Hulu, (or OpenHulu) NBC and CBS are blocking users outside US to view their video content. That means, you cannot watch the full episode of CSI, Simpsons, Family Guy, etc if you live outside US. The player will say, “It is not available to your country”. But, there is a fix. Hotspot Shield from AnchorFree can make yourself to live US, virtually. After installation, those video sites will think you live in US and be able to play the full episode of video.

Hotspot Shield is available for Windows and Mac OS X. Note you will see advertisements on the top of every single webpage once connected. But I think this is really acceptable since it is free and costs $0. Test after the break.
Here is a little test of Hotspot Shield. I used 6Mbps ADSL connection in China. The speed is fast. The videos play smoothly. I have visited OpenHulu, CBS, NBC and ABC. I cannot view videos of ABC only. More surprisingly, some of the US-only restricted channel of Joost is now playable. For example, MTV of Joost can only be viewed in US (Not that MTV Staying alive channel), but now with Hotspot Shield, you can watch those cool programs.

1. Do you want a Facebook Fan Page, or a Facebook Group? Or both?

They are very different, and there are advantages to each. The biggest difference to my mind is how they are used to communicate. I did a quick informal poll around the office, and found most folk fan something to show support or express interest or advertise it on their page, but then never or rarely look at it again. Pages allow you to showcase and embed a variety of media and applications, with more special features available, and they can be public for people who are not in Facebook. Groups are not public, but allow you to send messages that show up in a person’s Inbox, making more direct communication easier.

Take home thought: Pages for discovery, Groups for communication.

“Pages can only be created to represent a real public figure, artist, brand or organization, and may only be created by an official representative of that entity. Groups can be created by any user and about any topic, as a space for users to share their opinions and interest in that subject. Pages can be customized with rich media and interactive applications to engage Page visitors. Applications can’t be added to groups.”

“Page Admins can update their fans about new Page content, promotions, upcoming events, and more. Pages can send messages to either their entire fan base or target their update to fans in a specific demographic. The messages Pages send their fans will appear in the “Updates” tab of a user’s Inbox.”

“Facebook Pages do not currently have an Inbox, and can’t be used to contact individual fans directly. We may add this feature in the future but don’t have a date for when this might happen. At this time, if you choose to send a personal message to a user, it will appear to come from you and not from the Page. Similarly, users aren’t able to contact Page admins through the Page.”

“We’re no longer able to convert Facebook Groups into Pages. You’re welcome to create a Page and notify your Group members that you’ll be using the Page instead of the Group going forward. If your Group has too many members to send them a message, we unfortunately aren’t able to provide you with any other solutions for how you might contact them about this change.”

From:
Facebook: Help Center: Pages: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=175

Facebook: Help Center: Groups: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=414

2. Consider the audience when choosing the network – you can’t change it later

The network you choose when creating the page or group can potentially limit the audience. Don’t think about where you are, but who would ever want to see this and who do you want to have see it. If you say, “Oh, I’m in Michigan, and this is for Michigan folks mostly – I’ll choose my network as Michigan” consider that you can then never show it to someone who lives elsewhere even as an example of how you did it. That would include marketing, outreach, a shift in your mission or audience, government funding agencies, you name it. Only restrict the network geographically if you are confident that you will NEVER under any circumstances at any point in the future want the group to be accessible outside that geographic area.

3. Proofread the page name or title super careful – you can’t change this either

Pay special attention to plurals and variant forms or spellings for words.

4. Consider the content

Whether you have a group or a page or both, you need to balance keeping your content lively, current and interesting with being an obnoxious pest. You might guess this can be a tricky balance. It is worth taking the time to prowl around in Facebook, look at what other people and groups are doing, who seem to be successful at getting people to engage with them, and what are they doing that is different that others. Watch and listen before you speak.

Make a content plan. Figure out who is responsible for keeping what sections lively, share the load, make a schedule for how often what sections of the page should have new content. Making a good page and keeping it interesting and engaging is not something that magically happens. This is NOT a “if we build it they will come” prospect. Nothing in social media is. It takes work, and there are people who make good livings doing this for organizations like ours. It is usually not a one person project, unless it is their fulltime job just to keep your Facebook page looking good. Plan accordingly.

• WHY it is going there
• WHERE it is coming from
• WHEN and how often new items should appear
• WHO is the target audience
• WHO is responsible for content
• HOW is the content getting there

When you are ready to start talking, think about how to be efficient about it – how to get more bang for the buck. Think … RSS and Apps. If you use a blog, you can take the RSS feed from the blog and have posts stream to both your website and your Facebook page. Ditto for Twitter or Delicious or other tools. Think about what function they fill. I started using blogs to replace a newsletter that had become cumbersome to publish monthly. I used Twitter to create a custom newsfeed from a Google search because I wanted to filter the results with eyes-on content. There are apps and widgets in Facebook that you can add and customize to post content from an RSS feed to your Facebook page. You can find these for other places you might be posting or storing content, such as Twitter, Delicious, Flickr and YouTube. Services that have an API tend to be ones that have add-ons already available in Facebook. Putting content in these locations maximizes your audience. Here is one example of a tool, but search for more that meet your needs.

Blog RSS Feed Reader: www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=5315590686

There are also tools that allow you to send information or posts to Facebook at the same time you post it somewhere else. This allows you to be present in multiple spaces, but without as much work. Here are a couple.

HelloTxt: http://www.hellotxt.com/

Ping.fm: http://www.ping.fm/

PS – if you are using blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube or other similar services, you probably want to know about feed2js, which will create the javascript code to drop an RSS feed right into your website. You can use this to take the content you are plugging into Facebook and add it to a webpage at the same time (such as a Youtube video channel).

Feed2JS: http://feed2js.org/

5. Read the Facebook Help FAQ before starting – it might warn you of other important issues to consider.

Facebook: Help Center: Pages: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?topic=pages

A hat tip to Hung Truong with thanks for sharing thoughts while I was working on this.

Taken from http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/making-a-facebook-group-or-fan-page-5-essential-tips/

You may have heard of Facebook Fan Pages–they are also referred to as “business pages” or “public pages.”

To give you some explanation of what these are, a Fan Page is just a public profile that allows you to share information about your services or products with other Facebook users.  Facebook has two different kinds of profiles—personal profiles and public, aka Fan Page profiles.

So, why are there two different kinds of profiles?  Well, Facebook states pretty clearly in their terms of service that a person is only allowed to have one personal profile and that it must be in a person’s first and last name only.  For example, “Christine Gallagher.” Facebook has actually been known to disable people’s accounts if they’re named anything other than your full name or if you are using it to represent your business.  So instead of using your personal profile for business, you can just use a Fan Page.

Let’s talk a bit about the benefits of using a Fan Page for your business over a personal profile.

First and foremost, Fan Pages are public. What this means is that in order for people to see your Page, they don’t have to login to Facebook or be your “friend” to have access to it—there’s no barrier there to keep from drawing people in. Pages are actually the only part of Facebook that are totally public. This is also great because the search engines are able to see and index Fan Pages.

This is important because Facebook is currently the #2 site on the entire Internet, so you can benefit from that high search engine ranking by having a Page. In other words, because Facebook ranks so highly, your business has a good chance of ranking highly.

Second, personal profiles have a limit of 5000 friends—although Facebook has said several times they are going to raise that limit, they haven’t yet. Now, that might seem like a really high number to you right now, but if you think about continuing to build your business on Facebook, reaching that number is actually not all that unrealistic. In comparison, Fan Pages allow you to have an unlimited number of Fans.

Third, you’re able to send a message—or as they’re called, “Updates”–to all of your Fans at one time, no matter how many you have. With personal profiles, Facebook only lets you message a small number of friends at a time–last I checked it was somewhere around 30 or 40 at once.

Lastly, there are a lot of people who use Facebook personal profiles for just that—personal. They might be using it for staying in touch with friends and family and may have NO interest in ever buying from you—plus, not everyone friends people they don’t know on Facebook. With Fan Pages, people who become a “fan” of your Page are expressly saying they want to find out more about your business, not just you the individual. They have shown their interest by “opting in” as it were.

taken from http://communicatevalue.com/social-media/4-ways-facebook-fan-pages-personal-profiles/

If you are in US, India, UK and other countries, when you buy an iPhone, Apple ties up the iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS you are buying to a local telecom provider. But when you buy iPhone 3G through the Hong Kong Online Apple Store, you can officially and legally get a Factory unlocked iphone which you can use with any operator. Yeah, right! “ANY” operator.

iPhone 3G & iPhone 3GS purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS and connect to iTunes 8.2 to complete activation.

Because they’ve been unlocked at the factory, these iPhones can always be updated and they’re covered under standard Apple warranties.

This is because, in countries like Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, it is illegal for Cell phone companies to mandate their customers to have a contract with any ONE service provider. So, if you ever touch down at Hong Kong airport or Australia or New Zealand for a holiday or business trip, don’t forget to grab a Factory unlocked iPhone 3GS from the local Apple Online Store.

The prices are not bad either. A 16GB legally unlocked iPhone 3GS will cost you around HK$ 5,388 i.e USD 695 (or 487 Euro), while a 32GB version would cost HK$ 6,288 i.e USD 812 (or 567 Euro).

Beside HK, I found that iPhone 3GS sold in NZ and Australia are also pretty cheap.
iPhone 3GS 16 GB:
New Zealand 1,150.00 NZD = 552.033 EUR = 788.202 USD
Australia 879.00 AUD, 491.287 EUR, 684.991 USD
iPhone 3GS 32 GB:
New Zealand 1,349.00 NZD, 920.172 USD, 647.422 EUR
Australia 1,040.00 AUD, 810.469 USD, 581.121 EUR

Visit the Apple online stores – New Zealand, Australia , Hong Kong

At least thats what I do, I have a skype account. I paid for 1 year subscription of the monthly unlimited package to make calls to the USA. I also paid for a US Phone #, and i just carry my laptop anywhere i want to go and as long as i have wifi, i just make calls to family and friends overseas. Also they can call me and leave a voicemail message. Its quite cool. Although there is magic jack and vonage, but what i like about this is that its all integrated into my computer and I just have to plug in an extra usb device, not network device. All I do is plug in my ear buds and talk to frens.

Try it for yourself. www.skype.ccom

So, you have a new mac laptop or computer and you been doing tons of downloads and work on it and it start running slow. Darn, what happened, this is a new computer? I can tell u some stuff that might apply to you. Here are the tips below, but please… remember this, please backup your computer before you start.

1. Find CPU and memory hogs in the Activity Monitor. Go to Applications > Utilities and see which apps are hogging your CPU. Quitting and restarting those apps can provide quick relief.
2. Clean up your startup. Too many programs starting up when log onto your Mac? Go to System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items tab. If you see an app there that you don’t need and use, select it and click the minus (-) sign.
3. Uninstall unneeded apps (and related files). Trash anything in your Applications folder that you don’t need or use any longer. Ideally, you’ll use an uninstaller program to do this. It won’t make your Mac run faster, but it’ll free up some space.
4. Do some maintenance. Run Disk Utility (in Applications > Utilities) to verify and repair disk permissions and the disk itself.
5. Reclaim hard-drive space. Need to figure out what’s taking up all that space on your Mac? Trapani recommends a tool called Disk Inventory X that creates a tree map of your hard-drive usage.
6. Care for/troubleshoot your battery and memory. On a Mac notebook, calibrate your battery to make sure it’s giving you the right readings. If the battery bails before you get a “You’re running out of power” warning, reset the SMC or PMU. And some problems can be solved by resetting your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM.
7. Beef up your memory, and get the latest system updates. The more memory your Mac has, the happier (and snappier) it’ll be, so think about upgrading. And stay up-to-date with OS X patches and versions.

Taken from http://blogs.bnet.com/teamwork/?p=953

Diz

Google Chrome is a web browser that runs web pages and applications with lightning speed.

Sending large files as email attachments can be frustrating especially when we want to send photo or video files, etc. that exceeds the common email attachment space limit. In common free Web-based email services such as Yahoo! Mail and Windows LiveHotmail, they only support a maximum of 10 megabytes file attachment, or in the case of Gmail, 20MB max. If you wish to send bigger files that exceed this limit, Sendspace is an appropriate choice. Sendspace is a file transfer network that offers temporary file hosting to users allowing them to send and receive large files up to 300MB each. Here are the steps:

On your web browser, type the following URL: http://www.sendspace.com. You will be directed to the site’s main page.

You have the option to register or not. One advantage, however, of registering to the Sendspace Lite account (free) is that you can use the extra features provided which enables you to monitor and edit your files. If you want to register, proceed to step 3. To send the file attachment without registering, proceed to step 5.

On the site’s home page, hover your mouse on the “Signup for FREE!” button located on the top left corner and click on it. A window is displayed asking for your input details. Fill-up the required information and click on the “Register” button. An activation link will be sent to the email address you used to sign up. Open your email and activate your registration.

1. Once you completed the activation procedure, you are now ready to upload and send the file to your recipient.

   Click on the “Browse” button to select the file you want to send. A search dialog box will pop-up. Search for the file you want to send and when you are done, click the “Open” button. The upload path will then be displayed on the file text box. Fill-in your email address as the sender and the recipient’s email address in the appropriate input fields.

   Click on “Upload File” button to start uploading the file. Refrain from navigating away from the web page while the file is still uploading because this will terminate the current process.

   After the file is uploaded, a confirmation message will be displayed together with the filename and the download link. Your file is now ready to be downloaded by the recipient.

   Make sure that the file you will upload does not exceed 300MB in size. This is the maximum file size limit for Lite subscription (free). However, you can choose to upgrade to a paid subscription with better upload and download service features.

Last week we reported on Google’s newmusic discovery features. The Google music search endeavor is partnership between Google, MySpace, Lala, and several others to make music search and discovery a primary feature of the Google experience.

In fact, Google music search does more than just return a few track listings; it offers up audio streaming, one-click purchase options from iLike and Lala, and now even exclusive content from artists.

Google music search has broad implications for the music space, and in this post we’ll explore three of the most significant implications around a music search service powered by Google, and dissect how some of the industry’s current heavy hitters could be in for a wake up call.

iTunes: Market Share Will Decline

It’s been a process years in the making, but Apple’s iTunes store, with the help of the ubiquitous iPod and the hot iPhone, has become the destination for not only buying music but also for measuring the success of songs, albums, and artists.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some of the staggering statistics. Earlier this summer, the NPD Group found that songs purchased from the iTunes marketplace now account for 25% of the total US music market, which includes both hard and soft copies. CNET also reported that “for the first half of 2009, iTunes itself snagged a 69 percent share of the overall digital music arena, trailed far behind by Amazon.com with 8 percent.”

With a 69% hold over the digital music market, iTunes is sitting pretty, but Apple’s music business is far from secure in being the undisputed victor in future years. The new music search features in Google aren’t some separate product that searchers have to track down, but instead offer instantaneous music discovery that works without extra thought or calculation. The reality is that music discovery is built into the search experience for each and every search, and those results are featured prominently at the top of the page, instead of buried at the bottom like Social Search.

Googlers already search for songs, artists, and lyrics en masse, but the immediate click-to-listen and buy options that Google now provides could very well make them less likely to take the extra step back over to iTunes. Here’s why: music search results include streaming audio tracks, powered byMySpace, who don’t forget, owns iLike, and by Lala. You’ll also notice that that Lala and iLike’s download stores, and not iTunes, are the two click-to-buy options. Essentially what’s happening is that Google, the primary online starting point for the masses, is now directing you to purchase your music from iLike or Lala (and taking a cut of the purchase price).

The iLike and Lala download stores both just got some major Google juice, and that’s a problem for Apple’s iTunes, who simply can’t compete with Google on search as it pertains to music discovery. iTunes won’t falter immediately, but Google, MySpace, and Lala have the opportunity to put a dent into iTunes’ once impenetrable stronghold over digital music downloads.

2. Google: This Generation’s Billboard

Billboard’s top 100 music charts are still important indicators of what’s hot in the music space, but having an album or song on iTunes’ top charts is becoming even more important for artists who want to remain relevant and popular in the eyes of younger audiences.

Google’s new play in the music space puts them in a prime position to not only sell music, but to also dissect music trends, which could make them this generation’s Billboard.

Think of all the data that Google already has around music search, combine that with their growing knowledge of what searchers are streaming on Google, and what they then go on to buy, and you have a data set that could be leveraged for insightful music industry analysis.

We could easily see Google launching a music trends product that would match the style of Google Trends, and indicate the highest frequency music searches, highlight related searches, and attempt to identify news and blog posts influencing the trends. They could also potentially tie in music sales and online streams, for a full perspective of what’s happening in the music milieu.

3. Myspace: Relevant Once Again

Myspace is on a fast track to becoming the web’s biggest joke. Once at the height of social media glory, they’re now Facebook’s ugly sister and everyone knows it, especially now that their US traffic has fallen off a cliff.

As tempting as it may be to push MySpace off into the waters of obscurity, we think this cruise ship-sized social network may have avoided becoming the online Titanic with their recent moves in the music space.

Let’s start by granting Facebook the social network gold medal. They’ve won that competition. But, MySpace is slowly repositioning themselves as the music destination, and the strategy just might pay off with their significant role in Google’s music service. Already a great resource for bands, MySpace now has a very excellent music video product, and their own music download store, courtesy of the iLike buy, with Google as their sales force.

MySpace, with Google’s blessing, is well on their way to becoming the site that mainstream web audiences associate with online music. Given that Facebook is nowhere to be found in Google’s music picture, MySpace could be headed towards victory in a new genre.

The Internet is Changing the way we live, interact, and do things daily. I bet in the future you don’t have to leave your house for anything. You probably can have groceries delivered to your home after you ordered it online (something which is already being done). You can buy basically anything online, especially on ebay. You can listen to music from home, be in a chat room, video conference with persons. Even in a recording studio, you can hook up session players from all over the world and do a recording session.

Interesting… aint it..

A new culture is evolving. New concepts, new ways to socialize and have fun. I laugh at people taking farmville so serious. Wow. Even some a mi producer friends, i see them on getting hooked.

People even start dating online. It’s reported that alot of people getting hooked up online and start dating and even got married. But look at it, its a cheaper calmer way to interact and get to know persons. Still doesn’t beat meeting the person in person. I have had my fair share of meeting girls online maself.

BUt yeh, di world a change. Everything centering around the internet and our blackberries. And we have to adapt to the changes.