I like to write with others just about as much as I like to write by myself. SubEthaEdit has long been one of our primary tools at TidBITS for collaborating simultaneously among editors and writers. The program lets us write in the same virtual document while seeing each other type. We can quickly produce a lot of text and edit each other's work, all the while checking in (sometimes through an iChat backchannel) on changes as we make them.
Simultaneous writing might seem like the authorial equivalent of the four-way intersection car crash in Steve Martin's L.A. Story. Instead, we find it makes it possible for us to write faster (especially under deadline), and speed up editing, too.
EtherPad treads on SubEthaEdit's turf. The new software, released just yesterday, is a free, hosted Web application with many of SubEthaEdit's key features, although it's both missing a pile of them (not surprising for a first release), while also being freed from many of SubEthaEdit's desktop application constraints.
Let's take a look at the two.
Compare and Contrast, in Real Time -- SubEthaEdit (from Coding Monkeys, 30-day trial, 29 euros or US$38) requires one writer to host a document and others to connect over the Internet or using Bonjour. Once connected, other writers (with read/write permission) are assigned a unique color, and can begin editing at once. Edits appears color-coded by author as soon as a character is typed or text deleted on all participants' open copy of the document. (Deletions aren't shown or retained. You can use Undo to revert back through edits.)
EtherPad opens up editing to any platform with support for one of several major browsers: Internet Explorer (version 6 or later), Safari (3 or later), and Firefox (2 or later). Other browsers may also work. This means that iPhone users can (tediously) participate as well as our friends suffering through Windows or enjoying their own unique blend of GNU/Linux.
Because the service is hosted as a Web application, EtherPad does away with the requirement for one user to have a publicly reachable IP address. This has bedeviled us many times, sometimes requiring us to open a SubEthaEdit document on a Mac OS X server system to all participate. Many features, like color coding of each participant's changes, will be familiar to SubEthaEdit users.
EtherPad also allows revision saving coupled with restoration from stored versions, something not found in SubEthaEdit. The Web app also centralizes storage of the current document and revisions on AppJet's servers. Both editors lack auto-save, a feature we've wanted for years, but EtherPad's ability to save a version trumps SubEthaEdit's simple save command, which overwrites the previously stored version. (You can use third-party programs to add an automatic saving option, but this should be a piece of core functionality.)
Centralized storage means that any participant always has access to the current state of the document or previous revisions. With SubEthaEdit, users other than the host can save a copy at any point, but aren't assured of having the last version of the document unless they save and the host immediately closes before other edits take place.
SubEthaEdit was designed, in part, for extreme programming, which includes the principle of pairing programmers to work on the same code at the same time. Some studies have shown that multi-person programming actually improves efficiency by reducing errors and producing more readable code in fewer lines.
As such, SubEthaEdit includes a long list of syntax coding options for popular programming languages, where code elements are colored for better recognition and to avoid making errors in spelling a name. Help in ensuring paired, nested parentheses and braces is also found in SubEthaEdit. (Nearly all non-collaborative SubEthaEdit features appear in BBEdit.)
Only JavaScript syntax coding appears in this first EtherPad release, which isn't odd given the developers. The folks who wrote EtherPad developed AppJet, a JavaScript-driven Web application engine that they had to revise substantially to make EtherPad work. They'll release an updated version of AppJet at some point rolling those features out, too.
EtherPad even throws in chat among participants in a document, allowing chronological archived discussion alongside the live space in which everyone is edited.
Collaborate over Time, Space -- When I look at collaboration tools for writing and editing, I break them down into points on two axes of time and space. Depending on the project, you might use instant messaging (IM), a blog, a wiki, a simultaneous editor, a text or Microsoft Word file that's passed around (using a difference detector or Word's Track Changes feature), and other tools.
A blog is a reverse chronological accounting that uses space (scrolling in one dimension) to indicate the passage of time. A wiki is a fixed space that changes over time, but includes history (in most cases) to go backwards to see edits. Wikis are edited successively or iteratively.
An IM session is live, with no editing, allowing synchronous communication with viewable history. Even something like using Leopard's Screen Sharing over iChat feature fits into this continuum.
(Google Docs, by the way, allows simultaneous editing that's not in real time. Rather, each save pushes a copy to other active editors, but you can't see each other type or delete.)
EtherPad and SubEthaEdit's collaborative writing allows synchronous editing over virtual space (the medium of the document) and real space (many people simultaneously writing in different places). I've long argued this modality was the one missing piece in the modern business workflow, and in some creative processes engaged in by teams - like writing TidBITS articles.
Competition Improves Collaboration -- I look forward both to more developments in EtherPad, and the response from Coding Monkeys. For many years, I've wanted to have a tool that's a bit easier to use - especially freed from the storage and public IP requirement - for less-technical friends and colleagues. And Windows users have previously been left out in the cold.
Competition should help spark innovation, but EtherPad will certainly allow more unfettered communication. We know from history, more communication either leads to better understanding or a complete breakdown. I hope for the former.
We knew Orb was working on an iPhone port of its media-streaming app, and it looks like Orb 2.0 just stealthily went live in the App Store. The $10 app lets TV junkies watch live TV from a tuner connected to a Windows PC, as well as stream music, videos, and photos from their libraries. Even cooler, Orb allows you to monitor a webcam, so you can finally nail those Diet Coke thieves from the comfort of your cube (or keep an eye on your infant, whatever.) Sadly there's no date for the Mac and Linux versions, but Orb says they're on the way. Alright Sling, looks like the ball's in your court.[Via jkOnTheRun]
IBM has announced plans to acquire Transitive, the company that makes the code translation technology behind Apple's Rosetta. IBM says Transitive's software will enable x86 Linux applications to run on Power systems.
Adobe Systems has spun out an alpha version of its Flash Player 10 technology for 64-bit Linux software users today, to satisfy the needs of freetards everywhere.…
Windows XP has become the de facto standard operating system on those cute little netbooks. Some run Linux and for those who like the OS happily so but we're starting to see more netbooks ship with Windows XP these days. It probably has to do with folks wanting to use...
Windows only: Hot Corners, a free utility for Windows desktops, adds the "hot corners" abilities of OS X's Expose system to any Windows desktop. The system tray utility can assign actions like minimizing all windows, locking a system, showing the My Documents folder, and others to any corner of the screen you run your cursor into. There's also a "Mouse Move" feature for those who'd like fewer accidental actions which requires holding the Windows and X keys while dragging the cursor before acting. Hot Corners has shown up a fewtimes in our Desktop Show and Tell sessions, and while it lacks the full-fledged Mac-cloning features of DExposE2, it's pretty handy for being so small. Hot Corners is a free download for Windows systems only. Hot Corners [via gHacks]
If you'd like to use desktop apps or features that require a 3-D compositing manager but lack the hardware power (or patience) to enable Compiz effects, the Tombuntu blog points out that the standard Metacity window manager can fit the bill. As noted, enabling metacity's compositing gives you just a few effects—mostly window previews on Alt+Tab switching, drop shadows, and window movement smoothing—and relies only on the CPU for power, so nearly any graphics card can use apps like the OS X-style Avant Window Navigator. To enable Metacity's built-in composite manager on most any modern GNOME-based Linux distro, open the gconf-editor tool (by launching with Alt+F2 or through a terminal), head to apps->metacity->general, and enable the "compositing_manager" option. Hit the link below for a command line switch you can script or shortcut to turn compositing on and off.
iPhone/iPod touch only: With Mocha VNC Lite, iPhone and iPod touch users already have a tool for connecting remotely to their desktops, but what about those who like to get things done over a command line? Free iPhone app TouchTerm provides SSH-encrypted terminal access to any Linux, OS X, or even Windows system running a server, making mobile rebooting or service starting over Wi-Fi or EDGE/3G connections possible. The app supports landscape mode, a must for serious two-thumb typing, can save connections for easy access. The $11.99 pro version adds advanced gesture and copy/paste support, amongst other features, but the basic free edition can get the job done. TouchTerm is a free download for iPhones and iPod touch models running the 2.0 firmware only. TouchTerm [iTunes App Store via Linux.com]
It may be just a concept for now, but the new SGI Molecule blows our minds with its potential power: Imagine 5,000 Atom N330 chips in just one 3U rack computer, the size of your average PC desktop. That's 10,000 cores in one single computer, or 40 more times the processing power of your typical 1U x86 cluster node. Is this possible? How do they expect to do this without actually creating a hole full of molten metal and plastic?
According to SGI, the key to make this system work is their proprietary Kelvin cooling technology, which we can only imagine works by pouring buckets of liquid nitrogen over the CPUs. According to them, all this vaporware may result in a computer that can sustain 20,000 threads of execution, with a 15TB/sec memory bandwidth per rack.
• High concurrency with 20,000 threads of execution — 40 times more than a single rack x86 cluster system • High throughput with 15TB/sec of memory bandwidth per rack — over 20 times faster than a single rack x86 cluster system • Greater balance with up to three times the memory bandwidth/OPS compared to current x86 CPUs • High performance with approximately 3.5 times the computational performance per rack • Greener with low-watt consumer CPUs and low-power memory that deliver 7 times better memory bandwidth/watt • Innovative Silicon Graphics Kelvin cooling technology, which enables denser packaging by stabilizing thermal operations in densely configured solutions • Operating environment flexibility, capable of running industry-standard Linux(R) implementations, with Microsoft(R) Windows(R) variants on some configurations
raque writes "Appleinsider is reporting that the new MacBooks/MacBookPros have built-in copy protection. Quote: 'Apple's new MacBook lines include a form of digital copy protection that will prevent protected media, such as DRM-infused iTunes movies, from playing back on devices that aren't compliant with the new priority protection measures.' Ars Technica is also reporting on the issue. Is this the deal they had to make to get NBC back? Is this a deal breaker for Apple or will fans just ignore it to get their hands on the pretty new machines? Is this a new opportunity for Linux? And what happened to Jobs not liking DRM?"
One clever/obsessive Linux theme crafter has released a XpGnome script that adds custom icons, controls, backgrounds, colors, and makes many other tweaks to make a GNOME desktop look almost exactly like Windows XP. The drawback is that there's no easy uninstall/undo, so creating a dummy account to try this out on is definitely recommended.
Windows only: Looking for a way to create a mix of MP3 files to send to your crush but aren't sure what playlist format their media player supports or whether or not they'd know how to unzip a folder of individual tracks? Check out this tip using the Command Prompt interface in Windows:
Only one line of code is needed to join multiple mp3 files: copy /b *.mp3 c:\new.mp3
The /b modifier is the trick, with the asterisk playing a wildcard to catch all files in a directory. To choose invidividual files, list the filenames separated by the + symbol. Yes, the conjoined files aren't easily separated and the recipient won't be able to skip from track to track. But it's super-fast to do, will play reliably in almost any environment and the listener is forced to think about the emotional arc the music describes—which, after all, is the whole art and science of music mix creation for those of us who remember the 80s. Any readers out there know a similar trick for Macintosh or Linux?
Boxee, maker of a social media center software platform for HDTVs and laptops, has secured $4 million in first round funding from Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. The two firms each accounted for exactly 50% of the investment.
Boxee is bringing us a step closer to a real social TV experience. The app gives your computer (Mac, Windows or Linux) or AppleTV a TV-like interface where you can stream local files like personal videos, music, and photos as well as third-party, mainstream web content from sites like YouTube, Hulu, Comedy Central, CNN.com, ABC.com, Last.fm, Flickr, etc. Basically anything that isn't DRM-protected (which also means there's no chance you'll be able to play your entire iTunes library with boxee).
Boxee also enables you to retrieve music and movie reviews, song lyrics, trailers, album artwork etc. from the internet. The software comes with a social layer too: you can share information about what you’re watching with friends and make recommendations. You can also add services like Twitter, FriendFeed and Tumblr and post to them from the (beautiful) boxee interface, which turns it into a very powerful communication hub to boot.
Fail and You Smartphones have been around for a long time, but only recently did the laptop industry figure out that it could cut into the market funded solely by tech nerds' fuck-you money with a compound word of its own: netbook.…
InfoWorld - Two years ago this month, Microsoft forged its controversial partnership with Novell that, among other things, had the two companies agreeing not to sue each other over intellectual property issues, in part to protect Suse Linux users over any patent litigation from Microsoft.
America's Lawrence Livermore nuclear bomb lab has teamed up with open-source computing heavyweights to build the next generation of Linux superclusters, ultimately scaling into the petaflop range. The project has been dubbed "Hyperion".…
Confirming recent comments by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, an independent study released Friday found OpenOffice.org 's free office suite to be five times more popular among adult U.S. internet users than Google Docs .
Microsoft Office remains dominant, with 51 percent of American Internet users over age 18 using it, according to a six-month study conducted by market researcher ClickStream Technologies.
OpenOffice.org was used by 5 percent of people, versus Google Docs' 1 percent, according to the survey of 2,400 users on their home PCs conducted between May and November of this year. OpenOffice.org was also found to be used more often, 8.7 days, versus 1.5 days; and longer, an average of 9.3 minutes, versus 3.4 minutes for Google Docs, according to ClickStream's panel, which was two-thirds comprised of women.
The latest version, OpenOffice.org 3.0, had a strong first week , with more than 3 million downloads in that time. After one month, OpenOffice.org 3.0 had been downloaded 10 million times, the group said.
ClickStream also found that 68 percent of Google Docs or Spreadsheets users also used Microsoft Word at least once, "indicating that Google Docs has yet to be considered a stand-alone product by most of its users."
In contrast, 74 percent of OpenOffice users didn't use Word at all.
"Although Google Docs and Spreadsheets has been touted as a potential competitor to the Microsoft Office Suite, OpenOffice is currently the more likely app to take that position, possibly indicating the value of offline and local processing enabled by installed applications," said ClickStream.
A Google spokesman said in response to ClickStream's finding, "Google Docs has millions of active users and hosts tens of millions of documents. It has seen strong and steady growth since it launched two years ago as people have increasingly shifted to the cloud in order to access and collaborate on documents online."
ClickStream's figures are not surprising. A NPD Group Inc. survey reported similar findings last year.
According to ClickStream's findings, Google Docs was even less popular than Corel Corp.'s WordPerfect suite.
Version 12 of WordPerfect alone was used by 3 percent of users, according to ClickStream's panel, which includes users recruited through cash and prizes, making it the third most popular productivity application behind OpenOffice.org. Adding up versions 9 through 13 of WordPerfect gave it a total usage of 6 percent, though ClickStream said the likelihood of overlap meant that its actual share was still lower than that of OpenOffice.org.
ClickStream's figures for OpenOffice.org include usage of StarOffice, a near-identical version that is sold for $70 and officially supported by Sun Microsystems. Google began distributing StarOffice via its free Google Pack download service in August 2007.
But it recently pulled StarOffice from Google Pack, suggesting that Google is starting to feel competitive with OpenOffice.org.
Not so, says Google. "We are constantly evaluating which products to include in Google Pack to make it more valuable to users. At this time the agreement to distribute StarOffice through Google Pack has expired, and we have decided with Sun not to renew the agreement," a spokesman said.
Other free Microsoft word processers are actually far more popular than OpenOffice.org or Google Docs. Notepad was used by 48 percent of those surveyed by ClickStream, though more sparingly than OpenOffice.org. WordPad, meanwhile, was used by 21 percent of apparently thrifty users.
Fewer than 1 percent of users used Zoho Office, while none of ClickStream's sample used ThinkFree or WriteBoard.
China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone service provider, plans to open its own mobile applications store similar to those run by
Apple
for the iPhone and
Google
for its Android operating system.
"We will set up our own shop, and we hope, welcome all content providers to sell their software applications and games and songs and any other products in our application shop," said Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman and CEO, at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, China.
China Mobile sells handsets from most major vendors, so software support will likely be available for a range of OSes, including Linux and Symbian. Wang cited Apple's success with the iPhone's Apps Store as one reason for China Mobile's interest in building a similar service.
China Mobile boasts over 436.1 million subscribers, a figure higher than the population of the U.S.
The huge subscriber base gives China Mobile clout, and the company has long made clear that it plans to use the advantage to build its own services instead of relying on others.
Mobile music is one area the company has already taken over in China.
The company's music revenue has reached US$12 billion, "plus, it has huge potential for growth," said Wang.
Wang did not elaborate on the figure. A China Mobile aide said the figure likely included all sales of ringtones and songs since the mobile music service began in early 2006, but said he was not exactly sure what was included in his chairman's comment.
China Mobile hosts a music download site at
www.12530.com
.
During the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, the music service faced its heaviest downloading in the shortest period of time yet. The Olympic theme song "You and Me" was downloaded by nearly 5 million subscribers within 26 hours of its first performance at the Opening Ceremony of the Games.
China Mobile charged just 2 Chinese renminbi (US$0.29) each for the song, which could be downloaded via the mobile site or by sending the company an SMS (Short Message Service) with the words "Theme Song" to a specified phone number.
Songs on the 12530.com Web site generally cost 2 renminbi each.
Windows only: Hot Corners, a free utility for Windows desktops, adds the "hot corners" abilities of OS X's Expose system to any Windows desktop. The system tray utility can assign actions like minimizing all windows, locking a system, showing the My Documents folder, and others to any corner of the screen you run your cursor into. There's also a "Mouse Move" feature for those who'd like fewer accidental actions which requires holding the Windows and X keys while dragging the cursor before acting. Hot Corners has shown up a 
If you'd like to use desktop apps or features that require a 3-D compositing manager but lack the hardware power (or patience) to enable Compiz effects, the Tombuntu blog points out that the standard Metacity window manager can fit the bill. As noted, enabling metacity's compositing gives you just a few effects—mostly window previews on Alt+Tab switching, drop shadows, and window movement smoothing—and relies only on the CPU for power, so nearly any graphics card can use apps like the OS X-style 
iPhone/
It may be just a concept for now, but the new SGI Molecule blows our minds with its potential power: Imagine 5,000 Atom N330 chips in just one 3U rack computer, the size of your average PC desktop. That's 10,000 cores in one single computer, or 40 more times the processing power of your typical 1U x86 cluster node. Is this possible? How do they expect to do this without actually creating a hole full of molten metal and plastic?
One clever/obsessive Linux theme crafter has released a 
Windows only: Looking for a way to create a mix of MP3 files to send to your crush but aren't sure what playlist format their media player supports or whether or not they'd know how to unzip a folder of individual tracks? Check out this tip using the Command Prompt interface in Windows:
