iPhone Love Fest: So the iPhone OS 3.0 preview happened, and in general it looks pretty good. I still don’t know whether the tethering feature will be in this release or not. There was a question about it, but the summary of the answer I saw was vague. I don’t give a hoot about background processing, but I really want the tethering feature.
Devolution Department: Speaking of that preview, here’s how to live blog. And here’s how not to. I do not like that little box with all the comments and whatnot. Everything is not broken. Newfangled does not always equate to better.
Deal Stopper Department: I have been experimenting with Ustream and thinking about doing a weekly video feature. But what in the wild, wild west is the deal with those pop-up ads Ustream puts in the video stream? That is an absolute deal stopper for me. Are all Ustream videos like that? That is horrible. I can’t believe anyone would use Ustream if that’s how all videos are presented. What am I missing here?
The Blogosphere Needs More Seth: Seth Finkelstein on the Wikipedia oligarchy. While I find Seth to be one of the most logical thinkers on the internet and generally agree with much of what he writes, I have to admit that I dig Wikipedia and use it all the time. Granted, I wouldn’t write my dissertation based on research done there, but I think it has a tremendous ease of use advantage over most of the other alternatives. And I don’t see the problem with taking money out of the pockets of the big companies that once had a virtual monopoly on the writing and selling of encyclopedias and spreading it around a little. It’s sort of a Mozart/Ramones thing for me: I’m sure Mozart was a more talented composer, but I’d rather listen to the Ramones. Seth’s undoubtedly accurate description of Wikipedia also describes every one of the so-called social networks: “cults where idealistic unpaid acolytes work themselves to burn-out, while a few people at the top benefit enormously.” Maybe that’s why I haven’t seen Seth on Twitter.
Underwhelming: I want to hear from someone who thinks the newly released Dell Adamo is worth $1,999 for the entry level model, with its 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2GB memory and a 128GB solid state drive or $2,699 for the upgraded model. Underwhelming is right. I don’t think I’d pay half that price for either of those models. PC World has a closer look.
Mass Stupidity Department: The Sci-Fi channel, one of my favorites, is changing its name to SyFy. Have the idiotic Web 2.0 naming conventions evolved into mass hysteria. Did I say that was a stupid name change? A dumb name change allegedly done for a dumb reason.
Interesting iPhone app: JotNot turns your iPhone into a document scanner.
Interesting blog department: Seth points me to this as a possible Web 2.0 Jon Stewart. Funny and interesting.
Rhetorical question of the day: If some unknown person was behind Alltop, would it get a tiny fraction of the coverage it gets? Non-rhetorical answer: of course not. Whatever it was that made Guy Kawasaki such an internet celebrity (it had something to do with Apple, beyond that I have no idea), I think getting Alltop the coverage it gets in the blogosphere is a much bigger accomplishment. Imagine what Guy could do with something really cool.
One more time: If you’re interested in free, easy to use online storage, give Dropbox a try. If you sign up via the above links, both you and I get a little extra free storage for the referral.
Newsome.Org 