I have been experimenting with Tumblr and Disqus, over at Silicon State.

Combining different services to power a blog has been on my mind lately.

This blog runs on Mephisto, a Rails application, and it actually manages a number of web sites in one install.

I love Mephisto!

But. (<- inevitable for a developer)

There are things I want to try without writing code.

For example, automatically pull Flickr, Del.icio.us and Twitter items in as blog posts, not sidebar items.

This experimentation lead me to Tumblr, which is mainly used for tumblelogs.

It lacks searching and comments, but has most everything else I want.

Search can be hacked in using Google’s customer search boxes.

Comments can be integrated through Disqus, using a simple javascript.

This has me thinking.

Is Disqus doomed to be a “feature” or will it thrive as a full blown service?

Should commenting be portable and searchable independent of a blog?

Would that encourage richer conversations?

Just thinking. Always thinking.

Only five percent of those surveyed said that they watch video on a TV or other video-playing device regularly. Downloading from places like the iTunes Store or Xbox Live Video to the Apple TV or an Xbox 360 make this possible without having to use an HTPC. Still, even though these solutions make it easier to watch downloaded content on the big(ger) screen, they clearly have yet to hit it big with the general public.

(Via Report: 95% of Internet video stuck looking longingly at TV.)

I always wonder about reports like these. What us the real agenda behind this one?

After all, 5 years ago it would have read “100% of Internet video stuck looking longingly at TV” or “0% of those surveyed said they watched video on a TV or other video-playing device”.

In my case, Amy and I watch the vast majority of our video using a $500 video projector in our living room. In the neighborhood of 75-85% of our video content comes from online sources, including iTunes, Hulu.com, ABC.com and Podcasts.

5% penetration in the 2-3 years that online video content has really taken off is not bad.

Was going to post about how odd it seemed to hear that e-mail is dead and Twitter, Pownce or Facebooks are the solution to everything.

At least that came out of the Future of Web Applications conference.

Why not post the thought it triggered?

In its place a brainstorm erupted that is worth millions.

Seriously.

Time to hunker down in the bat cave to prototype the idea.

Should take 90 days with any luck.

Send water, food and angle funding.

Last week I posted about having a less capable (more focused?) laptop make for a more productive environment.

Being in the market for another Mac, and on the verge of purchasing another MacBook, I decided to pickup a MacBook Air.

Why?

While at the Apple store I spent an hour actually using the Air. Not just surfing the net and drooling over the design or coolness of it, but actually downloading the tools I use every day and doing a little work.

After an hour, I came to the conclusion that it was good enough and in fact superior in important ways.

First, the screen is amazingly bright and consistent. Viewing an LCD screen for 10-18 hours a day, like I do, the LED backlighting makes a huge difference.

Second, the keyboard the most solid laptop keyboard I have used. It feels like a desktop keyboard, not the mushy or bouncy feel most laptops have.

Coupled with the amazing build quality and light weight, it is a pleasure to take everywhere I go.

After, using it for a week do I regret anything?

Nope.

It is one of the most pleasurable computing experiences I have ever had.

Is 2 gigs of memory enough? Yep.

More memory is always good, so I hope Apple offers a build to order option for 4 gigs in the near future.

Can you live without a DVD drive? Maybe. The Air’s Remote Disk feature worked fine, though it took 3 hours to install Mac OS X via my Airport Extreme.

Is an 80GB hard drive large enough? Barely. After installing all the essential applications and work tools, I have 33 gigs free, but my iTunes or iPhoto libraries add up to 26 gigs, so I am holding offer copying them over until I make sure they are not unnecessarily bloated.

What would I change?

Other than a larger hard drive, not much.

If Apple can swing a 100-120 gig drive, build to order memory upgrades for 4 gigs I would be in nirvana, not just smitten with this computer.

I have been using Slicehost.com for several months now.

To cut to the chase, these guys rock!

They are responsive, offer a solid service and are building a great community around their business.

They have a growing array of OS choices including CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch and Fedora.

The best news is that they are testing large VPS slices, up to 15GB!

If you need a great Virtual Private Server solution, sign up here to be up and running in a couple minutes.

Be sure not to miss their podcast for news about this stellar hosting service.

Twitter has been on my radar for sometime, as yet-another-inbound-stream of information to watch.

I always found it useful, since the bite sized morsels were more easily digested.

I say, “I get it finally”, because I discovered the shortcuts for sending replies and direct messages recently.

These features take Twitter to a whole new level.

No longer is it about following and being followed. Now I am participating in conversations through twitter.

It took learning the shortcuts of my favorite Twitter client, Twitterrific, to finally get it.

Wow. It makes Twitter so much more valuable.

“2008. There’s something in the air.” What does that slogan mean? On Tuesday, Steve Jobs will introduce whatever it is they have lurking in Cupertino.

Could it be movie rentals through iTunes? A revamped Apple TV with DVR? Yet another, better and cooler iPod?

Or perhaps, something innovative and game changing (yeah lame phrase, but bear with me).

With laptop sales eclipsing desktops, and iPods and iPhones leading to a perpetually mobile generation, wouldn’t it make sense for Apple to push connectivity everywhere?

What if Apple released a sub-notebook with the usual suspects and “one more thing” - WiMAX.

Paired with the 3G iPhone we will see in 2008 and Back to my Mac, it would be a powerful product to accelerate their growth in this powerful market segment.

What tea leaves am I reading to think this? A curious announcement timed for this coming Tuesday.

Sprint recently announced that the company is on track to begin offering their Xohm WiMax service in April of this year…the New York Times reported that the soft launch is set for this Tuesday.

(Via Sprint to Soft-Launch Xohm on Tuesday - dslreports.com.)

Sprint did a deal with Amazon for EVDO in the Kindle, why not Apple for a WiMAX enabled laptop?

Apple’s deal with AT&T certainly said nothing about WiFI or WiMAX, but may have locked them out of embedding EVDO.

With AT&T’s CEO blowing the lid on Apple’s 2008 iPhone plans it would be sweet revenge for Apple to work with Sprint.

Apple could build a strong relationship with Sprint, while fulfilling their obligations to AT&T.

One can dream and speculate. We will know on Tuesday.

Is the desktop metaphor dead, replaced by Web services like Google and Facebook? Or is Vista so bad that it’s not worth buying?

New data points to the latter suggestion, leaving Microsoft with two options. It can either view its sagging Vista sales as a testament to the incredible work of art that is Windows XP (gag). Or it can concede that Vista is a pile of potty.

(Via Does Vista’s stunted growth hint at the death of the desktop? | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET Blogs.)

I don’t think Vista sucks and the desktop is definitely not dead.

Vista’s slow adoption is a simple business issue, Microsoft over-promised and under-delivered. Its that simple.

Coupled with a confusing pricing scheme and bungled Vista Capable vs. Vista Ready hardware marketing and you get slow adoption.

Nothing terribly difficult to understand, deeply revealing or impossible to fix.

They should release service pack 2 for Vista along side a new marketing campaign that replaces all the different versions with the Ultimate version for $99.

Everyone gets the same package, which would make it a no brainer for users and simplify support requirements.

One message. One product. One choice. Affordable. Win, Win for everyone.

This may be a game-changer.

This new service allows entrepreneurial developers to wrap their own business models around Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2, taking advantage of Amazon’s existing customer base and billing infrastructure. With DevPay, developers can focus on being creative and innovative while dispatching the less-than-glamorous aspects of dealing with bank accounts, credit cards, and so forth to us.

(Via Amazon Web Services Blog: Make Money Fast - Introducing Amazon DevPay.)

As someone that has built more web applications than I care to remember, I am still amazed at how many elements of the web business are built over and over again.

They now have the complete package for some types of startup projects. Letting developers focus on the user-side of their service, instead of recreating the wheel.

Brilliant next step by Amazon.

Ten years into the web standards revolution, e-mail client support for standards remains sketchy. A new group is doing something about it. Launched today, The Email Standards Project ‘works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email.’

(Via Give HTML e-mail a chance.)

Yay! I used to despise HTML e-mail, but have succumbed to the utility it can provide.

While listening to my backlog of Security Now podcasts, I learned about Paypal’s new Security Key program.

For $5, Paypal sends you a Security Key that spits out a unique number every 30 seconds.

You then use it while logging into your Paypal account by entering the unique number shown on your Security Key along with your password.

Bringing this technology to consumers is a huge step forward in online security.

Very interesting!

”Heroku: An Online Rails Development and App Hosting Environment”

(Via Heroku: An Online Rails Development and App Hosting Environment.)

”At nine feet long and 1,800 pounds, you’d think that it’d crumple up like a beer can if it got hit by something bigger (which is just about everything) but company officials claim that it’s ‘basically built like a race car, with the steel cage technology that protects the occupants.’ It’s apparently supposed to be able to grab four out of five stars in government crash tests (it’ll be tested once it’s on the market).”

(Via Smart cars coming in January. Would you buy one? - Crunch Gear.)

Our Honda Hybrid is reaching 70k miles and we are looking for a replacement next year.

After driving the hybrid for a couple years, I can not imaging getting a car that doesn’t get at least 40 MPG.

Amy has kept meticulous records on our current car, for a blog she has still not gotten around to starting, and we get 40+ MPG most of the year, except for a couple months (boiling summers in North Carolina) each year.

At $25k though for a Honda or Toyota, I wonder if a couple smart cars are better than a single hybrid?

What is the carbon offset for Smart vs. Honda vs. Toyota?

The Android platform will be made available under one of the most progressive, developer-friendly open-source licenses, which gives mobile operators and device manufacturers significant freedom and flexibility to design products. Next week the Alliance will release an early access software development kit to provide developers with the tools necessary to create innovative and compelling applications for the platform.”

(Via John Battelle’s Searchblog.)

Hopefully this leads to some compelling mobile devices. It is certainly less than consumers expected today.

By the second half of 2008, when they expect the first Android handsets to hit the market, we should have Nokia’s iPhone challenger and the second generation iPhone.

It will be interesting to see where the chips fall.

Today, most web content can be accessed on on mobile devices. Though you are at the mercy of how each site chooses serve mobile content - if at all.

Mowser cleans up and presents content for mobile devices in friendlier more efficient forms.

Mowser doesn’t just handle web sites, it also provides efficient access to RSS feeds and search engines in mobile friendly formats.

Mowser, which is developed by Russell Beattie, does it really, really well.

I don’t know the details of how Mowser works its magic, but its definitely more sophisticated than older efforts and a work of passion on the part of the developer.

After using it for a week, I prefer Mowser-powered browsing to regular browsing on my phone.

Content flies through the sluggish AT&T EDGE network, and the addition of Tech 100, Politics 100, Feeds and Search on the home page are awesome for casual browsing while on the road.

There is a lot more to Mowser than I have touched on and even understand after just a week.

I highly recommend it for anyone using a mobile device to access web content.

Big thumbs up!