Category: internet

movies online – and so it begins

On By Rick McIn economics, internet, moviesLeave a comment

The “legal” download movie wars, I mean.

CrunchGear – Amazon’s Unbox Movie Download Service Launched

Amazon has launched a movie download page called Unbox.com with TV episode downloads for about $1.99 and movies for about $15. …

Each “purchase” gives you a DVD-quality video file and a Windows Media file for portable devices. It is currently Windows-only and movie rentals, which are cheaper, expire after 30 days.

Amazon surprised the pundits by being the first big player out of the gate. Reviews have been very negative.

I expect Apple’s about-to-be-announced service will be far better. Apple will be the market leader, as usual.

Ambrosia Snapz Pro X software

On By Rick McIn internet, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Mac only SnapProX application I use many times every day.

It works well and is a great timesaver.

Snapz Pro X allows you to effortlessly record anything on your screen, saving it as a QuickTime movie or screenshot.

You can use it to save streamed video that normally cannot be “saved to disk”.

I recommend it.

Ambrosia Software, Inc. — utilities/snapzprox

music – Jane Siberry says “pay-what-you-want”

On By Rick McIn economics, internet, music, product endorsementsLeave a comment

UPDATE: Jane sold her house and let go of most of her possessions. Sounds a lot like my philosophy of voluntary simplicity.

Oh, and she has changed her name to “Issa”.

album coverI am a big Jane Sieberry fan. Especially the When I Was a Boy album. (critically applauded, commercially negligible)

Siberry is an artist who deserves more attention.

Jane Siberry is leveraging the net and economics to make for a new way to make money selling her tunes online. Basically, she lets you pay what you want, when you want – … Net result? It looks like given a choice, on average, people pay *more* than at iTunes!”

Boing Boing: Freaknomics on Jane Siberry’s pay-what-you-want music store

See for yourself:

Jane Sieberry’s on-line music store

Google CEO joining Apple

On By Rick McIn Apple, internetLeave a comment

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is joining Apple Computer’s board of directors, the computer maker said on Tuesday, creating a close tie between two of Silicon Valley’s most iconic companies.

The addition of Schmidt to the board of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple brings the total number of board members to eight, including Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and CEO, and Al Gore, former vice president of the United States. …

Gapple?

THis week’s Marketwatch column by John addresses the real meaning of all this. He suspects it is part of an Apple-Sun merger!

Dvorak Uncensored

gapple.jpg

music-video-blog.com is a fake

On By Rick McIn blogs, internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

Hey, I’ve been “blogged” by an automated link farm blog. (There may be some term for these things. It’s not a splog, as I understand them.)

This is a blog with no original content at all. It merely cuts and pastes, then links to other blogs. The owner collects cash from the Google ads but does no editing on the blog at all.

I’m not sure how I feel about these sites. Certainly they clutter the web. But there may be some value in them.

farecast.com

On By Rick McIn internet, travelLeave a comment

Big buzz in the travel industry for the new Seattle startup Farecast, whch

allows you to watch the price history, predictions and buy/wait recommendations of flights. … today the company’s airfare prediction technology went nation-wide with flights departing from 55 US cities … The site also offers RSS feeds for automatically tracking fares and predictions over time. Pretty sweet.

Farecast Launches – Gadling

I patiently await the day the internet finally delivers me the best fare, best routing, best deal on airline tickets conveniently. It is getting close.

air-prices.jpg

Dvorak: Google’s Free Wi-Fi May Start Revolution

On By Rick McIn internet, travelLeave a comment

Google’s Free Municipal Wi-Fi May Start Revolution – Home Computing

John Dvorak is always controversial.

This time I hope he is right.

Google provided “free” (ad supported) high speed Wi-Fi to their home community of Mountain View, California. Next is San Francisco. If localized advertising can pay for that “free” service, why should anyone pay for cable or telephone internet access?

Wi-Fi-FreeSpot.gifI am particularly irked with Boingo Wireless airport service right now. The “best value in in Wi-Fi” is $9.95 / day.

Monthly service costs about $45. How is $10 / day (likely 2hrs) “good value”?

Airports need complimentary wireless internet service. There are a few that do so:

Free Wi-Fi in Airports – website

are newspapers dying?

On By Rick McIn bad news, internetLeave a comment

Newspaper-Girl-Small.jpgA reporter said to me recently that his paper would not exist in 10 years.

I hope that’s not the case. There is a nostalgia effect I get when opening the big, awkward dead tree media. It’s like comfort food for me.

On the other hand, newspapers deserve to die.

The local paper in St. Paul, MN did not cover the USA Gymnastics Championships Sr. Women’s division because it finished at 9PM. When I checked the following day, it was still not covered because now it was old news.

This is very, very bad news coverage.

You will need something special to convince me to buy a paper now.

WorldWiki – Wikipedia for travellers

On By Rick McIn internet, travelLeave a comment

wikia.jpgThis is just getting started. But I think it will work.

Travellers want very specific information, desperately. The wiki format is perfect.

WorldWiki is a free travel directory that you can edit. You can add information, create new pages, and share with others what you know about the countries you have visited.

WorldWiki – WorldWiki

switching from hotmail?

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaintsLeave a comment

gmail_lg.jpgI’ve long wanted to switch away from hotmail, a product of the evil Microsoft empire.

But to switch to Yahoo mail or Gmail smoothly seems impossible without third party software since hotmail (free version) no longer allows you to forward email.

Any advice for me? Ideally I would like an email solution with both desktop and web interfaces.

One last hope is that Microsoft wants me to evolve to their next hotmail – Windows Live Mail, in beta testing since Nov. 2005. It looks to be slow and buggy.