As was the case in my earlier post, I still only follow a relatively small, but terrific, group of people (currently 64). When I follow someone new, I try to cull another. All with the view to reading (or at least scanning) most every tweet they make.

Twitter has changed the way I use the Internet. These exceptional 60+ sources feed me almost all of my daily tech news. I rarely surf from blog to blog the way I used to. I have also abandoned RSS feeds altogether. Twitter-sourced news is superior.

I have also abandoned Friendfeed. Despite some strong lobbying by Davis Freeberg, I just didn’t see the point. Everyone is on Twitter. And, since Facebook purchased Friendfeed back in August, its future is uncertain.

It took me some 1700 Tweets to reach 200 followers. I have to laugh at all my new spamy followers who have 60,000 followers and are following 61,000 people – yet they have only tweeted 3 times. Fortunately these spam-bot jokers are continually culled by Twitter. I used to actively block them when they followed me, but with the constant Twitter purges, I don’t bother any more. They rarely last a week.

With the many ways of searching Twitter these days, I have abandoned the use of hash tags. They seem irrelevant now.

My primary Twitter apps are Tweetie 2 and twhirl on the desktop.

I very much dislike the new Retweet feature. My preference would be for Twitter apps to have both the old and the new Retweet functions, but that seems unlikely.  It appears we are stuck with it.

Otherwise, everything I wrote in my July 4 post still applies today.

If the warning above annoys you as much as it does me whenever you open an attachment in Office 2007, here’s how to get rid of it.

The Problem

Microsoft has understandably made security a cornerstone of its recent software releases. Each time you attempt to open a possibly malicious attachment in Outlook 2007, a warning dialogue box like the one above appears. It presents an always-checked, always-grayed-out box that reads: ‘Always ask before opening this type of file’.

Because Word, Excel, PDF and other document types can contain malicious code, you should, as the box warns, only open attachments from trustworthy sources. But, if you have a modern Anti-Virus program such as AVG or Microsoft’s Security Essentials (both of which are free), attachments in your emails should already be checked for malicious code. When this is the case, this warning dialogue box is an unnecessary interruption that becomes increasingly annoying if, like me, you receive emails with attachments many times a day.

The Solution in  Windows 7

Warning: You should only do this if you have anti-virus software installed on your computer that checks for, and quarantines, all emails that contain attachments with malicious code. And, as the warning says, you should never open attachments from anyone that you don’t know and trust! 

OK, you’ve been duly warned. Here’s how to do it:

• Close Outlook 2007 before you start
• Click the Windows ‘Start’ Button
• Click ‘All Programs’
• Right Click on ‘Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’ in the “Microsoft Office’ folder (as shown below)
• Click on the Properties option

• Click the ‘Compatibility’ Tab (shown below)
• Check the ‘Run this program as an administrator’ box
• Click the ‘Apply’ button

• Restart Outlook 2007
• You will get the following ‘User Account Control Warning’

• Click ‘Yes’  -  Don’t worry, you won’t have to do this every time you start Outlook
• Open an email with the attachment type (eg: .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pdf) you want to open in the future without this warning
• Click on the attachment
• You’ll get the same warning message as before, but, as you can see below, this time the ‘Always ask before opening this type of file‘ checkbox will not be grayed out
• Uncheck the box and open the attachment

• Open other emails with each of the attachment types that you do not wish to receive this message for in the future (eg: xls, xlsx, doc, docx, pdf, ppt)
• Similarly uncheck the ‘Always ask before opening this type of file‘ check box for each document type and open them.

From then on, you will no longer get the warning message when opening each of these types of attachments from within Outlook 2007 emails.

But, we are not quite finished. If you stopped here, you’d get the User Account Control Warning above every time you started Outlook 2007. To stop this from happening :

• Close Office 2007 once again
• Redo the first six steps above, but this time
• Uncheck the ‘Run this program as an administrator’ box under the Compatibility Tab in the Office 2007 Properties box.
• Click ‘Apply’

From then on Office will remember your attachment-type warning preferences without giving you the UAC warning every time you start Office 2007.

Enjoy!

The Solution in Vista

I found the answer below in this MSOutlook.info post. I have not tested this answer personally, but this post twigged me onto finding the solution in Windows 7 (above) so I’m pretty certain it will work:

1. Close Outlook
2. Right click on the shortcut you use to launch Outlook 2007
3. Choose Run as Administrator
4. Press Continue or provide the logon credentials for an Administrator
5. Restart Outlook
6. Open an email with the attachment of the type you want to be able to access without the annoying warning message
7. Deselect the option “Always ask before opening this type of file”
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 with emails containing each of the various attachment types you wish to be able to access without the warning message
9. Close Outlook
10. Restart Outlook as normal (not in administrator mode)

From then on, you will no longer get the warning message when opening each of these types of attachments from within Outlook 2007 emails.

Bell offered me a one year promotional deal for their Internet Max 16 service where I would receive (in theory*) download speeds of up to 16 Mbps and 1 Mbps upload for $41.90 a month. At the time, my theoretical 10 Mbps down service from Rogers (with a 95 GB cap) was costing me $59.95 a month.

As with Rogers, all of Bell’s plans have data caps – much smaller than comparable U.S. ISPs I might add. The data cap for the service under the Internet Max 16 promotional offer is 100 GB. 

Periodically during each month, I check my Bell Internet usage meter** (shown below, after the jump) to make sure I’m staying within the 100 GB cap. This becomes particularly important towards the end of the month where I am always running up against the cap.

As you can see in the picture below (circled in red after the jump), Bell’s ‘My Internet usage’ meter contains fine print which reads:

Note: Current total Internet usage activity shown may be delayed by up to 60 hours.

Despite assiduously checking the meter each month, making sure I stayed within the cap, I have twice received invoices from Bell saying I went over the 100 GB cap. How is this possible when I personally verify that I stay under the cap each month?

Until today, I hadn’t noticed this fine print warning – I’m not even sure it was there before.

Now, of course, I know why. Turns out it’s the fault of Bell’s Internet usage reporting tool. The tool shows data that is up to 60 hours (two and a half days) old!

Clicking on the record for Apr-May*** of 2009 the tool now shows an overage for the that period:

As you can see, it shows I used 102.74 GB. 

However, I know I looked at the tool during the last couple days of that period and I purposely lowered my usage during those days to stay under the limit. On the last day it showed me at somewhere around the 98 or 99 GB usage. The 4 GB difference between what it showed me then, and what it shows now, and what I was billed extra for, can only be accounted for by the meter’s delay.

This isn’t right. What good is an Internet usage meter, when the meter isn’t accurately reporting usage on the very days I need it to be accurate the most?

* 16 Mbps Theoretical Download Speeds

I say that the 16 Mbps download is theoretical because I have tested it using SpeedTest.net (among others) several times since March and only once**** did it show I was getting more than 10 Mbps.

**My Internet Usage Page Buried

<Mini Rant Start>

On a related note, I’d like to point out that, just like Rogers, Bell makes it very difficult to use their ‘My Internet Usage’ meter. It is buried a half dozen pages deep on their site. You cannot link directly to it and save it in your browser’s favorites/bookmarks. If you do, the link just pulls you back to a main sign on page that forces you to navigate your way back through their maze to get to it. It also signs you off just minutes after you login. During the course of writing this post, Bell signed me out of the meter three times. I had to log back in, and navigate back through their maze three times to complete this post. Grrrr!

</Mini Rant Stop>

*** Note, for whatever reason my period runs from the 4th day of one month to the 3rd day of the next.

**** It showed 11.94 Mbps once – at about 2 O’clock in the afternoon.

As usual, Americans can watch live streams of 2009 U.S. Open tennis through the US Open 2009 Website.

Also, as usual, Canadians and the rest of the world can’t.

Below, I include links to two services offering live streamed 2009 U.S. Open tennis matches. When I tested these sites on Monday August 31, I could find every match I wanted to watch in English.

To schedule your viewing, the U.S. Open Tennis 2009 play schedule is here.

MyP2P

You can find several matches on MyP2P. You may have to click around awhile to find one that works and/or is showing the match you want in the language of your choice. Some links require a plug-in to be downloaded. I don’t trust them. I only access those that play without a plug-in.

ATDHE.net

I have had mixed results with ATDHE.NET in the past. It is easier to use than MyP2P because it lists actual matches underway. Everything worked fine when I tested it out today (August 31, 2009) however.

Please leave links in the comments if you now of other reliable places where the matches can be watched online outside of the U.S..

Since I connect my iPhone to iTunes every day (to update my podcasts, backup data, install new apps etc.), I had to cancel out of the IPVW every time I connected. This was a daily frustration!

Along the line I had collected up some 30ish pictures in my iPhone’s ‘camera roll’ for the following reasons:

1. Originally, I had not set the ‘delete from iPhone when importing’ option in the IPVW, so those pictures remained on the camera roll even after syncing; and
2. For some good pictures, I just wanted to keep a copy on my iPhone for viewing.

Strangely, there is no way to move  pictures from the iPhone’s ‘camera roll’ to an album in the iPhone’s native Photos app.

Most of the time I want pictures to be copied off my iPhone when I sync. As a result I had set the IPVW’s Import settings (see link in picture above) accordingly. To my mind, the iPhone should only automatically pop-up the IPVW when there are new pictures that a user might want copied over to the PC. That is not how it works.

The Solution (sort of) – Emptying out the ‘Camera Roll’

As it turns out, if you have Windows AutoPlay set to import pictures from the iPhone, the IPVW will pop-up and bug you, needing you to cancel out of it before your iPhone will otherwise connect to iTunes, day after day, for so long as their are any pictures in the Camera Roll.

I finally figured that out today. So I copied all the pictures off my iPhone’s ‘camera roll’ onto my PC, leaving the camera roll empty (as you can see from the picture on the left).

That solved it (sort of)! Thereafter, when I connected my iPhone with an empty camera roll to iTunes, it went about its business of syncing podcasts, updating, backing-up, etc. business without the IPVW popping up, annoying me and needing me to exit-out-of-it. Whoot!

The Ultimate Solution

However, this ‘solution’ resulted in their being no photos left on my iPhone. After a little further Googling and Binging I discovered that I can put pictures back onto the iPhone’s native Photos app – outside of the camera roll – with the result being that I can view them on my iPhone at any time, without IPVW popping up each time I connect my iPhone to iTunes.

Here’s how:

• Create a separate folder on your PC where you can copy the pictures that you want left on the iPhone. I created a folder called ‘iPhone Pics’
• Copy the pictures you want on your iPhone into that folder
• Connect your iPhone to iTunes
• Select your iPhone from the ‘Devices’ list on the left side of iTunes (see picture below)
• Click on the ‘Photos’ tab

• Check the ‘Sync photos from:’ checkbox
• Click on the button to its right and select ‘Choose Folder…’
• Select the folder you created (in my case ‘iPhone Pics’)
• Click ‘Apply’

ITunes will then copy the pictures in the selected folder back into the iPhone’s native Photos app (see icon to the left), and not back into the ‘camera roll’.  From then on you can view your pictures as desired through the Photos app. Any pictures you add into that directory in the future will automatically be copied onto the iPhone and if you remove pictures from that directory they will be removed from the iPhone.

Suggested Changes

I would really prefer that Apple make one of the following two changes:

1. Provide a way on the iPhone itself to directly move pictures from the camera roll to an album in the iPhone’s Photos app (and sync those pictures back to your PC behind the scenes); or
2. Allow users to keep pictures on the camera roll but pop-up the Import Pictures and Videos wizard only if there are new pictures on the iPhone since the last sync.

Either of these solutions would make managing photos on the iPhone simpler without the tedium of having to close out the IPVW every time the iPhone is connected to iTunes.

Notes

Copy and Paste Doesn’t Work: Strangely, with the iPhone OS v. 3.0, you can copy a photo out of the camera roll to, say, paste a photo into an email, but you cannot paste that photo into an album in the Photos app. My guess here is that Apple wants the Photos app to be one-way-only. Meaning, Apple wants you to manage your photos on the PC only. Perhaps they fear that if someone edits/deletes photos on the iPhone they wouldn’t realize that doing so would modify/delete them from their PC after a sync.

Pictures Above from v. 8.2.1.6, the pictures and instructions above are for iTunes version 8.2.1.6 as of July 28, 2009. The approach may be slightly different for different versions of iTunes.

Having reached the 100-follower milestone, it’s as good a time as any to reflect on my experience to date.

On Followers and Following

Who I Follow: For the most part, the only people I follow on Twitter are those that I have an ongoing relationship with (about 15 to 20 people) and thought leaders (about 35 people). In order for me to continue following someone they must have a high wheat-to-chaff ratio. Meaning, most of their tweets must be about topics I am interested in – not what they ate for lunch.

Loyalty: I am a rather loyal sort. If I follow someone, I follow them. The reason the list of people I follow is short (by Twitter standards) is because I read/scan most every tweet that comes in.

The Kawasaki Exception: Early on I followed Guy Kawasaki. He was/is an interesting Twitter user. But this guy (pun intended) doesn’t know when to stop! He sends out torrents of tweets each day. I couldn’t take it any more. He is the only person I unfollowed because of too many interesting tweets. FYI his post: “How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter” is pretty good except for his advice to follow everyone that follows you – ugh!

How I Found those I Follow: The best way of finding interesting people is to mine the following list of the people that I already follow.

Who I do Not Follow: Anyone else. I know, this makes me an anomaly on Twitter.  I don’t have the time to follow many more people. If I follow someone new and stick with them, I’ll usually remove someone else.

I Do Not Follow to be Followed: Most people that have huge follower lists also follow a huge number of people. How can someone follow 10,000 people? 1,000 people?  Really!? I can barely keep up with the 50 people I follow.

I Do Not Use Filters: Yesterday Mashable posted: ‘20 Ways to Filter your Tweets’. I’ve said, from the first time TweetDeck (pictured to the right) became popular, that the only reason someone needs it, is to filter out people they shouldn’t be following. To me, following people for the purpose of obtaining followers in return (most people seem to follow-back anyone that follows them) smacks of mutual fraud. There is no way anyone can realistically follow more than 100 or 200 people. For me 50 is about right. Filtering software, it seems to me, is only needed to filter out those that a person follows but has no intention of actually following. To users of TweetDeck (and similar filtering software) I say, the only people you should be following are those that you add to your ‘favourites’ filter list. You are misleading everyone else. Am I missing something here?

Crowd Sourcing Exception: I do acknowledge that people like Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble and Paul Thurrott follow tens of thousands of people to use them for crowd sourcing. They say as much on their podcasts. They can ask a question on Twitter and have hundreds answer it in seconds. But these same people are the first to use Twitter filtering software the second their questions are answered. Most who are followed by these tech celebrities are fooling themselves if they think their tweets are being read in return.

Few Real World Friend Followers: None of my family (close or extended) use Twitter. Virtually none of my real-world friends use Twitter. My nephew’s good friend Jarel Villarroya follows me. On my suggestion, two close friends set up twitter accounts, followed me, but were never heard from again.  Some clients and former clients follow me. A squad of people I have never met but have become virtual friends with over the years follow me. Beyond those 20 or so people, I do not know the remaining 80 or so people who follow me.

Related Services

Friendfeed: As you can read here, I joined friendfeed in early January 2009. I dabbled there for awhile. It is a compelling service – better than Twitter in most ways. I have had an ongoing dialogue with Davis Freeberg about this. Davis has largely abandoned Twitter for friendfeed and makes compelling arguments about why I should do the same. But, most of the world uses Twitter. Most importantly, most of the people I follow use only Twitter. If most of the people I follow used friendfeed, I might make that leap. But for now, Twitter remains my primary streamed social network feed.

Found Others through Mr Tweet: On the advice of Mashable, I used Mr Tweet in December 2008 to source some of the people I followed at that point.  Taking a look at Mr Tweet today, it seems to be a very different service. It now requires that you disclose your twitter ID and password to use it. It didn’t back then. I refuse to use any service that makes this demand.

Hash Tags: At the advice of Kevin Rose (Ten Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers) I started using hash tags on February 9, 2009 (see how hash tags work here). Using hash tags really does generate followers. I would say that most of my followers have found me through my use of hash tags. I know this because most new followers follow me within minutes of my posting a tweet with a hash tag on a topic that interested them.

Twitter Chicklet: I added a twitter chicklet link into the top right of all my web properties. I don’t know if this resulted in followers or not. It can’t hurt. Of course I also added the Twitter Widget to the middle/right column of this blog.

Bio & Customized Profile Page: I also took Kevin Rose’s advice and filled in the bio pages on Twitter and added a customized profile page. Why not? I want people to know who I am. It ads to my overall Internet ‘brand’. I made my Twitter profile page look similar to the Daleisphere branding and the branding on my primary DaleDietrich.com website.

Quitter: In March 2009, I joined Quitter. Quitter emails you when someone stops following you on Twitter. It tells you what tweet you wrote just before you were dropped. I soon quit, Quitter. It was kind of a downer. I’m not about to arbitrarily tailor my tweets to maximize followers. If people aren’t interested in my tweets, I understand why they would stop following me. After all, I stop following people for lots of reasons. I’d guess 30 or so people have stopped following me so far.

Blocking Spam/Fake Followers: Part of the reason my follower numbers are low is that I actively block followers that seem to be spamming. I look at the profile of each person that follows me and block them if they appear to be following me for some nefarious reason. I can’t understand ‘followers’ that follow 50,000 people and are being followed by 50,000 others. When I see those kinds of ridiculous numbers I block them (I’ve blocked dozens like this). Other times you find followers with a single tweet that is some kind of marketing scam or sales pitch. Alternatively, these folks have an unending stream of sales pitch tweets and nothing else. They get blocked. Those with no image (ie: the brown image with blue circles pictured above) tend to get blocked. Most of these folks have no tweets. I’m not sure what to make of them.

Update: The fakefollowers service uses interesting criteria to determine what percentage of twitter followers are fake. A follower is considered ‘fake’ if:

• they have less than 2 followers
• they follow more than 1,000 others and don’t use TweetDeck
• they follow less than 2 others
• over 99% of their tweets contain hyperlinks
• they have never tweeted; or
• they have no real name

Sounds like a pretty good list. As of June 6, 2009 it says that 20% of my followers are fake, and 80% are true. Check your (or someone else’s) followers out here.

What Twitter Means to Me

Twitter Changed How I Use the Internet: When I joined Twitter, I simply didn’t ‘get it’. I had low expectations. Today it is an indispensible service. Much of the blog surfing and RSS-feed subscribing I did a year ago has been replaced by my Twitter feed. Those I follow are so good that news and blog posts on most every topic I care about now flow in to me effortlessly.

Tweeting Comes Naturally: Like blogging, tweeting comes naturally to me. If it felt like work, I wouldn’t do it. I am the kind of person that sends links in emails to friends and family if I find something on a topic that I know a friend or family member is interested in. Twitter is an efficient means of doing the same thing, with the added advantage that every recipient has chosen to receive my tweets – unlike friends and family members that may have felt spammed when receiving more of such emails than they would have liked.

A Means of Connecting with Like-Minded People: Virtual friendships have started and old one’s have become stronger because I tweet on topics my followers are interested in and I follow the tweets of those that have common interests with me. The symbiotic relationships that flow out of Twitter are terrific.

A Constant Companion: Thanks to my iPhone, PC and laptop, no matter where I am, I can check in and see ‘what’s happening’. I am rarely bored. Twitter provides a never ending stream of thought provoking information on the topics I care about.

Thought Leader: I want to be a thought leader. I work hard at providing interesting, relevant and original tweets to those that follow me. Thought leaders rightly earn high follower to following ratios. If they haven’t, they are not thought leaders.

The Next 100 Followers: I’m hoping it takes less than 13 months to garner my next 100 followers. To those that follow me, I’ll continue to try to post interesting and thought provoking tweets with links to articles on the topics I am, and hopefully you are, passionate about. Thanks so much!

[Note: Rogers is somehow still blocking Pandora and Skype even when I removed the SIM  card. Grrr! Here’s a Skype iPhone App workaround for Canadians – I haven’t tried it yet.]

Setup is a breeze. It took me about two minutes. You essentially set up a VPN connection to the U.S. through the HotSpot Shield servers. This, of course, would also be useful for safe surfing at coffee shops and other wifi locations.

Once you have set up your account, configured and activated the VPN (see instructions below), navigate to the App Store on your iPhone. Search for the app you want and (if its there) download it. It’s that simple.

Survives Desktop Sync

I was concerned that if I downloaded apps this way, they would be wiped out after I synced my iPhone with iTunes to my desktop. Not so. The sync went fine and the apps remained on the iPhone.

No Need to Keep VPN Turned On

You only need to activate the VPN to download the app. Once downloaded, you can use the app with the VPN shut off.

SETUP INSTRUCTIONS

These instructions were cribbed from the Hotspot Shield site here. See that site for pictures and any updated instructions. You’ll need to go there anyway to get an account (with only one mouse click) as described below.

Configure iPhone

Make sure that Wi-Fi is marked "OFF" in: 
Settings -> Wi-Fi

Then find the VPN settings in:
Settings -> General -> Network -> VPN -> Add VPN Configuration:

• Select the L2TP tab/pane
• Description: HotspotShield
• Server: 64.55.144.10
• Account: [insert account number – see below]
• RSA SecurID: OFF
• Password: [insert password – see below]
• Secret: password
• Send all traffic: ON

Get Account & Password

Getting an account is easy. Click on the GetAccountID button on this page. With one click you’ll have your account and password. You’ll need to fill them into the appropriate place as indicated above.

Save Settings

You are now done. Save the settings and hit the "HOME" button to quit. Make sure to turn Wi-Fi back "ON".

Activate

To activate Hotspot Shield on your iPhone, the VPN setting needs to be turned on. From "HOME" menu, go to Settings and click the "On" tab for VPN. Your Status will change to "CONNECTED" and the VPN icon will appear on top in the iPhone Tray when complete. If you cannot connect to the VPN immediately, power down your iPhone, turn it back on, and turn the VPN to "ON".

If you cannot connect to VPN immediately, power down your iPhone, turn it back on, and turn VPN to "ON" in "Settings".

Unfortunately, Wimbledon’s 2009 licensing regime makes it so that honest viewers from many countries, including Canada and the U.S. (see complete list below) can no longer access the service for any fee.

Amercian’s can watch online through NBCSports or ESPN360.com. Unfortunately NBCSports must be using the same proxy-shield blocking technology as hulu because Hotspot Shield users can’t access the site outside of the U.S.

Below, I include links to several bootleg services offering 2009 Wimbledon matches live streamed. Some are fantastic. Some less so. When I clicked around I could usually find the match I wanted to watch in English.

Of course, these only work when Wimbledon matches are underway. To schedule your viewing, the play schedule is here.

Channelsurfing.net

As far as I know there is no legal way for me to watch streamed Wimbledon matches in Canada. Fortunately there is at least one bootleg service available where Canadians, and anyone else, can view live matches – Channelsurfing.net.

Once on Channelsurfing.net scroll down to the Wimbledon logos and click on one of the several available streams – available in different languages. As I’m watching now (June 24, 2009 at 3:00 pm Eastern) there are 7 available live streams. I am watching the ESPN stream on both my iMac and PC and both are working fine.  [Update: The ESPN stream cut out midway through a Roddick match and hasn’t returned as 11:30.am Eastern June 25]

MyP2P

MyP2P is another place to find dozens of online streams. You may have to click around awhile to find one that works and/or is showing the match you want in the language of your choice. Some links require a plug-in to be downloaded. I don’t trust them so I only accessed those that played through without a plugin.

ATDHE.net

I had very mixed results with ATDHE.NET. It looks easier than MyP2P because it lists actual matches underway. Unfortunately I could only get a few of the listed streams to work from Canada. [Update: Hum… now all the streams are working. For awhile I just got a red X in a big box. Maybe it takes awhile for it to start?]

Justin.tv:

If you click here, there is a constant stream of major matches.  Though there is a scoring system onscreen that makes no sense at all to me.

If you know of any other place where Wimbledon matches can be viewed online in Canada, the U.S. or any of the other blacklisted countries below, please let me know in the comments and I’ll update this post.

Countries No Longer Eligible for Wimbledon Live Service

Live streams are NOT available in the following Countries:

• United States
• Canada
• Germany
• Japan
• Hong Kong
• Spain
• Mongolia
• Bangladesh
• Nepal
• Bhutan
• New Caledonia
• North Korea
• Pakistan
• Papua New Guinea
• South Korea
• East Timor
• Singapore
• Sri Lanka
• India
• Taiwan
• Laos
• Maldives

Once again, content creators and broadcasters have screwed honest users who are willing to pay for their content!

See also: 2009 Wimbledon Live Streaming Sources

Windows has not provided .iso file burning functionality before. Rather than use a specialized tool, I have, until now, used my iMac to burn iso files. This morning I discovered that with a couple clicks of the mouse, Windows 7 users can now burn .iso files. 

Here’s how:

• In Windows Explorer double click the .iso file you wish to burn
• Windows 7 opens the following dialogue

• Choose the DVD burner you wish to use (in my case Drive F:)
• Select whether or not you wish to verify the disk after burning
• Click the ‘Burn’ button and you are off:

That’s it. I’m surprised it took Redmond this long to finally include this functionality.

As I described in my ‘Analyzing My First $100 from Google AdSense’ post, for this last three month period I dropped footer ads in lieu of what I hoped to be a more lucrative ad type – inline text ads. I was right. Some how I also benefited from higher per-click revenues (see details below) for the second $100 than I did for the first $100.

Ad Structure

For the last three months each of my sites used the following three primary ad types (channels in AdSense parlance) – each as depicted in the image below:

• tower ads (120 x 600 down the right column);
• cube ads (250 x 250 in the middle column); and
• inline text ads (468 x 60 in-post text ads – below the title, categories and tags fields and above each post entry).

Below is the AdSense report showing exactly how much was earned from each such ad/channel type on each of my three blogs:

When I aggregate the totals for the three ad/channel types across my three sites, the results for the second $100 earned, were are as follows:

For the first $100, cube ads generated 51% of my revenue. This time, its down to 25% with tower and inline ads taking up the slack. Last time tower ads paid the most, with an average per-click revenue of 17.5 cents. This time all of the ads have a higher per-click average. But, as you can see, tower ads are still the highest paying at an average 31.8 cents per click through.

Other 2nd $100 Statistics

Aside from the in-line text ads more than taking up the slack for dropped footer ads, my average per-click revenue inexplicably jumped up by 48% from 16.5 cents to 24.4 cents per click. This resulted in the number of pages served to generate $100 falling from 1,100 to 631 pages. My traffic has also risen month over month, but has stabilized around 800 to 1,000 page views per day.

Amazon Ads

In the first 10 months of The Daleisphere I generated about $50 in Amazon.com affiliate ads. In the last three months The Daleisphere generated approximately $71.11 in referral fees, once again, mostly from the iPhone App books I recommend in my ‘iPhone App Development – Where to Start’ post – by far the most popular post on The Daleisphere. My generic Amazon ads generate revenue from a hodge-podge of other sold items. I might break that down at some point if I can find a way of making a sensible blog post out of the data.

Moving Forward

As you can see I make almost nothing from home-page ads – $2.11 in three months (see bottom three rows in ads/channel table above). I’m thinking I’ll drop the under achieving cube ad there and add another inline-text ad on that page.

I want to look into the other advertising options that Dave Zatz mentioned in the comments section of my original $100 AdSense post. If my site qualifies for any of them I may give them a try.

short of new advertising possibilities, I’m not expecting similar revenue acceleration for the next $100 period because my average daily revenue seems to have leveled off some, in tandem with my average daily page views.

• $199 for 16 GB in U.S. – $299 for 32GB version (on contract of course)
  • pricing only available to new AT&T customers
  • $700 Upgrade fee for current AT&T iPhone users
  • [June 10 Update: Rogers has announced that Canadian pricing will be the same as U.S. pricing – in Cdn $. So, $199 and $299 Cdn for the 16 and 32 GB units respectively. Only available on 3 year contracts again. No pricing for un-subbed units announced – un-subbed 3G iPhones still cannot be purchased in Canada. 8-GB, 3G Units will be decreased to $99. No word on 16GB units]
• Available June 19 (U.S. & Canada)
• $99 for prior 16 GB iPhone
• “up to” two times Faster
• Voice Control:
  • voice dialing
  • ask iPhone what song is playing and it will tell you
  • tell iPhone to play a song, or songs by an artist or a playlist and it will play it
  • developers can integrate into any app

• Does Video & Video Editing: at 30 fps at VGA resolution

• 3.0 Megapixel Camera
  

  

• Built in Digital Compass
• Battery Life improving – 9 hours wifi, 12 hours 2G talk-time, 5 hour 3G talk-time – 10 hours movie – 30 hours for video

• Seamless PC Tethering supported (including in Canada)
• Tom Tom turn by turn navigation app available (price & date not yet announced)

• Supports 7.2 Mbps HSDPA to support next gen wireless

See also:

• Apple’s WWDC 2009 Keynote Address video
• iPhone 3Gs Guided Tour
• Official Apple iPhone 3Gs page

More Info:

• Apple Insider
• ars technica
• CrunchGear
• Engadget
• Gdgt
• Gizmodo

I admire Arrington as well, but I too have grown a bit weary of his bullying. In light of their history, to my mind, Arrington’s calling Leo’s integrity into question crossed the line – especially when he followed up with a childish ‘… what are you going to do about it” comment.

Normally this kind of thing would have been laughed off by Leo. But I’ve heard Arrington go after Leo’s/Gilmore’s guests unnecessarily hard in recent shows and its time someone called him out on it. It would be one thing if Mike didn’t know Leo well. He does. Leo assiduously discloses all conflicts of interest at every opportunity. Michael knows this.

Good for you Leo! 

[June 9 Update 1: A few hours later Leo recorded a 2nd Gilmore Gang where apologies and explanations were proffered. Click here to access it. It doesn’t start until about 13 minutes in. As you’ll hear, there is a real issue as to whether the Gilmore Gang will continue to be produced by the twit.tv network. I’m of mixed opinion. I fear that Gilmore’s personality and the kind of show he produces is not a match for the rest of the Twit network content.]

[June 9 Update 2: It seems the Internet mob has been tearing into Mike and he has shut down his Techcrunch account on Friendfeed. As I read through the comments against Mike and Leo, too  many in the crowd have been unnecessarily abusive, mostly towards Michael. While I was upset with Mike’s cavalier attack on Leo’s integrity, Michael doesn’t deserve all this grief either. He made a mistake, he apologized. Leo accepted the apology. That should be enough. I’m now feeling sorry for Michael.]

See also:

• John Dvorak covers it
• Michael Arrington’s apology
• MP3 of full show
• Surprised comments on Friendfeed from those watching live
• The LaPorte/Arrington Blow-up is Keyboard Catted

Sony’s 2009 E3 Press Conference can be viewed here.  See also my 2008 Sony E3 coverage. Click on images below for larger views.

Exclusive PS3 Games Shown

 God of War III:  (demo’d – coming March 2010 ) Looks terrific! Except, that is,  for Sony’s continued reliance on quick time events in boss battles. Grrr! But I still can’t wait GoW 1 and 2 were terrific games.

Gran Turismo 5 (polyphony – teaser trailer – still no ship date) – photo realistically gorgeous as you’d expect – first time cars show damage in this franchise – still a SIM that is likely only playable by extreme racing gamers.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (demo’d – naughty dog – no ship date – multi-player beta starting immediately) I’m looking forward to this one! Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is still my favorite PS3 game to date. Demo looked terrific but the female lead has changed. Elena Fisher seems to be gone  

MAG: ‘Massive Action Game’ (demo’d – zipper interactive) – 256 online players can play at once – was announced at last year’s Sony E3 press conference – It looked impressive! I wonder how they’ll ever get teams of 126 people to work together under a few commanders. In my experience, everyone wants to be the commander in online shooters.

Final Fantasy XIV (trailer shown – square enix – 2010) – This being an exclusive was a surprise as was a scheduled 2010 release date – has online play – to be released in the same year as FF13.

MODnation  Racer (demo’d) A customizable cart racer that embodies the play, create, share philosophy of Little Big planet. Users can create and share race tracks, carts and players. They created a track onstage in minutes.

Last Guardian (trailer shown – by Fumito Ueda, creator of Shadow of the Colossus – no date).  A little boy befriends a gigantic dog-creature and take on the world together. That was one compelling trailer!

Agent (Rockstar – announced only) A third party spy thriller coming exclusively to PS3 but not demo’d. No date announced.

Non-Exclusive PS3 Games Demo’d

Assassin’s Creed 2 (ubisoft – holiday 2009) – Set in Italian Renaissance,  in Venice – 30 weapon types – now with guns (or at least ‘a’ gun)! Includes a ‘flying machine’ invented by DeVinci – Looks good. I’m looking forward to playing it on the Xbox360!

Final Fantasy XIII: (teaser – no game play shown – square enix – spring 2010) Looked good – pretty much the same as it looked on the 360 yesterday.

New PS3 Motion Controller

New PS3 Motion Controller: The controller has a glowing sphere that the PlayStation eye-toy can track. The demo was more impressive than the Nintendo Wii Motion Plus demo and much  more realistic than the Microsoft motion control demo.

PSP Announcements:

PSP Go: (no surprise – was leaked days in advance) Will not replace PSP 3000 – slide-out controls – integrated wifi & bluetooth – plays same games as earlier PSPs – 50% smaller & 40% lighter than original PSP – 16 GB flash memory – expandable memory – movie and game downloads – $249 U.S. – available Oct 1. in U.S./Europe

Media Go: PC app store for the PSP Go – used to transfer pictures, music and movies to PSP – All PSP titles to be available via downloads going forward. ‘Sense Me’ application to create custom music playlists on PSP

Movies & TV on PSP: PS3 video delivery service announced last year coming natively to PSP. Note: It’s still not available in Canada  

PSP Trailers Shown

Gran Turismo PSP (polyphony – Oct 1, 2009) 60 fps – 800 cars – 35 tracks – 65 layouts in tracks – single and 4 person multi-player modes – trading and sharing cars.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (konami – 2010) 10 years after MGS 3 – true sequel on PSP – set in the 70s – Kojima writing the script

PS3 Notes

• 22 million PS3s sold globally in 2008 – anticipate 13 million PS3s to be sold in 2010 (I’m not sure if I have these numbers right)
• 35 Playstation exclusives coming this year (presumably including on PS2 games)
• 6.5 million ‘Playstation Home’ users (85% return users) – though I don’t know why. Home bites!

PSP Notes

• Games Coming in 2009: They showed a video of many PSP games coming in 2009 including Resident Evil, Little Big Planet, Socom Fire Team Bravo 3,  Motorstorm Arctic Edge & Harry Potter.
• 24 million users – 11 million in North America
• 200 titles on PSP so far – 90 are exclusive
• Adding Final Fantasy 7 to PSP lineup as of June 2, 2009
• Decreasing price of PSP development tools

PS2 Notes

• Intend to keep PS2 alive beyond 10 years
• sold 9 million more PS2s in 2008
• 100 new PS2 titles coming out in 2009

Live Blog Coverage

• 1Up.com
• CrunchGear
• Engadget
• Gamasutra
• Gizmodo
• Joystiq

My Thoughts

The press conference and list of PS3 exclusives shown were better than I expected. I’d put the press conference on par with the Microsoft press conference.

I was impressed with their marrying of a motion controller with high-end graphics. Though, as with Microsoft’s Natal, they are still only in the prototype stage.

I was a bit surprised that Sony did not announce any social networking functionality like Microsoft and Nintendo did.

The modding functionality of the MODnation game was terrific. The question is, of course, how easy will it be for users to share their mods and what will the limitations be?

The two PS3 game exclusives I’m most looking forward to are God of War III and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

I find this particularly interesting because I do not recall ever seeing traffic driven from Live.com in the past. Until now 95% of my search engine traffic came from Google. Yahoo!, perhaps, drives 2%. I’m hoping bing refers more traffic in the future.

So far I like what I’ve seen of it. But I’m not ready to give up Google just yet.

In summary, he defines, Web 3.0 as:

• Applications that are pieced together.
• They are relatively small.
• The data is in the cloud.
• The application can run on any device, PC or mobile phone.
• Applications are fast and customizable
• Applications are distributed virally via social networks and email.

In my opinion, the biggest Microsoft announcement at E3 today was made after their press conference was over. They announced a new Games on Demand service (coming this August). It has two important features:

1. Full Games Available for Purchase on Demand: Microsoft will start selling full games on-demand via download through the Xbox Live Service starting this fall. Following in the footsteps of Steam (and to some degree Sony), this may be a critical inflection point on the path away from retail game sales. The 30 announced games are all older games (eg: Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed and Bioshock). Games are to be sold at regular retail prices (no disk-free, Gamespot/E.B.; disintermediation discount). Nothing was said about the future availability of new titles day-and-date with retail releases. With the service in place there is, of course, no technological reason why this couldn’t happen. It’s just a matter of time.
2. A Step Away from Microsoft Points: Anyone who is a regular reader of my blog knows that I am a critic of Microsoft Points (see this post, for example). Games purchased through the Games on Demand service will be purchasable with a credit card. No Microsoft Points required. Amen! Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end for Microsoft Points. 

For details see:

• E3: Microsoft Announces ‘Games on Demand’ at Xbox Live Luncheon (Gamasutra)
• Games on Demand Bringing Digital Retail to Xbox 360 (1Up.com)
• Good-bye Games in boxes? Xbox 360 to get full game downloads (CNet)

The Microsoft Press Conference can be viewed here. See also: My 2008 Microsoft E3 coverage.

Big Announcements:

• Halo Reach: Bungie teased this new Halo game, set for a fall 2010 release. Whoo hoo! If its a Bungie shooter, and it has the name Halo on it, I’m in! Is ‘Noble 1’, Will Master Chief?
   
• Metal Gear Rising: The next Kojima / Konami Metal Gear game is coming to the Xbox!!! Holy Cow! The final coup de gras against Sony.  Kojima seemed genuinely happy to appear on stage for the announcement.
• Project Natal: A ‘controller free’ , full body motion capture, item scanning, facial and voice recognition. Will work on every 360. See demo here. I’ll believe it when I see it! I don’t believe the Lion’s Gate Milo demo pictured on right. It had to be heavily scripted (click for larger view).

New Console Features (coming this fall)

• last.fm coming to Xbox Live free (globally available)
• Netflix Queue on 360 will be manageable from Xbox Dashboard (no need to do it on PC anymore)
• HD download library being upgraded to full 1080p
• Instant 1080p HD Movies/TV – Worldwide: Faster movie downloads. Higher high def. Doubling number of countries where HD TV/video content will be available from 8 to 18
• Facebook on Xbox 360 (very much an Xbox 360 look)
• Titter coming to Xbox Live

Microsoft Exclusives Coming

• Shadow Complex – An Epic Games Xbox 360 exclusive arcade – reminds me of Little Big Planet. A side scroller. Bizarre!
• Joy Ride – a free Xbox Live bumper car-type game that uses your Xbox 360 avatar (next winter)
• Crackdown 2 (can’t wait – crackdown 1 was a big surprise when I first played it)
• Left 4 Dead 2 – zombies in the daylight! (Nov 17, 2009)
• Splinter Cell Conviction – Wow! looks very different from prior Splinter Cell games (fall 2009)
• Forza Motorsport 3 (Oct 2009)
• Halo 3 ODST – is it me or are the Halo graphics starting to look dated? (Sept 22, 2009)
• Halo Reach (fall 2010)
• Alan Wake (spring 2010 – looked interesting). This game is from the makers of one of my all time favourites – Max Payne. Can’t wait!

New Skateboard Peripheral

Non-Exclusive Demos Shown

• Beatles Rock Band. Likenesses of the Beatles sing and play along as you play the game.
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward – looked great!)
• Final Fantasy XIII (spring 2010)
• Tony Hawk Ride – using new skateboard peripheral (see below)

Live Blog Coverage:

• CrunchGear
• Engadget
• Gamasutra
• Gizmodo
• Joystiq

My Thoughts

I enjoyed their focus on games and not things like console sales or attach rates.  I’m most looking forward to Halo Reach, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Halo ODST, Crackdown 2 and Alan Wake.

I don’t believe that Project Natal will do all that it is promising. It seems to be more a ‘vision’, ‘proof of concept’, or ‘goal’. As far as I know, no actual shipping product was announced.

I’m delighted to see that Microsoft has finally got the last major PS3 third-party exclusive franchise (metal gear) coming to the 360.

I was disappointed that there were no more details about Zune HD integration. I continue to be sad that Microsoft continues on with its ridiculous Microsoft Points system.

 [Update: Post press conference Microsoft announced FULL game downloads for real money (not Microsoft Points) via credit card. This is a big deal! Coming in August. See this Gizmodo post. Still sketchy on details – whether it will apply to other content like HD movie downloads.]

While Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm are nice, I won’t use them on the 360 – especially without a keyboard.

To me, and I suspect to many Windows users, it would be intuitive for Windows to bring whatever window the mouse is currently hovering over into focus without the need to click on that window.

It turns out that Windows 7 now makes this possible. I stumbled upon this tip when writing my ‘How to Shut Off Windows 7 Aero Snap – Stop it from Auto Arranging Windows’ post.

There are two additional reasons why I want Windows 7 to activate (bring focus to an ‘out of focus’ window) by hovering the mouse over it:

1. Symbiotic With Single-Click Item Activation

For the better part of a year I have been using the ‘single-click to open’ option in Windows Vista and Windows 7 (The option has been around since Windows 95). The idea behind this one-click option is to make the Windows use experience similar to the web-browsing experience. Instead of double clicking icons and options to open/access/activate them in Windows, you need only click icons, items etc. once.

To set windows 7 up to open/activate items with just one click, do the following in Windows Explorer

• click on Tools
• click Folder Options
• on the General Tab, click the ‘single-click to open option shown in the picture below:

Up till now, a downside to using this single-click approach, is that I often accidently clicked/activated items within a window that I had no desire to activate simply because I clicked that item when I clicked on its window to bring it into focus.

Using the tip below to activate a window by merely hovering over it solves this accidental click problem.

[Side Note: For this 25 year DOS/Windows veteran, moving from the two-click model to the one-click model, was quite hard to do. It took some time but I’ve now adjusted to it and am happier for the effort.']

2. Solves a Kat-Mouse Focus Problem

For several months I have been enjoying the free utility KatMouse (recommended by Steve Gibson). With KatMouse, spinning a mouse’s scroll wheel scrolls the window beneath the mouse cursor – whether or not that window is in focus. This is useful but doesn’t bring the scrolled window into focus.

My preference would be to move from window to window, scrolling away, without having to click the scrolled window to bring it into focus. KatMouse gets me half way to my desired end-game. The tip below gets me all the way there.

I’ll need to report back on this, but it may be that I no longer need KatMouse at all. This tip seems to get me where I wanted to go with KatMouse.

How to Activate a Window by Hovering a Mouse Over It

To set this up:

• Go to Control Panel
• Select ‘Ease of Access Center’
• Select ‘Make the mouse easier to use’
• Check ‘Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse’ as shown in the picture below
   
• Click ‘Apply’

One Downside – Accidental Jumps

I noticed one downside to using this tip. Typically I’ll click a window (say, Microsoft Word) to activate it and then I’ll push the mouse out of the way when I start using the application (in the Word example, I push the mouse pointer away before I type text) so that the mouse pointer doesn’t get in the way. However, if I push my mouse away too far, so that it points to another window, I’m accidently jumped over to window where the mouse pointer randomly landed. This takes a bit of getting used to.

Window’s 7 new Aero Snap feature is, no doubt, a useful feature for those with just one monitor. In my case, where I use multiple monitors, it is a major pain. Windows 7 frequently auto-adjusts windows across multiple monitors when I have no desire for this to happen.

In the picture above, my Firefox window was originally open in just the lower, central, window. I was dragging the lower right corner with my mouse (see yellow arrow) to adjust the window when, suddenly, it popped up across three monitors (see four red arrows above). Yikes!

Windows 7 does this because it thinks that if you drag an edge of a window to the edge of a screen (any screen) you want the widow stretched across the full screen (or in my case, multiple screens). Nobody would want the result produced above.

Before disabling Aero Snap this happened to me several times a day. It doesn’t any longer. To disable Aero Snap, follow these steps:

• Go to Control Panel
• Select ‘Ease of Access Center’
• Select ‘Make the mouse easier to use’
• Check ‘Prevent Windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen’

• Click ‘Apply’

See also: Disable Aero Snap (the Mouse Drag Window Arranging Feature in Windows 7)

Following recent reports (see here, here and here) on the growing number of U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives that use Twitter (about 120 right now), I decided to look into which Canadian Cabinet ministers, party leaders, Senators and Members of Parliament use Twitter. Below are my preliminary results as of May 12, 2009. I have included the number of each person’s Twitter followers in parenthesis.

This list is not exhaustive. If you know of other Cabinet Ministers, Senators or MPs using Twitter, please add them in the comments with a link to their twitter profile. Many thanks.

Cabinet Members

Stephen Harper – Prime Minister:

http://twitter.com/pmharper (12,219)

Jason Kenney – Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism:

http://twitter.com/MinJK (702)

Tony Clement – Minister of Industry:

http://twitter.com/TonyClementMP (501)

[Update: This must be someone spoofing a Tony Clement profile.]

Stockwell Day Minister of International Trade:

http://twitter.com/Stockwell_Day  (2 – hasn’t posted anything yet)

Steven Fletcher – Minister of State (Democratic Reform):

http://twitter.com/stevenjfletcher (377)

Party Leaders:

• Michael Ignatieff (lib) http://twitter.com/M_ignatieff (6,973)
• Jack Layton (ndp) http://twitter.com/jacklayton (6,311)
• Gilles Duceppe (bloc) http://twitter.com/gillesduceppe (1,423)

Other Members of Parliament

1. Niki Ashton (ndp) http://twitter.com/nikiashton (95)
2. Dawn Black (ndp) http://twitter.com/Dawn_Black (179)
3. Kelly Block (cons) http://twitter.com/KellyBlockMP (65)
4. Peter Braid (cons) http://twitter.com/peterbraid (148)
5. Lois Brown (cons) http://twitter.com/loisbrownmp (102)
6. Patrick Brown (cons) http://twitter.com/brownbarrie (87)
7. Paul Calandra (cons) http://twitter.com/PaulCalandra (112)
8. Chris Charlton (ndp) http://twitter.com/chrischarltonmp (120)
9. Olivia Chow (ndp) http://twitter.com/oliviachow (420)
10. Siobhan Coady (lib) http://twitter.com/SiobhanCoadyMP (169)
11. Denis Coderre (lib) http://twitter.com/DenisCoderre (316)
12. Don Davies (ndp) http://twitter.com/dondavies (266)
13. Libby Davies (ndp) http://twitter.com/LibbyDavies (210)
14. Paul Dewar (ndp) http://twitter.com/PaulDewar (181)
15. Ruby Dhalla (lib) http://twitter.com/MPRubyDhalla (174)
16. Ujal Dosanjh (lib) http://twitter.com/ujjaldosanjh (245)
17. Rick Dykstra (cons)  http://twitter.com/RickDykstra (59)
18. Hedy Fry (lib) http://twitter.com/HedyFry (55)
19. Martha Hall Findlay (lib) http://twitter.com/TeamMHF (1,503)
20. Royal Galipeau (cons) http://twitter.com/galipeauMP (113)
21. Jim Maloway (ndp) http://twitter.com/JimMaloway (21)
22. Brian Masse (ndp) http://twitter.com/BrianMasseMP (140)
23. Dan McTeague (lib) http://twitter.com/danmcteague (2,449) – seemingly only tweets about gas prices
24. Bob Rae (ndp) http://twitter.com/bobraeMP (1,165)
25. John Rafferty (ndp) http://twitter.com/johnraffertyMP (76)
26. Brent Rathberger (cons) http://twitter.com/brentrathgeber (149)
27. Blake Richards (cons) http://twitter.com/WildRoseMPBlake (138)
28. Denise Savoie (ndp) http://twitter.com/denisesavoie (53)
29. Peter Shurman (pc?) http://twitter.com/shurmanator (198)
30. Michelle Simson (lib) http://twitter.com/MichelleSimson (53)
31. Chuck Strahl (cons)  http://twitter.com/ChuckStrahl  (221)
32. Glen Thibeault (ndp) http://twitter.com/GlennThibeault (104)

See also:

• Which Canadian MPs are on Twitter?
• Canadian Politics Twitterers

I just tested it and indeed I’m blocked. I’ll still use Hotspot Shield for the plethora of other free services not available in Canada (eg: Pandora, last.fm) for so long as it works. But, once again, it sucks to be a new media enthusiast when you live in Canada!

Until hulu comes to Canada (if ever) we still have TV streaming from CTV and Global.

See: Control Freaks: Hulu Now Blocks Anonymous Proxies Too (TechCrunch)

Have you ever wanted to share a blog post, website, video, music or news story in Facebook?

There are two ways to do this, by using either: (i) the ‘Share on Facebook’ bookmarklet’ (depicted in the image above); or (ii)  the attach ‘Links’ method.  Either way, your friends will see what you share in their Facebook feeds. Shared music and videos will be directly playable by them from within the feed.

Using the ‘Share on Facebook’ Bookmarklet

This is the easiest way. Get the the ‘Share on Facebook’ bookmarklet here. You’ll be taken to this page:

Follow the instructions. Grab (point and hold-click on) the ‘Share on Facebook’ bookmarklet icon on that page, then drag and drop it onto your browser’s bookmarks bar.

Later, when you are on a website, YouTube page, whatever, that you want to share:

• click on the ‘Share on Facebook’ bookmarklet. A page like this will pop up:

• Type your comment (or don’t – comments are optional)
• If there is more than one image on the page, you’ll be able to cycle through the images to pick the image you want to show up as the thumbnail in your Facebook feed. Or, choose ‘No Thumbnail’
• Click the blue ‘Post’ button
• If you are logged into Facebook, the link will be shared and your friends will see it in their feed. You can confirm by visiting your Facebook wall which will look something like this:

The Links Option

The ‘Links Option’ method takes a few more steps, but is still easy.

• Click the "Link" button on the left side of the Facebook page:

• Copy and past the link’s URL of the blog, story, YouTube video etc. that you want to share into the Attach field
• Click the ‘Attach’ button
• Type an optional comment (as I did in the example below):

• Select the image you wish to use as a Thumbnail (if more than one) – or choose ‘No Thumbnail’
• Click on the blue ‘Share’ button

The link will then be shared and your friends will see it in their feed. You can confirm that the link was shared by visiting your Facebook wall.

Case in Point – GlobalTV.com’s increasingly impressive array of full-episode primetime and daytime TV streaming offerings. Global is one of Canada’s three nation-wide broadcasters. It carries about half of all U.S. primetime network content. 

The index of shows available from GlobalTV.com is here. Only clips are available for some shows like Survivor and ET Canada. But recent full episodes (plus indicated bonus materials) for the following shows are available:

• 24
• The New 90210 (plus interviews)
• Bob and Doug
• Bones (plus interviews)
• ‘Da Kink in my Hair’
• Days of Our Lives
• Family Guy
• Harper’s Island
• Heroes (plus webisodes and Heroes Unmasked)
• House
• Howie Do It
• Live
• Prison Break
• Project Runway Canada
• Saturday Night Live (plus best-of footage)
• Sit Down Shut Up
• The Guard (plus behind the scenes videos)
• The Office (including webisodes)
• The Unusuals
• The Young and the Restless (including classic episodes)

As with the CTV.ca offerings:

• episodes can be watched in full screen;
• episodes are chopped up into parts (typically 6 parts for an hour long show);
• commercials that cannot be skipped are shown before the start of each clip/segment
• users can click around/fast forward/rewind within a clip/segment
• the quality is nowhere near as good as Hulu.

If anyone is aware of a CBC TV episode streaming service, please let me know in the comments.

See also:

• Who will cash in on Canada’s love for online Video? (cbc.ca)

Not so with video podcasts. Clicking the ‘Sleep/Wake’ button, or clicking the iPhone’s start button shuts video podcasts off. The inability to just listen to video podcasts has been one of my primary complaints with the iPhone’s iPod functionality. See my other major complaints here and here.

Why Would Anyone Want to Just Listen to a Video Podcast?

All video podcasts are not created equal. Some video podcasts such as CO-OP, demand that the user ‘watch’ them to get the most out of them. Other podcasts , such as the ‘Cranky Geeks’, Geek Brief TV and Diggnation can usually be enjoyed without ever looking at the screen.

There are several reasons why one might wish to consume a video podcast with the visual element shut off:

• While Using other IPhone Apps: Since I can, and often do, use other iPhone/iTouch apps while listening to audio podcasts, I sometimes just want/need to just listen to video podcasts while using other apps. Why not?
• Increased battery life: Video playback consumes an enormous amount of battery charge. If you don’t need to watch the video to enjoy it, why waste the battery?
• Putting iPhone in Pocket: I often put my iPhone in my pocket while listening to podcasts. When the iPhone screen cannot be shut off, this becomes a bit clumsy. The act of putting it in my pocket (or taking it out) often results in unwanted screen clicks that can shut the podcast off, fast forward it, pause it etc.
• While Driving: Who needs the video on while driving?

Bottom Line: Hardly a day has gone by since I purchased my iPhone last August, when I didn’t wish I could turn off the screen and still listen to my video podcasts.

Turns out that there has been a way to do this all along. It took me 8 months before I stumbled upon this trick.

How Then, to Listen to Video Podcasts Without Watching

From day 1 I realized I could click the ‘Sleep/Wake’ button (depicted below) to shut off the screen while listening to an audio podcast.

While in this state, the user can still press the earbud pause button (depicted below) to start/stop the audio podcast.

I later discovered that one can press the button on the earbuds at any time and the most recently listened to song/podcast etc. would start playing where I last left off – this without actually waking up the iPhone or needing to press the iPod icon.

Quite by accident, I discovered this week, that video podcasts will also wakeup, with the screen still turned off when you press the earbud button after putting the iPhone to sleep (with the Sleep/Wake button) during a video podcast.

More astonishingly, if you jump away from the video podcast by pressing the iPhone’s ‘Start’ button, you can press the earbud button to restart just the audio portion of the video podcast that just shut off – all while using your other iPhone apps.

It’s as simple as that!

Note: This only works while listening with the earbuds. You cannot, for example, listen to video podcasts with just the built-in iPhone speaker or when the earbuds are removed and you have the iPhone plugged into something else like an in-car auxiliary jack. So there is still room for improvement here.

[Update: Turns out this can, indeed be done without the earbuds. See Cassidy Napoli’s welcome comment below to learn how this is done.]

Note Re: Audio Version Alternatives

You might ask, if I don’t want to watch the video version of a podcast, why not subscribe to the audio-only version. The answer is three-fold:

1. AppleTV Interoperability: I consume podcasts on both my iPhone and on AppleTV. I don’t want to have to subscribe to, and then have to manage, two subscriptions to a podcast.
2. Sometimes I Watch: If I’m on a subway or eating at a restaurant, sometimes I want to watch the video podcast.
3. No Audio-only Version: Sometimes there is no audio-only version of a video podcast.

Other Earbud Button Uses:

FYI, there are a number of other earbud button uses that many iPhone users are not aware of:

• Answering a phone call (press once to answer)
• Hang-up a phone call (press once again to hang-up)
• Forward call to voicemail (press and hold the button for a few seconds while the iPhone is ringing)
• Starting up an audio book where you left off without waking the iPhone (one click)
• Pause a song, movie, podcast, movie (click once)
• Jump from chapter to chapter in an audio book (double click)
• Jumping to the next song when listening to a playlist (double click)
• Jump to the prior song (triple click)

The new service is available here (see the ‘Watch Online at CTV.ca’ heading to the right). Episodes can be viewed full screen, though the resolution is quite low by Hulu standards. Episodes are divided into segments/clips, presumably matching how shows are segmented between commercials when broadcast. Canadians can fast forward and rewind or jump from segment to segment. Users cannot, however, fast forward through the short commercials (about 10 to 15 seconds each) that play before some, but not all, segments. So far I haven’t seen many commercials. Below is a picture of the interface:

A FAQ is available here. Multiple seasons/episodes of some shows, like ‘The Daily Show’ are available. Only the most recent of others, like Lost  and Grey’s Anatomy, are available. I’ve tested several shows and so far the system works well – though the resolution certainly needs a boost.

Below is a list of the shows currently available:

• The Colbert Report
• Comedy Now!
• Corner Gas
• Daily Planet
• The Daily Show
• Degrassi: The Next Generation
• Desperate Housewives
• ER
• Fashion Television
• Flashpoint
• Fringe
• Gossip Girl
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Instant Star
• Lost
• Mad Men
• Paris Hilton’s My New BFF
• Private Practice
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• Two and a Half Men

This is no Hulu, but its a start.

[Update: For Global’s on line lineup, see ‘Canada’s Global Network Also Offers Full Primetime TV Episodes Online’]

FYI, Global carries only full episodes for seven (rather lame) online show right now:

• The Guard
• Global Currents
• Focus Ontario
• X-Treme Sports
• Global National
• ‘da Kink in my Hair
• 90210

For more information on the availability of full TV episodes in Canada see:

• How to Watch full Episodes in Canada