How will I spend my extra second?

It will be nice to have 25 hours in a day, but for now I'll be happy with my extra second.

Technorati, and discovered backlink

I came across Technorati today, an extremely interesting web site for blogs. The nature of this site is somewhat similar in theory to del.icio.us that I discussed previously. It indexes blogs, and creates tags for them based on content found in blogs and the links between them. One can then look up tags to find out what people are blogging about in just about real time. It does a great job of capturing the essence of the blogging medium, the type of content posted to them, and the type of people that contribute to them.

I looked up my blog profile and found that there was a link to my site other than friend's blogs. Looks like a post was made on symas.console() in reply to my post about Personal information and online tools. It got me wondering as to why there wasn't a trackback feature found on blogging software like Movable Type. Well, turns out that Blogger does have this, called "backlinks" and now I can see when other sites link back to a post here. They are now enabled.

So long story short, check out the post openldap('pim data') and my comments there.

Fantasy Sports Profile

Check out my Fantasy Sports Profile on Yahoo!

It's a nice feature they've added, which shows your history of fantasy sports played on their systems. My trophy case is due mostly to the three great March Madness pick sets I've had. You can also see all the leagues I ignored and got buried in.

Ultimate Foosball accessory

I was waiting for an andriod to play foosball against, but looks like we're one step closer with the Star Kick (reviewed at The Uber-Review):

It looks like the machine can completely dominate human opponents.

Thanks to Chris P for this link, I agree it screams out Longshot Kids.

And yes, this post is a direct attempt at avoiding the "Most Boring Blog Ever" award. What can inspire readers like a picture of Leif Garrett, foosball icon?

Wishes come true?

In this morning's post I made reference to IPTV, with hopes for it replacing my current cable service. Well lo and behold, this afternoon there is a post on HD Beat about Comcast jumping on the IPTV bandwagon.

I really shouldn't get my hopes up too much about this, since it will unlikely mean much difference right away, and TV will almost certainly be continued to be recieved through a set top box. I admit that I have done very little reading about the technology, but my two main hopes for IPTV would be finer selection of channels in order to (hopefully) reduce costs, and integration with PC and HTPC software. For channel selection, IPTV isn't required, as current digital tv technologies really allows it, so it's more on how the cable companies package it.

As for HTPC application, IPTV could definitely allow for true integration without the need for set top boxes. The problem is that these channels are still gauranteed to be nearly or completely proprietary and locked down, like premium HDTV over cable is today. Furthermore, digital cable could be delivered easily enough to PC's, since it's just MPEG2 (I think) data. CableCARD should be the solution, but the implementation and industry backing is horrible. From my understanding, even consumer electionics don't really work right with it, and there is no support for PC's. Microsoft's announcement about CableCARD support in MCE is a great step in the right direction, but most likely too little too late. So mabye IPTV will realize more of the potential of digital cable, maybe not. While I hope for great HTPC integration, it will likely be as much of a headache as digital cable is.

So the technology is definitely interesting in how it can change current TV, but will it really? A couple of comments:
- Will IPTV allow for more competition in the provider market, since distribution relies on the Internet? We've seen some great ideas for small startups in the HDTV space, but they have all failed. IPTV may be their real chance.
- While I don't consider the ability to play TV shows on the video iPod anything to get too excited about, the fact that TV shows are now being sold through services like iTunes is an interesting concept. The combination of IPTV and VOD could very easily promote a pay-per-view type model, where you pay for each show you watch. I doubt this will happen, since people are too used to the current TV broadcast model.

All this being said, who needs IPTV when you can use BitTorrent to quickly download shows right after they air?

At last!

HGTV will be in HD next year! Comcast, please pick up this station. Or maybe there will be viable IPTV by then, but I won't hold my breath.

Google Desktop

I was delighted to find out that Google Desktop finally runs on x64. Aparently I'm still running version 1 at home, since this version 2 adds some features. The side bar is nicely done, but also manages to distract me throughout the day by waving news stories and posts from all over the web at me. Finally, all my data is at my searching fingertips.

Terps hoops

Great game last night, and it was nice to welcome #6 Boston College to the league by beating them. I don't think the terps are really clicking yet as well as they can, but last night was the first good feeling I had about the team. I guess beating the 6th rank team can do that. Maryland should have had it sealed before the last 10 seconds of the game, but gave BC a small window. Luckily they couldn't inbound the ball any better than Maryland. Ibekwe also missed two free throws at the end to add to the scare.

In other ACC news, it was somewhat nice (tiny bit) to see Duke trash #2 Texas. I like to see ACC teams beat out of conference opponents, and I think as the season goes on the ACC is showing that it has quite a few good teams. Right now 6 ACC teams are in the top 25, and another recieving votes. That being said, I can't wait to see Duke get their first loss, and hopefully plenty more after that.

Yahoo acquires del.ico.us

Recently I commented on the social networking (bookmarking) service del.icio.us. Looks like Yahoo! liked thought it was interesting enough to buy it. Not really too sure what this means for del.icio.us (probably nothing right away, they'll keep running like they are) or for Yahoo!. From Yahoo!'s point of view I'm sure it's a step towards enhancing their portal offering which has been somewhat stale over the past few years when compared to the very interesting services Google has been rolling out.

Music

Thanks to Pandora I've come across the band Saint Etienne and have been highly enjoying their music. They were one of the selections by Pandora relating to Zero 7, another excellent sounding group. Zero 7 is more electonica and chillout music, where Saint Entienne has electonica flavors but leans more towards pop, albeit indie or alternative. The main connection through Pandora was the song "Woodcabin" on Saint Entienne's "Good Humour" album, which is an awesome tune.

I guess I should give a listen to Illinois from Sufjan Stevens, since some people like it.

Post 7, countdown to 1,000

In honor of my seventh post, I've made a few blog site changes. Count down with me to my milestone 1,000th post, which at the current pace will be in 2087.

I've finally gotten around to putting some links in the sidebar. There are some friends who have blogs, as well as more "public" blogs that I read regularly. There's more to add, but it's a start.