When there are many web 2.0 sites around that do pretty much exactly the same thing, which one do you choose to use?
Del.icio.us is arguably the best and most well known social bookmarking site. But what about Shadows and the newest contender (among other smaller rival services) ma.gnolia?
Delicious has got better over the time I’ve been a member and it looks like a polished service. I can favourite pages instantly with flock, then export my favourites to a file from delicious for backup. All with no problems and extrememly smoothly.
However good Delicious is, Magnolia really impresses me. I like their site design and content more than Delicious’s and their ability to import all of my delicious bookmarks is an added bonus. I guess I’m going to keep using delicious as my main favourites tool right now, mainly due to the fact that flock doesn’t currently support magnolia.
I guess I could use magnolia with firefox and delicious with flock but then there would be a problem where I’d have different favourites in different accounts so that’s not the best idea. Plus as things stand now, my bookmarks are secure and I don’t have to worry about losing any when I have a backup on magnolia and in an html file on my hard drive.
I would be presented with one of those if it’s not broken, do you fix it? situations if Flock did start to support Magnolia because of how well delicious works. I still think I’d just use Magnolia in the same was as I do now though and just copy over every new favourite to my account there.
I havn’t used any of these (although I may have thought about it once or twice for short periods) but it makes me laugh thinking about a good use for AOL trial disks. I have to say if NTL wasn’t such a good ISP I’d be resorting to a few.
See here.
They plan to release the beta a week today. I’m looking forward to it. Especially since they have announced another feature for it. It will allow you to track everything you have burnt to disk, and which disk you burnt it to. Great feature.
I always wonder later what I backed up on a backup disc and whether I missed anything. Now it’s going to be easy to find out. They call it “Discography“.
Update: After seing the following image I forgot about in an old post on disco’s blog Disco doesn’t dissapoint as I previously thought. Since you can turn the effects off I don’t see the MacBook having any problems running the app. Plus the effects aren’t that exciting anyway, the most important thing is the core functionality of the app which will work fine.
Now hurry up and get the beta out guys.
Here and here.
Now if this does happen then it would be interesting what they would do with the iPods and how they would market the two lines of products.
Whatever happens this is another thing we can possibly look forward to early next year along with iTV, movie downloads world-wide, Leopard and probably Intel Core Quad Macs. Oh yeah and that iPod video touch that everyones talking about. I’m probably forgetting something too. The iPod video may not count along with the new MacBooks because they are being expected before Christmas. I’m not sure how likely the touch iPod is this year though.
Finally I saw a couple of really good photoshopped iPhones in the digg comments by a guy. Here they are.
This is the supposedly the lower spec non-video, possibly non-wi-fi version.
And this is the smart-phone model with wi-fi, email, qwerty keyboard and what looks to be a touch screen. I’m not sure if the specs in Apple’s patent mention a touch screen in either model but there’s no harm in hoping.
Microsoft and Sony have said they hope to release their respective products (Vista and PS3) in Europe with no more delays. Sony say that they are still on course to deliver their console in March and Microsoft have adjusted Vista to allow it to be approved for release here in the UK / Europe at the same time as the rest of the world in early 07. That’s pretty much all the news on Sony so on to Microsoft.
Vista has been heavily criticised by security software companies Mcafee and Symantec among others because it locks them out of the operating system so they can’t protect users. The only reason Microsoft made the change to allow them access you have to think is because otherwise they would have been prevented from releasing the OS here, or at the very least forced to pay huge fines.
To be honest if Vista is secure enough on it’s own then why allow them access. Although I don’t really want to see any companies go out of business as a result of this. So at least with this arrangement everyone appears to win in some way.
Who knows if this is the last twist in the tale or not but I hope it is.
Check out jumpcut.com
It’s a completely free movie making site. It’s basically a cut down version of iMovie online. The real benefit to this site over using iMovie or windows movie maker is the fact that it is so simple to use. Plus the fact that you can save your work online and come back to it anytime from any PC.
You can also import photos from facebook and Flickr which makes this a great tool for editing your videos taken with your phone or camera to put on YouTube or your own site / blog.
After looking forward to Disco being released for a while now, they announced the other day that their special “one more thing” was burning effects produced while burning a disc.
I’m not saying these effects aren’t cool, but If there isn’t a way of turning them off then as a MacBook owner and therefore someone without “a proper graphics card” I’m guessing I won’t be able to run Disco on my Mac which would be a shame. I’m sure the app will still run but it would be a concern to put an extra load on the processor while doing something heavy like disc burning which already puts a strain on it.
Also to those people who say the MacBook has inadequite graphics I strongly dissagree. I suppose it will have a problem with 3D graphics intensive games but I didn’t buy it for that. It can do everything you would need from a normal computer apart from more than casual video creation and 3D graphics.
The new iPod Nano Project RED has been released. It looks nice, costs the same as the other iPod Nano’s and gives a percentage to the RED foundation to help stop HIV / Aids. Motorola already sell iTunes equipped RED phones so Apple are involved in a big way in this campaign now.
I don’t think they are shipping yet but when they do I suggest you buy one if you don’t already own a new nano, or maybe just get one anyway to show your support if you can.
Sony are having a pretty bad time recently. For a couple reasons.
- They have had to delay the PS3 in Europe due to the time it takes to manufacture the blu-ray drives of the consoles. The delay may even be more than the four months previously thought and instead be around May, two extra months and a full 6 months after the system launches (with limited supplies) in the US and the rest of the world.
- The huge problems they are having with batteries they have made for laptops from a variety of manufacturers. Dell, Apple, Vaio, Toshiba and IBM have all been affected. Collectively these companies make a large percentage of the laptops sold around the world.
Its hard to know whether Sony will be hit too badly by the PS3 delay because of the fact that the playstation is so popular that people will buy it regardless of when it comes or what it costs. It is clear though that while they won’t have the PS3 on sale in Europe this Christmas shopping season they will be losing out big time to Microsoft and possibly Nintendo.
One thing that is for certain is the fact that the battery problems have affected Sony’s share price.
One more thing though. The only real difference between the standard PS3 and the premium version is the lack of wi-fi in the core system. This is unnaceptable as far as I can see. I don’t want to put a cable through the walls just to be able to play online, especially when the wii will be wireless and have internet access out of the box. This is surely another big mistake by Sony that they may end up regretting in a big way.
Real launched Rhapsody which is an iTunes competitor. More recently they have debuted their first Rhapsody MP3 Player. It’s a SanDisk Sansa with the Rhapsody name.
I’m still not sure about how to use Rhapsody but I understand enough to give it a sort of review.
Firstly, there doesn’t appear to be a Mac version of the rhapsody software. I don’t even think some of the features are supported by anything other than Windows XP. Although saying this I think you can use the web interface to download music using a Mac.
Secondly, I find all the options for listening to music confusing. You pay a subscription for the music with one of their packages. Then, you (depending on the package) can stream any music from the service, or pay to download tracks. Plus listen to online radio and other things. This is way too complicated for me. All I want to do is download music by paying for an album at a time (which iTunes does). Or in the case of eMusic, I want to pay a subscription to buy all the stuff I’ve seen and liked, then cancel the subscription.
The Sansa player by SanDisk may be a nice MP3 player, but why does it have to look so bad? I mean you can’t copy the iPod, but why can’t it look better than it does. It looks bulky and un-stylish, and a long way from the sleek ipod nano.
So in general it must be doing something right if it’s popular but I still can’t see how this can compare to iTunes in style, simplicity or features.
One more thing. It’s US only. Great stuff Real….. great stuff….. I guess this means even Napster is better than Real. Though it is a pretty close race.
