Facebook Goes Vanity

Beginning at 11:01pm CDT Friday Facebook will allow its users to claim a name as part of their profile page's Web Address i.e. http://facebook.com/johndoe. This will allow users to replace the randomly selected string of numbers currently assigned to each profile. Businesses and Fan pages will be able to adopt such names as well, but they will have had to have been on the site by May 31st with at least 1,000 fans at that time. It's all first come first served. To avoid squatting only users who have joined before 3pm Tuesday will be able to sign up for usernames initially. All else will have to wait until June 28th. By the by, MySpace has provided this since their launch.

Google Rides the Wave

A few days ago Google announced the upcoming release of its latest application called "Wave". Google Wave is a new communication and collaboration tool. It's meant to answer the question, "What would email look like if it had been invented today?". It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. The result is an offering that may revolutionize how we communicate via the Internet.

According to the company:

"a wave is equal parts conversation and document where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

An exciting aspect of Google Wave is that the company is releasing it as an open-source platform with an extremely rich set of APIs that will allow developers to embed waves in other web services and to also build extensions. Individuals and organizations will be able to set-up and run their own Wave servers. This is similar to how email servers are built and managed. Communications can be limited internally or opened up to other Wave servers as communication and work flow dictate.

If you're curious for more view the video below:

Secondly, hit Google Wave a Complete Guide over at Mashable.com. After that ponder the possibilities of unified communication!

Gmail Goes Offline

Google has announced that it will be rolling out offline functionality for Gmail. The company is calling the feature experimental. The functionality is facilitated by Gears, the same web application used to provide offline functionality in other Google web applications. Once the feature is enabled, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail. Synchronization occurs as long as you are connected to the internet. Once the connection closes, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode and uses the cache stored on your hard drive. While offline you can compose, search, and label messages. There is even a "flaky connection mode" for weak or unreliable network connections. Early reports are that working with Gmail offline is indistinguishable from working with the application online. You can check to see if your account has access to this feature by clicking on the Labs tab under Settings within Gmail.

Speed Up Windows with CCleaner

Windows has a knack for slowing down over time. As you surf, open and close applications, copy and move files, Windows leaves traces of all of these activities in the form of cookies and recent document links. Browsers tend to store cached information which, in theory, speeds up web browsing with pre-loaded graphics, portions of web pages, and surfing history. The simple act of installing and uninstalling applications also leaves orphaned files on your hard drive. Over time, all of these small files can add up to a large chunk of disk space, slowing the operation of your PC, especially the boot process. CCleaner, which stands for Crap Cleaner, is a freeware utility which optimizes Windows systems by removing unused files. This allows Windows to run faster and free up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of online activities such as internet history. CCleaner also cleans the Windows registry, the directory which stores settings and options for the operating system. This directory can grow huge over time with references to long gone applications and files. I recently ran CCleaner and removed one gigabyte of useless crude stored on my hard drive. CCleaner is free, fast, and contains no Spyware or Adware. They boast over 200 million downloads, and also per their website, donations large and small are appreciated.

Archive Your CD Collection with FLAC and MediaMonkey

 

They told us the Compact Disc would last forever, that it was indestructible. Then they told us it would last for twenty years. More recently, statements by the United States National Archives and Records Administration suggest that a lifespan of 3 to 5 years is more accurate. So what gives? It turns out that the aluminum coating on which the data is recorded is vulnerable to oxidation... in other words corrosion. So how do we preserve the hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in music we've so dutifully bought to replace vinyl? The answer is in what I think is one of the best kept secrets in digitized music... FLAC, Free Lossless Audio Codec (Compressor/Decompressor). FLAC is a cousin of the Mp3 music file. Mp3s are wonderful as far as being supported by many players and occupying the position as the de facto file format in digital music. The problem with the Mp3 format is that it is a lossy format. This means it actually discards bits of information that it deems inaudible to the human ear. Some audiophiles swear they can hear the difference in the original recording and in that of an encoded file using a lossy format like Mp3. So, when you decide to rip that CD to archive it for posterity, you are throwing away bits of audio information to create a smaller audio file. Lost fidelity for the sake of disk space. The great thing about FLAC is that it doesn't discard audio data. The audio file is compressed without any loss in audio quality. FLAC works similarly to how ZIP files work with data files, except FLAC is designed specifically for audio. FLAC is based on open source and thus is unencumbered by proprietary development and patents. Many players support the playback of FLAC files and they also support ripping audio CDs to the FLAC format. Running a Google search on FLAC players will return tons of results. You may even notice that your favorite player supports the format.

I learned a tough lesson when one of my obscure CDs purchased in the eighties was damaged and I then discovered it was permanently out of print. I ended up having to buy it as an export from Japan for a tidy premium. So, with the low price of disk storage I've undertaken the task of ripping my entire CD collection to the FLAC format. This way I know I'll always have high fidelity copies of my favorite CDs. I'm using a great program named MediaMonkey to rip my CDs to the FLAC format. MediaMonkey is a wonderful universal media manager. It helps organize your media collection, supports file tagging, and syncs to numerous players including the iPod and iPhone. MediaMonkey is free. A premium version with a few more bells and whistles is also available.

So consider yourselves warned. That CD isn't going to last forever. Check out FLAC along with MediaMonkey and preserve your music for the duration.