Constructive Deconstruction

Missing Pandora? Well there’s GlobalPandora…for now.

There was a time when I used to have Pandora running in the background. It always got the songs that I wanted to hear at that moment right. Then one day, it become US-only.

But now there’s GlobalPandora which supposedly allows you to login using your pandora details and is available internationally. It seems to be an unofficial service so they’re probably just bouncing the data around to get it out of the US.

…and because of that, they might not last long. Stan from Mashable is giving it one day.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Be careful when aligning yourself with Google

Just read this piece of news where Google boots IncrediMail from their Adsense program. What’s interesting is how this affected their stock price…overnight. A $45m company one day, 30m the next. 

 
( Image Courtesy of Techcrunch )

Google clearly has a huge bargaining chip but startups are going to have to start finding ways of making sure they can sustain themselves without completely selling their souls to the Mighty G…

Google Pagerank Update Again: Will PayPerPost users still be "kept out of the Internet"?

This piece of news might be of interest to those who have been anxious about their pagerank being dropped…or are just waiting for their new domain names to get a pagerank at all.

Apparently, there’s an update that’s underway. Not all the servers have been updated but it a comment left on mashable indicates that it might be in the process.

It’s sad how PayPerPost got ‘kicked out of the Internet’ by Google. It’s just not right for anyone to do that…Ok, so they’re a corporate entity and they’re entitled to do whatever they want….Maybe it’s time to draw parallels between them and Microsoft. Anti-trust. Monopoly. Ring a bell?

Ok…Maybe i’m feeling sour coz i got dropped from 4 to 0 in their last update. Bleagh. I hope they give me back my rank…*sobz*

It looks like Google may be playing around with everyone’s PageRanks again.

The last time this happened was in October when we all learned that selling links from your site could lead to your getting a big ole zero. This event led to PayPerPost, a site well known for purchasing links, to change their name to Izea, and later create their own ranking system, IZEARanks. The basic idea is to try to wrest some control of a ranking system from the hands of just one company, and provide a more “true” ranking system for blogs.

( Source : Mashable )

Siemens introduces MacBook Pro modified with Ultrasound capability

Siemens has just introduced their new P50 laptop that’s designed for cardiology and vascular applications. They say it "considerably simplifies and accelerates the workflow in echocardiography and vascular diagnosis".

That said, the interesting thing is that they’ve decided to use Windows as their platform. Haha.

( Source : Engadget )

Battle of the Social Networks: Will Google’s OpenSocial Affect Users?

Google should be launching OpenSocial soon and from what I’ve gathered, it’s going to be a common API that works across a conglomerate of social networks. Seems to me like it’s a reaction to the unstoppable Facebook phenomenon. Question is, will this really change anything? And if it does, what exactly will it change?

A few key points are worth noting and from the list of OpenSocial partners, the questions to ask are really:

1. Why are these networks not receiving the kind of growth that Facebook receives?
2. Does OpenSocial answer those shortfalls?

I believe the success of the Facebook largely hinges on the way they keep their users connected and updated amongst each other without anyone having to do too much work. Couple that with a pretty clean interface(If you didn’t clutter yours with Vampires, Slayers, Werewolves and other useless apps that is), you’ve got one heck of a tool.

I’ve longed abandoned my Friendster account because it ate up my time having to actually go to individual profiles to find out more about what my friends were doing and if they’d changed anything significant.

I logged onto myspace once. It was so cluttered that I abandoned it immediately.

Orkut killed off any interest at that moment when I saw my friend logging in to his account from the pc next to me.

Apart from site usability, Facebook has also got the social dynamics right. They’ve successfully created a system that makes talking to your friends really fun and seamless. They’ve also done a great job at allowing you to discover people – from the past and present. And I have to say this again, they have a clean and compact interface. Best of all, they allowed developers to create applications and to allow them to leverage on their userbase freely. Sure there’s a fair share of rubbish applications that float around but that exists on your page only if you allow it to. All in all, at the very core of facebook, they’ve got it right.

How does OpenSocial potentially change anything?

By creating a set of common APIs that touch

- Individual Information(you)
- Social Network Information(your friends)
- Activity Stream(what everyone does)

These effectively changes the ball game a little. ALL developers can create applications that leverage on the userbase that exists on the partnering networks. It also allows the apps to be run off all the various networks(they’ve called it “Containers”) and it opens the door to create a consolidated news feed like that of Facebook(of course, I’m assuming the integration is flawless).

Looking at that, it seems to benefit the developers more than the users. Arguably, the increase in applications could create value for the users in the different networks but if say, as a Friendster user, things are so cluttered anyway…why should I remain there when most of my friends are on facebook too?

My point is, while OpenSocial might create the ability for developers to create applications across networks, this won’t solve the core issues that put Facebook ahead of the pack because ultimately what’s ‘open’ are stuff that common amongst all the participating networks. And if their current problem now lies in the core dynamics of their services, OpenSocial probably won’t do much to help them move ahead.

Maybe it’ll make things more bearable for the user…but I doubt it’ll do more than that.

….Unless of course there’re more drastic changes on the way…Like “Facebook Jumps on OpenSocial Bandwagon”

Images courtesy of Techcrunch.com and Facebook.com

Voices Project

Several weeks I spoke to a few people about a mosaic project that I wanted to do for fun.
Well, i finally got down to making a super basic skeleton of it.
It has tons of improvements that will be required but at least there’s something…

voices.ridzuan.info

for now…I’m hoping that if you read my blog, you could send me a photo of yourself that’s in a dimension ratio of 1:1 to ridzuan.ashim@xsmatter.com and also include your blog address. From there, i’ll add your photo to the page…And ermm, help me tell your friends?

I’ll have more updates as time goes by…

Warning.

I don’t know you. But it seems you know quite a bit about me, and my family. And it seems you’re making serious threats to my family.

Now, i’ll be honest with you. I don’t who you are. I don’t know how exactly much you know. But if you get here, and you’re reading this. Then yes, this is for you.

I am warning you to stay away from my entire family. Settle. If you want, we meet, we settle it one time…If you harm anyone, i’ll tell you what’s going to happen. I’ll drop all my plans - school & work - and I will find you. And I will find everyone who’s working for you. And I will find your family. And I will taste their blood.

From what I know, you sound like an educated person. But if you cannot understand me, i’ll make it simple for you.

You don’t disturb my family, I don’t disturb yours. If you do, i’ll kill your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your wife, your girlfriends, your children.
…I can find you.

Ping.SG: The Singaporean Blogger Portal

I posted this on XSMatter as well but I think it deserves mention here too…

I chanced upon this site while blog surfing and found out that it was founded by a friend’s friend. Now, because i’ve pretty taken a higher interest in blogging these days plus, i’m a strong support of new ideas and projects( Start-ups should support each other ) I decided to put this up.

Ping.SG allows bloggers to ping the platform and the latest/hotest blog entries will be aggregated and published on the site front. Officially(Based on their FAQ), Ping.SG is

ping.sg is a meta blog for Singapore bloggers. It aims to create a comprehensive and thorough database for blog entries written by local bloggers and/or with local interest. ping.sg also aims to create online community for Singapore bloggers to interact and gives every single blogger the same chance to stand out above the rest.

The entire project is still very new but I think it’s very promising. Another point to take note is that they’re just about 2 weeks old at the point of this entry…so cut em some slack ya?

Kudos to Ping.SG

Jajah brings to you free phonecalls

I stumbled upon this several days ago on Guy's blog. Figured it would be good to let my readers know about this.
Jajah announced that they will be bringing to users free calls between either, or within the following categories:

Zone 1 : Landline and Mobile lines
USA, Canada, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan

Zone 2 : Landlines
Argentinia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, CzechRepublic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea South, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, Venezuela

 How it works is you key in your number and your friend's number. The system will then call both parties and connect them. I guess this works based on the assumption that incoming calls are free on both ends. Pretty neat i'd say. 

There are some terms of fair use that you should read when you sign up though…I guess its a safety measure so that people don't abuse the free service - or end up using it to have 18hour phone calls to your girlfriend(s) everyday. Otherwise, check it out =)

My rails cant get on the ruby

I have been spending the past 4 hours trying to get the Rails on Ruby thing up on my laptop. I've gone from re-installing my MySQL servers to re-initiating the Rdoc server. Whats the problem? I can't install Rails. I've done Ruby, I just cant get Rails up. I've tried "gem install rails" command but once it attempts to update it remotely, it just hangs. 

What frustrates me is that I don't have to install rails remotely because i've already downloaded it to my desktop. I just don't know what's the command for ruby to install it. Help anyone?