news aggregator

TIME Magazine exposes all their archive editorial, going back to 1923. For free. So, when Joe Klein writes an essay for the magazine, he doesn't have to worry that his writing goes down what writers at less enlightened publications call "the $2.50 hole", within which which all old "content" continues to be "monetized" until the end of time (no pun intended). Even if it never sells to a single reader. I'm a TIME subscriber. It's nice to know that TIME considers free archives more valuable and authoritative than hidden ones. And it makes me more likely to remain a subsciber as well.(author unknown)

Microsoft launched Windows Live Hotmail on May 7. That much I'm sure of. Microsoft also seemed to announce that Windows Mail is now dead. Windows Mail is going to be superseded by Windows Live Mail -- which is not the same thing as Windows Live Hotmail. Windows Live Mail is (I think) a product formerly known as Windows Live Mail Desktop.Mary Jo Foley

(author unknown)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/206/4763508_a2e6215b_m.jpgImages and photographs uploaded on Flickr have slightly complicated and difficult-to-remember web page addresses but with little effort, we can reconstruct (or reverse engineer) Flickr image URLs and retrieve that same image in different sizes as it exists on Flickr servers.Any Flickr picture URL has the following structure:http://[farm].static.flickr.com/[server]/[photoID]_[secretCode]_[size].jpgWhat follows is a real example of a Flickr Image [small size]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/206/476361508_a2e625415b_m.jpgFrom the above URL, the mail Flickr photo page will be located at the following location:http://www.flickr.com/photos/476361508/ [476361508 is the PhotoID assigned by flickr.com]To reconstruct other Flickr URLs pointing to different sizes of the same image, all we need to do is change the suffix as descibed here: s for small square 75x75 http://static.flickr.com/206/476361508_a2e625415b_s.jpgt for thumbnail, 100 on longest sidem for small, 240 on longest sideb for large, 1024 on longest side (only exists for very large original images)If you omit the size prefix in the Flick URL, it will point to the medium sized image which has 500 pixels on the longest side.Medium Size: http://static.flickr.com/206/476361508_a2e625415b.jpgAn important note - Flickr secures the original image with another secret code and it may not be possible to find the url of the Original size image without visiting the Flickr photo page. The original image can have extensions like jpg, gif or png (depending on the source) but the resized flickr images alway have jpg as the extension.Related: Flick Photo URLs have changed.© 2007 Digital Inspiration - Technology, à la Carte | Subscribe | About Us

Cory Doctorow: The Economist has come out against DRM in a tell-it-like-it-is editorial that explains why anti-copying technology is bad for the entertainment industry. The movie industry, which nowadays depends as much on DVD sales as on box-office receipts, still seems to think that making life difficult for its customers is a recipe for success. After likewise shooting itself in the foot for ages, the record industry is now falling over itself to abandon DRM (digital rights management) on CDs. A number of online music stores such as eMusic, Audio Lunchbox and Anthology have given up using DRM altogether. In a recent survey by Jupiter Research, two out of three music industry executives in Europe reckoned that dropping DRM would improve sales. The editorial goes on to promote AudibleMagic's "audio fingerprinting" scheme as an answer, citing YouTube's proposal to use software to catch infringe ing user-generated content. This idea isn't totally bankrupt (though swallowing the self-interested claims of firms like AudibleMagic is pretty credulous of the Economist), but only if the technology is used to figure out how to pay artists -- not to stop music from flowing on the Internet. A blanket licensing scheme -- you pay a collecting society, they pay artists, you get the right to file-share using any protocol, file-format and software -- needs a bunch of ways to figure out who gets paid what. There are a lot of ways to measure the popularity of music online, including audio fingerprinting, Neilsen-style sample families, and anonymous monitoring of P2P networks. Some weighting scheme agreed upon by all the stakeholders could ensure that artists get paid when their music gets shared. But systems like AudibleMagic are no good when it comes to enforcing a ban on file-sharing. These systems can't detect all infringement, can't tell the difference between infringement and fair use, and sometimes block non-infringing works. In other words, audio fingerprinting is useful as part of a system to allow file-sharing, but useless as part of a system to stop file-sharing. Link (Thanks, John!) Cory Doctorow

It’s nice to think of the Internet as a place without borders — in other words, without all the walls and boundaries and checkpoints that we’re used to in the “real” world. Unfortunately, that’s just not the way it is, and the Pandora music-sharing site is only the latest example. The thing I find most surprising about Pandora isn’t that it is being forced to put its content in a box, it’s that the company has been able to remain unboxed for so long. Content owners and rights-holders of all kinds use IP sniffing to block users from different countries (and of course countries like China use similar means to block foreign content that might unduly influence the local populace). As a Canadian, I’m well acquainted with this practice, since it is the same process that prevents me from watching episodes of Heroes on the NBC site if I forget to have my PVR record it, or blocks me from watching clips from Saturday Night Live and other shows. Why? Because Canadian broadcasters make their living by licensing those shows, and they don’t like to think about people watching them on the Interweb any old time they want. As Tom Conrad of Pandora points out in the comments section of Mike Arrington’s post at TechCrunch, it’s not enough to do deals with groups like Canada’s SOCAN — which handles rights for composers and “publishers.” Sites that are considered to be Internet radio like Pandora have to sign deals with the record labels as well, and that is where the sticking point lies. As Mike Masnick notes at Techdirt, the record industry could teach advanced classes in how to shoot yourself in the foot. And Mark is quite right that this isn’t the only fight that Pandora and Last.fm have on their plate: there’s also the ongoing battle over the new fees for streaming Internet radio, about which there is more info at the Broadcast Law blog (thanks to Lucas Gonze for the link). If you want to get involved somehow, check out the Save Internet Radio site. Share This

If you've been waiting for the right BlackBerry before making the jump into CrackBerry land, your time has come. The BlackBerry 8300 Curve is the email checking, media-heavy smartphone we've been waiting for. Design-wise, the 8300 is a looker with its thin Pearl-like profile, full QWERTY keyboard and silvery finish. But the real reason you'll want it is 'cause of its media features. Both the guys at Laptop and Wired agree that this is RIM's best handheld, easily blending in at the office during the day and doubling as a cool smartphone at night. So what do we get? It's got a 2-megapixel camera, a media player for music, video, and photos, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot for expansion and a Push-to-Talk key. Service-wise, Laptop reports setting up email is a breeze (as expected) and Web browsing via EDGE is snappy. Now the cons. Yeah, the Internet is fast, but there's no 3G support, which is a bit of a downer. And although the Curve can play video, it can't shoot it. If you can live with that (personally, I think I might be able to although no 3G does suck), then you've got your dream phone right here. Pricing hasn't been declared yet, but we'll update when Cingular/AT&T says something. – Louis Ramirez Press Release BlackBerry Curve [Laptop Mag] BlackBerry Curve—Kick Ass Media Player in a Well-Rounded Package [Gadget Lab] (author unknown)

Thanks to The Virtual Handshake for sharing the news that LinkedIn has made it easier for people to connect that you know and harder to connect with people that you don't know.  It has become easier to connect because you don't need an email address anymore to send an invitation.  At the same time, if you are invited to join someone's network and you don't know this person, then you can indicate that you don't know the invitee. I personally like the option to indicate that  you don't know the person.  From time to time, I get asked to join someone's network who I don't know. I don't accept these invitations because it doesn't add any value to my network. If you don't know someone, how are you going to make a referral or ask for an introduction?  You have a lot more weight when you know the person. Whenever I get one of these invitations and the person is in Chicago, I always ask to meet in person before I connect.  See my prior post Face-to-Face Communication Still Works for more on this subject. For The Virtual Handshake's post, go to LinkedIn Makes Major Changes in Invitations Policy.

Aggrega is new site that was built to be a Pandora for music videos. With Aggrega, you can enter in the artist or genre for the type of videos you’d like to see in your channel. From there, you can start watching the video and a playlist will be created accordingly. It looks like they only pull videos from YouTube, so you’re sure to see a lot of teenagers performing karaoke for their webcams. You can vote separately for the videos and the artists, which is designed to better narrow down your preferences. You can leave comments on your videos as well. If you’d like to add a video, you can insert the embed code, and if you’d like to embed your channel on your website. It’s javascript, so it won’t work on your MySpace page. It’s also not a community, like many of the other video aggregators out there, such as uVouch and VodPod. Aggrega will be adding photos and blog posts to their service, giving you a wider variety of associated content for your tastes. Unfortunately, they don’t have music, probably because of the costs of providing a digital playlist these days. It’s good that Aggrega will let you submit additional videos to be added to their repository, especially since they seem to be limited to YouTube videos. Hopefully they’ll import videos from other hosting services, and they might as well offer up some different types of video as well, such as comedy. Recommended: Piczo Layouts at Mashcodes!

Photography blog Unfocused Brain offers an interesting technique for making photo color-corrections: Use classical art. Adjusting your photographs to get the color 'just right' can be a chore. Think about this: The Old Masters of painting spent years of their lives learning about color. Why let all their effort go to waste on the walls of some museum when it could be used to give you a hand with color correction? The technique involves Photoshop's Match Color tool; the author shows you the simple steps to "borrow" the colors from a classic painting and apply them to your photo. The results? Pretty impressive! —Rick Broida Improve your photography with classical art [Unfocused Brain] (author unknown)

The always-informative Digital Photography School offers 11 tips for improving the quality of candid snapshots. Here's one gem: Frame Images with Foreground Elements A trick that I often use in candid shots is to purposely include something in the foreground of the shot to make it look as though I'm hiding behind it. You might do this with by shooting over someone's shoulder, by including a little of a tree branch or the frame of a doorway. The author also recommends using a long zoom and killing the flash, both of which can help make you less visible and, subsequently, your subjects more natural. It's a great batch of tips, especially for anyone planning to photograph an event like a wedding. Photo by jen clix. —Rick Broida 11 Tips for Better Candid Photography [Digital Photography School] (author unknown)

Become a barista extraordinaire and impress your house guests by topping off your weekend latte with some artsy steamed milk designs. Wikihow runs down how to make flowers, hearts and even add words to the designs. Looks like mastering this skill takes a little practice (they recommend trying it out with water at first), but it'll definitely make you the most popular guy/gal at the coffee machine. For inspiration, check out this latte art photo set at Flickr. —Gina Trapani How to Make Latte Art [WikiHow] (author unknown)

If you've been hankering for some cool screenshot effects, then techie site Mezzoblue's got your back with a very nicely detailed tutorial on how to achieve various sceenshot effects using Photoshop. Screen captures on their own can be somewhat blah, and these effects add a nice shot of pizazz without taking away from their original purpose. — Wendy Boswell Simulacrum [via .etc ] (author unknown)

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system use

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system use

This also may be the solution for other Google search products like Google Co-op Search.

This also may be the solution for other Google search products like Google Co-op Search.

NDP health critic Adrian Dix is sounding the alarm about a leaked management memo calling on staff of the Fraser Health Authority to help find $65 million in savings, warning it will mean cuts to patient services.CBC