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Edit YouTube Videos Online

June 17, 2010

Today, YouTube announced a new feature that lets you edit your YouTube videos online. Sweet!

Here's what you can do:
  • Combine multiple videos you've uploaded to create a new longer video
  • Trim the beginning and/or ending of your videos 
  • Add soundtracks from our AudioSwap library of tens of thousands of songs
  • Create new videos without worrying about file formats and publish them to YouTube with one click -- no upload necessary
We've all been there / done that where we upload a video, wait for it to encode, then play it back to realize we had awkward pauses, didn't stop the camera on time, or simply wanted to cut a piece out. Well, now you can easily cut out these portions as well as create a mashup of several of your videos. Check out the video of how it's done:




USPS Ate My Netflix DVD. Damn you USPS! Or was it Animal?

June 15, 2010

So I check my mail awaiting a couple of Netflix when what do my eyes behold? Two glorious red envelopes - which means I received both movies my family and I wanted to watch. When what do my eyes behold? One of the Netflix envelopes is simply the outer tear off sheet that has my home address on it.

Netflix on iPhone Hack

June 2, 2010

So you want Netflix running on your iPhone do ya? Well, you've come to the right place for an easy to follow tutorial to get sweet streaming movies and TV shows directly to your Apple iPhone. Who can wait for the official Netflix app? Certainly not me!

To (Hyper)Link or Not to Link - That is the Question

June 1, 2010

The best bloggers and news sites seem to hyperlink like crazy. Usually its because they think they're doing you a favor by referencing a related article, web page, company, etc. so you don't have to hit up a search engine to find it yourself. Other times it's used for internal linking so you hit another one of their web pages and they get an additional pageview plus ad impression.

Next Justin Bieber?

May 12, 2010

Adobe Flash 10.1 Adds P2P VoIP, Social Networking, IM

April 16, 2010

The latest version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 (still in beta) adds support for RTMFP Groups. This is huge because it enables clients to easily communicate with other clients in a network in order to share the transport of media and communications without maintaining a connection to every peer in the group. Groups can be defined by their functionality and access can be controlled by the client application, whether it's a VoIP app, chat app or a social networking app.

They also added support for Directed Routing, which enables a developer to create communication applications and send data messages to a specific peer in the group. Critical features of RTMFP include low latency (critical for VoIP), end-to-end peering capability, security and scalability.

Opera Mini iPhone Review

April 13, 2010


Opera Mini has just been approved and is available in the Apple App Store. I have to admit Opera Mini was my favorite browser on my old clunky Apache 6700 Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. It was lightning fast. Opera Mini uses caching servers to compress images and text before sending the content down to your mobile device, which is what makes it so fast.

I downloaded and tested Opera Mini on my iPhone 3GS this morning and here are my thoughts.


Covad Nationwide Ethernet Service Launches on Tax Day

March 15, 2010

Covad Communications, which has been testing their Ethernet service, announced today the launch date for nationwide Ethernet services - namely April 15th (aka Tax Day, "Pay the Man Day", etc). I almost went with Covad's solution when TMC moved to our new headquarters, but decided to go with Optimum Lightpath instead ($2500/month for bundled 45Mbps data + voice). In any event, according to Patrick Bennett, President and CEO of Covad, "What will differentiate this product in the market are the integrated QoS and CoS options that give our partners immense flexibility in optimizing network performance based on their application requirements."

Covad designed these services to run business-class, real-time applications like Voice over IP, video, gaming, VPNs and video conferencing through multiple traffic-handling options via Quality of Service (QoS) and Class of Service (CoS), and are backed by Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

"Ethernet is an important component of Covad's overall portfolio strategy.



Amazon Should Collect Taxes? Over my Dead Gadget-Loving Body!

December 28, 2009

The NY Times must be smoking the weed again. They have an article posted the day after Christmas arguing that Amazon should charge customers state taxes to help fill the state's tax coffers.

The NY Times writes, "Competitors aren't the only ones hurt by Amazon's stance on sales taxes: it also means the loss of considerable revenue to states and localities that badly need it." So because the states "badly need it", the NY Times argues Amazon should give up some of their capital wealth and spread it around to all 50 states? Last I checked, we still live in a capitalist republic not a socialist state. Let me explain the Constitution to ya NY Times, so you understand why charging intrastate taxes is unconstitutional.

First, let me cite Article IV of the Articles of Confederation, which was the first constitution of the United States and formed the core basis for the adoption of the final Constitution.

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.


In order words, it was critical that states not pass legislation which punished other states via taxes or levies, which could be used to try and gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Further, the final Constitution in Article I Section 10 (Powers prohibited of States) states:

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress.


Therefore, the Constitution specifically prohibits interstate taxes and this forms the core heart of American federalism.









fring and Skype Video calls on your Mobile Phone

November 25, 2009

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