Thursday, August 24, 2006

Zooomr Portals

Zooomr just launched a cool new feature: Portals. Basically you can connect two or more photos with notes, and create a navigable series of photos. Check out the official blog here, complete with video description. You can find examples of portals here.

I tried this with IE6 and it does not work. If you want to check out these portals use Firefox or Opera (you shouldn't use IE as your main browser anyway!).

I already have an idea on how to use portals, it's something I always wanted to do, but this new feature makes it so easy to implement!

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

BT capable router

This ASUS WL-700gE wireless router is a dream gadget for me:

The unit comes with a 160GB IDE drive pre-installed. It only supports IDE, not SATA. There are also three USB 2.0 ports for hard drive expansion, printer connection or data copy from a USB flash drive. With a USB drive connected, it supports RAID levels 0 and 1 (striping and mirroring) all from a router!

Apart from the highly impressive hardware feature set, the main attraction with the WL-700gE is its in-built operating system. Based on a minimalist Linux build, the onboard OS is embedded into the firmware and takes over the full capacity of the hard drive.

The Download Master page allows to initiate new downloads from within the router’s web interface without the need for a client, and to interact with jobs already running.

Simply paste in the URL of the download you’re after, specify the appropriate protocol (HTTP, FTP or BT) and press Download. All incoming files are stored in the Download folder.

The main advantage of course, is that no computers need to be running to keep the downloads active the router handles all communication natively.


So this is a wireless router, a NAS device and has download capabilities. Not having to keep my desktop on 24/7 would be a big relief for my ears (PC fans are very loud!), and with this device I could download files without my PC. Awesome.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Writely as Blogging Editor

Writely is now open to public sign-ups. Previously new accounts were invitation only.

In response to RJ's post about Writely, I have been using Writely to post to my wordpress.com blog, and it has worked fine. Not only does it post well, but it also selects the correct Wordpress category from the Writely tag.

However formatting errors have occurred, for example sometimes the font is too small, even though I did not change it in Writely. One time Writely couldn't post the blog, so I went to the Writely Group and asked for help. Not long after someone at Writely/Google solved the issue, and that problem never occurred again.

I think formatting problems are very common, I've had problem in many many online editors (Vox, Wordpress, and Blogger.com). These depend on many variables, including browser, OS, blogging platform etc... This is not an excuse for Writely to have these problems, but I can sort of understand them. Hopefully they will solve these soon. For the moment I am happy with Writely in general.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Microsoft Zune

By now you've probably read about the new Microsoft Zune MP3 Player, to be released soon and aimed at bringing down the iTunes/iPod empire.

We now have an unofficial image of the player and some details thanks to Gizmodo:

First off, that scroll wheel you see? That's not a wheel. It's just four buttons arranged in a wheel formation.


So they want to kind of copy the iPod, but not enough to be seen as a copycat. Or maybe they just can't come up with their own design.

I might be wrong, but I really don't see this new device de-throning Apple anytime soon, or at all. But if Apple doesn't come out with a new iPod, who knows?

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Google Login

One bad thing about transferring Blogger.com login to Google accounts, is that if Google.com is blocked, than I cannot sign in. And yes, Google.com is often blocked here. But there are other ways to post to blogger.

E-mail: I can't enter labels (or tags), but at least the post should be there. Unfortunately my e-mail was rejected with the message: "Blogger could not process your message at this time."

Writely: I use Writely to post to my wordpress.com blog, so maybe I can use it to post to Blogger too. Just tried it, and obviously it does not post to the new Blogger Beta. Oh well, it IS beta. Also Writely can only set one blog, so I would have to change settings everytime I switch blogs. Of course I can alwyas have more than one Writely account...

New iPod, a mirage?

I have an iPod Nano (black, 4GB), like many other people. I am very satisfied with it, I listen to it 18 hours a day. I wear it on my neck the whole day, inside my shirt so it doesn't bother anyone. However I've been wanting to watch some video on the go, but I don't want to buy the current iPod 5G, the screen is just too small. I am waiting for the new widescreen/touchscreen iPod Video that everybody has been talking about. However it still isn't here, and I am getting a little bit disappointed. It's been almost a year since the last new iPod, and we keep hearing delays on the next one.

At least we might get wi-fi, according to DigiTimes. I like the idea of wi-fi, but I hope I won't have to wait later than Jan 2007...

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Blogger.com Review

Here are my thoughts on the new features.

Login

They are now switching login to Google accounts, which makes sense. So I have now created a new account with my Google login. Since I already had a Blogger account, they promised that in the future we will be able to merge the two accounts. I can't wait for more Google services integration; think of the Google Calendar, Writely, Spreadsheet...

Template Editing

It is now very easy to customize the blog template. With Page Elements it is possible to change the blog layout with simple drag and drop. Each element can also be edited individually. For example you can change all titles for each element, or even re-arrange items in posts (title, time, content, comments etc...).

It is also possible to add a footer, which is very handy for credits or third party code (I added a stat counter). Even the navbar can be customized, you have 4 colors from which to choose from, so that it blends better with your template.

Some missing features: an element for feeds. At the moment there is just one link for all posts feed, placed on the main page after the posts. I wish I could move it to the sidebar and customize it. I am sure this will be done in the future. Another cool feature would be a header graphic, which could be added in the HTML editing, but it is not available yet.

Fonts and Colors can also be changed for each item in your template. I didn't play with it because I am not good at colors, so I left the default.

If you are signed in and view your blog, you can see links to edit each single element of your template. Very cool.

Feeds

There are now 3 feeds available: blog posts, blog comments, per-post comments. The only problem is that I cannot put them in my template. My current template only shows the first one. And only atom not rss.

Backlinks

Backlinks are basically trackbacks. I still have to test it, but it is a needed addition.

Labels

Another needed addition (and one of the reasons I abandoned Blogger in the past) is tags, which are called labels here. Luckily I can easily edit the template so that it displays as tag.

Permissions

It is now possible to limit reading permission to a group of people. To me blogging is about putting yourself out for the world to see, so I will always blog publically, but it is a nice feature to have.

No more publishing...

Previously after each edit (to post or template) you had to re-publish the blog, which could take a long time if your blog was very large. There is no need to re-publish anymore, each modification is done instantly.

New Templates

I am not too familiar with the previous templates, but I did not see the promised new templates. Or did I miss them?

Conclusion

Overall an excellent improvement over the old system, but I hope they continue realease new features in the future instead of stagnate and let it become irrelevant again.

Update: some formatting problems occurred writing this post, which is really annoying. It seems the Compose doesn't work that well. Also I have no idea how to use backlinks. I posted on another blog linking to this post, but there are no backlinks. Not sure what happens there.

Welcome

I am crazy about blogs. I can't seem to have enough of them. Maybe too many. But I just like this new medium, and I am also interested in the technology behind it. So many times I start a blog because I want to try the new blog host.

In this case, I wanted to try out the new features of Blogger.com, especially now that all blogpost.com blogs are not banned in China anymore. Look for a review next.

If I enjoy writing this blog and continue writing it, I will be writing about tech. Any tech news, opinions and reviews. Hope you find it interesting.