According to Eurogamer, Microsoft marketing executive James Halton commented on the Twitter and Facebook release saying, "It will be before Christmas. A lot of the background work's been done for a lot of applications that are coming."

In addition to this more social 360 Live community, Microsoft's most interesting entertainment efforts have been demoed, but they have not been released to the public. ReadWriteWeb recently covered a number of motion-based web interfaces and Microsoft's Project Natal is among the most anticipated motion interfaces for the gaming world.

Natal uses a sensor-based camera to recognize full body gestures, facial movements, depth perception and voice. The interface also allows players to scan real world objects like skateboards to interact with them in game play. With the integration of Facebook and Twitter, and the upcoming release of Natal, gamers will be able to record their own gestures and brag about their Xbox triumphs directly from their television screens. Alternatively, if your friends already heckle your lack of Skate abilities, they'll soon carry the heckling across networks, complete with screen captures and tweet annotation. Think of it as a modern-day America's Funniest Home Videos, only your avatar is the one getting kicked in the virtual junk over and over again. Love it or leave it, Microsoft is about to offer audiences a totally immersive entertainment experience. The Boxee community had better collect its rocks, it appears Goliath is on the move.

Popular playlist sharing site Muxtape got taken down by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in mid-August and it is unfortunately still non-operational. The fact is that Muxtape didn't pay its internet radio licensing fees. In our recent RWW Live podcast on online music, Lucas Gonze (creator of similar playlist service Webjay, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2006) said that Muxtape was "trying to become a big service, i.e. get too big to fail and so cut a deal [with labels]." Unfortunately Muxtape failed to escape the notice of the RIAA.

NetShare (iPhone app)

Nullriver's NetShare was an iPhone app that, according to Gizmodo, allowed you to tether your laptop to your iPhone using the handset's 3G modem as your laptop's own. Basically this let you have full Internet access on your laptop without Wi-Fi, for free. There was talk that this violates AT&T's terms of service, but whatever the reason the app has been pulled from Apple's App Store. The last message on the site is dated 4 August and states: "We're working with Apple to get NetShare back up on the AppStore." But we're not holding our breath.

Image courtesy of Gizmodo

The CLQ

Adam Steinberg of EventVue wrote in to tell us that he misses The CLQ (the acronym stands for Champions League for Quake style games). It's an app that kept track of "millions of game players (Quake, Unreal, Half-life, Tribes, etc.) on thousands of online game servers." It was a very popular app in its niche, however it was stopped. The developers claim that this was due to "incredible amounts of e-mail, GameSpy monopolizing access to game servers, constant upgrading of hardware and software to process increased traffic, games getting their own statistics, etc."

The good news for CLQ fans is that one of the developers, Nico de Vries, is currently working on a version 2.0.

PubSub

PubSub was one of our favorite 'future search' products back in the early days of web 2.0 - you could enter keywords and the product would deliver search results to you automatically. This feature is now common place in news sites, for example Google News has it, but back in '03-'05 PubSub was an innovator.

So it was a great product, but PubSub spectacularly imploded in mid-2006 after founder Bob Wyman blogged about "internal political issues". Wyman left the company shortly after and the product sunk along with its creator. Perhaps PubSub will rise again, because apparently it still exists today. Here is the message on its frontpage currently:

Others have risen since to take over the reins in future search. A few of our favorites are ZapTXT, FeedRinse and BlastFeed. We discussed those and other services here. But we'll always have a soft spot for PubSub...

AllPeers

In March we heard that P2P browser plug-in AllPeers had shut down, a blow to a market that seemed very promising back in 2006. AllPeers set out to add "file sharing to the web browser". Technically the service seemed fine, however the reason for the closure according to the company was that "we have not achieved the kind of growth in our user base that our investors were expecting, and as a result we are not able to continue operating the service."

Scrabulous (Facebook app)

We reported in April that Scrabulous, the extremely popular but unauthorized Scrabble Facebook app, was under fire from Hasbro and Mattel. Those two companies own the rights to Scrabble - Hasbro in North America, and Mattel in the rest of the world. In July the bigcos had their way and Scrabulous was taken offline.

After more legal ducking and weaving, in which the app was first pulled in North America and then internationally too, the app got re-born under the name Wordscraper. It uses circles instead of Scrabble-like square tiles. Unfortunately the change isn't proving too popular. This comment by a Facebook user is an example of the reaction:

"I loved Scrabulous !
Wordscraper is kinda the same but I do not like the round tiles , it makes it difficult to play , kinda messes everything together, change it to SQUARES and it would be alot better."

The old version, with squares

Pandora

OK you can still use Pandora in the US, despite concerns that it might be on the verge of closing. But those of us who live outside the US haven't been able to access this lovely music discovery service for too long a time.

Qumana

Tris Hussey tweeted to tell us that Qumana was a great java-based blog editor, "easy and light." Unfortunately it is not being updated anymore and the homepage isn't accessible.

Crgslst

Back in March we reported on a very slick multi-city search tool for Craigslist, called crgslst. As we noted, Craigslist itself doesn't offer a multi-search service. By combining the publicly available RSS feeds from Craigslist with AJAX, crgslst fills this need "so fast, we left the vowels behind." We noted at the time that crgslst may be in violation of the Craigslist terms of use and could face the same shutdown that other similar projects have in the past.

Indeed this has turned out to be the case. Currently when you visit crglst, you are greeted with this despairing pop-up message:

ShareYourOPML

This site for sharing OPML files was "retired" by creator Dave Winer in January. He wrote at the time that "now that Google and Bloglines both have discovery mechanisms, based on what you and others like, there would only be a future for SYO if it were a thriving and growing community, and it isn't."

The good news for OPML fans is that Toluu has risen to fill the void. We reviewed it in March, noting that it lets you share your OPML with others in order to discover new feeds, see what your friends are reading, and even discover new people who share your same interests. We were impressed by the service, even more so in May when enhancements were announced.

So perhaps, sometimes, there is a silver lining in the dark cloud of web apps that close or get shut down!

Have Your Say

Tell us in the comments which web apps have disappeared in recent times that you used to love. Also let us know if anything has come along since that you perhaps like even better.

Sometimes it feels like social media is just not relevant to the people you're trying to reach. That's a common dilemma, but we believe it doesn't have to be that way. In this post we discuss five strategies for using social media to reach people who don't use social media, and we've listed specific tools you can use to do it.

All of the strategies and tools below are most effective when they're used well - it's easier said than done.

Develop Relationships with People Who Bridge The Gap Inside Other Organizations

You may want to target senior executives, older people or others who just aren't very likely to read your blog posts, Twitter messages, etc. but chances are - those people have co-workers, family and others in their lives who would. By adding value to the lives of less senior people inside organizations, you can gain mind-share with the people in whose interest it is to make good recommendations to their superiors at work.

Similarly, many mainstream journalists now participate in social media conversations for their research. Making yourself known as a topical expert to them online can help increase your visibility when it's time to write a story off-line.

Here's a recommendation we offered to one non-profit organization that we often use as an example now for others.

Let's say you work locally on a particular issue and you're interested in getting traditional press coverage. One way to pursue this is to subscribe to a feed for national media outlets, filter that feed for keywords related to your topic of interest and keep your eye out for breaking news or important topics on the national level. You might even set up an RSS to SMS alert.

Then, when a story comes out in the New York Times about water quality, food transport costs, or whatever your issue of interest is, you can contact local press about it and say "I don't know if you've seen this national coverage on this topic [they probably haven't because you've automated watching for it] but if you're interested in a local angle, our Executive Director/CEO/[or insert more down to earth person] is a good expert source for a local perspective."

You don't want to do that too often, but occasional and appropriate use of this tactic should be appreciated by the press you reach out to. It's mutually beneficial for both parties and could help you get that coverage in traditional media that's more likely to be read by your off-line target market. Even the smallest organization could grow its mind-share in mainstream markets quickly using tactics like this.

Tools to use for these tactics: For general participation and visibility among the social media users that do exist in your area of interest, check out Twellow.com for a directory of Twitter users by industry, do some searches on FriendFeed.com and find out what the top blogs in your area of interest are using the methods described in our post "Six Ways to Find Top Blogs in Any Niche." Just participating with like minded people in this space will move you up on their list for biz dev and marketing.

If you're not familiar with RSS feeds, start with this introduction: RSS in Plain English. FeedRinse.com is one of the easiest to use feed filtering services. Feed filtering is also available inside Zaptxt.com, one of our favorite RSS to IM/Email alert systems. See also Pingie, a new alert service we've been using and Alerts.com, an even newer one we wrote about this week.

Use Web 2.0 Tools to Learn About Real Life Public Events

There may or may not be relevant events in your field that are attended by non-social media users and are listed on sites like Upcoming.org and Eventful.com. It's worth a look and worth subscribing to the RSS feeds for those searches.

More likely, perhaps, is that your local newspaper's website has those kinds of events listings. Trade associations, nonprofit groups and other kinds of sites often have events listings as well. What has this got to do with social media tools? You can subscribe in the same RSS feed reader that you read blogs in to those event listings. All too often there aren't feeds available, but there are tools you can use to create them (see below).

Tools to use for this tactic: An RSS reader, be it Google Reader, iGoogle, MyYahoo or another - there are lots of options. If events listings aren't being published by RSS, here's what you can do. Find pages where they are listed, scrape a feed using Dapper.net (see how to do this) then filter the feed for keywords related to your industry if need be using a tool like FeedRinse.com or Pipes.Yahoo.com if you feel brave. (Want a 5 minute screencast intro to the basics of using Yahoo Pipes? Well there you go.)

For example, I just scraped a feed from my local paper's news site event listings, then ran that feed through Yahoo Pipes to filter for tech or startup related events. The end result? A feed that's empty today but could deliver just what I'm looking for later - mainstream events that I can attend after having learned about them using new tools on the web.



Make Your Blog an Email Newsletter and Promote it Elsewhere

Feedburner, Google's RSS publishing service, makes it easy to offer any RSS feed, including the one your blog should publish automatically, as an email newsletter. There are lots of companies that buy AdSense links on Google for links to their websites and blogs for key search terms. Your marketing department may write guest editorials in traditional press already and any other traditional marketing campaign can lead people to an "email newsletter" page - really your blog with email subscription.

If your target audience doesn't read blogs or participate in social networks, they probably do like email. This is an easy thing to do and can prove quite effective for non-technical audiences if framed in a non-threatening way.

Look Harder, Your Audience Probably is Using Social Media That You Aren't Aware Of

There were 5 billion videos watched on YouTube just by people in the US in July. There are people in your industry using LInkedIn, we guarantee it. Where are people talking about you or your industry online? Check out Kingsley Joseph's Social Media Firehose to find examples (click the "list" button to see a list view of links).

A couple of other places to look include Ask.com's blogsearch, sort by popularity, and the social bookmarking site Delicious, where you can search for and subscribe to the most popular or most recent bookmarked links by keyword. You'll want to use the site in different ways depending on your field. http://delicious.com/popular/chiropractic may not unearth a lot of resources, but http://delicious.com/tag/chiropractic+blog looks pretty interesting, for example.




It is not surprising to find an equine dental assistant on LinkedIn.




Use the Internet to Make Yourself Smarter In Real Life

The best way to use social media to reach people who don't use social media is probably just to use social media to kick more ass. You may be the only person in a meeting that reads blogs (unlikely, really) but that doesn't have to be what people notice; the fact that you know more, sooner, about your shared interests (as a result of reading blogs) well will be a big help.

Easier said than done? Check out our recommended tools in this regard:
Check out our article about how to find the top blogs in any niche and then combine those sources with the methodology describe in our post How to Find the Weirdest Stuff on the Internet (or the best content on any topic).

We also recommend taking those top sources you identify and turning them into a Google Custom Search Engine, which is remarkably easy for even the least technical people to do. Search against those top sources as reference and you'll unearth all kinds of useful knowledge from the archives of your industries online experts.

Build your reading list with the tools described in those posts above and you'll be using social media to advance your career and connect more effectively with more non-users of social media.

We Think it Can Be Done!

Participation in these technologies is expanding rapidly, but a huge portion of the world is still not likely to read this blog post, for example (their loss!) much less to connect with the kinds of communication we all share on a daily basis.

How do these strategies look to you? We'd love to know what methods and tools you've found particularly useful in using social media to reaching outside of the echo chamber. Let us know in comments.

Image at top: "Nuke!" CC from Flickr user Jaako





]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/five_ways_to_use_social_media.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/five_ways_to_use_social_media.php Analysis / Strategy Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:36:08 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick For travelers, mobile applications that allow you to search for local places can be a pain to deal with. You constantly have to go back into the app to update your location. Sometimes it's easy to forget to do this, which can make your local search process become tedious and frustrating. Today, Google has announced their way of making local search a lot easier. Google's Local search homepage will now feature a new technology known as "My Location".
]]>Sponsor

]]> Simplifying Local Search

Available exclusively on Windows Mobile devices, Google makes good use of its Gears Geolocation API to get an approximate ID on where you're located. The API uses the same Cell ID technology Google uses for Google Maps on mobile devices. How does this affect your local search results? With My Location, users only have to type in whatever they're searching for without adding a location in. Whether it's sushi, the weather, or a local restaurant, Google will find both your results and your location. The API does most of the heavy work and cuts down on the amount of time spent typing in all of that information. We think this beats having to change your location every time you travel to another city or state.

Addressing Privacy Concerns

If you're concerned about your privacy, Google does its best to make sure your information is protected. According to the latest Google Mobile blog update,

"We take your privacy seriously and have designed Search with My Location so that it doesn't associate your location with any personally identifiable information, even if you are logged in. We won't send your location until you explicitly opt in, and you can always opt-out from the Gears Settings under the Tools menu."

We're glad they noted that you're opted-out of this option by default.

Limited Availability

Unfortunately, only a handful of Windows Mobile devices are currently supported. It would've been nice to see this in the Google app for the iPhone too. International Google users will also have to wait for this feature, as it is only available in the US and UK. To check and see if your device is supported, head to "www.google.com" on your mobile web browser. A "My Location" link should be available right under the search box. You may have to refresh the page to see the link. If refreshing doesn't help then your device probably isn't supported at the moment. My Location is a small, but more than welcomed feature for Google Local search. Here's a brief clip provided by Google on how "Search with My Location can help save your thumbs".

Image Credit: The Official Google Mobile Blog

Google company profile provided by TradeVibes
]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_local_search_now_finds_where_you_are.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_local_search_now_finds_where_you_are.php Google Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:17:21 -0800 Corvida Microsoft. Depending on who you are, their name alone elicits some pretty strong feelings. Some people love them, others love to hate them. Few people are neutral. However, everyone can pretty much agree that Microsoft has been fighting an image problem lately and one that has started to make them look less like a towering giant and more like the underdog. Those "I'm a Mac" ads didn't help, either. However, some recent innovations make us wonder if the tide is starting to turn for the big blue monster.
]]>Sponsor

]]> Earlier this year, we wondered if the Microsoft was beginning to wake up from an apparent slumber. That post addressed cloud databases and IE8, but perhaps those won't be the turning points for Microsoft's image after all. In fact, given the number of happy Firefox customers, IE8 may still be somewhat of an uphill battle. But some other innovations prove that even Microsoft can still be cool.

Netflix Comes To Xbox

Earlier this week, Netflix subscribers got a nice surprise - they no longer need to save up for that Roku box to get instant access to Netflix movies on their TV. Instead, the new set-top box for Netflix is going to be one that many people already have in their living rooms: an Xbox 360. The partnership between Xbox and Netflix will be bringing a new "Watch Instantly" feature that will appear on Xbox later this fall. In addition, a "Live Party" feature will allow people to watch movies together over Xbox Live. Well, the coolness of that feature is debatable...but still, Netflix on Xbox? Did Microsoft just win the living room from Apple?

Deep Zoom Changes the Web

Bah humbug - another browser plugin. Is that what you think? Well, like it or not the Silverlight plugin is being pushed hard. It's going to be installed on millions of HP computers and it's going to power NBC's Olympics '08 website, so it's going to become hard to avoid installing this one after a while.

If you've been paying attention to Silverlight news, you know that one of the most remarkable things about it is its Deep Zoom feature. It's definitely the coolest. It initially received attention when Hard Rock debuted their Memorabilia website. Then there was the incredible Deep Earth site (which technically didn't use Silverlight's Deep Zoom, but instead uses Silverlight plus a custom-written component created in Visual Studio). Now we have a Silverlight Deep Zoomable image of Yosemite National Park. 70 photographers, GPS-enabled cameras, 10,000 high-res photos. The results let researchers study rockfall activity and help Yosemite search-and-rescue teams with their operations by providing detailed, zoomable maps of the rockfaces. Cool? Yes, definitely.

Live Mesh

This service is rapidly approaching coolness. Mac fans have complained there's no Mesh for them, but that's only a matter of time. In the past couple of days, we've seen Live Mesh open up to all and launch a mobile web site.

Via m.mesh.com you can see your stream of Mesh news, access your Meshified folders, and move your photos, videos, and other content from your mobile device into your Mesh, instantly making them accessible from any computer, anywhere. The Live Desktop (cloud storage) offers 5 GB, but you aren't limited to meshing only 5 GB - you can mesh as much as you want. Data will sync from device to device via P2P connections, but only 5 GB are stored online for access when you're away from a device you own. You have the option to configure which files are part of that 5 GBs. Oh, and it does Remote Desktop, too.

If you haven't been able to wrap your head around Mesh, yet, this video is a killer introduction. Here, Ori Amiga demos the native Mesh feeds, WPF applications using Mesh, a Silverlight client that supports working on and offline, a custom Facebook application that syncs Facebook photos with Live Mesh, and even a Mac client that sends photos to Live Mesh. Cool? You bet.


Ori Amiga: Programming the Mesh


Your guide to this video

• 10:53: Skip to this point to start seeing the best stuff
• 19:10(ish): The developer stuff continues until 19:10ish
• 19:40: WPF demo app Family Show
• 27:01: Silverlight App PhotoZoom running offline
• 33:08: Mesh connector for Twitter
• 34:35: Mesh connector for Facebook
• 36:45: Mesh running on the Mac - photo from Photobooth synced to Mesh almost instantaneously - to both PCs and mobile!
• 43:00: Opening/editing files directly from the cloud - the cloud will be a shortcut on your desktop
• 46:09: Viewing offline RSS feeds synced to Mesh in your RSS reader

Do these innovations change your opinion of Microsoft? Are you impressed, annoyed, neutral, upset, undecided? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Author Disclosure: I also blog for Microsoft's Channel 10. I'm not a Microsoft employee, just a technology fan. This is not a paid endorsement - these are personal opinions.

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mesh_deep_zoom_netflix_on_xbox_is_microsoft_becoming_cool.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mesh_deep_zoom_netflix_on_xbox_is_microsoft_becoming_cool.php Products Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0800 Sarah Perez One of the highlights of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) each year is Bill Gates' keynote speech, available here as a webcast. Every year ReadWriteWeb analyzes Gates' keynote, highlighting the main themes and trends that he discusses. This year there were a slew of products and partnerships announced. It was less futuristic vision and more beta products and what's coming in 2008. In other words, it was much less about Internet-connected fridges, and more about what you can do now on your Xbox 360.
]]>Sponsor

]]> By now everybody is familiar with Microsoft's strengths: Windows, devices, 'rich' user interfaces, partnerships with big media and electronics companies. Over the past few years we've seen Microsoft morph into a 'Services' company too, where services are delivered over the Internet. Although the branding as Windows Live has been clumsy and confusing, Microsoft has still been able to slot its Services vision into the Windows and devices foundation. Hence Gates' talk of "Services-connected devices running on the Web" and the "huge amounts of storage" that Microsoft is able to provide.

Products, Products, Products

Let's take a closer look at exactly what was announced...

This year Gates' keynote mentioned the following products:

• Vista - according to Gates, Microsoft has sold more than 100 million Windows Vista licenses to date.
• IPTV (Internet TV) - British Telecom, TNT and CNN have developed apps for Microsoft Mediaroom Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platform; e.g. TNT has enabled users "to view NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races from the driver’s vantage point by choosing from a series of in-car cameras". CNN is also doing an app for the US presidential elections. Microsoft says Mediaroom is running on 1 million set-top boxes worldwide. It also announced a new offering called DVR Anywhere, allowing users to watch their recorded programs on multiple TVs in the home, and a partnership with Samsung for HD content streaming from TV to PC.
• XBox (see below)
• Zune - since the November launch of Zune Social, currently in beta, Microsoft says that "more than 1.5 million people have joined the music-focused social network", which it says is proof that "Zune is tapping into consumers’ desire to share their musical passions with their broader community." However, Zune is clearly well below sales of the iPod - so probably not too much can be read into this. It is though encouraging to see Microsoft trying to extend online music experience past the 'closed shop' of iTunes; that may compel Apple to open up their iTunes platform a little more (we can only hope!).
• a new GPS-powered version of Tellme, Microsoft’s "voice-and-visual mobile service" that enables people to use voice commands on their phone as input, then receive output back visually on their phone screen. The example given was that "a person can “call” the Web on a mobile phone and say “movies” and the software will recognize where the person is located and send to that mobile phone’s screen a list of the theaters closest to that location."
• the Surface touch-screen computer; it's UI was Gates' main focus, but he also showed how Surface can send images directly to its social network product, Windows Live Spaces. Gates told the BBC that "in five years we'll have many tens of million of people sitting browsing their photos, browsing their music, organising their lives using this type of touch interface."
• Voice-activated technology for the car; including Sync, an "in-car communications and infotainment system for mobile phones and digital music players that has been available in select Ford models since September."
• 3D mapping - according to Webware "Gates predicts 3D environments will go with you: In the store, on the street, and so on. Devices will, of course, know your location."
• Windows Live users: 420 million worldwide


Digital dream becomes reality: Gates and Robbie Bach jam with Slash; photo by jidnet

Partnerships: NBC, ABC, Disney, MGM

As is now customary with Microsoft, there were a lot of partnerships announced with big media and electronics companies.

The most notable is a deal with NBC on an Olympics '08 website built with Silverlight technology - Microsoft's cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering online video. The site will host more than 3,000 hours of live and on-demand video of Olympic events. It will be ad-supported, with Microsoft and NBC sharing revenue. The site will be at NBCOlympics.com on MSN; and it's being touted as "the official U.S. online home of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing." Users will be able to get custom feeds of just the events they're interested in.

Another big partnership was with ABC and Disney Channel, for their programs to appear on Xbox Live Video. In other 'big media' action, Microsoft partnered with MGM to bring the latter's movies to Xbox LIVE. Both of these partnerships aim to bolster Microsoft's Internet TV ambitions for Xbox 360. Already Microsoft claims more than 10 million Xbox LIVE members, so the content deals will undoubtedly make the Xbox 360 platform more attractive - especially as they are high-definition. The company boasted that it will have twice the on-demand content than any cable or satellite provider. Clearly Microsoft is targeting Apple TV, although Xbox 360 is also fighting a double front - with Sony in gaming. Xbox 360 registered 17.7 million consoles this holiday season, more than Microsoft expected.

Conclusion

Mary Jo Foley from ZDNet remarked that this year's Gates keynote was less futuristic. I actually see that as a good thing, because it means we're seeing more actual products and services. Sure, we heard the usual talk about Windows software "connecting people", enabling rich UIs, device integration, and so on. But the number of real living products on display, and the equally impressive roster of big company partnerships, shows that Microsoft is delivering circa 2008. Although you could also fairly argue that Vista is still far from a success story and Zune is the poor cousin of the iPod still. Not to mention the Windows Live branding debacle.

Overall though, Microsoft's attack on the Internet front is paying off - particularly with Xbox 360 and its various Internet TV initiatives. Mobile is starting to look stronger too, with leaked info about Windows Mobile 7 showing support for an iPhone-like gesture interface. And Gates said in his keynote that Windows Mobile got "over 10 million new users last year, and we'll double that next year."

Microsoft is talking the talk, after years of the futuristic fridge taking center stage. Now, a Web-enabled fridge that plays Xbox games while sharing music with the Zune - that would be something...

Top photo: Joakim Baage

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/bill_gates_ces_2008.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/bill_gates_ces_2008.php Trends Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:23:12 -0800 Richard MacManus