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Paul's Time Sink

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Trust, Privacy and Applications

Paul Westbrook | 22 June, 2008 22:49

There are some pretty cool new applications out there that I would like to try.  The only problem is that I have some problems trusting them.  Xoopit and Skyfire are two examples of this.

Xoopit is an extension to Gmail that lets you easily access and share your photos, videos and files that are in your Gmail account.  The problem with this is that you have to give them your gmail username and password, in order for them to index the data. 

Skyfire is a Windows Mobile web browser.  This browser is supposed to deliver a PC based browsing experience that is supposed to be really fase.  The problem that I have with this is in their implementation.  Essentially the Skyfire browser is a VNC or RDP client.  When you enter a web address in the "browser", it gets sent to their servers which fetch the html and renders web page, and then sends the rendered page to the "browser".  When people enter a secure https url, they have the expectation that their data will be encrypted between their browser and the server on the other end.  With Skyfire, the connection is encrypted between Skyfire's severs and the destination server.  I don't know how the connection is encrypted between the "browser" and Skyfire's severs.

I am sure that both Xoopit and Skyfire are not going to do anything malicious with my data, but what if their servers are broken in too.  For mail, I already am trusting Google with my data, adding another third party, adds another potential point of failure.

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feedly

Paul Westbrook | 22 June, 2008 22:18

I saw this post that mentioned feedly.  This looks like a interesting Firefox chrome application.  feedly presents you a start page that summarizes your content from Google Reader.  feedly also integrates with various social network sites to allow you to share content that you read.

I don't know if I will use feedly regularly for reading content, as Google Reader already has a good summary view.  I do like, and will continue to use, the interface that feedly offers for subscribing to feeds.  On one page, you can subscribe to and tag new feeds.  Since feedly relys on Google Reader as the backend, all feeds subscribed to in feedly are actually subscribed to in Google Reader.

I am interested in what they do with the social aspect of feedly.  It seems that feedly could enable other ways of sharing content, or discovering new content.

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TVersity

Paul Westbrook | 22 June, 2008 21:53

As I metioned before, I was looking for something to transcode my videos for playback on our XBox.  It looks like TVersity is the best solution.

TVersity is an application that is an UPnP/DNLA server that will share your content with any compatible devices.  In addtion to just sharing, it can transcode the content so it is playable on most devices.

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WebGuide

Paul Westbrook | 22 June, 2008 21:07

I have been looking for a solution for streaming and transcoding videos to our Xbox from the Windows Home Server.  I found WebGuide, and decided to try it out.

WebGuide is a plugin for Windows Home Server that lets you acess the content from your home server from the web.  This is different than the file based access that comes with Windows Home Server. You can view thumbnails of photos.  Also, you can stream music and video files from the server.  WebGuide relies on external transcoders to make your content playable.

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