The macbook and macbook pro – thoughts on the touchpad.

Byrichard

Today I went to try the new macbook pro and macbooks and I found that I prefered the macbook to the other device. I like that the keyboard is there and there’s nothing to the side. it’s a better feeling machine for when you move around.

The biggest difference between these two machines and older models is the touchpad interface. Rather than have a seperate button and tactile area both are integrated. press down on the touchpad and you’ve got the same reaction as when you pressed the button. Use two fingers and you scroll. Use three fingers in apps like iphoto and you move from one picture to another. Use four fingers and there are three reactions. The first is when going up then down. It minimises the window, to the sides and it changes apps. Down and you go to see several windows. It’s not as intuitive as it sounds.

Whilst the trackpad is a nice idea I think it’s going to take people some getting used to. At first it was really great but within a few minutes I would accidentaly drag things across, select something I didn’t want to or other. In brief whilst it’s meant to be intuitive it wasn’t.

Phreadz

Byrichard

Phreadz is a multimedia sharing site from the comfort of where you’re sitting right now. It allows for the sharing of multimedia files straight from your mobile phone to a website where each media content is added to a thread, hence the name phreadz.

There is a simple idea behind this site. Conversations are now more and more multimedia rich. Some people converse via video as on seesmic and others converse on the topic of photographs, for example Flickrs. More people speak to each other using Utterli. Combine all of these together and you’ve got phreadz.

Each post has a code and this code is the key behind what makes phreadz so intersting. If I watch a video and comment on it then I answer to that video. If someone then posts a photo associated to that video behind my own post then that’s part of the thread of conversation I’ve continued. If someone answers to the source video and another after that answers then a second stream of conversation occurs. In other words we’ve got two sub topics.

Expand this by several hundred posts and you’ve got a nice way of keeping track on the directions taken by these conversations.

John Cleese on Seesmic next week

Byrichard

John Cleese on Seesmic Tuesday 7th at 12am Pacific Time
So it’s 21h00 in France, 8pm in the UK, 3pm East Coast. John Cleese will reply your questions.
See his biography here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000092/

Next week on Seesmic we can look forward to seeing John Cleese and asking him questions. If you don’t have an account yet familiarize yourself with the site. Looking forward to this moment 🙂

Plurk and mobility, why I like it.

Byrichard

Plurk is one of the most interesting mobile “microblogging” tool available at the moment because of it’s simple interface. Without the need for additional applications, expensive data packages and more you can follow the conversation of your contacts and friends in a way that neither jaiku nor twitter allow.

If you’re on your home network then jaiku is interesting because you download the messages. If you’re travelling then twitter is semi useful to read messages whilst mobile. The biggest limitation with twitter is the api limit. Frequently I have found that I can’t access the messages due to a 404 error. That’s problematic.

That’s why I like plurk. It provides a simple front page where you can see all plurks. Select a plurk and you can read the responses and respond yourself. That’s great because it means you can converse without putting your life on hold to keep the conversation going.

What’s particularly interesting is that there was a time when twitter was as advantageous as plurk for mobility but due to costs they were unable to provide the service anymore due to cost. Cost is an excuse for a lack of lateral thinking.

By creating a good wap interface that can as easily be used as easily on an n95 as an ipod touch plurk have circumvented most of the cost problems and provided a service that just works. Of course their user base is much smaller and it’s easier to deal with the requests. We’ll see how things progress from here.

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Of live video streams and Paleo

Byrichard

I really enjoyed what Nicholas of K had to say in the interview we did last night for Musicorama.tv. He spoke about projects and how we can achieve anything we want as long as our mind is in the right place. I’ll let you know when that interview is online.

This year Paleo has been a different experience from previous years because I went as a “radio/TV” person as opposed to a collaborator (work for free, get free food and free non alcoholic drinks as well as invites for friends), in the latter case you sleep so little it’s not unusual to take a week to recover.

I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed seeing all the live acts and I streamed quite a few events, from Iam, The Justice, The goose, Massive Attack and more.

We also had interviews with BB Brunes, K, The DO, The Dodoz, Marvin, Girls in Hawai and Caribou if I remember all of them.

Here are some of the Live streams

Listen as the people realise what song it is. listen to the crowd roar 🙂

Tikan Jah Fakoly was good too. Nice relaxed evening. He was playing before Manu Chao

Manu Chao played for over two hours but I had work the next day so I left early.

The 3g golden Goose and it’s noose.

Byrichard

You see, 3G is the golden goose for wireless carriers. It’s technology that turns their networks from boring voice systems to multi-functional data systems. They’re going from being a diner offering three specials/day to a restaurant with a huge buffet. This buffet is enticing and offers something for pretty much everyone but you’ll have to pay for it.

source
And that’s the part I like. The phone has never been my medium of choice. Too disruptive, too many factors to take into consideration.

Looking forward to when the golden goose has de-valued data to such a point it’s as cheap as broadband has become.