Brian Fitzgerald

Microsoft announced and showed off the new Origami at CeBit. Haven’t had much time to take a good read of it, but sure looks cool.

• Windows Live » Microsoft's new me-too start page. Clean look but a little slow.
• MaxPower Icons » Professionally designed icons available for free under the creative commons license. They may even be used in commercial applications as long as they remain free for others to use.
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Screenshots have been leaked of a calendar system in development at Google.

You knew it would be coming. I’m just surprised it happened this soon. You can now subscribe to Comedy Central’s Daily Show and Colbert Report on iTunes. You pay $10/show and you get the next 16 episodes (one month). Get both and that’s $20 a month, but considering that that’s about all I keep cable for, it could be a great deal.

If you have a Tivo (or are thinking about getting one), better do it quick. Next week, Tivo plans to pull it’s lifetime subscription plan which allows you to pay a one time fee of $299 and never pay the monthly fee. Apparently they have decided it’s too good of a deal.

• 30daytags » Site allows you to add references to sites and tag them. All entries remain in the system for 30 days and then expire allowing the entire system to stay fairly current.
• mobileGlu | your mobile glue » MobilGlu creates portable versions of rss feeds, flickr, del.icio.us, and other services. Designed for phones but low-bandwidth design would work great for wi-fi enabled palms or other small (and slow) internet devices.
• NetVibes » Ajax start page
• The Lyceum Project » A version of wordpress designed for multiple-user/blog installations.
• BlinkList » Another social bookmarker?
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• Portable Applications ? FreeSMUG » Macintosh Applications converted to be able to run off of a portable storage device such as a USB drive. The preferences are stored on that drive so that launching them from any computer where you have connected the device will give you access to your bo
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I heard somebody talk a couple of years ago about a taco bell or mcdonalds or something down in Florida that was experimenting with serve-yourself cashier counters. Looks like those combination restaraunts (KFC/Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut/Taco Bell, Taco Bell/KFC) are ready to start trying it out.

• evolt.org - Browser Archive » A archive of browsers. Best part IMHO is the standalone versions of Internet Explorer. With these, you can test multiple version of WinIE on a single computer.
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First video: Mocks Microsofts ability to make any packaging dull and over detailed.

Second video: Is this what Microsoft will be announcing tomorrow? 

• geocoder.us: a free US geocoder » Get the latiitude and longitude of any address
• Google Maps API Documentation » Google's documentation to aid the creation of pages using their mapping service.
• XML.com: Hacking Maps with the Google Maps API » Helpful information regarding the creation of maps using Google's map service and their APIs
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There are so many “Web 2.0” companies that it’s almost impossible to track them. Here’s a poster that’s been assembled using web 2.0 company logos. It’s fun to see the designs and colors used. It’s also fun to just start going through them to see what’s being done by all of these companies.

It’s Steve Jobs' 51st Birthday.

• BlogMarks.net » Online social bookmarking (like delicious) that looks great and ties a screenshot to each link.
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A new video player that looks like a good competitor for the iPod should be here next month.

Here’s a few tips that will help you keep your CSS in order

• mandolux » Very cool, high quality desktop pictures.
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Chances are that someone here in town got about 365 million dollars richer this weekend. A friend that’s currently in Minnesota makes a subtle plea for a share of it.

The RIAA said that ripping CD’s on to digital media devices was fair use. Now it seems they are changing their minds.

What is meant by web 2.0? What was web 1.0? Read all about it here…

Mandolux has awesome desktop pictures.  Great images of beer and baseball. What else do you need?

Apparently Flock has scrapped plans of making .6 a major beta release or they have decided that using numbers like .5.11 highlights the fact that these are betas. Either way, it has been a long time since a release of Flock was put out (outside of the hourly builds) and this new one is fantastic. Check out the new features here, then get it.

technorati tags: flock, browser

This is a list that showed up on digital-web magazine over a year ago listing those things that a modern site should be doing. While it's hard for most casual developers to incorporate these into a homegrown site, it shows that one should really consider some of the great content management systems available when building a site. Most good ones will take care of a majority of these items. In the end, you need to decide what is and isn't important to you and your visitors.

Offering regularly updated information (blogs, CMSs, etc.)

Increased efficiency in news and information distribution (RSS, ATOM, etc.)

Alternative methods of information distribution (email newsletters, RSS, del.icio.us, etc.)

Enhanced notification and announcement systems (pings, email alerts, etc.)

A place for your site's users to offer feedback and input (blog comments, forums, etc.)

Improved performance and code optimization (CSS, XHTML, etc.)

Multiple ways to access information (multi-faceted navigation, folksonomies, etc.)

Intelligent system to system communication (XML, SOAP, etc.)

Collaborative communication and documentation (Wikis, blogs, etc.)

On-demand support feedback (user-driven FAQs, click-to-chat, etc.)

Digital Web Magazine - News - Ten things your web sites should be doing

There may actually be a bit of a virus circulating for OS X masquarading as a screenshot from OS 10.5.

This would be pretty fantastic even if the DS weren’t already a great gaming device. Opera will be releasing their web browser for the Nintendo DS as a game cartridge. The DS runs about $250 has two screens (one of which is touch-sensitive), Wi-Fi, stereo sound, a microphone and stylus. If it renders web pages with any speed at all, this could become one of the most portable, cost-effective browsing options available.