conrad Quilty-Harper
As if there wasn't enough temptation to get into debt, credit card manufacturers are now looking to stick fancy displays and keypads directly onto cards. The "Credit Card Embedded Authentication Device" was put together by Innovative Card Technologies and eMue Technologies, and uses the screen and keypad to provide security for online and mobile based banking transfers: the user enters their pin into the card, which gives back a one-time use code to authorize online transactions. The card will get its "consumer debut" -- whatever that means -- in Paris this November, at the Cartes & IDentification event.Posted by Augustine at 4:59 PM
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs
The FCC database continues to be full of weird and wonderful toys, and the EZFetch HD media streamer from EZ 4 Media certainly fits that description -- in addition to streaming content off networked PCs, it can also grab content from Nokia N-series devices and display it on your TV. Connections include the usual SD composite jacks, as well as optical audio, DVI-D, Ethernet, and built-in 801.11g wireless, and codec support is pretty spectacular, including H.264, XviD, DivX HD, MPEG4, WMV, and VOB. The N-series integration is the big feature here, however -- not only does the EZFetch stream content from any WiFi-capable N-series device, you can also use the N-series as a remote to control the entire EZFetch system. No word on pricing or availability, sadly, but RF spectrum test geeks can check out all the test results at the read link.Posted by Augustine at 4:55 PM
How to make a viral video and create viral profits
Consumers Have Changed, So Should Advertisers -- ClickZ -- June 4, 2009.
Social Media Benchmarks: Realities and Myths -- ClickZ -- May 7, 2009. The ROI for Social Media Is Zero -- ClickZ -- April 9, 2009. How to Use Search to Calculate the ROI of Awareness Advertising -- ClickZ -- March 12, 2009. Enthusiast Digital Cameras - Foveon, Fujifilm EXR, Exilim 1,000 fps A New Immutable Law of Marketing -- The Law of Usefulness -- Marketing Science -- February 17, 2009. Social Intensity: A New Measure for Campaign Success? -- ClickZ -- February 11, 2009. Connecting with Consumers: Next-Generation Advertising on the Web -- AssociatedContent -- January 30, 2009. Beyond Targeting in the Age of the Modern Consumer -- ClickZ -- January 14, 2009. Experiential Marketing: Experience is King -- ClickZ -- December 18, 2008. Search Improves All Marketing Aspects -- ClickZ -- November 20, 2008. Do something smart, not just something mobile -- iMediaConnection -- November 7, 2008. Social Commerce: In Friends We Trust -- ClickZ -- November 6, 2008. The New Role of the Digital Agency -- RelevantlySpeaking -- October 29, 2008. Make Digital Work for Your Customers -- ClickZ -- October 23, 2008. Social Networking: Make Your Product Worth Talking About -- HowToSplitAnAtom -- October 23, 2008. Social Media Ads are DOA -- MediaWeek -- October 13, 2008. Missing Link Marketing -- Marketing Science. -- September 22, 2008. The Need for Speed -- MediaPost -- September 22, 2008. SEO Can't Exist in a Vacuum -- HowToSplitanAtom -- October 8, 2008. A Different Perspective On Social Media Marketing -- Marketing Science. -- July 15, 2008. WOM: Just Don't Do It -- Adweek -- July 14, 2008. Tips for Success in a Web 2.0 World -- iMedia. -- April 23, 2008.