Episode 31, and the apocalypse has yet to arrive. Quite frankly, I’m a little disappointed. Nevertheless, we must soldier on here at podcast HQ, and solider on we shall. Some strands of thinking from today’s off-the-cuff adventure include:

• Anand plays the Heavy Rain demo, and, unsurprisingly, we talk about it.
• I go to a swanky Microsoft Silverlight party and, unsurprisingly, talk about it.
• I run out of water mid-way through the podcast. This was not discussed.
• Microsoft and Yahoo are now some giant search conglomerate, which means Cylons are not far behind.
• The internet killed Gordon Lightfoot for a few hours last Thursday. Hoaxes can be dangerous, kids.
• Finally, it’s New Year’s Eve, and HTML5 is the innocent little baby preparing to beat Old Man Flash into submission — OR IS IT?

Length: 30:40
Close: Panoramic – Atticus Ross (Book of Eli OST)
Download: 29.4 MB
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I’ve been playing the Heavy Rain demo a lot lately. While I won’t ruin things for Anand’s sake, I will tell you that I’ve started to view real world objects in a new light. Punching my keyboard should magically produce coffee. Waving my mouse above my head like a wildman should, theoretically, allow me to produce swiss cheese from my pockets. The game is making me do strange, ungodly things to my Playstation’s controller, and now that habit is spreading to other devices.

Which is exactly what we’ll be talking about on today’s magical 30th show. It’s taken a lot of elbow grease and unicorn blood to get this far, but by jove, did we ever do it in style. So without further ado…

• Holy crap, did Microsoft ever unveil a winner today with Windows Phone 7 Series. Never mind the clunky name — this is exactly what needed to happen to the aging mobile platform
• X10 also happened, which is basically Microsoft’s Xbox PR bonanza. Goodies include Alan Wake and Fable news
• I play Heavy Rain on the PS3, while Anand laments the still-downloading demo on his own console
• Microsoft apparently decided they weren’t willing to ship the US Army a huge shipment of Xboxes — something about fearful parents having their children playing the same games as trained soldiers. Are you as confused as I am?
• Google Buzz. What the buzz is it, and why should we care?

And that’s that. It’s a pretty Microsoft heavy episode, but that’s just how these things work out sometimes. We haven’t quite sold out…yet.

Length: 36:31
Close: Wolf Suite Pt. 1 – Danny Elfman (Wolfman OST)
Download: 35.1 MB
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Life after the iPad. Things are strange. Food tastes differently. I can’t look at my wife the same anymore. She doesn’t even have GPS. Sigh.

Alas, we’ve managed to lurch forward here at the Not So Horrible podcast, as me and Anand take a look at life in the AfterPad. Adobe’s had some choice words for the Turtlenecks over in Cupertino, who are none to pleased at the lack of Flash support. Fujitsu, meanwhile, claims the iPad trademark is rightfully theirs. It’s the sort of stuff Judge Reinhold would be all over.

But in other, non-Apple news:

• REM may be the only ones to put a man on the moon any time soon — Obama’s restructuring NASA’s funding, and the space agency is none too pleased
• Ubisoft’s approach to DRM? The internet. You’re going to have to be online to play, folks. I don’t know if this counts as a solution.
• Mass Effect 2 is out. Gamers, rejoice!
• Twitter and texting, brking ur grmmr? That’s what some University Prof’s think. I guess they weren’t reading The Star six years ago when they wrote the exact same article.

And that’s that. Quite frankly, I’m glad all this Apple business is over and done with. However, there will always be a part of me that wishes my wife could speak to satellites. You’re safe for now, TomTom.

Length: 38:32
Close: The Illusive Man – Mass Effect 2 OST
Download: 37.0 MB
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A quick glance outside my window revealed that pigs were flying, and the denizens of hell were enjoying a few cold ones. Much to the chagrin of internet users, it seemed as if Facebook was becoming Twitter – the introduction of @tagging having drawn the ire of each networks most loyal.

But let’s step back for a second. Amidst the hyperbole and seeming rage is really just a subtle and logical change that’s been a long time coming for Facebook. The social network first carved an online niche for itself with the ability to tag friends in photos. Then came notes, and later on, videos. Naturally, the only piece of original, user created content left untouched by our Facebook-tagging overlords were status updates.

What seems to be drawing all the attention is Facebook’s implementation of tags, and it’s very superficial similarity to that of Twitter. So, let’s break this down, shall we?

MATTHEW’S HANDY GUIDE TO SOCIAL NETWORKING AND LIFELONG TEXTUAL RELATIONSHIPS.

1. Twitter’s @ system makes up for the services’ inherent lack of threaded replies. In other words, it’s the only means by which to converse back and forth with someone. Facebook, meanwhile, actually has threaded replies to Tweets. I mean, updates.
2. Twitter allows you to mention anyone. Facebook, as always, will only allow you to tag your friends.
3. Facebook tags are NOT searchable. This is, arguably, one of the most powerful features of Twitter’s mention/hashtag system, and really what separates the two services.
4. And finally, Twitter let’s you tag as many people as you’d like, within the 140 character limit. Facebook limits you to six tags, however. This may be a good thing for Matt Demers.

In a nutshell, Facebook continues to improve and evolve, as it should, and gives a nod to one of its so-called competitors. Far from game changing, I think.

A Twitter clone it is not.

In my continuous quest to eventually take over the world of Twitter, I’ve been looking over a number of different apps this week, in the hopes that I can find one that fits my Tweeting needs perfectly. Of course, once I’m succesful with this course of action, I’m hoping I can find an OS X app capable of world domination as well.

For the most part, most of my Twitter updates have been done either through web-based input, over the OS X dashboard widget, Twidget. While the web-based updater is nice, and the most accesible, things can get a little hectic, particularly when certain friends are engaged in mass retweets or liveblogging. These sort of issues carry over to Twidget, but are made even worse due to the widget’s incredibly small size. I understand it is a widget, afterall, and should have a relatively small footprint, but its simply too simplistic in its operation for my taste.

One of the things I love most about Twitter is that I can see exactly what method people are using to make their tweets. I’ve seen a number of mobile apps, spanning Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices, and even the odd firefox plugin. Yet, one of my favourite Twitter-centric apps thus far has to be TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is interesting for two main reasons – firstly, its highly customizable, and you can bend it to your will, based on how you’d like to recieve and organize your Tweets, direct messages and replies. Secondly, its based on the incredibly lightweight Adobe AIR. In my mind, Adobe AIR is the equivelant of Flash for the Web 2.0 crowd, and has made it possible to create some truly stunning web-integrated apps. Of course, one of the main benefits of developing on AIR is that it is entirely platform independant; almost all major OSs support the web framework right now, which allows those like TweetDeck’s developers incredibly high user penetration, without all the mess of porting.

While still in Beta – which is the amusing norm nowadays, when it comes to the world of Web2.o – the app is incredibly robust. Download it from the TweetDeck website, and see what you think!