Skype Group IM's

Well thats just plain dumb, the founder of a skype group IM should be able to delete people from a group im they started.

Can I remove members from a Shared Group?

No you cannot delete other members from a shared group. You can only remove yourself from the group

Fail=Skype
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Hey Nascar Fans, need your help.

Hey Nascar fans we need your advice about our new website http://www.livenascarchat.com/


As you may or may not know already, our company http://www.livechatconcepts.com/ run a series of websites that provide “Live Chat” venues centered round “Live Events”. Sites we’ve run in the past include http://www.livebaseballchat.com/ and http://www.livefootballchat.com/

This site http://www.livenascarchat.com/ wont be a forum, it wont be a news site – it doesn’t replace any of the current Nascar sites you go to.

We just provide a central place for people to chat live “in the race”, basically a live chat room starts 30 minutes before the race and finished 30 minutes after the race.

Basically you will still need to use your current sites to connect with each other outside of these times but live during the race this is a central destination website to talk about what you are watching live.

We also have some neat functions where you can tweet twitter messages to your personal twitter account & post messages to your personal facebook wall from directly within the application itself.

However this year is our first time setting up a Nascar live chat session and we need some advice.


Do you think we should run live chat sessions for;
1/ Just the Sprint Cup races
2/ Sprint Cup + Nationwide races
3/ Sprint Cup + Nationwide + Truck races
4/ All of the above + the practise sessions as well?

We’re trying to find out how many of you watch all of them, and how many of you want us to provide these free chat rooms for all or would you prefer just some of the events.

Post your messages below to let us know.

Thanks in advance – btw you can register now for a beta invite which will automatically send you an email as soon as we turn the site on for the first race.

Feel free to tweet out the url http://www.livenascarchat.com/ and get your friends to join up so you can all be registered before the first race.


Cheers,
Dean Collins
http://www.livechatconcepts.com/

Dumbo is hip

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/news/dear_advertising_were_moving_this_btch_to_brooklyn_love_digital_150378.asp?

It's a bit of a task to find food down there but with the new park going in around the promenade brooklyn heights rocks and is undervalued. 

http://blog.collins.net.pr/2009/10/brooklyn-promenade-park.html 


Cheers,
Dean

Bowery Ballroom sucks

I was online at 12pm exactly to buy tickets for "She & Him" for their March concert.

At 12.00.01 I hit enter and basically came back saying no tickets available. So i thought hmm maybe a problem with the browser so refresh did a new search and again no tickets available.

Kind of weird but ok i'll try for the second night (tuesday), also sold out.

I thought there was something broken with ticketmaster until i read on twitter all tickets sold out already (eg my 3 attempts were in in less than 60 seconds.

Now for the really shitty part -


http://www.stubhub.com/she-and-him-tickets/she-and-him-new-york-bowery-ballroom---ny-3-30-2010-931707/?isGen2Event=1

basically there are over 100 tickets already for resale on Stubhub at 4 times the entry price within 3 minutes of the tickets going on sale.

This is fraud.

Basically Bowery Ballroom are selling tickets to all their scalper friends and buddies in advance so that they can then go and sell them making $100 a ticket scalping them.

This is crap.

Basically the scalper is making more from the gig than the performer - how sucky is that? I wonder if Zooey knows that she is helping Bowery Ballroom friends to make more money than she is that night, so much for the fans :(


Cheers,
Dean

My.Live.com shutting down - i need a new RSS reader

logged on this morning to find that http://my.live.com/ is being shut down

As such i need to find a neww RSS reader. Do you have any advice or suggestions you'd liek to make?

- Needs to be online - not an app as i access from multiple locations (or needs to sync read files from multiple locations).
- Needs to be graphicaly grouped, not just a stream of rss lines
- Would be nice if also had a mobile component so i can access from my Droid as well.


Cheers,
Dean

IPL signs major deal with YouTube

Breaking News: IPL signs a major deal with YouTube

YouTube is to show this year’s Indian Premier League live, according to a report in today’s Guardian.

The deal will involve every country except the US.
The two-year deal gives the Google-owned YouTube the exclusive rights to stream IPL matches online, with the two companies splitting revenue from sponsorship and advertising.
These matches will be streamed live for free with Indian cricket fans globally now being able to access every match online.



My official response is;

This is fantastic news not only for IPL and it's worldwide fan base but also for YouTube as a proof of concept for wider coverage of live events.


I've fired up the beta invite registration for http://www.livecricketchat.com/ this morning and we'll be running live chat sessions along side all of the IPL games.

If you aren't already familiar with http://www.livechatconcepts.com/ we run highly scalable live chat sessions in conjunction with live events and are deeply integrated into Twitter and Facebook social networks (check out http://www.livefootballchat.com/ as an example).

This will be a fantastic venue for Indians globally to unite under the banner of sport.

Look forward to seeing all the IPL fans on http://www.livecricketchat.com/  with the first match.


Cheers,
Dean Collins
http://www.livechatconcepts.com/

Mobile music sync for Android

I've blogged before about MediaMonkey and it's a great windows mp3 desktop player appliccation; however i've only really recently gotten the full benefit out of how good it was for syncing music to your mobile with my purchase of the Motorola Droid.

My old htc didn't have the ability to allow direct storage access to the memory card so i had to pull out the sd card and insert into a reader, with the motorola droid all i need to do is connect the usb then on the device itself mount the memory card (it's a one touch process).

After that all i need to do on Media Monkey is click "tools" then click "sync device" and thats it, takes about 30 seconds per gb of music.

As you can see from the screenshot you have a ton of functionality for syncing both mobile specific and non mobile specific playlists.

My personal playlists that i choose to sync to my handset are:
- "1 hour of my 5 star favorites" that were played last (eg i have about 100 cd's that are rated as 5 star favorites and it tracks when i last listened to them, it then selects the oldest listened to cd and syncs it automatically, if i listen to it on my mobile before i sync next it then swaps it out, if i haven't listened to it then it stays.
-"Last 50 played" this one is basically it tracks the last 50 songs i listened to on my pc and syncs these across, eg. Lets say i was in a White Stripes mood today then it will sync this across as i might want to listen to it again when i walk the dog tonight.
-"Mobile Sync" lastly this is the MobileSync playlist, basically any song or cd or artist i right click my mouse on and click add to mobile sync it then syncs these across.

Pretty simple and works great.

At the moment i use Meridian to play the tracks on my Droid, it's ok but could be better. Though software development on Android is such a moving target by the time you read this I'll probably be using something else.


Cheers,
Dean

So are you going to be watching the superbowl?

Giddyup - see you online at http://www.livefootballchat.com/ on Sunday the 7th of Feb.

The Third and The Seventh

I am mute, i am speechless - there are no words to describe this masterpiece of work.

"The Third and The Seventh" is a piece of work that has the ability to restore your faith in humanity and that there is deeper meaning to the soul.

I cant do it justice, please read the article below AFTER you watch it but understand in advance that every pixel and every image (even the audio soundtrack) that you are going to see over the next 12 minutes is entirely computer generated, and was created by one single person who took a year off work to create this masterpiece.

Please watch this entire video in fullscreen (the little white arrows button in the bottom right) but apart from that set your imagination free and just experience.


The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

More details on the how and why in this article http://www.the-area.com/inhouse/bts/publications_by_alex_roman though feel free to skip it and just go and watch the video again.

I have no idea what else Alex/Jorge or whatever he wants to call himself is working on but this is a true piece of art worthy of display alongside da vinci, van gough or salvador dali.

Have a great weekend everyone.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. I came across this at http://www.epicfu.com/ so massive hat tip to them for this.

Hillary Clinton demands a free internet

So Hillary Clinton spent an hour demanding a free and open internet for all citizens of the world, obviously aimed at the Chinese/Google debacle. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1705667530?bctid=62730021001

But i wonder if this is going to change how the USA enforces its own policies on not only its citizens but also other countries who do not follow the laws 'as the USA see it'.

Does Hillary Clinton also propose that the USA should stop blocking Antigua online gambling and accept the WTO ruling of 2007.
http://blog.collins.net.pr/2007/04/wto-rules-usa-gambling-ban-illegal.html
http://blog.collins.net.pr/2008/02/online-gambling-deals-between-us-and.html

Will the USA finally accept other countries can make their own sovereign laws and the USA doesnt "own the internet".

I doubt it - i guess it's only another example of the usa telling those third world asians to follow the usa "way of white life" or else.


Cheers,
Dean

Boxee decides paying for content is a good thing

lol almost choked on my coffee this morning when i read this article

http://www.centernetworks.com/boxee-payments-platform


My comments below;

lol, not going to happen.

Basically content providers are going to shun Boxee and no-one is going to license content via them.
If they wanted to play footsies with content providers they shouldn't have crapped all over Hulu for the last year and ignoring their requests.
They should have followed the Neulion model if this was their long term 'money making' goal.
Alternatively they need to invest in CDN's if they want to go the brighthouse/akimbo model (Not sure Union Squares pockets are going to be that deep).



Cheers,
Dean

$165 reward to find chinese porn

http://www.pcworld.com/article/187219/web_surfers_paid_to_search_for_pornography_in_china.html


Sounds like a job for a "flesh auto-detection script" and an "Amazon Turk script" to confirm results once the auto-detection is found.

If you dont know what amazon turk is, it's a set of tools where you can pay people as little as 1c to do various menial online task, eg, display 4 photos on the monitor and ask them to tick which ones are porn - the cool thing about amazon turk is the whole process of payment, testing and cross testing users answers is built into the amazon turk platform.

Basically there has to be an arbitrage possibility here between costs out and $165 per find.

What do you think?


Cheers,
Dean

FourSquare 1 Year

Wow amazing how "prevalent" the whole "Check In" concept has become in only one year. I wonder what people will be "Chatting" about in one year from now :)


Cheers,
Dean

NY Times charging

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/01/new_york_times_set_to_mimic_ws.html#comments


So what do you think? Will it go the way of Times Select into oblivion never to be heard of again or will it prove it's worth with a smaller readership the way the WSJ does?

Or have people moved on and it's no longer relevant and "Giant Toad" has summed it up correctly?


The NYT is already charging what their content is worth. . . nothing!

By giantoad on 01/17/2010 at 5:23pm


Cheers,
Dean

Virtual Gifts

hmmm interesting.... they charge for clothing your avatar - http://www.forbes.com/global/2010/0118/japan-rich-list-10-green-google-networking-early-riser.html

Real money through a virtual maslow's hierarchy of needs.



Cheers,
Dean

Ban/Unban users in a cruel nefarious way.

Wicked cackle of a laugh as my developer shows me how we setup the ban/unban function for all of the Live Chat Concepts sites - basically we can ban a user with a single command line - the cool part is the user doesn't know they are banned....they can type as much as they want - they are the only one who can see it, to everyone else they are a ghost and nothing they do shows up.


This is a much better way than blocking the user from loggin in who can just turn around and open up a new user account - they could be typing for days before they work out something is wrong.

BJ - you're a legend.

Masculine and feminine in French

Masculine and feminine in French is driving me nuts – grrrr :(

Having said that Rosetta Stone is a great application to use – it’s actually going far better than I ever thought it would – check it out here on Amazon.com ( Rosetta Stone French Level 1, 2 & 3) if you have ever thought of learning another language.


Cheers,
Dean

Social Distortion - can you believe it they are still touring!!?

I was listening to some Social Distortion on my computer this morning while i worked and it came back how much i really enjoyed their music.

I went online to check how many cd's of theirs i didn't own and noticed on their website it had a section for "tour dates" !!! WTF? I thought these guys were all old and dead. I had no idea they still toured.

Can you imagine how cool it would be to see them in Buenos Aires - apart from the fact that i'm going to France for a month in May i would seriously consider flying there just to see them.

I found this clip on You Tube from June 2009 in Sweden and it looks like they rock and are still as tight as ever.




And in case you've never had the lucky benefit of someone exposing you at an early age to the beat fueled rush of 110 bpm punk i uploaded a few of their tracks to the song music of the day box on the bottom right.

There is a reason that their albums get 95% 5 star votes on Amazon - Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, White Light, White Heat, White Trash, Live at the Roxy

I also uploaded one of my favorite tracks below - no matter how young you are, you can lose someone close to you in an instant and regret things not said forever.





Cheers,
Dean

Peter Fucking Pan

Something hit me tonight, i was in the subway listening to my grunge music on the overpriced klipsch headphones of my cutting edge android phone, wearing my brand new nikes-slightly aged levis with black pure wool jacket and scarf all rugged up against the cold - looking very much the urban middle aged male.

I was thinking to myself - i love this age in my life, I'm young enough to enjoy it, make enough money for any toys i want, old enough to be totally comfortable with myself - basically feeling very swish as i walked through to cold night in New York on my way to a "Web 2.0 Startup" meeting.

I love being Peter fucking Pan. Basically that ageless man-boy who gets to do anything he wants, whenever, and however.

It's one of the reasons i decided a long time ago not to have children. Basically there are lots of people on the earth already/with the singularity fast approaching we dont need more people - but realistically i like getting up on Sundays at 10am, making scrambled eggs for breakfast and just hanging out with no need to run anyone to soccer practise or ballet.

Then it hit me as i was in the subway, there were 6 other guys in the subway that, with slight variation, all looked exactly the same, all over educate-over paid-(over sexed?), middle aged, slightly trendy, man-boys with no real struggle in our lives, none of us have to get up at dawn to draw water from the well, or crush grain to make bread, or worry will my crops fail in the spring.

The biggest issue most of us have in our lives at the moment is do i buy the 120hz or 240hz LCD big screen tv's.

I'm not sure what it means, should i have had kids, should i do more with my life, is building yet another website a big waste of time and i should do more volunteer work in a local shelter or should i throw it all in, volunteeer for the Geekcorps and go to Africa for the ultimate sacrifice?


Cheers,
Dean

Tweet CPM's

Interesting article in Business Week; http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_03/b4163031536324.htm


My comment below;
"Top media sites often get $10 or $20 per thousand page views; even remnant inventory, leftover Web pages that get sold through ad networks, goes for 50¢ to $1 per thousand".

Lol - when you get back to reality let me know.
The current rates are closer to $5 and $0.25 pcm (unless you are counting pages that load up 10 ads to a page).
I think 3c per 1000 tweets is a little overpriced by about a factor of 10.
Randomly read some tweets and scan the 30 or so that appear per browser page, information that can be gleaned from that page is probably worth about that.
 
So what do you think? how much would the information you can glean from tweets be worth to you?

If you could slice and dice data to track interactions/mentions/user sentiment the way you wanted it - what commercial information could you gain?


Cheers,
Dean

Australian newsreaders

Lol i just saw Stan Grant hosting a new 30 minute news show called 'Prism' for cnn international.

It's crazy how many Australian news readers are on here in the USA - Rosemary Church is also on cnn international and about 3-4 aussie reporters globally on the CNN American channel.

They seem to be trialing an aussie host on CNBC in a regular gig weekday mornings (dont know her name).

Is there a certain clarity or neutrality to the Australian accent that is the reason they are being hired?


Cheers,
Dean

Nexus QR code

So the Google Nexus has a QR code on the back ....and what does it lead to....?  http://2d-code.co.uk/google-phone-qr-code

A stupid Google game - lol what a waste you think it could link to something interesting. I was hoping that they finally built webservers into the android platform and the qr code lead to an on handset webserver for that particular handset (eg all the qr codes were customised to a unique identifier which lead to a no-ip.com style dynamic dns platform which lead to the handset).

.....if you know anyone at google in the android division please feel free to pass my idea along and send them my address for a demo unit.

Lets face it - it's almost been 5 years since the Savage gsm handset was deployed with on handset webserver capability.

(but hey google if a memory game is the best you could come up with feel free to hire me to help you out next time).


Cheers,
Dean

Build companies for profit

I like the comments around the 30 minute mark about building a company for profit.


http://mixergy.com/jason-cohen-smart-bear/
In this interview, you'll hear why he wanted to sell his business, and how he prepared for a sale as he built up his business. You'll learn how he founded it from scratch, with no venture funding and no debt. And you'll get his advice for how you can build your business.

The Road

Went to see "The Road" last night at the Sunshine Cinema on Houston;
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

It was amazingly shot with great cinematography, you didn't feel that there was any post processing in the visuals to make the scenes so grey (but there had to have been). Some of the canabilism scenes were a little gruesome and it was really interesting hearing people talking about the differences in the book.

I'm not sure everyone will like it, but if you are a fan of movies with long 60 second pans and closeup window to the soul of the actors kind of moviews you'll love it. Currently has an 8.1 on IMDB.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. my experience was slightly ruined by the woman who sat next to me, obviously bored with the movie but her date was enjoying it so she proceeded to eat an entire supersized bag of popcorn (crunch crunch crunch, rustle rustle) lol including tipping the bag up over her head to sweep out the last crumbs from the bottom - then sat there for 5 minutes fidgeting before getting up to go and buy another supersize bag of popcorn again lifting the bag for the last vestiges of cancer causing butter flavor enhancement. She was this super skinny waif chick and it would have been funny if it wasn't such a serious movie.

I gave her date the look of death as we were leaving and the response from his eyes was "yeh i know"......lol.

Android Business Card Recognition camera software

I just came across this Android business card recognition software software company called Intsig recently and was sent a trial beta version about two months ago. They have just launched the full version for $14.99


Try the trial download first as they email you a %15 discount.


Hi Dean,


We've published BCR for Droid on http://www.mobihand.com/ProductPreview.asp?hide=true&id=42568&gnContentType=1

Thanks
Samuel


The business card recognition is great and exactly what i was looking for, there seems to be a small problem with it inserting 0 in front of the telephone numbers on the version i tried but that hopefully will be fixed with an update.

Their UI for editing is perfect in that it shows you the portion of text when you go to edit the field.

Great price for a one off service unlike the monthly off handset processing charges some of these apps are looking to charge you for.

Not sure about how we are supposed to download updates seeing it's not being offered through the android app store.
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Re-Targeting ads

It's amazing to see the takeoff of banner ad "re-targeting", currently at Live Chat Concepts we dont use re-targeting but in my own personal browsing etc i see it's use everywhere.

In case you haven't noticed "banner re-targeting" is where you might browse Amazon or Best Buy for a particular item, then at a later date when you are browsing the NY Times you might see a Best Buy banner advertising that exact same item you were just browsing for 3 days ago.

It's no fluke that this particular ad was displayed to you. Through the use of cookies and other methods you were personally selected to see that ad.

For example i'm about to replace my computers keyboard. For a particular reason I'm after a keyboard from Logitech called the G11 that hasn't been made by them for the last 2 years. It took a while to find a retailer who had a new one in stock (hong kong) so i had to visit a lot of companies with Logitech keyboards (current model is G15 and G19) so about 1/20 banner ads i see at the moment is an ad for Logitech keyboards due to re-targeting.

Whats really interesting is that they aren't necessarily ads from the same websites i visited - makes me wonder what else they are sharing between each other.


Cheers,
Dean