Unhurriedly

YouTube is not the only kid on the block when it comes to online video. Eliminating “real” file formats from Apple and Microsoft, there are a ton of Flash based sites out there. Some are better than others. For the most part YouTube has held its own, maintaining the highest visibility and giving its parent, Google, a lot of exposure.

Finally, at nearly the same market level as Google, another player has stepped in using its own highly recognizable and oft copied brands. Yahoo!’s Flickr now has the ability to create “long pictures” which is just a fancy way of saying video. Limiting users to 90 seconds, marketed as a creativity enhancer, it is not trying to be a complete replacement to YouTube but with nearly every digital camera on the market today featuring the ability to shoot video, Flickr is easily one of the best “One-stop-shops” in digital imagery and sharing.

I have an iPhone, and a have found it to be nearly perfect. I had held out as long as I could, but it is the perfect storm of handheld consumer electronics. Sure, there are others out there with better features, faster connections and better service providers but no other device pulls it all together like the iPhone. IMAP for my Gmail (I don’t have all of my personal accounts on the iPhone as it chews up too much bandwidth. Yes, I have that many.) and for my work email (Exchange IMAP works just fine, people!). The latest updates make the Map.app even more useful with GPS-like wifi trilateration. Hahlo for my Twitter and NewsGator’s mobile site to sync with NetNewsWire (All of NewsGator’s personal products including NetNewsWire and their service are now free! I was willing to pay for it, and did, but this is even better! Get it!) to get my RSS. As a Mac user, no other device will even sync properly without the use of third party software like missing sync! I even get my iPhoto pics on my iPhone, smartly scaled down for its screen to take up less space.

So, just a few minutes ago, I got an email from Nate:

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:13:06 -0500
Subject: Flock / Blogging Browser
From: Nate Kresse
To: Glenn Kauffman

Built on firefox. I hooked it into my WP blog in seconds. Easiest way to blog as far as I can tell. Can hook into your flickr account and drag and drop into your blog post. Fun.

http://www.flock.com/

Nate

Three clicks, a minute of downloading, a drag and drop install and a double-click later (oh yeah, and some relatively painless config) I am writing a new post from within Flock.

So far so good I’d say. My first impressions are pretty good. It seems to be nicely polished for a beta and some nice integration with some of the nicest web apps out there.

There are, however some down sides.

1. Non-OS based spellcheck. I love my spell as you type integration within Safari and my other Apple apps. I’m wishing I had it here too. (It also doesn’t know “blog”, “html” or several other obviously used words…)
2. Creating links seems to require the mouse. I know there has to be another way of creating links, but I think I might be spoiled by the MediaWiki formatting code. No taking my hands off of the keyboard, no odd rollout sheet, no hidden destinations. Sure, formatting code just gets parsed into html and I could just plunk some of that in, but I’m trying to lower personal stumbling blocks that have, in the past, kept me from blogging more often.
3. Lack of organization for saved posts. All I need is a little window so that I can browse through the posts that I’m working on. Maybe with a little status icon. I’m not picky, but it is something MarsEdit does really nicely.

At least I figured out how to set my default search back to google.com. I know both Flickr and del.icio.us are now in the yahoo domain, but that doesn’t mean I like their search engine.

As for RSS, I think I’ll stick to my tried and true NetNewsWire / NewsGator Online combo.

Don’t take my critiques too harshly, I’m using it and will probably continue to use it as long as its free. And that is the real crux of the situation.

Blogged with Flock

On occasion, I’ll get a OS X or other *NIX system that is acting downright funky. I go through all of the usual troubleshooting steps, but still, I have strange traffic or processes that are not acting right. Sometimes, I’m downright paranoid!

Here is a handy (and very pretty) script that will check out your system for signs of some of the most common rootkits. Sure, a clever hacker won’t leave enough traces, but its the dumb ones that seem to do the most damage.

Its a simple install (as long as you have sudo access), an easy run and quite pleasing to look at. I love seeing all of those [ OK ] text icons!

Developer Site: Rootkit Hunter
Download: Root Kit Hunter 1.2.7 [ developer ]