standards
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HDMI issues at GDC? Or simply no cable?
The PS3 dev kits on display at GDC apparently skipped the HDMI connection for some of their demos, casting doubt on how far along Sony's come with its hardware and digital standards compliance.During GDC, Sony brought along a few PS3 demo units to show off audio and video, which TG Daily spied from a distance. As you can see above, the PS3 graphics demo unit used a standard AV Multi-Out connector while the "two HDMI ports right below the AV Multi-Out port were unused." TGD apparently offered to lend Sony officials an HDMI cable of their own to connect to the system, but they were turned down.Of course, there's also a conflicting pic which Chris Grant took for us on Joystiq Central that seems to show that very HDMI connection being used, probably with another unit. (Scroll down to the second pic here to see it.) So what's the real story? Was Sony lacking enough updated HDMI 1.3 hardware and/or 1.3-compatible TVs to show off the HD goods, or were they simply short on cables? Maybe their budget was a bit tight for GDC (what with Phil's focused keynote and abundance of GDC sessions from Sony), so hopefully we'll see everything hooked up nice and tidy for E3.[Thanks, Michael, Racky, pheen, and DocEvil; via TechSpot and CD Freaks]
My other issues with iWeb
Adding to the small pile of gripes with the new technology Apple is using with iLife 06, such as complaints about iWeb's bloated CSS or RSS standards and photocasting, I just developed a beef that I haven't really seen mentioned yet: the crummy new URL scheme for iWeb sites, both on and offline.First of all, in the olden day the .Mac "homepage" did't seem to be case sensitive, as in: homepage.mac.com/user will get you to the same place as /User. iWeb is a bit pickier, as a wedding site I'm working on lives at web.mac.com/myuser/iWeb/Wedding/, but /wedding/ will result in a 404 error. Yes, a friend already reminded me that "Unix = case sensitive," but I don't care. While this could be labeled a minor complaint, my fiance and I have plenty of family members who aren't too hip on these computer thingies. They're going to get confused by something silly and minor like this, and I'm sure our relatives aren't the only ones.Next on my list is the URL scheme itself. web.mac.com/user/iWeb/sitename? Could that get any less friendly? Granted "homepage.mac.com" might seems a little unprofessional to some, but this new scheme feels pretty cumbersome and just plain ugly. Why couldn't we simply have web.mac.com/user and web.mac.com/user/othersites, Apple?Last but not least is how the new sites are organized in a user's iDisk. Old homepage sites still live in iDisk/Sites/, while shiny new iWeb sites live in iDisk/Web/Sites/iWeb/sitename. Nevermind a discussion about how needlessly buried that file structure is - I'm sure this dichotomy of old/new sites and content is going to confuse plenty of .Mac customers if they ever want to get at any of those files, or make a backup of their sites or entire iDisk.But enough about my gripes, what do you guys think: do iWeb and its underpinning .Mac support have more issues besides CSS and standards? Let's hear your thoughts.
Is Photocasting totally non-standard?
Not that Dave Winer is the complaining type, just like Mossberg is a "tough critic," but Dave and Kevin Yank have been swimming around in Apple's photocasting business. They didn't like what they saw. Remember Jobs saying something about photocasting using "industry standard" RSS stuff? I remember that phrase specifically, although I don't recall if it was regarding photocasting (I think it was). In fact, I remember looking at my brother and thinking, "yeah right." The RDF shook off for a moment, because I know that Apple, while they do love to look at standards, won't always adhere to a standard if they don't want to.In this case, looks like they took secrecy over compliance. Instead of asking someone like Winer (who would gladly hold his tongue if it's to promote a standard instead of break it), as there is no standards body for RSS, Apple just kinda forged their own standard. Yeah, it uses standards in the same way I use the military: I'm glad they are there, but I never joined up. Basically the RSS is so screwed up the only way to read the feeds is to use Safari.The full details of what is broken is over at this unofficial documentation of iPhoto 6.0 photocasting feeds. Dave Winer has his words, witty as always, and Kevin Yank winds up saying what some are thinking: "Apple is the new Microsoft." Although I would like to point out that that unofficial documentation goes to Apple lists, and I have a feeling they are going to look at this. Heck, they might even fix it! So next year I'll gladly pay another $79 for XML that "just works."
