March 2007 Archives

I know, I know, I'm behind the times. It's been out for quite a while now. But give me a break - I've been busy! Tonight I finally got around to upgrading Voodoo Pad to version 3. I've been stuck on 2 for a while now.

But let me back up. Voodoo Pad's motto is, "You put your brain in it," and that's exactly right. It is, for all intents and purposes, your very own wiki. But it can do so much more. It lives on your desktop, it's not a web-based application. You edit its pages just as you would an RTF in TextEdit, for example. But my description really doesn't do it justice. Let's just say it's my do-everything application. It's a scratch pad, a repository for my technical knowledge, a table of my budget, even a cook book. Quite simply, I put my brain in it.

Anyway. This post is more for people like me - long time Voodoo Pad users who have been too busy to upgrade to version 3. Trust me, it's worth it.

Suzanne Shell is testing the stupidity of our courts by suing the Internet Archives for spidering her site. At the bottom of her site there is a statement that reads, "If you copy or distribute anything on this website, you are entering into a contract." Since there's a law that says computers can enter into a contract on behalf of a person, she feels she's in the right here.

But wait, there's more! Raise your hand if you're ever heard of robots.txt. Anyone? Anyone? Robots.txt, in a nutshell, tells spidering applications such as search engines or, say, the internet archive, what they can and cannot look at. There is, you see, a mechanism in place for preventing unwanted spidering. All she had to do was post an electronic sign. But did she? Nope.

Something about this smells of a person with entirely too much time on her hands who took that time to find a law she could exploit, posted a notice, and waited for the trap to be sprung. Term: entrapment.

The article I linked above talks about the implications of this case if the courts find in favor of the plaintiff. I, for one, don't know what to think. On the one hand, we could be opening the door for a lot of anti-spam lawsuits and cleaner results on search engines. On the other hand, wave goodbye to the last free source of information.

gSync is another answer to two-way syncing with Google Calendar. On the heels of SpanningSync's "controversial" pricing announcement, gSync posted their answer. For a one time payment of $20 you will be able to get gSync for life.

gSync addresses concerns about SpanningSync. For example, it is a standalone client and does not rely on a third-party server. It also allows you to sync with multiple Google accounts.

That all being said, gSync is still very much in beta and I did give it a try - I've not yet mastered getting it to sync multiple calendars within just one account. I'm reasonably confident I simply did it wrong, though. I'll probably have another go tonight.

Yesterday I wrote that Spanning Sync went 1.0 and became a pay service. I also wrote that it was worth it. Regretfully I had not seen the full price list, nor had I tried 1.0 yet. This is a mistake I won't make in the future.

Since upgrading to 1.0 I have received an error each time Spanning Sync attempts to do its thing. Further, there is a great deal of suspicion that this sort of thing will be built into Leopard's iCal, given its CalDav support. All in ll, I wouldn't think it's worth a lifetime subscription. Maybe year to get us through, and even that is a very big maybe considering 1.0 is less stable than the latest beta.

I'm disappointed in the product to say the least, but after a brief (and very prompt) discussion with Spanning Sync's support team I have to admit being pleased by their willingness and effort to support their product. I do not think they were ready to go 1.0 when they did, but I do think that with a little bit of code cleaning and price changing they will find that they have a quality product.

Spanning Sync released version 1.0 today. Spanning Sync is the best (only?) two-way syncing solution for your google calendar account and iCal client. The only down side is that it's become a pay service. Well worth it if you're an avid calendar user.

Earlier today I was wondering out loud what Vinnie Paul Abbott has been up to since the Damageplan incident. I am wholly impressed.

He has a record label (Big Vin Records), released a DVD which, based on its title, appears to be for his late brother, and writes a column in Revolver magazine. Plus the whole endorsements thing.

But what's really caught my attention is his latest musical project - Hellyeah. With Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett, Vocals and guitar respectively and both from Mudvayne, Tom Maxwell of Nothingface on guitar, and Jerry Montano of Danzig and Nothingface, they've really put something great together.

They have three full length tracks on their myspace page. Check it out.

As I look through my the suggestions my TiVo decided to record for me, I often think to myself, "If I wanted to watch that film I'd walk over to my shelf and put my DVD in. It's uncut, unlike this network television version." Therefore, I wish there was a way to tell my TiVo that I own something and do not wish to have it suggested to me while still rating it positively. I do, after all, own it, like it, and want to use a positive rating of it when determining other suggestions.

Just a thought.

Yes, of course I have both! And this guy found a way to get them working together. Using the Greasemonkey framework for Firefox, he provides a user script that will search the TiVo site for films on your Netflix queue and provide links to them right on the queue page - assuming, of course, that they've been found.

For a guy like me who pays for all of the movie channels and has entirely too many unwatched films on his netflix queue, this is really handy.

[Via an IM from Skadz]