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Although the spam seems to be dying down a little on Twitter since they introduced their ‘report as spam’ option I’m still a little cautious about clicking some shortened URLs - SO many of the links seem to lead to spam (spam and more spam). The whole concept seems to have gone full circle as well with people using extensions like Long URL Please to make the short URL long again. Although I think this is a good a useful add-on, the whole process seems a little excessive. I can see benefit in using shortened URLs in printed media but, when it comes to the web, why are we making links short just to make them long again? I guess Twitter has a big part to play in this by restricting messages to only 140 characters, but surely there’s got to be a better way?! With this in mind, I’ve been trying to get some perspective on the issues. Shortened URLs: ...

Very interesting, thought provoking video. We are well and truly hooked into social media - there’s no turning back now! Source of video and data http://socialnomics.net/2009/08/11/statistics-show-social-media-is-bigge…

Very smart demo of the up and coming Spotify client for Google Android. Also featuring offline sync. Check it out!

A few years ago Shawn Frayne came up with an ingenious way of generating electricity on a smaller scale than wind turbines by using vibrations rather than rotary power. His invention, called the windbelt, works by oscillating a pair of magnets through a metal coil at the end of a belt which vibrates as wind passes over it. This physical phenomenon is know as aeroelastic flutter and it’s the same principle that caused the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to collapse. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph wind, making the windbelt 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines. ...

I’ve come across a few subversion hosting services which offer free accounts so I thought I’d share the links. Most of these seem to offer a limited free account and a range of paid accounts. If you’re working with subversion a lot and you come to rely on them then you may want to upgrade in the future - at least you can try them out first for free. However, if you’re developing one or two projects on your own you may be happy to stick with the free account. These details are for the free accounts only, and most offer a lot more for the paid account (for example, SSL access, more users, repositories, etc.). ...