Stu2Tech Podcast

I am finally starting to focus a little on my 'Stu2tech' podcast. Me and my friend Falko will be talking about events often everyweek. I say often because it is highly possibly that we will do more than 1 or 2 podcasts a week over the summer. You can join us in our Skype recording if you like, just send an email to chacha102@gmail.com.

Oh, Here your beta invites to Ping.fm

Just incase you want to try this new services, the beta code invites is letmeping. Have fun pinging!

Ping.fm

So, Today I discovered this great new service called Ping.fm. What it does is allow you to post to groups of social networks based on what they are like, IE: Status Updates, Blogging, Micro-Blogging, etc. I really like the fact that I can have all of my Blog posts go to all my blogs, and that I can just as easily send an update that goes to Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr and More. Plus I can have services that have ALL of my content. It really changes the web from having specific services, to instead, just having content. It doesn't matter the medium that you get it, It just matters that you get it.

This is a Test Post

What does this Do?

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of those cool tools that just give the mass amount of information Webmasters are looking for. It easy to set up and definitely deserves a try from anyone who wants to do any kind of website.

One of the cool features is the fact that Google Analytics uses many very rich charts that are interactive. If you are on the time line and you select a point on the graph at say March 15th, you will go to that day specifically. For every chart there is also a table of data below it for people who would rather see a table of data.

Besides that, Google can pinpoint where people are in the world and map it out so you can view whwere your hits are coming from. You cans et up goal pages to see how many people start at your home page. Go to page x, then page y, and finally land on page z. This is helpful for marketers and sellers because it can allow you to see how a customer got to the checkout page of product x.

Overall, I am very impressed with Google Analytics. It works flawlesslly with Adwords so you can buy the correct keywords, and is very accurate. http://www.google.com/analytics anayltics for more info

Boycott the Associated Press

Go here to sign a petition boycotting the Associated Press after they came up with their new regulations on blogs. read more (unassociatedpress.net) | digg story
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So, AP (Associated Press) recently set a new lists of regulations for blogger to use, basically saying that you can only quote what we want you to, and if you don't we are going to Sue you. More information from Techcrunch Here. I've provided a shameless plug to a website promoting the boycott of Associated Press.

It gets really sad when companies have a go this low to allow for their business model to prevail. The internet and the communities on it are all changing, and paid content is one of the buisness models that just aren't going to fit into this changing world.

Do you think this is a reason to stop using AP? Or am I just overreacting? Post it in the comments

Comments - Blog Posts in Response to other Blog Posts

Comments can be blog posts

This person has it exactly right, (as I mentioned on Twitter). Comments are just as important as blog posts, because they basically are blog posts, just responding to an article. A good commenter spend just as much time forming their comments as a good blogger spends forming their articles, and both can contain great information. I think that news aggregators should allow comments to also be listed, and that you should be able to have all of you comments you write anywhere on your blog, with a link to the article you are writing about. I defiantly think if we could find all of people's comments on their blog, it would help centeralize their content.

It’s Friday

It’s Friday

Posted using ShareThis

Pricey Pricey

Yes, one of the big announcements was the fact that the new price for the 3G iPhone will be $199, but if you look at what you are really paying for, its really not that cheap. Buying a $30/month unlimited data plan along with a $39.99/month voice plan, over your 2  year contract, you spend:

$959.76 in Voice

$720 in Edge Data

$399 for the phone

Giving a grand total of $2,078.76 for a Regular iPhone

For a 3G iPhone,

$959.76 in Voice

$1080 in 3G Data

$199 for the phone

Giving a grand total of $2238.76 for a 3G iPhone

So incase you were wondering, unless you do not get a 3G Data plan, you will be spending more on a 3G iPhone than a Regular iPhone

3G iPhone

Probably the best announcement at the entire conference, and the most anticipated, was the news of the new 3G iPhone.

Now for people who are new to this kind of technology, 3G is a faster wireless network for cell phones. And because it is so much faster, it allows for faster downloads of web pages, and music.

The battery life for the 3G iPhone has been increased, flaunting a 300 hour standby time, 5 to 6 hours of browsing the we, 7 hours of video, and 24 hours of audio. Unfortunately, the 3G feature reduces the talk time greatly, giving only 5 hours of talk on 3G, and 10 on non-3G

iPhone Applications

The next thing announced by Apple is the great new applications that will be featured on the iPhone. Apple really is trying to push the apps it has on it to be able to be used in any environment.

A few of the apps:

Typepad:  A new blogging software that allows you to blog right from your iPhone. It only can post pictures, but it allows you to add titles, categories, and text. Anything else would probably be to annoying to use on a phone anyway.

iCall: Allows you to use VOIP on your iPhone. It will allow you to switch to a VoIP network during calls so that you can save minutes when you are at home, or another place with WiFi.

Whrrl: Last app I am going to mention is a mobile social network that allows people to rate different businesses with your pals.

Also, plenty of new games were released onto the iPhone...

Games for the iPhone

The games for the iPhone would allow for a whole new generation of mobile gaming. It allows you to change the layout of the game and buttons completely. It would allow you to take the same function that made Wii so popular, in the palm of your hand everywhere. And because of the accelerometer, it has the ability to allow movement to control games. Unfortunately, this means people on subways driving their iPhone Game.

Online Apple Stores Officially Down

Yes, just like I predicted, the Online Apple stores have gone down with a message that they are currently updating. What could they Possibly be announcing today that would cause them to be updating?

Twitter is down, On the most important conference of the year

Recently, Twitter has said that Twitter would be completely up for the year's WWDC Conference, and early on, they have failed. Currently, Twitter is down to my Twhirl client, and many others are also complaining about Twitter's Down Syndrome (Literally .... 'Down' syndrome). So, we have now found out that Twitter can't keep its servers up even when they promise to. Expect a giant ranting post on Techcrunch about the failure of Twitter. Now What?

Online Apple Stores Go Down

via Engadget

All Online Apple Stores across the entire world have officially gone down. This can only mean that they want no spoilers for the upcoming announcements for the new Apple Product(s). In my opinion, this can only mean that the stores are going under maintenance  to be ready for the overflow of sales from the announcement today.

 

Currently, the Online Stores are back up, but who knows how long that may last. Nothing new on the site though, so they will probably go down again to put the new product's page up.

WWDC

So, what will happen today at WWDC? Im not listening to any spoilers, I am not looking at anything except the live coverage from Techcrunch, and the commentary from Leo Laporte and his friends at twitlive.com

My thoughts will all go up here, and expect quite a few posts by the end of the day. Afterwards, I'll get a follow up post linking to all of the WWDC hoopla and links to video from different sites.

Have Fun!

Openness Part 1: Interface Enhancements

One of my next rant's with openness is the fact that most website's that have custom built User Interfaces, really could be changed to suit the user's needs more. IE: More pleasant looking, easier to navigate, quick links to important pages, etc. I really think one of the next steps is going to be either building your page in a way that is easy for 3rd Party Apps to place enhancements in, or to allow User Customized UI's to be submitted, and then let the user choose what they want to use. Certain websites are going to be used very often if a user can easily do what they want and enjoy using the application.

Stu2Tech Podcast

Well, I've been spending the last few days recording a new podcast I have been trying to bring out called Student 2 Tech Podcast (Original Eh?). This is basically where I come on once a day and talk toy uo about things I've found over the week, and If more people start to listen to it I can talk about different emails I receive and more. I intend to ask people I know to come on an talk to you all aswell. If you have any Ideas send them to chacha102@gmail.com.

Openness

I am beginning a new set of rants called 'Openness' to help me express to you my thoughts about the need for websites, software, and other companies to be as open as possible with their customers, developers, and other users of their service. In the upcoming years, it is going to become very essential to be open with your users and to allow they to comment, criticize, and rate different articles. Websites and Software should be open to addons that add features and interface changes. The future of the internet is going to be using the brains of all the developers that are determined to add a certain versatility to their browsing experience, and then customzing the user's experience through that power.

TWiT Army Syndrome

There is a wide sickness sweeping many social networks, what is it called? TWiT
Army Syndrome. The Symptoms? Leo Laporte finding a cool new site and Twittering
about it. Your entire site will suddenly have many more users, all following
each other. Later you wwill probably experience a large crash due to the number
of TWiTs at your site, and it won't stop untill you either shut down, restrict
access, or do something else. We are collecting donations for this 3rd option
that many site owners are at risk of needing to undertake. What is this third
option? Fixing Your Site. We currently are making a huge movemeny accross
America to help site owners fix their site. We are the Site Helpers for Increased Twits, and we are here to help.

(Just Kidding, I love Leo and his work and I think it was cool for him to offer a link to it. If they can fix it I think it would be great to intergrate with Twitter.)
Ok, so this all comes from Sunday when Leo Twittered about a new site caleld plurk.com, and gave a link to the site to sign up. Instantly almost 300 people signed up (given that way how many people following Leo). A half an hour later Plurk basically shut down. It wasn't functional, kept getting errors and more. Great Site though, allows you to basically see and make Tweet like messages and see them and your friend's on a timeline. But unfourtunatly, it got borked.

Remember the Milk

Remeberthemilk.com is one of those cool little applications that you really want to fuse into the rest of your computer. It allows you to easily create tasks and recognizes common ways of writing a task down that allow you to tell it when it is due without having to individually fill out each box. This app is extremely useful because it uses all of the common Messengers like MSN, Google Talk, AIM and more. Along with Twitter and Email notifications. You can even use it with Google Calendar which really makes it useful.