Hey, what the hell people? I thought we were finally cool with Vista. We're all PCs, right? So why are analysts yapping about people buying used computers just for copies of Windows XP? Apparently,...
[Windows Computers Desktops Microsoft Vista Windows Vista Windows XP XP ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 31 min and 4 secs ago | Share

Most of Facebook's adult supervision gave the Facebook Prom a skip, we hear. But not recently hired Google execs Elliot Schrage, now Facebook's top flack, and Sheryl Sandberg, the formidable new COO...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
[Camille Hart Caption Contest Elliot Schrage Facebook Facebook Prom Google Sheryl Sandberg ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 6 months ago | Share

Posted by Natalie Schwartz, orkut Team

As we start the new year, we took some time to look back on the year for orkut. Sometimes we get so caught up looking forward to all the new features we want to launch, we forget to look back at what we have accomplished. If you've been an orkut user since January, you may remember when you first saw these features; or, if you've joined more recently you may never have known the site without these favorites. So here are the highlights for this year by month, turns out orkut has come a long way!

In January, we launched our first mobile feature on orkut with orkut SMS integration with Claro, the Brazilian mobile carrier. Since then we have partnered with other mobile providers so you can now send and recieve scraps and find your friends' contact information if you have phone service with Amazônia Celular, Brasil Telecom, Claro, or Telemig Celular. If you still haven't signed up, its not too late to recieve those new years scraps on your cell phone, just go to settings and click on the mobile tab.

February brought videos to orkut when we launched integration with Google Video and YouTube. Users began copying and pasting URLs of their favorite videos onto the favorite videos page of their profiles. This has been one of your favorite feature launches ever. Since February you have added over 300 Million videos added to your profiles!

Orkut Buyukkokten, the creator of orkut.com visited Brasil for the first time in March, and spent 3 weeks touring the country, giving tech talks to hundreds of University Students, conducting focus groups and interviewing with the press. If you missed the visit you can check out the community and photo album.

Community Polls were enabled in April, since then users have been voting on topics from the best restaurants in their cities to the most important politician of their town.

May brought feed integration, allowing you to bring in content from your favorite blogs, Picasa Web Albums or any other source that supports feeds. Still haven't added a feed? Why not add this blog so you always know the latest? Go to add stuff in the left navigation and add the URL.

You wouldn't be reading this if we hadn't launched this blog, in June! In case you are bilingual, check out the blog in portuguese as well.

We were honored to recieve the award for "Best Social Networking Site!" from India PC World in July.

The biggest milestone for orkut, perhaps since the launch of the site, happened in August when we launched the visual redesign! This included a slight change to the colors, rounded corners, new icons and an easier to use navigation. While giving the site a facelift we also maintained the familiarity and simplicity you've enjoyed for years. Can you even remember the old orkut?

We updated the site again in September to show updates from your friends right on your homepage. To show or hide your own updates go to the settings page.

In October, we went from allowing you to upload only 12 photos to your album, to allow 100 photos in your album! If you still haven't filled up your album, why not add your latest holiday photos?

This November, Google made the annoucement that orkut would be opening up to developers through OpenSocial. If you're a software developer you can test out the platform by joining our Sandbox. We look forward to seeing what applications you're developing for orkut when we launch the platform to consumers next year!

As the year winded down in December, we launched new privacy features that allow you more control over who sees your photos, videos, testimonials, and scraps.

Happy New Year orkuters-- we look forward to a great 2008!

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 10 months ago | Share

In the last article, we talked about using Linkify to turn wiki words (those that match a regular expression we defined) into a content: URI and defining a path to data that matched a note belonging to that wiki word. As an example, a matching word like ToDoList would be turned into a content: URI like content://com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes/wikinotes/ToDoList and then acted upon using the VIEW action from the Linkify class.

This article will examine how the Android operating system takes this combination of VIEW action and content: URI and finds the correct activity to fire in order to do something with the data. It will also explain how the other default links created by Linkify, like web URLs and telephone numbers, also result in the correct activity to handle that data type being fired. Finally, this article will start to examine the custom ContentProvider that has been created to handle WikiNotes data. The full description of the ContentProvider and what it does will span a couple more articles as well, because there is a lot to cover.

The Linkify-calls-intent Workflow

At a high level, the steps for Linkify to invoke an intent and for the resulting activity (if any) to handle it looks like this:

1. Linkify is invoked on a TextView to turn matching text patterns into Intent links.
2. Linkify takes over monitoring for those Intent links being selected by the user.
3. When the user selects a link, Linkify calls the VIEW action using the content: URI associated with the link.
4. Android takes the content: URI that represents the data, and looks for a ContentProvider registered in the system that matches the URI.
5. If a match is found, Android queries the ContentProvider using the URI, and asks what MIME type the data that will be returned from the URI is.
6. Android then looks for an activity registered in the system with an intent-filter that matches both the VIEW action, and the MIME type for the data represented by the content: URI.
7. Assuming a match is found, Linkify then invokes the intent for the URI, at which point the activity takes over, and is handed the content: URI.
8. The activity can then use the URI to retrieve the data and act on it.

If this sounds complicated, it really is a simpler process than it sounds, and it is quite lightweight as well. Perhaps a more understandable statement about how it works might be:

Linkify is used to turn matching text into hot-links. When the user selects a hot-link, Android takes the data locator represented by the hot-link and looks for a data handler for that data locator. If it finds one, it asks for what type of data is returned for that locator. It then looks for something registered with the system that handles that type of data for the VIEW action, and starts it, including the data locator in the request.

The real key here is the MIME type. MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - a standard for sending attachments over email. The MIME type (which is the part Android uses) is a way of describing certain kinds of data. That type is then used to look for an Activity that can do something with that data type. In this way, ContentProviders and Activities (or other IntentReceivers) are decoupled, meaning that a given Content URI might have a different ContentProvider to handle it, but could still use the same MIME type meaning that the same activity could be called upon to handle the resulting data.

Linkify on a Wiki Word

Using the above workflow, let's take a look at exactly how the process works in WikiNotes for Android:

First, Linkify is used to turn text matching the wiki word regular expression into a link that provides a Content URI for that wiki word, for example content://com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes/wikinotes/ToDoList.

When the user clicks on the wiki word link, Linkify invokes the VIEW action on the Content URI. At this point, the Android system takes over getting the Intent request to the correct activity.

Next, Android looks for a ContentProvider that has been registered with the system to handle URIs matching our Content URI format.

In our case, we have a definition inside our application in the AndroidManifest.xml file that reads:

<provider name="com.google.android.wikinotes.db.WikiNotesProvider" android:authorities="com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes" />

This establishes that we have a ContentProvider defined in our application that provides the "root authority": com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes. This is the first part of the Content URI that we create for a wiki word link. Root Authority is just another way of thinking about a descriptor that is registered with Android to allow requests for certain URLs to be routed to the correct class.

So, the whole definition is that a class called com.google.android.wikinotes.db.WikiNotesProvider is registered with the system as able to handle the com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes root authority (i.e. URIs starting with that identifier).

From here, Android takes the rest of the URI and present it to that ContentProvider. If you look at the WikiNotesProvider class and scroll to the very bottom - the static block there, you can see the pattern definitions to match the rest of the URL.

In particular, take a look at the two lines:

URI_MATCHER.addURI(WikiNote.WIKINOTES_AUTHORITY, "wikinotes", NOTES); URI_MATCHER.addURI(WikiNote.WIKINOTES_AUTHORITY, "wikinotes/*", NOTE_NAME);

These are the definitions of URIs that our ContentProvider recognizes and can handle. The first recognizes a full URI of content://com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes/wikinotes and associates that with a constant called NOTES. This is used elsewhere in the ContentProvider to provide a list of all of the wiki notes in the database when the URI is requested.

The second line uses a wildcard - '*' - to match a request of the form that Linkify will create, e.g. content://com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes/wikinotes/ToDoList. In this example, the * matches the ToDoList part of the URI and is available to the handler of the request, so that it can fish out the matching note for ToDoList and return it as the data. This also associates that match with a constant called NOTE_NAME, which again is used as an identifier elsewhere in the ContentProvider.

The other matches in this static block are related to forms of searching that have been implemented in the WikiNotes for Android application, and will be covered in later articles. Likewise, how the data is obtained from this matching pattern will be the subject of the next article.

For right now we are concerned with the MIME type for the URI. This is defined in the getType() method also in the WikiNotesProvider class (about half way through the file). Take a quick look at this. The key parts for now are:

case NOTES: return "vnd.android.cursor.dir/vnd.google.wikinote"; and case NOTE_NAME: return "vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.google.wikinote";

These are the same constant names we defined in our pattern matchers. In the first case, that of the all notes URI, the MIME type returned is vnd.android.cursor.dir/vnd.google.wikinote which is like saying an Android list (dir) of Google wiki notes (the vnd bit is MIME speak for "vendor specific definition"). Likewise, in the case of a NOTE_NAME match, the MIME type returned is vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.google.wikinote which is like saying an Android item of Google wiki notes.

Note that if you define your own MIME data types like this, the vnd.android.cursor.dir and vnd.android.cursor.item categories should be retained, since they have meaning to the Android system, but the actual item types should be changed to reflect your particular data type.

So far Android has been able to find a ContentProvider that handles the Content URI supplied by the Linkify Intent call, and has queried the ContentProvider to find out the MIME types for that URI. The final step is to find an activity that can handle the VIEW action for that MIME type. Take a look in the the AndroidManifest.xml file again. Inside the WikiNotes activity definition, you will see:

<intent-filter> <action name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/> <category name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/> <category name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"/> <data mimetype="vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.google.wikinote"/> </intent-filter>

This is the correct combination of matches for the VIEW action on a WikiNote type that is requested from the LINKIFY class. The DEFAULT category indicates that the WikiNotes activity should be treated as a default handler (a primary choice) for this kind of data, and the BROWSABLE category means it can be invoked from a "browser", in this case the marked-up Linkified text.

Using this information, Android can match up the VIEW action request for the WikiNotes data type with the WikiNotes activity, and can then use the WikiNotes activity to handle the request.

Why do it like this?

It's quite a trip through the system, and there is a lot to absorb here, but this is one of the main reasons I wanted to write WikiNotes in the first place. If you follow and understand the steps here, you'll have a good grasp of the whole Intents mechanism in Android, and how it helps loosely coupled activities cooperate to get things done.

In this case, we could have found another way to detect wiki words based on a regular expression, and maybe written our own handler to intercept clicks within the TextView and dig out the right data and display it. This would seem to accomplish the same functionality just as easily as using intents, so what is the advantage to using the full Intents mechanism?

In fact there are several advantages:

The most obvious is that because we are using the standard Intent based approach, we are not limited to just linking and navigating to other wiki notes. We get similar behavior to a number of other data types as well. For example, a telephone number or web URL in a wiki note will be marked up by Linkify, and using this same mechanism (VIEW action on the linked data type) the browser or dialer activities will be automatically fired.

It also means that each operation on a wiki note can be treated as a separate life cycle by our activity. We are not dealing with swapping data in and out of an existing activity - each activity works on a particular wiki note and that's all you have to worry about.

Another advantage is that we now have a public activity to handle VIEW actions in WikiNotes no matter where the request comes from. Another application could request to view a wiki note (perhaps without even knowing what kind of data it is) and our activity could start up and handle it.

The backstack is automatically maintained for you too. As you forward navigate through WikiNotes, Android maintains the history of notes visited, and so when you hit the back button you go back to the last note you were on. All this is free because we rely on the Android intents mechanism.

Finally, if you run WikiNotes for Android and then start DDMS to take a look at the Activity threads in the WikiNotes application while it is running, you can see that despite what you might think, letting Android manage the navigation is very efficient. Create a few linked notes, as many links deep as you like, and then follow them. If you follow links hundreds of notes deep, you will still only see a handful of WikiNotes activities. Android is managing the activities, closing the older ones as necessary and using the life cycle to swap data in and out.

Next Time

This was a long article, but necessarily so. It demonstrates the importance of the Intents mechanism and to reinforce the notion that it should be used whenever possible for forward navigation, even within a single application. Illustrating this is one of the primary reasons I wrote WikiNotes for Android in the first place.

In the next article we will look deeper into the ContentProvider and examine how it turns a Content URI into a row (or several rows) of data that can be used by an activity.

[Apps ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 8 months ago | Share

¿Sería un perro sin pelo la mejor mascota para la Casa Blanca? En mi patria, los amantes del perro piensan que sí. Los Amigos de los Perros sin pelo del Perú ofrecen a la familia Obama un cachorro que se llama “Macchu Picchu.”

    

    

Esta raza de perro fue la favorita entre los Incas y ha sido reconocida oficialmente como patrimonio nacional del Perú.

Fotos de Luimi-sng, GitanoLatino, MatthewA, *laikanet*, y lente20052000.

      
[es ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 17 d and 23 h ago | Share

      

Cada año, en el Faro de Pigeon Point en la costa del Condado de San Mateo en California el lente de Fresnel se enciende en una celebración especial. Y, por supuesto, los miembros de Flickr estaban allí el sábado por la noche para capturar el evento.

Fotos de PhotoBud, moucri, aktse y maxxsmart. Puedes buscar más o visita el grupo del Faro de Pigeon Point: Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

      
[es ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 13 d and 1 h ago | Share

Posted by Joe Monahan, Maps API Developer

I'm Joe Monahan, a 27 year old cyclist originally from South Plainfield, NJ and now living in Chicago, IL where I work the days away as a User Interface Engineer with Orbitz.com.

I'm excited to announce an addition to the Google Maps Open Source utility library: the ExtInfoWindow, an "extended" info window that allows much more customization than the standard info window. Have you ever wanted to tweak the look and feel of your map's info windows? With ExtInfoWindow and a little CSS you can customize your windows to fit the theme of your site. Do you have a lot of content to place in 50+ markers' info windows, slowing your page load time? ExtInfoWindow can retrieve its content as static HTML strings upon page load, or, for more efficient and real-time data, it can pull data dynamically via an Ajax call when the info window opens. On top of all that, the ExtInfoWindow also mimics the behavior of the regular GInfoWindow, panning the map when needed, closing itself when another window opens, etc.

Sounds too good to be true? Let's check out a quick demo. Given the current season, and the fact that I'm writing this while the snow is falling in Chicago, let's create an ExtInfoWindow around the theme of "winter." All of the window's styles come from an externally linked CSS file, while the content is supplied by an Ajax request to grab the lyrics to "Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!". (I apologize in advance if the song gets stuck in your head)

Want to see more? Check out the class reference documentation and more examples. As always, please report any issues you find in the developer forum.

Let me finish up by thanking Pamela Fox for making such a great Open Source Utility Library, and for all the help in getting this utility integrated. Second, I have to thank the authors of "Beginning Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax: From Novice to Professional": Andre Lewis, Michael Purvis, Jeffrey Sambells, and Cameron Turner. The sample code in their book is really what jump-started this utility. Last but not least, I also have to give a quick shout-out to my team over at Orbitz Traveler Update for giving me the extra time to develop the ExtInfoWindow utility and release it as open source.

Disclaimer: These views are mine and not the views of OWW or (subsidiary). I am not a spokesperson for OWW or (subsidiary) and neither OWW nor (subsidiary) endorse any material, content and/or links or assume any liability for any of my actions.

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 11 months ago | Share

Living History Worldwide is a social network for world history re-enactors and living historians, covering the last 3000 years. Rachel C. Evans, editor of a popular Skirmish Magazine, is also the Network Creator of this fast-growing social network of 1500 members. Read through some of the creative profiles members created, detailing their passion and love for history of the past. One member you’ll find hanging out at this social network is the Young George Washington himself, who celebrated his 276th birthday on February 22 or “Feb. 11 by the old calendar”. He is also an active member of three groups, Soldiers of George III, 1760-1820; 1680s to 1720s - From Continent to Colonies and Seven Years War.

Groups on this social network are where you see history truly comes to life covering periods like the Wild West, Civil War, World War I and II. The forum is where members share costuming tips to stay authentic within the historical period and update one another on up and coming events. One such event is the Berkeley Skirmish, at Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire in England, a re-enactment event of the medieval time for those who want to partake in battles and jousting activities.

So leave 2008 behind and travel back in time with Living History Worldwide and check out more than 6000 photos and hundreds of historical re-enactment videos.

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="400" height="313" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="flashvars" value="feed_url=http%3A%2F%2Fskirmishmagazine%2Ening%2Ecom%2Fphoto%2Fphoto%2FslideshowFeedAlbum%3Fsort%3D%26screenName%3D%26id%3D2040198%3AAlbum%3A54778%26tag%3D%26fullscreen%3Dtrue%26x%3DhIl11EUVkFYqRDHq2J8cDOG1WUjf9rVM%26photo%5Fwidth%3D800%26photo%5Fheight%3D604&amp;config_url=http%3A%2F%2Fskirmishmagazine%2Ening%2Ecom%2Fphoto%2Fphoto%2FshowPlayerConfig%3Fx%3DhIl11EUVkFYqRDHq2J8cDOG1WUjf9rVM&amp;backgroundColor=990000&amp;fullsize_url=http%3A%2F%2Fskirmishmagazine%2Ening%2Ecom%2Findex%2Ephp%2Fphoto%2Fphoto%2Fslideshow%3FalbumId%3D2040198%253AAlbum%253A54778"/><param name="src" value="http://static.ning.com/skirmishmagazine/widgets/photo/slideshowplayer/slideshowplayer.swf"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="313" src="http://static.ning.com/skirmishmagazine/widgets/photo/slideshowplayer/slideshowplayer.swf" wmode="transparent" flashvars="feed_url=http%3A%2F%2Fskirmishmagazine%2Ening%2Ecom%2Fphoto%2Fphoto%2FslideshowFeedAlbum%3Fsort%3D%26screenName%3D%26id%3D2040198%3AAlbum%3A54778%26tag%3D%26fullscreen%3Dtrue%26x%3DhIl11EUVkFYqRDHq2J8cDOG1WUjf9rVM%26photo%5Fwidth%3D800%26photo%5Fheight%3D604&amp;config_url=http%3A%2F%2Fskirmishmagazine%2Ening%2Ecom%2Fphoto%2Fphoto%2FshowPlayerConfig%3Fx%3DhIl11EUVkFYqRDHq2J8cDOG1WUjf9rVM&amp;backgroundColor=990000&amp;fullsize_url=http%3A%2F%2Fskirmishmagazine%2Ening%2Ecom%2Findex%2Ephp%2Fphoto%2Fphoto%2Fslideshow%3FalbumId%3D2040198%253AAlbum%253A54778"></embed></object>

[Uncategorized ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 6 months ago | Share

Air Talent Social is a new network for media professionals and students who are “brave enough to take on the television news business” as one member puts it!

Members use the videos section to post samples of their work. Nicolle Sulcer, a recent graduate of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is an anchor of the morning news program at KJCT and shared this promo of her work.

After several years behind the camera, Philips Wood is hoping to succeed in a career on the other side. His news reel demonstrates he’s well on his way of accomplishing this dream.

In the forums, members discuss issues of interest to broadcasters, like how to find an agent and advice on contracts. Members also use the comment wall on individual profiles to encourage one another and answer specific questions.

In just a few weeks, Air Talent Social is off to great start, bringing on-air talent together to network online!

[Uncategorized ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 6 months ago | Share

It seems like every time I visit our AdSense colleagues in the Dublin office, I get invited out to celebrate a birthday or a promotion with that great Dublin tradition: the pub crawl. Today I'd like to dedicate a few words to another pub crawl. (I can hear your groans throughout the blogosphere.) That's right, I'm talking about the AdSense "publisher" crawl.

As you may know, it's important to allow the AdSense crawler access to the pages that display your ads. If our crawler can't see the content of your pages, your ad targeting may suffer, and with it your earnings. It's also important that we hold all pages to the same policy standards, and we may eventually stop serving ads to pages that the crawler can't access. With this in mind, I'd like to ask you two questions highlighting potential roadblocks to a successful AdSense crawl and let you know what you can do to correct them.

1. Are you using a robots.txt file on a site with Google ads?
If so, you might be inadvertently blocking the AdSense crawler from accessing parts of your site. If you aren't sure what a robots.txt file is, it's a text file that you include on your domain that allows you to block crawlers from accessing your site. You can find out if you're using a robots.txt file by going to yoursite.com/robots.txt (replace 'yoursite.com' with your own domain name) or by using Site Diagnostics. If you do use a robots.txt file to block certain crawlers from accessing your site, it's a good idea to add an explicit invitation to the AdSense crawler so it knows it's welcome to visit any page with AdSense code. Please keep in mind that the AdSense crawler is separate from the Google bot for our search index.

To give the AdSense crawler access, add these two lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Disallow:

You can use the Site Diagnostics link in your AdSense Reports tab to see whether we're having trouble crawling any pages on your sites. If you're concerned about the privacy of some pages on your site, keep in mind that we don't publish any of the information retrieved by the Mediapartners-Google crawler, also known as the AdSense crawler, in any index, and it will only crawl pages of your site which contain the AdSense code.
2. Are your pages restricted by a login?
Our crawler will also get tripped up by any page that's only accessible to a logged-in user. If certain pages of your site are only available to users that have logged in, and you place ads on these pages, it's important to give the Mediapartners-Google crawler explicit access to view them too. In this case, the answer is site authentication, which you can find under your AdSense Setup tab. (Please note that you'll need to be migrated to Google Accounts to use this feature.) You can give our crawler access while continuing to prevent other users or bots from accessing the content on your site.
While using the Site Diagnostics tool, you may notice sites that are blocked for other reasons -- please review our Help Center for more information about why your site may be showing up as blocked. By allowing our crawler access to pages hosting Google ads, you'll get the most targeted ads for your pages in return. I think we can all toast to that.

Posted by Ben Ewing - AdSense Publisher Support
[Other ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 5 months ago | Share

Last year, heavy metal frontman Rob Zombie turned up on YouTube's doorstep to deliver the tricks and treats. This year, our nightmares were answered when legendary horror film director Wes Craven offered to host the holiday -- immediately proving that the father of Freddy Krueger and the Scream trilogy certainly knows his way around scary movies. He personally introduces his top selections here, a combination of sheer terror, the frighteningly funny and even a few monsters who won't forget to vote.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OVVvAnU3m6E&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OVVvAnU3m6E&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Along with curating today's Halloween home page, Wes has collected some rare clips where he appears in front of the camera. He created this haunted Video Vault playlist on his YouTube channel for anyone interested in learning more about his directing and writing career.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/701E7E4EFC1E645C"/><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/701E7E4EFC1E645C" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

So, thanks to Wes Craven, this All Hallow's Eve we all can celebrate our own "Nightmare on YouTube" – and remember: whatever you do, don't fall asleep...

Happy Halloween,
The YouTube Team


View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 31 d and 16 h ago | Share

If you're someone who scares easily, is afraid of things that go bump in the night, or is terrorized by the prospect of monsters hiding in your closet, then please consider yourself warned: the four horror films lurking in the YouTube Screening Room are not for you.

Seriously, this is some scary stuff. In "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello," a disgraced aerial navigator confronts an unspeakable evil, and finds that it is much closer than he thinks. A young boy's fear of the dark is turned upside down when his trusty security lamp malfunctions in "Night Light." "Advantage" is the story of a young couple who stumbles onto a suburban tennis court and into a sinister game, in which their opponents have a distinct home court advantage. Finally, in "There Are Monsters""... well, you probably catch the drift.

So if you think you're ready to be spooked, startled or just plain terrified, then click here.

But please, don't watch alone.

Sara P.
YouTube Film

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 30 d and 16 h ago | Share

When we first started YouTube, our vision was to create a platform that would allow everyone to broadcast themselves. So when it came to developing an approach to online advertising and marketing, we had a similar goal: everyone should benefit from the experience, whether you're a user, advertiser, or content partner.

We've been fortunate to have grown so quickly. The popularity of YouTube has been outstanding — we have millions of viewers watching hundreds of millions of videos every day, and 13 hours of new video uploaded to the site every minute. But as our community has grown, it's become harder for people to get their content to stand out and be discovered. Aspiring musicians, talented performers, small business-owners and many others have asked for ways to promote their videos and reach users who are interested in their content.

So today, we're excited to announce our newest advertising innovation, YouTube Sponsored Videos. Sponsored Videos is a self-serve advertising platform that will allow you to promote your video to the audience you are interested in reaching in an easy, effective, democratic, and affordable way. Then, when people use YouTube to search for videos, YouTube will display the most relevant, compelling videos alongside the search results. These videos are clearly labeled as "sponsored videos" and are priced on a cost-per-click basis. (For more details about Sponsored Videos, you can visit ads.youtube.com, or read our announcement on the official Google blog.)

Check out our video for more details on how Sponsored Videos works:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hTffb8OF8_U&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hTffb8OF8_U&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

If you have any videos you'd like to share with the world, give Sponsored Videos a try! It takes just a few minutes to set up, and you can set your budget at any level you wish. Please visit ads.youtube.com to start your own Sponsored Videos campaign.

Don't forget to let us know what you think about Sponsored Videos. You can leave a comment here or join the discussion in our Forums.

Have fun!
The YouTube Team

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 18 d and 23 h ago | Share

Internet advertising will be relatively unscathed in the downturn

AT THE beginning of the year Jeff Zucker, the boss of NBC Universal, a big television and film company, told an audience of TV executives that their biggest challenge was to ensure “that we do not end up trading analogue dollars for digital pennies”. He meant that audiences were moving online faster than advertisers, thus leaving media companies short-changed. Now, near the end of the year, the situation looks even worse, as the recession threatens to turn even the analogue dollars into pennies. Will this hasten the shift towards internet advertising, or will it decline too?

Advertising rises and falls with the economy, though how much is a matter of debate. Randall Rothenberg, the boss of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade association for digital advertisers, points to the remarkable stability of advertising at about 2% of GDP since 1919, when the data began to be collected. This would suggest that ad budgets will move roughly in line with economic output. ...

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 3 d, 12 h and 25 min ago | Share

Rails 2.2 is almost ready for its final release, but before we christen the gems, we’d like to have everyone test out a release candidate. Rails 2.2 is a major upgrade that includes a wealth of new features and fixes.

Chief inclusions are an internationalization framework, thread safety (including a connection pool for Active Record), easier access to HTTP caching with etags and last modified, compatibility with Ruby 1.9 and JRuby, and a wealth of new documentation.

Mike Gunderloy has compiled an exhaustive list and walk-through of many of the interesting new features for the Rails 2.2 release notes.

To help test the Rails 2.2 release candidate, please install with:
gem install rails -s http://gems.rubyonrails.org -v 2.2.0

Hopefully there will not be too much folly in the RC and we can quickly move to a final release. But it requires your help to get there.

Note that this release is called 2.2.0, not 2.1.99 as our previous naming scheme would have dictated. So the final release of Rails 2.2 will actually be 2.2.1 (if we only need one RC).

[Releases ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 38 d ago | Share

Three years ago during my time as CEO of Odeo, I was lucky to be working with a software engineer Jack Dorsey who wasn't afraid to bring up an idea he'd been thinking about for a long time. What if a simple status message was the format for a social communication service? We were exploring various options for Odeo at the time and experimenting with SMS, so the idea was intriguing. Jack teamed up with Biz Stone to design a prototype. This simple idea called Twitter proved increasingly interesting the more we fleshed it out.

After my company Obvious purchased the assets of Odeo which at the time included Twitter from the shareholders, we decided to form Twitter, Inc as a separate company founded by myself along with Jack and Biz. Jack had by then been leading the project for months with Biz's support, and I was intent on pursuing Obvious. With my blessing, the reigns of Twitter CEO were handed to Jack and I accepted a position as Chairman of the Board.

Rising quickly to the challenge, Jack took Twitter through an order of magnitude of growth and two major rounds of financing, while safely navigating some very rocky waters that would have taken even more experienced leaders down with the ship. Jack is a unique individual with a knack for artful minimalism and simplicity, combined with great vision and ambition. We are indeed fortunate to have his guidance.

Stepping into Different Roles
Jack and I have worked together since the beginning to define a direction and goals for the future of Twitter. I took an active executive role as Chief Product Officer at Twitter. This decision was driven by my enthusiasm and belief that Twitter has huge potential and deserves my full efforts.

We're entering a new phase now and there are new kinds of challenges ahead. Healthy companies acknowledge the need for change even during the best of times. As Twitter grows both internally and externally, we took a good look at our path forward and saw the need for a focused approach from a single leader.

While the board of directors and the company have nothing but praise for where Jack has taken us, we also agree that the best way forward is for Jack to step into the role Chairman, and for me to become CEO. Jack will remain on the board and be closely consulted for all strategic decisions, while I take on day-to-day operations with the support of Biz, Jason, Greg, and the rest of this impressive Twitter team.

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 45 d ago | Share

 Thomas Marban (@thomas) tells me his Android Twitter app, Twitroid, will be available for download in the next couple days. Looks pretty hot. (Now, if only I could get me one of those G1s...)

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 44 d ago | Share

Hazaras Study Abroad is a social network for Hazara students from around the world! Share your “knowledge and experience to help you study abroad. Ask your questions, get practical guidance, and study abroad through scholarships and other ways.”

Forums are highly active and discuss many interesting and informative topics. Discuss the best way to apply for a visa, the 2009-10 Fulbright Scholarship Program or what Universities offer scholarships. 

Find the group that matches your profile! Connect with others that share your history or simply discuss anything! There are even groups geographic locations. Check out these groups if you are or were a Hazara student in India, Germany, China, UK, US or Australia.

Any Hazara should take a look at Hazaras Study Abroad and connect with other Hazaras students around the world!

[Uncategorized ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 6 months ago | Share

Posted by Nishant Redkar, Software Engineer

A few weeks ago we launched a low bandwidth version of orkut that makes your experience on orkut faster. This is especially helpful if you are using a 56.6 or 64 kps modem, or if you are on a DSL connection with many users. How does it work? The low bandwidth version of orkut avoids downloading images unless you really want them, which lets you navigate through the site more quickly.

When orkut pages seem to be taking a long time to load, you'll receive a prompt that lets you switch to the low bandwidth version. Similarly, orkut also prompts you to switch back to the regular version if the pages start downloading quickly again. If it seems like your connection is slow and you don't see a message, you can manually switch to the low bandwidth version by going to the general settings tab.

Although some things are displayed differently in the low bandwidth version compared to the regular version (for example, your friends and communities will appear as simple lists, rather than photos), people who have tried the low bandwidth version have told us that they are sticking with it: it's saving them money (if they pay by amount of data downloaded) and is making it more efficient and fun to browse the site. So give the new version a spin -- it may save you time or money or both!

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 6 months ago | Share

These official Xbox 360 pants are 100 percent cotton with an elastic waistband, adjustable drawstring tie and an open fly (which is how Chen rolls). They're only 18 bucks, but I'm deathly afraid of...
[360 Accessories Clothes Microsoft Pajamas Pants Xbox Xbox 360 ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 6 months ago | Share

We recently introduced the ability for users to restrict applications from accessing either their public or private photos as you've probably noticed from the new install options (or if you're app can't get a user's photos anymore):

What if your app must have photos to be useful? You can use the opensocial.requestPermission() call to ask the user to allow access. Here's the UI when it's invoked:

Note that this will only work on the Canvas page. Here's a full sample of a simple app that uses and handles requestPermission properly:

function getPhotos() { var personId = opensocial.DataRequest.PersonId.OWNER; //Create our DataRequest object var dr = opensocial.newDataRequest(); //Request Photos var photoReq = dr.newFetchPhotosRequest(personId, {}); dr.add(photoReq,'Photos'); document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "Requesting data..."; dr.send(response); } function checkPhotoPermissionResponse(result) { if(result == null) { //User clicked cancel alert("We can't access your photos unless you let us :("); } else if(result["accesstopublicvideosphotos"]) { //user checked the permission and clicked update getPhotos(); } else { //User didn't check the permission alert("We can't access your photos unless you let us :("); } } function response(data) { document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "Got response back"; if(data.hadError()) { if(data.get("Photos").getErrorCode() == opensocial.ResponseItem.Error.UNAUTHORIZED) { opensocial.requestPermission(["accesstopublicvideosphotos"], "Because we need your photos!", checkPhotoPermissionResponse); } } else { var photoMarkup = ""; var photos = data.get('Photos').getData(); photos.each(function(photo) { var imgUri = photo.getField(MyOpenSpace.Photo.Field.IMAGE_URI); photoMarkup += "<img height='100' width='100' src='" + imgUri + "' />"; }); document.getElementById("photos").innerHTML = photoMarkup; } }

These are the official docs: http://developer.myspace.com/community/myspace/opensocialref.aspx#opensocial.requestPermission. The method takes an array of permission string values, a string to describe your reason for asking for permission that's displayed to the user, and a callback. The callback has one argument that is either is an object with each requested permission as a named property set to true/false depending on the user's input OR the argument will be set to null if the user cancelled the dialog. The permission string values for photos are "accesstopublicvideosphotos", "accesstoprivatevideosphotos" in addition to "displayonprofile", "displayonhome", "allowsendingemails" and "sendupdatestofriends".

The UI currently only supports one permission at a time, so if you want to access private and public photos, you will have to make two requests, but we plan to fix that shortly.

[requestPermission photo ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 6 months ago | Share

coondoggie writes "As one of the massive flying seasons gets underway the government today took a step further in radically changing the way aircraft are tracked and moved around the country. Specifically the FAA gave the green light to deploy satellite tracking systems nationwide, replacing the current radar-based approach. The new, sometimes controversial system would let air traffic controllers track aircraft using a satellite network using a system known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), which is ten times more accurate than today's radar technology. ADS-B is part of the FAA's wide-reaching plan known as NextGen to revamp every component of the flight control system to meet future demands and avoid gridlock in the sky."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[transportation ]
View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 4 d and 18 h ago | Share

We've heard some of your concerns around trying to get the assistance you need when having an issue on the site. Our ultimate goal is to keep improving the product so you essentially won't need any help at all. We try our best to keep our Help Resources up to date with information about all of our features and policies, in addition to any current product issues or quirks. Most often, the solution to your problem is one that you can resolve on your own rather than contacting someone at YouTube directly.

Please keep in mind that human beings do actually review emails that are sent to us, but if we see the answer to your issue is already listed in the Help Center we may not send a customized response. Many of our help options (listed below) allow you to resolve a problem immediately, rather than wait for a member of our team to respond to your inquiry by email:

• First, and most importantly, check out our Help Center. The handy search box lets you search for information about YouTube or look up issues across all Google products (as well as the entire Web). Click around and check out the articles. We're constantly adding more content to address site issues, big and small.

• Our Abuse and Policy Center is a one-stop-shop for resources related to safety and abuse on YouTube. You can browse through articles covering topics like how to deal with spam or gaming, how to control your account settings to limit interactions with certain users, and how to keep yourself generally safe while using the site.

• The YouTube Community Help Forum is also a great resource. The Forum's discussion board is the official place to share ideas, provide feedback, ask and answer questions, and offer help to your fellow YouTube community members.

If after checking out all these resources you still haven't found exactly the information you're looking for, go ahead and send us an email. If the answer to your question isn't already in our Help Center, we'll do our best to get back to you as soon as we can. Check back in the coming weeks and months for more posts about how to keep your YouTube experience safe, exciting, and always entertaining.

Here for you,
The YouTube Team

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 42 d ago | Share

Is there something happening where you live that you think the world should know about? An important story you want to share that others around the world might relate to? Now is your opportunity to tell that story for the chance to win technology prizes from Sony and Intel.

In Round 2 of Project: Report, the journalism contest YouTube is holding in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, aspiring journalists are asked to tell a local story unfolding in their communities that demonstrates global issues or challenges. Your videos must be four minutes or less, and submitted in English or with English subtitles.

If you're looking for some examples, check out this video from Pulitzer Center journalist Kwame Dawes on the HIV epidemic in Jamaica. He also offers tips for how to make a local story globally relevant.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/C2-Iv1hbLOQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/C2-Iv1hbLOQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>


The deadline for Round 2 submissions is just one week from today, so make sure to submit your video to the Project: Report channel (youtube.com/projectreport) by Sunday, November 9 at midnight PT.

The 10 semi-finalists chosen by the Pulitzer Center after Round 1 are busy working on their videos for Round 2, and you'll have the opportunity to vote on which of these reporters should advance to the final round and compete for the grand prize -- a $10,000 journalism fellowship to report on a story abroad.

So stay tuned!

Olivia M.
YouTube News & Politics

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 29 d and 6 h ago | Share

After thousands of campaign stops, tens of thousands of speeches, and billions of videos viewed on YouTube, the 2008 Election is finally here. What began almost two years ago -- when <ahref="http: www.youtube.com="" view_play_list?p="BBA1D0187FB51903&quot;">seven of the 16 primary presidential candidates announced their campaigns on our <ahref="http: www.youtube.com="" youchoose"="">You Choose '08 platform -- is finally coming to a close as Americans turn out to vote for should lead the country these next four years.

The influence you've had on this political season has been well noted in this blog and by most every major media outlet in the world. Your use of video to document and describe this Election on your own terms has created a new, more democratic political ecosystem and has caused many to call this the "YouTube Election." But while the profound increase in online activity has reshaped our national dialogue in so many new ways, today is where we see just how much it matters: the ultimate political action isn't to upload a video to YouTube or to watch <ahref="http: www.youtube.com="" watch?v="jjXyqcx-mYY&quot;">"Yes We Can" or <ahref="http: www.youtube.com="" watch?v="TG4fe9GlWS8&quot;">"We Need McCain" one more time; it's to <ahref="http: www.maps.google.com="" vote"="">GET OUT AND VOTE.

Today we're featuring all political videos on the homepage of YouTube; check them out and get a flavor for what's coming in on Election Day. We're also plotting videos of your polling place experiences on a special Google Maps mash-up on our <ahref="http: www.youtube.com="" videoyourvote"="">Video Your Vote channel with PBS. So bring your video camera with you to your polling place to document your experience; then submit your videos to the Video Your Vote channel and keep an eye on PBS's Election coverage -- they'll broadcast the best ones on TV.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/1BD4EFB26638D233"/><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/1BD4EFB26638D233" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

And as always, you can keep track of what the candidates are up to on our <ahref="http: www.youtube.com="" youchoose"="">You Choose '08 platform.

Congratulations, YouTube users. You've made this a historic Election -- now get out and vote in it! Then stay tuned here to see the first YouTube Election unfold, on video.

Steve Grove
YouTube News & Politics

View original post | Add to del.icio.us| Updated 27 d and 12 h ago | Share