A couple of days ago I talked about video on demand (pay per view). I didn't know there was also a games on demand variety, where one can subscribe to actual games that one would normally buy on cd. Yahoo Games on Demand offers exactly that. You can subscribe to it and it then allows you to have access to a nice amount of games. What happens is, you download an initial part of the game you want to play. The rest of the game is downloaded as you play, which means you need to be online while playing. The system requires a broadband connection.

At $34.95 for three months, it doesn't sound that unreasonable if you are a major player. If you just play occassionally, I'd stick to buying games. Preferably discounted. With gaming on demand, the problem is not actually owning the game. But then, how many games are out there that you will really play more than a couple of weeks? Oh yeah, another problem is that it requires a “US based credit card” to sign up.

Privacy is an important part of my life. I prefer to choose for myself what information to share with those around me, and what to keep to myself. This goes for both online and offline information. But some applications that put privacy at risk cause a struggle as to whether or not to appreciate them. [Read More!]

There are several things I miss when using Google. One of them is the ability to use wildcards, and another is proximity searching. Searching for synonyms using google just isn't the same as wildcards, although in a way you can use it for that.

Thanks to a number of people developing their own services to use with Google, I can finally have the proximity search. As always, please use your own API if you have one.

Note: the link doesn't always work, but when it does it sure comes in handy

I will be the first to admit that I have been slow in adopting the blogging thing. It has been around for years, but I never got into it. I'll spare you the reasoning for my sudden start in this area, but the fact is, I'm giving it a try. How strange it is then, to read about a study on the blogging phenomenon, and to find that it isn't the big thing it appears to be. Or rather, that it is mainly a small demographic segment of people, and for a very limited time.
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There are plenty of sites I read on a daily basis. Well, you've seen the list on the left side of the page. Some of those are important enough to check a couple of times a day. You could call it an addiction, but at least I am not alone in my online addictions.

I can see a use for Quickbrowse though. This paid service gathers your preferred webpages, and combines them into one long page for you to read. You can receive it by mail, so you don't have to go clicking all the sites. It wouldn't be worth the $4/month to me, but I'm not a manager.

Besides Froogle finally having its own domain (well, maybe I just never noticed it before), there are two interesting changes.

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Whether one agrees with P2P file sharing or not, fact is that many people download songs, entire music CDs, game CDs, and even movies. Several things still make it worthwhile to buy an original (to me), one of which being that a good CD comes with a booklet of songs, and a decent packaging.

Sites that offer covers for download enable downloaders to fancy up their illegal downloads. I've always been surprised by the acts of pirates/illegal copiers. They go to a lot of trouble to create a cheap (illegal) copy, and then they want it to look like the real thing, so they spent a lot of time and money on creating nice covers and such. Well, this sure could be helpful.

On p2pnet.net, an interview with Linus Torvalds is listed. I figured this is a good time to start a category “interesting quotes”. I considered adding it for a while, but didn't come across any good quotes yet, so here we go. [Read More!]

Well, it seems as if I am on a porn-kick lately, but trust me, it's all a coincidence. I came across an article (pdf, in Dutch) about Dutch judges and court cases against employees that watched Internet porn at work.

The most important information in the article: it will be very hard for an organisation to fire someone if they don't have a clear policy against this kind of thing. A clear policy, which must've been communicated, and which also mentions sanctions.

Of course this isn't just about watching porn, but also visiting travel sites, booking trips online while at work, and things like that. I guess it is a good thing they're not very strict at my employer. Yet. I know they're working on a new policy, and I wonder what that will be like. Until then, I'll keep visiting my favorite sites while at work (only occassionally ofcourse, and none of them having any porn).

Many years ago, the idea of pay-per-view over the Internet seemed to be the big promise. I've never seen much of it. Ofcourse, old connection speeds weren't exactly meant for this.

Now, with more and more people having broadband, it becomes feasible to offer pay-per-view online. But what? Movies most likely.

The Dutch Yeahronimo offers music downloads with DRM technology. But most of all, they offer streaming concerts and sports events. [Read More!]