Monday, September 22, 2008
Work
Windows 7 Screenshots
10:23PM Kevin Purdy | If these early screenshots of a test build of Windows 7 are to be believed, Microsoft’s next operating system will implement Office 2007’s “ribbon” toolbar in most of its system apps, scale back on the User Account Control nagging, and load a “light” Windows Media Player on double-clicking videos. Do these screenshots bode well for a decluttered Windows, or just a new look for a Vista upgrade? Tell us your take in the comments. [via] More »
Work
MobaLiveCD Runs Linux Live CDs Inside Windows
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: MobaLiveCD, a free, stand-alone emulation tool, lets you run Linux live CDs from a window inside Windows, without any hard drive installation whatsoever. Based on the open-source QEMU emulator, MobaLiveCD can set up a live CD with a bit of hard drive space for persistent changes on your system, or you can run the 1.6MB app off a thumb drive or desktop and simply point it at an ISO image (or install its right-click function for all ISOs). My test with Ubuntu 8.04.1 wasn’t exactly speedy, and I had to run the app as an Administrator to get it working in Vista, but it otherwise delivers on the promise of no-install Linux inside Windows. MobaLiveCD is a free download for Windows systems only. MobaLiveCD More »
Organise
Information Overload Is Filter Failure, Says Shirky
9:00PM Gina Trapani | Technologist Clay Shirky argues that information overload isn’t the problem tech journalism makes it out to be: it’s really a failure of information filters. At the Web 2.0 Expo last week, Shirky said that the internet has made it easier and cheaper for publishers to broadcast information—so now the onus is on the consumer to filter out the noise (much like client-side spam filters). Hit the play button after the jump to hear Shirky’s well-argued points. More »
Communicate
8:16PM Angus Kidman | While not threatening to overtake ADSL, wireless broadband services are growing in popularity. New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics says that as of the end of June, there were 809,000 wireless broadband subscriptions in Australia, accounting for 14% of all Internet accounts. Since that date, we’ve seen a bunch of new products and rate reductions from Telstra and Vodafone, so I’d expect even bigger gains next time. For a real-world view of how well wireless broadband works on the move, check out our Townsville train torture test.
ABS [via ZDNet
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Wireless Broadband Is On The Rise
8:16PM Angus Kidman | While not threatening to overtake ADSL, wireless broadband services are growing in popularity. New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics says that as of the end of June, there were 809,000 wireless broadband subscriptions in Australia, accounting for 14% of all Internet accounts. Since that date, we’ve seen a bunch of new products and rate reductions from Telstra and Vodafone, so I’d expect even bigger gains next time. For a real-world view of how well wireless broadband works on the move, check out our Townsville train torture test.
ABS [via ZDNet
More »
Fix
7:59PM Angus Kidman | You probably don’t have to look any further than your spam folder to find examples of unscrupulous merchants flogging their wares with exaggerated claims, but their continued presence demonstrates that plenty of people fall for scam products. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is taking part in a 24-hour global sweep where consumer agencies identify sites making “unrealistic, exaggerated and false claims” for products and target them for further investigation. Of particular note for Lifehacker readers is the promise to crack down on “communication services”, though MobileMe probably isn’t on the list. If you’ve encountered a particularly extreme example of dubious online sales tactics, let’s hear about it in the comments.
ACCC
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Fake Claims On Internet Stores Come Under Scrutiny
7:59PM Angus Kidman | You probably don’t have to look any further than your spam folder to find examples of unscrupulous merchants flogging their wares with exaggerated claims, but their continued presence demonstrates that plenty of people fall for scam products. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is taking part in a 24-hour global sweep where consumer agencies identify sites making “unrealistic, exaggerated and false claims” for products and target them for further investigation. Of particular note for Lifehacker readers is the promise to crack down on “communication services”, though MobileMe probably isn’t on the list. If you’ve encountered a particularly extreme example of dubious online sales tactics, let’s hear about it in the comments.
ACCC
More »
Communicate
2:46PM Angus Kidman | Google’s blogs are one of the best ways of keeping track of developments at the sometimes secretive search giant, but keeping track of them can be tricky. A newly-launched iGoogle gadget makes it easier to track posts by your preferred subject, without needing to know which blog it appeared in. If iGoogle isn’t to your taste, there’s also a basic blog directory listing all Google’s official outlets.
[Official Google Blog]
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Google Adds iGoogle Gadget, Blog Directory
2:46PM Angus Kidman | Google’s blogs are one of the best ways of keeping track of developments at the sometimes secretive search giant, but keeping track of them can be tricky. A newly-launched iGoogle gadget makes it easier to track posts by your preferred subject, without needing to know which blog it appeared in. If iGoogle isn’t to your taste, there’s also a basic blog directory listing all Google’s official outlets.
[Official Google Blog]
More »
Fix
2:34PM Angus Kidman | Reader Sovanna called my attention to the rather unusual licensing requirements for thesaurus and dictionary program Word Web http://wordweb.info/free/licence5.html. You can use the program for free, provided that you “take at most two commercial flights (not more than one return flight) in any 12 month period”. Otherwise, you have to pay up $39 for the Pro version after a 30-day trial.
While it’s nice to try and encourage everyone to reduce their carbon emissions, this seems to me a pretty ham-fisted way of going about it. For one thing, it makes no allowance for the fact that flying once a year is hardly the definition of excessive travel, especially in a large country like Australia (or the US, come to that). The claims in this context that the pricing is designed to “allow relatively non-wealthy people to use the program free of charge” seems disingenuous to say the least. Nor (as Sovanna points out) does the policy account for whether you try and offset your carbon credits from flights — someone who flies regularly but does that is arguably more actively managing their impact than someone who only hits the skies once a year but spends the rest of the time using their car.
So what’s to be done? I’ll grant you $39 isn’t a lot of money, but with that kind of attitude I reckon there are better approaches. A freeware alternative such as previously-mentioned Enso Words leaves you able to donate those funds to the environmental charity of your choice. But have I got the wrong end of the green stick? Share your thoughts in the comments. More »
Does An Environmental Bully Software Licence Make Sense?
2:34PM Angus Kidman | Reader Sovanna called my attention to the rather unusual licensing requirements for thesaurus and dictionary program Word Web http://wordweb.info/free/licence5.html. You can use the program for free, provided that you “take at most two commercial flights (not more than one return flight) in any 12 month period”. Otherwise, you have to pay up $39 for the Pro version after a 30-day trial.
While it’s nice to try and encourage everyone to reduce their carbon emissions, this seems to me a pretty ham-fisted way of going about it. For one thing, it makes no allowance for the fact that flying once a year is hardly the definition of excessive travel, especially in a large country like Australia (or the US, come to that). The claims in this context that the pricing is designed to “allow relatively non-wealthy people to use the program free of charge” seems disingenuous to say the least. Nor (as Sovanna points out) does the policy account for whether you try and offset your carbon credits from flights — someone who flies regularly but does that is arguably more actively managing their impact than someone who only hits the skies once a year but spends the rest of the time using their car.
So what’s to be done? I’ll grant you $39 isn’t a lot of money, but with that kind of attitude I reckon there are better approaches. A freeware alternative such as previously-mentioned Enso Words leaves you able to donate those funds to the environmental charity of your choice. But have I got the wrong end of the green stick? Share your thoughts in the comments. More »
Communicate
2:16PM Angus Kidman | Subscription music services have been slow to start in Australia, but seem to be gaining traction. A month after Sanity released its much-delayed LOADIT service, Vodafone has entered the fray with MusicStation, a subscription music service for mobile phones which claims to offer more than a million tracks. After insllating the MusicStation app, selected tracks are downloaded to your phone for local playback; if the phone memory fills up, your least-played tracks are automatically deleted. The service is a fair bit cheaper than Sanity’s rival service, costing $2.75 a week. There are no additional download charges, but you do already need to be a Vodafone customer, you can only access music in 3G areas, and you do need to be have one of the supported handsets (currently LG KU990 Viewty, Nokia 6121 classic, Nokia E65, Nokia N73, Nokia N95 8GB, Sony Ericsson C902, Sony Ericsson W880i, Sony Ericsson W890i, and the Nokia 6210 Navigator.) You’ll doubtless have noticed the absence of the iPhone from that list — despite Apple’s players being the standard in the music market, it’s apparently more or less impossible to get a commercial subscription scheme up and running on its devices. You could always try the Last.fm app, but that will chew through your download cap if you’re not on a Wi-Fi network.
[MusicStation]
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Vodafone MusicStation Offers Unlimited Music Downloads For $2.75 A Week
2:16PM Angus Kidman | Subscription music services have been slow to start in Australia, but seem to be gaining traction. A month after Sanity released its much-delayed LOADIT service, Vodafone has entered the fray with MusicStation, a subscription music service for mobile phones which claims to offer more than a million tracks. After insllating the MusicStation app, selected tracks are downloaded to your phone for local playback; if the phone memory fills up, your least-played tracks are automatically deleted. The service is a fair bit cheaper than Sanity’s rival service, costing $2.75 a week. There are no additional download charges, but you do already need to be a Vodafone customer, you can only access music in 3G areas, and you do need to be have one of the supported handsets (currently LG KU990 Viewty, Nokia 6121 classic, Nokia E65, Nokia N73, Nokia N95 8GB, Sony Ericsson C902, Sony Ericsson W880i, Sony Ericsson W890i, and the Nokia 6210 Navigator.) You’ll doubtless have noticed the absence of the iPhone from that list — despite Apple’s players being the standard in the music market, it’s apparently more or less impossible to get a commercial subscription scheme up and running on its devices. You could always try the Last.fm app, but that will chew through your download cap if you’re not on a Wi-Fi network.
[MusicStation]
More »
Organise
Use A Question Mark To Search For Files In Firefox
10:00AM Kevin Purdy | The gHacks blog points out a neat trick for searching out terms with periods in them without auto-triggering an attempt to load a web site: put a question mark (?) before the term. Great for hunting down shareware executable files and pasting in dates and phone numbers separated by dots. Know a better work-around? Tell us in the comments. More »
Communicate
