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Facebook to take on Google+Hangout

July 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerburg, has been hinting that something “awesome” will be released in the near future.  With an announcement scheduled this week Friday in Seattle, Washington, it appears likely that a partnership between the number one social media site and Skype is on the table.

Why?  The launch of Google+ last week is a direct assault on the leadership position held by Facebook.  Although the latter has many of the features included in Google+, it lacks a video chat service similar to Hangouts.  Groups who want to chat online have to exit Facebook for some other application (like Skype or Google+ Hangouts).

According to Mashable,

Facebook’s “awesome” announcement next week has been spoiled. The social network will reportedly be unveiling a Skype-powered video chat platform.

Facebook’s Seattle team was behind the new feature, according to TechCrunch. Skype and Facebook already have a serious partnership that integrated Facebook social data directly into the Skype client. Now it looks like Skype will be coming to Facebook.

(…)

Update: While Facebook and Skype aren’t saying anything officially, our sources confirm that Skype-powered video chat on Facebook will indeed be launching next week.

Skype, a leader in video chatting and Internet calling service (VOIP), was purchased by Microsoft $8.5 billion in May.  Coincidentally, Microsoft is headquartered in … Seattle.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Networking, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Google Disables Real-Time Search

July 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Google launches Twitter competitor Google+ and real-time search (of twitter’s feed) shows a 404 error.  The timing does seem suspicious.  Here’s what we know from Google (via SearchEngineLand):

Since October of 2009, we have had an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results through a special feed, and that agreement expired on July 2.

While we will not have access to this special feed from Twitter, information on Twitter that’s publicly available to our crawlers will still be searchable and discoverable on Google.

Although real-time search included other streams beyond Twitter, the stream of tweats was by far the most dominant and Google’s once useful service has been disabled.

Yes, I think this is more than a coincidental occurrence.

For more information:

Google Loses Access to Twitter Stream, Suspends Realtime Search – Mashable

As Deal With Twitter Expires, Google Realtime Search Goes Offline – SearchEngineLand

Filed Under: Social Networking, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Adobe’s Premiere Pro and Production Premium 50%

July 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Adobe released a new discount today for users of the Final Cut Studio and Avid. We suppose it could have come a few days ago, but this is still very good timing for the recent release of the disappointing Final Cut Pro X. Take a look:

Click here to go to Adobe’s software discount page.

Filed Under: Commentary, Software, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Google creates voice searching

June 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Being in the website business, we at AdeptPlus do a lot of SEO for our customers. Perhaps the website that is opened most commonly on our computers is the Google homepage. Today, I opened up Google Chrome which took me to my homepage, which is google.com. If you are logged in, this new button shows up.

If you click on the speak button, a small box appears.

I’m not really sure how much I will use this feature, considering that simply typing is much faster. It is another neat (nearly) hands-free feature that Google released.

Filed Under: Commentary, Just for Fun, Technology Tagged With: ,

Final Cut Pro X – “Everything just changed in post”…for the worse

June 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Today, Apple (finally) released their new update for Final Cut Pro. Here at AdeptPlus, we’ve been using the Final Cut Studio for as long as we have been editing media. However, with Apple’s new update which is showing what they want to target in the future when it comes to post, we are having thoughts of switching. Here’s why:

1) Goodbye, useful features – In the new FCP X, there are a list of features that we had in FCP7, but are gone now. Features like multicam viewing/editing, exporting videos in specific formats and sizes (now, you must do that in compressor), and FCP X only exports low-resolution JPG files.

2) RED Native Support - A huge chunk of the media we edit comes from RED cameras. Most of those files are .r3d files. Now, the new FCP X does not have redcode native support. So basically, forget about editing anything shot on your RED camera if you get FCP X.

3) Where’d you go, Color and Soundtrack Pro? From what it looks like, Apple just threw in some of the features of Color and Soundtrack Pro right into the new Final Cut. We have heard rumors that Apple is redoing Color right now, however. We do know that the new Final Cut does not have all the features that Color and Soundtrack Pro had. Imagine combining three different software programs into one.

Not to say that FCP X doesn’t have some awesome features, but it seems like these would give us enough reasons to drive us away. I suppose we will wait a couple of weeks to see if Apple can sort this out (and if Steve Jobs will reply to our email). If not, we will definitely keep Adobe’s Premiere Pro in mind.

What are your thoughts?

———-

Update (June 21st, 10:47pm CST):

According to MacRumors.com, Phillip Hodgetts posted on his blog about some of these common questions. Here are a few of them:

• “Multicam will come in a future release, when Apple decide[s] how best to implement it within the new application and architecture.”
• “As of Version 1 and today’s release there is no direct import capability for [Final Cut Pro 6/7] projects. My understanding is that there will be an Apple-provided utility for importing XML from older projects to Final Cut Pro X.”
• “the Apple folk made it abundantly clear that the ecosystem was very important to them, and that there will be a new, and much improved, replacement for the current XML workflow.”

Check out his blog post for more in-depth Q&As.

Filed Under: Commentary, Software, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

WordPress 404 Error on Save or Update

April 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A relatively strange error encountered by some WordPress users is the generate of a file-not-found or 404 error when a particular post is saved or updated.  To the user, the error seems almost random and generally leads to speculation that one of the plugins and sprung a leak.

The problem, I found, is actually security settings on the server.  Mod Security or Mod Security 2 block certain phrases and links from being saved as a means to protect the server from hackers.

Apart from changing your content, the solution is to disable to specific rules that trigger the error.  If you are using Mod Security, then adding a single line to the .htaccess file in the root directory may work (source):

SecFilterEngine Off

In the case of Mod Security 2, you’ll have to contact your web host administrator for help.  if you ahve root access, the fix can be found here:

Open the file /usr/local/apache/conf/modsec2/whitelist.conf

Add the following:

<LocationMatch "/wp-admin/post.php">
SecRuleRemoveById 300015 300016 300017
</LocationMatch>

<LocationMatch "/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php">
SecRuleRemoveById 300015 300016 300017
</LocationMatch>

<LocationMatch "/wp-admin/page.php">
SecRuleRemoveById 300015 300016 300017
</LocationMatch>

Restart apache.

After running into a number of problems I implemented this second solution and it worked very well.

 

 

Filed Under: Technology, Wordpress Tagged With: , , , ,

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