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(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Ping.fm is currently in private beta although if you use the invite code “Webware” on this signup page you’ll get in.

Ping.fm lets you send a microblogging message to five different services at the same time through a special e-mail address.

Update: Webware reader Molzymcd notes hooking up your Twitter account (and potentially others) sends out a one-time message that advertises that you’re using the service. If you’re not okay with this, don’t sign up. Better yet–let the creators know.

I got in a whirl about Twhirl the other day because it let me post to multiple microblogging services at once. Today I’ve been checking out a service called Ping.fm which ups the ante by letting you blanket Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr, and Facebook with the same short form message.

All you need to do is link up each account (it only works with one from each) and send said 140 character message to a special e-mail address provided by Ping.fm. Your message will be sent to all the networks by default, but there are also small shortcut codes called “triggers” that will let you choose to only send your message to that specific service.

Update 2: Alright, we’ve rounded out some more updates. There are 250 of these, so get em while they’re hot. Just enter “Webware” as the invite code.

In addition to e-mail there’s an instant-messenger bot that works with AOL. I’m also hoping to see a short code that will make it as easy to post to via SMS as Twitter is since some phones don’t let you send SMS to an e-mail address.

[via Mashable and Download Squad]

I do worry sometimes about the idea of blasting out the same message to several services at once. As I’ve said before, each community brings with it different levels of interaction, and distancing yourself from that means you’re likely to miss other people’s replies. Mixing something like this up with a service like SocialThing or FriendFeed could be a solution, but let’s not forget about core services we’re using in the first place.

You think? People have different sensitivities to different types of distortion. To my ears vinyl distortions are less annoying than MP3 haze. In any case I’d hope any Gen Y-er listening to vinyl has some consciousness of sound quality and wouldn’t abuse their ears.

If I’m sitting a good 10 feet away from him and can still hear the screech of his headphones, I know the kid is killing his ears. Sure, I’m sometimes tempted to say something, but I never do. He’s not really bothering anybody. And if he wants to be stone deaf by the time he’s 30, well, it’s his life.

(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)

This blog was inspired by Audiophiliac reader Alegr, who supplied the following quote:

“Generation Y, whose hearing is impaired by in-ear headphone abuse, is finally unable to hear vinyl’s noises, distortion, and limited frequency response. Which are worse than a 128 kbps MP3.”

But does he know that day by day he’s doing irreparable harm? There’s no cure for deafness, just hearing aids.

When I can hear a teenager’s headphones through the din of a NYC subway
car, I know he’s on his way.

Abuse it, and you'll lose it.

If you regularly experience “ringing” in the ears, that’s not a good sign. Take heed or suffer the consequences. If you want to see (or hear) where you stand right now, check out my blog covering a do-it-yourself hearing test CD.

But true connoisseurs of big sound who need something bigger should take a peek at Lenard Audio’s Opal speakers. I’m sure they’ll do the job! How big are they? Big enough to house four 27-inch woofers (!!!) in its pair of eight foot high cabinets. Each system is individually commissioned and built. Most Opals are assembled with modern high quality speaker components, but some use original 1970s classic JBL drivers, “…made when engineering craftsmanship was at its height.”

Lenard Audio is based in Australia, where they offer a wide range of very large speakers.

(Credit:
Lenard Audio)

Americans love big
cars, mammoth trucks, huge houses, but for some reason they go ga ga over tiny speakers. Sure, the little guys are good enough for computers, but real music lovers should consider investing in something that can move some air, something along the lines of Klipsch’s RB-81 ($698/pair) hefty bookshelf speakers. They’ll blow away any lifestyle poser speakers with 3 -inch woofers. Don’t kid yourself into believing that any of those puny speakers can be any better than good enough.

A happy Opal owner.

Gavin Clarke reports that Sun’s nascent cloud/grid/whatever effort is being turned into a separate cloud business unit lead by Sun’s chief sustainability officer, Dave Douglas.

Sun sort of had something with Project Caroline and they were early on the utility-computing bandwagon, but considering the massive dossier of software, hardware, and storage the company lays claim to, one would expect a lot more. In fact, I would argue that of all the BigCo vendors, Sun has the best chance of becoming a meaningful cloud vendor.

I do have to ask why Sun announced (leaked?) this today–just days after the joint initiative from HP, et al. and not at JavaOne just a few months ago. Despite my enthusiasm for Sun’s efforts (which I really hope to do well), this is the typically weak marketing the company gets beat up for.

Maybe someone will start reaching out to interested parties?

I’ve lamented the fact that Sun was missing the boat (blimp?) on the cloud for several months and have had zero discussion with anyone there about it. I’ve even gone as far as to say that we can’t have platform-as-a-service without Java in the cloud.

Linn still makes the LP-12 turntable, the model has been in continuous production since 1972, and most parts are readily available. How’s that for customer service? My Linn LP-12 is almost brand new, it’s just 13 years old.

Does anybody buying an
iPod in 2008 expect to get more than a few years of use out of the thing? My five year old iPod still plays, but I can’t get it to work in newer iPod docks or iPod speakers. My iPod is too old.

A good friend of mine plays his 30-year-old Linn LP-12 turntable almost every day. It was an expensive turntable in 1978 when it sold for around $1,200. But he’s gotten 30 years of use out of the thing, and even now listens to a lot more vinyl than CD. So his $1,200 investment works out to around $40 a year to own the thing. Can you imagine anybody buying an iPod today still using it in 2038? 2028? OK, how about 2018? Hmm, I don’t think so.

OK, iPods aren’t high-end devices, they’re disposable technology. Fair enough, how much do you imagine you’ll spend on iPods or their equivalents over the next 30 years? There was one guy who responded to my “How many iPods have you owned?” poll who has already bought 26. So he’s already made Steve Jobs richer by many thousands of dollars. Over the next three decades he’ll spend a lot more, and still wind up with a closet full of useless junk.

Linn's turntable has been around since 1972.

I’d like to hear from you guys about your turntables, have long have you had yours? Is yours even older than my friend’s 30 year old Linn?

I get it. Convenience trumps quality in most things. Fast food vs. slow food; fresh ingredients vs processed, which is pretty much the same deal with music. CDs, once the height of convenience and advanced tech are now viewed as archaic. CDs are too big, too easily damaged, and cost too much–so lower-fi MP3s and iTunes have put the CD on the road to oblivion. But to vinyl loving audiophiles LPs still sound better than any digital format. Everyone else couldn’t care less about the sound quality their music, it’s just not all that important to them.

(Credit:
Linn Products)

Or is it that people are so busy now they simply don’t have time for quality. Strange, our affluence makes us go for the quickest, lower quality option every time. Back in the day writers would use the same typewriter for decades, but now we have to toss out our computers every three or four years. We’re living in a disposable culture, so we need to keep buying new, ever cheaper stuff, but if you have to keep rebuying it, is it really cheaper? High-end audio can be expensive to buy, but not to own.

Get Vista’s Aero effect with Vista/XP Virtual Desktop
This program’s main claim to fame is its full-screen desktop previews in Vista, which take the guess work out of identifying the desktop you’re looking for. You can create a separate system-tray icon for each active desktop, and assign each desktop its own background. The program also lets you adjust the size of the preview windows, but not their transparency as you can with Virtual Dimension. You get fewer keyboard-shortcut options with this program than with Virtual Dimension, though both let you designate programs that will appear on all desktops.

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Virtual Dimension)

VirtuaWin’s simple approach
At only 385KB, this lightweight utility keeps things simple but lets you add features via downloadable add-on modules that let you start applications automatically when you enter a desktop, give each desktop a name that shows on its taskbar icon (a feature built into Virtual Dimension), and cycle through your desktops automatically, among other functions. VirtuaWin’s support for as many as 20 separate desktops seems like plenty until you consider that Virtual Dimension and Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager let you create as many desktops as your system’s memory can accommodate.

Two virtual winners
The Aero support and full-screen previews in Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager make it a good choice for that OS, but Virtual Dimension’s easy customization and inclusion of the desktop names in its preview window give it an edge on XP systems.

Configure your virtual desktops in VirtuaWin's Setup dialog box.

You switch between VirtuaWin desktops by clicking one of the four corners of the program’s system-tray icon, or by pressing the keyboard shortcut assigned to it. If you create more than four desktops, the icon displays the active desktop’s number; click the icon once to view your open apps, or double-click it to open the Setup dialog box. Beyond that there’s not much to the program, which is just fine if you’re “cultivating a minimalist vibe,” as they say in the movies. (Bonus points if you know which one I’m quoting.)

Customize with Virtual Dimension
There are many more similarities than differences between VirtuaWin and Virtual Dimension, but the differences are noteworthy.

Tomorrow: fixes for applications that don’t know when to quit.

It took all of about 20 minutes to get accustomed to Linux’s virtual desktops, which let you switch between work environments with a single click. The problem is, I still spend most of my computing time on Windows machines that lack this handy productivity-boosting feature.

Give each of your Virtual Dimension desktops its own wallpaper via the program’s Settings dialog box.

Virtual Dimension lets you give each virtual desktop its own wallpaper, which makes it much easier to distinguish between desktops. The program is also much easier to configure via its Settings dialog box: you can assign various operations their own keyboard shortcuts for moving between windows, adjust the transparency of open windows, and tweak the utility’s appearance in other ways.

Customize the keyboard shortcuts for switching between virtual desktops in Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager’s Options dialog box.

I tried using Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop Manager, a PowerToy for Windows XP that lets you create as many as four separate desktops, but it’s as buggy as an anthill, and offers no version for Vista. However, I did find three free virtual-desktop programs that work better and give you more options: VirtuaWin, an open-source program that supports up to 20 separate desktops; Virtual Dimension, another open-source app that offers more features than VirtuaWin; and Z-Systems’ Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager, which takes advantage of Vista’s Aero interface.

Whichever program you choose, you’ll find the ability to jump between workspaces makes Windows much easier to work with.

Click the program’s system-tray icon to open a small preview window that includes the names you’ve assigned to each desktop. Choose one of the previews to open that desktop, or click the system-tray icon again to close the preview. In addition to using keyboard shortcuts, you can jump between desktops by right-clicking the icon and choosing one from the pop-up menu that appears.

(Credit:
Z-Systems)

(Credit:
VirtuaWin)

Thanks to its latest round, WideOrbit has now raised $30 million in funding since its inception.

WideOrbit, a software developer that manages advertising sales for more than 1,000 TV stations, radio stations, cable networks, and stadiums, announced that it raised $9.5 million of Series D funding in a round led by Mayfield Fund. But according to the company, it’s hoping for an additional $800,000 before it closes the round.

Although advertising is expected to slow over the coming months amid economic troubles, WideOrbit’s ability to raise its latest round of funding may suggest that some venture capitalists don’t necessarily trust speculation that it will be so bad. But with a set of solutions that aim at maximizing an advertising campaign’s effectiveness online, while minimizing expenses, WideOrbit’s solutions aren’t unique. And in a time of economic uncertainty, its services may not offer enough for it to compete on the same level as competitors such as Harris or any other companies offering ad campaign optimization.

The game, known as Find the Lost Ring, is built around a story line in which a young woman named Ariadne says she woke up on February 12 in a South African corn maze with amnesia and knows nothing about who she is or where she comes from.

‘Find the Lost Ring,’ a new alternate-reality game that seems to be tied to the Olympics in Beijing, went live Monday morning.

The game’s conceit will be to have players help Ariadne find her identity through a complex series of online and, most likely, real-world clues and puzzles. Somehow, it will all be tied in to the Olympics. One clue on the game’s site says she offers up the “fact” that, after waking up, she spent a week in the hospital being treated for her very rare form of amnesia and that doctors there “say I’m an Olympic-caliber athlete.”

For the full list of clues that launched the game, see my blog entry from Sunday night, which includes photos and the text of the initial clues.

(Credit:
findthelostring.com)

As I predicted Sunday night, the Web site for a new alternate-reality game that seems to be tied to the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing went live Monday.

To me, it’s all very Bourne Identity-ish, except probably without a lot of gun play and CIA involvement.

The service is a TechCrunch50 finalist, and is currently open for sign-ups, with plans to release a public client later this year. I’ve embedded a video of it in action below.

Also worth noting is LittleBigPlanet, a
PlayStation 3 title that lets you build your own 2D platforming games and share them with others. It’s launching next month (thanks MoRic123)

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman/CBS Interactive)

What’s interesting here is that the creators, the guys from Minor Studios, could have launched this a few weeks ago at the gamer-centric Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) but chose to do it here. When I asked creative director Dave Werner why he’d pass up the chance to show this in front of more than 58,000 gamers and industry analysts, he told me he thought he’d get more leverage by launching it at this show.

The builder actually reminders me a lot of Cubescape, a product I looked at back in May. In Atmosphir’s case, it’s simply a matter of stacking pixels together on top of one another in a 3D grid. The big difference is that you can jump into your creation and play test it. Depending on what game play goals you set up, it changes what’s needed to successfully get through what you’ve created.

Atmosphir is a software-based game building tool for PC and
Mac users that lets users put together their own gaming levels. Like many consumer-facing game creators you’re only limited by the tools that have been given to you. In this case the tools provided are split up into packages of “blocks” that are both interchangeable and feature simple gameplay devices like moving platforms, and various themed texture elements that let you build worlds with grass, dirt, and sand.

To aid in that discovery process users can submit their creations to a central pool where others can jump in and play their creations, with some of the best items rising to the top. Also neat is the option to grab someone else’s level and pull it back in the editor to make tweaks.

Update: I got some hands-on time with this after the presentation. Judging from the time I played with it, it’s fun but frustrating. Like I said, if you’ve played Super Mario 64 before you’ll feel right at home. It borrows the same camera controls and kill screen, something you’ll probably see a lot if you’re playing a badly designed level.

The game builder is entirely in 3D. (Click to enlarge.)

The only thing I’m concerned about with this product is that the demo did not make playing the game look like as much fun as building the levels. I’m willing to withhold judgment until I get my hands on it, but it seemed to be lacking a decent physics engine and the graphics looked akin to Super Mario 64–a console title that came out 12 years ago. That said, look at something like Line Rider; if you give people simple tools and a platform they’re going to go nuts.

See also: Mytopia: Yet another casual-gaming start-up goes live

Selecting 3D content from the overall ocean of films and games being released can be tricky, but a Vuzix spokesman said that “Vuzix has put together a sort of iTunes for 3D content. It should be launched soon.”

Vuzix on Thursday announced that its 3D glasses are now compatible with the
iPhone, but it won’t be cheap to get in on the 3D action.

3D content is becoming more prevalent. Nvidia, among others, are increasingly promoting 3D video games. And 3D films are getting a revival, with the recent “Coraline” and “Monsters vs. Aliens” movies. James Cameron’s big-budget 3D film, “Avatar,” is due out around the holidays and is already generating buzz.

The 3D hype that has occasionally surrounded movies and video games is now coming to a cell phone near you.

(Credit:
Vuzix)

While it’s expensive to retrofit movie theaters for 3D films, 3D technology for the home market is getting more affordable and more readily available, according to Vuzix. Whether the company promotions that appear every now and then will make 3D video anything more than a reoccurring fad is yet to be seen. People who remember the 3D-movie pushes in the ’50s and ’70s will likely remain skeptical.

The iPhone-compatible Vuzix iWear AV230XL is now available for $199. For people who happen to already have Vuzix 3D eyewear, the company is also selling a cable for $39.95 that will make other models work with the iPhone.