iP3K

You all know how expansive printer ink can be, it’s actually more expensive than gas and most very expensive perfumes. Now this handy trick will help you save paper, and help you save nearly anything that is printable into a portable document file (PDF). The real great thing about PDF is that what ever the operating system, the fonts installed or the default settings, the file should look exactly the same in every place.

Just today I was trying to get my grades from my college’s website but they didn’t make a PDF version available. By installing doPDF you get a very simple way to create PDF files, this application adds itself as a printer in your system. So when you try to print a page, instead of selecting your printer you can select doPDF, it will then ask you where to save the file. And voilà! You’ve got a nice PDF file that matches what the printed out version would of looked like. While you’re at it, ditch the bloated Adobe Reader for Foxit Reader (light weight alternative to view PDF files). With Vista and Office 2007, Microsoft attempts to push their own version of PDF called XPS… total waste of everyones time. They’re coming late to the game attempting to implement a new standard.

So the word had been out that Joost wasn’t doing so well in it’s original form. Lets say the application did not catch fire and take the web by storm. So instead of having a desktop application that would use P2P to deliver streaming content, you now have a web based player. Similar to YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo and countless others all you’ll need to view the new Joost is your web browser and the Adobe Flash Player installed.

This new solution makes it more accessible then before, but also might drop one of Joost’s initial selling point. They had a secure platform (sort of DRM) that would ensure content holders that their shows would not get copied/pirated without having a way to monetize them.

Now I think this is the real problem Joost always had. The lack of content that would motivate me to go to their service. The image quality seems to be pretty good and on the same level as other services (except YouTube). But if you can get a video you want to see quickly else where nothing would motivate you to seek it elsewhere. Besides all the potential content was blocked to most regions (similar to Hulu) and those services are dead to me, because they defeat the purpose of the Internet by making their content local and limited to a geographical area. I do understand what license agreements are, but content creators who want to venture on the web should know that their audience is Global.

Back to Joost, you’re invited to create a free account (blazing fast) upon visiting www.joost.com.

Dear Opera Software, for years I’ve used your wonderful browser and you keep making it better all the time. I’ve grown dependant on your flag ship features and wonder why the rest of the world is still ignorant of your beauty.

I missed the window of opportunity to post about the new version of the Opera Web Browser. I waited so long they came out with an even better version with a few bug fixes. By now I hope you know that there are more ways to access the Internet than the little blue E on your desktop. People might of talked you in using Firefox, or even Google’s Chrome. As for myself I press you to try out Opera.

As far as features go they’ve kept improving on the existing ones. They added better IMAP and RSS support, extended features of their Opera Link service that synchronizes Bookmarks, Notes, Browsing history and Speed Dial across different Opera Browsers (laptop, office, mobile device). It might be considered a small incremental update from 9.5 but steadily improving a great product is a good thing in my book.

Today I stumbled upon an interesting article via Digg. The article talks about Why Gen Y is Going to Change the Web, a particular section resonated strongly with me.

Work Isn’t Their Whole World: Sure, they’re going to go to work, but it had better be fun. For Gen Y, work isn’t their identity. It’s just a place. Gen Y sees no reason why a company can’t be more accommodating, offering benefits like the ability to work from anywhere, flex-time, a culture that supports team communication, and a “fun” work environment. They’re also not going to blindly follow orders just because you’re the boss. Sometimes dubbed “Generation Why?” they need to “buy in” as to why something is being done. [...]

I feel strongly about this argument. However I feel that there will be a lot more challenges coming our way as our generation is growing out to be very different. Are we the next wave of the 70s peace and love? The best way to sum up the article is that Gen Y grew up with the Internet and the rise of technology. This reminds me a text a quoted two months ago : I’m young, I grew up with Internet and I’m the center of the Universe. [Read Belly Button]

Some might remember my infamous Opera 9 vs Firefox 2 vs Internet Explorer 7 post. I’ve decided to take a look back in the past and repeat the experience as new versions of both Opera and Firefox appear to be nearing release. In contrast I’ve chosen to leave the upcoming IE8 out of the battle because it does not seem to be coming as soon as it’s competitors. Safari along other browsers are probably very functional but they don’t spike my interest and don’t seem to make as much flame wars material.

For this review I’ve installed Opera 9.5 Beta 2 and Firefox 3 Beta 5 and aimed at comparing them. Lets get whatever is common out of the way. Tabbed browsing, pop-up blocker, anti-phising, RSS feed, skins, integrated search, anti-phising. All this is well and pretty much all the browsers woke up and followed the trends that became quite successful.

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I’m young, I grew up with Internet and I’m the center of the Universe. In my computer, there’s my documents, my pictures, my music, my videos. Only my own stuff. And all around me, there are my relatives, some close. Further, there are my irregular contacts, my school, sports and vacation buddies, friends from my youth, my encounters on MSN, MySpace or Skype. And all these people have relatives, people I may wish to get to know.

- Tsss

- To get there, I invite them on my own private web page, a kind of blog real easy that I cooked up with iWeb, MySpace or Live Space. I told them: Here’s my pictures, my music, my info sources. Here is my dog, my cat and my little sister. And here are my buddies; it’s with them that I get to practice my guitar and take my pictures. In exchange, my new buddys invite me on their personal web page and we bond. Virtually of course.

- What ?

- I’m young, I grew up with Internet and I’m the center of the Universe. Whenever I’m in the train!

- And you don’t hold the door for the ladies, and don’t care to give them your seat!

- Driving or on foot between two stores, to buy a gum, my soft drink, a chocolate bar, I have my iPod, my GameBoy, and my cellphone. This way, I’m never bored. I listen to my music, play my games, and talk to my friends. Sometimes, my parents are shocked: they pretend having a hard time talking to me. They say I’m cut from reality. What reality, theirs? The one of politicians, their stars, their TV, their music, of their cheesy food, where they drink too much wine, their shopping at Wal-Mart and Home Depot? What can they tell me that I don’t already know? Their values were valid in the 80s or 90s. Gotta live with our times. With my time.

- Shut up, you dummy!

- I’m young, I grew up with the Internet and I’m the center of the Universe. The parents, these moralizers, these good-thinker, these teachers, I turn up the volume of my iPod and can’t hear them.

- I said shut up, you dummy! Can’t you realize that the Universe can’t have a center? You’re not young! You’re just a pitiful product. The one from a civilization hyper individualized, where people avoid each others, “cyber-flirt”, “cellularize” their pussies and “chat” their balls. You believe you came in this world all knowledgeable. You”ve got the arrogance of believing yourself the equal of those who took a life time to realize that they knew nothing. Of those who gave everything to the others, yesterday like today.

- I’m young, I’m…

- Shhh! In silence you might start listening to something else then your own heartbeat…

I wish I was the one who came up with this little dialog but I am not. I read it two years ago in a QuébecMicro article. I had started making a translation but never got around to finish it. I think now is a good time as any to bring it up and finally publish it. It’s incomplete but since I’ve misplaced the magazine and can’t really put the rest online. At least you might be able to bring up some reflexion from this read.

A few months ago, the news broke out on Ars Technica that a Bell Sympatico employs traffic shaping to control the flow of traffic on the Internet. They claim that it is only in use during peak hours, and call it “Traffic Management”. I have always tried to stay clear of the tiresome Net Neutrality debate hoping Canada would be spared from this cancer. As with all good things they often come to an end way to early!

I’ve noticed the first effects around mid-December and it seemed to affect mostly BitTorrent traffic. Basicly, as soon as it turns 6PM, the upload and download speeds of BitTorrent is capped at 30kb/s up and 30kb/s down, making the downloading of large files unpractical. However, the purpose of such measure does not really prevent the bandwidth to being used, because it’s still available, at the same time as they apply bandwidth caps in their peak hours, I’m still able to download shows from revision3 at around 500+kb/s.

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I’ve had my PSP for a few months now, and don’t have a lot to complain about, except for the fact I don’t have a lot of free time to play on it. However, as new features were announced at CES 2008 it got me thinking of what they could of done better for PSP-2000 aka PSP Slim. So here is a small list of a few features and hardware that should be part of any new PSP iteration.

• 802.11g
  This isn’t really much, but I had to go to my router settings to enable a mix broadcast mode so my PSP could connect to my wireless network. At the time the PSP was originally launched, 802.11b was pretty wide spread and the next version was being rolled out. I can’t believe it would of been too large of an extra cost to update that part of the hardware. And no, I’m not talking about the fancy 802.11n that is supposed to be super fast and reliable, I’m talking about plain old 802.11g that is already a few years old. I presume the cost benefit wasn’t there for that feature.
• Bluetooth
  Wireless headset anyone? With the news of the added Skype functionality to the PSP. It would allow to connect to many devices that do not make use of wireless Internet technology. You could beam pictures to many cellphones and exchange music on the fly. They would of even been able to use the PSP as a gamepad for the PlayStation 3.
• Internal memory
  Some packages of the new PSP came with a Memory Stick Duo, but with the falling price of flash memory they could of integrated something like a Gigabyte of memory inside the device, this way people who want to purchase additional memory can do so. I’ve always seen Memory Stick more like a CD, meaning the device has it’s own permanen memory.