Microsoft is Dead

From Paul Graham: Microsoft is Dead

I already know what the reaction to this essay will be. Half the readers will say that Microsoft is still an enormously profitable company, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news.

This is old news...

Lists, Lists and even more Lists!

Warning: anal-retentive post below. :p

I am a GTD follower, or rather a GTD non-practicing believer. :p

One of the best things that GTD has taught me though is the power of lists. A flat collection of all the actions that you need to do to accomplish something. In the real, paper and pen world, I always keep my stack of index cards handy for jotting down quick lists, and for the software bits, i use sticky notes to keep track of short-term action lists. I still suck at keeping things in control though: my GTD collection proces is really a mess, but I still manage to make a little out of it. This is one of the the good things about the GTD sys tem: you can still benefit from it even if don't implement the whole thing. That actually ruins the whole idea, but oh well. :p (I'm really trying to start with my GTD system again)

That being said, and moving on with the topic of lists, i have also tried setting up online task lists. Web-bases lists has the advantge of being available anywhere you have internet access and some tools actually integrate well with my existing online workflow tools such as email and IM.

I have tried backpack, ta-da list, both 37 signals products, Google IG's to-do list widget and a some other web apps that I can no longer remember.

Tonight I started experimenting with Remember the Milk, a weirdly-named but actually clever and interesting web app. I'm still yet to master all of its features and bells-and-whistles, but the app actually seems really promising.

Need an online list? Explore the apps i mentioned above. :)

DRM is dead. Apple and EMI announces DRM-free music

It all started with Steve Job's Thoughts on Music, a memo calling for the abolishment of DRM as the best answer to the problem involving music devices interoperability.

No, let me correct that. It all started with an army of consumers, music lovers and users who wanted freedom from the draconian hold of the Recording Industry on the music that people buy and listen to. Steve Job's memo might become one of the most memorable milestones in the abolishment of DRM, but it should not be forgotten than it is the people who really made things move into this direction.

And today, Apple announced that EMI's entire digital music catalog will be sold DRM-free from the iTunes Music Store:

CUPERTINO, California—April 2, 2007—Apple® today announced that EMI Music’s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available.

Thought this may no directly affect us since the iTunes Music store is not available in the Philippines, this is still a monumental triumph of of the internet/music community over the RIAA.

Here's EMI's announcement
Head over to techmeme for the party...

DRM is dead. :)

Linkify

I've been wanting to toss this idea to the lazy web, but I've been too lazy to even do that. hehe. Now someone finally mashed up a a very cool bookmarklet: Linkify, by Xenomachina. Every link in this post has been created by the bookmarklet.

Here's the problem: creating a blog post or a comment that properly links to relevant resources is really the good way to blog, but the process could be a little cumbersome. If you're lucky and you still have the original page open in your browser,

1. go to that page/window,
   
2. copy the url,
   
3. go back to your blogpost,
   
4. hightlight the word where you want to put the link, press the
   
5. LINK button, and
   
6. paste the URL.

And you have to do that for all the links. If you still have to look for the page, then it involves even more steps.

Enter Linkify: while in a textarea like in Google Blogger's post window (in edit HTML tab) or in comment fields,

1. select the text that you want to create the hyperlink,
   
2. click the linkify bookmarklet,
   
3. then select the appropriate google search result and click Create Link

Ah. quick, effective workflow. Now all you have to do is drag this bookmarklet: [linkify] to your Browser's bookmarks toolbar, then you're all set. :)

A Buzz in the Air: Over the air charging

Business 2.0 reports about what could possibly be one of the biggest breakthroughs of the year: an over-the-air charger for low-power devices (cell phones, MP3 players, automotive parts, temperature sensors, hearing aids, and medical implants)

The system works through a power transmitter - recevier module (see illustration on the right). The receiver that "catches" the power from all the bouncing radio signals and converts it to DC power is actually the magic piece of the system. And it just costs 5$ to make.

Powercast, the company behind the product, has already partnered with many device manufacturers to produce the "receiver" for these devices to make them compatible with the company's over the air charging products.

Pimp your Firefox

Explanations to follow later. For now, just wanted to show off my *pretty* fox...

Po and Sam

Had a great time at Tesla's birthday. So did Sam, enjoying the "papag" instead of the usual king-size bed. :)

(picture downloaded without permission from Po's Picasaweb. I took the picture! :p )

Bayante heart Ubuntu

Bayantel came over today and installed our DSL and phone line. Yay to them. Service installation is estimated within 3 - 5 days and they did it on the 3rd! It took some mark-type "convincing" but it's really good that they listened and prioritized our application. One minor caveat though: we applied for a phone + dsl package and surprise, surprise: the phone unit doesn't come with the phone line. Dang. If I'm not too tired (and mukhang takot na sakin yung agent) i would have fought for it but Oh well, I'm just glad that they were able to install the DSL quickly.

Btw, they didn't configure the DSL since their technicians didn't know how to do it in Ubuntu. (fair enough...) Their usual protocol is to have the user download rp_pppoe first, a pppoe dialer with gui for the PPPoE connection (you'd have to do that outside, of course), then call their tech support for the step by step guide, but it turns out that ubuntu's out-of-the-box pppoeconf works superbly with Bayantel. Thanks goes to this great guide by a fellow Ubuntu user. Yehey ulit. I'm still thinking if i will still install the a gui pppoe dialer, but since i already set pppoeconf to connect at boot time, i can put that off for the mean time.

Themes on Google IG

Google IG is now prettier! Thanks to it's (new) support for themes.
Before:


After (sporting the Bus stop theme):


Like what i said to a friend, i am a big fan of sleek, clean lines.

New Ubuntu.com

Ubuntu just unveiled a redesigned website. Sweet. The navigation bar on the left is a very welcome improvement. :)

Amazing multi-touch demo

Multi-Touch Interaction Research, a research group from NYU Computer Science led by Jeff Han, showcases the amazing applications of the multi-touch display (yes, that sounds like the iPhone technology, but this stuff is even more pioneering, and the group has been doing this for quite some time)

Bi-manual, multi-point, and multi-user interactions on a graphical display surface.

The day when we see for real what Tom Cruise was doing in Minority Report may not really be the far off. Enjoy this video.

GNU/Linux on the desktop

A quick post about GNU/Linux.

My boss just finished downloading (and installing) Mandriva on his laptop. And of course, he called me over to show off xgl-enabled desktop. Made my officemates drool (gen suddenly remembered the ubuntu cd i gave her). Of course, i already saw xgl in action before, once in a an ex-roommate's laptop, and some videos on youtube. But it's still always awesome to see it live.

I'm starting to believe lately that the Linux on the desktop is about to tip. I have no idea when, but the circumstances around me all points to this fact. Hannah has been using ubuntu (dapper) for the past month, thea has been a linux user ever since High Flyer (their internet cafe) was born, a good friend who, for reasons i can't understand chooses to hide her geeky-ness, has been on archlinux for two years now. Angel is now running ubuntu (edgy) both on her (their) desktop and her vaio laptop (dual boot).

Dang. i forgot my planned ending/conclusion for this post. Oh well, go GNU/Linux! :p

Influences

Body painting. in steroids. :p

300 is all the rage

I love alekos's blog, kahit na minsan minsan lang magupdate

There are no sentences in 300, sentences are for the weak! Real men talk in fragments! And you will be in awe of those small fragments of speech, because THIS IS... 300!!

Read the rest here
He pretty much summed up everything that i wanted to say abou the... naah. He didn't, (cliches be damned). For one, he forgot to mention the girl point of view:

...Spartan's rock-hard abs would make it all worthwhile

(cherry did)
But he did write a classic alekos piece: witty and amusing to read. :)
(leks, i'll send the bill later, ok?)

:)

Watch Your Step

[update: I just failed the "your / you're" test. My apologies to the grammar police.]

... I moved things around.

First, a few acknowledgments. Blog template originally designed by Phu Ly for Wordpress and converted to Blogger by Gecko&Fly (classic) and BlogCrowd (beta). Now that I have paid my dues, a few notes:

Will probably change a few things here and there (already did a bit) to make this more personalized to my taste. The fonts used for the main posts will definitely be changed, though i'm already satisfied with the one used in the sidebar.

Notice the new sidebar widget? (Currently...) This is powered by twitter, made by the same guys that created Blogger and Odeo. I still have not put the other old widgets like my Google Reader shared items, though they will follow soon. Also, notice that horizontal navigation on top, featuring (at last) a link to Hannah's blog, among other things :) The Photos link points to my Picasaweb Albums (i haven't updated that yet, though) which now comes with 1gig of photo and video storage.

So far, I like how things are shaping up.

Google Maps - Send to BMW

Cool Google Maps Deutschland feature. :)

Drafts, Part I

I've been wanting to do this...

A collection of unpublished posts. I don't know a similar meme already exists. But here's the idea. Find all your posts never got past the "draft" stage. Take the title, and the date on which it was supposed to be posted. Add the first line (or few words) of the original post, then comment on what the post was about, to add more context to your drafts.
Here we go:

• Neko No Kimochi (May 6, 2004)
• "i am not good at"
• it's supposed to be a post about a favorite japanese song (sang in a very cute way by a little japanese girl) - Neko no Kimochi. The lyrics is actually as cute as the music. :P
• Google's Next Step? (July 16, 2004)
  
• "I was pondering over the possibility of Google eventually delivering an instant messenger client..."
• pre-Google Talk talk. :P
  
• Google Flavored Search (July 26, 2004)
  
• a post about Google's early efforts on personalized search back then, you have to manually "teach" the personalized Google search engine about your preferences and interests. Now it does that for you...
• MSN News Bot (August 3, 2004)
  
• "if you have been watching closely the developments in the technology landscape, it is not new to you then that Microsoft has turned its eyes to Google as its new target."
• a post about MSN News bot, a Google News copycat from Microsoft. Back then, people actually believed that Microsoft can easily topple Google (just like what they did to Netscape, or Apple).
• The REAL deal (August 18, 2004)
• "Here's the thing, as Real wants you to see:"
• a post about Real's pathetic attempt to make the world believe that all they really wanted to do when they cracked Apple's DRM is to make this world a better place by "opening up" the iPod, and not gain market share for their own profit...
• Sound the horns... (again) (September 2, 2004)
• "Microsoft launched the beta version of the MSN Music store today, a day earlier than everyone expected"
• Before the Zune Marketplace, there was MSN Music store (and a couple of other microsoft technology-powered music stores) that tried to stop the store that would eventually become the most popular and most succesful (so far) Digital music download store: Apple Itunes Store

I'm too sleepy, this is shorter than what I originally intended Part I to be, but you get the idea. :). Till next time, for the continuation.... (hint: they're not all tech stuff, so they are actually more interesting than this)

The BlackJack

If there's a smart phone that I'd love to have before i get an iPhone, it would be the Samsung 1600, also known as the BlackJack. This phone is not perfect (for one, it doesn't have wifi), but there's something about its design that makes it really attractive to me. I am all for candybar and medium-sized phones, and Samsung seems to have hit the sweet spot with this baby. It runs Windows Mobile 5 (i'm hoping that by the time i can afford it, a version running Windows Mobile 6 is already in the market). After a trip to my favorite bad-english (but great and comprehensive) mobile review site mobile-review.com and reading their review of the BlackJack (still in bad english), i fell even more in love with this phone.

The thing is that I like it not as a smart phone (though it really is) but because to me it feels like it's an excellent feature phone. I couldn't find a better image so please bear with the one below. And btw, a working unit is on display in Glorietta right now as part of the BPI Madness sale (their booth is near Mercury Drug) and you can play with it. I will.

The Samsung I600 (BlackJack)

Knowing that Samsung and Microsoft are not really my favorite brand names :p, picking this phone as my favorite is saying a lot.

Rare dolphin goes extinct

Rare dolphin goes extinct-Health / Science-NEWS-The Times of India:

"The baiji would be the first large aquatic mammal driven to extinction since hunting and overfishing killed off the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s. For the baiji, the culprit was a degraded habitat — busy ship traffic, which confounds the sonar the dolphin uses to find food, and overfishing and pollution in the Yangtze waters of eastern China, the expedition said."

It feels weird to hear something like this happening in your lifespan. Really sad. Hannah put it in way that really made me empathize with what they may have gone through:

Naaawa ako to think that they're blind na nga and they can't find anything with their sonars until they died. That must have been scary lalo na't they probably never understood what's going on.

...

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Wonderful...