Test the Venice Project - 2 invites avail.

I have 2 invites to join the Venice Project beta. The first two people that comment below get one. Leave an email address in a spam proof way along with your first and last name.


Enjoy.

Presence Management 2.0 - A must read

Thanks to Andy for pointing out Alec's latest writing on the state and future of presence on the desktop/phone/net.. I have no less than 15-20 ways to be reached, and managing all these identities is just a nightmare. Quite frankly I just stop using some really great applications, for the sole reason I can't manage them.

There has been some great debate floating around the blogosphere on this, I am sure it will continue after the holidays.

Alec's Post on Presence.

Skype Worm complete FUD

There are several reports of a firm called Websense reporting on a Skype based worm. This is complete and utter nonsense, and I understand that as I write this they have already pulled the threat from there catalog.

Skype, much like Windows built in firewall, forces users to make a decision on whether or not to allow a program to access the Skype API. If you didn't install an application that is supposed to work with Skype there is no way to 'hijack' the IM channel in Skype.

Venice Project Screenshots

Thanks to Matt @ PeerImpact (very cool btw) for sending me the link to the Venice Project Screenshots.


The more I play with TVP, the more I like it. It appears to stream media across the p2p network, and I was asked what video compression they are using and do content providers have to re-encode to there format. Those are good questions, hopefully someone can point me to the answers.

The Channel list is a GUI overlay on the desktop.
















You can chat with other people watching the same content as you, which is just uber cool.















You can skip forward and back through content, just like you are watching from a PVR.
















The only bugs I have found thus far, is that it doesn't support my second monitor. I can drag the player to my other monitor, but it doesn't play there. I am sure that is a low priority but would be a nice feature to be enabled.

Pearl Photo of Big Ben

I snapped these last week whilst in London. Not bad for a Pearl Photo..

The Venice Project - An early X-mas Present

Wow, I am impressed. I just installed my first beta of 'the Venice project' (TVP) and I have to admit, as soon as I ran it for the first time I heard the click in my head. The last time I heard that click, was about 3 years ago when I installed this oddly named little VoIP app., called Skype, which essentially led me to quit my job, start a software and distribution company and start traveling the world.

The Venice project is a secure P2P video application, sort of. It is more than video, it is interactive TV, on demand, customizable and dead simple to use. The creators have a pedigree of success and I think this one is going to be as popular as its creators other projects.

What separates the Venice project from the likes of Sightspeed and YouTube? = easy - CONTENT. Within seconds of installing TVP, I was watching an amazing Green Day concert in London and saw a recorded performance of 'American Idiot' which just rocked, followed by (fellow Canuckette) Sarah Mclachlan solo on piano, and then I indulged in a few episodes of the World Poker Tour. Content is king, there is lots more to see and I can't wait to dig around and see the rest.

The application itself appears to use a ton of OpenSource code, lots of familiar libraries in the directory that make a Mozilla Dev. house like us get really excited for the opportunity to create some killer mashups.

I will post up some Screenshots as soon as I find them on the site, they ask you don't post SS's of content as they aren't the owners of most of it, but do have some agreements in place with some content providers.

Advertising now in the Skype Client

I installed the public release version of Skype 3.0 today and I was surprised to see advertising in the client a la' MSN messenger. It is only an ad for the Skype Store, but just having it there opens the door to some pretty sweet marketing space on the desktop of 150 million PC's...

It appears in the notifications pane, and can be disabled in options by un-ticking show promotions , should you not want to receive it in the future, which is a nice option.