sentient beings

I've always admired Google. Stripped from all the hip eyecandy, they have always offered pure functionality at a very high level. The quality of Google applications are such that they almost shame similar applications and force them to shape up.

Google changed the way people searched. Google Calendar is a fantastic app with functionality and an ease-of-use that a lot of desktop applications miss. GMail is incredibly useful and Google Docs offer a perfect solution for editing documents online.

And then, there's YouTube. This weekend, spent a few hours learning some extra ropes in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and did a special title for a live video of my band. It's an explosion that flashes across the bottom of the screen and then the titles come up from behind the explosion. The video actually has a lot of blue in it because of the lighting on stage. Youtube, using the old Sorenson Spark coded that was used in Flash 7, made my video look like it was composed of lego bricks, rather than single pixels and the title I spent the last few hours on was completely illegible. I experimented with a multitude of quality and codes settings but still ran into the Sorenson Spark conversion. I switched to Vimeo but still wasn't pleased with the quality and especially not with the 500 MB upload limit - especially since I have a pile of HD footage lying around that I'm determined to use someday.

Blip.tv came to me while looking for something completely different. I never really paid much attention to blip.tv since the site says "BETA" and I wouldn't want to waste my time on something that may be history later today. I uploaded my latest effort and lo and behold Blip.tv did an excellent job on the video. In addition, Blip.tv has an excellent player. Blip.tv has my vote!

Still, it's a pity that YouTube, despite being Google, lacks proper encoding and has no HD support.

Today, the Google website presented me with a rather strange help page. It looks like something went wrong with the localisation of this help page. Bad Google!

<p>Als je je agenda openbaar wilt maken, worden al je afspraken weergegeven in de openbare zoekresultaten van Google Agenda en Google. Daarnaast kunnen anderen je agenda en openbare afspraken bekijken met je <a href=" http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=37104">Adres voor agenda</a> of door de agenda toe te voegen aan hun lijst 'Agenda's'.</p>

<p>Als je je agenda openbaar maakt <em>en</em> 'Alleen mijn informatie over beschikbaar/bezet delen (details verbergen)' selecteert, betekent dit dat je agenda-informatie niet wordt weergegeven in de zoekresultaten van Google Agenda of Google Zoeken. Daarnaast kunnen anderen alleen zien of je beschikbaar/bezet bent wanneer ze je agenda openen via het adres of de agenda hebben toegevoegd aan hun lijst 'Agenda's'.</p

See for yourself.

Brightkite is a rather new social networking website that adds a different element to the mix: geo-based networking. The idea is rather simple: you check into places and other people on Brightkite will be able to see your position and maybe network with you if you're in the same place or near them.

I've been using Brightkite for about a month now. At first, I was rather pleased with the idea of being able to tell everyone where I am. Especially since Brightkite can send your updates to Twitter. I meticulously started entering all the places I frequent and gave them names.

In reality, after a month, I hardly use Brightkite. There is no local support and I think I'm the only one in the Netherlands to have a Brightkite account. This means that checking into places is rather cumbersome. I have to send an e-mail from my mobile (no PDA at the moment) to brightkite. And this is where it gets annoying. When you send an e-mail, brightkite sends you a new e-mail asking you to confirm that you want to check in. Only, that mail takes about 5 minutes to arrive. I'm not going to keep polling for five minutes just to check in on Brightkite. On the whole, I rarely have time to confirm my check-in, so I just don't check in at all, anymore.

It's a shame because it could have been nice.

Aral Balkan wrote this little rant on del.icio.us's "forgot password" procedure.

I always use strong passwords. A mix of symbols, numbers and letters ensure the safety of my account. I even have a human algorythm to create different passwords for each website. Unfortunately, for the algorythm to work, the password always requires symbols, numbers and letters.

Cue website that enforce password constraints. I don't know why websites insist on enforcing rules on passwords. If your user wants an easy password, then it's up to him. You can always tell him how low-security passwords pose a threat to his privacy, but in the end he will not care. If you enforce constraints, he will probably only write down the password on a sticky piece of paper and stick it to his office monitor.

Even worse is the scenario that I encounter quite frequently as of lately. Upon registration, I enter my password which, for didactical purposes, is doogietitia+0, and I get an error message which says the following.

As it pops up in more than 1 website, I'm sure that somewhere there's a free password checker that everyone is using and haven't checked properly. Websites that I remember to have this problem:

• ben.nl, a T-Mobile brand
• iscards.nl, a VISA card issuer

ISCards support was extremely frustrating. "Yes sir, we have had a few more complaints about this, but we can't do anything about it. We have reported it but it's not likely that it will be fixed soon". For F's sake, you're a financial institution and you have my credit card statements available online!

Peter Elst just launched riajobs.org. Riajobs.org is a community-based jobboard. Amazingly enough, the site is free - even for companies that want to post jobs. There's of course the odd feature that requires a fee but even then, 20 percent of the monthly revenue will be donated to charity.

As I write this entry, jobs are being added to the site. The few jobs currently posted originate from all over the globe. Community support looks strong and will be a major success factor for riajobs.org.

The only thing this site needs is a little space for potential candidates and freelancers to leave an impression and the matchmaking site will be complete. And whaddayaknow? Peter already added that to the list of features to be added "in the near future".

Let's hope riajobs.org is not going to turn into another "enter ALL of your details including highschool friends and that female teacher you had a crush on and all the different types of pasta you've eaten in your life and all of the places you visited" setup, but, instead, a simple 1-minute setup. I've always felt that careersites asked way too much information. Just the basics and company and candidate will sort things out themselves, thank you very much.

I believe "niche" websites like this will become the ultimate future. A small company in the Netherlands has set-up a jobsite aimed solely at the creative industry and it's becoming increasingly popular as well.

Let's root for riajobs.org! From the community, for the community and, eventually, by the community.