Jim Bytes! - An IT Blog: October 2006

30 Oct 2006

So I started this site .....or ....Fishing for startups....

... and in the spirit of "If you build it, they will come!", let's see if it takes off.

I read Sam Sethi's posting on TechCrunch about new entrepreneur matching service "AngelPitch" this morning, pondering if it would work (linking entrepreneurs with business angels / VCs via video-conferencing) or not. It was Sam's last comment that caught my attention.

Will Angelpitch work? I am not sure just yet as the $150 fee feels like a barrier to me but I would love to see a YouTube like video site where entrepreneurs pitch their business and Angels watch to find companies and entrepreneurs they like.

So, you know how it is, you get an idea, you run with it and ya see how it goes! I've started the ball rolling with the launch of MyStartupPitch.

Yeah it's hosted on Ning Video (for now!) rather than it's own swish domain but it's the idea that matters right? People invest in people and their ideas, not just the idea, so get your face in front of those that matter with just a little time and effort.

Are you a startup company, Irish or otherwise, looking for free exposure? If so post your video now, and tell your friends!

Please leave a comment to let me know what you think. Thanks!

technorati tags:MyStartupPitch, Videos, Startup, Blogging, VBlog, Entrepreneur, VC, Venture, Capital,Funding, Media, Exposure, Start-ups

Posted by Jim at 10/30/2006 04:00:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

28 Oct 2006

pmeme.com- One to watch!

Forget trawling your usual sites like Digg, TechMeme, TechCrunch and wherever else you might get your daily dose of IT news for a mention of what the big names are up to. With all the gems worth knowing on all the movers and shakers of the IT world, pmeme is definitely one to watch.

It gathers the news on all the big names like Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc etc from the ever expanding blogosphere and presents it all on one site for your consumption. Check it out !

technorati tags:pmeme, IT, News, Aggregator, Celebrities, Movers, Shakers, Digg, TechMeme, TechCrunch, Startups

Posted by Jim at 10/28/2006 10:30:00 a.m. | Permalink | Comments

24 Oct 2006

Google Co-Op Custom Search released

Since Yahoo, MSN and others have recently done it, it's not new, but Google have just launched the Co-Op CSE, a service that allows you to build a customised search engine to include on your site.

The cool thing about this is it allows you to index your own site, blog, wiki or wherever you put it plus others you might specify that have similar topic content to your own. You can prioritise the results and alter how the results page looks.

The real differentiator is the option to integrate Adsense and share the revenue. Is this any different to Adsense for Search and will it prove more popular and profitable ? We'll have to give it a whirl and see!

technorati tags:Google, Co-Op, CSE, Release, Adsense, Integration, Site, Creation, Customisation, SEO

Posted by Jim at 10/24/2006 12:30:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

23 Oct 2006

Happy 5th Birthday to the iPod!

The iPod is 5 today. See Steve Jobs on stage at the original launch here.

Congratulations to Apple on 5 years of leadership in consumer electronics and for bringing the joy of portable digital audio to the masses.

Meet the rest of the iPod family tree here.

For those who know me, the 80Gb video iPod is the one on my Christmas wishlist ;-)

technorati tags:Apple, iPod, 5th, Birthday, MP3, Portable,Digital, Audio

Posted by Jim at 10/23/2006 03:30:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

19 Oct 2006

Secunia on the ball with Zero Day IE7 alert

Well folks, after a long wait Internet Explorer 7 has arrived. The final release happened today and everyone has been blogging about it. The verdict is already mixed across the blogosphere and the news that the excellent Secunia have verifired a zero day vulnerability will not help persuade people to switch.

Secunia has verified an MHTML related vulnerability that, though low impact, is a disappointing start.

Description:
A vulnerability has been discovered in Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose potentially sensitive information.

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the handling of redirections for URLs with the "mhtml:" URI handler. This can be exploited to access documents served from another web site.
Secunia has constructed a test, which is available at:
http://secunia.com/Internet_Explorer_Arbitrary_Content_Disclosure_Vulnerability_Test/

Some of the opinions I've read today express concern about switching back to IE from their beloved Firefox incarnation because it will not stand up to Firefox on funcionality (if you've got a plethora of FF plug-ins installed!). I'd encourage people to give it a go and find out as Microsoft seem to have got things properly covered for a change.
Any functionality they haven't taken from Firefox and Opera (tabbed browsing, feed reader etc) in the new base product could already be done via an add-on, and you might just find it at the IE Add-Ons site!

From another angle, some including Tom Raftery have expressed concerns that moving to IE7 will be a support nightmare. I think Microsoft have done sufficient release prep work to minimise this, providing enough information to the average user for a change so they can plan their upgrade properly.

With post-upgrade IE7 checklists for various levels of user and thorough Release Notes to check for potential application compatability issues etc before you ever run that setup.exe, there should be reduced amounts of tears and hair puling ;-)

technorati tags:Internet, Explorer, IE7, Release, Firefox, Secunia, Alerts,

Posted by Jim at 10/19/2006 04:29:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

15 Oct 2006

Pingoat handy for traffic generation?

Hey here's a service I stumbled on today that you might not have seen before called Pingoat. It allows you ping multiple listing services when you've updated your website or blog.

Nothing new there you say but what I liked about this is the ability to choose to ping non-English listing services right there on the same page with no fuss. So, if you've got the BabelFish translator widget on your site you can hope to attract a much larger no. of visitors.

If that's not enough, should your site regularly include Podcasts you can also choose to ping Podcast listing sites too!
I've just given it a go so we'll soon see if the desired hits boost happens!

technorati tags:Pingoat, Site, Promotion, Traffic, Generation, SEO, Ping, Services

Posted by Jim at 10/15/2006 09:01:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

14 Oct 2006

YouTube buzz continues, cool kids searching for Jawed!

The traffic buzz around the YouTube acquisition news from earlier this week continues. My own blog traffic is up about 300% and a surprise turned up in my stats this evening. It looks like the kids at Stanford University all want to know more about the millionaire celeb on campus, Jawed Karim, and they're going to Technorati to find all the juicy news!

I wonder if my hit was Jawed himself searching out what's being said about him ???

technorati tags:YouTube, Jawed, Karim, Stanford, Traffic

Posted by Jim at 10/14/2006 10:00:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

13 Oct 2006

Google OS Part of the Master Plan ;-)

I called it right in a post a while back. Now Robert Scoble has provided the evidence courtesy of contributors to his Scobleizer blog. This pic is a joke but I'm sure the thought crosses their minds regularly whether or not to do Goobuntu or whatever they might call a full blown Google OS.

The master plan is a whiteboard on display for all to see and goes some ways to demonstrating the humour and fun that's all part of working at Google. It's funny to read that someone recently erased it, kinda symbollic really, almost as if all bets are off as to what's coming next now that they've got hold of YouTube eh?

Check out the full size image of the Google Master Plan.

I'm off to check the Google vacancies, I could use a laugh ;-)

technorati tags:Google, Master, Plan, Humour, Fun, YouTube, Scoble, Scobleizer

Posted by Jim at 10/13/2006 11:53:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

12 Oct 2006

YouTube silent third partner revealed ..or ...One lucky SOB!

This is Jawed Karim, 27 and a student at Stanford. Thanks to Google's acquisition of YouTube he's become a multi-millionaire overnight. Talk about right place at the right time!

Karim met the other two faces of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steven Chen when he worked with them at PayPal, and spent many an evening dreaming up the next big web sensation with both guys.

At some stage those dreams spawned a video sharing site that became the biggest thing on the web this year, but when conceived Karim chose not to take up a job at YouTube with his mates, preferring to continue pursuit of his masters in Computer Science at Stanford.

He did however remain on the YouTube payroll as an advisor and that decision has secured his future to the tune of millions! You can read the full story below.
With YouTube, Grad Student Hits Jackpot Again

technorati tags:Google, YouTube, Buyout, Acquisition, Jawed, Karim, GooTube

Posted by Jim at 10/12/2006 03:30:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

10 Oct 2006

Google / YouTube buyout a real traffic magnet.. or..Simple SEO Secrets!

Wow , it seems like people love to follow every move Google makes and today it looks like people everywhere are reading all they can about the megabucks buyout. I normally get about 10 hits a day but I've had 10 in just 2 hours today thanks to the previous posting.

It seems the secrets to SEO and traffic generation are simple - write about what people want to read and keep it current! Oh and always use tagging, if only so you get your face on Technorati now and then ;-)

technorati tags:Google, YouTube, Acquisition, GooTube, SEO, Traffic, Secrets

Posted by Jim at 10/10/2006 05:35:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

Google snaps up YouTube ..what next?

So boys and girls, despite all the rumours of all sorts of imminent lawsuits against YouTube for a myriad of copyright content type violations type offences (and failure to act to stop these), the Google machine has rolled in and taken over with an all shares deal worth $1.65BN ! That's a lot of shares eh ;-)

I'll write more on this later but the best opinion I've seen on it so far today, from Mark Cuban, respected tech speaker and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, can be read below.

I still think Google is crazy!

technorati tags:Google, YouTube, Acquisition, GooTube

Posted by Jim at 10/10/2006 02:30:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

8 Oct 2006

Windows Vista is really close ... have you got the hardware ?

The long awaited release of Vista is getting very close now, and man do I wish I could get me a new pc. Yeah we'll have to wait til January for the consumer releases but now is the time to prepare like all good scouts should! I keep reading mixed reports of what specs folks will need to experience Vista as intended, so the announcement of the Vista Upgrade Advisor will please many.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

Test Your Computer's Vista-Compatibility

One thing's for sure, my current work horse of almost 5 years wont fit the bill, so I'll be hoping for lots of room in Santa's sack ( or a lottery win!) for a shiny new case full of Vista ready hardware. Put one on your list too ;-)

technorati tags:Windows, Vista, Release, Upgrade, Advisor, Compatibility

Posted by Jim at 10/08/2006 11:19:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

Jim Bytes! - An IT Blog

The musings of an IT guy in Ireland!