Monthly Archives: September 2009

Google Wave

Google Wave is an online (and open source) tool for real-time communication and collaboration.

A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

On an interview with the BBC technology site the developer behind Wave described it as “a communication and collaboration tool”.

“It struck us that e-mail is still the main communication tool on the web, which seemed remarkable given that it is 20-year-old technology,” said Lars Rasmussen, who, alongside his brother Jens, was the brains behind Google Maps. (extracted from BBC Technology)

An interesting (but possibly annoying) feature is the live transmission as you type. With this live typing participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

To test Wave you will will need to request an invitation, if accepted you can then invite 5 more people to join in the experience.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

Google Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

Great tips on the use of Redirect 301 and rel=canonical among some other good stuff.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Open .eps files on GIMP for Windows

As usual this post is a self help note, but as it’s public I hope it helps someone else. If you want to open .eps or .ps files with GIMP on Windows you will need to install Ghostscript (download it from http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/). After successful installation you will need to create an environment variable called GS_PROG on Windows. To do this just follow these steps:

  1. Right-click on the ‘My Computer‘ Icon and select properties
  2. Click on the advanced tab
  3. Click on Environment Variable button
  4. Under either User variables or System variables click on “New
  5. Set Variable name : GS_PROG
  6. Set Variable path: C:\Progam Files\gs\gs864w32\bin\gswin32.exe   – this is where yous gswin32.exe resides, make sure you type the correct path.

Click “OK” for everything and then open GIMP, you should now be able to open .eps and .ps files

Extra information: .EPS/PostScript (.PS) is a  file that may contain 2D vector graphics, bitmap images, and text; includes an embedded preview image in bitmap format; often used for transferring image data between different operating systems. Adobe Illustrator, Acrobat, Photoshop or CorelDraw are the kind of programs that normally use/open these files.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

YouTube UK pays up to show Music Videos

After reaching a deal with PRS for Music and agreeing to paying up an undisclosed lump sum of money, YouTube UK is now able to resume playing Music videos for its users. Neither sides have revealed the amount of money paid by the Google owned company but it’s large enough to backdate payments until January 2009 and last until 2012.

Both companies were quoted on the BBC technology website saying:

A spokesman for PRS for Music, formerly known as the Performing Rights Society, said: “It is a lump sum deal which seems to work for YouTube’s business model and offers recompense for our 60,000 members. We can be friends again.”

A spokesman for YouTube said the “tens of thousands” of videos which had disappeared “will come back over the next few days”. 

Technorati Tags: , , , ,