VelociPeek

Eric’s weblog on tech

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Summize For iPhone

Song of The Day: Swallow - Artist: Supreme Beings of Leisure



Lately, I’ve been checking out an iPhone application from Summize and, I have to say, I really like the service and application. First things first however, what is Summize?

Summize, the company, is a start-up in the Northern Virginia area. The service they provide connects users with opinions and reviews from the Web, focusing on blogs and other reviews. From Summize’s homepage:

Summize connects you with the opinions of millions of people on zillions of products. We scour the web for the latest user reviews and blogger discussions, surmise their sentiments, and summarize them here.

Summize epitomizes Web Think. Want to see how Summize brings Web Think to you? On your mobile?

More thoughts and screenshots after the jump…

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Monday, February 25th, 2008

Wordpress, Hosting Upgrade



For Immediate Press Release

VelociPeek, a blog of great value and intrigue, has been migrated to a different hosting provider and has been upgraded to the latest and greatest of WordPress.

Please announce it on top of the mountains. Competitors beware.

Okay. Now that that’s done.

Inktomi, a company acquired by Yahoo! back in 2002, distributed a t-shirt at AOL back in the day. It read something to the effect, “3 billion URLs served and no one noticed.” Inktomi and its software helped support AOL’s proxy and caching infrastructure, which in its hay-day supported 12 billion URL requests a day–a pretty staggering figure really.

Well, although I don’t have anything reflective of that scale and seamlessness, I couldn’t help but think of the quote while changing this blog’s hosting provider and Wordpress version. :)

Let me know of any issues. Hopefully, no one noticed!

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Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

JMagick OS X Leopard Port

Song of The Day: Give Me One Good Reason - Artist: Blink-182



Just a quick note to let folks know that I have an initial i368 port of JMagick, the JNI-based interface into the popular C/C++ ImageMagick API, to OS X Leopard.

For now the binaries and sources are hosted here. It’s based upon ImageMagick version 6.3.6-9_0 (libMagick.10.0.9.dylib).

I’m on the JMagick listserv to see if the development team wants to incorporate any of the changes, etc.

Here’s a quick list of what changed in the code:

  • New configure script option: –with-shared-lib-ext [defaults to .so]. This helped with allowing the extension to be changed during the make process (i.e., looked to be hardcoded to .so in spots or not always appended correctly).

    The build process, for OS X at the moment, creates a dynamic library that can be loaded with dlopen (MH_DYLIB), etc. Although it appears to work, it is just a quick workaround. In the future I imagine it would be better to have the configure script handle dynamic libs and bundles with an option and the extensions then added seamlessly.

  • The binary distribution comes with prebuilt MacPorts dependencies: ibexpat.1.dylib, libtiff.3.dylib, libMagick.10.dylib, libfontconfig.1.dylib, libz.1.dylib, libWand.10.dylib, libfreetype.6.dylib, libbz2.1.dylib, libjpeg.62.dylib.

  • The build process builds the binaries and jar files with a version number (noted below).

Note: The build process attaches the version as a part of the filename. For example the lib name looks something like libJMagick-6.2.6.dylib with a symlink to libJMagick.dylib.

The symlink ensures that Java-based calls to load the shared object work (e.g., make test):

static {
     System.loadLibrary("JMagick");
}

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Friday, February 15th, 2008

Gene Wang and Hillary Clinton Music Video

To reward your week of hard work and determination I posted the Hillary For You and Me music video from the venerable Gene Wang. You deserve it!

How could anyone think this video is cheesy? :)


Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Yahoo! - Now News Corp. Likely

Song of The Day: Future Shock - Artist: Herbie Hancock



It just keeps getting better every day…

Apparently, News Corp. wants a 20% stake.

More after the jump…

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Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Yahoo! - Microsoft Deal Likely

Song of The Day: Future Shock - Artist: Herbie Hancock



While Yahoo! acquired Maven Networks for 160M, a large shareholder predicts Microsoft will acquire Yahoo! for a share price slightly below $40.

Apparently, Google sours on a deal.

More after the jump…

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Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

PS3 IR Adapter Works with Universal Remotes

Song Of The Day: Beautiful Day Artist: U2





After Time Warner’s Blue-ray announcement at the CES 2008 and the Blu-ray movie promotion, I decided to buy a PS3. With the 5 free Blue-ray movies, at a typical $30 a pop, the deal just seemed too good to pass up.

However, there was one really annoying problem with my new-found Blue-ray player: no IR support. This meant that EVERY aspect of my system could be controlled by my universal remote, except the PS3 - ugh!

So I searched around and found a couple solutions:

However, I didn’t want a new remote and none appeared to support power on/off of the system. Who wants to walk 3 yards to turn the PS3 off and on when everything else does the right thing. How dare Sony prompt me to exercise. :)

Well, for those like me wait no longer. There is a device for $50 that supports playback and power on/off capabilities, all from a universal remote like the Logitech Harmony 880.

More after the jump…

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Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Yahoo! Starts Lay-offs, Microsoft Feels Hostile

Song Of The Day: The Pot - Artist: Tool




Well, it’s just been one of those weeks in the Internet space. Initially, Yahoo! struggles and announces lay-offs, Microsoft then makes a bid for Yahoo!, Yahoo! rebuffs and hints at buying AOL. All the while Google is doing something behind the scenes.

Wow. Pretty intriguing.

So what’s in it for today?

Well, more after the hop…

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Monday, February 11th, 2008

Yahoo! May Buy AOL

Song Of The Day: Bulls On Parade - Artist: Rage Against The Machine




That’s right. There are current rumors on the street that Yahoo! could buy AOL. I could see this happening, but more of the report after jump…

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Monday, February 11th, 2008

Yahoo! - Jerry Yang’s Letter to Employees

Song of The Day: What’d I Say - Artist: Ray Charles




Jerry’s Yang’s letter to employees:

Subject: our board’s decision

yahoos

as you’ll see from the news release we issued today, our board of directors has reviewed microsoft’s unsolicited proposal with yahoo!’s management, financial and legal advisors. after a careful evaluation, the board has unanimously concluded that the proposal is not in the best interests of yahoo! and our stockholders. of course, the board of directors is continuously evaluating all of its strategic options in the context…

Requires a subscription for the entire article, but more thoughts and review after the jump…

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