Say Hello to The Straits of Tech blog

I went out on a limb and decided to start a tech/business/Detroit centered blog named The Straits of Tech. I will still maintain this blog when there's content to share with you, but I thought I would put my efforts into something that is a little more focused.

Also, if you haven't already visited my music blog, please check out Feed Me My Music (FM3). It's a place where I like to share my love for music with you.

Enjoy!

Cropper makes my life easier

Cropper? What can Cropper do for me? Well, I don't know exactly what it can do for you, but I know what it has done for me. This easy to use tool allows you to take a snapshot of anything on your screen in any size by simply double-clicking. It's great for blogging, documentation, and technical support. A co-worker introduced it to me at work and I use it everyday. I can size the snapshot, then double-click and paste to an email or Word or PowerPoint. Such a great tool.

I just used it for the first time at home in my last blog post and I thought I would share it with you.

Cropper was created by Brian Scott. You can read his blog post about Cropper, including all features and fixes. You can download Cropper here. Enjoy!

Samsung Instinct fails to work with YouTube

If you've been following my Twitter feed at all, you've noticed I've been trying to start using my Samsung Instinct for more than just it's phone calling capabilities. Today, I thought I would upload my first video to YouTube. I think it would be cool to share with family, friends, and the public the things I get to witness in my life.

The process seemed to be fairly simple. I registered my phone with YouTube, then shot a quick 25 second video of my sleeping dog. I then uploaded it to YouTube, received a confirmation that it was uploaded and then proceeded to YouTube to view my work.

What I found was a cute video of the dog, but no audio. After searching to see if I did something wrong or if there was a problem with YouTube or the phone, I came across a forum thread that describes in detail what the problem was. Apparently, Samsung and/or Sprint failed to make sure the audio codec they were using would work with YouTube.

The irony in it all? Back when the phone was released, Sprint kicked off a marketing campaign where they would pay you $20 to upload videos of the Instinct to YouTube. Apparently they never consulted with Samsung on whether that was a good idea(you know, since they never tested to see if the phone can upload videos properly to YouTube). It kind of makes me feel like the marketing team at Sprint probably never used the phone themselves.

Too bad for me, I guess. I'll either have to wait for a fix or start looking for another option. Here's the video if you care to watch, without the audio of course.

What do I really look forward to reading online...

If you've taken any notice to the Google reader shared articles feed, I probably read a blog called TechDirt the most. It keeps me up to speed on a lot of different things that are going on with media, patents, business models, and how it affects consumers, businesses and the world as a whole. Their articles encompass a lot of different subjects. They also post around 10 times a day, so there's always something new. I took a little break from content for about a month, so I'm trying to catch up to today's posts. Only 80 more to go. If you really want to keep up to date on what's going on in the technology world, with some great commentary and discussion, I suggest you check them out.

Hey, you can't do that...

So, here's an interesting story. Viacom is claiming copyright infringement from a user on YouTube for posting a show from VH1. You ask yourself, "So? What's new?" Well, what's new was, the user had posted something original to YouTube, and VH1 took the clip from YouTube and put it on their VH1 show. All he was doing in return was posting the show on YouTube to show his original work. I know, that's a lot to take in.

Let's put it in perspective. I video myself and put it on YouTube. VH1 finds my video, then puts it on their show and calls it "Fair Use". I in turn, put the show that shows my YouTube video, back on YouTube, and they tell me I can't do it.

It looks like there is a legal battle over it all. Go check out the story for some more info. All in all, you say potato, I say patato. You know?

It's true, isn't it?

A story on cnet news blog posted the following headline:

"Say what? 'Nobody reads newspapers anymore' allegedly gets columnist fired"

Apparently this columnist didn't run this one by his editor's before it went to print. Although, it's probably not the greatest thing in the world to talk about down swing of the industry you're working for, but isn't he correct in his statement? We're pretty much getting the news delivered on Sunday's, and that' not so I can sit down and read it, it's because we like to get the ads and coupons that come with it. I get most of my news from the internet. It's turned into a ticker world.

Wired Magazine had an article in their most recent issue that highlights what newspaper and media companies are doing to make it on the internet. It's quite interesting how difficult at first it was to get their employees to buy into it.

Google is at it again...

I came across a blog today on CNET.com that attempted to predict the future of Google and how they could be poised to destroy the cell phone industry. Although it's mostly a tongue-in-cheek prophecy, Don Reisinger states in this blog that:

" ...people will be tossing their iPhones, Razrs and every other cell phone into the nearest river."

It is a pretty interesting take on the news that has come out recently regarding Google's plan to buy the 700 mhz pipeline. I can't imagine what it'd be like to have free broadband anywhere you want. The future seems so bright, especially for techie's.

Hey, here's something cool...

OK, so I found something that might make people come back to my blog. Maybe... I just added a widget to the right hand side of my blog that will update people about articles and blogs that I read. I probably will update it at least once a day. I use Google Reader to read blog posts and News and now I have a feed right to my blog page to show others what I think is interesting. Let me know what you think. That is, if anyone cares.

Bye for now...