AMCP Tech Blog

Well social-bookmarking websites are springing up rather quickly these days! One that sparked my interest was Wink. Wink is currently in beta (what isn't these days?), but offers one tool that many other services leave out: allowing you to sync your bookmarks from other servies. Even though this feature only works for del.icio.us, MyWeb 2.0 will soon be working. Wink works like many other services of its type: add, tag, and share. It allows you to search through the saved bookmarks of other users.

Another feature that is great is allowing you to search through saved bookmarks of other services such as Digg, Furl, Slashdot, or Yahoo! MyWeb. When you search, you can easily add the page to your page. It uses a neat pop-up next to the choosen result - it works great. I have five invites to give out. Make a comment with your Email address to get one. First come first serve.

As the year draws to an end, I've been thinking about what services I think will succeed in the coming year. Although there are a ton of posts in the blogosphere about what I think will happen in 2006, I'll keep this short, sweet, and to the point:

1. Yahoo! MyWeb 2.0 BETA: Although some might argue that MyWeb is horrible, once you get to know it, you'll fall in love with it - just like I did. MyWeb sports the AJAX like interface that Flickr has. You can edit the link without leaving the page. MyWeb 2.0 is great if you are a Yahoo! fan like I am (I'm sorry GIA). You can add the RSS-feed to your Yahoo! 360 blog. I don't know where it's going in the future, since Yahoo! now owns Del.icio.us and it's strange to own two social bookmarking services.

2. Google Mail (Gmail): I don't know about you, but 2.5GB of free Email storage is hard to deny. Gmail is slick and sexy. It has a sweet interface - and the Greasemonkey extensions for it rule. I will continue to use Gmail - I'm currently using 37 MB (1%) of my 2679 MB. Recently, Google added yet another feature, webclips - a new form of a RSS Reader.

3. Technorati: I use Technorati all the time to search for interesting posts. While some of the results are littered with S-Blogs - nothing's perfect. What really made me love Technorati was the fact that I could limit posts to different languages. They even have a Blog-Finder. Not many other well-known blog searches have that feature. Technorati is a must use on my last. Very well done!

4. Yahoo! 360: Yes, I know - another Yahoo! service. Yahoo! 360 sports something...different from what other blogging services provide: social networking. 360 allows you to import any RSS Feed, show your Y!Reviews, Blog, show your Flickr photos and more. It brings many of the popular Yahoo! services together. While features are being added monthly, I suggest you go and try Yahoo! 360 for yourselves.

5. Flickr: Flickr rocks. It is the God of photo-sharing and it's getting better everyday. I'm sure many of you use Flickr, who doesn't? You can add your photos to your blog, and even blog from the Flickr interface with a photo to boot. Even if you're not the camera type like I am, you can always use it for free hosting!

I recently signed up for one of Web 2.0's new entrees, Writely. The thing that makes Writely different from all the other Web 2.0 websites is that you can write documents, save them to your harddrive, and even have people share the documents. One of the greatest features is that I can post the documents onto my blog. I will try to do a post in the future from Writely to AMCP.

The only real thing that bugs me is that you can't paste text into a document. For example, let's say I was working on something in Notepad, and then wanted to paste it into Writely - I can't. Another thing that can want to make you want to rip your hair out is that you don't get the advanced features Microsoft Office provides. For example, if I'm righting a letter, I can't have Writely pre-format it like Office does. However, you can edit the documents HTML source (which is always good if you know a tad of HTML).

You can sign up to use Writely - although it is in beta. I don't suggest you rely on this for all your needs. For now, using Microsoft Office is better. However, I think that by 2007, we will not even have a Microsoft Office - everything will be online. Overall, I like Writely and I will be using it in the future.

I find highly amusing that people would go to the trouble of selling off their invites for Windows Live Messenger on eBay. One is going for $21 and others as low as $0.72. I've had Live Messenger for almost two months without paying a dollar. As many of you know, there is a virus going around that says that you can download Live Messenger.

The popular blogging tool Wordpress, has been upgraded to version 2.0. The new update sports a new AJAX-like module with lots of blue. I haven't gotten to play around with it yet, but from what I've heard many extensions are broken (much like in Firefox 1.5). It also comes with a much needed WYSIWIG interface, much like the one Blogger uses. I don't think their free hosting service, Wordpress.com has been upgraded as of yet, but we'll post details should it.

Greetings everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas, I sure did! I'm using my new Dell PC to blog this right now with a 24 inch monitor. I'm listening to my new iPod Video 30GB. I love it! It has built-in podcast support, not to mention an all color display. I'm excited! So, what did you get for Christmas?

• Gravee Takes a New Approach to Search: Gravee soft launched a few days. It has an interesting business model. It can pull search results from Google, MSN and Yahoo (Alexa coming soon), but will also allows publishers to claim their site and get a piece of Gravee’s revenue. Nice
  
• The Blog Buying Checklist: "Today I bought a Poker blog from SitePoint. Blog auctions are becoming more and more common, and they can be a great way to get a head start on turning a profit. But there’s a lot of snake oil out there." You can buy a blog? Crazy!
  
• Blog slowly killing discussion forums?: You bet!
• The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users: Interesting, you could apply this to all tagging services; take his advice!
  

Remember all that talk about Flock that was going on around here as well as the whole Internet? Flock has gotten a ton of criticism. Illumen one day was trying to convince me to switch to Flock, and then he posted this (I laughed at seeing that!). At first even I wanted to get my hands on it, maybe out of anticipation. Agreeing with Mike over at TechCrunch, I think that PR that was flying around just backfired after people saw that it was Firefox with new looks.

Flock already has its own hate-blog hosted on Wordpress. Titled, "Go Flock Yourself", it focuses on Flock and Web 2.0 (although the guy that runs it hates both). Look at this that he posted (not entirely work-safe). Today, Flock responded with Chris Messina responded:

But no, see, that’s where Flock comes in. Or I don’t care, don’t call it Flock. Whatever you want, but that’s where the thing we’re building comes in. That’s why we exist, that’s why we matter, that’s what the point is.

Yeah, Firefox and Duct tape, it’ll help. Sure sure. It’ll get you some of the way there. But hell, when I’m talking to someone, engaged in a conversation that threatens my very existence, or that threatens to change the way I flip my omelettes, man, I do not want my mouth to fall off at the jaw because it wasn’t tested, wasn’t built right, didn’t have a million beedy eyes boring down on it while it was being fastened to my head, making sure the stupid thing would function in the real world without needing pliers or a tireiron to get it to work right.

I don't hate Flock, but I think that it just isn't worth it. The fact that Firefox can do the same thing makes it worthless. With a few extensions you could have a Flock running on Firefox (and that's how a lot of people feel). I don't see why people have to hate Flock so much, it's just a browser.

Well folks, 2006 is almost upon us. In 2005 we've seen some really cool software, gadgets, hacks, and more come into play and be the looks of it, 2006 will be a great year for technology. Throughout 2005, this blog has transformed into something totally different from what it was meant to be. It started out as a way for me to voice my thoughts on my love for technology, and now we have about several people doing this. It's a great feeling knowing you're helping someone. Until now, I've never been happy with the design. On some resolutions it wouldn't work as thought and so one. Version 4.0 still contains bugs (try looking at it in Internet Explorer ) and I plan to fix them.

Getting away from what happened on this blog, 2005 was a special year for technology. However, the biggest changes were social networking and Web 2.0 in my mind. I've always believed that social networking would rule the Internet as well as change how we use it. That has been happening all around us. Look at search engines for example. Yahoo! is doing a great job to move themselves away from just search, but into a multimedia company that offers many solutions. Look at Yahoo! 360 for example; I'm a huge 360 supporter because I think that integrated services isn't only smart, but necessary. Many people agree with me (although they might now all use Yahoo! 360). Search engines have changed the way we use the Internet as well.

It's not just online companies that will change, but hardware as well. Windows Vista is slated to launch in fall of 2006. From what I've seen and heard, it's going to be great. Apple Computer is also planning a release sometime in the winter of 2006, also thought to be great. I know I'm ranting a bit here, but (I can't say it enough: 2006 will be great).

All in all, I've had a great time here at AMCP and I'm sure all the editors have too. Thank you for all your support and look for even more cool reviews, interviews, and more. Thank you for making 2005 such a great year.

-Alex Morganis, Editor-In-Chief

A few days after Yahoo! started to offer Movable Type to small business (or normal people), they just announced that they will also be offering Wordpress to its users. It will cost about $8 per month and will allow you to upgrade your WordPress software when a new stable release or update is available (that's a great feature). I think this is great; Yahoo! is offering two of the best blogging services on the planet. The only reason we stick with Blogger is that it's free and easy to use. Visit Yahoo! to see more details or sign up.

Google Adsense, their ad-serving publishing tool (that earns them millions by the way) now supports "themed" ads. Examples includes Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas themed ads. The new theme ads will run until December 26, 2005 and takes up to 24 hours to come onto a website. I just enabled them for AMCP so you can now see some Christmas holiday spirit around here. They should be appearing in about a day. The Google Adsense blog writes:

"Our new themed ad units incorporate elements from past Google logos created by Dennis, to give your pages a little extra flair during various holidays and special events. You can enable or disable themed ad units by logging into your account, visiting the My Account tab, and scrolling down to the Ad Type Preference section to click 'edit.' Check or uncheck the box marked 'enable themed ad units when available' - any changes you make will take effect within 24 hours. If you've enabled themed ad units, users who visit your site may see themed ad units that are relevant to their geographic location (as determined by user IP address) and the date or season. Depending on your location, you should see the seasonally themed ad units for the winter holidays start appearing on your site soon and remain until December 26th."

Updated on 12/22/05: Looks like the theme is starting to come about around here. They look pretty cool. I can't wait to se the new ones!

I'm testing a brand new extension for Firefox called Diigo. Diigo allows users to bookmark, tag, and comment on webpages. The service is a lot like del.icio.us, although it is actually a superior service in some ways. I found it a great way to give Firefox some of Flock's usability.

Diigo appears as a toolbar in Firefox, with several buttons and a searchbar. It also adds several items to the Firefox context menu. The searchbar on the toolbar (which can be moved around and customized much like the Google toolbar for Fierfox) allows you to search the bookmars of those people who have set their bookmarks as "public", as in del.icio.us (and your own). The most important of the buttons is the "magic Diigo button" (as it is called on the website), which can also be found in the context menu, and which triggers a dialog box that allows you to, in one click, bookmark, tag, and comment on any webpage. You can also view the comments other people have made on the page, add the bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar as well as to your Diigo bookmarks, forward the bookmark to one of your friends, set the privacy setting for that individual bookmark, or even mark the bookmark as "unread" (I'll cover what that does later). However, that is just the first part of Diigo's capability. You can highlight a paragraph or section of a website, and press the "magic button" to bookmark, tag, and comment on that section only. You can highlight a small bit of text, then press the Diigo button to create a sticky note for yourself. You can hover your cursor over a picture, and press the Diigo button in the context menu to "Diigo" that picture. Diigo has several customization options. The main options include whether you want to make your bookmarks public or keep them private, and whether you want Diigo to integrate your Diigo bookmarks with your Firefox bookmarks. The customization options can be accessed via the "Diigo" option on the "Tools" menu in Firefox. However, the built-in extension is only part of Diigo's functionality. If you log on to the Diigo website (http://www.diigo.com/) with your username and password, you can access your bookmarks from any computer, as well as viewing other people's bookmarks. Bookmarks marked "unread" show up as a different color in the website's bookmark list.

I originally found out about Diigo from a posting on one of my Google Groups by one of Diigo's programming team, Joel Liu. I was given an invite into Diigo's BETA, and as soon as I logged into the website I was struck by how smooth and well put-together it was. After several days of intensive testing, I realized that Diigo was an excellent extension, quite ready to leave BETA stage. I also realized that it was review material. I interviewed Joel Liu via Google Talk and email, and learned that Diigo plans to integrate del.icio.us and various blog services into Diigo. The Diigo team also sees various other methods of online interaction in Diigo's future. I'm waiting!

Update #1: Diigo now has a working prototype that supports del.icio.us integration. Also, Diigo also has extensions for Flock and Internet Explorer.

Update #2: I have a Diigo account and invites to spare: if anyone would like to test Diigo's BETA, either give me a buzz (jbw1291@gmail.com), or post a comment on this post to that effect.

Update #3: Diigo has made some great user interface improvements. For example, there is a bit more AJAX integration, such as expandable comments. You can search easier now, as well as add a button to your browser so you can bookmark things; they call this a "Diigolet" and comes in Firefox and Internet Explorer flavors.

Reports are coming in that Google is close or already has bought 5% of AOL which will leave Microsoft out in the cold. The price that Google pays: $1 Billion. The new agreement would allow AOL to sell some of their advertising on Google's Web pages and allow Google to promote AOL websites through its "sponsored links" feature on the top portions of the search result pages. However, these are just rumors. Just last week the Wall Street Journal Online reported that Microsoft and AOL were close to closing a deal; the details of this whole buyout has been clouded. We can only wait...

Today Microsoft shipped out Beta1 of their instant messaging client, Windows Live Messenger (or Messenger 8). This was only released to beta testers, with plans to ship a public beta sometime in the coming months. The new version includes offline messages and PC-to-phone calling. The Live Messenger Team plans to use their blog to get public feedback and to have users request features. New features includes up to 600 contacts, offline IMs, and Windows Live Video Integration.

For the past few days I've been thinking about switching Email providers. I have three choices: Gmail, which I'm using now, the Yahoo! Mail Beta, which I also use from time to time, and 30Gigs, which I have yet to use. With the recent addition of webclips for Gmail and the built-in RSS Reader from Yahoo!, it's getting hard to choose. For now, I think I'll stick with Gmail (mainly because I get 2.5 GB of free storage!), but the new Yahoo! Mail Beta is looking pretty good.

I promised a while ago that I would post a few good tips for speeding up Windows XP. Here they are. These tips should work on almost any computer, but if they don't, or something goes wrong, the AMCP Tech Blog is not liable. In other words, you can't sue me if your computer blows up :-).

All legal bobagem aside, here is the post. I'm going to start out with the obvious beginner stuff, then advance to harder stuff as the post progresses. The first thing to do when attempting to speed up your computer is run full virus, spyware, and adware scans. I like to use Ad-Aware SE from Lavasoft as well as Spybot Search & Destroy because between the two they make quick work of almost any computer bug. The best thing to do is run your preferred anti-virus utility in safe mode. Make sure your utility is set to "Full Scan" instead of ''Quick Scan" or "Smart Scan''. If your computer is really slow to begin with, you should let the scan run overnight.
Once the scan has run, deal with the results (delete the offenders, don't quarantine or ignore; show no mercy!), then open the Control Panel, switch to Classic View if it isn't like that already (look top left), and open Add-Remove Programs. What a wonderful utility. When I first started using computers seriously, I thought that you had to go into the Programs directory and manually delete program files to remove programs. Ouch. I ended up blocking my internet connection when I did an incomplete removal of a firewall, and I only got it back a few weeks, a hundred dollars, and a ''Geek on Call'' later. The point is, always use the Add-Remove interface. Anyway, go through the list of programs, and remove anything you don't need or want. You may be surprised at what you find. You may also want to go to Add-Remove Windows Components and do the same thing there. Next, look at the program tray. Hover over the icons to find out what they are. If there is a program you don't need in there, delete it from the startup list, which can be accessed by visiting Start > All Programs.

Now for the less obvious stuff. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. Open the utility and run it. Ignore the "Analyze'' button, that function is far too conservative. The defrag process may take a long time, depending on your computer.
When it is done, the next step is to go into your prefetch file and clean it out. Windows XP automatically pre-loads certain files when you boot your computer so that when you load them, they don't take so long to come up. The Google Web Accelerator does the same thing with web pages. The files Windows prefetches are listed in a file on your computer: [LIST FILE HERE!]. Visit this file and wipe it clean. Then reboot. If you visit the file again, you'll notice that Windows inserted some files back into the list. These are system files which should be prefetched to make your computer run faster. Ignore them.

Those tips are not even close to extensive. They are merely some simple tricks you can do easily, which may improve your machine's speed. If you really want to speed that baby up, Google ''overclocking" and "paging file tweaks".

We just got word that Yahoo! has just bought social-bookmarking company, del.icio.us for an amount unknown as of yet. Del.icio.us and Yahoo's MyWeb 2.0 might be integrated, although the blog post points out that they might "borrow a few ideas from each other in the future." I think this is great; I use MyWeb all the time and I love it. Hopefully, we can see some type of integration between the service, or they might combine them, which would be very cool. I would like to see some more integration with Yahoo! 360 possibly; I know that there are tons more users of Del.icio.us than MyWeb.

Yahoo! is reportedly ready to release a new VoIP service that will link with its e-mail and instant messaging features, and that appears to be what will distinguish the service from many of its competitors. Yahoo! will be offering two services, "Phone Out" and "Phone In". The Phone Out will allow users to make phone calls with their computers to telephone networks for 1 cent a minute. The Phone In allows users to pay $30 a year to receive incoming calls from other phones. The technology is based on Dailpad, which they bought last year. This should be good, but should Skype (eBay) be scared?

Google recently updated their Email service Gmail with a new RSS Reader. The new "webclips" as their called are displayed at the top of the messages, but work differently then an RSS Reader. You can add webclips suggested by Google, or add your own by typing an RSS feed. Google describes the webclips:

"Web Clips shows you news headlines, Gmail tips, blogs, any RSS and Atom feed, relevant sponsored links, and more -- right at the top of your inbox and messages. Receive updates from your favorite sites without having to leave Gmail! Each clip displays the source from which it was received, how long ago the clip was published, and a link to access the entire story or page containing the clip. Note: Clips of your favorite RSS and Atom feeds are displayed randomly, and aren't targeted to the contents of your mail."

The Yahoo Mail Beta team recently updated the service (beta testers only) with a built-in RSS Reader, which I love. Now it's getting hard to choose! Maybe in the future there will be no RSS Readers, it'll be in Email clients. Google recently updated Gmail to correct a hack.

With the recent release of Triton, people are wondering if it will actually be popular among users. With over 45 million users of AIM, AOL will be might be forcing them to download Triton inorder to continue using AIM. I've been beta testing Triton since May and my initial thoughts were great. But now AOL bundles the AOL Browser, which is based on IE, with Triton. The version of choice appears to be v. 5.9, which is actually still available for download on the AOL website. Well AOL force AIM Triton on its users?

Hey guys, today we pushed out version 4 of our site design. The only change you'll see is the color change, but sleep soundly, more features will be on the way! The internal testing of AMCP v. 5 is doing great. We were getting alittle sick of the green and black, so the new look is red on black as well as a new logo! As you know, this is in beta so somethings maybe not working well or not displaying correctly. Please post questions or comments!

Updated on 12/8/05: Hey, we just released v. 4.0 and it's lookin' great! We are still working on the bugs and you might be even more new features. We plan to launch them before Christmas. This new custom-designed template (we did it ourselves) works the same (using CSS) but should load even faster. Please Email us if you see a bug (or something isn't rendering correctly).

Updated on 12/10/05: Hey, we just released some new 4.0 features including Comment Moderation. This works by you posting a comment, then we see the comment and make sure it isn't a spam comment and approve it. The person that comments is now in bold (not a really note-worthing bug correction). More improvements on the way!

Updated on 12/22/05: Sorry for not posting any updates here, I've had the flu. We just fixed some commenting errors people have been reporting. Thanks!

Updated on 12/27/05: Today we pushed out a new version of the beta that looks a lot like a Wordpress theme. Along with the code updates are a whole new commenting system (which spam comments can't even post!). Although some features aren't working, they will be online soon!

Updated on 1/08/06: New updates are online. 4.0 will becoming out of beta soon. Expect a few more features.

NBC will now be offering a dozen of its TV shows for download onto iPods and PCs, announced Tuesday. The iTunes Store will be offering 11 shows from NBC, USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel. Apple Computer is charging $1.99 per episode for the television downloads. The newly produced shows will be available for download a day after they air on TV.

Real Networks just pushed their music service, Rhapsody onto the Web. It will allow customers to listen from a website, opposed to making you download the very large program. Microsoft will also be promoting the new service in Windows Media Player and the MSN Music website. You will be allowed to listen up to 25 songs for free.

Yesterday Mozilla launched a new campaign over at Spread Firefox called Firefox Flicks. The campaign supports Firefox 1.5. It uses an online tool based on Flash to record video from people's webcams, sharing the love for the browser. What I found interesting was that it was hosted on Google Video. Strange, it seems Google is supporting Mozilla a lot lately after the referral program for Firefox. You can see a sample video here. Right now, referring someone to use Firefox 1.5 will get you double the referral points!

MSN just released two new bots that users can chat with: one to answer questions from Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia, as well as BBC television listings. Those interested in chatting with the bots can add encarta@conversagent.com and bbcbackstage@hotmail.com to their contact lists. AOL recently added two bots to their IM program and people were peeved! MSN recently boosted the amount of contacts to 500.

Updated on 12/23/05: I just got an Email from Todd Biggs, a product manager at MSN explaining that MSN has added even more bots. Here's a list of them with details:

• ruud@radio538.nl: The 1st virtual DJ BOT from the Netherlands
• Spleak@hotmail.com: A very friendly chat BOT
• encarta@conversagent.com: A BOT that uses the Microsoft Encarta database to answer your questions and uses the activity window to provided you with more detailed rich content on the subject.
• smarterchild@hotmail.com: A classic and very comprehensive chat BOT.
• espbilly@msn.com: A quirky BOT that shows you videos, perhaps you'll see your future?
• yellowpagesdemo@hotmail.com: Yellow pages in IM. Find what you're looking for near you.
• msngiftguide@hotmail.com: Find the perfect holiday gift for that someone special.
• blabla@chatman.nl: A Dutch chat BOT.
• ibuddy077@lineage.co.kr: A BOT that talks about the Lineage game and has an interactive Activity.
• indeedjobs@hotmail.com: Find that job that you've been looking for.
• amazon@insidec.com: Shop online with Amazon

As many of you know, I was one of the lucky few who were chosen to beta test the new Yahoo! Mail. They just revealed a new feature today that has shocked the blogosphere: a built-in RSS Reader. This is great. They could combine MyYahoo! with Yahoo! Mail. I am not really into RSS Readers (until now at least) because I like visiting the website and actually read the content; but that is just me, I know tons of people that love RSS Readers. To your left is a screenshot from my computer of the new RSS Feeds. As of yet, you can't add a feed (sad face), but feeds are suggested to you. Some think that it is also suggested to you from your personal likes and dislikes from Yahoo! 360.