Forget iTunes

For the music lovers Songbird it's an amazing desktop media player since it's mash up with the web and allows us to discover and organize local musics or even remote links/sites. It's only on a beta version but it promises to be the iTunes killer application. On this release I'm missing an export feature or even an distributed place to place my playlists and bookmarks.

Download it and you won't regret it: Songbirdnest.com | Songbird Media Player

Jabber Transports (or How to Connect Google Talk with Any IM)

Google Talk allows us to connect to others IM networks, but with a drawback, Google Talk doesn't include a place to configure transports (i.e. the ability to provide a username and password for the IM network of choice). So one has to install another Jabber client in order to configure that transports.
After that you can use Google Talk to talk to all of your IM network friends.

For more information see:
Jabber Transports (or How to Connect Google Talk with Any IM)

OpenSocial, Google's APIs for Social Applications

OpenSocial, Google's APIs for Social Applications: "Google will launch tomorrow OpenSocial"

Web 3.0 on the hype

WEB3.0 is on the hype now, what could we expect from it since the web2.0 doesn't have much more to dig. Some terms that we associate immediately with web 2.0 are "social networks", "Blogs", "Communities", "Collaborative", ... which are related with web applications like FaceBook, Hi5, Flickr and so on... Some of these web applications were the flame needed for the next generation of web applications that some ones are starting to call web3.0. Let's get into the point. For instance, in how many social networks are you connected today? ok, a few MySpace, Hi5, flickr, Linkedin,... This single question just gives us the opportunity to start thinking in several issues related with web3.0:

1. Why shouldn't we have the same login in all of them?
   
2. Why can't I share information between web applications?
3. Why can't I choose what I want to share with my different kind of connections or relationships?
   
4. How can I get related to other people that shares the same interests, taster or whatever.
5. Couldn't be the web more intelligent?
6. Why can´t I access all these applications and get instant access to their information from all of my devices, PC, MobilePhone, IPOD, EMAIL ...

These are some of the issues that are being on discussion and some enterprises are already investing on them, like MySpace that is trying to create a Social Graph where they want to create a global mapping of everybody and how they're related . Mark Zuckerberg the Founder of MySpace (just a kid) talked about this issue on Web 2.0 Summit.
For me this is the big challenge for web3.0, the Social Graph, since it aggregates several technologies, concepts, philosophies, mathematical models, artificial intelligence, Standards...
In parallel the there are other issues to solve that involves money and the figth for maintaining more active users in their web apps.

I'm curious for the coming years ore maybe months, and just like Fernando Pessoa would say: «I'm missing the future»

There will be much more to talk about web3.0 and a dissertation won't be enough, my contribute with this post is to put here just a flavour of it.

Microsoft sued by a chinese student

Microsoft it's one off the biggest companies in the world, but hold that title is not easy... There are always people trying to denigrate their image, this time was a Chinese student that sues Microsoft for Invasion of Privacy, he claims that "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" program collected private information from his computer instead of only verify whether the windows XP was genuine. The funny situation is that the Chinese student is demanding 1,350 yuan (180 U.S. dollars) in compensation for the invasion of privacy.
But can we say that:

• Microsoft it's an angel;
• The student doesn't have second intentions;
• Many people is earning right now money with this issue;
• Microsoft Competitors Organizations are promoting these kind of actions;
  

I'll let you thinking on that.


You can get more information about this sue from the links below:

• http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/224228.htm
• http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/6262170.html
• http://www.negocios.pt/default.asp?Session=&CpContentId=302335
  

Females also have Prostate..

The "O Primeiro de Janeiro", a Portuguese newspaper, have published a news regarding the female sexual organ, where they say a "prostate" makes part of it. They have a reference to a publication made by Austrian specialists in the «Journal of Sexual Medicine» .
After some google investigation I've realized that this issue is in discussion, at least, since 2000...
Nevertheless Just take a look inside ;)

Some Links:

• Google Links
  
• Pesquisadora acreana fala sobre próstata feminina
• Pesquisadores desvendam a próstata feminina

Openid - abaixo os formulários de registo

Na web cada vez mais encontramos sites que requerem autenticação, autenticação esta que nos obriga à priori a preencher sempre um formulário de registo que por mais simples que seja nos causa sempre transtornos, pois raramente o conseguimos fazer à primeira sem que nos apareça uma inesperada mensagem de erro.

Para solucionar este tipo de problemas surgiu uma solução que tem estado muito em voga nestes últimos tempos cuja buzzword é OpenID. Com este sistema é possível efectuarmos o registo em um só site o qual servirá de "repositório" da nossa informação. A partir do momento que estejamos registados poderemos utilizador o nosso identificador unívoco para nos autenticar em sites que suportem este sistema.

Dizem as más línguas que é um sistema que apresenta pouca segurança principalmente quando falamos em quebras de segurança tão badaladas ultimamente como o phishing. Numa primeira abordagem é óbvio que este sistema apresenta vários problemas de segurança mas não quero com isto dizer que é inseguro. E para que serve a nossa cabeça se não para pensar em o tornar seguro? Ok, haverá sempre alguém a tentar "cracka-lo", mas será com a ajuda desses crakers que ele ficará ainda mais seguro.


Eu vou começar aderir a esta nova onda, pelo mesmos saberei que estarei a contribuir para que num futuro próximo me livre de vez de formulários de registo irritantes.