Jay Hathaway
Seattle - http://jayhathaway.com
Download Squad blogger
Filed under: Social Software, Microblogging
Greasemonkey script fixes Twitter's new retweets
Are you one of the many, many people who seem to be up in arms about Twitter's implementation of retweets? A neat little Greasemonkey script called Retweet Avatars might go a long way toward making you feel better about the new system. Instead of showing the original poster's icon, it shows your retweeting friend's icon, with a much smaller inset for the original tweeter.This two-icon system is similar to the way some third-party clients plan to support retweets, and I think it's a good compromise. You still have "strangers in your stream," but their icons aren't displayed as prominently as those of the people you actually follow. Maybe Twitter should go ahead and use this system by default. Until they do, though, the script works for Greasemonkey in Firefox, although I couldn't get it working in Greasekit for Safari.
As a side-note: if you prefer to switch the icons, so the original poster's is larger, you can do that by making a 1-character change to the script. Instructions are on the userscripts.org page.
Filed under: Video, Hardware, Web services
Roku launches Channel Store, bringing web content to your TV
Will all this free content sell more Roku boxes? I'm not necessarily convinced that people will be willing to spend the money - please pardon the worn-out phrase I'm about to drop, here -- "in this economy," to get TV access to content they can already see for free on their computers. Web show creators might be more excited than consumers about the Channel Store, in fact, because they'll soon be able to create their own channels.
One question for Roku, though: why no YouTube? It seems like a pretty glaring omission from such a star-studded channel lineup.
[via NewTeeVee]
Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0
Facebook users approve new privacy policy
The new privacy policy was written from scratch, so it's hard to point to item-by-item changes. In general, the new terms are stricter about the kind of data Facebook can share with third parties, and the degree of access advertisers have to Facebook users. Facebook has raised the ire of users in the past with programs like Facebook Beacon (which published your activity on third-party sites to your Facebook account). Beacon has been discontinued under the new privacy policy.
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[via AppScout]
Filed under: Audio, Symbian, Mobile
Spotify music service comes to Nokia phones, North American users still screwed
This is a huge move for Spotify, which already has iPhone and Android apps. Nokia phones are extremely popular in the lucky parts of the world where Spotify is available, and supporting such a wide range of devices allows Spotify to look down its nose at passé walled gardens like iTunes. When Spotify comes to North America - sometime next year, but not soon enough! - it'll face competition on the iPhone, but I don't see a clear rival on Android or Symbian devices.
Do you? What will be your mobile music app of choice for 2010?
Filed under: Web services, Google, VoIP
Google will shut down GrandCentral on December 31
When GrandCentral evolved into Google Voice, it was only a matter of time before the old GrandCentral website went to the big page archive in the sky. Google's killing off the old, redundant site on December 31st, 2009. Why the heck is this news? After all, GrandCentral users can all upgrade to Google Voice. Well, it turns out that GrandCentral's website has something that Google Voice doesn't: your old data.In an email to GrandCentral users, Google suggested you download anything you want to save, because it's all gone at the end of the year:
GrandCentral was excellent while it lasted, but now it's time to move on and make way for Google Voice. Just make sure you do it before you run out of time!All GrandCentral accounts were upgraded to Google Voice earlier this year, but since that time, you've still been able to log-in to your GrandCentral account and listen to old messages there. You will no longer be able to log-in to your GrandCentral account after December 31. Because of this, we strongly suggest downloading any messages or contacts that you want to keep in the next 43 days.
iGoogle keeps on growing with some yummy new food themes
iGoogle, Google's customizable homepage, has some pretty sweet-looking themes. In fact, I rounded up the 10 best on Download Squad not too long ago. Google keeps adding themes faster than I can change my homepage, though. The latest fresh batch of themes is food-related, and a bunch of food-themed homepage gadgets have come out at the same time.
While this news probably isn't going to rock ...Facebook is trying out a new photo upload tool, and it doesn't suck!
Facebook is the most popular photo sharing site in the world, but its photo upload tool has always been clunky and frustrating to use. No longer, thanks to a prototype New Photo Uploader that will hopefully displace the current upload tool very, very soon. Instead of the slow, tough-to-navigate system that loads up thumbnails of every. photo. in. your. pictures. folder. by default (ugh!), this ...Android, Palm, and iPhone users get new Google News page
by Jay Hathaway
Nov 20th 2009 {3 comments}
Google has launched a new mobile version of Google News, designed specifically for current-gen smartphones: the iPhone, Palm's WebOS phones (the Pre and Pixi, so far) and Android phones. Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Symbian already had their own Google News page, so its only fair for the new kids on the mobile block to get in on the action, too. Google's pretty vague about the changes in the ...Ommwriter: a Mac writing app that helps you concentrate
by Jay Hathaway Nov 20th 2009 {6 comments}
Ommwriter is a Mac word processor with a bit of a gimmick. Like one of my favorite writing apps for the Mac, WriteRoom, Ommwriter goes full-screen, with a minimal interface and a focus on avoiding distractions. Ommwriter is even more extreme, though, adding a calming background and soothing music to the mix, and restricting your control over text formatting to a bare minimum to reduce fiddling. ...Acrobat.com gets revamped and gets a mobile app
Adobe's Acrobat.com service is getting a big update tonight, followed closely by a new mobile app for iPhone and BlackBerry. The name "Acrobat" goes hand-in-hand with the PDF file format, and Acrobat.com allows you to convert documents to PDF and save, store and view PDF files. It also features some other applications, including the Adobe BuzzWord word processor, a web meeting service called ...
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
