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Wired has issued a response to Michael Arrington’s tweet. Is it me or the tone a little snide? One thing I do know, it doesn’t seem they like each other much I’ll keep an eye on twitter for another colourful response.

Wired does make a valid point:

We pointed out how odd it seemed that the Washington Post, one of the nation’s most trusted and revered newspapers, would run stories written by an ex-lawyer who admits he may advise or invest in companies that are covered on his site.

In journalistic circles, that’s what we call a conflict of interest.

But I think the original blog post and this one, the overall tone seems snide and a bit questionable and doesn’t seem to be objective or fall under the so called “journalistic integrity”. Then again, it’s still a blog which is basically an editorial to some degree. The only problem is see is that as more and more “journalist bloggers” seek legitimacy among the general population as serious journalists, you can point to things like this back and forth exchange, that doesn’t help that cause.

A great article Explaining Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 that provides a simple explanation of the popular buzzwords that have defined how our Internet experiences has changed through web movements.
Quick Summary:

• Web 1.0 – books, news, music and everything else being moved into a digital format
• Web 2.0 – the sharing of data and social networking
• Web 3.0 – data being integrated and applying it into innovative ways

The author’s definition of Web 3.0 is a little ambiguous considering it hasn’t happened yet but it seems like the next logical step. I would also throw in mobile web services, data mining and aggregation. I also suspect that security and privacy will be critical topics as there is just so much data available to be analyzed and used.
Anything else you can think of that will make up Web 3.0? Predications?

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington recently announced that TechCrunch articles will now be appearing on WashingtonPost.com.  Nothing spectacular in regards to breaking news but it seems that Mr. Arrington took offense to a Wired blog post on the same subject and decided to use twitter to voice his “concern”:

Wow. Interesting to see the differences between mainstream journalists and “mainstream” or “journalist” bloggers.

So it appears that Microsoft has withdrawn their bid for Yahoo. A bit of a surprise that Microsoft didn’t try a hostile takeover, but I guess that would be business suicide considering Yahoo’s continuing refusal to work a deal with them. Could only get worse if MS attempts something hostile. Good on them not to will to Yahoo’s weak attempt to push the share price up. Now let the speculation run wild as to what will happen next with Yahoo.

• Yahoo’s share price tanks on Monday (it rose quite a bit after MS bid)
• Once the share price drops (see above) Microsoft comes back to the table and attempts to purchase at a lower price
• MS goes after AOL instead
• Google laughs and breathes a side of relief and negotiates some kind of ad/search deal with Yahoo
• Steve Balmer leaves Microsoft over this failed bid
• NewsCorp now goes after Yahoo

All I can say is that there will be some interesting developments from some of the biggest players in technology and could have some serious aftershocks throughout the industry. Stay tuned!

I first gave a tutorial on how to get Free HD over the air. The one major local Toronto HD channel was missing: Global TV. Well they have been testing for the last week or so to meet a deadline of April 17th, 2008. It appears to be met! So far it looks like Global news is in HD, although not full widescreen. At this point, I have pretty much all the channels I need. Only thing that I miss is TSN and Sportsnet….but I guess that’s what the Internet is good for.

Great TechCrunch article “Decline Of US Newspapers Accelerating“.  I think the same can be said about Canadian Newspapers. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember the last time I have read or even paid for an actual newspaper.  Now I just read it online.

Adobe just released a pretty cool web app that allows users to upload photos to their account and use a flash based online tool to edit it. Obviously not as robust as their flagship Adobe Photoshop but still pretty cool. Great use of Flash.

Check it out. They provide 2GB of free space for your photos: https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html Fun to play with but I doubt I’ll ever use it.

As some of you may or may not have heard, I recently canceled my Rogers Cable Television service. After doing some online research, found that there are many HD Over the Air (OTA) signals that are free for use if you have the right equipment can be setup very easily. The number of channels and signal strength depends on your location. The ideal location is if you have the ability to aim an antenna south with line of sight to the CN tower. Lucky for me, my apartment is up on the 18th floor and faces south, and I have some sight of the CN tower so I thought I would give this a shot after seeing that you can make a “HD antenna” using a piece of wood and coat hangers!

Things you need:

1. HD capable television (obviously)
2. If your HD tv does not have a built in ATSC tuner, you will need to buy a separate set top box. Ebay is a good place to find one for about $100.
3. Screws, coat hangers, piece of wood and maybe 20 minutes of your time

Follow the simple tutorial to build your own HD antenna:

Tutorial to build own antenna:

The final result (sorry about the quality….I had to take them with the camera phone):

Looks kind of ghetto but suprisingly works great.

Just about every sport looks great now.

In the end, I got 20 totally OTA channels with 12 in HD. Very happy with the results. Once you go HD, you can’t go back!

More useful links:

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=461924
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=81

Smashing Magazine is currently on my RSS feed and one of my favourite websites for tips on CSS and web design. Provides excellent tips and tutorials from icons, usability to CSS tools and techniques. I find I am going there more and more for clean and elegant design ideas.

For you web developers out there, don’t forget the Web Developer’s Handbook. It’s a starting point that provides hundreds of links to web resources.

Stay tuned for more resources.