You have just been sent a LOLCat or ‘All Your Base’ by someone who honestly has no idea that EVERYONE online saw them five years ago or more, and are wondering HOW do you let them know gently that it is ancient. Well, now you can just let them know about IsItOld, a site that will check out how many times the site has been tweeted about – and how long ago it was first tweeted.
Earlier this week I wrote about the great 50% off sale on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the Mac App Store. The deal is still going on, by the way! Anyway, it put me in the mood to replay the game, so I checked Steam to see if they ever opened up Steam Play – they hadn’t. Fortunately I had reviewed the game back in the summer of 2008 for the Mac, with a game gotten through Aspyr’s GameAgent. This meant I had a full game at some point. UN-fortunately, the install file was >4GB, and the Iomega 250GB…
Less than two months ago Facebook had its big f8 event where they launched their music integration amongst other things. At that event Spotify was heavily features alongside MOG, Rdio and others. I think that everyone expected some degree of success – I mean, folks already share EVERYTHING (often WAY too much) on Facebook … so why not this?!? And the results have been phenominal, with a report at Mashable saying: Facebook users have shared their listening activity more than 1.5 billion times with their friends, says Facebook’s Casey Maloney Rosales Muller in a blog post published Tuesday. “Developers have…
I have been highly critical of the impact of Android ‘fragmentation’, which is something I am acutely aware of as a hardcore gamer who loves playing games on smartphones and tablets but has constantly been thwarted in spite of having a dual-core Tegra 2 device. That criticism has led some to think I ‘have it in’ for Android. Not true, not true – I have it in for EVERYONE! Look at the way I have taken Apple to task repeatedly, and Sony has also been a frequent target. Today, I have yet another axe to grind with Apple, which is…
Every now and then you hear about something – the $100 laptop, the $35 tablet, the $19 smartphone plan – that seem to good to be true. And in some ways they are – there are limitations and compromises and caveats. In terms of the $19 smartphone plan, this week Republic Wireless unveiled their rumored plan – and it is both good and bad. The system is based on controlling the hardware – you need to use one of their special LG Optimus phones – and shifting much of the ‘heavy lifting’ to WiFi. So if you need the latest…
I have repeatedly talked about the unhealthy foods and unreasonable quantities and government subsidization of unhealthy processed foods … but today we got something from the other end of the spectrum. In spite of protestations by ultra-thin actresses and models that they can ‘eat whatever they want’, most reasonable people tend to believe that the truth is uncomfortably close to the parodies on TV shows and movies where the model is asked about eating and claims to have eaten an orange for lunch … then confesses it was a single slice … and was the entirety of her solid sustenance…
It has been 20 years now since the first book to simultaneously insult and help us came along – DOS for Dummies. Though met with skepticism based on the title, the folks behind the ‘for Dummies’ book said that it was a term of endearment … and that rapidly advancing technology made many people FEEL like dummies! When given a chance, the book took off and the foundation was built for a new type of technology guides: ones built for everyday people! Soon after we saw a new series that has become nearly as popular through the years, called “The…
Anthony Braxton: Five Pieces 1975 One of the downsides of being a fan of music that has a very small fanbase is that very often music simply goes out of print. Like many, I have always simply assumed that as the CD came into vogue and later digital releases, music would simply be re-released. And while I can understand physical releases going out of print, it seems to be my simplistic view that once a release is digitized it should just be added to a publisher’s catalog and stay there in perpetuity. Of course reality is never so simple, and…
While the first reaction to this news might be ‘so what?’, it is worth noting because the on-demand services have been slow in arriving on Windows Phone 7, and their offerings have been generally anemic when they DID appear. I am thinking specifically of Slacker, whose initial app was both unreliable and a battery drainer, and also Rdio, who supported the platform but the offering definitely paled compared to their iOS and Android apps. That was then, this is now – Slacker fully supports background playback, Live Tiles, instant resume, and more. And Rdio’s Mango update includes background play and…
Perhaps showing my age, I was so engrained in USENET since nearly the very beginning of the service in the early 80’s that I stayed using it long after most folks had moved to web forums. That was until around 2003 or 2004, when I found that splitting my time between dwindling USENET activity and climbing web activity was just too much. Yet even then I still lamented the loss – it was (and still is) incredibly inefficient to seek information about a given subject sprawled across dozens of websites and blogs when a single – or few – USENET…
Late last week one of the big features of the recently released iPhone 4S – Siri – suffered an outage, which was widely reported. Beyond that, there were those who took the outage to indicate either massive success … or massive failure on the part of Apple and the service. But I see something different … loneliness. If you look back to the very first few things people tested on the iPhone 4S with Siri, it was telling it they loved it. You can see it featured in this Gizmodo article from right after the launch. And here are just…
This week we got news of rapper Chuck D suing Universal Music Group (UMG). As part of the court documents analyzed by Digital Music News, his lawyers revealed the payout process … and if you can figure out what all of the stuff in the image at the top MEANS – let me know! The bottom line is that on a $1 recording sold on iTunes (or Amazon MP3 for that matter), Apple gets 30%, the artist gets 8% and the label gets 62%. Looking deeper, the document is based on 1,000 unit sales – which would be $1,000 ……
Last week my 15-year old son ran a load of laundry. That would be a great thing … except that he failed to remove his cell phone from his jeans! Another phone on the heap of teenage abuse! So when I heard that US Cellular was releasing the rugged PCD Wrangler later this month, all I could think was … THERE is a phone made for my son! Here is the description: Rugged and tough, the PCD WranglerTM works and plays as hard as you do. The compact clamshell design has been tested to withstand rain, extreme temperatures, high humidity,…
The Child’s Play Charity has raised millions of dollars and collected loads of toys for kids in hospitals all over the world. What started as a small effort by gamers headed by the Penny-Arcade guys has grown to a massive charitable effort with huge reach! Here is a bit of their history: Since 2003, we’ve set up and organized Child’s Play, a game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in our network of over 70 hospitals worldwide. Over the years, you as a community have answered the call and come together to raise…
Just wanted to get this out to let everyone know of something cool from Amazon overnight – as if Carly’s note about Amazon and Fancy Widget wasn’t cool enough! Bottom line – Amazon has unveiled the ‘lending library’ that was rumored before the Kindle Fire launch. Basically, if you own a Kindle, and are a member of Amazon Prime, you have access to a reasonable size library of works you can borrow one at a time. Here is the description: Today we’re announcing a new benefit for Kindle owners with an Amazon Prime membership: the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Kindle…
Over the last couple of days, Google has released updates for Google Reader and GMail. Each has a new UI, and has further integration of Google +, as well as the removal of Buzz. In the case of GMail, it is mostly about a visual overhaul, as noted on the Google Blog here are the main features: – Streamlined conversations – Elastic density – New HD themes – Smarter navigation – Better search In the case of Google Reader the changes are two-fold: the removal of ‘Share’, and a visual overhaul. To say that the reaction to removing ‘Share’ was…
Image courtesy of SodaHead Ask anyone who was playing Doom when it first came out on a gaming computer they bought with their own money, and they will all agree on one thing: shooters have been drastically simplified through the years. The expression ‘dumbed down for console kiddies’ is bandied about, and while it sounds harsh and degrading, the reality is that due to controller limitations and a more casual and social focus of console gaming, traditional PC gamers are often frustrated at how regressive pretty much everything but the graphics are in current generation shooters. Or, as the video…
Have you ever wished you could write that novel you’ve had rattling around in your brain for ages? Now is your chance – National Novel Writing Month started yesterday, and they have a great website with loads of resources to help you get started. Better still, there are plenty of tools to help you get started, loads of special deals (including on the awesome Scrivener Mac/PC app), help from other writers and so on. I have joined up (today) and just got started – and plan to do it all on the iPad. I am using iThoughts HD to outline…
If you want to be part of the unofficial beta team for the iOS version of GMail, you can grab it here. Note that it apparently isn’t showing up in iTunes searches, at least from my iPad. Here is the description: Get the official Gmail experience for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. With the Gmail app, you can: ? Receive notification badges for new messages ? Read your mail with threaded conversations ? Organize your mail by archiving, labeling, starring, deleting, and reporting spam ? Keep track of important messages with priority inbox ? Auto-complete contact names as you…
Image courtesy of Retrevo I have been on the hunt for over a year for an Android tablet that meets my needs: I have abandoned hope for now that will be anything appealing in the 10″ space, since Android is currently inferior and fragmented for gaming and a non-factor in music production software. But in the 7″ space there are some cool options, yet in spite of trying three different tablets (Galaxy Tab, Acer Iconia and HTC Flyer) and finding that the size is perfect … I haven’t managed to find a device with enough positives that I can accept…
Have you ever wanted to watch a movie or TV show only to be thwarted by the seemingly random method used to decide whether or not you can watch certain things on the various services? I know my family has – and both Doug and I have ranted about it in the past. In fact, this past weekend while I was out of town overnight and my younger son was at a school dance, my wife and older son wanted to watch Paranormal Activity 2, only to be disappointed when it was unavailable on our Roku (it is now available)…