texting

Looking at previous iterations of Camfrog, the popular and free video chatting software, it was hard to deny that it offered a wide range of options and experiences for video chat aficionados. It was also hard to deny that the user interface was a disastrous mess of modular windows that made maneuvering through the program a frustrating and sometimes confusing journey. The new version of Camfrog has fixed that.

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"If you want something done right, do it yourself."

"Why reinvent the wheel?"

That sums up a conversation I had with a coworker after I told him about the macro I created in Microsoft Word that converts my Ctrl-V keyboard shortcut into one that pastes text from a Web site, some other app, or elsewhere, minus the formatting, images, and any other nontext stuff. The fact is, I rarely want to paste anything but the text, and I want it in the format of the file it's being added to, not the format of the … Read more

A friend of mine related something very interesting to me the other day. We were discussing the relative value of social networking (Facebook, specifically) over email or "more traditional" ways to connect, given Slashdot's post that "email is for old people."

That struck me as wrong since the 12-18-year olds that I know (and I actually know quite a few since I'm involved in several neighborhood youth groups) may not spend most of their communication in email, but they certainly don't spend it in Facebook or MySpace, either. They take a blended approach, just as I do, and communicate with friends according to how close they are:… Read more

Here's a neat service for blog owners who want to add another layer of distribution for their content. It's called Odiogo, and it will take any written blog entries and turn them into spoken word. It uses an integrated player that sticks itself on top of every blog post, and lets readers listen to any post in lieu of reading.

I came across the service while reading a post on UNEASYsilence about hacking the new eeePCs to run a hacked version OS X Leopard (which apparently runs about as well as it can on the aged processor), and … Read more

New social networks are born each day, and at the Under the Radar conference (see all posts) a new batch is on display. Most are in early funding stages, and one is so new it's still in closed beta. The other three are ready for a try-out.

I'll give Frengo this--it's certainly different than most mobile chatting services. Case in point: Neither of Frengo's main competitors, Twitter and Jaiku, asks users to vote, compete in contests, or earn points. In that sense, a bit of the social-discovery element of social networks creeps in. Except, of course, the goal isn't necessarily to become friends with other users. Frengo is more interested in social collision--sort of a tamer, more innocent Hot or Not. Example? The Flirtable Facebook application launched last Thursday.… Read more

Take heart, hapless Boomers. As unbelievable as it may seem, there's actually some technology beneficial to your aging generation other than keyboards with letters big enough for eye examination charts.

U.K.-based Cre8txt has developed a keypad that supposedly translates the IM slang of your literacy-challenged prodigy into the King's English, according to Shiny Shiny. When communication inevitably breaks down, just have Junior plug the device into his USB port and peck away, a la SMS. What comes out on the other end will, at least in theory, be a language that parents can comprehend.

The downside: … Read more

After what felt like a long hibernation period, Google has recently made at least a partial PageRank update of the visible or public PageRank, often referred to as Toolbar PageRank. And boy was it noticed--not so much with the update but with the PageRank drops targeted at sites that were buying and/or selling text links.

A lot has been said already by many who have a much deeper understanding and forecast this event. What I find particularly interesting is how PageRank has become a form of currency, yet who can say what precisely that value is? Of course, I … Read more

Open-source wiki company SocialText just pulled down a Series C round of funding ($9.5 million from Draper Fisher Jurveston, Omidyar Network, SAP Ventures, Intel Capital, plus a few angel investors). It also got a new CEO, Eugene Lee.

Congratulations to Ross Mayfield and the SocialText team. My one question in this is why no new investors joined in the round. If I remember right, the investors above are the same who invested in the last round. This either means that the Series C round was so hot that the existing investors didn't want to share it, or that … Read more

As already noted, I'm a big proponent of the SMS text message. So much so that I was willing to pay $.50 a text sent from Australia! But on a more serious note, there was a 5.6 earthquake here in the Bay Area on Tuesday night. I was at dinner and I thought my dinner date was shaking the table or that there was a washing machine somewhere that went awry. But no, it was a bona fide earthquake. While there was no damage and it was minor, we both got text messages from our friends as soon … Read more