Author: jamesclay

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Evolution of the social network

BBC Click reports on the evolution of social networking.Evolution of the social network

Recent reports of social networking’s demise may be slightly premature.

Sure, some users are completely fed up with receiving friends invites, being “bitten”, “poked” and indeed having sheep thrown at them.

And there has been a 5% slowdown in new UK users to the larger social networks, Facebook and MySpace, between December 2007 and January this year.

But Alex Burmaster, an analyst at Nielsen Online which compiled the figures showing the decline, says: “The slow down in social networks is being somewhat exaggerated. It’s a natural form of any growth that we see in the online eco-system.

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Photoshop Express

Adobe have released an online photo editing app which they have called Photoshop Express.

You shot it — now do something to it. Make it pop. Make it impossible to ignore. Upload, sort, polish, and store up to 2GB of photos. All for free. Resize, tint, distort, and more — add your mark to all your images. Then show them off on Adobe® Photoshop® Express or your Facebook page.

Photoshop Express

Now before you run off and think wahay! This is not an online version of Photoshop. This is an online photo editing application which Adobe have called Photoshop Express.

It reminds me a lot of iPhoto and many Mac users will find it pretty simple and easy to use and very familiar, but obviously Photoshop Express also works on Windows PCs.

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Mucked about by…

There are credits and then there are credits.

There I was watching the Colour of Magic when I noticed Terry Pratchett’s credit.

Mucked about by…

Mucked about by….

Excellent.

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Where did my Flash player go…

So there I was browsing on the Nokia N810 when I noticed that I couldn’t play any Flash movies or animations.

Now initially I thought maybe the Nokia N810 didn’t come with a Flash player installed, but I was sure I had seen Flash animations before on the device and after checking the Nokia website it said that it came with Flash Player Version 9 installed.

Web Browsing 

Browser based on Mozilla technology with state-of-the-art web standard support including AJAX

Page navigation with scrolling, panning or using hardware buttons, zooming in and out of web sites.

Full desktop Adobe® Flash® 9 plugin, including video and audio streaming

But it seemed to be “missing” on my Nokia N810.

So I did a Google search and that came to nothing, no one else seemed to have the same problem. It wasn’t mentioned in the FAQ on the Nokia site either.

It was looking like I was going to need to reset the device and start over.

As a last resort I started checking the browser settings and there it was the Flash player was unchecked (as was the browser video player.

Checked the checkbox for the Flash player and yes now it works.

Now I didn’t switch it off and I don’t know how it got switched off, but it was off.

Now it’s back on again.

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So where is the video out then?

If you have a Nokia N95 8GB model which came with Spiderman 3 you will know that it came with a composite video AV cable (well in the UK it does) which not only allows you to connect your Nokia N95 to a television, but also allows you to show what you are doing. This video out can also be captured using the right equipment. This video out is a really useful feature.

One of the disappoining non-features of the Nokia N810 is that there is no video out, so any video on there has to be watched on the small screen (nice screen, but it’s not very big).

Alas this also means that I can’t capture screen video this way either.

Hmm, a wasted opportunity methinks.

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The Light of Other Days

With the death of Arthur C Clarke last week I thought I would post my choice of his books.

The Light of Other Days

This is one of my favourite books and I have read it quite a few times now.

‘Space is what keeps everything from being in the same place. Right?’ With these words Hiram Patterson, head of the giant media corporation OurWorld, launches the greatest communications revolution in history. With OurWorld’s development of wormhole technology, any point in space can be connected to any other, faster than the speed of light. Realtime television coverage is here: earthquakes and wars, murders and disasters can be watched, exactly as they occur, anywhere on the planet. Then WormCams are made to work across time as well as space. Humanity encounters itself in the light of other days. We witness the life of Jesus, go to the premiere of Hamlet, solve the enigmas that have baffled generations. Blood spilled centuries ago flows vividly once more – and no personal treachery or shame can be concealed. But when the world and everything in it becomes as transparent as glass and there are no more secrets, people find new ways to gain vengeance and commit crime, and Hiram Patterson finds new ways to keep his Machiavellian schemes secret.

The idea of the wormcams is really scary and the impact they have on the world is immense and explored in this novel.

You can get the book either from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

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802.11n Airport Extreme update allows Time Machine backups

The latest Apple update for the 802.11n Airport Extreme now allows attached USB drives to be used as Time Machine backups.

This was always a disappointing non-feature of the 802.11n Airport Extreme that though you could share a USB drive wirelessly, you couldn’t use that same drive for your Time Machine backups.

It was especially disappointing as it had been mentioned in a lot of the build-up to Leopard.

Apple’s new Time Capsule did allow that functionality, and a lot of people were disappointed that still the 802.11n Airport Extreme did not.

This update fixes that and now you can.

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Mac mini is dead, well possibly not, okay no it isn’t…

Rumours of the death of the Mac mini have been greatly exaggerated as various rumour sites backpedal on their missives of doom on the Mac mini.

Mac mini

Applesinsider say:

Last Memorial Day, AppleInsider cited sources in reporting that it appeared to be the end of the line for the itsy-bitsy Mac, which had seen limited adoption and an uncertain role during the first 24 months on the market.

They then say

For the first time in nearly a year, however, people familiar with the matter tell AppleInsider there’s new life in the Mac mini department, where a small team of engineers have recently been tasked with gutting the diminutive desktop and applying fresh internals.

So it is looking like that we may well see a new faster, better Mac mini.

I do like the Mac mini, it works well as a little Mac for testing and trying things out as well as introducing people to the Mac. I also have used it in the past as a server for various web services and for limited use it works really well – probably would not be too happy if it was a production server.

I did try it as a TV computer, in other words connected to my TV, but I never really used it, in the main as it was an old G4 PPC model and was rather slow for recording and capturing video from an EyeTV USB device. The newer Intel models have the advantage of remote control and faster processors and graphics better suited to video.

I am interested to see where Apple goes with a new model and I may just have to get one.

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Nokia N810 GPS

I have been playing about with a Nokia N810 for a few weeks now and only today did I manage to get the GPS working at which point five minutes later the battery gave out.

So I didn’t really get a chance to play as much as I would like.

Like most GPS devices you do need to leave it for a while watching the sky before it can work out where it is.

Once it did, there I was correct on the map.

Alas there is no included navigation software on the Nokia N810, you need to purchase additional software at €99 for that, and at that kind of price I would choose a dedicated satnav system.

Where I think the GPS will be useful is when you are lost and not quite sure where your destination is.

Charging the N810 up again and I might have another play tomorrow.

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Web 2.0

I thought I would use this Hood 2.0 blog to mention and blog about various Web 2.0 sites and services that can be used for learning (or for just plain fun).

I will mention the classics such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter, but also want to cover the less familar sites such as Wakoopa, Jaiku amongst others.

Watch this space.