Tech Weekly

YouTube has just made a new site available called Test Tube this is the first of what I am sure will be more to come. New things that they have been working on over at YouTube. To start with there are two choice's at the site for you to try. AudioSwap and Streams.

I gave both of them a quick try. And I am sure that I will go back and fiddle with them a little more. Especially since I have a couple of videos loaded on YouTube that does not have any audio currently. What's that have to do with anything you say? Well AudioSwap can fix this problem. Once logged into it you can pick from a granted small list of musicians and there music that YouTube has negotiated deals with to allow on their site and you can add one of those songs to your video clip to spice it up some.

A couple of things that I notice right away is as is to be expected there are not that many artists or tracks yet. I am sure that YouTube will court more by the time this goes mainstream. If MySpace pages can now feature almost any soundtrack available I see no reason why those songs cannot be added to a video clip that you have uploaded. The content will not be downloaded or piratable since you test and listen to everything in the AudioSwap preview screen. I was able to add a song to one of my clips in about a minute. Have a look HERE to check it out.

One little feature that I sure would like would be for AudioSwap to allow you to upload your own music to a video clip you have already and allow you to add it to the clip. Of course the music industry would I imagine frown on this.

When I logged into Streams the first thing that struck me was how similar it is to how the first chat rooms online used to be back about 10 years ago. Kind of clunky and crammed together. The idea of Streams is that you can sign into an active Stream. There are not that many yet, but with as many videos that YouTube has I am sure that will change very quickly as well. Once you are signed in you can chat with other folks that are there and even add videos to the stream. Another thing that I noticed on each of these streams is that they are very similar in appearance to MySpace pages the difference being that instead of people coming and visiting a page and leaving a comment they are all there listening to the same music video or funny commercial while they are chatting away on the side.

It is really nice to see something come out of the blending of Google and YouTube. Both of these new services are a little rough around the edges. But one can only hope that YouTube will look for some feedback from users shortly and take into consideration what we have to tell them. In the meantime have fun with them and check back often as I can imagine just like all the off-shoots of Google we are liable to see many new and interesting things in Test Tube. Some of which just like with Google will never go beyond a Beta phase so to speak.

Labels: Google

This may have been a part of Blogger for awhile but I just noticed it today for the first time. It is a handy little way to promote your blog after you load it.

Labels: Editorial

The website for today is mail2web.com a website that allows you to check your email account from any computer or wap-enabled mobile phone, anywhere in the world.

Type in your email address and your password and mail2web displays the contents of your inbox.

Labels: Site of the Day

The US has lost its position as the world's primary engine of technology innovation, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.

For the first time, Denmark tops the rankings of The Global Information Technology Report 2006-2007’s "Networked Readiness Index", as a culmination of an upward trend since 2003. Denmark’s outstanding levels of networked readiness have to do with the country’s excellent regulatory environment, coupled with a clear government leadership and vision in leveraging ICT for growth and promoting ICT penetration and usage.

Irene Mia, Senior Economist and Co-Editor of the Report, explains the results.

Soumitra Dutta, Dean of External Relations, Insead, and Co-Editor of the Report, explains the results.

Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, OECD, and author of the "Made in China" chapter, explains the findings of the chapter. 

Labels: Editorial

Laura Breeden bought a new Compaq Presario C304NR notebook in January. She bought it because she wanted to get rid of Windows and all the malware that surrounds it and move to Linux, and her old laptop lacked the memory and power to run Ubuntu Edgy. The salespeople assured her that the C304NR was "Linux ready." But they didn't tell her that running Linux would void her warranty. Until recently, she's been happy with it, and with Ubuntu Edgy. But a couple of weeks ago she began having keyboard problems. The keyboard is misbehaving when she begins to type quickly: keys are sticking and the space bar does not always respond when pressed. When she called Compaq -- the unit comes with a one-year warranty on the hardware -- they asked what operating system she was running. When she told them Linux, they said, "Sorry, we do not honor our hardware warranty when you run Linux." In order to get warranty service, she was told, she would have to remove Linux and reinstall the original OS. VIA

Now even though you could probably load the original recovery disk into the system. Since the keyboard was not working correctly it makes me wonder if she would even be able to do that. And with most new computers coming without a recovery solution other than a partition with the information on it. That might not even enable her to fix things.

She is now working with a rep from HP but it sounds like it may be quite awhile before she see's any kind of resolution.

I am in agreement with what alot of folks are saying in the various comments to this story. If the Manufacturer HP in this instance will not honor their warranty and are giving you the run around. Make arrangements to get the computer shipped back to them. Acquire proper tracking information. And then contact your credit card company and obtain a charge back for the item. If you did not buy it with a CC of course this will not work.

Labels: Editorial

If you’re running out of available disk space in your iPod, then you’ll be happy to know that a company called PDASmart will upgrade any fifth generation iPod to 100GB for the measly quantity of $275 (or $299 in case you have the 30GB model). The upgrade comes two warranties: a 1 year one from the manufacturer (of the Hard Drive), and a 90 days one from PDASmart.

Considering that this voids your iPod’s warranty, and that the original hardrive only costs around $100, I recommend that you either upgrade it yourself, if you don’t mind taking the risk, or realize that you don’t really have a need to carry your entire music collection around with you at all times.

[Via Forever Geek]

Labels: Editorial