Digital Impulses

Mac Rumors: iPod Hi-Fi Introduced (Plus Leather iPod Cases)

Apple has just introduced a Boom Box for the iPod. Personally, I think it’s ho-hum. It’s not very pretty either.  I can’t see people replacing their home stereos with this box.  But for another room, the office, etc?  Sure.

And the Mac Fanatics will continue to gulp down the Cupertino Kool-Aid, no doubt.  Saint Jobs can do no wrong, after all…  For full details go to the Apple web site or check out the link below: 

Mac Rumors: iPod Hi-Fi Introduced (Plus Leather iPod Cases).

Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » More details on Origami

Robert Scoble reports that more details on Microsoft’s ultra-secret “Origami” Project have leaked. 

For details:  Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » More details on Origami.

Microsoft Unveils Windows Vista Product Lineup: Offerings deliver unique value across business and consumer audiences.

Getting closer to it’s release date, Microsoft has announced 6 different versions of Windows Vista.

For the full press release see below:

Microsoft Unveils Windows Vista Product Lineup: Offerings deliver unique value across business and consumer audiences..

 

Iraq Official: Top Zarqawi Aide Captured - Yahoo! News

Iraq Official: Top Zarqawi Aide Captured - Yahoo! News.

So, onward we push, fighting the good fight, tooth and nail against an enemy that is implacable in it’s hatred of us and solely focused on our destruction.

One by one the dominoes fall.  Eventually, good shall prevail.

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

This month marks 10 years that John Perry Barlow wrote the very seminal A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.

I remember sitting in a Call Center for TeleTech as a tech support specialist for AT&T Worldnet making $10 an hour to help people connect to the Internet from ancient computers that were running Windows 3.11 and had serial mice.

At the time, running Netscape 3.0 I remember coming across Mr. Barlow’s home page on the Internet and then finding a link to his “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”.

More than anything else at that time, that document made a profound impression on me in terms of how things were changing at the time.  I remember thinking that I was (at that time) a member of a small group of people who truly understood what it meant to be “on” the Internet and a part of the “Cyberspace” community.

As the years have passed, I have followed Mr. Barlow's writings on the Internet and returned on occasion to re-read this truly inspirational document.

Read it and then re-read it.  I promise it will be well worth your time. Highly recommended.

Dave Winer on RSS 2.0

Dave Winer has an interesting piece on his blog about RSS 2.0 and why it works.

For the full story go here  Why formats like RSS 2.0 work

Office Still Dead

Steve Gilmore authors a brilliant analysis on the phenomenon that he aptly entitles “Office is Dead”. 

The basic premise is that we are slowly witnessing a sea-change or paradigm shift to web-based everything, where locally installed software is going to matter less and less as more and more of that same software is available from a web-based interface available to you from any desktop where you have what I like to call “net-tone” or access to the Internet.

For Steve’s inimitable view of the whole ball of wax, go here.

Firefox and Google

Over on Scripting News, Dave Winer Dave goes off on the fact that after experiencing problems with Firefox he has been “force-fed” the Google Toolbar.

According to Dave, Firefox recently started acting up, so he decided to go grab a fresh copy.

Upon trying to do so, the DL page he got to “forces” him to install the Google Toolbar.  It sounds like Dave is pretty infuriated at the fact that his choice has been taken away, but I’ll let him relate the full story…

DVD's everywhere...

For like the 3rd or 4th time, I have once again reconstructed my DVD collection into a nice database that allows catalogization of DVD’s and makes your DVD collection fun to keep track of.

I use a program called DVD Profiler that allows drop-dead simple entry of individual DVD’s by entering the UPC on the back of the DVD case.  This program connects to the Internet and performs a “lookup” on each DVD as you enter it and then DOWNLOADS all of the information for that DVD into your database.

Full-color scans of the front and back of the DVD case are included as is all of the information related to the film, including the release date(s), genre, studio, reviews, all people who worked on the film, etc. 

I have 170 DVD’s in my library and entering them into the database took a little over 2 hours, allowing for the time it takes the program to connect to the Internet and refresh the data for your database.

For a look at my DVD library, go here

OneNote 12 is now OneNote 2007, and it's in the box!

Over on Chris Pratley’s OneNote blog, I found the following gem:

Naming baby!
Today our branding folks finally unveiled the naming for Office 12 (which includes OneNote 12). We will be known as Microsoft® Office OneNote® 2007, although you won’t find me using that 10 gallon moniker. It'll be OneNote 2007 from here on out….

Read the full post here