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I successfully connected two Wordpress.com hosted blogs to the app in just a minute or two, although I ran into problems connecting my personal hosted blog that uses the software install from WordPress.org. It’s worth noting you’ll need version 2.5.1 or higher to hook it up to a hosted blog, although updating to the recently released 2.6 is definitely worth it for all those extra publishing goodies.

The key benefit to using this app is writing and publishing quick posts on the go. What I found after using it, though, is that it offers up far more to the discerning user who wants to use it as a very powerful publishing tool. You can upload photos either from your existing library or snap a quick shot with your phone’s camera. I can see this leading to many food-related photo blogs. Also nice is that whatever you write can be saved on your phone, so you can work on dozens of posts at once and only publish when you want. There’s also a great preview function that will show you what your post will look like without kicking you off to
Safari.

Unfortunately there are some serious shortcomings to the iPhone that bring the app down a notch. If you’re used to adding links to your posts there’s not a lot you can do without copy and paste. HTML code is fully supported, so as long as you’re good with your href tagging (which is brutal on the iPhone’s built-in keyboard) you’ll be able to add links from memory just fine.

Just a week and a half ago WordPress for the iPhone was announced with a pretty killer screencast detailing what you could do with it. Tuesday morning it finally showed up on the app store (download it here), and I’ve had ample time to play with it. The good news is that it’s very enjoyable to use and quite capable for creating posts on the go. The bad news? You’ve got to have an
iPhone or
iPod Touch to take advantage of it.

I’ve embedded screenshots and the screencast below.

Another quibble of mine is that drafts created on your computer won’t show up in your post queue on the iPhone app, meaning you won’t be able to start a post on your computer and finish it on the road. Ideally, future revisions will include better shortcuts for adding links and some support for fetching drafts from the cloud.

All in all, it’s off to a great start, and compared to competitor TypePad, which had its app available at the launch of the app store, WordPress is just as full featured and opens up mobile blogging to the millions of WordPress.com and WordPress.org users.

Hardcore users with a lot of readers will also be pining for some sort of comment management feature in future revisions. As it stands, you’ll have to log in to your WordPress dashboard from Safari and administrate them from there, which isn’t terrible, but it would be far more enjoyable to write and manage in one place.

Other features include QuickPath, which doubles the memory bandwidth of previous Intel “Extreme” platforms, and Hyper-Threading Technology, which allows multiple computing threads to run simultaneously, effectively enabling the chip to do two things at once.

Each Core i7 processor features an 8 MB level 3 cache and three channels of DDR3 1066 memory.

Combining the i7 with super-fast solid state drives will lead to significant jumps in performance, according to Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. “When you couple what is Intel’s biggest leap in chip design with other incredible innovations like Intel’s solid state drives, the Core i7 processor has redefined the computer of tomorrow,” he said in a statement.

Intel’s next-generation microarchitecture has arrived. Officially.

Intel made the debut of the Core i7 processor official on Monday afternoon, launching the processor at an event in San Francisco. PC makers, including Dell and Gateway, quickly followed suit with announcements.

“The Core i7 processor speeds video editing (and) immersive games…by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption,” the Intel said in a statement.

The new chip also has the latest Intel power-saving technologies, allowing desktops to go into sleep states formerly reserved for Intel-based notebooks.

And it ushers in the age of the “monolithic die” for Intel. (AMD has been doing this for over a year now.) The core i7 is one of Intel’s first processors to put four cores on one piece of silicon, referred to as a monolithic die. Previous Intel quad-core chips cobbled together two dual-core die.

(Credit:
Intel)

The i7 also packs a technology called Turbo Boost that accelerates performance to match a computer user’s needs and workloads. Through an on-chip power control unit, Turbo Boost automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four individual processing cores without increasing power consumption, Intel said.

Dell, Gateway, and Alienware (a Dell subsidiary) have all announced systems using the new chip.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Below are two screens showing Google’s Reader. The one on the left is the old version, while the one on the right is the new version with in-line starring and story expansion.

The old version of Google Reader for iPhone (left) doesn't let you star items or open them in-line. The new version (right) lets you star and expand items without loading a new page. (Click to enlarge.)

Google updated the iPhone version of its Reader product Monday. For the first time, mobile users will be able to star items for later and browse through items in a large list similar to the desktop version of the Web app. To view stories, users simply need to click on the headlines and the story will expand. In previous iterations, clicking a headline would take you to a new page, requiring users to click back before expanding another story.

One thing you can’t do is expand several stories at once, meaning mobile users will need to have access to a data connection to continue to open up additional stories, something social news site Digg has managed to get around in its
iPhone app by loading up the front page and its story briefs as a single page in
Safari. It’s a lifesaver if you’re going through some dodgy reception areas or read stories on a commute that involves underground tunnels.

Users who navigate to Google Reader on their phones will still head to the older version, a move chosen by Google since the new version is still in “beta.” To get there on your iPhone just head to http://www.google.com/reader/i/

Let’s look at Flash first. Towards the end of my use of
Firefox 2, before upgrading to Firefox 3, I noticed a peculiar Flash problem: embedded videos would freeze after two or three seconds. Clicking on the video progress bar would start playback again, only to have it freeze shortly thereafter.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

It took some digging on the Flash and Mozilla help forums, where people suggested everything from disabling any ad-blocking plug-ins to tweaking how Firefox handles cookies–all to no avail. Then I struck gold. The solution, as simple as it is, is to simply uninstall Flash 9. I recommend using the Revo Uninstaller.

I can’t guarantee that this will work for everybody, but since I was having the problem on my home and work computers and the Flash 10 beta solution fixed it on both, I’m reasonably confident that it should work for most of you.

Just looking at the download count from Mozilla for the first 24 hours of Firefox 3, it looks like the browser upgrade is one of the fastest-adopted new program versions ever. Eight million downloads in the first 24 hours can’t be wrong, right? Of course, no new program–even one as heavily beta-tested as FF3–is problem-free, and so I’ve got two fast course corrections for those struggling with incompatible plug-ins and Flash foul-ups.

MR Tech Toolkit can disable all add-on compatibility checks.

Then, grab the Flash 10 beta for Windows or Mac.

For most incompatible add-on issues, I’d recommend MR Tech Toolkit or the Nightly Tester Tools. The former is a nearly omnipotent plug-in that can kill the compatibility check for all plug-ins, among its other powers. Nightly Tester Tools removes that check on a case-by-case basis. However, that won’t work for all users, and some people need Firefox 2 for only one or two specific tasks.

Also, for Firefox lovers and haters who missed out on the Firefox 3 chat that Webware editor Rafe Needleman and I just did, you can check out the Ask the Editors archive.

If you’re on a
Mac, I’d recommend using the Multi-Firefox app. For PC users, the best bet is to download the portable version of Firefox 2. You can’t run both versions simultaneously, but you can have them both installed since they have different profile locations–just quit one before you start the other.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Nightly Tester Tools makes its case for compatibility on a plugin-by-plugin basis.

A behemoth “footprint” was left behind by the robotic arm’s touch in the King of Hearts area of Mars. The mark, which was captured by the camera attached to the lander, looks like it could have been made by the mythological Himalayan snowman. In reference to this, NASA dubbed the impression area “Yeti.”

The lander’s camera also took more images of the area under the lander, which has been nicknamed the “Snow Queen” site.

Here is the ‘footprint’ left by the lander’s robotic arm on Saturday.

(Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizone)

The Phoenix Mars Lander’s robotic arm touched the planet’s terrain for the first time on Saturday.

The effort, which came seven days after the lander touched down, is part of NASA’s efforts to scoop up Red Planet specimens for experiments on the lander.

NASA’s photos from this latest event in the Phoenix mission also offer a more philosophical thought about the future of space exploration. Man’s first “footprint” on Mars was made by a robotic swipe, not a human step.

Images of the “Snow Queen” site further support NASA scientists’ assumptions that the area in and around the lander is composed of ice, according to a statement from Uwe Keller, the robotic arm camera’s lead scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

The update doesn’t change much for the developer experience, so it’s unlikely to be a controversial move. The average Facebook application creator will probably appreciate having the stats available.

It’ll be officially announced on the Facebook developer blog.

Facebook is announcing later on Thursday a complete revamp of the analytics system it offers to developers for measuring the performance of their applications on its platform. It’s more extensive than the company’s recent decision to switch from publicly reporting daily use to monthly use.

The new analytics are available only to the developer who created a given application, not to Facebook’s general membership of 90 million. They’ll be available under a “Features” tab in the application’s page, and they will index “canvas page views, clicks on profile boxes, confirmation of Feed forms, and the adding and removing of bookmarks” in a way that can be fitted into custom graphs.

In part, the move is a way of helping developers transition to the newly redesigned Facebook profile pages, which some have criticized for making developer applications less visible by putting most of them on a separate “Boxes” tab. Others have applauded the slick new design for making the profile interface less cluttered.

“Each and every manufacturer, along with AMD, agreed that cooling the MOSFETS properly was critical to the successful operation of the board at stock or overclocked speeds with the 9850BE–and to some degree, the 6400+ X2,” AnandTech said.

The mismatch between high-end Phenom processors and lower-end motherboards became an issue when some Asia-based manufacturers attempted to plug in 9750 and 9850 Phenom processors into boards based on AMD’s 780G chipset. The chipset is attractive to board makers because of its relatively high-performance integrated graphics. (A motherboard is the main circuit board in a PC.)

On Monday, AMD spokesman Jake Whitman said this to CNET’s nanotech: the circuit’s blog: “What people have done, mistakenly, is paired a 780G (chipset-based) motherboard with the higher frequency Phenom–the 125-watt Phenom.”

Boards were tested from Gigabyte, Jetway (PDF), ASRock, and Biostar. The tested boards from all four companies support the 125W processors.

“This is based on the board manufacturer utilizing a properly developed power delivery system that is designed to handle the 125W TDP processors and in the future, the upcoming 140W TDP Phenoms.”

(A MOSFET, or metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, handles voltage regulation on the motherboard.)

AMD recommends using a higher-end 790 chipset-based motherboard.

Inexpensive circuit boards can work reliably with the fastest AMD quad-core Phenom processors when modifications are made, according to a report. This comes in the wake of mismatch issues between Phenom chips and select motherboards, as reported by Asia-based vendors.

AnandTech said it got around the problem by installing a second fan or a modified heatsink. “We installed a secondary 120mm fan that provided enough airflow over the board to ensure stable operation under our load scenarios.”

Gigabyte AMD 780G-based motherboard

Against this backdrop, AnandTech demonstrated that motherboards with the 780G chipset will work reliably–with some modifications.

Because of the higher thermal envelope of 125-watt Phenom chips, heat can cause stability issues on less-expensive motherboards, according to a report at tech Web site AnandTech. One of the problems is that some of the less-expensive boards claim support for 125-watt chips.

(Credit:
Gigabyte)

What’s the secret to getting Dugg?

As it turns out, however, Taibah couldn’t offer me any silver bullets, but he did demystify the process. Getting Dugg is hard work and far different from Slashdot, which largely relies on writing stories of interest to its founder, Rob Malda, and his human editorial team:

Honestly, it’s a tough job, but it all goes down to engaging with the community, learning what clicks with them, digging other users in upcoming section….

Oh, and it helps that he has 2,500-plus followers on Digg, which means that he has a ready-made audience of fans that tend to like the things he Diggs, but who’s counting?

In summary, what’s the secret of getting Dugg? Writing good content, working hard with a community of followers to ensure they see it and engage with that content, and then praying it all works. Taibah has made a science of it, but for most of us the best source of success is to focus on quality of content.

Hmm…so what’s the secret? The secret, it turns out, is hard work, and very similar to working with open-source software: community:

Well, Digg is kind of different than Slashdot because the human interaction is almost minimal (if any). They [Digg] basically have a VERY complicated algorothim that promotes story to the front page based many factors. Digg like to put it as “the algorithm calculates the diversity of diggs,” meaning that if you have a bunch of friends always digging your stuff and nobody else, you aren’t going anywhere.

Taibah has a lot of friends on Digg, not all of which Digg all of his stories (which is good, as noted above, as if they did his “Digg power” on a given post would actually go down: Digg wants a diversity of people to Digg up posts and so getting the same crew to Digg you works once or twice and then fails forever more.

Digg offers a rather pedantic description of the process, but to get the low-down on the process I turned to a regular reader of this blog, and a veritable Digg rock star, Rami Taibah. With over 100 front-page stories on Digg, Taibah knows how to make Digg work.

commentary

I’ve talked before about how powerful Digg has become, even displacing the venerable Slashdot in its power to drive traffic to one’s site. Digg, however, has remained somewhat of a mystery to me in how news and blog posts actually become popular enough to hit the front page of Digg, the equivalent of “being Slashdotted,” with the potential to even higher page views.