A Tiger weekend

DashboardWidgets
"Behind the dashboard - you're in control"

Automator World
"Automator World is dedicated the Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) scripting application Automator."

Spotlight Plug-ins (Apple)
"Make third party applications Spotlight-searchable"

Tiger's score card

CNET 8/10
"CNET.com's Daniel Drew Turner says the new Mac OS may be attractive to people "tired of Microsoft's many promises." "

David Pogue for NYT
"...some of the most groundbreaking new Tiger features are barely mentioned in Apple's marketing"

Macworld
"Complete Tiger Coverage..."

Copyright © Apple Computer, Inc.

The Zenn of Skype

Last night I went to the launch event of Vnet at GoldmanSachs with Richard, Jockum and Jeanette. Vnet was "formed as a not-for profit partnership by the MIT Enterprise Forum, Cambridge University Entrepreneurs, London Business School Entrepreneurship Club and Oxford University Science Enterprise Centre."

Niklas Zennström of Skype was the main attraction, delivering a presentation on what they are doing, why etc. Nothing remarkable or new was said. Then again, it wasn't the type of event where eye poping news is announced.

The networking was pretty good, it's always nice to meet people "in the industry", especially from the investment and financial part of it as I usually mostly meet with biz dev and dev people.

It'll be interesting to see how Vnet develops. London desperately needs good, solid tech biz networking events. Fingers Xed that Vnet delivers.

Vnet Event 1

APN

In case you need it, here's more proof that podcasting continues to have a huge impact on audio delivery. US radio station owner Paul Montoya has sold his network of stations and launched the American Podcasting Network.

Montoya talks to David Lawrence about his decision, and how he plans to make money in the future.

Swimingly

"Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software, [on 21 April] proclaimed at an internal company meeting that if the download numbers of the new Opera 8 Web browser reach 1 million within the first four days of the launch, he will swim from Norway to the USA..."

Opera hit the target, and von Tetzchner was on his way...

When was the last time your CEO did something like this? :D

Skype dreams

Going back to the conversation's I've had with a few of you about Skype, here's another point.

I'm a big fan of Skype, no doubt about it, but it's important to remember that despite their enormous success there are areas where they need to improve in order to sustain their success and become a true disruptive technology/service.

Skype's developer program is a key area.

Ben Charny at CNET News wrote a good story on this topic.

DoubleClick sold for $1.1B

"San Francisco buyout firm Hellman & Friedman LLC has agreed to acquire Internet advertising firm DoubleClick Inc. of New York in a deal estimated at $1.1 billion, the parties involved confirmed Sunday."

S.F. buyout specialists to grab up DoubleClick

Ubuntu

Taking Ubuntu for a spin. Have you tried it? Let me know what you think.

MySQL in SV

From Uppsala, Sweden, to Santa Clara, CA. The MySQL Users Conference starts today.

Wi-Fi all in one

Whenever someone asks me about the different flavour's of Wi-Fi I point them to three or four good online sources. Thanks to CNET News all the relevant info has been included in one straight forward FAQ. Very handy.

FAQ: Wi-Fi alphabet soup | CNET News.com

My March 8, 2005 article on Wi-Fi v. WiMAX

Let's talk about tech

If you're not already an avid fan of ITConversations you will be as soon as you start listening to their (often) brilliant, engaging and (sometimes) entertaining recordings.

ITConversations pretty much does what it says on the tin, and a good place to start is with Jim Buckmaster and Craig Newmark talking about Craigslist at October's Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

Pimp My Dictionary

The word "pimp" has now most certainly taken on a new, or at least additional, meaning. As far as I can tell it all started with MTV's car makeover show Pimp My Ride.

Leave the car in the garage for a moment and consider the fun and usefull PimpMySafari.com from Jon Hicks of hicksdesign fame. All you ever needed to, well... pimp... your favorite browser.

Google Maps - now with satellite pix

I found this at SiliconBeat just as I'm heading out the door... Google maps add satellite pictures

Feed me

Wired News reports on efforts by a number of newspapers to launch branded newsreaders. There's talk about helping the average computer user get comfortable with RSS, to establish a "stickier relationship with readers" etc. And... yes... to "increase revenue through targeted advertising".

I understand that newsorganisations want and need people to spend time on their sites. But I don't think additional SW options is the answer. It reminds me of the branded push clients of the 1990's. On the up-side NewsGator is the company involved in developing at least one of these readers - the News Hound for the Denver Post. More on this later.

Spaces is outta' beta

MSN has moved Spaces out of beta. At the same time the MS unit released Messenger 7.0 which ties in to Spaces.

This is good news, but I'm still more excited to see what Yahoo! are doing with 360. Historically Big Purple have done a better job of integration than anyone else.

Ok, I'm a bit biased as I'm a former Yahoo employee etc, but even from a purely objective standpoint it's clear that there's more potential in combining Y's services and apps. Especially if Flickr is brought in to the 360 mix. Will this happen? I have no idea.

Or am I wrong, is MSN the leader? Am I missing something here? Let me know.

Related posts:
MSN launches in to Spaces - December 3, 2004
Torres talks Spaces - December 7, 2004

Apple is mobile

The good people at Apple have increased their presence in Japan with the "Apple Store Mobile". NTT DoCoMo and AU users can view iPod gear, the Mac mini and other bits.

Apple Store Mobile (Don't click unless you're in Japan, reading this on compatible mobile phones...)

Actual screens here and here.

To Gmail and beyond

Ok, so it's part of the promo efforts... but it's still a charming graph. Plus it's Friday so I wanted to get your weekend off to a good start. Have a great weekend, see you all next week.

Copyright © 2005 Google