Okay so Miro 2.0 is here! There has been a LOT of work that has been put in to get to this point. I had used various beta versions, but it had been a little while since I had used the 2.0 version. In summary of everything that will follow I am VERY impressed with what has been done in this latest release and I encourage you to try it out: http://www.getmiro.com/
So now into the good and the bad. I'm going to get the bad out of the way first. So the first thing is that I have a LOT of different channels, so Miro in the past has taken ~8-10 minutes to launch. So that has always been a problem in my mind. But since I have a lot of channels I have never really faulted the developers for this since Miro will launch pretty quickly if you don't have ~160+ channels. Unfortunately when I updated Miro to a long time to update the database from the older version of Miro to the latest one. I didn't use a stop watch or anything, but it was 20+ minutes that it took. But everything worked properly migrating from the older version of Miro to 2.0. So that's the important thing. And the other important thing is that the ~8-10 minute launch time of Miro 1.X has now been cut to ~2 minutes. Which is a big difference in my mind. And I don't think that most people will have as many channels as I do so I think most people will see it launching in an order of seconds.
The other problem I've always had with Miro is how much memory it uses. With all the channels I have I have seen it occasionally using ~1GB+. This essentially rendered my 1GB memory laptop pretty useless when I would use Miro + Firefox at the same time. Now I haven't seen Miro consume much more than 600MB. A vast improvement in my mind, and it is noticeable to me since I can now use gnome + Firefox + Miro without having my system slow to a crawl. Before I had to use the enlightenment window manager to have any chance of using Miro and Firefox together. But not any more!
And the last semi negative thing is that Miro after the update was using the xine for the video renderer. I assume that this was because Miro was set to use this from the 1.X versions. Everything worked fine using xine except for when any window/box overlapped the video playback then there would be a black box on the screen unless you toggled the fullscreen. Switching to gstreamer made all these problems go away.
The first thing that you will notice about Miro 2.0 is that it looks much better when viewing the channels, there are different views for looking at the videos/channels. Very nice. Video playback has a different look and everything that has changed fixes little problems that existed in the past, it isn't just a change of look at feel for the sake of making it look prettier, though I guess this might not be a horrible thing. I.e. the fullscreen mode now looks much better and by simply moving the mouse the control bar comes back into view, allowing you to delete or save a video among other things. Before you would need to leave fullscreen and then find the button. Now it's much more efficient.
Another really nice thing is that Miro now has keyboard shortcuts that work in fullscreen and non fullscreen! And the keyboard shortcuts are intuitive and what you would expect them to be! E.g.:
* pause/play - spacebar
* skip forward - arrow right
* skib backward - arrow left
There are more useful shortcuts for changing fullscreen, changing volume, etc. But the problem I see in terms of user friendliness is that the shortcuts that I mentioned above are not displayed in the menue bar. Although all the other keyboard shortcuts are listed... Maybe the devs assume that people will know the shortcuts since they are so intuitive (which they are), but for the new user this might not be completely intuitive. One thing that I find a little odd in the playback window is that the buttons that advance from one video to the next actually look like fast forward buttons... a small thing, but it seems like they should just have the universal "next track" button instead. It only takes clicking it once to know what it will do, but it just seems like it would make sense to have the button match the action better.
Miro also now allows you to un-dock the playback window from the main Miro window so that you can change settings, look at different channels/videos. This is a very cool idea, and I have used it a few times already, and I can imagine that this would be very useful if playing video on one monitor or projector and you are wanting to queue up some content to play right after the current video or if you want to add something to a playlist.
Even though I rambled on here for a while, there are MANY more things that have improved or been added to Miro 2.0 that are great, so give it a try for yourself and see all the great things that have been done. Once again VERY impressive and great job to everyone who worked on this release!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
Scott Seigler's Contagious a great Christmas Gift!
Okay so for those of you other there that haven't heard of Scott Seigler, he as a Horror/Sci-Fi/Action/Adventure Fiction writer. What sets him apart from other writers is that he gives away all his books as a podcast and as a pdf. He also also sells print versions of his books so that he can get some revenue for all his hard work.
He has made me realize how hard it can be to make it in the literary world, when you are competing against such big authors backed by large publishing companies. So I really respect Scott Seigler for stepping up to that challenge and for giving away his content as a podcast for free. This really seems like a huge step forward to opening things up. Even as he gets his books published he has stayed true to his roots and insists that he still be able to give away his podcasts for free.
Asside from all the great things that he has done, his books are adicting!!! There have been many occasions where I have listened to his books while on LONG road trips. They made the time pass so quickly, and kept me awake and on the edge of my seat, which is quite a feat when you get an idea of how long some of the road trips were...
Though not the highest form of literary work in terms of elloquence, it is riviting, real, and fun. And as people seem to be reading books less and less (especially the younger generations) it is really important to have stories like these that can grab people's attention.
Having listened to the Infected podcast, and bought the book, I am extreemly excited to read the Contagious book that comes out December 30, 2008! It is a great Christmas gift (I've put it on my list! :-)) if you are into these sorts of storries. Oh and did I mention that his books can be gory? Ohh yeah they are, so you have now been warned!
So check out his podcasts if you haven't already and consider buying the book!!!
He has made me realize how hard it can be to make it in the literary world, when you are competing against such big authors backed by large publishing companies. So I really respect Scott Seigler for stepping up to that challenge and for giving away his content as a podcast for free. This really seems like a huge step forward to opening things up. Even as he gets his books published he has stayed true to his roots and insists that he still be able to give away his podcasts for free.
Asside from all the great things that he has done, his books are adicting!!! There have been many occasions where I have listened to his books while on LONG road trips. They made the time pass so quickly, and kept me awake and on the edge of my seat, which is quite a feat when you get an idea of how long some of the road trips were...
Though not the highest form of literary work in terms of elloquence, it is riviting, real, and fun. And as people seem to be reading books less and less (especially the younger generations) it is really important to have stories like these that can grab people's attention.
Having listened to the Infected podcast, and bought the book, I am extreemly excited to read the Contagious book that comes out December 30, 2008! It is a great Christmas gift (I've put it on my list! :-)) if you are into these sorts of storries. Oh and did I mention that his books can be gory? Ohh yeah they are, so you have now been warned!
So check out his podcasts if you haven't already and consider buying the book!!!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Robed Obama picture ignites row - Deep Stabs and Religous Jabs
The more desperate Clinton becomes the dirtier the race gets. Read the article first and then come back to read this. It is ridiculous that this even matters and for Hillary to be pushing this is a dirty thing to do. Even though the race is heating up I will have to say that is is probably most hot at the Ortiz household where a guy stabs his brother-in-law.
Clearly from all the press and video that I have seen Obama is quite a devout Christian. But one picture of him wearing traditional African garb and he is a Muslim. As Obama pointed out in his rally in Austin TX a few days back, these sorts of comments are not only an insult to himself but to all the Muslim people out there.And when George Bush wears a Kippah when in Jerusalem there is no talk that he is Jewish. Well let's hope that the voters in America are more intelligent than Hillary's campaign is making people out to be.
read more | digg story
Clearly from all the press and video that I have seen Obama is quite a devout Christian. But one picture of him wearing traditional African garb and he is a Muslim. As Obama pointed out in his rally in Austin TX a few days back, these sorts of comments are not only an insult to himself but to all the Muslim people out there.And when George Bush wears a Kippah when in Jerusalem there is no talk that he is Jewish. Well let's hope that the voters in America are more intelligent than Hillary's campaign is making people out to be.
read more | digg story
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Watch for items disappearing from your bags when you fly!
After hearing two members of my family having items from their checked suit cases go missing, I thought I would look into this a little more. One had a necklace stolen, while the other one had a nice belt stolen. But hey could be that they were "misplaced" when the TSA was searching through things.
Let me elaborate. I would have thought that the TSA would carefully look through your things making sure that nothing gets removed nor added to your bag. I can't claim to have anything removed from my bag, but I did have something added. A few years back after I got my bag from a kind delivery person after my bag didn't make it to my connecting flight (seems to happen about 50% of the time these days), I saw that there was a cloth cover from a baby car seat in my bag. And just as you might imagine, this isn't a small item!
So in this case, I would have to say it was due to negligence, while in the other cases it seems a little too coincidental that the most prized items in the bag happened to be "lost".
And we aren't alone, there are many other people who have had things go missing:
So all well and good that they offer these services, but for an official agency that is supposed to be ensuring the airline security it does NOT look good to be employing thieves. If someone doesn't have a problem stealing things then perhaps they also don't have a problem taking a little money to slip something INTO a bag rather than take something OUT.
Anyways, to make a long story short, if you have anything you value that you could not bear to loose (or be apart from for at least a day) then carry it with you on your flight!
Let me elaborate. I would have thought that the TSA would carefully look through your things making sure that nothing gets removed nor added to your bag. I can't claim to have anything removed from my bag, but I did have something added. A few years back after I got my bag from a kind delivery person after my bag didn't make it to my connecting flight (seems to happen about 50% of the time these days), I saw that there was a cloth cover from a baby car seat in my bag. And just as you might imagine, this isn't a small item!
So in this case, I would have to say it was due to negligence, while in the other cases it seems a little too coincidental that the most prized items in the bag happened to be "lost".
And we aren't alone, there are many other people who have had things go missing:
- Plip's Weblog - Items stolen from Baggage
- Ask Meta Filter - items stolen at airport from bags?
- My3cents - stolen items from luggage
So all well and good that they offer these services, but for an official agency that is supposed to be ensuring the airline security it does NOT look good to be employing thieves. If someone doesn't have a problem stealing things then perhaps they also don't have a problem taking a little money to slip something INTO a bag rather than take something OUT.
Anyways, to make a long story short, if you have anything you value that you could not bear to loose (or be apart from for at least a day) then carry it with you on your flight!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
New Gmail Mobile!
I was very happy that I was able to spot this news item. It slipped past me as well. I used the old gmail app on my phone and was happy with it overall. But it wasn't all that great, and didn't offer much beyond setting up imap on my Nokia e61i through gmail.
But now with the new version of the gmail mobile app, things are much better. The big things to me are being able to search and view ALL your e-mail! And also now the key shortcuts are the same as within gmail. E.g. composing a message is done by hitting the "c" or searching with "/" very nice. I hope they don't do this on phones with no QWERTY keyboard!
There are many other features that were added, but these are the ones that stuck out to me. If you use the old one, it is definitely worth the 2 minutes it takes to install a new version.
Take a look at the lifehacker article: http://lifehacker.com/343030/gmail-mobile-for-google-apps
But now with the new version of the gmail mobile app, things are much better. The big things to me are being able to search and view ALL your e-mail! And also now the key shortcuts are the same as within gmail. E.g. composing a message is done by hitting the "c" or searching with "/" very nice. I hope they don't do this on phones with no QWERTY keyboard!
There are many other features that were added, but these are the ones that stuck out to me. If you use the old one, it is definitely worth the 2 minutes it takes to install a new version.
Take a look at the lifehacker article: http://lifehacker.com/343030/gmail-mobile-for-google-apps
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
2 Spaces or 1 Again!
Okay, after another heated discussion with another group of people about how many spaces to put after a sentence, I've decided to write a post and encourage people to vote on this. Anyways vote on what you use when writing professional reports/documents/papers. Go here http://pwiddys2cents.blogspot.com/ and vote on the poll.
EDIT: Looks like google has weighed in, blogger stripps out double spaces and replaces it with a single space. But this poll is for documents, blogs don't count! ;-)
EDIT: Looks like google has weighed in, blogger stripps out double spaces and replaces it with a single space. But this poll is for documents, blogs don't count! ;-)
Friday, December 21, 2007
E-mail and Paswords Don't Mix!
I've been happy to see that all the major internet companies (ie. Amazon, ebay...) will never send your password to your e-mail in plain text. They will have a temporary link that you can click on once and then enter your password and you reset it. Then after that the link is no longer good. In terms of security this is far superior to sending a password in plain text to your e-mail account.
The reason that you never want to have passwords sent in an e-mail is because most of the e-mail that people send these days is unencrypted. Which means that anyone can read that e-mail if they are looking at your internet traffic. All it would take would be one hacked router along the path that your e-mail takes to get your your mail server (gmail, yahoo, msn, your ISP, etc.). Then of course if you are on a wifi connection and are connecting to your e-mail over a non-secure connection (i.e. it is http: rather than https: in the url) then anyone within range of your wifi router will know your password if they are sniffing your traffic.
So the point it that this is NOT secure by any measure! The reason that I bring his up is that I continue to see sites that will send you your password in an e-mail when you indicate that you have forgotten it. Even some sites that have e-commerce, which would put your credit card information at risk (if they store that in your account) should you forget your password.
So if you are a person that has a site that sends out plain text passwords please try to change this! And for consumers, watch out for this! And for everyone, does this issue bother you or am I just being over sensitive on this? Let me know in the comments!
The reason that you never want to have passwords sent in an e-mail is because most of the e-mail that people send these days is unencrypted. Which means that anyone can read that e-mail if they are looking at your internet traffic. All it would take would be one hacked router along the path that your e-mail takes to get your your mail server (gmail, yahoo, msn, your ISP, etc.). Then of course if you are on a wifi connection and are connecting to your e-mail over a non-secure connection (i.e. it is http: rather than https: in the url) then anyone within range of your wifi router will know your password if they are sniffing your traffic.
So the point it that this is NOT secure by any measure! The reason that I bring his up is that I continue to see sites that will send you your password in an e-mail when you indicate that you have forgotten it. Even some sites that have e-commerce, which would put your credit card information at risk (if they store that in your account) should you forget your password.
So if you are a person that has a site that sends out plain text passwords please try to change this! And for consumers, watch out for this! And for everyone, does this issue bother you or am I just being over sensitive on this? Let me know in the comments!
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