Sony Announces ImageStation Closing, Nobody Notices
September 14th, 2007 at 11:27 PM by Matt Freedman
I got an email in the ‘box yesterday from Sony saying that ImageStation (their uploading, sharing and ordering pictures service) will be closing on February 1, 2008. You can see a screenshot of the email here.
According to their shutdown schedule, after November 11, 2007, you will no longer be able to upload or order pictures. All you will be able to do is view, download and order a backup (CD or DVD) of your pictures. On January 14, 2008, you will no longer be able to order a backup disc. And, finally, on February 1, 2008 the ImageStation servers will be shutdown and all remaining accounts and pictures will be deleted. No copies will be kept.
To make it easier for all their customers, they’ve teamed up with ShutterFly and you can initiate an automatic transfer of all your pictures to them. But they still recommend you either download your stuff or order an archive disc.
You can learn how to download your images here.
I’m guessing that they’re closing down because of lack of people using it. It doesn’t seem like a very popular service. You never hear about it, and I don’t think they’ve added a lot of new features recently. I didn’t even hear anything about them closing down in the blogosphere. I thought at least TechCrunch would post about it… Sony provided the following reason for the shutdown (in their shutdown FAQ):
Sony Electronics has decided to close ImageStation, its photo sharing service, in order to focus on the company’s core businesses, products, and services.
In the early days of digital photography Sony realized the need to provide an online photo service to support their digital camera customers. In the years since, many capable online photo services have become available and our customers now have a broad range of options for storing, sharing, printing and creating photo gifts.
I signed up for ImageStation back when I bought my first digital camera, a Sony, in 2004. I never really used the service.
I went to sign in to ImageStation to see what pictures I had in there, and I was presented with “This Image is Temporarily Unavailable” instead of my images. Nice…
Sony has setup an FAQ on their shutdown.
ImageStation seemed like a good service, but other, apparently better, services have started to replace it. I doubt anyone will be devastated by it’s shutdown.
Code Highlighting in WordPress
September 10th, 2007 at 11:15 AM by Matt FreedmanHave you ever wanted to post some code onto your WordPress blog, but then quickly get frustrated when it gets formatted properly? I have, a lot. I also wanted syntax highlighting. To try to solve these problems, I was using WP-Syntax. Sure, it did syntax highlighting, but if you wanted the code to be presented well, you had to do some CSS magic, and I still got frustrated when my code got formatted.
Well, WordPress.com solved this problem. They made it easy to do, presented the code well and your code doesn’t get formatted. Oh, sure, but what about self-hosted WordPress blogs?
Well, it wasn’t long before somebody made a plugin for self-hosted WordPress blogs that did exactly the same thing. Viper007Bond threw together a plugin that did what WordPress.com blogs could do. Then, Matt Mullenweg saw Viper’s post and said that they should work together, and sent over the code he was using on WordPress.com. That’s how the WordPress plugin SyntaxHighlighter was born.
To use it, you just wrap your code in [sourcecode language=’lang’] and [/sourcecode] tags. Where lang is, would be one of the following currently supported languages:
- cpp
- csharp
- css
- delphi
- java
- jscript
- php
- python
- ruby
- sql
- vb
- xml
You can also use source or code instead of sourcecode, and lang instead of language. You can even not type in language or lang. So, the shortest would be [code=’lang’][…][/code].
The visitor is then presented with a clean little box with the code in it. The code is highlighted, there’s line numbers, the visitor can view the code in plain text (no highlighting), copy the code to the clipboard and print the code. Here’s a live example (click here if you’re reading this as a Feed):
<?php
if ($x == "1") {
echo "1";
}
else {
echo "2";
}
?>
It uses Alex Gorbatchev’s SyntaxHighlighter to highlight and present the code front-end using JavaScript. Which also means, that it will degrade nicely if it’s being read in a Feed, or if the visitor doesn’t have JavaScript on/doesn’t have a browser that supports JavaScript.
It’s a great plugin that does what it supposed to do, and does it well. Check it out, if you like to post code on your WordPress blog, without any hassles.
WordPress 2.2.3 Released
September 7th, 2007 at 9:52 PM by Matt Freedman
WordPress 2.2.3 has been New iPods… Sweet!
September 6th, 2007 at 10:29 PM by Matt FreedmanThe new iPods look pretty Sweet. If you haven’t about them yet (seriously, put the rock up for sale!), I’ll fill you in:
iPod shuffle: Nothing much new… some new colours I think.
iPod nano: It’s now a square, and can play video. Coverflow (album cover flippy thingy from iPhone), and some UI changes. All metal.
iPod classic: New name (before it was unofficially the iPod Video, officially the iPod 5.5 generation). Looks a bit different, available in grey and black. All metal. Base model is 80GB, model up is 160GB. Around the same price. Coverflow and some UI changes.
iPod touch: Brand new. Think the iPhone without the phone part. Wifi, Safari, Youtube, multi-touch screen and all that good stuff. Download songs through iTunes via Wifi directly to the device.
The model name after “iPod” is not capitalized, either…
By far, the iPod touch looks the coolest! I’d definitely buy one, if I had the money (:P). Prices aren’t that bad, too. Check out all the iPods here.
What do you think about the new iPods?
Back to School… or… not?
September 5th, 2007 at 10:30 AM by Matt FreedmanYesterday was the day when everyone went back to school… The day most people dread. But, what did we go back to school for?
Most school in British Columbia have a short day the first day. For me, it was barely 15 minutes. We all got up early, went all the way to school, went to our homeroom and were done within 15 minutes. Most of us then went back home. You starting to see something wrong with this picture?
So, we had to get to school. Some parents drove their kids (possibly taking the day off work to do so), some kids took the bus (like me) and some kids walked. Gas now-days is expensive, you have to pay for the bus. Some kids it probably takes an hour to get to school. All the teachers have to go to school so they can hand out our schedule, agenda and give us a locker. Then we can leave, and go home.
What a waste of time! It’s wasting money for students/parents in possible transportation costs, it’s costing the teachers to get their and it’s costing the school money to have the school open, clean and heated! What for? 15 minutes of crap.
Also, another thing, we’re going their to give the school money (school fees). Yes, I like the fact that I don’t have to do anything on the first day of school, but still. Why not just make it a full day, or just start school on Wednesday and give out our stuff before our classes.
As for the school fees, those are stupid to. The law passed about not having to pay for classes essential to graduating has way to many loopholes. You have to pay for any workbooks you might use. Workbooks you usually need for the class. Why should we have to even pay any school fees? The Province newspaper reports that in BC, the provincial government is giving $5 billion to education (which works out to be about $7000 per student). How does that not cover any school costs? I can understand paying for materials you use in a class like Metalwork or Woodwork, but the rest of the fees (except the yearbook) should be covered. I also think that the school should provide some basic school supplies to students. Supplies like pencils, pens, erasers, white-out and paper. A lot of families can’t afford to pay for all that.
What a complete waste of time for everyone, and a complete waste of money.
What do you think about this, and is it a similar situation in schools in your area?
