change is a-comin'

No, I'm not talking about Obama.

You may have noticed that all blogging has been on pause for the last month or so. I've been busy with quite a few things, one of which is completely redesigning the site.

Expect big things.

youtube

In a desperate attempt to bring back some Hulu viewership, Youtube has launched the Screening Room. Basically, you can watch full films on YouTube. One shortcoming - they don't offer them in HD - only HQ.

Youtube's problem in doing this is that they're losing sight of their purpose. The site has always strongly focused around user-generated content. Of course, when a large portion of that content involves 14-year old girls talking about how much they love the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift, there's not much profit to be made. There is, however, payment to be made - each video must still be hosted on Youtube servers, which takes up space. If the video is ever watched, Youtube must pay for the bandwidth for it to be streamed to your computer. This, of course, is the reason why they do not offer full-lenght HD films on YouTube - "Supersize Me" already has 236,177 views. If 100,000 of those people had streamed the film in HD, (assuming that the Supersize Me HD Copy is roughly 1 GB), YouTube would have had to pay for 100,000 GB of streaming content.

Hulu, on the other hand, has always focused on corporate-generated content. That is to say, they've always showed real TV shows and movies. Youtube is trying to encroach on this area, but unfortunately, Hulu still does it better. Youtube's movies are mostly old - Hulu generally releases content the day of screening. Youtube is also clearly losing money on the screening room - unlike Hulu, which displays ads at intervals during a show, Youtube allows the entire program to be watched without uninterruption. This is great, of course, until you realize the cost to Youtube to even stream the show to your computer.

Youtube needs to figure out a way to monetize on its user-generated content. The little popups below the videos are a good start. I know that nobody likes to see ads, but it's simply a necessity for Youtube to stay alive. Hulu is doing great, simply because they offer content that people actually want to see, and they have ads that you can't block or dodge.

I'm happy to see Youtube providing a way to watch full-lenght movies, but I feel that they're trying to move into a niche that has already been filled.

txting

For those who don't know , I've been going up and down the eastern seaboard for the last week or so.

More on that later.

One thing that I've never had enabled on my phone is text messaging. I've never really seen the need - if I want to talk to someone, I'll simply give them a call. Of course, some people completley rely on texts. And, sometimes, it's just handy to be able to send texts. Now, Gmail has an option to send texts for free. All you have to do is click Settings, click Labs, and enable text messaging in Google Chat. Ta-da! You can now just enter a phone number and send as many texts as you want. You can even receive replies to a unique Google number.

This is just one step towards the much needed consolidation of data plans. Internet coverage is now as widespread as cell coverage. Why would people need to pay for two ways of sending data, when one would suffice? With Voice-over-IP and Internet texting, why pay for a phone plan? Several services are providing answers to this question. GrandCentral, soon to be known as Google Voice, allows users to register any phone number they desire. They can send and receive texts to that number for free, as well as make and receive calls. The calls can go directly to your computer, or even make any and all your phones ring. Unfortunately, the service is currently in an invite-only BETA, but it's definitley got huge potential. The other service is Skype. Skype recently released an iPhone application that allows users to make and receive calls over iPhone's Internet network. There's also an application called FreeSMS that allows you to send texts directly from your iPhone for free. These two, paired together, allow you to only need to pay for Internet - no texts and calling plans. Perhaps the future of phones entails just that - one flat internet plan, wherever you go.

changes

Made some minor fixes to RatherAwesome.com. Fixed the Google Search, and added a widget that hooks into my Twitter.

today i feast

Going to an all-you-can-eat steakfeed tonight. I'm excited.

In other news, Death Cab for Cutie is releasing a new EP in a few weeks. Open Doors EP, April 14th.

One thing that I've noticed is that some artists that I used to listen to have increased immensely in popularity. There's a Death Cab / Andrew Bird Concert coming up in a few days, and tickets are selling for $100 each. It's great that these good artists are finally getting the attention they deserve, but does the law of supply and demand have to be so unforgiving?

chrome'd

Back in 2008, I posted a blog about how Chrome failed to impress. Google came through, fixed up some features, made it aesthetically smoother, and released a few new versions. I'm on the Chrome BETA 2.0 right now. What stands out to me? Let's see.

Greasemonkey!

Google added Greasemonkey support to Chrome. It's still not very straightforward to install, and by far not a perfect implementation (@require, for example, doesn't work), but it allows for some customization and extension. So far, I've used it to remove that annoying "Highlights" column on Facebook, and implement a kind-of functional AdBlock script, which can be found here. Regardless of the still-present shortcomings, I'm glad that one of my favorite Firefox addons has finally come to Chrome.

mailto: Support!

One great tool I installed is simply called ChromeMailer. What it does is allow you, when you come accross those pesky mailto: links, to set them to open in your Chrome GMail.

Speed!

Chrome is still the fastest browser I've used to date.

Shortcomings..

Due to Chrome using Greasemonkey for Adblocking, it still has a relatively limited set of Adblock commands. One thing I noticed was that when I removed the Facebook Advertisement pane, everything shifted over.

Once Chrome has full-blown Addon support, I'll look forward to using it. It's shaping into a good browser.

it's been a long time

It's been quite a while since I've updated. Why's that? Well, first and foremost, I've been recovering from a knee surgery. Today's the first day that I've tried walking. It's amazing just how fast your leg 'forgets' how to walk. After only about two months on crutches, I couldn't remember what I had to do to move and bend my leg.

Other than that... I've been pursuing a court case, trying to figure out the identity of someone who essentially used my name on a community forum (the website for our local newspaper) with the intent to defame me.

Finally, I've decided to start trying Google Chrome. Chrome's fast, for sure, which I love. The selling point that allowed me to transition over from Firefox was their implementation of Greasemonkey in Chrome. Finally, users can create their own little scripts. It's not perfect yet - about 3/4 of the scripts I downloaded required some tweaking or just didn't work, but it's getting there. I'll post a more definitive 'what I like and what I don't' post at some point, but for right now, I'm still trying to get everything looking the way I like.