Category Archives: internet

ASUS eeePC 901

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The EeePC 901 from ASUS looks very impressive based on the specs.   I’ve been using the original eeePC for several months and my two main concerns have been keyboard size (which I’ve become used to) and screen size (still a bit small for quality browsing).    Otherwise I’ve been impressed with the light weight, small size, and fairly error-free operation with the one exception of an early flash memory failure that required a reconfiguration and lost me 100+ Hong Kong photos.     Still, for $400 this unit was an amazing bargain compared to the 1500 or so I would have spent for a full blown Ultra mobile laptop in this weight class.

The new eeePC unit probably solves the screen size issue with a 9.1 incher vs the 7 inches and I assume a slightly larger keyboard.    The 3.75G access could really be a boon for those in areas where that will be supported, assuming a reasonable cost by providers.

I’m anxious to hear from folks who get this unit.   The mini Dell looks good as well, but if ASUS has created a comparable machine I’d be inclined to go with them over Dell based on my experiences with each company.

ASUS Press Release

More Copywrong News

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Liked Matt Asay’s piece today about how poorly Government is comprehending issues surrounding copyright, especially in moves to extend the times which generally have little of the intended benefits to the artists but inhibit the much more significant process of moving all the world’s information online.

He’s noting that a European Union proposal to extend copyright a whopping 45 years will net artists on average an extra $40.    I’m assuming that number does not factor in the potential for those same artists to make money from derivative works that are much less likely to see the light of day under this proposal.

Although I’m not insensitive to the idea that online folks routinely violate copyright rules, and unlike many people I always groan when web 2.0 folks pretend that widespread unfair use is not common, it is also clear that the copycat is out of the bag and the most functional responses now are to develop systems that make sure artists can *track* and *claim ownership* when their works are used to make *other people money*.   ie I think we need to move away from models that restrict use into models that *encourage* uses and derivative works but give the original artists powerful tools to claim ownership and claim a piece of the action if their derivative works are used to make money.

Sure, there are pitfalls here but the original idea of copyright is now obsolete, yet we keep trying to fit the new pegs into the old holes.

Google’s “Google Chrome” Browser

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Update:  Google Chrome is now available.   I’m only starting to test it but it seems very, very fast, intuitive, and impressive.

——–  earlier ———–

Google will soon launch an internet browser in what promises to be one of the most significant online developments in some time.  Based on the comic book intro they’ve used to warm up users to the new application, Google Chrome will effectively turn the browser into an operating system.    Perhaps the most significant change is that Chrome will open new tabbed windows for each application it runs (much like MS Windows).    This feature should help isolate problems during browsing and Google says it will create a superior environment for running the many embedded applications that are now part of a typical browsing session.    I’m not clear yet if this is fundamentally different from opening several internet explorer or FireFox browser windows which is also fairly typical.

In any case Google’s entry into the browser market is likely to shake up the online landscape, where only FireFox and Microsoft IE Explorer have any significant market share at about 20% for FF and about 79% for Microsoft IE.    Google promotions of Firefox have been largely responsible for it’s success, so it’ll be interesting to watch how this move affects the browser equation.

Browser software does not monetize directly, but since it is the gateway to the internet it’s a key part of the online revenue equation.   Were it not for the antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft it is almost certain that MS would have a much greater search market share as they could have made it much more difficult for users to change their search choices and could have taken advantage of the integration of the browser and the Windows operating system.   Thanks to the rules imposed in the Microsoft lawsuits and Google’s superior search, Google has been eating Microsoft’s search lunch for years.   This move, unless it backfires, will consolidate Google’s search dominance at the expense of MS and to a much lesser extent Firefox, which is an open source non-profit but also makes tens of millions each year from Google search revenues which are likely to diminish as people move to Google Chrome.

Redbox Rocks – Brilliant!

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Although it’s probably a transitional mode of movie distribution until streaming becomes the preferred mode – probably in 3-4 years, Redbox really puts conventional movie stores to shame when you want a popular title.

The friendly big movie boxes are located at heavy traffic stores like Wal Mart, and offer popular titles (as well as a limited selection of older films) at only $1.    The combination of a very intuitive and simple touchscreen interface, credit card scan, networking and the “robotics” of the Redbox are impressive to me.  The entire system seems well designed to eliminate the challenges that face other touch systems – clunky navigation and printer problems.   No printer problems at RedBox because they don’t use one – instead you are emailed both when you rent and when you return.

Another innovative solution is to avoid the frustrating and usurous “late fees” by simply charging a dollar a day – the standard low rental rate – until 25 days after which you own the movie.   This is an approach likely to get some revenues from movie sales and avoid pissing off customers who forget or keep the film for a few extra days.   I’d guess the optimal “you’ve bought it” number is lower than this – probably about $12 or so – but to know that you’d have to have information such as the cost to replenish titles in the machines, cost of lost revenue before titles are replenished, etc.    I’m assuming that RedBox’ largest long term cost is the human interaction needed to maintain and load the machines.

———- Return receipts are emailed immediately ——-

Dear JHUNKINS@GMAIL.COM:

Your copy of “Cloverfield” was successfully returned on 7/11/2008 11:30 AM.
Your return was on time. You will receive a receipt via email when we process your account.

Thanks for using Redbox!

Return Details
Barcode: 0—-6
Transaction ID: 13—1
Return location: Wal-Mart (view inventory here)
300 W Valley View Rd
Talent, OR 97540-9629
Rent date/time: 7/10/2008 1:16 PM
Due date/time: 7/11/2008 9:00 PM
Return date/time: 7/11/2008 11:30 AM
Questions? Comments? Contact Redbox Customer Service
Phone: 1-866-REDBOX3
Email: questions@redbox.com
FAQ: http://www.redbox.com/Help/Faq.aspx

DVD rentals cost only $1.00 + tax until 9:00 PM the next evening, then $1.00 + tax for each night thereafter. After 25 days, rental charges will cease and the DVD is yours to keep.

240k Kindles with books on the wall, 240k Kindles with books

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OK, so now TechCrunch is reporting that their secret source informs them that Amazon has sold  240k Kindles in less than a year.   That would be pretty good though it does not lead me to retract my May suggestion that the analysis by Citbank is bogus.

In that analyis Mark Mahaney suggested that the Kindle would sell only 189k units in 2008 but then blow the lid off with sales in 2010 of 2.2 million.    That key part of the analysis – huge sales after modest early adoption – still seems unlikely to me, though I might be swayed to Kindle mania if the sales trend over the past months was clearly up.    That would indicate enough consumer satisfaction to suggest they might become a gadget of choice with enough mainstream adoption to see the huge profitability projected by Citibank.   Hey, on the internet anything is possible.

Google: A Trillion URLs and counting

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The Google blog notes how huge the web is now, with Google indexing over a trillion unique URLs.  As they note in the article the actual number of indexable URLs is, in one sense, infinite.    For example calendar pages will automatically appear as you scroll through many applications, continuing through the years until..the singularity and beyond.     Of course Google does not index many of these “empty” URLs or even a lot of junk or redundant content, so the true number of real, unique URLs is actually well above a Trillion.

I think a fun question is this:   What will the information landscape look like in, say, 20 years when we should have the ability to pour *everything* from the past and the present online?     Questions might take a different form if we had access to every reference on a topic that has ever been produced.    Algorithms will be used to sort through the oceans of content much as Google does now, but with far more precision and better comprehension of the whole mess.

Social Learning 2.0

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Here is a great website about the intersection of education and the internet. One of the concerns of the main author is that educational institutions are ill-prepared to cope with the hurricane of new media information as well as potential new online approaches to teaching.

This is a really fascinating topic partly because for hundreds thousands of years formal education has languished under the province of a priestly class of educators operating pretty much in the same fashion since the Greeks introduced the professor to student lecture model of teaching.   Although it’s not a *bad* model, I’d strongly suggest we could do a lot better, especially given the plethora of new online tools readily on hand at no cost to almost everybody.

Where an old, legacy class about global markets would dredge up boring examples from dated textbooks, a new class could use real time stock information such as the Archipelago bidding environment, currency quotes, breaking news, and so much more.   In science students should be actively participating in blogs specializing in topics like Global Warming, artificial intelligence, and biology as well as interacting with other students around the globe.

A professor friend of mine who taught an online accounting class said there were challenges with the lack of personal contact, but benefits from student interaction and the fact he could answer the same predictable questions with an FAQ rather than having to deal with them over and over, basically freeing up more time for individualized instruction on the complicated topics.

As with so many online topics education is evolving rapidly within the rapidly evolving overall environment, so it is very hard to predict where things will wind up.   However I think it’s easy to say there is a lot of potential for improvements on the current outmoded lecture models, and the internet kitchen is cooking up new solutions every day.

Free Google blog at your own website? Priceless.

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Google has a great feature where you can add a free blogger blog to your website.  I use that for some other blogs though JoeDuck is hosted at WordPress, which offers more powerful content management features than blogger blogs.

Here are the directions for a free blogger blog.  This is for domains hosted at Godaddy but similar will work at most registrars except for Verio where you’ll need to use the IP and not ghs.google.com 

Setting up a free blog that will be hosted at blog.example.com involves TWO basic steps.   First setting up the blog at blogger.com, then configuring the DNS at Godaddy to direct people to the blog as if it was at your website.   The existing pages at your *website* will be unaffected by these change though be sure you have pages backed up for good measure.  

1)  Set up account or log in to existing Google account at blogger.com
2)  Create new blog with blog address (URL) “example.blogspot.com”
3) Under “advanced settings” choose “custom domain” and enter in box:     blog.example.net

1) Next, head to your Godaddy account and “manage domains”.  Select   example.net
2) Click on “Total DNS Control….”
3) Create create CNAME record
4) Enter Alias name:    blog.example.net
5) Points to Host name:     ghs.google.com 

The blogger.com blog will have a small default blog toolbar at the top of the blog that can be deleted as well.  As far as I know Google is OK with this modification to delete the obnoxious toolbar though I’m not positive it’s OK.    I don’t have time to look up that little coding hack now but will try to post later …

Yahoo Microsoft: Is the fat lady almost singing at $34?

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Henry Blodget is whining that the Yahoo Microsoft deal is back to where it started, but I think Henry’s wrong … again!     

I’m glad Henry was wrong about the rumor that Yahoo’s Q4 would beat expectations because it was part of the reason I bought YHOO then, and even though the stock dipped due to a bad Q4, it surged on Microsoft’s offer of $31 per share so I’m well in the black.   But now he’s wrong to say the deal is not almost done.  I think this Yahoo Microsoft merger is coming very soon to an internet near you.

Citibank Analyst Maheney upgraded Yahoo this morning, anticipating a boost in the MS bid to $34.   Hey, maybe he read my blog post of about 6 weeks ago where I suggested Microsoft raise their bid to $34?    

Unlike Henry, I think this is not back to where it all started at all!

Yang didn’t want to merge, now he sees it as almost inevitable.  Yahoo board wanted more, now they know anything past initial offer is gravy.  Part of the show was probably the board protecting itself against lawsuits from the unlucky minions who bought their Yahoo at $35+, some at over $100.

Barring a Q1 miracle that would recalibrate Yahoo prices without help of MS bids, I think the fat lady is now almost done singing on this deal.

 Disclosure:  long on YHOO

Craiglist Prank = horse stealin’

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I’m reporting a remarkable local story from Jacksonville, Oregon that strains even one’s interenet sensibilities about a guy in Jacksonville who had his horse and property stolen after Craigslist postings said it was up for grabs.   The incredible part is that after the guy returned home the people would not stop taking his stuff, citing the Craigslist ad as some sort of permission!     http://www.webguild.org/2008/03/craigslist-prank-listings-lead-to-major.php