David Emery Online

As the observant of you may have noticed, my posting schedule has gone tits-up once again this week. Sorry about that; I mostly blame Pub Standards coupled with a rather ridiculous amount of work (we launched 4 sites this week at work! 4!).

Disappointment – the backlash to the experiment begins already. Moral of the story: you can’t please everyone. Also, worth remembering that it’s not about not being able to trust bloggers, it’s about not being able to trust anybody – even the copy I got had the track points shifted.

Best Adobe CS3 Icons – much nicer then the still inexplicably bad official icons.

Apple vs. music labels – I’m not entirely sure why labels are supposed to want more subscription services, considering the current complete failure of the WMA based ones, and the bad state eMusic is in at the moment.

MacBook Hacking Contest Won – interesting, but don’t forget that this is not a flaw in the OS, but simply one in Safari.

OmniFocus screenshot and feature overview – colour me distinctly unimpressed by this initial screenshot; I hope the final release is a bit more then just a hack-job of OmniOutliner like it currently appears.

Panic: Ten Years (And Counting) – Panic are quite probably my favorite mac developer.

It is by a more or less random coincidence that on the day after our company’s tenth birthday, we will be conducting by far our biggest, most ambitious new software launch of all time. I hope you’ll come by to check it out, especially if you make web sites.

This is not hyperbole.

andyrutledge.com – such a beautiful site design, and great content to boot.

Moo Notecards are go! – Moo really are a great company, making great products.

I’d rather be Microsoft than Yahoo – I agree; the only good things about Yahoo are its acquisitions, and the very clever people employed there.

I thought today it would be good to do a quick work update, as this week we’ve launched to sites, and gained another web developer.

First up is the new Jack Penate website. I’m really quite happy with the way this one has turned out, as we’ve managed to do a few things I’ve been trying to do for ages. The headline feature is probably Twitter integration, so that Jack can SMS updates from the road which then appear in the little speech bubble on the site.

It really is quite amazing how much interaction we can get these days between artists and fans; so much more then would ever had been possible before.

Anyway, if you’re on Twitter check out Jack’s Twitter page and see what he’s up to.

We also have tried to go the extra mile in encouraging interaction with the fans through the site, though things like enabling commenting on tour dates and integrating with Flickr (yep, we’ve gone API mad!).

Next, we also launched a new site for Black Strobe. It’s a fairly typical Textpattern-based site, with all your normal info like news and tour dates. However, I’m pretty pleased we this one too as it only took 2 days total to make, from design to code to completion – not bad going if you ask me!

To round off the work kick, I’ve just updated my work page with all my recent projects; turns out I’ve been quite busy…

Perspective is everything.

Yesterday, 33 people died in Virgina, America, as you may have seen on the news (it would have been impossible to avoid it).

Yesterday, more then 25 thousand people died of starvation, worldwide.

Which of these do you think is more important?

Which of these do you think everybody else thinks is more important?

I have sympathy on an individual level for the people caught up in the shooting, in the same way I have sympathy for anyone caught up in tragedy.

But, quite frankly, I have no sympathy for America as a whole.

You did this to yourself.

I am fully aware that a significant proportion of Americans do not agree with current gun laws, but until you vote in someone that does something about it you are tarred automatically with the same brush.

There is simply no reasonable argument for the possession of guns; any argument to contrary shows a complete failure in critical thinking.

And, for once, take this opportunity; this grief you feel for people you have probably never met; and think about what else is going on in the world.

Get a little perspective.

In stark contrast to last weeks lull, this week there’s almost too much to cover, a lot of it coming out of this years NAB expo. Apple made some interesting announcements surrounding its Final Cut product range, the highlight probably being – for me at least – the interface seen in Final Cut Server, which is yet another interface style for Apple, but nonetheless a very nice one.

However, unlike some trade shows, what Apple announced is by no means the most interesting stuff. What’s most interesting is the ever-more-fierce battle to control online content, with the main players Adobe and Microsoft both announcing something new.

First up is Adobe, who showcased its new Media Player. Their media player is basically a desktop Flash video player, that uses RSS as the content delivery system, and looks to be based on their new Apollo desktop Flash app. Now, first off Adobe is easily king in this space – Flash has won the codec wars, at least for now, with almost all the high profile video sites basic their interfaces on it.

With that in mind, the most interesting step in their new desktop Media Player is the inclusion of DRM. This is the only major feature that Flash video – and audio – is laking at the moment and signifies an interesting shift in Adobe’s aim. Not only are they focusing on the desktop for Flash – in the form of Apollo – they want to do the same for Flash video, and that includes the markets where DRM is necessary.

Even though DRM looks like its time may have finally come – at least for audio, for video it’s still uncertain – I think Adobe is the only company outside Apple and Microsoft that could successfully implement DRM, due to their massive installed base.

And that installed base is exactly what Microsoft is going after with their announcement.

In typical Microsoft fashion, their announcement isn’t actually anything new – it’s just a rebranding that’s supposed to feel new – they’ve announced Microsoft Silverlight, which used to be known as WPF/E.

It’s just Flash, done by Microsoft. That’s really all you need to know.

It does all sorts of “interesting” features (playing HD video, XML-ish markup etc) but, quite frankly, it doesn’t do anything that Flash doesn’t – at least, when you compare it to a recent version. And of course, all development needs to be done in Windows.

As if you can’t tell, I’m not impressed.

Wake me up when they do something interesting.

Microsoft just don’t have a chance against Adobe in this area if they’re going to keep playing ball in the way they always have; they need to change their game and do something different.

Zig, instead of Zag.

I just don’t think they have it in them.

Friday links is yet again being posted on Saturday – sorry folks. This time it would be because yesterday my MacBook (which I’ve written about before) went tits up again. This time it just seems to be the hard disk which has gone south, but 2 HDs in the space of a year is really trying my patients – luckily I’ve learned since last time so was pretty much backed up, but still…

Anyway, on to the links:

Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion – This is a major loss for Microsoft, and a huge win for Google. They really are a huge forced to be reckoned with – even more so then Microsoft.

Hicksdesign: The National – Fake Empire / Ben Ward on Twitter / Steve Marshal on Twitter – The experiment in progress.

Josh Keyes: Paintings – some of these are really quite lovely.

Mac OS X Theme Change in Leopard Seed 9A410 – This is so very, very obviously not what the final version is going to look like. What it does indicated, though, is that Apple might finally be moving towards one unified theme (as opposed to brushed metal vs unified vs aqua).

WMG Sends Mixed MP3 Message – do they have a clue about what they’re doing? I’m sure we’ll see then offering DRM free tracks on iTunes soon enough anyway, so why bother messing around like this?

You may have notcied that Apple today announced that Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will be delayed till October.

This is great news.

Before I get any further, I must point out that yes, I’m sure I’ve blogged about Vista slipping and made sarky comments in Microsoft’s direction about it and yes this post is probably all a little hypocritical and Apple-apologist.

Sorry.

Anyway, Leopard slipping is most definitely a good thing. It is, quite simply, the most important release of Mac OS X to date (as mentioned in my recent Apple reality check) as it’s the first one with any vague half-decent competition (Vista).

So it’s got to be really, really good.

The builds and features that we’ve seen so far have had a whole host of really interesting features, like Time Machine, Spaces, the improvements to Mail etc. But these are all “just” interesting features – other then Time Machine there’s really nothing extra special, just lots and lots of nice new features (and a boat load of under the hood stuff for developers).

What we’re all hoping for, of course, is a brand new UI in Leopard; something that moves the game on and makes Vista’s Aero theme look old fashioned.

As time moved on, and we got closer and closer to the June deadline, it was getting less and less likely that we were going to see one; to ship a new interface in Leopard they need to give developers at least a couple of months heads up, so they can make sure their apps work ok with it, which means Apple would have had to show it publicly now for it to be ready to ship in May. In fact, I bet that today would have been the day, if things hadn’t slipped.

It’s also interesting to note the iPhone’s role in all of this. In an odd move for Apple, they’ve given us an excuse for being late – much like a tardy schoolboy – and that excuse is that they had to concentrate their developers on the iPhone. Firstly, I think this shows Apple’s commitment to the iPhone – they really want it to be a huge hit, so much so that almost everything else – Mac OS X, the iPod – is a lower priority.

Secondly, the it makes complete sense to pull Mac OS X engineers over to the iPhone, but only if the iPhone really is running something similar to Mac OS X. Also, you can take it as read that we’ve already had a sneak preview of the new interface in Leopard in the iPhone interface – think translucency, but most of all think animation; with the new CoreAnimation framework in Leopard you can bet that’s going to be the poster feature of the interface.

This delay is possibly the best thing that could have happened for 10.5 – well done Apple for having the balls to do it, instead of sticking to their original date a shipping something half-finished.

MySpace is screwed.

Either a) they don’t realise or b) they do, but don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

PhotoBucket Videos Blocked on MySpace

Now, this is – on the face of it – not really a huge deal in itself. PhotoBucket is an incredibly popular site, with more people uploading pictures to it then Flickr, but it’s a very small fish in the online video world. To compound it, a large proportion of PhotoBucket’s images traffic comes by way of MySpace, as it’s the site of choice for image hosting among the MySpace crowd.

This move, then, is just MySpace trying to prevent PhotoBucket getting a foothold in an area that MySpace is interested in.

Which is exactly the wrong thing to do.

MySpace is now at a very important crossroads. On the one hand, they have a very very large userbase which is still growing. On the other, further growth like they’ve achieved previously is going to be extremely difficult, and they now have quite a few competitors snapping at their heals (more on them later).

In other words, they have the Friendster problem.

For those with a purely short-term memory, Friendster was the hip cool place where all the cool kids hung out online. You could set youself up a profile, post up pictures, text and link yourself up with your friends. It had huge amounts of traffic, and lots of media buzz, before it was trumped by a hip-er, younger upstart.

Sound familiar?

Just as all the kids left Friendster for MySpace – for no other reason then because it was trendy – the same is going to happen to MySpace.

Oh. Wait.

Did I say going to?

I meant has.

It’s already started; Bebo is already more popular (or at least as popular) in the UK as MySpace, and is making interesting deals left right and centre, like the recent deal with 7digital. However, I think the real site that’s going to be the “MySpace killer” is Facebook. Since opening up their signups to everybody late last year, they seem to be really gaining traction with the early adopter types.

Facebook really feels right now like YouTube did in 2005 – lots of dotted recommendations and “oh, this is kind of interesting” blog posts all over the place.

So, back to the original point; MySpace really needs to be embracing its very sizeable community at the moment, not turning it away because it feels threatened. The only – and I really mean only – way for them to stay relevant is to entrench their community by helping it to build a stable ecosystem around it – otherwise they’re just going to up and leave. Sure, MySpace is not going to see a massive drop in traffic immediately – even GeoCities still has reasonable traffic – but unless they rethink their stratergy, and stop being so greedy, they’re done for.

Hmmm.

Not much going on, really, is there?

The entire industry – both music and tech, as it happens – seems to have shut down over easter, and I get the feeling a lot of people have decided to take the rest of the week off as well…

Apple’s announcement that they’ve sold over 100 million iPods really wasn’t too surprising; in fact, I had thought they’d probably sold a bit more then that by now.

A news story about Apple selling lots of iPods just isn’t that interesting.

In other news, I’m on the look out for a good PHP programmer to help me with some heavy lifting on some stuff I’m working on. This is a paid gig, so if you’re looking for work – or knows someone who is – let me know. This would probably suit someone who is looking for something interesting to work on after work.

Anyway, previous blog “wanted ads” have come to naught, but I might as well start somewhere…

Hopefully a more fully formed post coming your way tomorrow.

As a continuation to the rubbish that was started last week, Tim O’Reilly and friends – with a little help from the New York Times – have put together a “Blogger’s Code of Conduct”, the aim of which seems to be to make the blogging community a better place.

Give me a break.

Blogger’s Code of Conduct Wiki

I think the easiest way to dissect it is in point by point form. Normally I don’t like to resort to such simple and obvious tactics, but when up against such rampant and self publicising stupidity, needs must.

1. We take responsibility for our own words and reserve the right to restrict comments on our blog that do not conform to basic civility standards.

I can censor anyone who doesn’t agree with me.

Moreover, if you actually obeyed the fine print of this point to the letter, you wouldn’t be able to accept any comments at all as it covers pretty much anything anyone would ever say.

2. We won’t say anything online that we wouldn’t say in person.

As long as I’m a jackass in real life, I can still be one on the internet…

3. If tensions escalate, we will connect privately before we respond publicly.

Unless I’ll get good traffic by blogging about it first.

4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.

Paging the fire burning mob. You’re needed in the ground floor lobby.

5. We do not allow anonymous comments.

As having a hotmail account is a sure fire proof of identity.

6. We ignore the trolls.

We ignore people that disagree with us.

7. We encourage blog hosts to enforce more vigorously their terms of service.

We encourage blog hosts to take down sites that we don’t like.

UPDATE 11/04/07: I love this: http://www.blogadvisorysystem.com/

Last.FM Quietly Unveils Subscription – they seem to have subtly re-designed the site as well. Last.fm is defiantly one to watch, like the quiet one in the corner at a party…

Keep track of your friends with The Coop – this is one of the prime examples of the problems with open source software. This feature is complete bloat, and utterly unnecessary – there are far more important things that need working on in Firefox then jumping-on-the-bandwagon social networking junk.

This Is Truck – what I was working on last weekend; the festival this year should be a good one…

Ricoh announces GX100 – I love the additional electronic viewfinder on this. I’m a huge fan of viewfinders, and the small optical one on my G7 is the one thing I don’t like about it – this seems like the perfect solution for compact cameras.

Apple Announces 8-core Mac Pro – I don’t need one of these, and I’m now firmly in the laptops-are-best camp, but… 8 cores!

The new Subaru Impreza – MY EYES. ZE GOGGLES DO NOTHING.

The Wii as Salesman – Khoi hits the nail on the head.

My photos on Flickr – I’m finally on Flickr, a mere 5 years after everyone else.

Blonde Redhead – 23 – Site we’ve just launched at work for Blonde Redhead’s rather excellent new album.

Today’s picture is Simon – erstwhile Web Developer at work and lead singer in Fanfarlo – busking on the streets of Wandsworth.