JoostTeam

I stumbled on this new anti-ebay service called Listia. It allows you to unload all the stuff you don’t need in exchange for “Listia Credits”. You then use those credits to acquire goods other Listia members are listing. Simple? Yep!

I am currently running an experiment where I am offering a gift card with variable value based on the amount of credits I will get… sor of like assigning a $ value to a credit. Right now I estimate that a credit run for about 0.016$. This is based on today’s ended auctions for gift cards… so I am pricing my offering according to that.

I will keep an eye on future listings to see if credits value goes up or down… like tracking the value of the dollar. My reference will be the US$.

You can check the progress of my experiment at http://www.listia.com/auction/113282

I have also created a page where one can track Listia Credits Exchange Rate at http://netputing.com/listiacrx

I am writing this post from my mother in law house using my new Mac Netbook from Dell. Yes, you are reading this right, I am using a Dell Mini 9 Netbook running OS X 10.5.6 coupled with my Apple iPhone running Nullriver Netshare app as my portable 3G internet access.

The whole thing run exceptionally well. I have been following threads from mydellmini.com to come up with an effective way of installing OS X 10.5.6 on the 8GB SSD drive of my Dell Mini 9. I decided to buy the unit at my local Best Buy store as they had it on sale for 379.99 (in white like all Apple MacBooks). This is probable like 299 US$ for an Netbook running OS X. Really not bad.

My biggest challenge was to find a way to make the OSX install to fit in the 8GB drive of the Dell… (I wish Best Buy had the 16GB version in stock). Believe it or not but the OS require 37MB more than is available on the Dell so a straight install from a retail OS X DVD is not possible on the 8GB Dell Mini.

I had to use my Apple iMac to install a bare minimum OS X 10.5.0 on an external USB drive. I then booted back on my iMac and applied the 10.5.6 combo update to the USB drive installation. The size of the whole thing was well beyond the 8GB limit.

I removed all the applications and utilities I never used, all fonts I never used and all voices and screen background (with the exception of one). That still was not enough to get enough headroom on the 8GB SSD.

I decided to buy a very useful application called Xslimmer. This application remove all non intel binary and undesired languages from the applications on your Mac. Using it I was able to reduce the installation by another 1GB or so.

As I write this post my Dell Mini 9 Mac Netbook sit at a comfortable 5 GB of disk usage with about 2 GB of free space for other applications and other goodies. Why 5 plus 2 does not make 8? Because there is roughly 1 GB lost in the conversion between HD vendor advertised disk space, the way the OS calculate actual GB and the overhead of the journalized HFS+ file system.

The current state of OS X hacking required to make this work on the Dell Mini 9 is pretty advanced. The state of the art solution is known as a Type11 installation and involve a bootable DVD that act as a boot loader to the retail OS X DVD. With this method you essentially use an unmodified Apple DVD to install the OS. The boot loader merelly provide a way to boot the retail DVD on the Dell Mini 9.

Because the Dell is so close to an actual MacBook most of the features are working flawlessly… thanks to a lot of research and development made by the OSX86 community out there.

The Dell Mini 9 is, in some aspect, a better Macbook than the real one I also own. For example, opening a CIFS share take quite a while to do on my real Macbook… but on my Dell Mini 9 Mac netbook it almost happen instantly… I really can’t explain why but it is a fact.

Most things work flawlessly… but others are not yet perfect… for example after resuming from sleep the sound no longer work. I am sure a solution to this will be found in the next few weeks. It is the price to pay for a 300$ Mac Netbook… and at that price I am willing to leave with it.

Is the Dell Mini 9 a threat to Apple? Most likely not. It is in fact more likelly to accelerate the coming out of a real Apple netbook as Apple might start to notice that people are hungry for such a thing.

Until then I will keep enjoying my self made version of it.

Update 20090109:

I figured out why me shares where faster on the Mini… My iMac was installed with 10.5.0 then with all the subsequant incremental up to 10.5.6… somehow lingering network issues of 10.5.0 never went away. I did a fresh install of 10.5.6 last night and now my real iMac is as fast as my Dell Mini for CIFS!!! Yeah!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Tricking Out The MSI WindOSX – Part 1: Adding an SSD
• Netbooks galore
• I Got Myself A New Mac Netbook

What we have been calling the Asus Eee Box looks to finally have an official name. Based on unnamed sources, the Inquirer is reporting that the desktop PC will be called the Asus EBOX. As already speculated, they are saying it will be revealed on June 3 at Computex. Specs also look to be what we’ve been told already: 160GB HDD, 2GB RAM, and a Linux OS. Nothing much more to see here, but we’re hoping Asus will give this thing a competitive price for those looking to tinker with a slick open-source box.

(Via Engadget.)

As I reported last week there is a rumor running around that CBS and Viacom could be interested to buy Joost.

This morning I noticed that Reuters themselves are referring to that rumor. Is there more going on than just a plain rumor? Let me know:

If Google search trend is a good indicator of Web TV provider popularity then Joost has been steadily loosing internet users attention and is now at an all time low.

On the opposite side Hulu is steadily gaining more attention from internet users. So much so that it is now getting daily search levels higher to what was seen on the Hulu official launch day. Read more…

Milestones: “

Were not usually ones for milestones here – as you can see, its been some time since we did any counting. To be honest, were spending a lot of time right now on some exciting new developments, and dont have a ton of time to pat ourselves on the back. But this week, we passed a couple of pretty big milestones and we wanted to share them with you.

We now have more than 7,000 hours of video content and 30,000 programs – including TV shows, movies and clips. These shows come from our more than 250 content partners around the world.

I mentioned TV shows and movie titles – and we have more than 400 television series and 1,200 movie and short film titles. Some of the most recent television series we’ve added to Joost include Twin Peaks, The Love Boat, Beverly Hills 90210 and Three Sheets (from MOJO), as well as classic cartoons like Popeye and Superman.

Its not just the TV shows and movies that we like, though – some of our favorites include shorts from hit web properties, like Next New Networks Channel Frederator; CollegeHumor TVs original videos; the network for independent animators, Aniboom; and uncut interviews with indie musicians from Uncensored Interview. UI is just the tip of the iceberg for our music selection, by the way – if video killed the radio star, I like to think that online video is resurrecting the music video.

While were happy to reach this milestone, were certainly not stopping here. While we get back to work, though, check out the popular shows in your region. And as always, please let us know what you think!

“

(Via Joost Blog.)

OK, I am going to write a simple howto on how I personally convert my HD 720p BT MKV into something that the XBOX 360 can playback.

I know, I should use an Apple TV instead… but frankly I can’t. I am using Microsoft MCE in my house to run my TV and I employ 2 x XBOX 360 as extenders. One in the basement and one in the master bedroom.

So when I want to watch an HD episode of Battlestar Galactica in my bed I need to stream it to an XBOX 360 compatible format. Note that this solution could also be used to convert the file to an Apple TV compatible format too (likely the same darn file that will play on the 360).

What ingredients will you need:

1. An HD MKV file (obviously)
2. Perian QuickTime codec
3. A QuickTime Pro License
4. Nullriver Connect 360

Step 1:

The 1st thing you need to do it to download Perian from perian.org. Please watch the Screencast below to learn how to do that. Note that you can watch the HD version of this video in all it’s glory by following the link in the player:

How To install perian on OSX from Bernard Maltais on Vimeo.

Step 2:

You need to encapsulate the h.264 video stream within the MKV file into an mpeg4 container. The audio (most likely some form of AC3 or MP3) will also need to be converted to AAC audio. Please watch the Screencast below to learn how to do that. Note that you can watch the HD version of this video in all it’s glory by following the link in the player:

How to convert mkv to m4v video format from Bernard Maltais on Vimeo.

Step 3:

Put the converted file in a folder that Connect 360 can share to the XBOX 360.

Go on your XBOX 360 and enjoy the episode!

Via ImportGenius.com : U.S. Customs Database and Competitive Intelligence Tools:

“Since mid-March, Apple Inc. and its logistics partners have imported 188 ocean containers of a product type never before declared on its shipping manifests.

With iPhones currently out of stock at many Apple stores, including its flagship outlets in New York City, rumors abound that the company is winnowing stocks in preparation for a new 3G version of the phone.

Last month Citi analysts Richard Gardner and Yeechang Lee predicted that Apple would announce the new 3G iPhone at its June 9th World Developers Conference in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Dvice.com reports that AT&T has told its employees that they cannot take vacation time from June 15 to July 12 to enable full staffing for an ‘exciting Summer Promotional Launch.’

Now data from U.S. customs records now seem to confirm this prediction, according to ImportGenius.com. By analyzing thousands of U.S. customs records for Apple Computer, employees of the search engine for container shipment data identified a major spike in imports generated by a new product type.

‘They have never before reported this product on their customs declarations,’ says Ryan Petersen of ImportGenius.com. ‘The fact that they are importing millions of units, combined with dwindling stocks of the first generation of iPhones, clearly supports the Citi analysts predictions.’

Two of Apple’s long-time manufacturing partners for desktop computers —Hon Hai Precision Corp. and Quanta Computer—have been rumored to be working on the newest generation of the popular cell phone.

On March 19 Quanta delivered 20 ocean containers of merchandise, described on the Bills of Lading as ‘electric computers,’ to Apple, Inc. Neither Apple, Quanta, nor any other company has ever used this product description for any shipments to the U.S.

The advanced features of the iPhone make it perfectly legitimate for Apple to declare the products as computers, rather than telephones. By doing this, the company may hope to avoid the attention that a massive influx of phones may bring about, while simultaneously maintaining secrecy as to the true identify of the phone’s manufacturers.

Over the last few months shipments of ‘desktop computers’ and other devices did not fall off, indicating that these ‘electric computers’ represent a new product for the company rather than a simple renaming for their Customs declarations.

The initial shipments were followed on March 27, April 28, May 6 and May 17 with an additional 44 containers—each containing an estimated 40,000 units of the new phone. The sixteen containers imported by Apple Inc. itself—as opposed to the Quanta subsidiary—were delivered on March 19 and 27 to the Jonestown, Pa. facilities of Ingram Micro, Apple’s U.S. distribution partner.

The Quanta Computer USA shipments were delivered to that company’s distribution center in Freemont, Ca. Meanwhile, on the exact same dates as the shipments above, Schenker AG, another of Apple’s distribution partners, imported a total of 67 containers of this new product type from an undisclosed manufacturer in Shanghai, China.

Several of those products carried the Apple computer name in what appeared to be an accidental disclosure on the customs record. With arrival notification addresses in Vancouver, Canada, many of Schenker’s shipments appeared destined for the Canadian market. Apple has thus far not made the iPhone available in Canada, however Rogers Wireless recently announced that it would begin offering the item shortly. They declined to offer more specifics about when they would start selling the phones.

Apple Inc’s most recent shipment of the new products, Bill of Lading # HLCUSHA0803FTFR8, arrived at the port of New York on the Vessel NYK Delphinus on May 17th. That shipment contained 504 cartons, weighing 7140 kg, of the vaguely described ‘electric computer.’

Where Quanta sent all previous shipments to Apple—including 828 ocean containers of ‘desktop computers’ since March—through a subsidiary, the new products were exported in Quanta’s own name. The change may reflect heightened secrecy surrounding the new products. “

This is one crazy rumor (or maybe not that crazy)… so take it for what it is worth, entertainment value:

watchmojo.com is speculating that CBS and Viacom might be interested in buying Joost:

- CBS and Viacom launching a joint venture to counter Hulu.com
- using Joost
- and rebranding it all under the TV.com moniker.

The blog post is a little hard to read but go ahead and be your own judge.

Update:

Reuters are now picking on the story: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketViews/idUSSALPHA7872320080525

New York – Viacom’s (NYSE: VIA) MTV Networks has announced plans to make every episode of its Comedy Central network’s “South Park” animated series available online for free streaming, Reuters reports.

Comedy Central recently also put the majority of the segments from its “Daily Show” series online, and the company said that, if anything, it has seen an increase in broadcast viewership as opposed to any drop-off.

“One does not diminish the other by any stretch of the imagination,” said MTV Networks chairman and CEO Judy McGrath.

“The Daily Show was the first out of the gate and it’s been a big success and it’s a nice little model for us to follow,” said Mika Salmi, MTV Networks president of global digital media. “There’s no limit to which shows we can use at this stage.”

Salmi added that MTV is considering an expansion of its Japanese myMTV mobile video social network into other territories, potentially including the U.S.

Via dmwmedia

Tags: IPTV, Online, Video, Streaming, Viacom