So I woke up today to some rather annoying news: No more SMS updates for Twitter users outside the U.K.

Buggerit. Half the fun of using Twitter was getting tweets on my cellphone at no cost. The other half was being able to update via SMS at regular local rates, courtesy of Phtwitters.com. Now I have to go back to using WAP, which isn’t very reliable (thanks a lot, Globe), to read updates.

I’ll probably stay with Twitter, but with this recent development, Twitter doesn’t have much over other microblogging sites like Plurk anymore. Considering how much prettier the Plurk website is compared to Twitter, people who are looking for a microblogging site are now more likely to choose Plurk. Read more

Oh, yeah, non-stop boy band goodness, courtesy of Infinitube.net. And that works for whatever interest you may have. Just type in the keyword/s in the search box and Infinitube just automatically plays the resulting videos one by one continuously. You can skip over any videos you want, too. Or type in infinitube.net/random and get a totally random playlist. Did you know there’s a whole bunch of videos on iPod wars?
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Don’t get me wrong. I love my iPod. I could never get through half an hour on the treadmill without it. And when you’re in a cab and something heinous like the latest remake of an Air Supply song is playing on the radio, you can just whip out your mp3 player and block out the offending song with some Led Zeppelin. What I mean is, you don’t need an iPod to listen to or watch podcasts.

The podcast is a rather unfortunately named. After all, like I said, one does not need an iPod to listen to it, nor is it technically a broadcast. I think this is the reason why not many non-iPod-owning people take advantage of the wealth of information and entertainment available out there in the internets in the form of podcasts.

Really, all you need is a computer with internet connection. You’ll need an aggregator (a client software or Web application which collects podcasts in a single location for easy listening) , but a lot of them, like iTunes and Juice, are available for free. Once you have downloaded your podcasts, you can listen to them on your computer, or burn them into a disc as an audio CD and listen to them on your home or car stereo.

So what kinds of content are available out there? Nearly everything, as a matter of fact. To keep things simple, let’s concentrate on the free stuff. Read more

via JaypeeOnline

The first WordCamp in Asia is going to be held right here in Metro Manila on the 6th of September this year. Read more

Lately, I’ve been getting requests to make open-source versions of commercially bought software. The usual complaints about those software include:

1. They require the company to regularly renew licenses not only for that application, but for the O.S. and database engines. That costs a bundle. I, on the other hand, just need to be paid once.
2. They’re hard to customize.
3. They don’t work.

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I was trying to install the del.icio.us Firefox extension, but it turned out my version of Firefox was too old so I checked the Mozilla website for updates. Turns out Firefox 1.5 was released on the 29th.

According to the Firefox website, Fx1.5 “has an intuitive interface and blocks viruses, spyware, and popup ads. It delivers web pages faster than ever.” I checked the rest of the page and it seems there aren’t really any new features — all the existing ones are just supposed to work better than before.
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Every year, hundreds of web designers take their own lives rather than continue the hopeless struggle of making their websites IE compatible. Is that what you really want?? Dead web designers????? Cause that’s what you’re going to get!!!!!! See if I care!!!!!!!!!!
– Kill Bill’s Browser

I’m a Firefox user, have been for years. The thing I like most about it is the tab feature, which lets me have multiple sites loaded on a single browser window, thereby allowing me to indulge my ADD without cluttering up my taskbar. When I have to test my sites on different browsers, I do that with Netscape Browser, which has a feature which lets you choose between displaying the site like IE or Firefox.

As you all probably know, there’s currently a massive campaign to make people switch from Microsoft Internet Explorer to Firefox. It’s about time, I think. Even Google has gotten on board and wants to pay $1 for each new Firefox user you convert. One site I found amusing was the Kill Bill’s Browser site, which has a list of good reasons you should switch to Firefox.
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OK, so you have a blog and it’s been kickin’. You have a few (or several) loyal readers who enjoy your writing. One day, you decide you wanna entertain them with your DJ-quality voice. Or your band’s original songs. Or your kid butchering Mother Goose rhymes (please, no). Whatever. How would you do it? Why, podcasting, of course.

Podcasting is a means of automatically distributing audio and video programs (podcasts) online. I like to think of it as a blog, basically, but the main content is not text but audio or video. Don’t be fooled by its name — podcasting does not require an iPod (of course, if you wanna plunk down a huge chunk of your next paycheck on one, I won’t stop you). If you can blog, you can podcast. Some blog software is podcast-ready. WordPress 1.5, for instance. You can either create a blog that’s podcast-only, or add podcasts to your current WordPress blog.

(Before we go any further, I’d just like remind you that since “podcast” is rooted in the word “broadcast”, “podcast” is both a verb and a noun, and the past tense of “podcast” is “podcast”. If you say “podcasted” in my presence, I will have to hurt you.)
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