Blogcritics Sci/Tech Reviews

Product Review: Bluelounge Cable Box

Scott Deitche — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:53:35 EST

A simple, elegant solution to the electrician's nightmare.
My Dad use to call the space behind my Commodore 64 computer, TV, and VCR the "electrician's nightmare." Cables and wires were twisted and coiled with no apparent regard for form or function. What did I care? I was 14. Now however, with house and family, appearances and order mean a little more. But so do functionality and price....

Video Training Review: Photoshop CS4 New Features with Deke McClelland from Lynda.com

T. Michael Testi — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:40:23 EST

A short course that focuses just on the new features of Photoshop CS4.
Alright, you know Photoshop pretty well and they just came out with a new version, CS4. How exactly do you get up to speed with the new stuff without having to hash through the old just to find the differences? Well, just ask Deke! Get online and in Photoshop CS4 New Features from Lynda.com; he will show it to you.Deke McClelland has put together a...

Software Review: Adobe Photoshop PhotoFrame 4 Plug-In from onOne Software

T. Michael Testi — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:04:51 EST

Incredibly easy to use and it really makes a difference in your presentation.
PhotoFrame Pro 4 is the latest version of the plug-in from onOne Software that lets you create image frames and border effects for your images. You can now add realistic film and darkroom effects, as well as artistic edges like torn paper, brush strokes, and even full-on layouts with backgrounds, textures, and adornments.PhotoFrame Pro 4 requires...

Software Review - NetAdvantage For .NET Suite- NetAdvantage For ASP.NET 2008 Volume 1 From Infragistics

T. Michael Testi — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:42:54 EDT

If you are tired of having to repeatedly design your ASP.NET interfaces, then you need to look at NetAdvantage For ASP.NET.
This is the second part of a three-part series that will cover what is contained in the NetAdvantage For .NET Suite. The three products are NetAdvantage for ASP.NET, NetAdvantage for Windows Forms, and NetAdvantage AppStylist. You can go online to explore more about the products in this suite. The goal of this series it to define what each product...

Software Review: NetAdvantage For .NET Suite- NetAdvantage For Windows Forms 2008 Volume 1 From Infragistics

T. Michael Testi — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:10:40 EDT

If you are tired of having to repeatedly design your application interfaces, then you need to look at NetAdvantage For Windows Forms.
This is the first part of a three-part series that will cover what is contained in the NetAdvantage For .NET Suite. The three products are NetAdvantage for Windows Forms, NetAdvantage for ASP.NET, and NetAdvantage AppStylist. You can go online to explore more about the products in this suite. The goal of this series it to define what each product...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

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Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Where Content Is Headed

Haydn Shaughnessy — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:40:28 EDT

A while back you could safely say that the content industries were television, newspapers, radio and magazines. Of course there were books but that was the long finger of content, stuff that took time. Music was something else, a bit like books but an industry that got more breaks on the TV.The dynamic end of the business where people struggled daily to fill their content vats were confined to those four: TV, radio, magazines and newspapers.Now the types of content have proliferated and in trying to understand where the web is headed we need to get a handle on the content. Why?Because the technology is ten-a-penny stuff. YouTube is like a billboard. Microsoft is about to build out a "YouTube" but already there are 250 varieties of it. This is not the stuff of sustainable market advantage, though each can find a geographical or subject niche, which is what we expect to see happen across all content forms.Content builds audiences and keeps them interested. We've allowed ourselves to think that the critical, all important distinction is between user-generated content and professional content, when in fact in the future content world there is no such distinction. A professional content producer is just a guy who does it well enough to connect with an audience.So what types of content are out there and what is their significance? I've tried listing before but now I'll have a stab at saying what's important. For that reason this will be a three part post making a start today, hopefully continuing tomorrow and concluding by the end of the week.I'm going to start with a controversial choice. It's not number one for any aesthetic reason but it does serve to illustrate a point. Content is weird.1. Domain parking. Earlier this year Richard Rosenblatt, formerly of MySpace, launched Demand Media and raised $120 million to turn the domain parking business into a significant revenue stream. The Wall St Journal quoted one researcher and an analyst, saying Domain Parking takes "about 5% to 10% of search-engine revenue, putting the industry's annual revenue at about $600 million." "The profit margins are extraordinary," says RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan. He predicts industry revenue could double to $1.2 billion within three years." another player, with a lead in the market is Marchex. YesDirect and REIT are also worth keeping an eye on.2. The web free sheet - sponsored content. Domain Parking leads us neatly into sponsored content. Demand Media's write up in the WSJ is actually a sponsored page. It is accessible to the public because Demand pays for it to be free rather than behind the subscription log-in. That's a variation on the theme we've seen trying to log into sites like Salon where we watch an ad or we pay to read content. Is this really a separate type of content? I think it is because it's like the avertising feature or free sheet of the web.3. Video uploads. The video search engine dabble reckons there are already around 250 video upload sites with MSFT entering the market soon. YouTube is the daddy of course. One of the noticeable uses of YouTUbe is as a kind of flickr. There are small entertainment sites that eliminate their own hosting costs by uploading video to YouTube and steering customers there to watch content. A smart strategist at YouTube would cash in. Niche sites like Viewdo cater to specialist needs or to the need for content on everyday practical tasks. Videojug is a viewdo competitor and both are in the space I'll call web-for-everyday-life.4. Start pages. The Start Page, the first place you go to when firing up your browser has been contested in the past by your ISP, who used to have an unofficial monopoly to display its portal there, the browser, your online e-mail and google. Netvibes, pageflakes and webwag had the bright idea of claiming that space. That's giving them some leverage with content provivders who want to be on your start page and with advertisers who would like you to aggregate sites closely allied to them. Netvibes defaults Yahoo-owned Kelkoo on its page but still the potential is underdeveloped.5. Blog aggregation is a big area and there are many, many players. From straight aggregators like blogdigger to niche players like elbows, to blog search engines like technorati this is a tenuous form of business, often dependent on contextual ads. Bloggers need companies out there holding up signposts, and aggregators who signpost well will get blogs signing up but few take the job seriously.Continued tomorrow.

A journalist and critic, Haydn writes on where the web's going as well as on the impact of the digital on art and culture. He also does a bit of food writing over at TheDietCast.com.