#“Bye Bye Boxee (for now)” I've been a Boxee fanatic since I first installed it over two years ago. We had been running XBMC on several old XBOXes (and still do) but they couldn't handle x.264 video or HDMI so when I built a media PC, I used Boxee. I am absolutely convinced their focus on social is the right way to go. Social watching of TV in 2011 is barely scratching the surface of what's possible. »
#“26 Years of Word Processors Missing the Bleedin' Obvious” I have used the same basic document layout since I first wrote a school project on a giant ICL dedicated word processor in my Dad's office in 1985. The same layout through Wordperfect 5.1, Word for MSDOS, Word for Windows v1.0-2007, OpenOffice/LibreOffice and Google Docs. I bet you use the same layout:Title PageTable of ContentsSection 1 (with header and footer on all following pages)Section 1. »
#“Reasons Why 2011 is Starting to Feel Like 1999” Everyone thinks company X is unbeatable (Microsoft -> Facebook)A major search engine thinks everyone wants a portal (Yahoo/Excite/Lycos/Altavisa -> Google Places)A leading Web Browser releases worst version ever (Internet Explorer 5 -> Firefox 4) A leading OS releases a horrendous cheap knock-off of Mac OS ( Windows 98 SE -> Ubuntu 11.04)Bubble valuations of tech businesses (* -> *)Virtual Currencies are hot (Beenz vs Facebook Credits) Any other similarities strike you? »
#“21st Century Milkman” We've recently started using a new milkman after a many year gap and I've been thinking a lot about him. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, the co-ops/creameries basically shut down the in-house milkmen and many of them became independent businesses. I had thought it would be a slow inexorable death for them because of price-competition from the big supermarkets. We stopped using the one in Kimmage in the mid-90s because our milk demands were so variable and he only delivered on certain days. »
#“Automatically Backup Your WordPress Site to Dropbox” A new plugin is available that gives you the opportunity to put Dropbox to work for the security of your WordPress site. Heres how you can set up automatic backups of your WordPress site to Dropbox: via wpmu.org Superb idea if you aren't already doing it to Amazon S3 or similar. Particularly good if the whole area of backups seems like a black art to you. »
#“Oi Google, I want my extra free \u008011.15 ;-)” I bet the email with the 100 mention was sent from Barrow Street. To an Irish-registered AdWords account. See the full gallery on Posterous »
#“Does Skype hate its customers?” With every new release of Skype it gets slower and slower and buggier and buggier. But that's not the worst of it. I pay them for both inbound numbers and for a lot of call charges. Yet every damned morning when I get up, this stupid message greets me. And that's after un-ticking all of the "of course I want you to try and sell me more shit" »
#“My Ever Decreasing List of Desktop Apps” I re-set up a PC last week and installed all of my most-used apps. The list gets shorter and shorter each year as I move everything online. Here's a snapshot of the bulk of them (MS Office implied of course). »
#“Google Docs on Android is Here” via market.android.com I seem to spend half my life in Google Docs. Now I can spend the other half. »
#“The Happy Foot Co is feeding my #VFFs Addiction” It's ridiculous I know. I average one pair of new footwear every two years. I wear shoes until they fall apart and then I buy one more pair. That's now utterly changed. I bought my Vibram Five Fingers Bikilas exactly one month ago. Running on a treadmill with them is genuinely like having new legs. Unfortunately, like a fool, I ran on the road only two weeks in and I'm still suffering with a pain in one foot. »