Month / January 2012

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

WordPress introduce Reblog button

WordPress have just announced in a blog post (reblogged here) that a new Reblog button has launched. It will appear in the toolbar on all WordPress pages for users who are signed in to WordPress. Expect to see us reblogging some awesome stuff over the coming months, along with the steady flow of new stuff we write ourselves.

Erica's avatarWordPress.com News

As we mentioned last week, you can like and reblog posts directly from your reader, which displays a stream of all the updates published on all the blogs you follow from your WordPress.com account.

We’ve also brought the reblog button back to the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen when you’re logged into WordPress.com. Note that you’ll only see the like and reblog options while you’re looking at individual posts.

For example, you’ll see this on the left side of your toolbar while viewing https://wordpress.com/blog/read-blogs:

And your toolbar will look like this while you’re browsing the home page of en.blog.wordpress.com:

How does reblogging work?

Reblogging is a quick way to share posts published by other WordPress.com users on your own blog. People have been reblogging others’ posts since blogging started, but our new reblogging system enables authors to retain greater control over their content.

When…

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by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Argos pricing incompetence leads to “bargain” Nokia Lumia 800 disappointment

Remember the HP TouchPad? When it was discontinued, it received a massive price cut that crashed sites all around the world, including that of Argos. Today, a similar, albeit unintentional, price cut occurred but this time for a device that has been well-received. Completely out of the blue, an online only deal popped up that included an unlocked Nokia Lumia 800, our favourite thing of 2011, priced at just £119.99. Bewildered consumers flocked to mop these up and sites such as The Verge seemed to have confirmation from the company that this was indeed a real offer.

But no, it seems that Argos in fact made a ‘pricing error’ and that the offer was not legitimate. Customers received emails telling them that there had been a mistake coinciding with the launch of their latest catalogue and that the orders would be cancelled with money refunded within 7 days. This hasn’t been the first time that this kind of thing has happened at Argos, and, as I write this, the “deal” is still online, over 14 hours after the supposed sell-out. Maybe it’s time for Argos to get their act together.

by Henry Hunt

App of the Week: Crazy Survival

This week’s app of the week is Crazy Survival by Techsoft Ventures.

In this game you play as a small stick figure that has to avoid a large number of bouncing balls coming from the left of the screen. At the start of every game you have ten lives, with each hit removing one life. Although this is a simple idea, I have never played anything like it before. The simple controls (an arrow to each side of the screen) make getting good at this game fairly simple but mastering it is something completely different. My personal high score is only around 250 while the world record is in excess of 800.

This game is just what you need from a mobile game – quick, simple and addictive, and that is why we are proud to call it our first cross-platform app of the week.

But no Android. Sorry.

Crazy Survival, BlackBerry/iOS/Windows Phone, Free
Download now from the App World, App Store or Zune Marketplace

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Megaupload shut down by authorities, Kim Dotcom arrested again

Megaupload, the supposed file-sharing site of choice for the likes of will.i.am and Kanye West, has been shut down by US officials today as part of one of the largest criminal copyright cases in history. Unscrupulous founder Kim Schmitz, aka Kimble, Kim Dotcom and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, has been arrested at his New Zealand mansion along with 3 other executives among allegations of:

  • engaging in a racketeering conspiracy
  • conspiring to commit copyright infringement
  • conspiring to commit money laundering
  • two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement

The Department of Justice complaint states that the site is responsible for over half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners and that Dotcom’s team, including CEO Swizz Beatz, are guilty of $175,000,000 in criminal proceeds. Could this be the last we see of Kim Schmitz?

The plot thickens, however, as, in retaliation to the takedown, Anonymous have done their thing and brought down the websites of the Department of Justice, Universal Music, the RIAA and the MPAA in protest. Get your popcorn ready, as this is going to get interesting.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Protesting SOPA and PIPA

Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed US legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to giants like WordPress and Wikipedia, sites all over the web — including Digixav — are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. From 1pm GMT today, Wednesday 18th January 2012, we will black out for 12 hours as part of the largest protest in internet history.

Action needs to be taken against SOPA and PIPA.

Please watch the video below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom, and sign up below to let the US know how you feel about the bills.

americancensorship.org

Thank you.

by Henry Hunt

Why I hate Android

I loathe Android for many reasons. I can’t help it, and I apologise for that. I have my reasons, and I believe they are valid, so here we go.

Continue reading →

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Wordle: Our new favourite internet thing

Here at Digixav we were just alerted to the existence of Wordle, a free site that creates a kind of tag cloud for absolutely any site on the internet with an RSS or Atom feed. The results can be pretty funny, as you will see below.

Wordle: Digixav Wordle Monday 16th January 2012

Give it a go on your favourite sites and have a look at the results. We like it, and we’re sure you will too.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Samsung to merge Bada into the Tizen project

Forbes are reporting that Bada, Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz-skinned and Linux-based OS, is now effectively dead and will be merged into the Tizen project. Tizen is the evolution of MeeGo, itself a successor to Maemo, and its development as an open source OS is being spearheaded by Intel and Samsung. Tae-Jin King of Samsung confirmed at CES that the company are set to launch devices with the platform by the end of the year As part of the merger, full backwards compatibility will be on offer, with Tizen set to support Bada apps and the SDK. It has however been confirmed that Android and Windows Phone handsets will remain at the top of Samsung’s priority list, meaning that Badzen or whatever it becomes might not have such a bright future after all.

by James Hardy

Technophobia: I used to think of original jokes, but then I took an arrow to the knee

Technophobia is a column by James Hardy. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Digixav.

I woke up not so long ago, and thought I’d gone mad. About half the people on YouTube seemed to have mysteriously taken arrows to their knees, which meant they couldn’t do certain things which they’d used to be able to do. I did find it sort of weird, but then I thought hang on a minute, maybe the Mayans weren’t so mad after all. Maybe this was the beginning of the apocalypse.

Anyway, after trawling through YouTube trying to find explanation for this weird happening, I stumbled upon a few comments written by people I could relate to, who were equally bamboozled by this arrow to the knee thing:

WTF is this arrow to the knee?

Can one of u gay fags tell me what this arro to the nee thing is?

Or something along those lines. We all know how incompetent and horrible YouTube commenters can be.

Anyhoo, turns out it is something to do with Skyrim. Apparently one of the guards in it says that he used to be able to do something or other, but then he took an arrow to the knee.

Now, I haven’t played Skyrim. (OMG you haven’t played Skyrim? WTF! You haven’t lived man!) I don’t have a problem with it. But, I have to admit, I don’t really see the humour in this. I don’t know, maybe it is incredibly funny, and I just don’t get it. If so, please feel free to explain the joke in the comments below. But I honestly don’t get it. Are we allowed to do this with any game? Here is a (probably wrong) quote from FIFA:

‘And you have to wonder how on earth he has missed that.’

I used to (insert something related to video) but then I wondered how on earth he missed that.

Am I now an incredible comedian? I honestly don’t see how this is any less funny that the arrow to the knee thing.

And you will find it in the comments section of every single fricking video!

‘I used to shout Fenton but then I took an arrow to the knee’

‘I used to see trampolines fly past my house but then I took an arrow to the knee’

These will be repeated in some form in half the comments on the video! And people like this crap! Err…why? It isn’t funny, it isn’t original and it doesn’t make sense!

So please, refrain from quoting anything anywhere that is at all related to arrows, knees or Skyrim.

And don’t even get me started on Fus Ro Dah.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

iPad 3 rumours suggest the obvious

Rumours are abound that Apple have begun to produce the next iPad, imaginatively named the iPad 3. Bloomberg are saying that 3 knowledgeable people claim that the device will come with a quad-core A6 processor, a high definition ‘Retina Display’ and support for LTE. This is all set to hit stores in March or April and, from the award-winning iPad 2, this stuff just seems like a natural progression for Apple. The company are set to hold an education event in New York next week, where textbooks for iPads are expected. A cheaper ePad has been speculated by some forum posters on The Verge and none of this stuff sounds too far-fetched to me. We will find out what Tim Cook has up his sleeve in due course, but no Apple launch would be complete without crazy speculation, would it?