Paul O'Flaherty

Hictu – Twitter (ish) with Audio

I was pointed in the direction of Hictu today. It’s a twitter clone in very early beta and is very feature limited at the moment but does have one interesting feature that Twitter lacks.

Hictu has the ability to record up to 30 seconds of audio and video, on site via a flash interface, for  inclusion in your post. The audio quality isn’t great, but it works.

This would be killer functionality if it was added to Twitter (and if Twitter had better uptime). The closest Twitter can come to matching this particular feature at the moment is with TwitterGram which allows you to attach a 200kb MP3 file and you can only do that once every 10 minutes. (Steven Hodson informs me that TwitterGram are looking for developers to add the flash recording capability.)

I like Hictu. It’s very feature limited at the moment, but it does allow you to import multiple RSS feeds to be included in your stream.

I think Hictu will do okay in the Twitter / Jaiku world as long as they can get a lot of the basic features their missing now in place such as direct messaging, easier addition of contacts and searching for users.

I should think that the biggest fear the Hictu developers must have is that Twitter or Jaiku (or both) implement a similar audio / video feature and kill Hictu off before they get a chance to gain any traction.

If you’re interested in checking Hictu out my user name is PaulOFlaherty .

Using Gmail to keep up with Twitter

I love Twitter but the sheer number of messages is overwhelming when I get them sent to my mobile phone, so generally I used to have all messages sent to the web only.

The problem with that is keeping track of conversations that happen when I’m not online. In order to keep up with them I’d have to log in to twitter and backtrack a few pages to find the last message I recognize click through the pages individually.

There is an easier way.

I set my Twitter account to send all messages to IM, in this case Google Talk.

Then I go into my Gmail settings and under the tab “Chat” set the Chat history to save in my Gmail account.

Now if you’ve got a lot of friends on Twitter you’ll receive a lot of Tweets and thankfully Gmail doesn’t treat each one as an individual email.

Instead they’re clumped together as loosely time related conversations.

For example while I was in bed last night the folks I follow on Twitter created a total of 55 tweets which I received as 6 “e-mails”. Gmail then grouped these chat mails as one conversation.

As it’s only one conversation it takes me just one click to catch up and see all the tweets that I’ve missed since hitting the pillow the night before.

Here’s an extra little tip. If your tweets are in multiple emails in the conversation, the earliest ones will only appear as a header. Hit the “expand all” button on the top right corner of the screen to get a nice “River of news” style view of the tweets you’ve missed.

Bye Bye Blogsvertise

I’m deleting my account with Blogsvertise as soon as I’m finished writing this post.

I’ve had three “offers” assigned to me since I joined up and I must say that they’ve been dreadful. Whoever assigns tasks to bloggers over there needs a serious head check and to do a little homework before hitting that “send” button.

I’ve received tasks to write about the following 3 sites (all links are “no follow”):

• BuyDomians.com
• 866GeekNeed.com
• HawaiianBeachRentals.com

The first 2 are tech related but completely beyond my means to write anything other than a mere “they exist” about. I don’t live in the U.S. so there is no way I’ll be writing about they’re service because I have no possibility to try it.

I’m certainly not going to be paying the $1.99 per minute call charge, on top of the international call rate from DENMARK.

I’m supposed to make money by writing about this service not spend more that the piddle poor $7.50 they’re offering me.

BuyDomain is another poor choice. Yeah, I can look at they’re site and see the extortionate amount of money people want for expired domains but am I going to call them? Am I going to purchase a domain to see what they’re service is really like?

Not for $10!

As for HawaiianBeachRentals.com! Why is it listed as “Technology and Gadgets” entry?

The poor matching of tasks to my blog is not the only reason why I’m leaving Blogsvertise. What they demand is nothing more than an advertisement and they offer far too little money for it.

This blog is registered with PayPerPost and ReviewMe. On both of these services I can demand around $100 for posts on my blog and that makes it worth my while, because when I write a review I invest the necessary time to make it worth reading.

As stated on my policies page:

Paid Reviews

I will do paid reviews on this site. All paid reviews will contain proper disclosure at the top and bottom of the article.

The content of the review will not be influenced or altered by the fact that I am being paid to do the review. The review will be honest!

A bad product or service will not receive a good review simply because I’m being paid to review it. However, I will, in the review, attempt to suggest ways in which the product or service could be improved.

Likewise, good services will not receive an excellent review simply because I’m being paid to review it.

My review will be honest and critical. If your product or service can’t stand up to a critical review, or you don’t wish to learn how to improve it, then I suggest you look elsewhere.

Blogsvertise doesn’t pay enough to be worth my time and I’m not going to be a shill when writing a review.

Bye Bye Blogsvertise!

Facebook users from outside the U.S. are spammers!

I’m getting really annoyed with the overuse of CAPTCHA’s and I’m looking specifically at you Facebook.

The other day Kevin Dixie (the man behind Fuel My Blog) sent me an invite to join a group on Facebook.

I clicked on the link in the email, entered my username and password to log in to facebook and confirmed I wanted to join the group.

I then went to write a message on the groups wall. I was confronted with this:

A captcha? But why? You can not do anything on Facebook without being logged in so a captcha is pointless. What exactly is it protecting against spammers?

What makes it even worse is the captcha system can only be removed if you live in the U.S. or Canada. If you are lucky enough to live in one of these two countries you can enter your mobile phone number and verify your Facebook account.

If you’re like me and live outside of the U.S. or Canada, Facebook treats you like a spammer and gives you no means to prove otherwise! 

I guess I must be a spammer! Why else would they make me fill out a captcha after I’ve gone through the process of logging in?

New Streamlined Vista Taskbar

Erich just emailed me this image of the new streamlined taskbar Windows Vista just presented him with.

It’s so simple you’d hardly know it’s there…

Google Desktop Sidebar on Dual Monitors

I’ve had a love / hate relationship with Google Desktop ever since I first installed the original release.

I wanted to install it on frigid bitch’s machine today (Windows XP SP2) but ran into some issues since frigid bitch wants to have a dual monitor setup like I do. 

Now, the issue is that I cannot find a way to place the  sidebar on the secondary monitor.  I believe that’s the most natural and productive place for the sidebar to be instead of taking up valuable real estate on the primary monitor.

A quick search of the online help mentions nothing about dual monitors. The help forums turned up an number of posts by other people with a similar issue but they remain unanswered.

Has anybody got a work around for this?

TV in a pool table? WTF? WHY?

Shooting pool is a passion of mine. I find it therapeutic on my “off” days, as well as just damn good fun at the rest of the time. frigid bitch likes to play as well. We’ve agreed that our next house will have a room with just  a pool table in it.

This morning I saw this pool table from Heiron & Smith on Zedomax.

Besides the Italian slate and all the other refinements you expect in a quality pool/billiard table this table features the following extras:

• LCD TV set.
• Stereo with flat paneled speakers.
• Games/DVD player.
• Library rack.
• Ball storage rack.
• Mirror backed Bar.

My first reaction was “wow”. My next thought was why?

Why would you want all of this stuff built in to a pool table? What kind of idiot would honestly sit low enough to the ground to watch the TV or play the games system (is that a Playstation?).

It’s not practical! The damn wires will get in the way of anybody actually trying to play pool.

Can you imagine having to tell the kids to move away from the table every time you try to take a shot on that side?

All hell will soon break loose and your wife will not be a happy camper. You’ll find yourself needing that drinks cabinet but I give it a mere 2 days before someone smashes the glass.

Anybody who plays pool knows that the cues have a habit of hitting things they shouldn’t (bikers, moaners, people who haven’t paid for their round of drinks) and this effect is magnified when drink is involved.

Unfortunately there are plenty of idiots out there with more money than sense and they will buy this table.

Jon Stewart said something important on the Daily Show last night (I don’t know how far behind we are in Denmark with that but it was last night for me). I can’t quote it him exactly, but the gist of it was that he couldn’t understand why you’d put  camera in a mobile phone.

You just end up with a crap camera and a crap phone.

Jon’s comments struck home with me because they mirrored sentiments I expressed about convergence when I was on the Coffee with Rex Dixon show.

This pool table is an example of convergence simply for the sake of convergence. There is little or no practical value being born from the act, the fruit of which is a hefty price tag.

A price tag with which you could probably purchase each individual component at a higher quality and still leave you some change for take out.

Convergence should be for reasons on practicality and the result of convergence should not be a product that does the job at an inferior level than either device independently.

That kind of convergence simply exists to convince you to purchase a third device. It doesn’t take you long to realize that for any serious work (say just to get good quality pictures) you still need to have the original camera as well.

Maybe I’m just cranky this morning and have little time for frivolous crap.

Maybe I need to go shoot some pool?

Blogging to Infamy

You may have noticed some of the negative blog posts which have been floating around the web today with regards to Blogging to Fame, a project run by Indian blogger Divya Uttam!

It all came to my attention when Antman from Cre8buzz messaged me this morning asking for my opinion on his post “A scam or not a scam…“

I was going to launch into a devastating attack and lay waste to all in my path but stopping to open a nice bottle of wine gave me the time to finally pause today and think about all this.

The resultant thought may not please anybody.

Okay before I get to explaining that thought (probably the only one I’ll have for the week) I’d best give a little background.

Sara from Suburban Oblivion believes that Blogging to Fame is a scam of some sort.

Antman does a fairly decent job of surmising her argument:

Spelling mistakes
Poor grammar
Only contact info is in India
Chicago Seminar Link is dead
Copyright is Worldnet Labs, and she can’t find em on Google
See’s Blogging To Fame as an SEO and Linkbait site

Needless to say Divya, from BTF, had her own things to say about this. She posted comments in multiple paces but I’ll just post the email she sent in reply to me asking her about the posts:

Hi Paul,

I know about the negative attention Blogging to Fame is getting from a few in the blogosphere, I had put in comments clarifying the doubts Sara had but guess she was in no mood to publish it. We started Blogging to Fame at an early stage to get the things rolling. As for World Net Labs, we are coming up with the site which will be there in two days. We had also put in about our team, and specified our States Representative’s address. I have been constantly in conversation with many of our members and would be putting Jury section soon, which would include good names of internet. I think that will bring enough credibility to the contest.

I cannot put at stake the love I have got from my readers for a linkbating technique, and my team has worked day and night for this project. I do not know what they think when they compare junk emails shot to millions of accounts from an anonymous yahoo email address to a site we had put our hard work into. Anyways registration is free, we do not compel to put widgets to be in the competition, People who trust us can be in the contest and be a part of revolution.

I have put in a Comment at: http://www.cre8buzz.com/blog/2007/06/05/a-scam-or-not-a-scam/
You can have a look at it if you wish to. I am thankful to people who trust me and believe in the project. I promise that this Contest and Seminar would turn up in a big way, the way it is being projected by us.

 
Thanks Paul for your support,

If you have any further specific queries be sure to contact me, and best of luck for the contest.

Regards,
Divya

Now, I don’t know Divya personally.

My only exchanges with her have been via email after I had registration problems with BTF (she fixed the problem personally) and we’ve crossed sabers on some blog posts in the past.

My impression of Divya is that she is on the level and I believe that this is not a scam.

People do nut usually invest as much time and effort in a scam as she has in BTF. Divya’s blog used to be awesome. It’s suffered a terrible decline in quality since she’s diverted her attention to BTF.

So, who’s wrong here?

EVERYBODY IS!

Divya’s is pouring her heart and soul into BTF but has made a few mistakes a long the way.

Those mistakes could justifiable give rise to concerns expressed by Sara at Suburban Oblivion.

Sara got it wrong as well. Her post is a little xenophobic and shows a complete lack of research before announcing to her readers that BTF is a scam.

I’m not picking a fight here. I’m guilty of not doing as much research as I should from time to time.

I’m going to climb on to the back of a moral horse here. It’s a horse on which I do not deserve to sit myself, but there is a point to be made here about dealing with this.

Sara’s concerns are genuine, but her handling of it was off.

Contacting Divya is really easy to do and one or two exchanged emails, or a quick phone call, would have cleared all of this up without any of the drama.

Also, Sara didn’t approve the comments Divya posted to Sara’s blog in response.

This was wrong. Yes Sara did repost the comments in a post all of their own but she should have let them stand where they were as well.

Worse still is that Sara did not approve Antman’s comments and also re-posted them in a post along with Divya’s.

Antman’s comments were then somehow, misunderstood by a host of Sara’s readers and Sara herself, resulting in yours truly having to step in and clarify after a number of Ant bashing comments were made.

The reason for Antman’s post not being allowed to stand is, apparently, because he is “an online acquaintance of” Divya’s.

That’s just not right!

If you’re going to call somebody out you have to allow them make their statement and their comments, right or wrong, just like everybody else.

You shouldn’t treat people some peoples comments differently just because it disagrees (or you think it does in this case) with your theory.

We’re bloggers. As a group we’re always complaining about how we should be taken seriously and how we should be given more mainstream acceptance.

This incident is exactly why we, as bloggers, should NOT be allowed main stream acceptance.

It’s proves we are sitting at the back of the class only to be let out into a fantasy world where we can play journalist / reporter.

A little research, an email or a phone call would have gone a long way to resolving this issue.

It’s something that we, as bloggers, tend to neglect to do in our hunt for the next big Digg or Techmeme traffic rush! (I’m not suggesting that was Sara’s motive. She appears simply to have been concerned BTF may be a scam which people could get sucked into)

Divya made mistakes with BTF. Sarah made mistake with handling this.

That is the nature of things.

Divya has already admitted to her fault. I can only hope that Sara will, at least, tell her readers that another side exists to this story.

As for me? Well, I wish Divya the best with BTF. I believe it “does exactly what it says on the tin”.

I also wish Sara the best. I’m going to subscribe to her blog once I’ve finished writing this post.

I just hope that we, the blogging community, learn from this. I hope that we, don’t repeat the same mistakes.

We have a responsibility to our readers to check the facts as best we can before printing. We’ll never be taken seriously other wise.

Do we want to the blogosphere to be considered the equivalent of a  bunch of tabloid rags relying on titillation, innuendo and shock to maintain an audience or do we want to be consider on par with the Times?

I know which I’d prefer! How about you?

O’Flaherty Episode #14 – Lending Club

Lending Club!

Today’s show is a special interview with John Donovan, the COO of Lending Club.

Links

• Lending Club
• Facebook

Credit

• Podcast Theme: Derek K. Miller
• Audacity

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Visit the blog at http://pauloflaherty.com or email paul.oflaherty@gmail.com

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Open Source Movable Type means competition for WordPress

Movable Type 4.0 Beta has been launched along with the surprise announcement from SixApart that Movable Type will go open source before the end of the third quarter.

This is awesome news for bloggers everywhere. While there are many great open source blogging platforms out there, WordPress has been king of the hill for a long time.

Open source Movable Type will provide some serious competition that will benefit all bloggers as developers duke it out to have the best solution.

Google Gears IS a step forward!

Before I get started I want to say that if you don’t want to access your data online then none of this will be of interest to you so you can skip this post.

Steven Hodson shared the link love with me and pointed to me as being one of the folks who under Google’s magical spell which turns folks into the tech equivalent of gushing teeny boppers at a Justin Wannabake Timberlake concert!

Of course because it’s from Google it is now the big darling of the tech b’sphere with posts just about everywhere waxing loving about this newest and greatest from the greatest benefactor to mankind.

Am I the only one seeing the irony of all this here?

I must protest! I was not “waxing loving” about Google Gears. I mentioned that I’d check it out and then posted about errors but “waxing loving”?

You must like your loving very rough indeed if that’s what you think I was doing.

So what do we get for this new innovation? – well we get our data once again being stored locally just as with those supposedly antiquated thick clients, we then store that same data on some-one else server and all the security concerns that go along with that and as an added bonus we get the pleasure of working in plain boring user interfaces both locally and remotely.

Sounds like a great step forward to me.

But seriously I do see the irony here but in many ways this is a great step forward.

This is not about thick or thin clients. It’s about mobility and access to data. It’s about always having access to your data wherever you are.

It’s about having access to your data when and where you want it.

Thick clients are great but they have major drawbacks in terms of mobile access.

Let’s pretend that I was going to build an RSS Reader.

I want access to my information where ever I go and I need it to be synchronized. How do I do achieve having access to my synchronized data everywhere?

First, I have to define what I mean by everywhere.

Lets’s say that everywhere means anywhere that I can access the internet. Let’s say it also means without access to my own hardware.

Straight away that rules out a desktop client because I simply can’t go around installing clients on computers that I don’t own.

Desktop clients hinder mobility because they require you to be tied to hardware (and perhaps the operating system) upon which you’ve installed the client.

An online application  solves that problem because my data requires no client (other than a browser) to be accessed. However it suffers from a major drawback. If I loose my connection to the internet I loose access to my data.

This is where Google Gears comes in. It allows me to access my data offline as if I were using a desktop client.

So why not use a desktop client that synchronizes with an online server?

You could, but it’s an approach that’s akin to using a baseball bat to swat a fly. It’s serious overkill.

You’re forcing a situation where you need to build two major applications.

1. One to view your data online when you don’t have access to your own hardware and the desktop client.
2. The desktop client for offline viewing. 

Google Gears removes the need for a desktop client by making the online application work offline.

This reduces the workload on the developers and provides a consistent interface no matter where you access your data from.

This is all about mobility and mobile access.

To achieve this you need to look at it as a problem of accessing online information online! Then you think about how to get that information to the desktop for offline use.

If you think about it as an issue of getting offline information online you start to over complicate the matter. You’re putting the cart before the horse.

Once you’ve solved the problem of viewing your data online and making it available offline then you start putting your offline files online.

Of course there are security concerns. There always will be if you’re making data available and accessible online. There always will be even if you use a desktop application that syncs the information via the internet. 

 Of course the interfaces aren’t as snazzy as true desktop applications but who cares? When you’re mobile you want access to the information. That’s your primary concern. Not Aero Glass.

Google Gears provides offline access to my online information. In doing so it allow me one consistent user interface to the application I’m using, online or off from any computer.

Now that is a set forward!