ZuDfunck

New JibJab Commentary Cartoon

Some things just seem Right!

Major League Baseball Highlights on iTunes

For Baseball fans you have options:

With opening day right around the corner, Major League Baseball and Apple have announced a deal for game highlights to appear on the iTunes Store. Each day there will be a 25 minutes "MLB.com Daily Rewind" highlight show and each week two "'Games of the Week,' featuring full versions of the best games from the National and American Leagues." Each of these games will be $1.99 (compared to $3.95 per game through MLB's Digital Download Service) though there will also be a Season Pass of the "Game of the Week" for $19.99 and a Multi-Pass of the "Daily Rewind" for $7.99 per month.

MLB.TV is probably the best online sports offering, so real baseball fans will probably want to go there instead as it allows you to stream "every 2007 regular season out-of-market game" live plus a lot more. However, this iTunes deal looks interesting, and with MLB under fire for the exclusive DirecTV deal, more media choice is a good thing. We can hope this will be a success and cause MLB to expand their iTunes offering with more games, etc.

Via TUAW

Create a Comic Strip this Weekend

A nifty way to spend a few hours this weekend. If you do send em to us and we will publish! A Tease:

ToonDoo launched this morning, a new site that lets users easily create comic strips with pre-built or uploaded images and text. This is an Indian company, and has the same parent company, AdventNet, as Zoho (one of our current sponsors), a fairly serious online office application startup (see our coverage here).

The creation tool is a Flash applicaton that includes a number of options for characters, props, backgrounds and text bubbles. Users can also upload their own images and include them in the comic strip.

Once the strip is created it can also be published to the ToonDoo platform, along with a title, tags and a description. User comments and rankings help bring the good stuff to the front. The service just launched moments ago, so there isn’t much content there yet, but the most favorited strips are here. This is my personal favorite. ToonDoo is free.

Via TechCrunch

Cingular says June 11 is iPhone Day

Oh that will be a wonderful day, indeed. From The Unoffical Apple Weblog:

My fellow Carnegie Mellon alum Declan McCullagh (go Tartans!) has a unique investigative style: when he wants to find out a product release date, he calls customer service and asks someone. Genius, I say! In this case, he called AT&T/Cingular and spoke to a sales manager who confirmed an on-sale date for the iPhone of June 11, 2007. The alert reader will note that Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference also starts on June 11. Coincidence? Uh, survey says no.

Legend and Son, Times Two Lead Hoyas, Weekend Three

Although I thought they were done the last two games, they found a way to win. We hope for that continuing Saturday Night at 6:05PM EDT on CBS. The dynamic that drew me and continues to enthrall, is the father/son angle of coaches and player. This from USAToday's media Sports god:

Saturday, John Thompson, the ex-Georgetown coach who's now a TNT NBA analyst, will work Westwood One's national radio coverage of the Final Four — including John Thompson III coaching Georgetown against Ohio State. He'll wear the lucky socks he's sported, unwashed, throughout the Hoyas' run: "You don't want to wash the luck out of them."

But as an analyst, working with Bill Raftery and Kevin Harlan, he's "not a cheerleader. I'm a coach. Subconsciously, you might be saying, 'Why the heck are you doing that?' But you don't put it out on the airwaves."

Thompson, who's already called some of his son's games, says "anybody who's been in the business" ends up calling games involving coaches he liked — or didn't. His son's win vs. North Carolina last weekend involved "an extremely close" friend: Tar Heels coach Roy Williams.

Thompson's "greatest joy" is in seeing his son succeed. "Anytime you have kids, you want them to do more and better. My dad walked into the house saying, 'I'm working hard so you won't have to.' "

I Want This Homepage!

Isn't that the coolest homepage you've ever seen? I don't know that Typepad could support such a thing. But I want it.

76Design recently relaunched their homepage, and it is a pretty neat piece of cwork. I love the blog metaphor and interactivity, despite my nagging feeling that I'm not sure why anyone would actually use the cork board. I'd love to see a blog app that works like this. Something that let's me post to the cork board, and then lets my readers use post-its to leave their comments. Now *that* would be very cool stuff!!

These guys have definitely gone from Lame to Luscious with this new design. Well done!

Via Random Bytes

Picture Created by Sexy Girls Forming the Letters

Look closely those are female figures forming the message to live by.

A Calm Practical View of Macintosh Computers

A well thought out rationale for Switching to a Mac and Why:

There are three essential truths that I have come to believe about Macs:

1. The mythology surrounding the Mac isn’t true. It’s not impervious to problems. Like any computer, a Mac can really come apart on you in a bad way. I’ve seen it happen.

2. When Macs go bad, the conventional wisdom is that they’re harder to fix than Windows machines. I used to believe that myself. It may have been true under pre-OS X versions of the Mac OS, but I no longer find that to be the case. As a relative Mac newbie, I’ve had no trouble figuring out Mac problems — and that includes a couple of doozies.

3. That said, Macs go bad less often than Windows PCs. Mac users are more productive than Windows users because Macs experience fewer problems. There’s nothing mystical about it either. There are some obvious reasons why this is the case: The Mac is a closed hardware/software system. The OS isn’t forced to contend with a vast variety of hardware, and the hardware is carefully vetted so that it works perfectly with the software. Apple controls the horizontal; it controls the vertical. The hardware and software are a matched set.

Apple has also had an enduring, consistent vision about usability. It’s willing to sacrifice both power and flexibility to create a user interface that is far more intuitive than other operating systems. So Macs work better and are easier to use. That’s it in a nutshell.

Via Macworld

Gmail Users Grappling With Downtime

Trouble in Paradise?

For at least the third time this month, Google is grappling with performance and availability problems in the Gmail service of Google Apps, the suite of hosted services that many consider a potential threat to Microsoft’s Office suite of desktop software.

The latest problem began affecting users on Tuesday morning. It remained unresolved Tuesday evening, affecting also regular Gmail users who aren’t on Google Apps, according to a company spokesman.

“A number of Gmail users are having some difficulty accessing and sending mail, and we are working as quickly as we can to resolve the problem. Some Google Apps accounts are also affected,” he wrote via e-mail. “We know how important e-mail is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously.”

Via MacWorld

YouTube for your Mobile Device, Coming Soon

Just what you need, YouTube on the go! Now you can Watch every frame of Dudes lighting Farts while you sip on your Frappuccino. What a Country!

YouTube will launch its mobile website in June 2007 for U.S. users, according to a spokesperson. The mobile YouTube site will go live once the exclusivity clause on the company’s mobile video deal with Verizon Wireless expires. The service will be live for European users in May. YouTube has been already working closely with mobile carriers, and handset makers such as Nokia on the mobile version of their video service.

In response to my question if YouTube is developing a mobile client, the spokesperson said that the company had been talking about it, but had no information to share at this time. Check out a preview of the blocked mobile site or this demo site: http://m.youtube.com/?client=ytdemo which you can see from some mobile phones (let us know if your phone can access it).

Just in Time for the iPhone!

Via GigaOM

Jail Time for Illict Cellphone Camera Use

But in Saudi Arabia, but could it come to the USA? Vote Republican and maybe it will. The story:

It also defines as a crime "infringing upon private lives through misuse of mobile telephones equipped with cameras and similar devices with the purpose of defaming or harming people".

Camera phones have been opposed by religious police in conservative Saudi Arabia, which imposes a strict form of Islamic law. The country banned the sale of the devices for several months in 2004.

But the restrictions have failed to stop the spread of the latest technological fashions in a country of 24 million with high per capita income and a burgeoning youth population.

Via PicturePhoning.com & Reuters UK

Blogger Getting Death Threats, Won't Leave House

It is a sad day in the Blogosphere when ZuD came across this Post from Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users. Frightened and angry at being the target of threats, she puts together a thoughtful perspective on what her life has become . We can only hope through technology, what it is today, the perpetrators can be found and dealt with. To Quote:

I do not want to be part of a culture--the Blogosphere--where this is considered acceptable. Where the price for being a blogger is kevlar-coated skin and daughters who are tough enough to not have their "widdy biddy sensibilities offended" when they see their own mother Photoshopped into nothing more than an objectified sexual orifice, possibly suffocated as part of some sexual fetish. (And of course all coming on the heels of more explicit threats)

I do not want to be part of a culture where this is done not by some random person, but by some of the most respected people in the tech blogging world. People linked to by A-listers like Doc Searls, a co-author of Chris Locke. I do not want to be part of a culture of such hypocrisy where Jeneane Sessum can be a prominent member of blogher, a speaker at industry conferences, an outspoken advocate for women's rights, and at the same time celebrate and encourage a site like meankids -- where objectification of women is taken to a level that makes plain old porn seem quaintly sweet.

Look What Justin.TV Started, Everyone Could Have a Live Webcam Stream

Or so it seems. UStream TV makes it possible for anyone to be on the web with their own Live video feed. Just think of the possibilities. Show your cat cleaning itself, your dog licking... well, you get the idea! When I went to the site the featured video at the time showed some Dude sleeping! Yikes, now that is powerful stuff! Get in on the ground floor, be the next Justin!

Headsup: TechCrunch

ZuD's Time Machine: Joe Theismann's Gruesome Leg Break

With Joe in the news for being demoted off of Monday Night Football, I thought it time to revist that fateful Monday nite in 1985 when his football carreer ended. Caution: not for the squeamish!

Via Daily Sports Video

Blogger Abandons Blog after Estranged Mom Reads It

In cleaning out my Blogroll over the weekend found this Tid-Bit Soap Opera drama:

This Space Intentionally Left Blank
pastime apocalypse

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. My mom found this blog, read the whole thing, and dropped me a line to let me know she'd done it.

I cut my mother out of my life almost eight years ago, and it's been a really great eight years as far as that goes. I knew there were ways she could find my blog but I honestly hoped she wasn't web savy enough to do so. Alas.

I always said I'd nuke this blog the minute she laid her hands on it. By happy coincidence, she did so shortly after I started to feel like I was played out anyway.

Thanks everyone for reading all these years. I'll still be around the 'net, commenting and such. I may even start another blog under a different name in a different domain. But Strip Mining for Whimsy now lives only on my hard drive.

ZuD Sports Briefs, What a Weekend!

It was a fine weekend for sports, the NASCAR Car of Tomorrow debut went well, The Georgetown Hoyas move on to the Final Four and Marquez beating Barrera (one week delayed on HBO).

Say it Ain't So Joe, Theismann Sacked!

One of ZuD's favorites, shoot he taught me the game, has been yanked! to qoute the sports media God:

But an industry official with direct knowledge of the move says Theismann, who last year worked with play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico and rookie game analyst Tony Kornheiser, won't be back on MNF. Theismann clearly didn't mesh with Kornheiser, a longtime newspaper writer who co-hosts ESPN's Pardon the Interruption daytime talk show and had never called live game action.

So it makes sense one of them would go. A logical replacement for Theismann would be studio analyst Ron Jaworski, who is more conversational and humorous on-air than Theismann. If ESPN wants to take a chance, it could pair Kornheiser with Bill Parcells or Emmitt Smith, recently signed as studio analysts — each would bring star power to the MNF booth.

Which starts the boulder rolling down the hill, Who will replace him?

Justin Wears a Webcam 24/7 and You Watch

I guess it was bound to happen. Justin.TV is a few days in already excitement, Cops get a call, Fire trucks, you get the idea. There maybe something happening right now! Or not. Makes you stop and think about where we are headed. Techcrunch says:

When a bunch of geeks live their life online, it’s tempting to do things to disrupt those lives and watch the fun from the comfort of your computer. So it’s no surprise that some fairly funny pranks have already been played on four day old Justin.tv.

The best so far? Wednesday at 1:40 AM someone spoofed the caller id of the Justin.tv official cell phone number (which is listed on the Justin.tv site), called the San Francisco police department and reported a stabbing in the North Beach apartment.

Via

It's Spring so I Pruned my BlogRoll

Image Via
While I finally did it, like putting off weeding, washing the car or getting a vasectomy I finally edited my blogroll. After four years of showering link love on any Tom, Dick or Harry it became apparent it needed a trim. I logged onto Blogrolling and went through each of those 273 links and found a hundred to be DOA. Or should that be DWC, dead when clicked, any way, my blogroll on the about page now is trimmer and more meaningful and I can look at it proudly instead of just tolerating it.

It was quite an adventure, like entering a Time Machine to visit sites that hadn’t been updated for awhile or were still pumping out that same vibe that attracted me originally. I did come across a few that I couldn’t fathom why I was so free with my link loving. Like how it was in the seventies with ‘relationships’ if you know what I mean.

It does give pause, however, when you think a third of the sites I thought enough of to link to, are now gone. Shows what dedication and focus Blogging requires and that those of us around this long should be proud of that longevity, even if we do suck!

I am still a Link lover, so contact me if you would want to replace those bygone Bloggers and sites with yours. Wink wink.

Hoyas and Tar Heels a Rematch Today

This is going to be something special, so in case you aren't aware, back away from the PC and fire up CBS at 5:05 PM ET and treat yourself. Twenty five years ago these teams played.

But who knows what mark, if any, Sunday's game will make on history? After all, the legacy of the 1982 game is impossible to match. It included a coach who had yet to win the big one, another coach who hoped to break a barrier and become the first black coach to win the national title, a Tar Heel freshman who became one of the best players in the sport's history and a Hoya freshman who became one of the top centers of all-time.

But even if that doesn't play out, future stars and such, we have the dynamic of legend/son going.