Nearly all the reporting I’ve seen in blogs and mainstream media during the past 24 hours about Microsoft’s support for RSS has tended to be rather techie in its focus, including my own post. Here’s all most people really need to know about it, from a BBC News report last night: Microsoft’s next version of […]
Category: Software
iTunes gives you podcasts on a plate
Apple has now released iTunes 4.9, the new version that supports podcasts. I’ve installed it and tried it – and it rocks. Let me tell you – for podcasters and podcast listeners, this is what simplicity looks like. With literally just a couple of mouse clicks you can subscribe to a podcast within iTunes, get […]
Apple podcast subscriptions top a million in two days
In just two days, people using the new version of iTunes have subscribed to more than a million podcasts, TechWeb News reported late yesterday. On Tuesday, Apple launched iTunes 4.9, the latest version of the free digital music player software, that includes support for podcasting. For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, the bi-weekly […]
Ballmer interview turns communication upside down
Watching Robert Scoble’s video interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is the confirmation for me that formal, pre-planned and carefully-controlled organizational communication has now reached an evolutionary end point. Traditionally, planning and managing communication in organizations is a function managed by people skilled in particular areas of communication (corporate, marketing, PR, investor, internal, etc). So […]
New FeedDemon 1.6 beta 1 available
If you’re a registered user of the FeedDemon RSS aggregator for Windows, you should definitely take a look at the new version 1.6 beta 1, now available for download. I installed it last night and I have to say it seems very good indeed for a first beta. Loads of small changes and enhancements – […]
Skype launches developer blog
Via Skype Journal, news that internet phone service provider Skype now has a second public blog – Developer Zone. From a post in Share Skype, the first Skype blog launched in May: Developers who want to keep up with the latest happenings, plans, releases, and news from Skype and the Skype Developer Zone have a […]
RSS: Great fit for the corporate environment
In its 18 July edition, Red Herring magazine has a good feature article about RSS in the enterprise, focusing in particular on NewsGator and what Red Herring says is its emerging market leadership: […] While a newsreader is a lightweight project – not much of a business – NewsGator has been aggressive about synchronizing a […]
Manage your online presence with Jyve for Skype
If you use the Skype internet phone service, you know that it’s a very useful tool for easy communication that can save you considerable sums of money on your phone bill compared to ‘normal’ phone services. The example I posted in January, where I commented on the astonishingly-low cost of a 35-minute conference call, is […]
Game sex scenes denial hits GTA maker’s share price
BBC News: The best-selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game has been given an adults only ratings in the US after explicit sexual content was found in it. The Entertainment Software Rating Board changed the rating as the game’s publisher Take Two admitted it created sex scenes found in the title. There would be nothing […]
Next Windows version – Windows Vista
Much speculation overnight in tech media and around the blogosphere that the next version of Microsoft Windows – currently codenamed Longhorn – will be called Windows Vista. The official word is expected in a press release from Microsoft during today. It’s an interesting name. ‘Vista’ comes from the Italian past participle of vedere, to see, […]
Firefox releases stability update 1.0.6
If you installed version 1.0.5 of Firefox released a few weeks ago, you should definitely install the latest version 1.0.6 released yesterday. Version 1.0.6 fixes some bugs introduced in 1.0.5 that resulted in some Firefox extensions not working correctly: Firefox 1.0.6 is a stability update. We recommend that users upgrade to this latest version. Here’s […]
So much innovation
> A British startup wants to give more consumers more chances to hear about what’s in the paper. Otodio bills itself as the “universal, eyes-free document delivery standard.” Just as companies like Audible.com enable radio listeners to hear audio versions of best sellers and any number of other books in their car, Otodio plans to […]
Virtual Earth first looks
Wow! Virtual Earth is impressive. I just went to the website, clicked on the ‘Locate Me’ button, told it to find me using my computer’s IP address, and it did just that in less than three seconds. What is Virtual Earth? From the FAQ: Virtual Earth is a new map and search system soon to […]
Anti-piracy measures now include Windows Update
BBC News: Microsoft has stepped up its fight against software piracy by requiring users to verify their copies of the Windows operating system. Anyone downloading updates for Windows XP will be required to check that their operating system is genuine. This validation process is in place right now as I discovered when I visited the […]
Newsworthy 30-7-05
> Is Skype up for sale? Is Google the likely buyer? Or Rupert Murdoch, who almost bought it last week for $3 billion? Growing speculation and some rumours in the past few days. Robert Scoble links to a few discussions. Stuart Henshall in Skype Journal links to a few more. Meanwhile, Skype continues looking after […]
Constantly waiting for TypePad
‘Waiting for TypePad…’ is a phrase I have now memorized when it comes to publishing posts to any of my blogs. This last week has been exceptionally frustrating. I write posts offline using ecto for Windows, currently version 1.7.5, and publish them to TypePad. It should work, but it doesn’t. What’s been happening is that, […]
Oracle’s content management moves
As the blogosphere continues to grow and companies consider the large-scale business benefits of blogs as integrated elements of enterprise collaborative-working tools, how significant, I wonder, is this news of Oracle’s acquisition of a small company called Context Media, reported by CNET News: […] The purchase gives Oracle software designed specifically for moving documents between […]
Newsworthy to start the day 9-8-05
> The driving force behind the spectacular market debut of shares in the Chinese search engine company Baidu.com on Friday was its resemblance and ties to Google, whose own offering created a sensation last year, analysts said over the weekend. Shares in Baidu soared Friday on the Nasdaq stock market in one of the most […]
Gmail now 3 gigs
This may have been in place for a while but I noticed it just now – Gmail now provides 3 gigabytes of email storage: […] To celebrate our one-year birthday, we’re giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you […]
The window of opportunity for Google
Google has launched version 2.0 of Google Desktop, the free software that lets you do a load of things from your PC in addition to searching for files. ‘Loads of things’ is the key phrase. This is far, far beyond purely search as the screenshots show. Focused on a sidebar or dashboard, the new Google […]