Finally! IM2 2.0 final is out — a very clean and lite but still fully-featured all-in-one IM client. Think Trillian Pro but free. Complete with VOIP and video chat.

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Its no longer under my control. There appears to be some hosting issues, and the site that is being shown up isn’t the right site at all. Again, its not my site.. and none of the content is put up by me. I meant to mention this sooner.. but I’ve been getting a lot of emails about it, so I thought I’d just go ahead and do it.

If you’re curious, its the site of a friend of mine who is (was?) hosting it. I’ve tried contacting him via email.. but haven’t heard from him yet..

Josh

The analog hole bill would require video to be encoded with a new technology: VEIL. P2Pnet emailed the company to get the specs - they’ asked for $10,000 and an agreement not to tell anything about it. What about the members of Congress? Are they allowed to see the spec, or are the contents secret even from the lawmakers who are considering it?

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When my right earbud started making an annoying crackling sound I thought it was just the earbuds fault. But recently on iLounge it appears that a bunch of other iPod users have also had the problem, and with third party headphones as well! So, if you’re using an expensive pair of earbuds with your 5G — watch out!

Thankfully, the waranty that comes with the iPod replaced the stock buds. But now I’m worried about spending that $75 on those Shure e2cs… I think I’ll hold off for now.

Josh

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All you Windows iTunes users, ever wish you had applescripts for Windows? Well, here’s the solution! This guy has some fantastic javascripts, including some that’ll create playlists with all the songs in your iTunes library that doesn’t have lyrics or artwork.

Check the Digg story as well.

Josh

Don’t get me wrong, I like Google’s search.. but with each new product that comes out, I’m more and more skeptical of their overall goal. I might just be paranoid, but I really don’t like one company having SO much information about me. Lets review,

Google search: the most popular search engine in the world. Many people use Google to find WHATEVER they are looking for, so Google gets a nice big log of all the search history. Lets not forget the infamous Google ID cookie.. you know, the one that doesn’t expire until years and years from now?

Google Pagerank: Have pagerank enabled? You’re sending the domain (and possibly full URL) straight too Google.

Google Adsense/Adwords: Get your full mailing and billing address, SSN, and other personal info. With Adsense being on so many sites, they probably also have a nice log of every site you’ve been on that has adsense.

Google Web Accelerator: Literally sends every page you visit to Google for them to proxy it for you.

Gmail: All your email? I’ve never liked webmail… even if the interface is awesome and they provide an insane amount of space

Google Talk: Now they’re going for your IMs too?!?

Google Maps/Local: If they don’t already have your address from Adsense or Adwords, they’ll probably get a general idea of your location based on your maps and local search.

Froogle: A nice service, but they also get to see every product you price. They also see if you continue on to the site (they couldn’t just direct link it, they have to have a nice tracking link through Froogle.)

Google’s new Urchin/web stats: This has popped up on a TON of websites lately. Another way that they’ll more than likely see every website you’ve been too (that uses this service).

Now, what do they don’t know about me? Yes, they might (and probably don’t!) use any of the info for anything objectionable, but its still scary to think that one company has so much information about you.

Josh

I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.0 — and its awesome! And since I’ve upgraded, I might as well change themes. So the Dusk theme it is.

The new spam filtration that comes with it is very awesome.. no more en mass porn trackback/comment spam on this blog

The admin interface has been cleaned up a bit, and there are some nice new features and such. I’m still playing around.

I haven’t been blogging in a while.. so I guess I should catch you up. I had a great Christmas, and I hope you all did too (or whatever holiday you celebrated). Very busy.. cleaning up and such.

I’ll probably have to get the South Beach diet book with the walmart gift card I got — there was just too much good food to eat I suppose I should also excersize a little bit, but oh well.

Josh

Ok.. due to reasons beyond by control, thejosher.com will stop working for about a month, starting December 30th. So, I’ve registered thejosher.net, and everything should be moved over…

Please update your bookmarks to thejosher.net, and my new email will be josh AT thejosher [d0t] net.

Again, thejosher.com will no longer load, and I will no longer be able to get any email starting December 30th. Its a big mess.. but hopefully I’ll be able to get everything working right at thejosher.net, and get thejosher.com in my control so this wont happen again.

Thanks for reading

Josh

I’m not going to lie and say this script was my own original creation. Its pretty much a pretty-fied mirror of this script, but modified slightly.

Basically, you go into the iTunes music store, copy the iTMS URL for the album, paste the album URL into the page linked bellow, and it will give you a link to a nice big 600×600px album art photo. (Some are smaller, but a good 90% will be 600×600px)

So, without further ado, I present Josh’s iTunes Album Art Grabber! Enjoy the artwork

If you have any suggestions on how to make it easier to use/look better/whatever, please do commment. (I also need some suggestions on some good looking albums to put in the example rotation on the left!)

Josh

P.S.: Search by album and artist is coming soon! So now those of you who don’t have iTunes will be able just to enter the album and artist and get the artwork that way.

Firefox was launching REALLY slow… (I timed it, 24.5 seconds!) and just recently I found this cool extension called Chrome Cleaner, installed it, restarted Firefox, ran it (go into the extension options, then click clean), and my start time was reduced to: 6 seconds!

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