Have you ever downloaded a less than scrupulous piece of software only to discover the next day that you default browser has been changed and your homepage is some rubbish search engine based in North Korea? I have. So have thousands of others who were attracted by freeware never stopping to think of the scheming companies that lurked behind them. Such as Microsoft.
At the present, when users download IE8, the newest edition of Internet Explorer they will quite obviously have to install it. Now when you’re installing any piece of software you’re given a choice.
a) Quick Install
b) Custom install
In most cases the ‘Quick Install’ is already selected for you and most of us will go right on ahead and press ’Next’. Microsoft copped onto that so that when you install IE by choosing the quick install method your default browser and homepage are changed to please Bill Gates.
Microsoft recently came under fire about these practices you would expect from a smaller more desperate company. They responded by saying on their blog that they were making an update and that by August IE8 will ask your permission to become the default browser first.
“IE will never install, or become the default browser without your explicit consent. However, we heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit,” Microsoft said.
IE8 has already been in the spotlight when they released the OMGIGP advertisement which Crenk covered here.
Bookofcooks.com is just another one of those cool finds on the internet that we’re reviewing here on Crenk lately. These ‘finds’ of ours are useful and insightful – serving a purpose to some if not all people. For example, seathound.com was reviewed here yesterday. That had a bigger market than bookofcooks.com which is, in comparison, rather limited.
I logged in and put my critic hat on. But then I took it off because this was just too easy to review. It serves a purpose. A small one that might come in handy if the yellow pages have spontaneously combusted and every restaurant within a 12 mile radius of your house has “Closed for Renovation”. Basically, if you’re in need of a cook for an event or just want a simple birthday cake whipped up you type in your location. Simple right?
So for example, New York. From this I got … sweet nothing. That stupid map just kept flickering around showing me smiling people in Orlando wearing chef costumes. After a while, I got the thing to work having signed out then back in and was greeted by an indistinguishable list of cooks, caterers and chefs. I was like ‘what use is this?’
I could have swam to Shetland Island near Scotland, found a cook from the rural population, and swam home again with a roasted wild boar on my back by the time bookofcooks.com would have found me a chef called ‘Sandy’ in Orlando. Except, wait, I wanted a chef in NEW YORK!
If you’re a cook, I wouldn’t bother advertising your services here. Just stick to the local flyers or a simple website. You could spend an hour of your time setting up a profile, uploading pics and references only to have someone 200 miles away ask you to cook for them.
I truly wish I had something good to say about this. It’s not like I enjoy slating websites. This could have been good had they developed it right but its just to time consuming, complicated and troublesome to ever be used in an emergency.
Really and truly, this is utterly useless. If you want a chef in your area and the yellow pages has turned to ash, every food business is now populated by shirtless men lifting RSJs and every cook book in the land doesn’t have the right dish…use Google. 3/10
There has been a lot of talk around Verified Accounts on Twitter lately. @OfficialJonah, which billed itself as the official account of Superbad star Jonah Hill, was outed last night by the actor himself on the Late Show With David Letterman. Hill told Letterman that he’s “never been on the website Twitter nor will I ever be on the website Twitter.”
In the last week or so we have been having a lot issues with a few of the Macs in the office and in particular changing the admin password. I thought I would just write a quick article letting everyone know how we fix this.
You need to enter terminal and create a new admin account:
1. Reboot
2. Hold apple + s down after you hear the chime.
3. When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):
* mount -uw /
* rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
* shutdown -h now
4. After rebooting you should have a brand new admin account. When you login as the new admin you can simply delete the old one and you’re good to go again!
Internet radio has taken off in the last few years. This is because more and more people are using smart-phones and using laptops on the go. Not to mention the fact that you can listen to your favourite radio station whilst holidaying in Australia or backpacking through Europe. Then, along came Internet based radio. This meant that there was no traditional radio station (ie. On a radio) for a particular company – it solely exists on the internet.
Pandora became one of the biggest streaming high quality music and advertisements across the web. Now, they have secured a massive investment from Greylock Partners of around $35 million dollars!
Currently, Pandora plays advertisements in order to make ends meet. Now, after securing this investment there is talk of charging listeners who tune in for over 40 hours every month 99c or an annual premium of $39 for unlimited listening and elimination of all the advertisements.
“New funds will be used toward the continued growth and development of Pandora” said Pandora.
It’s a good move to. Now that people are ditching podcasts more and more in search of radio – investing now would be wise. And when media players and internet speeds improve – internet TV would be no shock appearance.
Those of you who like to watch music videos on YouTube may have become aware (and indeed disappointed) when Warner Brothers Music decided that renewing a deal with YouTube to have an official video channel for their songs last December wouldn’t be such a good idea. Each and every official video from bands such as the Red Hot Chilli Peppers was removed leaving only low-quality ones manually uploaded by fans – only to be quickly removed as well.
Now, discussions have reportedly started up again in attempt to thaw the mini Cold War that has developed between the two companies over the past six months of failed talks. Both companies failed to comment on the talks but YouTube will be eager to fully restore the videos as they already have contracts with other big companies such as Sony Music and EMI.
More intriguingly, CNET.com reported that other companies have stated that the conflict between YouTube and Warner Bros. was much more complex and deep. However, they refused to go into any serious detail as to what they meant.
If these claims are true, then it may be a while until we see WB videos up on YouTube again.
Since opening the Mac OS X 10.5.8 beta test to developers approximately one month ago, Apple has shown signs that the release may cap off development of Mac OS X 10.5.
For example, each new build has arrived with a focus area noticeably distinct from the last, with lower-level technologies and frameworks seeing greater attention than usual. As such, it’s been speculated that the Mac maker may be giving its Leopard OS a final once-over.
This trend appears to have culminated with this past weekend’s release of build 9L25, which no longer asks that developers focus their attention on a small subset of Leopard’s components. Instead, it groups together the more than three dozen components that had been isolated into smaller focus groups in earlier betas.
The latest build also lists no known issues and addresses just two new bugs, one related to saving mail messages as individual message documents and another to URL localization.
Mac OS X 10.6 Server build 10A403
Separately, developers this weekend were also treated to a new build of Mac OS X 10.6 Server, labeled build 10A403. With it, Apple asked that they test upgrade installs of the server software itself, in addition to upgrade installs of Calendar server.
Developers were also reportedly asked to spend some time with the system’s new Podcast Producer, evaluating as many third-party video and web cams as they possibly can. Included with the software is a new Web Podcast Capture which leverages a new Dual Source Video Capture feature for allowing users to create picture-in-picture format podcasts.
Mac OS X 10.6 build 10A402a
Mac OS X 10.6 Server build 10A403 arrived on the heels of Mac OS X 10.6 Client build 10A402a earlier in the week. That build introduced some widely-reported interface tweaks to the Dock’s pop-up menus and Expose.
MakeUseOf.com is a good website if you enjoy discovering new things, websites and uses for objects that you may have otherwise discounted as obsolete. So I though I’d give it a go and let you all know what I thought. There’s no thrills, no frills. But isn’t it about time a website came along that just cave you practical information rather than a big song and dance?
The first post I seen demonstrated software that allows you to organize, edit and back up photos you take on your multiple digital cameras. It gave the pros, the cons along with a helpful narrative style that I found appealing. Further posts specified thing like Three Tips to Translate Languages and Make Use Of Guides that are free! (Nice touch)
The layout is basic and easy to navigate but I think they could ad a little more in that department. Its very forgettable but at least there is a little ‘hurrah’ in there. I also have to give them credit for developing a mobile version. It may not exactly be ground breaking but on a long train journey you’ll be glad to learn how to hit a golf ball properly – well, you get the idea!
Overall, it’s a good website but lacking in anything memorable. It has its uses but couldn’t a quick Google search fix problems? I suppose MakeUseOf gives you cool tips and solutions to problems you never noticed. 7/10
I’ve just recently started running for fitness and I had my eye on the Nike+ system to pair with my iTouch. Running is something a lot of us fear, perhaps some of you out there MIGHT enjoy it, but far more prefer other methods of exercise. Still, the Nike+ system is the device that is supposed to have revolutionized running as a sport and as a frequent user of this device, I have to say it’s upped my game, and helped me train harder.
This small device, running $30USD for the sensor, and approx. $75USD for the USB bracelet, sends information to your iPod and tracks your progress monitoring information like pace, distance, time, and calories burned. All the while you are able to run to your own music track and when you’re feeling run down, activate your own power song to push you those extra miles.
To add even more functionality to the device you are able to connect your device to your computer (both MAC and PC compatible) and upload your data to the Nike+ website, adding you to the mix of already thousands upon thousands of runners out there at all levels. You can monitor your progress, join challenges, track milestones, and join in a social network of sorts with other runners out there. It’s useful on so many levels, and allows you to buy Nike specific music tracks that they’ve put together for you, training modules that go further than what comes pre-loaded, accessories and gear, and even create a Nike+ animated character for a badge that can be placed on your own site or your Facebook account.
All in all, I highly recommend this device if you’ve not gotten it yet, and you’re running. Even if you don’t like running with music, that’s fine, leave it off, but keep the stats, once you calibrate it, it’s priceless.
Previously we have written about Spotify’s upcoming Android application as well as their iPhone app, but currently Spotify is fast approaching its “payment due” day.
Spotify has been able to attract a huge amount of users but their free section is being used a little too much and they are now finding difficult to generate enough income to pay their major label partners by the date due.
Currently Spotify seem to be trying to increase incomes in three key areas:
A premium service is getting much more attention from Spotify as it adds additional features beyond just “ad free” to attaract paid users.
Spotify is rolling out by far its largest advertising format to date. It will feature wall to wall billboard ads on its music player that appear after just 5 minutes of inactivity as part of a major 3 Mobile ad campaign. (However, if I’m inactive on Spotify I tend not have the application open on my screen its just in a tab at the bottom, thus the ads showing will obviously have no affect whatsoever.
To buy more time, the startup is on the hunt for another $40-$50 million in venture capital funding. (paidContent)
I personally use Spotify and find it pointless to upgrade to their premium service because I receive unlimited listening time, tracks, search and playlists. I know they are finding it tough to gain additional revenues and maybe moving their product into iPhone and Android markets is a better bet to increase revenues fast enough.
Since its release, the international appeal of the iPhone was in question. Many questioned if markets such as Asia and Central Europe were ready to move away from traditional devices and onto the next generation of Smartphones. One such critique was made about the Japanese market, known for its home grown products with millions of their phones exported to the European and US markets down the years due to their reputation for technological innovation.
Now, it seems that the critics have been proved wrong after a recent survey concerning the iPhones popularity. According to the study carried out by BCN of over 2,300 Japanese retailers, the iPhone holds the top two positions in terms of sales with the 8 GB model having the number one position followed closely by the 16 GB model.
Furthermore, because the results of this survey were released before the iPhone 3G S burst onto the market, chances are that the iPhone is now even higher up the leader board.
These figures must be keeping the top dogs at Apple happy while the rest of the Japanese mobile phone market struggles due to the recession. A recent report carried out by Sky News found that the Japanese retail market is floundering as consumers tighten the purse strings. Now that Apple is planning future iPhones, Apple may be painting a bright future in Asia.
War is Boring, a political and wartime blog owned by David Axe (an experienced conflict reporter) just keeps getting better and better. It started up a few years ago as a small blog featuring a comic strip of the same name drawn by Matt Bors, based on David’s experiences as a war journalist. Since that time, the comic strips have taken a back seat with a more journalistic approach being adopted.
David began reporting from trouble spots around the globe such as Darfur, Iraq and Afghanistan. Money is raised through a donate button on the site for trips, equipment and in some cases to aid fellow journalists in sticky situations.
Every day there is at least two or three new posts so you’re never short of anything to read and feel like you’re missing out if you neglect the blog for a while. The best thing about War is Boring is that’s its not just some armchair general typing about Iraq all day, David actually goes to these places showing dedication and determination – something I found individual and attractive about War is Boring.
Recently, War is Boring underwent some changes including the addition of more correspondents. These include Kyle Mizokami, Bryan William Jones, Jason Reich and Kevin Knodell. These simultaneously cover different topics from around the globe ranging from US Politics, to Somali Piracy to Sri Lankan trouble. This gives the blog a good range in tone and subject matter instead of just following the one reporter. They also have some big trips planned soon such as heading off to Afghanistan and Dubai.
Overall, War is Boring is a cool blog that interest anyone who is in anyway politically minded or interested in warfare. 7/10
Those of you who like to watch music videos on 
Since its release, the international appeal of the iPhone was in question. Many questioned if markets such as Asia and Central Europe were ready to move away from traditional devices and onto the next generation of Smartphones. One such critique was made about the Japanese market, known for its home grown products with millions of their phones exported to the European and US markets down the years due to their reputation for technological innovation.
