dsims' posterous of ponderings

Google Wave direct messages

Google Wave was built for groups, but it can be used like IM or email to talk directly to someone too. Google calls this a "ping", but it's really just a normal wave presented a little differently.

Protip: You can do a search for "dto:me" to see only messages between you and one other person. Create a saved search so it's easy to see your DMs.

Here are the other advanced search queries

Now what I need is a way to get notifications of new waves, so I don't have to keep checking it all the time.

Filed under // wave

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October 25

Netflix Instant Watch officially coming to PS3 next month. Odd that it needs a disc.

Next month, Netflix Instant Watch officially comes to the Playstation 3 at no additional cost on either end. I say "officially" because like I mentioned before, I've been using PlayOn to stream Netflix to my PS3 for a while now.

I did find it odd that it requires them to send you a (free) Blu-ray disc. It apparently uses BD-Live features found in the latest Blu Ray players instead of being special integrated software like it is on the Xbox 360. So I assume that this ability is eventually coming to ALL Blu-Ray players in the future?

Anyways, props to Netflix for not making exclusive deals with any one console, and props to Sony for building such a great versatile machine.

You can go ahead and order your PS3 disc here.

Filed under // netflix ps3

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September 21

Woodstock flooding at I-575. #atlflood

Crazy flooding in my area. And will probably get worse. This is Towne Lake Pkwy at I-575:

(Photo from a Facebook album)

I-575 is totally shut down at Hwy 92. Evening traffic was horrible. Follow the WoodstockPD for updates.

This is the Waffle House on Hwy 92:

(this and more photos at nesset's smugmug gallery)

Amazing how many YouTube videos there are from people of the flooding in Atlanta & Woodstock. Won't be long before video soon replaces photography as the most common medium. Also, thanks to Kanye, finding photos shared on twitter is almost useless.

Filed under // flood photo

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September 16

Alternatives to CAPTCHA

via myapokalips.com

Google just bought RECAPTCHA... mostly to help scan their huge digital archive of books (and to train their robot army), but I think they need to find some other way rather than encourage use of a CAPTCHA. CAPTCHA sucks. It is a huge barrier between your users and what they want to do and 99%* of the time it is unnecessary. This should be the last resort for the most bot-targeted of websites, so your wedding site's guestbook does not need a CAPTCHA. Commenting on your blog does not need a CAPTCHA. Signing up for your new web app does not need a CAPTCHA. In 10 years I think we will look back on these methods and think to ourselves "How was that ever acceptable?".

There are some ways to check if someone is human without using any CAPTCHA:

Check the time it takes between loading the page and submitting the form. If it's too quick, it's a bot.
Put the form on a separate page and then check for a valid referring page. A bot will usually not navigate to the form, it will try to submit the form directly.
If your site requires javascript, use javascript to build your form.
Bots target mass websites built on generic platforms... like wordpress and phpbb. Change up your form template a little bit, you will probably stop most bots.
Use something like OpenID, Facebook, and/or Twitter for authorization. Making it a little harder (for now) to automate.

If you do use a CAPTCHA, try something simple. Have them answer a simple question or select a photo of a cat. On my phpbb forum, I simply asked the user to type in a specific word and that stopped all bot registrations (and insures your users can read).

These alternatives are not unstoppable. A dedicated bot-builder could get around them, but they would have to target your site specifically and then maintain it as you make changes. Chances are no one wants to spam your Contact Us form that bad.

*81% of all statistics are made up on the spot

http://xkcd.com/233/

Filed under // captcha

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September 3

I get the point, but I'm not sure voluntarily putting a CAUTION label on your product is a good idea.

I do admit, it did get my attention.

Filed under // photo

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August 20

Geocoded location based networking awareness... or something like that

Twitter's announcement today about adding a Geolocation API goes to show how location-centric apps are trying to become the next big thing. Sharing your exact location with the world may seem unnecessary, but if you look back over your text messages and status updates you may be surprised at how often you post that you are doing something somewhere.

Brightkite is a location-based social network that I've been using for a while now. I use it to keep a log of where I've been and to leave notes & photos that future visitors can see, sort of like when you rent a vacation house and you sign the guestbook. It's really easy to use thanks to the great mobile site & apps (especially the Android app) and I like that posts are at a specific business/address (if it exists in Google's directory) instead of at just lat/long coordinates. Plus it's fun to see a map of all the places I've been:

Brightkite isn't the only service though. Lately more and more geo-centric sites and apps are popping up:

Foursquare is a similar service that is fun to use, but at this point it needs a lot of work before it can dethrone Brightkite. For example it only really works within the city limits, else you have to type in all the address details yourself... no thanks. Their achievements system is great though and really encourages you to use the service.
Google Latitude takes a different approach. Instead of "checking-in" to a location, it uses your phone's GPS to share your location on a map in real-time with friends.
Glympse, like Latitude, tracks you in real-time but it lets you to send a temporary view to anyone you want. I used this to share a live view of me running the Peachtree Road Race this year.
GPS logging apps like My Tracks aren't social in of themselves, but it lets you share your hiking/biking/jogging results with others.

All these services have one thing in common... they are much more useful if your *real-life* friends use them (for example Brightkite will alert you when friends check-in nearby). Very few of mine do because there is not enough benefit to justify the effort and expensive technology required to use them. So for now I will be a lonely check-in, signing a lot of blank guestbooks.

Filed under // brightkite location social networking

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July 31

Netflix, Hulu, and more on Nintendo Wii via PlayOn

I just watched a Netflix Instant Watch movie on my Nintendo Wii. Don't believe me? Here is the video evidence:

I am accomplishing this with MediaMall's latest version of their PlayOn media server. PlayOn is a program you install on your PC that transcodes video from various online services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, and CNN and streams it to your DLNA-compliant device, including the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. I have been using it with my PS3 and it works great, but Engadget leaked today that beta Wii support was added so I had to give it a try.

It all runs through the Wii's Opera web browser and uses Flash to play the video. You go to a special url which redirects you to the server at http://192.168.1.xxx:54478/. I went to this address on my PC and was able to see the same interface (which is how I got these screenshots) but was unable to play any video on my laptop.

It takes a little while for the page to initially load, but once you get going the interface is quick and is very polished. All the information about the videos you need is accessible, and I found it much easier to use than the PS3's generic DLNA media browser. The videos started quickly but the quality was not that great. It probably looks fine on a standard-def TV, but on a HDTV you really notice the compression and low resolution. The video quality on the PS3 looks much better in comparison.

So if you have one of the latest gaming consoles and are looking for a Roku Box alternative, then I suggest you give PlayOn a try. There is a 14 day free trial, then it's $39.99 to purchase. Here is a video of the

Now if you excuse me, I just noticed that Netflix put Dexter back up.

Filed under // netflix video wii

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July 22

Four things The3Day.org website could do to get more donations

I recently got an email from a family member, Kathy, asking for donations for her Three Day walk in October, which benefits Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund (which oddly does not have a wikipedia entry). So I went to go donate at http://www.The3Day.org and noticed quite a few issues throughout the process and came up with some suggestions:

1) Make the link to donate more visible.

I mean, the whole point of all this is to raise money... right?

I was expecting there to be a large "Donate Here" button, and not for it to be a menu item. In fact after quickly scanning the page and the bottom footer links, I incorrectly assumed that the Register box was how I got to the donation form. Even If it is in menu bar, it should be the far left item since that is where users look first. A different color would be nice too so it is not lost in the sea of pink and purple.

The Donate link should be in as many places as possible. They should add a big bright button in the homepage body, a link in the footer, and in the upper left in the wasted space in the black login bar. Another thing they could do is to make the link shorter, something like "http://The3Day.org/donate" instead of the nasty "http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Events/General?fr_id=1170&pg=pfind".

It should be painfully obvious how to give money, and not blend in on a fake button surrounded by more attractive & irrelevant buttons and action items as it is on the fundraiser's personal page:

2) Give fundraisers an easy way to share a link directly to their page

I think the link was supposed to be automatically inserted into the email I received, but it wasn't. Even so there are now infinitely more alternatives to email to get the word out, especially to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. A quick and easy way to do this is to drop an Add This widget onto the page.

3) Accept more payment options other than credit cards.

You want people to donate in as many ways possible because many people are not comfortable giving credit card info to many different websites. Heck, many people are getting rid of their credit cards altogether! Yeah sure they can pay over the phone, or mail in a check, but most people won't take the time. You should accept as many payment types as possible, and there are many to choose from (many of which have lower fees and provide special services for non-profits):

Check out Paypal, Google Checkout, and Amazon Payments.

4) Do not stop people from donating.

I got this message when attempting to go back to the donate page.

I assume this was work around some strange technical issue, but it should be avoided at all costs. Donating a second time should be easier than the first, not harder.

The three day site is great and has lots of helpful information and tools for the fundraisers, but it is easy to overlook the small details that can have a big impact on the main goal to raise money for charity.

If you want to help encourage Kathy as she walks 60 miles to raise money to cure breast cancer, please donate here or click the image of Kathy and her daughter Aubrey:

Filed under // charity webdesign

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June 28

Using FriendFeed to deal with Real-time Information Overload

The real-time web has become a real problem for me lately. All this instant news and social-networking has been overwhelming. Many services start off nice and manageable, but inevitably don't scale and quickly spiral out of control.

My experience has been that when I "follow" over 100 sources of information in any service, it starts to become hard to keep up with the flood of info.

I have seen that social-networks tend to go through these 4 phases as shown in my crude mspaint drawing:

Join a new service to keep up with a specific source of information.
Subscribe to other sources of interest as you stumble upon them, and to your friends as they join.
When what you care about gets lost in the stream of info, start unsubscribing to reduce the noise.
Abandon trying to keep up, or re-define how you use it.

Twitter is currently at phase 3. Real-time updates to my phone is unnecessary for most tweets, so I do not hesitate to click the unfollow button. As more of my real-life friends join, it is rapidly approaching phase 4.

Facebook is at phase 4. I check the website once a day or so, but it is just too slow and cumbersome to use more than that. And it doesn't help that many people feed Twitter into Facebook. The only thing worse than information overload is information overload twice.

Google Reader was also at phase 4. I let it sit for months at the dreaded All Items (1000+). I had to re-define what makes a RSS feeds worthy to subscribe to. My requirements for feeds added to Google Reader are now:

Update no more than twice a day.
Must include the full article.
Have a high signal-to-noise ratio. Every article should be interesting.

So, do we just keep declaring real-time-web bankruptcy over and over? Or is there a better way?

FriendFeed has been the only service that has provided me with adequate tools to deal with a ton of real-time information. It has these three key features:

Organize sources into lists.
Have important info delivered to you via email, IM, or desktop notifier.
Hide what you don't want to see.

Now whenever I stumble upon a new source of information on the web, instead of following it's twitter account or adding it to Google Reader, I try to add it to FriendFeed. If the RSS feed is small or updates really often (or the twitter account only has a few @replies) I create a FriendFeed group. I did this with Georgia Tech, Woot, Jake and Amir, Netflix, Card Observer, ThinkGeek, TMNT, Surviving the World, Giveaway of the Day, wikiHow, and Vimeo Staff Picks. Most other sources were already in FriendFeed like the Big Picture, The Onion, Hacker News, and XKCD.

FriendFeed isn't perfect (ability to hide Twitter replies would be nice), but it is makes a great dashboard to keep up with friends and news across the web in real-time. You can perform advanced searches across everyone, or just your friends, or just lists of friends. Another big aspect of FF is the viral conversations that can form around a single post. If you have only been using FF to aggregate your web activity, I suggest you give it another look. A good way to start is to subscribe to groups that cover topics you are interested in, like The Apple Room or Apps.

The real-time web is only going to get bigger and noisier. If new services are smart, they will follow copy the FriendFeed model (like Facebook has been trying to do). The information won't slow down, but we can manage it better so we don't go crazy... and who knows, maybe we can actually get some work done?

Filed under // friendfeed RSS social networking

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June 2

E3 '09 Press Conference Round-Up

This week is the biggest week of the year for gaming news. E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is where all the big players reveal their latest innovations and big-name titles. It wouldn't take much to beat the 2008 E3. Last year was a dud, as the big announcements of the 2008 were an Apple-like interface (Xbox 360), Animal Crossing (Wii), and movie downloads (PS3). The press conferences of 2009 did not disappoint...

MICROSOFT went first and took direct aim at Nintendo with Project Natal for Xbox 360. Instead of just using simple controller "waggle", Microsoft claims to be able detect full 3D motion without the player needing to use any kind of device. Add in voice and facial recognition, and Project Natal sounds very very impressive. A little too impressive. Note the small text in this video: "Product vision: actual features and functionality may vary"

I can't find any technical info on how this actually works, but assuming this technology is as accurate as they claim (even supporting multiple users at once), it could have huge implications on more than just games. Gestures could be added to all kinds of devices. I will wait until I see some detail though, because if it is just a 2D camera and some smart software, I seriously doubt it will be as accurate as they portray in the video. (On stage it had a few... issues). Some notable Microsoft game announcements were Left 4 Dead 2, Forza 3, Halo 3:ODST, Halo:Reach, Alan Wake, Metal Gear Solid: Rising. Xbox 360 is also getting on the social media bandwagon and adding support for last.fm and Facebook.

NINTENDO was next up. Reminding everyone that they began the motion-revolution, they began by showing a new Wii Sports "Resort" and a new Wii Fit "Plus" which will take advantage of the new MotionPlus adapter that arrives next week. Nothing else was really new on the MotionPlus front, but they did show off some "regular" big-name titles... New Super Mario Bros. Wii was the biggest surprise to me. It looks just like the NSMB on DS, but now with 4-player co-op. I really wanted to like the first NSMB, but it was a big disappointment. Hopefully this new new super mario bros will be done right and the added co-op won't make the whole thing just a party game.

Other big game announcements were Super Mario Galaxy 2 (which I believe is the first time a Mario game has gotten a direct sequel on a console reusing the same engine) and Metroid: Other M which looks like a impressive mix of Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. You can check out photos and videos on the Nintendo E3 site. Surprisingly, the recently released DSi got very little attention.

SONY got the final word, and ended the series of conferences with impressively. Continuing with the motion-trend, Sony revealed their new wand-device that looks like the most accurate motion-controller yet. It uses the Playstation Eye camera similar to how motion-capturing is done for films. The result is true 1:1 movement. Check out the on stage demonstration which was much more believable to me than that Project Natal witchcraft:

(and part 2)

Sony also demonstrated major support for the PSP handheld. The PSP go was officially revealed... a slim disc-less PSP with a 16GB harddrive that runs downloaded games and videos. Along with a ton of big-name PSP games: Little Big Planet, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed, and a new Metal Gear Solid. As for PS3 games, nothing too unexpected... except for Final Fantasy XIV Online (yes, that is number 14).

Motion-control was the theme of the year now that Nintendo has proven that it is a legit money-maker. My only gripe is that Microsoft and Sony announce things that we won't see until next year at best. Nintendo's technology may be becoming quickly out-dated, but it is here now and developers have already been creating games that use it. Overall it was a great showing from all three companies. Microsoft had the most impressive show, Nintendo had the best game announcements, but I think the winner is Sony thanks to a great motion-tech demo and big support behind portable gaming.

You can watch the full press conferences at Gamespot. E3 '09 is only just begun, so expect a few more surprises throughout the week.

Filed under // gaming ps3 wii

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