I know it’s a little late, but I’m going to try and summarise what’s new in the Canon EOS 5D Mark II in less than 100 words:

What is it?

A full-frame digital SLR for semi-professionals or ameteurs with a high budget.

Pros:

• Now has 21.1 megapixels (more than anyone would need — but it would cool to say “I have 21 megapixels”)
• Live View, for when a viewfinder just isn’t practical
• DIGIC 4, Canon’s fastest and newest processor
• ISO 25,600 — so you can take photos in pure darkness
• 1080p high-definition video capture, replacing your video camera (or not, see below)

Cons:

• It costs $2699 — and that’s without a lens
• Only supports EF lenses (no surprise there)
• Video is limited to 4GB or 30 minutes

Only 136 words, not bad. Can you think of anything great or bad about Canon’s latest SLR?

It’s unlikely that you haven’t heard of Media Temple. They’re one of the biggest hosting companies in the world, with services ranging from the $20/month Grid Server to a $500/month Nitro Dedicated server. Almost every top blog is either hosted in-house or by Media Temple — they’ve practically dominated the blog hosting market. How did they do this?

There’s no easy answer to this question. In my opinion, Media Temple has become a status symbol for bloggers — if you have it, it shows you are willing to spend some money on your blog — it is also a sign for submitters on social bookmarking websites that if you reach the front page, your site will sustain it.

It may have started when aspiring bloggers looked at the success of blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch, which both have Media Temple badges. It has become a trend now, even if you don’t use your referral link , to advertise that you use Media Temple to host your blog.

It’s a viral mystery to Media Temple’s success — it could be just that they provide affordable, scalable hosting. And, subconciously, I have turned this blog post into an advertisement for Media Temple (they’re not paying me).

On the other hand, there’s also a lot of people who hate (mt) and don’t believe their service is worth the money.

The iTunes Store on your Mac or PC contains sections for music, TV shows, podcasts, movies and apps — so why isn’t it the same on the iPhone?

Instead, the iPhone has two separate apps: One for music, and one for apps. If Apple could consolidate these two apps into one, plus adding podcast and movies support — the entire iTunes experience could be in your pocket.

Of course, bringing more content into a smaller space could mean it’s a more messy layout, and therefore harder to navigate through. But, if Apple can do it the way they always do, it could be easier to use and much more efficient than having two separate apps. Simple tabs at the bottom, labeled “Music”, “Podcasts”, “Movies”, etc. would work well.

Apple recently rejected a podcasting app, because it “duplicates iTunes functionality” — as far as I can see, there is no podcasting functionality on the iPhone. Apple either needs to bring this to the iPhone themselves, or allow someone else to do it.

Many of us were awaiting new iPods at yesterday’s “Let’s Rock” Apple event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco — and, as Kevin Rose predicted: iTunes 8, new iPod Nanos (with the curved screen) and updated iPod Touches were released.

The most interesting “release” in yesterday’s event was the updated iPod Touch. I’m already an owner of the first-generation iPod Touch, and I think it’s a fantastic device — but it’s just an iPod.

When Steve Jobs said the new iPod Touch is the “funnest iPod ever” (I believe “funnest” isn’t a word; but this is Apple, they invent new words), the iPod Touch was being marketed as a mobile gaming platform from Apple.

The iPhone and first-generation iPod Touch are already great gaming devices, but each have limiting factors that are stopping avid gamers from buying them. The iPhone (in most countries) requires an 18-month contract, and ends up being very expensive for someone looking for a mobile gaming device. The iPhone, despite being thinner than the original model, is still quite big for someone who wants something light. The iPod Touch (1st gen) was also very expensive, and almost up to the price of an iPhone — although, no contract was needed. The iPod Touch didn’t have a speaker or vibration either, which was a disappointment for those wanting to play games without having to plug earphones in every time.

The new iPod Touch is even thinner, lighter and cheaper than before — making it ideal for gamers that want to spend more of their money on games for the device, than the actual hardware or a contract. There is also a built-in speaker (although, I have doubts about the quality of it), which is perfect for playing a game like Tap Tap Revenge, where you need the music to help you play.

Even though the iPod Touch doesn’t have the graphics or game selection of Sony’s PSP or Nintendo’s DS, it is a fun gadget to use, and a lot of its free applications continue to surprise me. I think this could be the next big gaming platform.

Google has come a long way since its birth in September 7th, 1998 — it’s now one of the world’s biggest companies, worth $166 billion. Yesterday was the 10th year of Google’s success; it seems almost impossible to think of how information was found before 10 years ago.

Gandhi changed the world. The steam engine changed the world. Heart transplants changed the world. The Internet changed the world. Google simply made a small (albeit important) contribution toward making Internet a better experience for all of us. [GigaOM]

One would argue that Google is nothing special, and that there are plenty of other search engines out there. The others don’t work; it’s just like the iPod vs. other MP3 players.

If Google were even to have downtime for day, the world would be at panic. Whether it’s people at home or at work — Google is relied upon as a resource for finding everything on the Internet. I even use it as a calculator, measurements converter and it’s other built-in functionalities — not to mention their Gmail and Calendar services.

"When the Sun Falls, Darkness Rises" by Stephen Chinnadorai on Flickr

Most of us will set our cameras to Auto, simply because it’s easier to let the camera adjust all the settings for you — but a lot of the time, your camera is wrong. There are some situations where it’s just necessary to use Auto mode: When you have to capture the moment quickly, when you simply don’t have time to fiddle around with Apertures, ISO sensitivity and other settings.

But, when you do have time, you should explore your camera’s settings — especially if you use a Digital SLR camera. I personally have my camera set to “P” for most of the time, which means all I have to do is set the ISO, and then everything else is done automatically. I don’t use Auto for two reasons: It pops up the flash at times where it’s not necessary, and Auto does not support the RAW file format (which is vital for post-processing).

Changing the aperture can dramatically change the way your photo will look. A wider aperture (lower f-value) will give you a very narrow depth of field, which is great for macro shots or portraits. Wide apertures are also necessary in low light where you don’t have a flash. Narrow apertures (higher f-value) are great for landscape shots, where you want everything to be in focus.

There are no rules of photography. Play around with all the settings, over or underexpose photos, make everytthing out of focus — it’s up to you.

If Digg is about the users controlling the content, then shouldn’t Diggnation be the same? Why should Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht (or David Prager) choose the stories, when we could?

Sure, Alex and Kevin only pick stories that are highly popular on the site - which means we do have some say in what’s on the show - but thousands of stories hit the front page of Digg every week.

What I’m proposing is an extra button in Digg a Firefox add-on that, once a user has Dugg a story,  will give the option to suggest it for Diggnation. A limit of five or so suggestions per week would be more than enough per user.

The result of this should be a list of what Digg users want covered on this week’s edition of Diggnation. The stories covered in the show would be entirely controlled by the users who have opted-in for this add-on.

On the other hand, it’s Kevin and Alex that make Diggnation what it is, so they would know which stories they can entertain us best with. Diggnation viewers may also not be Digg users at all - their reason for watching Diggnation could be because they don’t want to look through Digg.

What do you think?
[...]

Sure, Facebook could easily be the most active social network right now — but will it keep its position in the years to come? What initially started as an internal site for students in Mark Zuckerberg’s college has expanded into a global phenomenon. Facebook has seen massive growth in the last year. But, like MySpace is slowly becoming — it could become history soon.

I personally prefer Facebook to the other “major” social networks like MySpace and Bebo, because of its simplicity and ease of use. Although, with the launch of Facebook third-party applications, the site has become a lot more cluttered and MySpace-esque. Facebook have managed to keep rolling out new features to keep the users happy so far, including their minimal advertising system. Compared to regular banner advertisements, Facebook have more targeted ads — sometimes including mention of a user’s friend (with their permission).

It’s not all good at Facebook: They have alreaedy been alleged of stealing the idea from ConnectU. Facebook may also not be making as much money as you think; in fact they could be losing it, according to this TechCrunch article.

There are plenty of up-and-coming social networks being created all the time: Some good, some bad. Facebook’s end could be nearer than you think. Or, Facebook could surpass Google and become the biggest website on the Internet, holding all information in one place. The future will be interesting…

First off, I’d like to apologise for the two-week hiatus of no posts on my blog — I’ve got some fresh content coming that I hope you will enjoy in the coming weeks. 

I know this is now considered “old news”, but I’d like to talk about Cuil (pronounced “Cool”) because of their claims of being “better than Google”. So I tried entering the ultimate query into Cuil: My name. The result? My LinkedIn profile came first, followed by some other social networks with my name — but there was no link to my own website. Google, on the other hand, lists my website first; then my articles on Appletell, and the social networks follow.

The second test was an easy one for Cuil, I typed the word “London” and the results looked much more promising. I was given an Ajaxy drop-down menu on the right, which gave me more information about the city. But, I was still happier with Google’s results. I got a map, and all the relevant results I wanted — such as the government site and Wikipedia.

To be fair, Cuil is new and probably hasn’t had anywhere near as much time as Google has to index all of the Internet’s pages. Many publishers will optimise their sites for Google, which again might help Google receive better results. I’m happy to see some competition coming in for Google — because, one day, something will be better than Google.

One of the most unproductive things on your computer is to have a cluttered desktop. It makes it hard to find files you need, slows your computer down and takes up more hard disk space. Here are four ways that should help you keep your desktop clean:

Trash files when you’re done with them

This applies to anything like Disk Images on the Mac or EXE files on Windows, Zip or RAR files and MP3s that you’ve now added to your iTunes library. Once copied to your iTunes Music folder, there’s no need for the extra file on your desktop. When you download a new app, there will be files that you’ve downloaded purely for the setup —there’s no need to keep these on your desktop; just trash them.

Use shortcuts

This may not necessarily remove the amount of clutter on your desktop, but it will speed up startup times. If you have documents on your desktop, just move them to your documents folder and create a shortcut (alias on Mac OS X) on your desktop. That way: 1. There will be less hard disk space used on your desktop, decreasing startup time and 2. Once you’re done with it, you can delete it - and you’ll have a backup copy in your documents folder for future reference.

Use the “Five Folders” rule

From Chanpory Rith’s article on LifeClever, creating five folders in your documents folder for everything that would normally sit on your desktop could work. “Inbox” is for things you’ve just received — you don’t know what to do with them yet. “Actions” is for things that will take a bit of time to complete — for example, installing applications. “Incubate” is for items you’re not ready to deal with yet. “Current Projects” is for stuff you’re working on right now. “Archive” is for things you’re no longer active with, but may want to return to in the near future.

Use apps to help you

Windows has a built-in tool to clean up your desktop; it can be accessed through: Start > Control Panel > Appearance & Themes > Display Properties > Desktop > Customize Desktop > Desktop Items > Click “Clean Desktop Now”. Windows is so simple, isn’t it?

On the Mac, your application shortcuts aren’t on the desktop — so it’s less of a problem. But there are some simple apps like Quicksilver, that could speed up the process of finding folders.

If you can think up any more ways of keeping your desktop clutter-free, please leave a comment.