I’ve had a profile on Bebo, and MySpace for a while now, quickly abandoning MySpace due to it’s terrible performance. To this day I regularly-ish log in to Bebo and browse around a bit. Yesterday, I logged into my Facebook account to chat to one of my few friends actually on Facebook, because they couldn’t log into Windows Live Messenger. Anyway, during the conversation, I found my experience on Facebook so much more pleasurable than Bebo. The interface is cleaner, it loads quicker, it doesn’t have error messages every 3 clicks.

But then I noticed some other things that makes Facebook far superior. On Bebo the home page will display everything your top 100 friends do, no matter what. Facebook however, allows you to set whether you see more, or less, of particular friends. Separate tabs divide the profile into easier to digest sections, using AJAX to switch between them. The application platform (on which Bebo’s platform is based) is just so much more advanced, and doesn’t slow the entire network down (like Bebo).

And last, but not least is their latest service (which hasn’t fully launched yet) - Facebook Connect. This allows you to use your Facebook account to post comments on external blogs, make signing up to websites quicker and easier, in a similar vein to OpenID. However, what Facebook Connect does that OpenID doesn’t is post you’re actions (if you so choose) to your Facebook Wall. Allowing you to join into discussions friends are having without even talking to them. It’s all completely opt-in, so if it’s not for you, then just simply don’t use it.

Now, all I need to do is get all my friends onto Facebook…

Somebody at Vodafone is sure to get fired after this unimaginable slip up. Vodafone posted pictures of the BlackBerry Storm, with the iPhone menu and web browser overlaid on the screens.

The best bit: If you look closely you’ll notice that the iPhone screens are from a jailbroken device, showing a non-App Store 3rd party app, and a Cingular logo on the top of the screen.

As was rumoured, Nintendo has confirmed the existence of a new DS, called the DSi.

The DSi has a built in camera, however the resolution of the camera seems to be causing some confusion… Some sites are reporting 3MP and others .3MP. This may be due to there being two cameras, one front facing, the other on the outside of the lid. If I were to guess, the front facing is .3MP while the one on the lid is 3MP, however this is unconfirmed due to all official details being in Japanese.

Most interesting is the new SD card slot. This will allow you to listen to music on your DS and will be a storage medium for the new DSi Shop. Here you will be able to download DSiWare, similar to WiiWare. Hopefully some NES, SNES, MegaDrive and TurboGrafx Virtual Console will be thrown in there, and allow linking between Wii Shop and DSi Shop accounts so you’re not buying the same Virtual Console games twice. Of course it isn’t even confirmed if there will be Virtual Console, so this is all “what if” scenarios.

Other improvements are bigger screen (17% bigger), enhanced sound options, new look menu, and a built in web browser.

The DSi is due for release on 1st November in Japan and, us non-Japanese have to wait until Sping 2009. Hopefully the Japanese version will have an English option, coz I’m seriously considering importing.

SanDisk have somehow managed to convince top labels, including Universal, Sony BGM, Warner and EMI, to distribute new albums on their new slotMusic platform… Albums on 1GB microSD cards. You know, those tiny little memory cards which you accidentally swallow if your not careful? Yup, them!

Each album will cost $7-10. This is surprising considering a 1GB microSD card costs $8.50, and the albums will come a USB adapter.

slotMusic albums will be available in Walmart and Best Buy in USA soon.

With Sony’s new Sony Video Store launched, it has arisen as to just how strict the DRM on the videos are. Basically, if you delete a video off your hard drive to free up space, you should be able to redownload the video again no problem. However, Sony doesn’t see it that way. You have to call up Sony customer care in order to authorize a once off re-download.

What’s worse is, if you decide to swap out the hard drives, and back them up somewhere else, and then put them back on when you need them, you’re likely to encounter more problems. According to the terms & conditions of the download service, this may corrupt the data.

If you perform any of the following operations after backing up, copyright-protected video files in the backup data may not restore correctly.

So, I’ve had time now to mess about with Google Chrome, Google’s new web browser based on WebKit, and I have to say I’m quite impressed. Google have addressed most ends of what people really want from their browser, but have also missed out on a few important features.

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Google have unvieled that they are working on a new web browser based on WebKit. The first images appeared yesterday, when Google sent out cartoons (yes, cartoons) to promote the new browser.

The new browser, called Google Chrome, is built on WebKit, which came as a shock to many as Google have such a tight relationship with Mozilla, and have invested large amounts of money into their Firefox browser. Google have decided however, not to use an open source JavaScript engine, but instead built their own from the ground up, dubbed V8.

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After purchasing an Acer Aspire One running Linpus Linux Lite, the first thing I wanted on it was XP. However, I didn’t want to get rid of the Linux distribution on it (due to the very fast boot time), and dual booting on an 8GB SSD just doesn’t seem like a good idea. So I considered booting from a USB memory stick. At first all I could get was a terrible stripped down version made with BartPE. I eventually found a tutorial on how to boot a full blown XP install off a memory stick. The process isn’t exactly the easiest task, but it’s well laid out and worded, so it’s easy enough to follow.

I successfully booted XP off my memory stick, and all is well.

You can check out the tutorial at ngine

The link to the HP Tool mentioned in step 2 is broken in the tutorial, but you can pick it up here from my server

One thing that disappointed me about Acer’s Aspire One laptop, was the lack of a package manager, a feature now taken for granted on many Linux distributions. At first I thought it would be stuck with its pre-loaded applications for those (like me) who haven’t got much experience with Linux, and don’t really know how to install from a tarball, or how to use the terminal.
So I was delighted to learn that there is a hidden package manager within the Linpus Linux Lite distibution. Here are 5 simple steps to get it:

1. Open the Terminal by opening any file browser window, and clicking File then Terminal in the toolbar
2. Type “xfce-setting-show” and hit enter
3. Click “Desktop” in the window that appears, then click Behavior then enable “Show desktop menu on right click”.
4. Then you must change your root password. To this simply go back into the Terminal, type “sudo -su”, and hit enter. Then type “passwd” and press enter again. The Terminal will promt you to enter a new password. Folow the onscreen instructions.
5. Now simply right click on your desktop, and then choose “System” > “Add/Remove Software” and enter your password to get into the Acer Aspire One’s package manager.

Hopefully this will come as good news to those with Acer Aspire One’s or those who are planning on buying one.

[via Laptop Mag]

The last week has been quite varied in terms of mood and events.
Like, on Thursday I was frustrated. In fact it was the first time my job really got to me. I had been called into work last minute, then found out it would be for the whole day, then had to reschedule plans with my girlfriend on Friday to look at a house to rent in Athlone, and then learned that I’d be working Saturday, this cancelling those plans. Top that off with idiots coming into work asking for help signing up on Bebo, and then asking how to do everything on Bebo. Here’s a hint: Read! Oh, and my taxi was nearly half an hour late! So yeah, not a good day!
But then on Friday I put a deposit down on a room in a house in Athlone, so that lifted my spirits.
For the next few days it was just average, with the odd bit of frustration.
Until today where I found out I have been accepted into Software Design (Web Development) in AIT, and have tomorrow with my girlfriend to look forward to.
That is all.