the construct :: weblog

I purchased vinely.com to use for a “web 2.0″ domain name for a cool app. Something that brings all your “vines” aka your twitter, blog posts, other RSS feeds, facebook, myspace, etc etc into one place. I kinda abandoned the idea because I have no time or know-how right now to do that kind of thing. Plus it’s already being done by larger companies that will hopefully do a far better job than my grand scheme of things.

So instead I’m using vinely.com as my own “web vine” of sorts. Right now it’s more of a tumblog / twitter / instant update blog than anything. I’ll be testing social web applications that are open source and maybe come up with something cool that a few people will like. Either way I’ll be learning stuff and that is what’s really important when you work within teh internets. There’s lots of free apps and API’s out there to do cool stuff with so when I find the time, maybe something will happen.

Until then, vinely is my web vine.

Today many thoughts wandered my mind about what I use everyday. My job (I have many but to keep this kinda short…) is basically internet production. I don’t know if that’s a real position, but I design, manage, test, websites all day. I also realized today how much I use the internet everyday. If the internet went down, I figure I would have significantly less to do. Sure I could still work on stuff locally, yet email, blogging, photo sharing, news reading… so on and so forth would not be possible.

Then onto more thoughts, after thinking all this I hit up one of my usual reads Zach Klein, specifically todays post on video. Video on the internet wasn’t anywhere near as popular as it was sayyyy a year ago?! Sure there was video like quicktime/windows files that are damn near impossible to watch on every computer. In this day and age the smart way to go is Flash. Vimeo one of Zach’s projects uses flash since their redesign, but I remember the days of the Windows Media/Quicktime files. Then every other online video site uses flash because it works in every browser that has flash player installed.

Towards the end he mentions this:

Aside, if I were a recent college grad without a job — I would startup a venture that produces 5/15/30 second ad spots for small to medium-sized companies. If popular video-sharing sites begin including pre-roll advertising before clips, there is going to be lots of new ad inventory, and lots of new advertisers who don’t have video creatives.

That is an amazing idea that many have shared. How would you get started in that kind of thing? I feel I could start something like that, especially by the time I graduate with a degree in Computer Information Systems with a minor in Digital Media. Anybody want to do a startup?

I suppose the whole purpose of this post was my short thoughts on how internet is attached to everyday life, with a little side on video.

P.S. Most of the time I forget to mention my various projects that I work on that make this blog dormant. Check out the Film or Video categories. Then head over to my daily music blog, MUSICGLOB.COM. Sooner or later I’ll update this site to showcases a few things.

This is just crazy looking. Takes maps and crap to a whole new level, and it’s by Microsoft!

Windows Live Local - Virtual Earth Technology Preview

p.s. I made this post with Flock, and it didn’t really work all that well with Wordpress 1.5

Man oh Man I want everything here. I already have the Rotolog Leather and am extremely happy with it. I wanted the Rotolog first, but at the time I was looking they were all sold out. Soon, very soon I will create my nixon empire.

Nixon Wood Collection

There is now new iPods out. Some good points..it also comes in black!

It has a 320 x 240 pixel, 2.5-inch, 260,000 color display, 20 hours of battery life, and supports playback of H.264 and MPEG4 at 30 fps. Has TV out and will come in both 30GB and 60GB versions, with the 30GB version being 31% thinner than the current 20GB iPod and the 60GB version being 12% thinner than the current 20GB iPod. The 30GB will hold up to 75 hours of video and retail for $299. The 60GB version will hold 150 hours of video and sell for $399. Both will ship in one week. from: engadget

Take a look at list of features
I’m quite glad that I bought the Nano when I did, even though I knew I wanted a 60gb iPod. I told myself I would wait until Christmas, so that turned out for the best. The whole “video iPod” thing has been circling around for a couple months. Including hidden features withing iTunes 5 for video. [side note: iTunes 6 is out]

Related releases: the new iMac G5 with the Apple Remote and FrontRow which is a new way to manage your media . Looks pretty cool, I would like to see it in action.

Overall a good week for Apple releases…
For more, visit these sites:
Gizmodo
Engadget
of course Apple.com

It seems as today (or I noticed today) Google Reader has launched. It your web based feed reader powered by google, ajax, and awesomeness. All you need is a Google Account. So if you already have a gmail account you are all set.

I setup a couple feeds and it’s really quite a nice web application to use. The only problem I see with Reader is Google is so huge, what about other companies that are trying to put out a good feed reader? [ex: feedlounge.com] This reminds me of ODEO creating a really great podcast service… but then iTunes releases a new version supporting podcasting right around the same time ODEO launches. I’m sure feedlounge and ODEO will do just fine because they are run by great people and are great services, yet I think it kinda sucks when a large company comes in like that.

Either way, go checkout Google Reader beta

**UPDATE**
ALSO, read the comments, cause this reader isn’t all that rad to me now. I thought it was… but it’s not. For a couple reasons, mainly because it works weird.

This year I really want to go to South by South West. I’ve known about it since 2003, and wanted to go ever since then. This year I think I am top of it early enough to go and have a good time. I also have 6 months of saving in order to really have a good time. Craig Newmark (creator of Craigslist is one of the keynotes which is something to look forward too.

This is my entry to dedicate myself to going this year. Yes it’s a few months away, but why not plan ahead? I’m even creating a category in preparation!

Official SXSW 2006 website

Google Talk is here… the much rumored IM client has now been released. Head over to google.com/talk and download the client. Right now it is only available for windows xp users, yet you can connect to the server through other clients. I have download and am testing it out as I can.

You can also check out a post over at ForeverGeek for a longer write up.
Heres a post over at TUAW
Why Google’s Instant Message Service is Not about Jabber but about Skype
Google Talk Review at DownloadSquad

Vimeo is a new awesome service made by the guys over at Connected Ventures. They have made things like Collegehumor.com, Busted Tees, Defunker, and a myriad of other things. I really like Vimeo because it is basically Flickr for video.

I had been waiting for months to see when it was open for sign up, and I found out when I checked today that it was open. I don’t know how long it has been open, but I am happy to have my account.

Head on over to my profile page to see my clips and stuff.

If you didn’t notice already, all new iPods have color screens for not too bad of prices.

The simplified lineup features a new 20GB color screen model for $299 (the same price as the older monochrome version), a 60GB model for $399 ($50 cheaper), and an updated iPod U2 Special Edition with a color screen for $329 ($20 cheaper). The company has apparently dropped the 30GB iPod photo model, which sold for $349. (From iPod Lounge)

This makes me want to get one pretty soon. Yes I have an iRiver with a beautiful color screen and lots of other features that the iPod doesn’t have. Yet I still want an iPod. Why? The user interface. The UI that has won the hearts and minds of millions of people everywhere. It’s easy to use, yet very fuctional. So if you are in the market for a new iPod, the color ones are at a decent price, and if you don’t want a color iPod, the old ones are getting cheaper by the second. Then there is always eBay.

Also, one other thing to note, iTunes 4.9 is out not with the new podcast feature. You can subscribe and download and listen to all your favorite podcasts. I wonder how this will affect ODEO(which is an awesome service by the way) If you think back a little ways, I was talking about podcasting as it was really starting to gain attention. Now it will be getting alot of attention, especially since Apple is. Wired has done many articles on the topic. Now is the time of podcasting… I’ll probably write another post on podcasting soon.