Not many people remember this, and Microsoft probably isn’t very proud of it either, but when it was introduced, MSN wasn’t about the internet at all. Instead, Microsoft had hopes of creating a ‘walled garden’ network with similar content, but ultimately controlled by them. They may have had usability in mind (the web was just as chaotic then as it is today), but chances are it was plain arrogance. With Windows’ enormous market dominance they thought they could control this whole ‘online’ phenomenon.
More What if MSN’s original approach had succeeded?

I changed themes mid December, and according to googlebot’s stats, pages have been taking twice as long to load since then. This got me thinking. What was it I added that caused this? Surely I didn’t make the pages twice as heavy?
More What’s slowing down my blog?

I have to admit that I missed the original post about this device, but when I stumbled across the protoype announcement today I couldn’t help but get excited. If you’ve been following this blog you’ll remember my little quest for the perfect at-home-on-the-couch internet device. After considering, among others, the Nokia N800 I ended up getting an Eee-PC. But it looks like the Crunchpad is what I really wanted all along. And still do.
More Crunchpad: An e-book reader for the web

I’ve been meaning to convert some of the output of my TIME/SPACE experiment on YouTube for a while now. Unfortunately the current incarnation of that project is a Flash movie, and Flash doesn’t let you simply save the images you generate. At least not very conveniently.

I’d been looking into complicated stuff like mmsave, when it dawned on me that there are plenty of tools out there that let you simply record whatever’s on your screen. I ended up using Windows Media Encoder to grab these and VirtualDub to crop and convert them. Took just a few minutes.
More TIME/SPACE experiment on YouTube

I wrote a few days ago about how I’d bought my daughter a somewhat older model Eee-PC. In that post I mentioned that I didn’t like the AC adapter that came with this netbook. I’ve always thought very highly of the build quality of Asus products, but this thing is downright dangerous.

The adapter plug for euro sockets (the black thingy in the pictures) came in a separate envelope, so it might have been added by the store where I got the laptop. Can anyone tell me if their adapter for the 701 model looks the same?
More Does anyone else’s Eee-PC power adapter look like this?

There’s been a lot going on in what is becoming the WP-Cumulus ‘universe’. For one thing, the original WordPress plugin has been downloaded well over 60.000 times now. The increase in popularity has pretty much made my inbox explode. I try my very best to at least reply to everyone but it’s getting to the point where I won’t be able to. So please be patient if it takes a while and excuse me if your message slips through.
More Assorted WP-Cumulus news

With the recent success of this blog, I’ve been thinking about making a donation to some of my favorite WordPress plugins. Being a plugin developer myself, I know how even a small donation can be a real pat on the back.

Open Source software isn’t about money, but many developers spend countless hours perfecting their software and answering support emails. I’d like to thank some of them, and I thought I’d let you help me decide which ones. Please read on for my ‘nominations’, and post a comment to let me know which ones you think I should support.
More Which WordPress plugins should I donate to?

When the first Eee-PCs were introduced, it was love at first sight for me. I’d been looking for a small, portable device that would let me blog, send email and surf and this seemed to be it. The reason I never got the original 701 was because models with bigger screens were announces even before these 7″ versions actually hit the market. But when I saw the pink 701 on sale last week I couldn’t help getting one for my eldest daughter. It was dirt cheap and she loves it to death.
More Pink Eee-PC 701 + 5 year old girl = fun!

I stumbled across Skype Lite today. It took them long enough to launch a version of their calling app for the most obvious of target devices, the mobile phone. Sure there has been a Windows Mobile version for a while now, but I’m not a big fan of Microsoft’s mobile efforts. The new ‘true’ mobile version runs on Java enabled phones, so probably on yours as well.

Fring and Nimbuzz (I recommend the latter) have been offering free ‘skype calls’ (by which I mean voice calls over data networks) for a while now, so the real kicker is that Skype itself does not seem to allow that. At least not for free. And free calls is what Skype is all about, right?
More Skype lite won’t actually let you Skype?

One of the more interesting products revealed at the CES was Sony’s Vaio P. It’s $900 pricetag puts it well into midrange laptop territory, but I guess there’s room for a ‘premium’ netbook. I’ve grown very fond of mine, and wouldn’t mind paying a bit more for my next one. Especially if that machine offers a high resolution screen, is extremely light and has what looks like a decent keyboard.
More Vaio P, Sony’s take on the netbook