On Technology


URL Longer-er

I was just talk­ing to James about the idea of hav­ing a URL “longer-er” service/site just for laughs. The idea of it is pret­ty much a reverse of most of the URL short­en­ing ser­vices out there today like tr.im, is.gd, tinyurl.com, etc. Lo and behold, I guess they have one:

titanurl.com

Check out URL for this blog using the ser­vice:

http://titanurl.com/fd8b1f7f8284d85418b2fd45bdd4fd7bdacbb8418bd15b8f4bda5b58a2b2ba528b8ddd77fd8a81b8bfcd5d8d45b4abd8f81885addc88a81bbc52d8d8fb225bcad5882b444d87ab82148db8dd2bb8fbd22f7b811288c8b88bbd5a752c818bb222c88725dbbca258db5855b2582aba/252d5db8dd48bbddba51ca185d2b88dba5bb771b5ba28515a5bd58bd5c2db28b8dd2b5a24f55d1ad15818ba417528c818822dbdaf75588b25dd121485d8811842fa4b8d8bdbd7d2bb8b5d88bb1bb4bb75ccbab124dd8d5b45517b4ba7bfc5ac2bd18b88a8ab2c2dff8bc4d8c8f4b/da188db88288b2af1dbb5cf88588fa28d72722bddf5b1fb4785f55d55df1da2a2dbb15bd48dbcb88b8778d2a84d8b2a88bb88daab48bd18b4528b82454a22828ba5485b41a7dffbbbcfad1dd81cbad482b5dbbbb8f81bbcd5bfddc5ab48daa14488bbd882b7dbfb81dacb4b27285/5db17f2f44ddbb1844dd272a28d41add88a8afa78888d8b2f2b512885b728888415aa8a11dd51422848d4dbb4bcbac7d48fb885b587b48888db4bb2bd8bfb42d58d52475bdddfb882f5b4b14bfb8b8bab4871f542bd88d8b587b2b2ab8dd25bc8afd52dd8b785bd8c25fbd488b8d/5b845fc228b45b4fb528ddbd1b242d42175a78ba221b8a8bf8b4d75b84d2b8dbbbbfbf8a5a754b5b58bab5cb25228b15558b8d8a85ddf417abd28bb28a1bb5fabbb5f18f525f21bbc5dad18fb52ddcdd7d4f8bdb11d8ab42cf518158bbb448d8c55db88d18b225d8f844f572a8b8/a5b281daabbd58b8bbaa4bb2882828f1bb7f2b8812cbfbd2a55b82d5d58bab4b425cdd588d888d81fd854455db842b78f5b88b82ab5bdddad8b5ab58527b872bdf5b1f25d5d2bda1288cbaf12dfb5f4481442ad42a1a8bfad22d4d5d88f1f2218cddd8d25752582a8742fdb2dd7b/da8f55d7b8b8d8db28b48a88fbaf257b855bb88adb2b458a5cddd2db8b5f8f1b84b78b1858b8ba4bb5dbf22b8515ad28ac58d5bb5d8bdbbad1b742c5a1f84852bfbd11ad15bfafdd87b8ca518f4b44dba18b181dbbdccd1b58d8ff8bbc2b5f5ddb884dfd52282b5abbbd84dd87b4/d58bdb541f8d8cb1bfba152b2b248cd8d1b28881fba8852d55ffbb4ff5c5abbb85dafa55bab45b85b1d8a57bbbd81b8b88d48488575dbdab5bb52dc248bb1b14a1888844c5d18ffc1bd75448d1bb14d2d8821bbaab2cdfbfb52ada5ca1b5dd2fbdf2dba22b117a4f8a4db8d8522c/8822515cd58884b78b1458a44b2bb52dfd584b4a8dd782451b8cd4fdd2bbf4882fbda8d5f2d8ba4f15f2cf58bb2b8a4185ddd4dbd58588754f128dcf855df42854fb1bd888dadbbc281b588225f7c2da881f42db278d25884b882d2271b8b482d8acf75d5b858874dcbcbf5bd228

Nuts! That’s 2008 char­ac­ters from 20. An increase of about 100 times. =p

Unlock Phones from AT&T

So in prepa­ra­tion to going to Europe, I want­ed to be able to have a cell­phone (mobile) handy in case of an emer­gency. I want­ed to just use the iPhone 3G but I have updat­ed to iPhone OS 2.2.1 with a base­band of 2.30.03, which there is no (soft­ware) unlock for. Luck­i­ly, I still have kept my Sam­sung Black­jack (1).

Here’s what I found out when get­ting my Black­jack unlocked:

  • Call 611 (Cus­tomer Ser­vice), and not the local AT&T store.
  • Unlock­ing is “free” (accord­ing to the CSR who helped me).
  • Give your IMEI num­ber to the CSR to receive your phone’s unlock code.
  • To get your phone’s IMEI num­ber, press *#06#
  • To pro­ceed with the unlock process:
    • Take out the SIM card if there are any first.
    • You have to do the fol­low­ing key­strokes: #7465625*638*unlock_code# (unlock_code is your own of course).
    • Your phone’s dis­play will then have some type of mes­sage that it has dis­abled a lock of some sort.

I hope that helps.

Apple’s New Ipod Shuffle

apple-ipod-shuffle-20090311

It seems that Apple just released their new iPod Shuf­fle today. VoiceOver seems to be the newest tech­nol­o­gy oth­er than the new form-fac­tor. They say its half-the-size of the pre­vi­ous one, and has a capac­i­ty of 4GB. In terms of col­or, its cur­rent­ly avail­able in sil­ver or black.

apple-ipod-shuffle-20090311-key apple-ipod-shuffle-20090311-controls

The only thing I’m wor­ried about is that you have to use the built-in con­trols on the ear­phones that comes with it (or am I miss­ing some­thing?). That’s actu­al­ly a pret­ty big one to weigh out.

apple-ipod-shuffle-20090311-controls-earphones

That would suck if you’d like to use some­thing else and/or replace it in the future. You won’t be able to Play, Pause, Skip, etc. Any­ways, I per­son­al­ly would­n’t buy this new one and would stick with the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion just because of the lim­i­ta­tion of hav­ing to play songs only through the ear­phones.

I’m hop­ing I’m not the only one that finds this as a big con­cern.

Update
For more details regard­ing the new iPod Shuf­fle’s ear­bud-con­trols, read up on Giz­mod­o’s arti­cle: Con­firmed: Your iPod Shuf­fle Ear­buds Need Pro­pri­etary Chip to Func­tion.

Hello Animoto!

Well, I final­ly decid­ed to give Ani­mo­to a try.

Animoto.com is a web appli­ca­tion that cre­ates MTV-style videos with the click of a but­ton.

Users sim­ply choose a song and images. Ani­mo­to then auto­mat­i­cal­ly gen­er­ates a unique video for them. No two videos are ever the same.

Many of the post-pro­duc­tion tech­niques that the founders used while work­ing as pro­duc­ers for MTV, Com­e­dy Cen­tral & ABC are used in Ani­mo­to’s patent-pend­ing Cin­e­mat­ic Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence devel­oped to think like an actu­al edi­tor and direc­tor. The result­ing video is pro­duced in a widescreen for­mat, con­tain­ing the visu­al ener­gy of a music video and the emo­tion­al impact of a movie trail­er.

Ani­mo­to Pro­duc­tions is based in New York City with an office in San Fran­cis­co.

Here’s my first tri­al run video using my BYOBW 2008 pho­to set on Flickr.

I’m dig­ging it. I only wish the free account gives you more time. Maybe when they get their social net­work going, users can vote or give props to slideshows that have “poten­tial” to be remixed even fur­ther due to the amount of images and/or how good their sound­track is. But I’ll let Ani­mo­to decide on that algo­rithm. Anoth­er thing that would be cool is the idea of using tracks from Last.fm, Pan­do­ra, or ones like it. But I’m guess­ing Ani­mo­to would need ample time to ana­lyze those tracks before­hand to inject into their mag­ic fac­to­ry.

Mean­while, the ser­vice is priced well for Per­son­al Use, $25–30/year… just like Flick­r’s. Don’t know if this is a long shot or not, but maybe incor­po­rate a deal with Flickr of get­ting a dis­count­ed mem­ber­ship. Any­ways, I can see myself pur­chas­ing a mem­ber­ship for Ani­mo­to. I fig­ure edit­ing a 3–5 minute video, and queu­ing music at the same time, takes a lot of time and patience and is well worth the $25–30. That’s only about a week’s worth of Lee’s Avo­ca­do Turkey sand­wich­es that I can pass on—not bad at all.