Facebook Chat launches XMPP Support
In a move that has me saying “Well its about freakin’ time!” – Facebook has launched XMPP Support for their popular Chat Service.
Now, normally I don’t take the time to write out about this kind of thing – except that no other blog post has detailed what your connection credentials are – so I’ll go ahead and write those for you.
Login: [email protected]
Password: Your freakin’ Password
If you do not yet have a username (What the heck is wrong with you? Why not?!) then you can create one at http://facebook.com/username/. (By the way, that’ll also be an email address soon, just so ya know).
How Google Could Change The Industry (And Take Over Your Life)
So, the one thing that you’ll find on any and all news websites who are of any quality at all would be the brand new Google Phone, the Nexus One – the one device that’s making me cringe and go “WHY DIDNT I CREATE A YOUTUBE SHOW BEFORE NOW?” Since, you know, just about every single YouTube partner has gotten a free Nexus One. FEEL MY ENVY, YOUTUBERS.
But, there is definitely one thing that could be different. One thing that they could change the entire industry with. And all they’d have to do is partner up with cell phone providers, and convince them to let you get an account without a phone number.
What? What’s that Navarr? You’re absolutely INSANE! You can’t get a cell phone without a cell phone number? Why would you want to? What possible use could that be? What would you do??
Well, if you really are asking all those questions, than shut the hell up and think for a moment. What two things does Google own that would allow them to do something so spectacularly crazy?
Google Voice, and Gizmo5. Gizmo5 would only be necessary if they decided to do Voice over Data, which I personally am not sure the cell phone backend is ready for – but could you imagine purchasing a Nexus One, signing in with your Google (apps?) Account, and then if you already have Google Voice it simply works? And if you don’t it gets you started on creating an account, including choosing your own phone number (for life, although changeable).
Google would store your basic account numbers and information, and if you ever wanted a new android phone, you would simply log in. It’d automatically use your phone number and all your other details, too.
Maybe though, just maybe Google could do this – and make actual cellular calling free, with the only thing you’re paying for being data.
5 Top Publishers Plan Rival to Kindle Format, Ignore Existence of PDF
Five of the nation's largest publishers of newspapers and magazines are teaming up to challenge Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle electronic-book reader with their own technology that would display in color and work on a variety of devices.
- Ryan Nakashima, The Washington Post.
As I’m sure you all know by now; I am a coder above all else. With this one piece of data, you should know there are two things I despise in this entire world:
- Flash and
Why? Because they’re closed off, proprietary, and quite frankly a bitch to deal with on computers. However, that doesn’t stop me from advocating their use for WHAT THEIR ACTUAL PURPOSE is (or, in the case of flash – should be).
So, it should come as only a slight surprise that I’m incredibly agitated over these new formats. You’re creating “book” file formats that will “display in color” and “work on a variety of devices.” Huh, isn’t there already a format specifically for publications, made to work on any multitude of devices? Let’s see, oh, right Portable Document Format – A file format made SPECIFICALLY to render the same way on any device.
Kudos, Publishers – You’ve just re-invented the wheel.
Google Voice in Outlook
EDIT: I managed to bring this into being thanks to other people generously letting it run on their servers (though unfortunately I can't vouch for the security). You can check it out at http://www.gvoms.com.
Additionally, I've also made the source code available over at https://github.com/navarr/Google-Voice-OMS
If you’re a regular reader to my blog, I’m sure you read yesterday’s post about how Google Voice could gain a head in the business world. At that time, my dream of connecting Google Voice and Outlook via OMS was far from completion, with the only work I’d managed to accomplish being a simple reading over of the related technologies.
Well, late last night a certain gear clicked in my brain, and I spent the entire night awake and coding PHP on a local XAMPP server. But my end result was fruitful – I finished successfully coding an Outlook Mobile Service that allows the delivery of SMS through the Google Voice system.
Here is a video showing it off:
I’m not yet prepared to release the source code for this, though. (Messy, Messy, Mess! as Double D would say). There’s a lot in my mind about it, it took a lot of work and I’m not ready to see forks and duplicate services pop up. (Sorry guys =S). Be on the look out for follow up posts that describe some of the technologies I had to learn to make this possible.
Oh, also – If you’d like; Help sponsor this project (I can’t afford to make it public ATM) with either Free (VERIFIED) SSL Hosting for a subdomain of a domain I own [contact me], or the money to make it public using my current host ($62.40/yr) [donate through my host]. I would be most appreciative if you could offer either of these to get this thing up and running!
How Google Voice Could Gain a Head in the Business World
Google Voice, albeit still in Beta, is a very popular Google application for creating a single phone number to manage all your phones, with texting, and times to ring and not ring them. It’s very powerful.
One of the nicest additions is the ability to read and reply to SMS on your computer. I, personally, find this one of Google Voice’s best features. Even if you don’t have a Cell Phone – you can sign up for Google Voice and now you have free texting. What could be better?
Well, I can think of one thing – Connecting it with Outlook
Outlook has, in the last few versions, supported adding a SMS Bridge using whatever protocol it is they use in addition to a MAPI store. It wouldn’t be very hard for Google Voice to tap into this, and provide free text messages for all Outlook Users – It would even gain a competitive edge over other service providers, in that your text messages from outlook would come from your actual phone number, and replies to them would be sent to your computer and your phones.
Now, I was going to be mean and keep this idea all to myself – but not only do I NOT have hosting with SSL (I can’t afford it~) but I don’t know anything about the various protocols I would need to know in order to make this work.
So Google, don’t you think it’s time to take the Business World by storm with your revolutionary phone service?
(PS: I would also like MMS. Even the iPhone got it before you did, and that’s sad.)
[Wave Preview Update] Groups Showing up in Waves
As you can see in the above screen shot, groups on Google Wave are now getting their own icon and full contact card (as opposed to being slightly supported).
This is also going to be the first in a series of posts updating on the status of the Google Wave Preview. This post and all subsequent posts will be hash-tagged.
#wavePreviewUpdate
YouTube Mini Audio Player
If you read my personal blog (which a lot of you probably don’t even know exists) you’ll commonly see music embedded as mini-YouTube embeds. It turns out, the magic height is 25 pixels, and the magic width (for play/pause and mute) is 62 pixels.
However, it is kind of a burden to do this every time you want to embed a mini player (you have to edit at four fields in the HTML!) So to simplify this process, I, like any programmer before me, created a generator. Just type in the URL to the YouTube video and press make, and you’ll get a preview as well as the cross-browser HTML-esque mess of a code to embed.
Of course, if you’re truly lazy, just drag the bookmarklet below to your bookmark bar in your web browser, and click it on any YouTube video and you’ll be taken to the page with the code already generated.
Source code is available via link at the bottom of the page.
![80x15[1]](http://tech.gtaero.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/80x151.png "80x15[1]"){kind=small}
Boycotting Virgin Mobile USA
So, I’ve started a boycott. This one’s for real, although I’m unable to participate in it myself (I can’t afford a new phone.)
Please join me in my efforts to Boycott Virgin Mobile USA. The company blocks twitter. That’s really the only reason. They acknowledge that they “do not support it” and they refuse to support it, despite my unlimited plan, so, I’m calling for a boycott!
Please Tweet this blog and join me in my efforts! This is unacceptable =)
Thanks~
Navarr