Nader

The old page was nice and handy for its time but we figured there are a lot of improvements that can be made. So we have been working on a completely new version based on the welcome page of Bandnews.org. Check it out here.

The user interface has been undergoing a heavy reconstruction, so have the band pages in general. The site is now cleaner, faster to load and most importantly easier to use.

New features include a faster user interface which provides instant reaction by using Javascript. This is now possible due to the widely supported function called XmlHttpRequest. It allows client-server-communication while the currently loaded page remains unchanged. This technique is nowadays refered to as AJAX (Asynchonous JAvascript with Xml).

Bandnews.org, the music news aggregator has some cool, new features which I wanted to point out. You can now customize your music news without registering to give it a try. If you want to watch more than 5 bands you can register for free for a total of 100 bands. This also enables you to use the RSS feed syndication feature.

Another new feature is the News by Date Calendar used to display news from a specific day, month, year with a simple click.

Google has just introduced its enhanced AdSense program to a group of selected clients. Next to the well-known
text ads, publishers can now incorporate more “eye-catching” ads (= blinking
gif banners) in their site. Google limits the size of animated GIFs to 50
kilobytes, AdSense publishers need only opt-in to increase their money
generating possibilities.

The feedback has been mixed so far, as Google’s price
model is based on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis and advertisers claim, this
model is not suitable for GIF banners, which can have a
branding value even if consumers don't click on them. For this reason, banners
are traditionally sold based on cost-per-thousand impression basis.

When it gets to online advertising in general, the ad
format 468×60 has always been a standard and could remain so for the upcoming
years. But there are way prettier and more effective ad formats on the market,
ie the “Leaderboard” with 728×90 and the “Skyscraper” with 120×600. A lot of
well-known online-magazines use them: wired.com, slashdot.org, spiegel.de. These specific ad formats enable a less intrusive way of catching the
visitor/consumer as they’re not directly embedded into the content but remain
at the outer edges of a website.

I’d prefer interesting image ads more than those
boring non-multimedia text ads. But when is advertising actually fun and catchy?
The online advertising industry still has a long way to go.

The austrian mobile provider 3 is doing a nice promotion at the moment. From yesterday till Sunday they're giving away free traffic on browsing the net with your 3 mobile. Cool! The long mobile internet week-end. For freaks, for geeks.

The subbrand of Panasonic, Technics, brought the original turntable SL-1200 to a whole new level. A digital one. With the SL-DZ1200, you've got the first direct-drive digital turntable with the ability to spin, scratch, break your CD, MP3 and AAC Tracks. You can even use your Smart Media Card. Imagine DJ's coming to the club with just 3 little smart media cards in their pocket. Nice but scary. 

You should check out this presentation video. It features very nice DJ action and illustrates the power of this turntable.
Quicktime Video
DOWNLOAD (12MB)

Features on the Official Product Site

Photos of the new Technics SL-DZ1200

Webdesigners, Developers and all the others in need of testing websites with the Safari Browser (Apple) should check out the great open source project "PearPC", an architecture-independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running most PowerPC operating systems. This means you'll be able to run MacOS X on your PC! Wohooo! It's somehow complicated but worth the try.

Alex and I have installed PearPC 0.31, then MacOS X on a Dell Inspiron 4100 Notebook with Pentium III-1GHz, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB HD. It took approximately 5 hours to complete the standard MacOS X installation, which is pretty fucking long but then you've got everything up and running.

The response time to clicks is short, the feel while using the system is fast with little loading times for applications. In one sentence: this software is absolutely awesome but still needs the hands of an experienced user, eg. for the advanced configuration of the system.

Requirements: Lots of time, MacOS X Installation Disc 1, Documentation

Screenshot of the MacOS X installation

A friend of mine, Matteo, has invited me to register for Google's Gmail service, a privilege which only very few people have. He initially got it through a colleague in the states and now it's my turn.

At first hand the tool seems very fast and perfectly useable as single mail solution. With a lot of javascript and nifty features you don't need to load pages, they just appear in a sec. Another great thing is the possibility to use shortcuts, so when browsing you just need to type "c" on your keyboard and tadaaa, the "Compose" Screen appears.

It would be cool if you could send me an e-mail to (ask for address) - I'd be very interested to see more of how this tool behaves with a lot of messages. I was already about to cry because Gmail only allows a minimum of 6 characters in the e-mail address. Aaaah, so my preferred e-mail adress nader@gmail.com was too short to be true! ;)