Street Tech Gets RSS-friendlier

Ever since Street Tech switched to our new format, we’ve had an RSS feed available, but that feed… well… it sucked. It only had the headlines, the wrong title graphic was there, etc. It just blew.

Mostly this was because the webmaster (me) is a lazy sot, but also because I just never used RSS. Yesterday I finally got NewsMonster working with Mozilla (it always crushed my Moz install in previous versions), and one of the first feeds I added was Street Tech’s.

It didn’t take me long to decide and to fix that feed. Enjoy!

Mutating Windows Spam

After adding a new service pack to my Windows 2000 install, I started to get embarassing popup spam when on the net. I don’t even know this Jennifer woman, I tell my wife. Anyway, here’s the disable protocol, which I finally bothered to look up:

Internet Privacy for Dummies :: Online Resources for Readers of Internet Privacy for Dummies:

“Disabling Windows Messenger Service Windows 2000

  • Click the Start Button
  • Choose Settings > Control Panel
  • Double-click ‘Administrative Tools’ and
  • double-click on ‘Services’
  • Scroll down and right-click on ‘Messenger’
  • Choose Properties
  • Click the ‘Stop’ button to turn the Messenger service off
  • Change the ‘Startup type’ to ‘Disabled’ to keep it from restarting when you reboot
  • Click OK and you’re done “

BS Shoveling Machine

Deloitte Consulting has released a free program called Bullfighter which attaches itself to Word or PowerPoint and offers writers a gentle reprimand when they get caught up in meaningless jargon like “mindshare” and “leverage”. The software offers suggestions for alternate phrasing and, much like Street Tech’s own BS Detector, calculates a “Bull Composite Index” for the document. The software is available at the Deloitte Consulting web site and requires Word or PowerPoint 2000 or XP.

RIAA plays hardball.

So the RIAA is going to sue individuals who upload copyrighted music to the net. Frankly, I think this is a great thing, despite its sheer boneheadedness. Why? Because it will spawn the creation and use of encrypted p2p apps. And maybe (help me out, Lazy Web), it will result in a p2p app that:

1. Allows you to flag a work as “copyrighted” or “non-copyrighted” in the metadata.

2. Has a good evaluation/recommendation engine.

If those two bits were in place, one could search for highly-rated, non-copyrighted music, and share with impunity. Plus, it would introduce thousands to the good, non-corporatized stuff, making it easier to find and distribute. The problem with Gnutella, Kazaa, etc. is that it’s based on the idea that we’re passive consumers of music, instead of encouraging production. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

“Oblique” Goes OSX

If you’re a fan of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards, as we are here at Street Tech Labs, AND you’re a Mac user, you’ll be thrilled to know that CurvedSpace has released an OSX app for the cards. We’ve used these whack-on-the-side-of-the-head maxims for years to get us out of many a creative jam. They’re surprisingly effective.

Since people have started offering computer-based versions of the cards, I’ve been thinking if there’s some way that the strategies could go "open source," and that somehow, you could add strategies to your own "deck," rate their effectiveness (reinforce it if it proves useful to you again and again), and then, at a certain "weight" of usefulness, it would get sent to other’s decks. People would then rate the effectiveness of these communally-added cards, and at a certain collective weight, they’d be permanently added to the deck. I know all this flies in the face of the Zen-like minimalism of the current decks, both off and online, but I think this could be done in an unobtrusive way.

[UPDATE: Turns out, there IS such an online collaborative strategies project, called Acute Strategies.]

Island of Overlooked Software Continued

Well, maybe it’s not that overlooked, but what better software for inclusion on that list than TurboNote. sponsored by South Pacific Island Services? TurboNote is a very simple and basic program for creating virtual sticky-notes on your Desktop. You can create them easily, change the color, add and remove text as needed, save and delete, and have them remain “always on top”. There is even an option for sending them and receiving them over the ‘net, but I haven’t played with that much. While an increased functionality version called TurboNote+ is $25, the basic version is free. It’s much better than physical sticky-notes stuck to the sides of your monitor, especially since each note can be set to sound a user-selected alarm. Though a few added features like standard Windows min/max/close/menu buttons and the ability to file within folders would be appreciated, it’s a very handy piece of software that won’t leave you with a desk full of crumpled yellow scraps.

Macromedia Moves Off the Grid

Macromedia has announced Macromedia Central, a tool for creating and viewing Macromedia Flash content without the need for an internet connection or browser.

Most Flash content is integrated into a website, and must be viewed through a browser with the Macromedia Flash plug-in. But Macromedia seems to want to extend its tool for creating and delivering multimedia content such as games and animations beyond just active ‘net browsing. The new features will provide users with more offline content and allow developers to specifically develop for an “occasionally connected” community.

The mention of “Centrino technology” (read WiFi) in the press release for Macromedia Central suggests that desktop flash applications will be able to store data for later updating from or to the web, and possibly even interact with other computers via WiFi connection not over the Internet i.e flash-based h2h gaming, chat, etc. Release of Macromedia Central is expected this summer.