Netflix responds to Verizon’s cease & desist letter. Somehow I doubt that Verizon will bite on your offer to work together to increase network transparency Netflix. Nice suggestion though.
The Windows Store supports refunds and as the developer you are responsible for fulfilling those refunds even after Microsoft pays you. That seems reasonable I suppose but there’s no time limit
mentioned…
"g. Reconciliation and Offset. You are responsible for all costs and expenses for returns and chargebacks of your app, including the full refund and chargeback amounts paid or credited to
customers. Refunds processed after you receive the App Proceeds will be debited against your account. Microsoft may offset any amounts owed to Microsoft (including the refund and chargeback costs
described in this paragraph) against amounts Microsoft owes you. Refunds processed by Microsoft can only be initiated by Microsoft; if you wish to offer a customer a refund, directly, you must do
so via your own payment processing tools."
“To activate the feature, simply start a Hangout, click the Invite button at the top, select “Phone”, and enter a phone number. If the recipient picks up, they’ll be instantly connected. The free
offer is supposed to last through 2012.”
2011 May 26, 1:28This was on my todo list. I'll scratch it off knowing far more funded folks are doing this: "A startup called BlueStacks has developed an Android runtime environment for the Windows operating system.
It will enable users to run Android applications alongside conventional Windows software on Microsoft's operating system." "One example would be a convertible netbook tablet that normally runs
Windows but switches to an Android interface for greater touch-friendliness when the screen is flipped.
Such a product would offer the full power and multitasking capabilities of Windows but also benefit from having access to Android's broad touch-enabled software ecosystem."windowsprogrammingandroidjavatechnical
2010 Jun 19, 5:03"Flickr is now offering the option for photographers to license their photos through Getty Images."flickreconomicsphotolegalgetty-images
It was relatively easy, although still more difficult than I would have guessed, to hook my bespoke website's Atom feed up to Google Buzz. I already have a Google email account and associated
profile so Buzz just showed up in my Gmail interface. Setting it up it offered to connect to my YouTube account or my Google
Chat account but I didn't see an option to connect to an arbitrary RSS or Atom feed like I expected.
But of course hooking up an arbitrary Atom or RSS feed is documented. You hook it up in the same manner you
claim a website as your own via the Google Profile (for some reason they want to ensure you own the feed connected to your Buzz account). You do this via Google's social graph API which uses XFN or
FOAF. I used XFN by simply adding a link to my feed to my Google profile (And be sure to check the 'This is a profile page about me' which ensures that a rel="me" tag is added to the HTML on your
profile. This is how XFN works.) And by adding a corresponding link in my feed back to my Google profile page with the following:
So more difficult than I would have expected (more difficult than just an 'Add your feed' button and textbox) but not super difficult. And yet after reading this Buzz from DeWitt Clinton I feel better about opting-in to Google's Social API.
2010 Feb 25, 4:10Comcast is running an opt-in DNSSEC trial for all Comcast customers. Their FAQ covers the incompat. of DNSSEC with their Comcast Domain Helper (typo DNS redirects to Comcast ads... bleh!): "What
happens to Comcast Domain Helper, which offers DNS redirect services, when you fully implement DNSSEC? We believe that the web error redirection function of Comcast Domain Helper is technically
incompatible with DNSSEC. Comcast has always known this and plans to turn off such redirection when DNSSEC is fully implemented." Yay!dnsdnsseccomcastfaqinternetipsecuritytechnical
2010 Jan 28, 2:32A typical blog post with typical blog post comments... "This comment gives a link to a YouTube video which is proffered as an excellent example of the thesis of the post, but, is actually only
tangentially so at best."humorblogwebtroll
Irritatingly out of line with what their commercials say, in my area Comcast, under the covers of the national
broadcast digital switch, is sneaking in their own switch to digital, moving channels above 30 to their own digital format. Previously, I had Windows 7 Media Center running on a PC with a Hauppauge PVR500 which can decode two television signals at once setup to record shows I like. The XBox 360 works
great as a Media Center client letting me easily watch the recorded shows over my home network on my normal TV.
Unfortunately with Comcast's change, now one needs a cable box or a Comcast digital to analog converter in order to view their signal, but Comcast is offering up to two free converters for those
who'd like them. The second of my two free converters I hooked up to the Media Center PC and I got the IR Blaster that came with my Hauppauge out of the garage. I plugged in the USB IR Blaster to
my PC, connected one of the IR transmitters to the 1st port on the IR Blaster, and sat the IR transmitter next to the converter's IR receiver. I went through the Media Center TV setup again and
happily it was able to figure out how to correctly change the channel on the converter. So I can record now, however:
I can only record one thing at a time now
Changing the channel is slow taking many seconds (no flipping through channels for me)
The Hauppauge card can't know if the channel change worked. So if it tries to change to HBO (I get it for free with one of the Comcast packages) which is encrypted and the converted won't show,
the channel doesn't change but the PC doesn't know it and ends up recording some other channel.
To fix (3) I need to manually go through and remove channels I don't have from the Media Center. To fix (1) I may be able to get a second IR transmitter, a third digital converter, hook it up to
one of the other inputs on my Hauppauge, and go back through the Media Center TV setup. There's no fix for (2) but that's not so bad. All in all, its just generally frustrating that they're breaking
my setup with no obvious benefit.digitaltvhauppaugemcecablewindowsmediacentercomcast
2003 July: The first archived version of bing.com features "bing! is a small device (e.g., possibly even a small
Band-Aid(R)-like sticker!) that vibrates when a person's cell phone rings." I can't recall 2003 cell phones, were they big enough to require this device?
2004 August: Site for the same device is rewritten and looks much better, IMHO.
2006 June: The domain is now parked by easyDNS. I guess the "bing!" device didn't work out?
2006 November: Its now "BING*" and they won't say what they're working on ("we're still in stealth mode") but they are
hiring C#/.NET developers.
2007 January: And they're gone. Without even exiting stealth mode. Too bad, I liked their logo. Their domain is now for
sale...
2007 February: Looks like EasyMail buys the domain and offers a physical mailing service in Australia: "By simply clicking
a button on your computer, mail is beamed electronically to a bing post office. Your mail is automatically printed, folded, enveloped and dispatched into the Australia Post network the very same
day."
Present: Now its the new home for Live Search of course.
The new name reminds me of the show Friends. Also, I hope they get a new favicon - I don't enjoy the stretched 'b' nor its color scheme.
2009 May 26, 11:28"But Data.gov is different. It is primarily for machines, not people, at least as a first step. It is a catalog of various sets of data from government agencies. And the idea is to offer the data in
one of several standardized formats, ranging from a simple text file that can be read by a spreadsheet program to the XML format widely used these days for the exchange of information between Web
services. Other data is presented in formats that are meant to feed into mapping programs."datanytimesxmlgovernment
There can be no doubt that infomercial pitchmen Billy Mays and Vince Offer are awesome,
but how can I decide which is my favorite?
Infomercial Performance.
Among other things they sell Zorbeez and ShamWow respectively, both of which are absorbant towels so first up I can get a somewhat apples-to-apples comparison on informercials for comparable
products. Thankfully someone has created a Vince Offer vs Billy Mays youtube video featuring these informercials.
Billy has an upbeat yell to everything he says while Vince has an endearing condescension to his "You followin' me camera guy?" In the end I must give this one to Vince Offer.
Billy has challenged Vince to a pitchman-off which on the surface sounds like a point for Billy, but if you listen to the challenge Billy says that Vince attempted to extend the olive branch.
Billy Mays calls out Vince on the Adam Corolla Show
2009 Apr 6, 10:47"It's 1976 again. Abba are on the charts, the Cold War is in full swing - and the Earth is flat. It's been flat ever since the eve of the Cuban war of 1962; and the constellations overhead are all
wrong. Beyond the Boreal ocean, strange new continents loom above tropical seas, offering a new start to colonists like newly-weds Maddy and Bob, and the hope of further glory to explorers like
ex-cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin: but nobody knows why they exist, and outside the circle of exploration the universe is inexplicably warped."charles-strossscifireadfictionfreeliterature
2009 Feb 4, 4:30New URN schemes with no central minting authority. duri allows you to name a resource that was identified by the specified URI at the specified date (e.g. refers to the IETF's homepage at the end of
the year 2001). tdb allows you to name a physical object or entity that was described by a resource that was identified by a specified URI at the specified date (e.g. refers to IETF the orginization
as referenced by their homepage at the end of the year 2001). Date format is concise but I'd prefer RFC3339 rather than roping in another date format.duritdburiurlschemereferenceietfdatedatetimerfc
2008 Sep 29, 2:28'"Internet Explorer is not currently your default browser. Would you like to make it your default browser?" the software program asked in an attempt to guilt Drewing into accepting its offer out of
pure pity.'onionhumorbrowseriemicrosoft
2008 Sep 29, 1:39Demos some of the working HTML5 features now available in recent builds of FireFox, IE8, Safari, and Opera. "Speaker: Ian Hickson. As the HTML5 effort reaches its first big milestone -- feature
completeness -- browsers are starting to implement it. It will be years before you can rely on HTML5 support when writing Web pages and applications, but you can start to experiment today to get a
feel of what the new standard offers. This talk will explore some of the most recent implementations of HTML5 features."html5ian-hicksonhtmlgooglevideobrowserie8
Irritatingly out of line with what their commercials say, in my area Comcast, under the covers of the national
broadcast digital switch, is sneaking in their own switch to digital, moving channels above 30 to their own digital format. Previously, I had Windows 7 Media Center running on a PC with a Hauppauge PVR500 which can decode two television signals at once setup to record shows I like. The XBox 360 works
great as a Media Center client letting me easily watch the recorded shows over my home network on my normal TV.
Some rights reserved