tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131857242024-03-07T18:48:19.870+02:00Hello WorldYanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-2084147037627360692008-05-06T12:48:00.002+03:002008-05-06T12:51:34.186+03:00I've Moved!<p><a title="soon it will be washed away" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/49662786/"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px" height="118" alt="soon it will be washed away" src="http://static.flickr.com/33/49662786_66b38500ee_t.jpg" width="155" align="right" border="0" /></a>I've been wanting to for a while, but I never got around to it. </p> <p>But it finally happened. I'm no longer blogging here. </p> <p>Find me at my new blog address: </p> <p style="font-size: large; clear: both"><a href="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog"><strong>http://yaniv.golan.name/blog</strong></a></p> <p>You can grab my new RSS feed here:</p> <a title="Subscribe to my feed" href="http://feeds.golan.name/YanivGolanHelloWorld" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate"><img style="border-top-width: 0pt; display: inline; border-left-width: 0pt; border-bottom-width: 0pt; border-right-width: 0pt" alt="Subscribe to my feed" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" align="left" /> New Hello World RSS Feed</a>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-87845972559246667072007-10-09T17:14:00.001+02:002007-10-09T17:14:43.990+02:00Strange, strange world.<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6682280012&ref=pr" atomicselection="true"><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; border-right-width: 0px" height="189" alt=""Make A Baby" facebook app" src="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/windowslivewriterstrangestrangeworld-f23fimage03.png" width="240" align="right" border="0"></a> It was only a short time ago that <a href="http://yanivg.blogspot.com/2007/07/exogeny-1.html">I asked</a>: </p> <blockquote> <p>But do you have a digital child anywhere? </p></blockquote> <p>In follow up conversations with friends, we've dared to speculate as far as a Facebook app that will let you have digital children with your friends. </p> <p>Well, guess what. In this wild wild web, no matter how bizarre the idea is, someone has either done it or is doing it right now. </p> <p>Check out the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6682280012&ref=pr">Make A Baby</a> app on Facebook. </p> <p>It's a strange world, and it's getting stranger by the minute. </p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:1ee2ef73-1945-459b-a25f-e0aa0468886b" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/facebook" rel="tag">facebook</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/digital%20Children" rel="tag">digital Children</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Make%20A%20Baby" rel="tag">Make A Baby</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Exogeny" rel="tag">Exogeny</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-85891619866102425692007-09-04T19:28:00.001+03:002007-09-04T19:28:22.294+03:00UnconfWiki<p><a href="http://www.geekcon.org/"><a title="Offline Wiki - Friday - After" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/24901154@N00/428064925/"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px" height="138" alt="Offline Wiki - Friday - After" src="http://static.flickr.com/177/428064925_430ca6e86f.jpg" width="207" align="right" border="0"></a>GeekCon</a>, the yearly gathering of the local geeks community, is coming up this weekend. </p> <p>I'd like to use it to test an idea I had since the <a href="http://2007.kinnernet.com/">last KinnerNet</a>. </p> <p>KinnerNet is an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference">uncoference</a> created by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yossi_Vardi">Yossi Vardi</a>. As such, the conference schedule is created, in the spirit of most other uncoferences, using a big white board on which people post their sessions. </p> <p>This works great. I love watching the dynamics of this - the initial <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/yghelloworld/423050481/">empty white board</a>, the first person stepping forward and nailing down a slot with an idea, the rapid evolution of schedule, the informal conflict resolution... </p> <p>But being a software-kind-of-guy, I can't help but wonder - <strong>can this process supported by a software tool? </strong></p> <p><strong>Should </strong>this process be supported by a tool? </p> <p>Will this process benefit - or suffer - from being supported by a tool? </p> <p>My current thoughts are that <strong>if</strong> such a tool is to be of benefit instead of a hindrance, it should be modeled along the spirit of uncoferences. It should be flexible enough to accommodate rapid changes and evolution of the schedule, put a lot of emphasis on the individual and individual responsibility, and put accountability ahead of security and permissions. </p> <p>The physical aspect may also be important. There is a certain undeniable charm in being able to approach the board, wipe out a session and move it to another slot. Can a tool reproduce this kind of intimacy with the schedule? Or will it take the fun away?</p> <p>What are your thoughts on this? </p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:36c88e5a-cd43-4d78-85a2-21a86f92e5ff" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/unconference" rel="tag">unconference</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/wiki" rel="tag">wiki</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/kinnernet" rel="tag">kinnernet</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/geekcon" rel="tag">geekcon</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/geekcon2007" rel="tag">geekcon2007</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/open%20space" rel="tag">open space</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/barcamp" rel="tag">barcamp</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-5489747201908545002007-07-23T18:39:00.001+03:002007-07-23T18:39:21.345+03:00Exogeny #1<p><a href="http://mikemarcus.blogspot.com/2007/07/exogeny-1.html" atomicselection="true"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px" height="124" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1429/818178588_646559d534_o.gif" width="93" align="right"></a> </p> <p>You have friends on Facebook, followers on Twitters and Contacts on Flickr. You go online to see what your friends are up to. You form new relationships and friendship online. But do you have a digital child anywhere? </p> <p>Are you sure? </p> <p>Mike Marcus, a 34 y/o photographer and digital artist is creating digital children:</p> <blockquote> <p>This is the world we now live in. A world where both the virtual and physical are becoming equally real. Where relationships between people do not depend on physical presence or even the ability to speak the same language. Where ideas and concepts exist outside of the brain of the individual in the collective mind of society where we call them memes. It is a world where a digital child is a serious prospect. If people can have cyber sex then why not cyber offspring? <a href="http://mikemarcus.blogspot.com/2007/07/digital-procreation-and-new-origin-of.html">(source)</a></p></blockquote> <p>From the exhibition literature: </p> <blockquote> <p>"The name “Exogeny” refers to the cultural practice of intentionally breeding outside of one’s cultural or ethnic community. The series is heavily influenced by the artist’s own experiences growing up in a segregated and xenophobic religious community and, more recently, as a witness to racial tensions between Israeli citizens and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The collection aims to “exogenise” or metaphorically reach out to the wider community by digitally merging the artist’s own self-portrait with those of others. The resulting images form “digital child” portraits; beings who appear real in all ways but who never actually existed. Taken together, the work forms a distinct body, all tableaux resembling the artist in some way while retaining the features of the models. Some of the images appear to be obviously male while others are androgynous. The original models represent a mix of races, ages and personality types but the final works homogenise into a uniform collective that defies categorisation. (<a href="http://mikemarcus.blogspot.com/2007/07/exogeny-1.html">source</a>)</p></blockquote> <p>Oh well. In its own weird way, this makes sense. For Mike, it's a statement and an experiment. Me, I know it's going to happen sooner than we think. </p> <p>Check out Mike's <a href="http://mikemarcus.blogspot.com/2007/07/exogeny-1.html">Exogeny #1 exhibition, opening Aug 2nd</a>.</p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:9f0cdee0-2e77-4e03-9ff3-ae3761f6eb1c" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Mike%20Marcus" rel="tag">Mike Marcus</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Photographer" rel="tag">Photographer</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Digital%20Art" rel="tag">Digital Art</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Digital%20Children" rel="tag">Digital Children</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-80642522912908871832007-07-10T13:27:00.001+03:002007-07-10T13:27:33.893+03:00Facebook - no RSS???<p>Yes, there is no RSS on Facebook. <a title="The Nomad Camera Project: Yedda HQ secret enterance" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/759011213/"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px" height="134" alt="The Nomad Camera Project: Yedda HQ secret enterance" src="http://static.flickr.com/1385/759011213_5619f714ee.jpg" width="100" align="right" border="0"></a></p> <p>Also, it's very much a walled garden. Its URLs are ugly, and its color scheme is boring. Borringgg. </p> <p>And yet, it's the best <strong>social network</strong> I've used so far. In fact, I think their own description on the Facebook home page - <strong>a social utility</strong> - may be the best description for it. </p> <p><a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=147">Lifestreams</a> are great, but the Facebook News Feed is carefully balanced, well thought of and a useful combined stream of most of the things I care about. And if there is something I care about which isn't supported yet by the News Feed (e.g. is outside the Facebook walled garden), you can count on <a href="http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/FaceBook-platform-attracts-1-000-developers-a-day/0,130061733,339278661,00.htm">someone</a> creating a Facebook app that will add support for it. </p> <p>With interaction models ranging from casual and lightweight (<a href="http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/007183.html">"poke is the new ping!"</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/erans/statuses/133644622">originally by Eran</a>) all the way to personal messages, the social interaction rules defined and implemented by Facebook strike a good balance between sharing and privacy. </p> <p>Of course, as wonderful as it is, Facebook wasn't really complete until now - but now that we introduced <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/_yedda_/">Yedda Questions & Answers for Facebook</a>, I think we can safely call it perfect :)</p> <p>P.S. Still, I'd love to have an RSS feed on my Facebook News Feed. Duh. </p> <p>P.P.S. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/add.php?api_key=e900703c5c50f28282c817ad36e0cadf" atomicselection="true"><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="26" src="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/windowslivewriterfacebooknorss-ae7cimage05.png" width="168" align="left" border="0"></a> </p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:cb38867c-b474-4d79-8488-cbd61da7800a" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/facebook" rel="tag">facebook</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/social%20utility" rel="tag">social utility</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/yedda" rel="tag">yedda</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/q&a" rel="tag">q&a</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/questions" rel="tag">questions</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/answers" rel="tag">answers</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/knowledge" rel="tag">knowledge</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/rss" rel="tag">rss</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/poke" rel="tag">poke</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/ping" rel="tag">ping</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-2219521081342051612007-06-13T20:18:00.001+03:002007-06-13T20:18:35.435+03:00Yahoo OMG it's HTML!<p><a href="http://omg.yahoo.com/" atomicselection="true"><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; border-right-width: 0px" height="114" src="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/windowslivewriteryahooomgitshtml-11d2eimage03.png" width="240" align="right" border="0"></a>Yahoo recently <a href="http://mashable.com/2007/06/11/yahoo-omg/">launched</a> <a href="http://omg.yahoo.com/">Yahoo OMG!</a>, a colorful sleek celebs gossip site. </p> <p>Super-large image + title thumbnails on the home page smoothly become a preview of the item when you click on them. Seems very effective - and certainly visually pleasing! (these super-large thumbnails also happen to be of the same size and design as the super-large ad banners that are interweaved between them). </p> <p>But, not being too much into celebs gossip, what really caught my eye is that it's all (almost) good old HTML. (Almost) no flash. Nice! </p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:3116c06c-8355-48a5-86ef-96ef448d88e9" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/yahoo" rel="tag">yahoo</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/omg" rel="tag">omg</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/flash" rel="tag">flash</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/html" rel="tag">html</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/user%20interface" rel="tag">user interface</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-42667444715584251312007-06-11T11:56:00.001+03:002007-06-11T11:56:48.776+03:00Twitter my Yedda<p><a href="http://twitter.com">Twitter</a> is really growing on me. <a href="http://twitter.com" atomicselection="true"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px" src="http://yedda.com/images/Partners/Twitter/twitter.gif" align="right"></a></p> <p>So I am twice as happy to tell you about <strong><em>Twitter My Yedda</em></strong>. </p> <p>You see, <a href="http://yedda.com/">Yedda</a> just learned to twitter. If you tell it to, it will automagically share with your twitter friends your questions (so that they can answer them), and your answers (so that they can see just how smart and helpful you are). </p> <p>You can also tell Yedda to twitter your watched questions, the answers you like, and pretty much anything else you'd like it to. </p> <p>It also does <a href="http://twitter.com/blog/2007/05/are-you-twittering-me.html">Twitter replies</a>, so you can easily tell when the person who just answered your biggest question is also on Twitter. </p> <p>If you're already on Yedda, set it up (it's really easy): </p> <p><strong>»</strong> <a href="http://yedda.com/settings/toolbox/twitter/"><strong>Yedda > My Settings > Toolbox > Twitter</strong></a></p> <p>And if you're not on Yedda yet, hmpff!</p> <p>Kudos to <a href="http://eran.sandler.co.il/2007/06/07/yedda-twitter-oh-the-joy/">Eran</a> for a wonderfully done mashup (and also for releasing the <a href="http://devblog.yedda.com/index.php/2007/05/16/twitter-c-library/">Twitter C# API</a>!), and to the <a href="http://twitter.com/help/aboutus">Twitter folks</a> for being so helpful with this!</p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:d6dd28c3-25c5-4b5c-b935-59cdc9e8304c" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; float: none; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/yedda" rel="tag">yedda</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/twitter" rel="tag">twitter</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/mashup" rel="tag">mashup</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/integration" rel="tag">integration</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/questions" rel="tag">questions</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/answers" rel="tag">answers</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-12223898773474622452007-06-07T16:59:00.001+03:002007-06-07T16:59:30.560+03:00The Photosynth experience<p>This one took my breath away. When can I have this? </p> <p><a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129" atomicselection="true"><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="178" alt="Photosynth demo" src="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/windowslivewriterthephotosynthexperience-ede9image02.png" width="240" border="0"></a> </p> <p>From <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php">TED2007</a>, through <a href="http://twitter.com/IdanCohen">Idan</a></p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:962aff2c-b4ac-4b64-ad7d-7d320bbd1697" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Photosynth" rel="tag">Photosynth</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/TED" rel="tag">TED</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/TED2007" rel="tag">TED2007</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Visualization" rel="tag">Visualization</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Image%20Processing" rel="tag">Image Processing</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Photography" rel="tag">Photography</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-63270349741305254262007-05-21T12:25:00.001+03:002007-05-21T12:25:22.167+03:00Hebrew is a hard language<p><a title="Your Ad Here" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/458748762/"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px" height="143" alt="Your Ad Here" src="http://static.flickr.com/203/458748762_4732573e60.jpg" width="216" align="right" border="0"></a>The Google folks are trying to eat their own dog food. But as it turns out, eating from right to left isn't as easy as eating left to right. </p> <p>You see, the fact that Hebrew is written from right to left has been consuming significant computing resources since,well, the dawn of time I guess. </p> <p>The issue has been mostly solved back in the 90's when Microsoft forced the "logical display order" standard (a.k.a implicit directionality, RFC 1556 and other names) on the industry. </p> <p>And yet, check out this Google AdSense ad, appearantly from Google: </p> <p><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="131" alt="Google Gmail ad" src="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/windowslivewriterhebrewisahardlanguage-ab83image0.png" width="240" border="0"> </p> <p>This ad translates into the following English nonsense:</p> <p><strong>Google - free from Gmail</strong></p> <p>Comfortable GB, less junk mail, 2.8 and more. POP storage, access.</p> <p>Register today!</p> <p>Oh well. I am confident that Hebrew (and Arabic) will display perfectly soon after the introduction of peace to the middle east. Don't hold your breath on either one of them though :) .</p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:64dd00a4-90a7-455e-8109-44935af0623b" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Google" rel="tag">Google</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Gmail" rel="tag">Gmail</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Ad" rel="tag">Ad</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Hebrew" rel="tag">Hebrew</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Right%20to%20left" rel="tag">Right to left</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/RTL" rel="tag">RTL</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-34638774757924101652007-05-05T01:14:00.001+03:002007-05-05T01:14:56.707+03:00JPG Mag Submission: theme "America" <script language="Javascript" src="http://box.jpgmag.com/badge.php?person=yanivg&theme=17"></script>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-41241172174003384482007-05-04T17:43:00.001+03:002007-05-04T17:43:02.822+03:00MS Yahoo Live<p><a title="fatman" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/352929133/"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px" height="169" alt="fatman" src="http://static.flickr.com/158/352929133_0d20dd398f.jpg" width="112" align="right" border="0"></a>Through Mashable: <a href="http://mashable.com/2007/05/04/microsoft-yahoo/">Microsoft May Acquire Yahoo for $50 Billion</a>. </p> <p>This rumor has been around <a href="http://www.hunterstrat.com/news/2006/01/03/microsoft-to-acquire-yahoo-or-someone-else/">before</a>. It seems to be a tad more real this time - see <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/05042007/business/bills_hard_drive_business_peter_lauria_and_zachery_kouwe.htm">NYPost article</a> and <a href="http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060503-090028">SearchEngineWatch post</a> for more sources, references and names. </p> <p>This will be interesting, to say the least. </p> <p>Will combining the efforts of the somewhat lame <a href="http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true&mkt=en-US">Live search engine</a> with the search engine from Yahoo, the company that <a href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/256748_yahoo24.html">announced that it has given up being #1 in search</a> create a real competitor for Google's most successful product? </p> <p>Microsoft has toiled for years to shed off its "home desktop only" positioning and to become an Enterprise player. It wasn't easy, but it worked. Too well maybe. Because now, when Microsoft is trying so hard to join the cool kids playing on the Internet playground, the best it could do so far is the <a href="http://www.live.com">Live</a> suite of services, with its oh-so-integrated but also oh-so-boring services. I hate to pick on stupid details, but did they really think that corporate blue is the best color scheme for Live.com? </p> <p>Will the Yahoo infusion change this? </p> <p>Oh boy. I just realized I might end up using Microsoft MSN Live Flickr. Scary thought. Well, in that case I'd like to direct the MS executives reading this post to <a title="10 reasons Microsoft will *not* acquire Yahoo in 2007, one reason they might" href="http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061218/4055/">here</a> : )</p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:d3e6a5b4-8ec0-4502-a2f8-e6015fc85ac1" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Microsoft" rel="tag">Microsoft</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/MSFT" rel="tag">MSFT</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Yahoo" rel="tag">Yahoo</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/YHOO" rel="tag">YHOO</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/acquisition" rel="tag">acquisition</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/rumor" rel="tag">rumor</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-70824428601907134992007-05-03T17:59:00.001+03:002007-05-03T17:59:18.119+03:00Conspiracy Theory<p><a title="Power to the colors" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/371646257/"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px" height="130" alt="Power to the colors" src="http://static.flickr.com/138/371646257_a9e8456549.jpg" width="87" align="right" border="0"></a></p> <p>Everyone is talking about the Digg User Generated Revolution (that's UGR for you) story. Good summary over @ <a href="http://blonde2dot0.blogspot.com/2007/05/digg-revolt-important-day-for-web-20.html">Blonde 2.0</a>. </p> <p>Me, I've got myself a nice little theory. I say that the whole thing is a conspiracy, architected by <a href="http://www.digg.com/about/kevin">Kevin Rose</a> and <a href="http://technorati.com/about/staff.html?s=david_sifry">David Sifry</a> so that <a href="http://technorati.com/">Technorati</a> has more stuff to index and <a href="http://digg.com">Digg</a> has more stories to be dugg. </p> <p>What will be next? Will they be starting a war in the middle east just so that we have something to blog about? </p> <p>Actually, that wouldn't be very hard to do : )</p> <p>Oh, I almost forgot the most important bit: </p> <p><img src="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/windowslivewriterconspiracytheory-fc46image0.png"> </p> <p>This is a <a href="http://metaatem.net/words/09%20F9%2011%2002%209D%2074%20E3%205B%20D8%2041%2056%20C5%2063%2056%2088%20C0">very special secret encoding</a> designed to keep the <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/30/aacs_drm_body_censor.html">AACS</a> from discovering this post. Viva la revolución!</p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:84a73deb-deba-4d4e-b822-cd24af98ea95" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/digg" rel="tag">digg</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/technorati" rel="tag">technorati</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/conspiracy" rel="tag">conspiracy</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/kevin%20rose" rel="tag">kevin rose</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/david%20sifry" rel="tag">david sifry</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/UGR" rel="tag">UGR</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/revolution" rel="tag">revolution</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/HD%20DVD" rel="tag">HD DVD</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-61272948836580789062007-04-30T11:48:00.001+03:002007-05-01T13:23:37.123+03:00Ambivalence<p><a title="tons of fun" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/190549213/"><img alt="tons of fun" src="http://static.flickr.com/64/190549213_4015ec0888.jpg" align="right" border="0" height="84" width="127" /></a></p> <p>It <a href="http://yedda.com/questions/2734414365137/">took me a while</a>, but I finally got myself a new <a href="http://www.htc.com/product/03-products-1.htm">HTC TyTN</a> smartphone. </p> <p>It is an amazing piece of engineering - the sheer amount of functionality is amazing, and the cool sliding keyboard is a huge plus. </p> <p>I love this tiny machine. It does just about everything, all wrapped into a not-too-large phone form factor. </p> <p>Except it sucks. </p> <p>I've been a loyal <a href="http://www.nokia.com/">NOKIA</a> user for many many years. Probably over 10 years by now. And since day 1, I've always appreciated the effort the NOKIA folks put into making their phones <a href="http://forum.nokia.com/main/technical_services/usability/index.html">usable</a>. The big things and the small things. </p> <p>Like maintaining "shortcuts" across versions in a consistent manner. </p> <p>Like the fact that the <span style="color:#008040;"><strong>green</strong></span> and the buttons always do what I expect them to do - in every scenario, the green means the same - "Comeon, do that default thing that I probably want to do here and skip all the prompts", while the <span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>red</strong></span> one consistently bails me out of whatever prompt I am at. </p> <p>And the keypad, while only a keypad and not a full size keyboard, works right. It automatically switches between numeric and alphanumeric modes exactly when I expect it to. </p> <p>Using a NOKIA phone as an alarm clock "just works". I can set the alarm with my eyes closed, with a few keystrokes. And it will go off, even if the phone is in "silent" mode - in fact, even if the phone is turned off. It's been like that since my first NOKIA phone, and it stayed that way through the various operating system upgrades and form factor changes. Because it makes sense. </p> <p>Now contrast that with the HTC TyTN. </p> <p>The TyTN also has a key that lets you exit the current screen without making any changes. On the PC, this key is called "Escape". In Windows, you also have the "Cancel" button in most dialogs. On NOKIA, it conveniently maps to the Red key. </p> <p>On the TyTN, the button that cancels the current screen is called "Ok". Which the exact name of the standard Windows button that performs the exact opposite function. </p> <p>Plus, in many screens on the TyTN you get a visual "OK" button at the top right of the screen. Whose function is identical to the Windows OK button, but the reverse of the hardware OK button. </p> <p>So when you'd like to tell someone using the TyTN to close a screen without making any changes, you should tell them "Use the OK button. NOT the one on the screen! The other OK!". </p> <p>Right. </p> <p>The TyTN also has an actual "confirm and do the default" button, which works sometimes, and has no name. It's that key in the middle of the navigation pad, or a click on the scrollwheel. </p> <p>Ughhh!</p> <p>The scrollwheel is of course conveniently placed opposite from where it is on the Blackberry. And its placement is designed thoughtfully, so that its nearly impossible to push it down it without accidentally also pushing the machine "Power" button. </p> <p>Which, quite naturally, doesn't really turn it off. It just turns off the screen. </p> <p>I could go on and on about how hard it is to actually place a call using the impossible-to-navigate contacts list, the mostly-useless yet dominating hardware video call button, the impossible-to-find camera shutter button, and much more. But you get my drift :)</p> <p>Of course, many of the issues stem from the underlying <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/">Windows Mobile</a> 5 operating system. <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6213066">Windows Mobile 6</a> promises to fix some of these issues. </p> <p>Naturally, being the technophile that I am, I will upgrade to Windows Mobile 6. But then, I've been using Windows Mobile since the CE 1.0 days, and I've hated each and every version, so I'm not really holding my breath. </p> <p>P.S. If you insist on using a Windows Mobile device, do yourself a favor and get the <a href="http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/phonesuite/?en">Spb Phone Suite</a>, it makes the pain almost bearable. </p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:d434156b-a8e7-48f9-8aff-562d1d95a32f" contenteditable="false" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/HTC" rel="tag">HTC</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/TyTN" rel="tag">TyTN</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Windows%20Mobile" rel="tag">Windows Mobile</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/NOKIA" rel="tag">NOKIA</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Usability" rel="tag">Usability</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Rant" rel="tag">Rant</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Spb" rel="tag">Spb</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Spb%20Phone%20Suite" rel="tag">Spb Phone Suite</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Smartphone" rel="tag">Smartphone</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-3364139380775544912007-04-29T12:29:00.001+03:002007-04-29T12:29:17.660+03:00To Photo Splice or not to Photo Splice<p><a title="These are some seriously red times." href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/404502813/"><img height="85" alt="These are some seriously red times." src="http://static.flickr.com/141/404502813_8c2287ec02.jpg" width="128" align="right" border="0"></a></p> <p>There is a button on the page! and when there is a button, well, you know, some people just have to press it. Just to see what it does :)</p> <p>So, I clicked Photo Splicer on <a href="http://www.feedburner.com/">FeedBurner</a>, just to see what it does. And then I left it on. </p> <p>You see, FeedBurner (FeedBurner rocks!) Photo Splicer pushes the stuff <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/yanivg">I post on Flickr</a> into <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/yanivg">this blog RSS feed</a>. I guess you could call it "an identity merger" - <a href="http://www.deborahschultz.com/">Deb</a> would love this. </p> <p>But <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/i_cohen/">Idan</a> doesn't. In fact, he took the time to complain about it. So I turned it off. </p> <p>So long Photo Splicer. Welcome back <a href="http://claimid.com/yanivg">split identity</a>. </p> <p>Speaking of split identities, <a href="http://yaniv.golan.name/blog">shush</a>... don't tell anyone yet. Still too busy to complete the move. Maybe in a few days. </p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:67ef83d8-64f3-4ceb-947f-324f7035663c" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/FeedBurner" rel="tag">FeedBurner</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Photo%20Splicer" rel="tag">Photo Splicer</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Identity" rel="tag">Identity</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-44898418813591609902007-04-16T01:26:00.001+03:002007-04-16T01:26:02.643+03:00Meet Gillette, your new government agency<p><a title="YAS" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/17796222@N00/76409014/"><img height="98" alt="YAS" src="http://static.flickr.com/39/76409014_9a59bd068b_m.jpg" width="145" align="right" border="0" alignment="right"></a></p> <p>Got to love the <a href="http://www.tsa.gov/">TSA</a> (<-- link love!). </p> <p>I am on my way to <a href="http://www.web2expo.com/">Web2Expo</a>. In the spirit of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect">Butterfly Effect</a>, a <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152787553&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">car crashing into an aircraft in Paris</a> delayed all flights from Israel to NY. That's a good start. </p> <p>Spent hours on the phone, got on standby, bla bla, made it to an alternate flight (no, it wasn't easy), missed the connection to SF by 15 minutes, bla bla, new connection delayed by 1.5 hours (and still counting). But the real highlight so far was the TSA supervisor. </p> <p>Following the New and Advanced <a href="http://www.tsa.gov/311/index.shtm">"3-1-1" branded TSA rules</a> about clear, 3 oz bottles, I did exactly that - got several clear 3oz bottles, and put the stuff that I need to take with me when I travel in them. And this was fine with the TSA during the last 3 or 4 trips. </p> <p>But today, they realized that actually, since these bottles do not have a <strong>commercial</strong> company label attached to them, they don't know what its inside and therefore cannot allow them. </p> <p>You have to ponder. Now, if I wanted to do evil, how hard would it be for me to take a commercial bottle with a nice label, empty it and fill it with a malicious substance? </p> <p>And is Gillette now a government agency, in charge of approving liquid substances on board? </p> <p>And by how much exactly did the cosmetics companies profits increase as a result of these amazingly smart decisions by the TSA?</p> <p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:1b7f214a-25c7-461b-aaa0-04ec0246793c" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/rant" rel="tag">rant</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/TSA" rel="tag">TSA</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Web2Expo" rel="tag">Web2Expo</a></div></p>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-29126387124320237972007-04-05T12:16:00.001+03:002007-04-05T12:16:50.426+03:00FoxyTunes Planet is awesome!<p><a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/planet" atomicselection="true"><img height="44" src="http://static.foxytunes.com/images/logo-large.gif" width="142" align="right"></a> </p> <p><a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/">FoxyTunes</a> opened up <a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/planet">FoxyTunes Planet</a>, which has been in a private beta for a while. </p> <p>Check it out, it's pretty amazing. </p> <p>When I first heard about it, I thought it'd be a complementary service to their <a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/firefox/download/">popular browser add-on</a>. Turned out it's actually a full featured, rich, personalized all-in-one standalone music portal. </p> <p>I love the implementation. Again, when I saw the earlier versions I thought it's too much. But looking at the final result, it's slick, clean, well thought of. Kudos to Alex Sirota and the team!</p> <p><a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/norah_jones" atomicselection="true"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg57QPRNNr1TaCh4YxYMpqJdlYC2MjwAgJEfS_-NSoUXUWpLc_IZyN_ZT7bafKs29AvZrwBd6_A5KxHtYjho1KMio35Kj3pEa0_MlZAiiNeQe-Pt4tvNfP6X_IfIK5HLLQinAPS/s320/norah.jpg"></a> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:d33beccf-5688-487b-8b94-7127a8c39c16" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/FoxyTunes" rel="tag">FoxyTunes</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/FoxyTunes%20Planet" rel="tag">FoxyTunes Planet</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Music" rel="tag">Music</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-60584805408522686382007-04-05T11:43:00.001+03:002007-04-05T11:55:26.233+03:00From Manhattan to London, The Google Way<p>Would you like to get from Manhattan to London? Check out <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=Manhattan,+NY&amp;daddr=London,+UK&layer=&ie=UTF8&sll=46.126323,-36.083165&sspn=54.032571,119.53125&z=3&om=1">the route suggested by Google Maps</a>:</p> <p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&amp;hl=en&saddr=Manhattan,+NY&amp;daddr=London,+UK&layer=&ie=UTF8&sll=46.126323,-36.083165&sspn=54.032571,119.53125&z=3&om=1" atomicselection="true"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9rrkBziNelIbyBGxELwFaXkc_4arHO4kZqaU5dN2ZW2YS1ZbqAiT9XUFRIauM13f-wvREY1fsainrB3MiRb0cNBlqPcwFVWcVl2TGVAPMdpKHMKCVY8IF38mXlvk42Ms8Hj95/s320/googlemaps.JPG" /></a> </p> <p>In case the drawing isn't clear, check out step 14 in the instructions:</p> <p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZxPczfwI4HizwJdcT4a7_U1siraL9QulG8bo9i9kRphTNsvnxmQ7f2STEmw9nSCZoSJT2XKj4EinIK0DhdvKxIY17NDjtutH0tl9w6gyck8wO9S1C9sPuzOpRqXihOKGfABuG/s320/swim.JPG" /> </p> <p>That's right. Have a good swim!</p> <p> (Courtesy of Gilad Judes)<br /></p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:2a1e7447-2c4e-4a1f-8a00-a902b50c0439" contenteditable="false" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Google%20Maps" rel="tag">Google Maps</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-57822125797351192072007-04-04T20:04:00.001+03:002007-04-04T20:04:19.032+03:00A Mega-Crawler for the rest of us<p><a title="web crawler" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/39122333@N00/37802641/"><img height="108" alt="web crawler" src="http://static.flickr.com/23/37802641_f1dfed6c86_m.jpg" width="159" align="right" border="0" alignment="right"></a>Do you get this urge sometimes, to query the entire web for something? </p> <p>Do you wish you had your own Mega-Crawler? </p> <p>I mean, it's not like you can go to Google and type in some box </p> <blockquote> <p>SELECT TAG<br>FROM PAGES<br>WHERE DOMAIN(PAGE-URL) IS IN "domain1, domain2, domain3"</p></blockquote> <p>Lunch took a long time today, so <a href="http://eran.sandler.co.il/">Eran</a> and myself had some time to brainstorm a bit about a crawler-for-the-rest-of-us:</p> <ul> <li>Crawler code would be hosted on Amazon's <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2">EC2</a> <li>The data would be stored on <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3">Amazon's S3</a> <li>Anyone can add "post-crawl-processors" which will post-process crawled pages (build a full text index, extract microformats, calculate rank...). The persistent data generated by the post-processors will also be hosted on S3. <li>Anyone can submit URLs to be crawled. The system will automatically fork from these URLs to any other discovered URL. Eventually, the entire web will be crawled. <li>API for querying the crawl data, or the data generated by the post-crawl-processors. </li></ul> <p>Who will pay for this? Companies and organizations who wish to use this data:</p> <ul> <li>The basic crawling code will be divided among the "subscribers". Initially, small database, low costs. Later, larger database, more subscribers, costs (hopefully) remain low. <li>The cost of a post-processor (CPU, storage) is divided by the number of subscribers the post-processor has. The more useful it is, the more subscribers will use it, and the less each will pay. If it's a proprietary post-processor, no need to share it, but it will naturally cost more (being used by only 1 subscriber). <li>Retrieving query result will cost by bandwidth. </li></ul> <p>The general idea is pay-as-you-use, with prices going down as more subscribers use the service. No one makes money (well, except for Amazon of course), everyone sharing costs, IP (post-processors) can be shared or protected. The more you consume, the more you pay. The more you share, the less you pay. </p> <p>This is very rough of course. But what do you think? Is it feasable? Is it interesting? </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:055798e3-ebae-4f7e-a03a-df0ceb09e3c1" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/crawler" rel="tag">crawler</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/mega-crawler" rel="tag">mega-crawler</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/search" rel="tag">search</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/open%20source" rel="tag">open source</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-76065257112006629502007-03-28T16:06:00.001+02:002007-03-28T16:06:41.392+02:00Choose-your-own Google Ads<p>I was reading <a title="Daily Tips To Improve Your Photography" href="http://dailyphototips.blogspot.com/">this blog</a> (wonderful source for photography tips, thanks <a title="gkamin's profile on Yedda" href="http://yedda.com/people/7354261940178">Gabi</a>!) when I noticed something I haven't seen before:</p> <p><img height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbcmndgaC0fAOg12env2BKBY2xvgrQRwmQ-rHV3J9LldQDOKjaw0uZI8sRT-OqXdj8dd6wvmhKn0f7V4_LGBx7Sgf8DpYerCorKXH-mzTuOkYzAv2I8USQb_ELN4ofkr1LRauL/s320/GOOGLE-ADS.GIF" width="323"> </p> <p>Notice the "Ads by Google: View ads about: [ ]" area. Once you type in a search term, you see page with Google text ads related to the search term. </p> <p>Is this a Google Ads feature I missed or some kind of Google Ads experiment? The concept of asking the user to proactively ask to see ads on a specific topic is interesting, to say the least. </p> <p> </p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:a1e9ae3a-3dfb-4f52-acd8-9db86682607a" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Google" rel="tag">Google</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Ads" rel="tag">Ads</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Advertisement" rel="tag">Advertisement</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/AdSense" rel="tag">AdSense</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-68661907683973404452007-03-22T15:47:00.001+02:002007-03-22T15:47:59.798+02:00Oh, the Places you'll go!<p><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/22982" atomicselection="true"><img height="177" src="http://content.vcommerce.com/products/fullsize/72/524072.jpg" width="130" align="right"></a> I received this wonderful gift from <a href="http://www.genesispartners.co.il/team.asp?name=Jonathan++Saacks">Jonny Sacks</a> (our newest board member) - "<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/22982">Oh, the Places You'll Go</a>" by <a href="http://www.librarything.com/author/seussdr">Dr. Seuss</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>And will you succeed? </p> <p>Yes! You will, indeed!</p> <p>(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed)</p></blockquote> <p>Of course, in real life, 90% <a href="http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2007/february/173214.html">(or is it %50)</a> of </p> <p>startups fail. But, as I learned from <a href="http://www.kinnernet.com/MayaLotan">Maya</a> in the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=socialweb%20kinnernet2007&w=24901154%40N00&m=tags">Social Web</a> session, "statistics lie"!</p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:48de9ea3-d982-4651-bfae-7956c9aa3b4a" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Dr.%20Sauss" rel="tag">Dr. Sauss</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Jonathan%20Sacks" rel="tag">Jonathan Sacks</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Maya%20Lotan" rel="tag">Maya Lotan</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Startup" rel="tag">Startup</a></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-53959545598304628222007-03-22T12:37:00.001+02:002007-03-22T12:37:26.833+02:00KinnerNet 2007: RobotsFireEatersPowerToolsDragRacePeoplePeoplePeoplePeople<div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:3e6bf8c5-450e-4ae4-8b04-62c42d2fcfea" contenteditable="false" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/kinnernet" rel="tag">kinnernet</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/kinnernet2007" rel="tag">kinnernet2007</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/kinnernet07" rel="tag">kinnernet07</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/unconference" rel="tag">unconference</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/israel" rel="tag">israel</a></div> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yghelloworld/423046103/" atomicselection="true"><img height="192" alt="Woosh by yghelloworld" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/423046103_2bcde95ec4_m.jpg" width="130" align="right"></a> </p> <p> <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: en-us; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: he">I got back from KinnerNet 2007 (the un-conference created by Yossi Vardi) on Saturday, but the effects still did not wear off. It was an exhilarating event, a 3 days (and nights) circus made of </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=24901154%40N00&q=kinnernet2007+robot&m=tags">robots</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=24901154%40N00&q=kinnernet2007+fire&m=tags">fire</a> eaters, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=24901154%40N00&q=kinnernet2007+drag+race&m=tags">drag races</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=24901154%40N00&q=kinnernet2007+juggling&m=tags">jugglers</a>, creativity and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yghelloworld/tags/people/">people</a> – lots of fascinating, special, creative and positive people. </p> <p>Only yesterday did I finish uploading the pictures to Flickr – <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yghelloworld/sets/72157600002857173/">all 213 of them</a> out of, well, it’s embarrassing to say how many :) <p>Don’t miss <a href="http://www.kinnernet.com/LiorKatz">Lior</a> (<a href="http://wishood.com/">Wishood</a>) and <a href="http://www.kinnernet.com/GilRimon">Gil</a> <a href="http://urbanseeder.com/">(UrbanSeeder</a>) ’s cool <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9MgHuitMwU">Supermarket 2.0 video</a>, and <a href="http://www.kinnernet.com/EyalGever">Eyal Gever</a> (<a href="http://www.gizmoz.com/">Gizmoz</a>) and <a href="http://www.kinnernet.com/GideonWeiler">Gideon Weiler</a>’s <a href="http://www.metacafe.co.il/watch/484525/kinnernet_2007_by_gizmoz/">KinnerNet cult video</a>. <p>The TheMarker COM.Vention conference was immediate following KinnerNet, on Sunday & Monday. After attending several amazing un-conferences, it becomes harder and harder to put up with the artificial rigid structure of conventional conferences. Suddenly it seems ridiculous to have to put up with fixed length, must-attend, one-speaker sessions and pre-planned orchestrated and exclusive panels. </p>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-22190157102836178102007-03-11T10:49:00.001+02:002007-03-11T14:19:10.649+02:00Mesibo.Net - Invitation<p></p> <p><a title="Mesibo.Net on Upcoming" href="http://upcoming.org/event/156316/">http://upcoming.org/event/156316/</a></p> <p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px"><a href="http://upcoming.org/event/156316/"><img src="http://www.netcraft.co.il/clients/mesibonet/wtr_invitation_400px.jpg" /></a> </p> <p></p> <div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:677926ba-10e4-459a-b6c1-8ee8a0d794a5" contenteditable="false" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Mesibo.Net" rel="tag">Mesibo.Net</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Israel" rel="tag">Israel</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Party" rel="tag">Party</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Internet" rel="tag">Internet</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Invitation" rel="tag">Invitation</a></span></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-49357820670657027862007-03-07T09:53:00.001+02:002007-03-07T09:57:33.969+02:00TWS 2007<div style="float: right; padding-left: 5px;"><a href="http://www.tws2007.com/"><img src="http://www.tws2007.com/images/logo-tws.gif" alt="TWS 2007" /> </a></div>The folks at <a href="http://thecoils.com/">the.co.ils</a> [Hebrew] (one of my favorite blogs), which is focused on covering the Internet scene from an Israeli angle, have organized a unique event – <a href="http://www.tws2007.com/">TWS 2007</a>. It's an opportunity for young Israeli web startups to meet, connect and present. <a href="http://www.tws2007.com/">Check it out</a>.<br /><br /><div class="techtags"><span style="font-size:85%;">Technoarti Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/TWS" rel="tag" class="techtag">TWS</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/2007" rel="tag" class="techtag">2007</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/the.co.ils" rel="tag" class="techtag">the.co.ils</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/israel" rel="tag" class="techtag">israel</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/internet" rel="tag" class="techtag">internet</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/web" rel="tag" class="techtag">web</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/startup" rel="tag" class="techtag">startup</a></span> </div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-14353578180697774742007-03-06T17:54:00.001+02:002007-03-06T19:22:23.215+02:00A Moment of Quiet Contemplation<div style="float: right; padding-left: 5px;"><a title="Quiet Contemplation, by yanivg" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yanivg/411843636/"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/411843636_1f8cf1609f_m.jpg" height="240" width="160" /></a></div>I've upgraded to <a href="http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/default.aspx">Outlook 2007</a>.<br /><span xmlns=""><p>I upgraded because of the integrated search capabilities. <a href="http://desktop.google.com/">GDS</a> and Lookout were both great, but I use full text search a lot, and I missed a tighter integration of the search results with Outlook.<br /></p><p>So, now that the re-indexing is done (5 hours, thanks for asking), indeed I have a super-slick full text search capability on my 9 years worth of emails. Love it!<br /></p><p>And, an unexpected bonus – it turns out that Outlook has yet another exciting feature. Every 2 minutes or so, my machine freezes for a few seconds. Every 10 minutes, when Outlook reaches into that deep void called the Internet to fetch my email, my machine freezes for even longer. So now I have these wonderful pauses, which I use for quiet contemplation.<br /></p><p>They say that the new office took 5 years to develop. I guess that when they started out, the Internet was much faster than it is today, and CPUs were not as burdened, so they didn't really notice these pauses.<br /></p><p>Oh well. Service Pack 1, I await you – in quiet contemplation.<br /></p><p>P.S. I posted this with MS Word, in draft mode, and then hurried to check the resulting HTML. Gotta give it to them - very minimal features, but sparkling clean HTML. Nice!</p></span><div class="techtags"><span style="font-size:85%;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Outlook" rel="tag" class="techtag">Outlook</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Outlook+2007" rel="tag" class="techtag">Outlook 2007</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/performance" rel="tag" class="techtag">performance</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/rant" rel="tag" class="techtag">rant</a></span> </div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185724.post-75551150747339101612007-02-26T17:57:00.000+02:002007-02-26T18:06:10.223+02:00OpenLaszlo 4 vs. Flex<div style="float: right; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 2px;"><a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/"><img src="http://www.openlaszlo.org/themes/manji/images/ol_logo_small.gif" /></a></div>My <a href="http://yanivg.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-i-dont-get-adobe-flex.html">post on Adobe Flex and why I don't get it</a> raised a bit of commotion. In particular, Ryan Stewart <a href="http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=682">posted some well articulated objections</a> to the points I raised, and most of the comments on his post seem to support his view. You can read my response to Ryan <a href="http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=682#comment-49326">here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://blog.danmcweeney.com/">Dan McWeeney</a> <a href="http://yanivg.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-i-dont-get-adobe-flex.html#comment-8009051910966266272">commented</a> on my original post and pointed me to <a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/">OpenLaszlo 4</a>, which was a delightful find: Modular, component-based XML syntax for declarative programming, JavaScript 1.3 with 1.4 extensions as the programming language. And, best of all, OpenLaszlo has an open output architecture, with support for Flash, Flash Lite 2 (for cell phones) and – standard <a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/legals">DHTML</a> + CSS + JavaScript 1.3. Plus there is no reason why it couldn't support Java, XUL or Avalon as well.<br /><br />RUB – Refresh, URL addressability and Back button support is not part of the basic programming model, but can be added in a reasonable manner using <a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/lps/docs/guide/browser-integration.html#d0e20054">built-in, documented functions</a>. I'd love to see this becoming part of the declarative syntax instead though.<br /><br />Check out this stunning <a href="http://labs.openlaszlo.org/lps-4.0.pr4/demos/lzpix/app-loader.html?lzr=dhtml&lzt=html">LZPIX sample app</a>, which implements cool Flickr picture search using OpenLadzlo 4 rendered to DHTML. It's almost had to believe that it's HTML + JavaScript underlying it. So hard to believe that I had to peek inside with <a href="http://www.getfirebug.com/">Firebug</a>, just to be sure :)<br /><br />It can even be deployed as a desktop application – a good example of which is <a href="http://www2.blogger.com/www.pandora.com">Pandora</a>, which is built using OpenLaszlo.<br /><br />For more info, check out <a href="http://www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/124">Don Hopkins overview</a> of OpenLaszlo.<br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Technorati tags: <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/OpenLaszlo" rel="tag">OpenLaszlo</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/Flex" rel="tag">Flex</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/Adobe+Flex" rel="tag">Adobe Flex</a></span><br /></div>YanivGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14262812323511365206noreply@blogger.com1