Niall Kennedy's weblog, newest first. Page 49 of 72.
Microsoft has a special offer for Xbox Live. A 12-month subscription is only $20, and for $10 more you receive a headset and the full version of Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. I ordered the Xbox Live 12 Month Starter Kit, currently on backorder….
Nike has a new $299 MP3 player with 256MB flash memory and Bluetooth. ZDNet profiles the Nike MP3Run. It includes a special pedometer you attach to your shoelaces and your data is stored on the flash memory. “While you’re running, you can press a button to temporarily silence the music while a synthesized voice tells you how far you’ve run and at what pace. When you’re through with your run, you connect the player to your PC, and your time and distance are uploaded to the Training section of Nike’s running site, where a training log allows you to track…
I have a recently updated key from my previous donation to Movable Type. My pings are still accepted by the Movable Type server and I appear on the recently updated list, even though I do not have a Personal Edition license. I am not sure how long it will last, but worth noting for everyone confused about Movable Type changes….
I just sold my Compaq TC1000 Tablet PC and bought a 1.5Ghz 15-inch PowerBook. So far I am satisfied with my purchase. I wanted a computer to hold all of my work. I had a Tablet and a desktop machine and I was never sure which one had the data I needed. A desktop replacement laptop seemed like the perfect response. Size matters. The TC1000 has a 10.4-inch screen. The quality of the screen is a bit cloudy, a result of protecting the surface from pen scratches. I wanted a bigger screen. Choosing an OS. My desktop PC is…
I just upgraded my weblog to Movable Type 3.0 Developer Edition, also known as Movable Type Free. Limitations of the license: No support from Six Apart No access to paid installation service No access to fee-based services No promotion of your weblogs through the Recently Updated list No commercial usage No more than one author and three weblogs Sounds okay to me! Paid licenses start at $70 and includes “a guaranteed path to future versions.” If Movable Type does change, at least all the entries are on my own server, in MySQL, and I can move to a separate publishing…
A Polish-Egyptian team of archaeologists has excavated parts of the Bruchion region of Alexandria and discovered what look like lecture halls of the Library of Alexandria….
Scott Rosenberg of Salon attended the Systems and Software Technology Conference to research the military’s dependence on software code. The average acquisition cycle for a military product, according to conference speakers, is 10 years — and that’s an optimistic figure. Between the time the Pentagon commissions a system and a contractor delivers it, whole generations of private-sector computing software and hardware have come and gone. XML and Web services are crucial for protecting America. If you’re writing software today for a system that’s going to take years to deploy, you have no choice but to plan on everything changing around…
Blogger is new and improved, and I like it! You choose your feed and choose one of 31 template designed by Jeffery Zeldman, Dan Cederholm, Todd Dominey, Dan Rubin, Dave Shea, and Doug Bowman….
Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa in Italy found that new lovers adjust their testosterone to more closely match each other. “[M]en and women in love have considerably higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.” “Men who were in love had lower levels of the male sex hormone testosterone – linked to aggression and sex drive – than the other men. Love-struck women, in contrast, had higher levels of testosterone than their counterparts” “[W]hen people look at their lovers, the neural circuits that are normally associated with critical social assessment of other people are suppressed”…
EyeToy, Sony’s camera attachment for the PlayStation 2, will now allow PlayStation 2 owners with a network adapter to use video features. “The video mail feature will allow users to send 30-second video messages to anyone on their buddy list.”…
Adidas will introduce a $250 running shoe in December that alters its properties based on real-time measurements. Michel Marriott of The New York Times writes about the new shoe in today’s issue. Each second, a sensor in the heel can take up to 20,000 readings and the embedded electronic brain can make 10,000 calculations, directing a tiny electric motor to change the shoe. The goal is to make the shoe adjust to changing conditions and the runner’s particular style while in use. The heel contains a sensor and magnet to gauge the cushioning needed and relay the data to the…
Sports on Earth, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Major League Baseball, now runs the Internet operations of Major League Soccer. The online sports content business expands, and needs some blogging influence! Technorati should pitch the team marketing departments interested in tracking and assisting fan sites. Six Apart or Userland could help with player journals. Teams need their own templates for blogging sites as well, to help with grassroots marketing efforts….
Webbed logos of the upcoming film “Spider-Man 2” will appear on bases and on-deck circles in 15 stadiums during interleague games June 11-13. Foam fingers and masks with the “Spider-Man 2” logo will be given away at some ballparks as well. First there were the Blogger and LiveJournal templates. Now they place their ads inside the baseball diamond….
Microsoft is giving away a free copy of Visual Basic .NET 2003 Standard Edition to users that view and rate 5 VB movies. There will not be 5 movies available until May 17, but there is already a Data and XML tutorial online. Free offer valid in U.S. and Canada only….
Alex Salkever of Business Week would like to see an iPod IPO. For Apple, the best move right now is to spin out iPod and pocket the cash, because Wall Street’s current euphoria marks the market’s peak. Although Apple would be loath to admit it, digital music players are on the verge of commoditization….
There will be an Atom Community Meeting on Wednesday, June 2, at Sun’s offices in either Menlo Park or Santa Clara. Time to prepare for the August IETF meeting….
The Rinspeed Splash Amphibious Hydrofoil Sportscar is capable of 45 knots on the water and 125 mph on land. Gizmo reviews the car. 0 to 60 in 5.9 seconds from its turbocharged two-cylinder four-valve 750cc natural-gas engine….
Matt Richtel of the New York Times writes about Cisco, Microsoft, and I.B.M.’s test market for public work spaces. Mobile workers want a structured environment to work, but also the opportunity to meet others. Target the small business workers and the artists and you will have a nice place to work, meet, and consume. “[T]he essential factor in luring office workers was to give them the aura of freedom; there was no pretense that they are in an office, even though they might be working intensely for hours”…
Alan Deutschman of Wired News profiles Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and his influence on the technology industry….
Dave Sifry announced a Technorati developers meeting on Wednesday, May 19 from 6-9 p.m….
A search for Gmail on eBay shows there are currently 47 auctions selling free e-mail accounts for Google’s new mail service currently in beta testing. News.com reports $61 bids on some of these listings. Nelson Minar was kind enough to hook me up with a Gmail account a few weeks ago, but I have not been a heavy user. I have two invitations available, probably the same for these eBay users. There is nothing in the Gmail terms of use or Gmail program policies against selling these invitations. If this practice bothers you, the only e-mail address listed for feedback…
Dave Winer writes more and invites more comments regarding the issues raised in the Wired article. I have had some ideas regarding more community sharing of news feed resources. How can aggregator developers better publish their users subscriptions and activities? Would the end user be willing to have their data published? Share Your OPML is a start. What if aggregators had Share Your OPML functionality built-in? Locally stored and placed online as well. Most users have some online space available, either through their ISP, personal site, MSN, .Mac, etc. You have the dateModified field defined in the head. Expand the…
Ryan Singel of Wired News wonders if RSS readers will clog Web servers. The solution is HTTP status code 304 Not Modified. See section 10.3.5 of the HTTP 1.1 specification for more details. “If a cache uses a received 304 response to update a cache entry, the cache MUST update the entry to reflect any new field values given in the response.” Date is a new field value. If no date found (clockless origin server) you use client date….
Medicare.gov has a new comparison shopping search engine for prescription drugs. Search by zip code for prices for persons with or without Medicare benefits. Robert Pear and Milt Freudenheim of the New York Times profiled the new site today….
Google filed with the SEC today for an initial public offering. Some quotes from the Letter from the Founders, apparently written by Larry Page: “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” “We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google.” “As a public company, we believe a dual class voting structure will enable us to retain many of the positive aspects of being private.” “We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge, doctors…