The Decline and Fall of E-Mail

I have in my computer every e-mail message I have sent or received since 1992. Minus the obvious spam, this database comes to about half a million messages from people as varied (or similar, if you think about it) as Larry Ellison and Larry Flynt.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

New Zune2 review (part 2-1) upgrade, hardware, software and Social

When we first caught wind that Microsoft was in fact doing its own portable media player (and then published the first ever photo of the Zune), we hoped it might finally be the play to knock the iPod off its perch. Sure, in mid 2006 there was no shortage of devices more advanced than any given iPod, but then (and now) the iPod enjoyed unchecked dominance of the market in the US and many countries abroad. Steve Jobs knew the day would come that Microsoft would really enter the game.
What we were hoping for was that the portable media world might be in store for another Sony / Nintendo upset. Remember in the 90s how Sony and Nintendo's partnership went awry, and Sony, totally sick of Nintendo completely owning the game console space, brought out the original PlayStation? Before the console's second generation was through Sony had more market share than they knew what to do with. Sony upped Nintendo's game with the PlayStation, then upped their own with the PlayStation 2 -- and took over.
If Sony could do the impossible and topple the infallible Nintendo of old, surely Microsoft, the world's largest technology company, could make at least make a dent in Apple's armor. Yeah, the first-gen product is important, but the second gen product is crucial, because if you can't up your game -- and everyone else's -- you're just another player. This year, Microsoft really had to make the Zune count. Read on to judge for yourself whether they did.
The first generation Zune, as we all know, was little more than a slew of off the shelf hardware and software Microsoft cobbled together in a rush to make a play for the annual holiday gold rush. And the interesting part is, all things considered, it really wasn't bad at all. No one thought it was "done", but it was a lot better than some of the other PMC-based devices we'd seen to date. This year Microsoft brought a slew of new Zune products (and enhancements) to the table, including two new players (flagship 80GB and the flash model), new device software (which runs on all devices), new desktop software, and a new service (Zune Social, a music-oriented social network reminiscent of Xbox Live).



Device software
Yeah, we know Microsoft technically skipped right past device software v2.0 and jumped to 2.2, but the update is the best place to start since it affects the most users and devices. Microsoft won some well-deserved brownie points for ensuring all Zune players new and old can run the new firmware, meaning that for now your old Zune will have feature parity with the new hardware.
So here's the deal with the device software: it adds some crucial bits (many of which we expected the first time), takes away some minor but important things, and leaves the other 90% largely unchanged. First, the stuff Zune 2.0 takes away:
Song flagging
The five star rating system
The language menu The good stuff, though, is very good:
MPEG-4 and H.264 playback support
Podcasting support
Sync over WiFi (which we'll get to later)
In terms of performance, both old and new hardware and firmware were almost identical in testing. A lot of people have been claiming the new firmware is much snappier, but we didn't find that to be true at all. Two Zune 30 devices boot up within a half second between 1.0 and 2.0 series firmwares, and the flash-based Zune 8 we tested booted to home screen less than a second faster. Traversing menus took no more or less time or when syncing and the like. (Note: scrolling through long lists appears to happen slightly faster, but that's likelier an interface tweak, not a performance increase.)

Related theme:
New Zune review part 2-1
New Zune review part 2-2
New Zune review part 2-3
New Zune review part 2-4

Recommended Products:
Aiseesoft DVD to Zune Suite
It can help you convert DVD, IFO and all video formats to Zune, Zune 2 MP4, WMV and Zune supported audio MP3, WMA, and AAC etc.

Using Windows Movie Maker to edit videos on PC for free

This is a tutorial which explains the process of editing videos on a PC using Windows Movie Maker and editing videos on Mac using iMovie. This tutorial will be a concise explanation of how to editing videos for free. Then share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. Using dvd burner you can even take movies you've made and turn movies into DVDs.
You can also save your movie back to the video tape in your camera to play back on a TV or on the camera itself.

This tutorial includes three parts, this is part one:
Part 1. Using Windows Movie Maker to edit videos on PC for free
Part 2. Using iMovie to edit videos on Mac for free
Part 3. A table that compares free video editors.

Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes home movies amazingly fun. With Movie Maker 2.1, you can create, edit, and share your home movies right on your computer. Build your movie with a few simple drag-and-drops. Delete bad shots and include only the best scenes.



Step 1, Capture video
You can capture video from video device, import video, pictures, audio and music. MM2 will allow you to import the following file formats:
- Audio files: .aif, .aifc, .aiff .asf, .au, .mp2, .mp3, .mpa, .snd, .wav and .wma
- Picture files: .bmp, .dib, .emf, .gif, .jfif, .jpe, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tiff, and .wmf
- Video files: .asf, .avi, .m1v, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpe, .mpeg, .mpg, .mpv2, .wm, and .wmv
If your videos are not the formats compatible with Windows Movie Maker such as MP4/3GP, FLV and MOV, MIDI, AIFF, AAC, you can use the video converter to convert the video to the formats supported by MM2 first.

Step 2, Edit movie
-Add Video Transitions.
Open your Windows Movie Maker project file. If Movie Maker opens in Timeline view, return to Storyboard view by clicking on the Show Storyboard link. From the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, select View video transitions . Choose the desired transition, select and drag into storyboard between desired clips. After inserting transition, sample the change in the Monitor to determine if it works in the way you desire. To change a transition you can Undo the action, right click on the transition in the Storyboard and select delete, or simply drag a new transition over the old transition.
-Add Video Effects.
Choose "View video effects" under the Edit Movie section and drag the chosen effect to the star in the lower left corner of the picture. Preview your movie to see the effects. Continue to add effects to other pictures if desired. Save the file. A video effect applies to the picture itself rather than the change from one picture to another as in a transition.
-Add Titles and Credits.
Under the Edit Movie section, choose Make titles or credits. You have several options for where to place your Windows Movie Maker title and credits. They may precede or follow a picture or video clip, or be used as an overlay.
Here are tips for you to add special effects to your movies using Windows Movie Maker

Step 3, Finish movie
Now that your movie is complete, you may wish to save the project in a different format.
Saving the project and saving the movie are two different things. The movie project is the working file so that you may continue to edit until you have a final version of your work completed. The movie file is the final output of your movie.
Windows Movie Maker compresses all the parts of your movie into a single unit. The file size is much smaller so that it can be used on a web site or emailed.
You also have the option to create a CD or DVD of your movie. These options are all under the heading Finish Movie. If you want to convert the movie made by Windows Movies Maker to other video format such as YouTube video, AVI, MP4, 3GP, you can use this video converter. You can also use free third-party software to burn the movie made by Windows Movies Maker to DVD for free.

How to convert DVD, Movie, Music to iPhone ringtone and put ringtone on iPhone, iPhone 3G

Everyone wants his iPhone ringtone to be personalized,and sometimes want to make iPhone ringtone from a clip of their favorite DVD, movie or songs. Here I found a easy way to achieve this target for iPhone ringtone, hope it helpful.

The tools you need are Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite and iPhone PC Suite (free), download links are as following:
Aiseesoft iPhone Converter Suite:
http://www.aiseesoft.com/downloads/dvd-to-iphone-suite.exe

iPhone PC Suite (Totally free)
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/iPhone_PC_Suite.htm

Note: iPhone PC Suite has to run under Microsoft .NET Framework, you can download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=333325fd-ae52-4e35-b531-508d977d32a6&DisplayLang=en

The iPhone ringtone guide is composed of 3 parts:
1. How to extract audio to ringtone from DVD?
2. How convert audio and video to iPhone ringtone?
3. How to sync/ put ringtone to iPhone without iTunes

Part 1 How to make iPhone ringtone from DVD?
Install Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite and run it. For Windows Vista user, you may have to run this program as Administrator, right click the program shortcut and click “Run as Administrator”.
Run the DVD to iPhone Converter load your DVD by clicking “Load DVD” button, you also can load IFO file from your hard drive by clicking “Load IFO File” button.
Click drop down list and select iPhone supported format (AAC, MP3, WAV, etc.) you want:

You can also customize the sample rate, bit rate and other parameters of your iPhone ringtone by click “setting”



To extract a clip from DVD to iPhone ringtone, you can click button “trim”, set the start time and end time.



Then click “Start” to extract iPhone ringtone from you DVD, Done.

Part 2 How to make iPhone ringtone from videos and songs?
Start Aiseesoft iPhone Movie Converter, then click “Add” button to load video file which you want to extract iPhone ringtone from(You can also load audio file to convert music to iPhone ringtone).




Click drop down list and select iPhone supported format (AAC, MP3, WAV, etc.) you want:



The operation is similar as extracting iPhone audio from DVD with DVD to iPhone Converter, set sample rate, bit rate and other parameters of your iPhone ringtone by click “setting”

Most users’ iPhone ringtone are always short, so you may want to convert a clip from movie to set as ringtone. Click button “trim” to set the start and end point of your iPhone ringtone.

Then click “Start” to convert a clip to iPhone ringtone from your movies or songs.

Next part: How to sync/ put ringtone to iPhone/iPhone 3G without iTunes

Free Trial: Download Aiseesoft DVD to iPhone Suite

Google Gives Office a Ticket to the Cloud

Today Google announced Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, a tool for users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 to sync their docs to the Google cloud, share and edit them, all from within Office. Not sure how this is meant to stomp Microsoft users into submission-slash-conversion, but presumably the Google cloud is better than the Microsoft cloud, and the product is just entering its preview phase, so perhaps more will be revealed.

Gravity Wants to Instantly Personalize Any Content Site

Today Gravity is unveiling its plans to be an information filtering service. The idea is to combine social and semantic understanding of users to identify content they are likely to be interested in.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company is demoing this idea as a personalized newspaper app called The Orbit (to be released soon). The Orbit takes a user’s Twitter account and computes the topics a person is interested in and the network she is connected to. For any one Web page, Gravity might look at how recent it is, how popular it is, how relevant it is to a person’s interest and how many of that person’s friends have shared it.

Eventually, said Gravity CEO Amit Kapur, the company wants to offer personalization services to publisher sites. So when I go to the New York Times with Gravity enabled, for example, I would be able to get a view of the site’s content that’s weighted to what I am likely to be interested in.

I think that’s an awesome idea (though I do appreciate the roles of editorial curation and serendipity in bringing me my news). This is similar to what Facebook is trying to do with its controversial Instant Personalization product, where a user logged in to Facebook arrives at a new site that already knows who his friends are.

The problem is, what Gravity is setting out to do–both the natural-language processing and computational side, and the nitty-gritty of integrating into other peoples’ Web sites–is really freaking hard. And, no offense guys, but the Gravity team’s big experience to date was working at Myspace–not exactly a pinnacle of technical achievement.

When the company briefed me on what it was doing, it prepared a poster-size personal interest graph based on analysis of my Twitter account (that’s it at the top of the post; click to enlarge). Well shucks, guys–it seems to be just a bunch of words and topics I’ve mentioned in Tweets over the last few years, connected by lines. Doesn’t really convince me that you understand that much about me and what I want to read.

Still, Gravity has quite a bit going for it: A good idea, and $10 million from top investors at Redpoint Ventures and August Capital, plus advising by machine learning and computational linguistics professors at Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Gawker Yanks Palin’s Book Excerpt After Court Order

Hope you’ve sated your curiosity about Sarah Palin’s upcoming book: Gawker Media, which published unauthorized excerpts of the book on Thursday, has pulled them off the Web following a federal court order.

The ruling comes following a lawsuit filed Friday by Palin’s publisher HarperCollins. AP:

A federal judge on Saturday ordered Gawker Media to pull leaked pages of Sarah Palin’s forthcoming book “America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag” from its blog.

The injunction prohibits Gawker from “continuing to distribute, publish or otherwise transmit pages from the book” pending a hearing on Nov. 30.

The link to Gawker’s original post now generates a 404 error message. Palin’s book is due out on Tuesday, a full week before the scheduled hearing.

I’ve asked HarperCollins if they have any additional comment beyond the statement they sent me this morning (the publisher is owned by News Corp., as is this Web site). I have yet to receive any comment from Gawker Media.

But Gawker Media owner Nick Denton did tell me this morning, via IM, that he was eager for the day that his company would only run video ads, and referred me to this clip, running on his Jalopnik site.