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A New Look for the Tucows.com Site

The obligatory disclaimer: Yes, I work for Tucows, where I hold the title of Technical Evangelist.

From Shareware to Solutions

The Tucows site — that is the one at tucows.com, the original site where the company got its start as being a place to download shareware — has undergone a big makeover. Here’s a screenshot:

Screenshot of Tucows’ new site
Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

Tucows squishy cowsBack when the company got started in the early 90s, finding software online was difficult. Search engines were just in their infancy, 28.8 kbps modems were considered fast and it actually made sense to publish magazines and even books simply cataloging sites and software that you could find online. During this era, Tucows and a number companies found a niche as places where you could find and download software as well as see reviews.

In the age of high-speed connections, Google search, AdSense and that amorphous thing called Web 2.0, the “shareware site” approach doesn’t make as much sense. I download many of my applications directly from the vendor, and number of other apps I use exist as web applications.

In spite of the technological changes since Tucows’ early days — when processor power was measured double-digit megahertz and there was less RAM in my machine than in my present-day key fob — one thing remains: people are still asking “How can I do this using my computer?”

The new Tucows site aims to be a place online where you can go to find solutions to your computer and internet questions and problems. By “solution”, we mean anything that solves your problem. Sometimes it’s software that you can download. Sometimes it’s a web application or site. Sometimes it’s a set of steps that you can follow.No matter what the solution may be, we want to be the place where you can find it.

A Quick Tour

If you visit Tucows.com, the first thing you’ll see, right near the top of the page is the Search solutions & software box, where you can start your search quickly.

Tucows’ “Search solutions & software” box
Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

If you’re not sure of what to search for or prefer browsing through solutions, there’s a list of popular and recent solutions just below the search box:

“Find a solution” list on Tucows’ site
Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

Clicking on a solution title takes you to the page for the solution, which may provide download links, links to site or an article, depending on the solution:

An example Tucows solution page
Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

You don’t need to sign up for an account, but if you do, you can also rate and comment on solutions:

Comments and feedback section of a Tucows solution
Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

With an account, not only can you offer your feedback on an existing solution, you can also submit your own.

Give the new Tucows.com a try!

For More…

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I Wouldn’t Want to Try This With an iPhone

It was the geek party trick of the evening. I was standing by the beer fridge at Friday’s b5media office-warming party when someone asked where the bottle opener was. Not seeing one in sight, Chris whipped out his Blackberry and used it to open a beer bottle. I had my camera handy and shot this video:

Chris says that Blackberries are tough. Once, in a fit of anger, he hurled his Blackberry into his truck — he cracked his windshield, but the Blackberry was unahrmed. After opening a couple of beer bottles, he showed me his Blackberry: it had some gouge marks where it had made contact with the bottlecap, but it was working just fine.

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Want an Invitation to Join Pownce? I’ve Got 10.

Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose sitting on a couch with their laptops, drinking beer.
Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, two of the people behind Pownce.
Photo taken from the New York Times.

“JUST now, the hottest startup in Silicon Valley — minutely examined by bloggers, panted after by investors — is Pownce,” says the New York Times article A Social-Networking Service with a Velvet Rope, “but only a chosen few can try out its Web site.”

If after reading the article, you have that empty feeling inside — a feeling that can be filled only by a Pownce membership — I may have just what you need. I’ve got 10 invitations to Pownce! Be one of the first ten people to email me at joey [at-sign] globalnerdy [period] com with a request for a Pownce invite and I’ll send one to you after I come back from dinner tonight.

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A $240K Postion for an AJAX Programmer…With Just One Catch

Anyone Remember “Mainframe”?

“Mainframe” from G.I. JoeSee the guy on the right? That’s Mainframe, the computer specialist for the good guys in the animated TV series G.I. Joe. In case you’re not familiar with the character, you might want to consult this page on the JoeBattlelines site, which gives you his full bio.

Since this character was created in the 1980s, well before geek chic and internet cool, he didn’t get the respect that was afforded to other soldiers in the elite paramilitary force code-named G.I. Joe:

Excerpt from a G.I. Joe comic book where Mainframe gets snubbed
That’s okay — Mainframe didn’t get into computers for the respect. He got into computers for the chicks.

Mainframe was one of the better characters that the G.I. Joe creative team came up with; far, far better than, say, turning Walter “The Fridge” Perry into a member of the team, complete with signature weapon: a football on a chain. Really.

You Can Be Mainframe!

Well, sort of. If you’ve got some weapon skills and can code Ajax, Ajaxian points to a US$200K-paying job that might be right for you. Here’s a quick run-down:

  • Title: Web Developer
  • Salary: $200K plus DOE
  • Taxes: No Federal taxes taken out for the contractors that accept a 12 month. (6 month contractors will have taxes taken out)
  • Location: Iraq
  • Start date: ASAP with 2 weeks training (one in Washington DC and another in Ft. Bening GA)
  • # of Openings: 1

    • Summary: A principal Department of Defense agency is looking for programmers, developers or coders to code, support field deployment and maintenance of a new database application which will be used by Army units in Iraq. Scope These are full-time positions (12/7) located at one of the major US Bases in IRAQ. Deployment will be period of 6-12 months. Training on the application software will begin prior to deployment and will take place in Virginia. These positions are available for full time employment or for independent contractors. These positions are available now.

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    Getting Started with Facebook Application Development

    Woman at vintage computer with 8-inch floppy disk Photoshopped to have a Facebook label

    If you were looking for a quick and easy way to get started developing Facebook applications (perhaps you’re attending the upcoming Facebook Developer Garage/Camp in Toronto), you’re in luck: I’ve written the first of a number of articles that tackle that topic. Head on over to the Tucows Developer Blog and check out Getting Started with Facebook Application Development.

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    Facebook Developer Garage/Camp: Tuesday August 7th

    Facebook Developer Garage Toronto
    Click this logo to see the event’s Facebook page.

    Facebook Camp Toronto
    Click this logo to see the event’s wiki page.

    It’s the event so anticipated that it had to have more than one name. Whether you call it Facebook Developer Garage Toronto [this links to its Facebook page] or Facebook Camp Toronto [this links to its wiki page], so many Toronto-based developers have expressed an interest in attending that they had to change to a larger venue.

    Originally scheduled to take place at No Regrets Cafe and Restaurant (home of a number of DemoCamp Toronto events), Facebook Garage/Camp will now take place at the MaRS Centre (101 College Street, Toronto, just east of Queen’s Park subway station). The event takes place on Tuesday, August 7, 2007, formally starts at 6:30 p.m. and the schedule is listed below:

    Facebook Garage/Camp Description and Schedule
    Tuesday, August 7, 2007

    Please join us to thrash out Facebook Platform: share ideas, troll for partners on your latest project, check out app demonstrations, seek developer support direct from Facebook Developers, or just socialize with people like you.

    The Facebook Platform Team will give an introduction to Platform, discuss best practices around product design & viral marketing techniques, and hold a technical Q&A.

    Please come ready to share, participate, and absorb new ideas along with other Facebook app developers.

    • 6:00 – Social/Mingling
    • 6:30 – Introduction by Colin Smillie Roy Pereira and Andrew Cherwenka
    • 6:40 – Best Practices around Product Design and Viral Marketing (Meagan Marks, Facebook.com)
    • 7:30 – Anatomy of a Facebook Application (Jay Goldman and Michael Glenn, Radiant Core)
    • 7:50 – FBML Overview (Sunil Boodram, Trapeze Media)
    • 8:10 – FQL Overview (Craig Saila)
    • 8:30 – Updating the Facebook Profile (Colin Smillie, Refresh Partners)
    • 8:50 – Demo: .Net Sample Application (Ricardo Covo)
    • 9:00 – Demo: Carpool by Zimride (Rajat Suri)
    • 9:10 – Demo: Ogrant by Shachin Ghelani
    • 9:20 – Wrap-up and drinks

    The event is free to the public, but they do request that you sign up for the event. The problem is that there are currently two sign-up rosters — one on the Facebook page and one on the wiki page. If you’d like to attend, I suggest that you sign up on both.

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    If Radio is Bad for Music, Why Has Payola Existed All These Years?

    Yellow 60’s-era transistor radio

    A Brief History of Payola

    Alan FreedSee the gentleman on the left? That’s Alan Freed, the “Father of Rock and Roll”. As a radio DJ and music television show host in the 50’s, he popularized the term “Rock and Roll”, turning it from an obscure euphemism for sex into a household phrase for a music genre. He helped break the color barrier in music, introducing America to acts like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

    His career and reputation were destroyed in the (painfully-named) Payola scandal, in which he accepted bribes from record companies to give their records more airplay. Dick Clark’s career was almost destroyed as well, but by cooperating with the authorities and selling off his share of a record company, he was able to have the charges against him reduced to a slap on the wrist.

    (Freed, unable to find much work in the wake of the scandal, turned to alcohol and died of cirrhosis in 1965.)

    Payola still exists today, thanks to a legal loophole. Rather than going directly to radio stations, record companies hire “indies” (independent promoters, not independent labels) to promote their albums — and by promote, I mean “provide payment as inducement to play their albums”. For more on the relationships between record companies, indies and radio stations, see this How Stuff Works article.

    Radio: Bad for the Recording Industry?

    Here’s a report from Techdirt earlier today:

    Remember a few months back when the RIAA started asking the government to get radio stations to pay up for promoting their music? This seemed pretty ludicrous (especially when you add in the fact that record labels for years have paid radio stations via payola to get them to play their music in the first place). Well, the group organized by the RIAA to push this plan has found a professor to publish a study saying that radio actually makes people buy less music. This way, they can claim that radio actually is not a promotional medium for music.

    Techdirt asks the question and I repeat it: If radio is bad for music as the RIAA says, why have record companies been bribing radio stations all these years?