Born On The Web

Darn :-p (via compare people facebook app)

*Update: it even got more difficult

• http://musicsamplr.com/
  Find new music and albums by similar style…
  (tags: last.fm media search sharing popular amazon music)
• kyte: Channel View – Scobleizer: sponsored by Seagate
  Scoble has an interesting theory about social search… and how its going to overtake google.
  (tags: search google facebook social)

• YouTube – Battle at Kruger
  Pretty impressive animal battle at kruger. I don’t think this is all normal animal behaviour, it probably has to do that at Kruger a lot of animals are on the same location. Like for example a drinking pool.
  (tags: animals kruger south-africa battle lion crocodile buffalo)
• Last.fm Normaliser
  How many minutes have you listened to your top artists on last.fm?
  (tags: last.fm mashup music radio tool internet lastfm stats tools)
• FOX Attacks Iran
  The responsibility of the media is huge … it saddens me that Fox has a kind of TVshow format making americans ready for a war. Shocking !
  (tags: iran iraq video fox propaganda news media war)

Thanks to the native interoperability between google maps and flickr. I can now embed maps with recent geotagged flickr photos on it. Sweet huh! Making mashups has become easy…

Photos from Leuven:

View Larger Map

Photos from Brussels:

View Larger Map

Photos from Gent:

View Larger Map

Or even my personal geotagged photo map:

View Larger Map

• Post Secret Shares a Video
  beautiful movie about the post secret project.
  (tags: postsecret postcard secrets blog)

2 months ago I bought a Lacie Ethernet Big Disk, I needed some extra storage for  backups, to store movies, music, … The biggest problem is that I’m constantly using a laptop in the couch, in the kitchen, in the train station, at work, … It’s not really handy if you need to carry an external HD with you all the time, just to listen to your music.  

But this wasn’t the only problem. My roommate has a desktop computer and of course he also needed easy access to the external storage. It became clear to me that I needed some flexible network storage or NAS (Network Attached Storage). The more, the better. So after some surfing I’ve found that the LaCie of 1 TB would be my best match. It wasn’t the cheapest storage available but certainly the most flexible.

And now I can’t imagine a home without some decent network storage. These are the things I like most:

• This is definatelly the web interface. The LaCie has an easy to use web interface. You can access all your files trough your browser but also perform all kinds of administrative tasks.
  
• I configured my router so I can access my hard drive from the internet. I just type in the no-ip.com webadress and I can access all my files. Some greasemonkey scripting let’s you even listen to all your music from your harddisk. Pretty nice huh !
  
• The software of the hard drive contains a small version of linux which also holds a UPnP media server. My Xbox 360 flawlesly detected the harddrive as a computer. The embedded media server can stream all your photos, music, videos (off course only WMV’s) to your television screen.
  
• Gigabit network access… well this means it should be as fast as a regular USB 2.0 external HD. Currently I haven’t got a gigabit network in place, so I haven’t tested this yet. But for now 100 Mbit is a pretty decent speed.
  
• A lot of my friends can access the hard drive. Via the FTP access they can easily sent photos to us without the need for us to be online. The hard drive has a comprehensive user rights system, everything customizable through the admin interface.
  
• The LaCie has an USB interface. So it’s possible to extend your HD with an extra USB external disk. My old external HD is now connected to it. This means I can also access that one from my browser. Which gives me around 1.25 TB of networked storage !!
  
• Off course it supports regular samba shares. So you can easily add it as a extra disk in the My Computer window.

It would be a nice extra if you could alter the web templates that display the files. If the directory contains a lot of MP3’s for example it would be nice to automatically integrate the songs in a flash player. Now you need greasemonkey if you want to stream mp3’s, which is pretty limited.

My second feature request is pretty obvious for people who want full flexibility: SSH access. I’m not sure this lays within the capabilities of this device, but it would be great if you could run small programs on your mini-server. Or have the capability to extend the functionalities of your administration panel, so a kind of plugin interface for the device would be ideal.

Conclusion

For me this was the solution I was looking for. Mainly because you can have access to all your data from anywhere and you keep the speed and functionalities of your local area network.

On the right you see the LaCie and the expansion USB harddrive from Medion. It can stream via my ethernet hub(below) media to my Xbox 360 (top), and it is connected to the internet via a cable modem(below left).

I was browsing Flickr photos and came across an astonishing photostream. I was amazed by how many fantastic photos this guy had taken all over the world. I was not sure these pictures were all taken by just one person. So I messaged the user, this was what I got back:

Thanks Jesse. I did take all of the photos. I have been very fortunate to have been able to visit all of these amazing sights and events.

Check out his photostream, a beautiful mix of emotions and people.

Photos by Brad Hunters (watch it in full screen)

*mental note: should travel more, should learn how to make decent pictures.

• Social Networks Around The World: Survey Social Networks Worldwide: the Results
  (tags: socialsoftware reference social research survey socialnetwork networks)
• Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Master Your Information Manifesto: 21 Tips to Deal with Info Overload «
  I have the book “4 hour workweek” in my closet. Now I only need to find some time to read it :-) .
  (tags: lifehacks internet howto organization information management productivity)

• Eric Schmidt Defines Web 3.0
  (tags: mashups internet video trends ericschmidt google web3.0 web2.0 applications future)
• Frugalist » The Frugality Cheat Sheet: 147 Tiny Tips to Live Healthier, Happier, Greener and Better
  (tags: cheatsheet advice environment finance food lifehacks productivity tips money frugal health green)

• Living Light Bulbs: 17 Marketing Related Uses for Twitter (and counting)
  How brands and companies can use twitter on a useful way …
  (tags: business twitter socialnetworks marketing socialnetworking web2.0)
• Slap in the Facebook: It’s Time for Social Networks to Open Up
  Fascinating article on wired.com about what Facebook is doing wrong. Well I agree, make your personal data portable/exportable.
  (tags: article community opensource social facebook web2.0 socialnetworks socialnetworking)