Open Screen Project

The Open Screen Project is pretty impressive. A lot of big players…actually pretty much everyone except Apple! Hm…full versions of Flash on Android or Blackberry.

http://www.openscreenproject.org/about/

“The number and diversity of devices in our lives is exploding. Consumers want and demand the total Internet, with open access to websites, applications, and services using all devices. The challenge is that fragmentation across devices, operating systems, and browsers hinders innovation. The result? Consumer demands are not being met. The Open Screen Project was established to meet these challenges and expectations. It is an industry-wide initiative, led by Adobe with the participation of other industry leaders, to enable the delivery of rich multiscreen experiences built on a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications.”

SharePoint: Redirect to a Another Page After Completing a List Form

Shane Perran’s blog has a nice SharePoint customization tip on how to redirect to a desired page after completing a list form.

His blog entry explains all of the steps that are necessary, but the portion that was simple and brilliant to me is that you can control the ending page of the form by appending the URL of the concluding page into the “source” query string variable:

http://sharepoint/site/Lists/MyList/NewForm.aspx?source=http://sharepoint/site/thanks.aspx

Google Chrome OS vs. Microsoft Azure

I was reading an article on eweek.com, about the upcoming “operating system” battle in the cloud.

“…with Microsoft arriving in the cloud, albeit later than Google, Amazon.com, Salesforce.com and others, what is to stop it from taking the cloud mantle from these companies in their respective spaces -- cloud collaboration, cloud infrastructure and cloud business apps -- within a couple of years?”

From the Google Blog: “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.”

From Microsoft: “The Windows Azure platform offers a flexible, familiar environment for developers to create cloud applications and services. With Windows Azure, you can shorten your time to market and adapt as demand for your service grows.”

Ultimate Pocket Camcorder Comparison

Nice article Gizmodo. Hmm...I want a pocket camcorder, but as the editor says it’s only a year or two until SmartPhones take over this category.

Personalized Video on the Web

Serge Jespers, one of the Flash evangelists at Adobe, created a fun tutorial on how to create personalized video similar to JibJab’s “Elf Yourself.” In a nutshell, he uses motion tracking in After Effects, converts the data to cue points, exports the FLV, then with a small bit of ActionScript uses the metadata to move a movie clip along the X,Y axis. Brilliant and cool.

 

Firefox finally passes IE6

MB pointed out this interesting article at Ars Technica. According to their October 2009 browser statistics Firefox has finally passes IE6. (Note that IE, when counting all versions, is still the dominant browser.) It blows my mind that IE6 continues to be so prevalent. I would think the convenience to businesses would be outweighed by its many security flaws.

TripIt

I’m definitely going to try this service on my next trip.

“[Once you create an account you can]…forward your travel confirmation emails (airline, hotel, rental car and more) to plans@tripit.com. It doesn't matter where you book, TripIt will "automagically" build an itinerary for you with all of your different travel details in one place, plus maps, weather, and directions.”

http://www.tripit.com/

The Internet loves Microsoft?

Interesting. I wouldn’t have predicted this. According to comScore more Internet users spent time on Microsoft sites than any other property:

“Microsoft Sites captured nearly 15 percent of time spent online worldwide in September, making it the most engaging global property, followed by Google Sites and Yahoo! Sites. Facebook.com, which continues to see significant growth on a worldwide basis, was the fourth most engaging destination with visitors spending 1.4 billion hours on the site in September, up 193 percent from the previous year.”

USB + autorun.inf = Nada

It seems that the days of automatically launching media from a USB drive are coming to an end. Traditionally you could modify the autorun.inf file in the root directory of your drive:

[autorun]
icon=icon.ico
open=folder/file.html
action=Launch Name
shellexecute=folder/file.html

However, due to people using this nefariously (i.e. spreading viruses and malware) Microsoft is taking this ability away starting with Windows 7. From the MSDN blog:

Windows 7 introduces key changes to AutoPlay that keep you from being exposed inadvertently to malware like Conficker when doing your common scenarios with devices (e.g., get to the files on your USB flash drive, download pictures from an SD card, etc.).

In particular, Windows will no longer display the AutoRun task in the AutoPlay dialog for devices that are not removable optical media (CD/DVD.) because there is no way to identify the origin of these entries. Was it put there by the IHV, a person, or a piece of malware? Removing this AutoRun task will block the current propagation method abused by malware and help customers stay protected. People will still be able to access all of the other AutoPlay tasks that are installed on their computer.

Listorious

Listorious seems like it provides some great lists of Twitter Lists based on category.

“Twitter's new Lists feature allows anyone to curate the real time web. Listorious makes it easy to find the best lists of Twitter users on any given topic, and for list creator to publicize their lists.”

Tweetrad.io

I just read about this amusing service on Mashable: “We just happened upon Tweetrad.io, a site that treats tweets from your Twitter searches like tunes on an old school radio channel, so tweets are read aloud by an automated Twitter DJ as they roll in.”

http://tweetrad.io/

Haystack

37 Signals has started a site called Haystack to find web designers. There are some nice-looking designs there. As a side thought, this might be a good referral site when you get asked to do projects you just don’t have time for.

Finding a web designer just got easier with Haystack. No more frustrating Google searches or asking people “Do you know a web designer?” Browse over 2,000 web designers’ portfolios by style, location, and budget.

Check out Haystack or get listed for free if you’re a web designer.

Open Source Media Framework

The Open Source Media Framework is something to keep an eye on.

Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) is an open software framework for building robust, feature-rich video players and applications based on the Adobe® Flash® Platform.

OSMF reduces the complexity of player development, allowing the developer more time to focus on the overall user experience. OSMF’s flexible architecture allows the developer to easily customize their player for the browser or the desktop, incorporating plugins for advertising, reporting, and content delivery along with standard player features such as playback controls, video navigation, buffering, and Dynamic Streaming. The OSMF can be integrated into your own custom applications using the simple API, or you can deploy the ready-to-run dynamic SWF player without compiling or writing custom scripts.

There’s also a nice devnet article on this topic by R. Blank.