A perfect time to cross over, to Windows Live Hotmail May 19, 2007
Posted by metalickl in Internet Insights.1 comment so far
Starting from today, all MSN Hotmail users will have the previllage to upgrade their MSN Hotmail to Windows Live Hotmail free of charge. The upgrade is made avaliable in 36 languages, with better security, greater capacity as much as 2 gigabyte of free space, hotmail is more user friendly. The interface itself is much like Outlook. You can also choose the colour scheme to match your own taste.
You can switch over by first log into your MSN hotmail account, and click the green Join Windows Live Hotmail button. This process is reversable, you can switch back to the old MSN Hotmail at any time. I strongly recommend you to swtich over to Windows Live Hotmail.
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2007, E-insight
Take back the free encyclopedia, with Citizendium May 19, 2007
Posted by metalickl in IT Industries, Internet Insights.add a comment
From Citizendium Blog, by Larry Sanger:
I’ve recently posted an essay, “Why the Citizendium Will (Probably) Succeed.”
From the first two paragraphs:
The Citizendium pilot project wiki got under way privately at the start of last November. In the intervening months, we have steadily grown to some 1,100 “CZ Live” articles — that’s approximately how many articles we have done significant work on. A fairly large percentage of these, I believe well over half, are either original articles or have been significantly changed from Wikipedia sources. We have steadily added authors and editors in this period, so that we have 820 authors and 180 editors (some of whom also have listed themselves as authors). Our activity has grown from 100 edits per day in the first month to over 500 prior to launch. Every day, a large variety of people from many fields sign on and do some work. This is all in a period in which the project has been visible only to those who have applied to the project. In addition, while it has received a fair bit of press, we have done very little in the way of recruitment — but with good results when we have. More aggressive recruitment is our trump card, which we haven’t played.
…the progress report shows merely that the fundamentals of the project are sound, many basic doubts are now dismissible on the basis of solid experience — and little more than that. It shows that that experts can be quite good at wiki-style strong collaboration; that they can work well together with the general public; that a wide variety of people have a substantial desire to work on this sort of project; that a largely collegial and pleasant community can be built on principles of the use of real names and gentle expert guidance; that, so long as we avoid wide-open self-registration as we tried for about three weeks, this sort of project can be free of vandalism. In short, there are no “gotchas” — nothing that makes me think this project can’t work — and quite a bit of good news.
I argue at some length that the Citizendium will enjoy a Google effect and that the latent demand for CZ is sizable and growing. I conclude with replies to a bunch of objections.
My views: Looks like there are some dynamics between the founders of Wikipedia. Although I deeply doubt CZ would success over Wikipedia, I’m still quite glad to see a new source of information that is claming to be more reliable. Find out about Wiki’s little nemesis at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page
Ironically, here is an article about citizendium on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizendium
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2007, E-insight
Adobe and Photobucket introduces online video editor May 19, 2007
Posted by metalickl in IT Industries, Internet Insights, Software Insights.add a comment
Adobe’s Remix is a new Web-based video editing tool that will be provided free to all Photobucket members in the coming weeks. Remix allows you to string together and edit short video clips. We covered the announcement of the online video editor last week, but got our hands on it this morning.Remix is essentially a stripped-down version of Adobe Premiere Elements. You get a timeline with clips and transitions, along with a source bin containing all the media from your Photobucket account. Adding clips to your movie is as simple as dragging and dropping. There’s also a handy clipping tool if you feel like cutting out the boring bits. There are only three transitions to choose from, and they’re all fades. This might seem like a letdown, but honestly if you’ve ever edited video before, you know some of the flashier transitions aren’t necessarily better than the fundamentals.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
To put the finishing touches on your movie you can add titles and all sorts of cheesy digital overlays, like a police hat or gingerbread people (both genders are provided). You also can add thought or chat bubbles with customizable text. What really feels off about adding all these effects is that you can only add one to each clip. There is a way to get around this–by cutting your clips into pieces to make them separate–but it would be nice to have a separate timeline for overlays, as the majority of video editing apps provide.
You also can add music to your film, though not your own. The library of music clips is fairly large, although you’ve probably never heard the tracks. There’s no way to add voice narration.When you’re done with your masterpiece, there are the standard URL and embed links, but no way to locally save or export your video to other formats. No doubt Adobe wants you to buy one of its video editing programs for this. This also means there’s no way to archive your videos–you’ve got to rely on Photobucket to keep running.
I like Adobe Remix for the casual stringing together of clips. It’s really easy to use and quite fast. The Photobucket integration is spot-on, but don’t be surprised if you see Remix popping up in other sites, since the partnership isn’t exclusive. It will be interesting to see where it shows up next.
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2007, E-insight
