Digg launches new version

Digg has launched a new version over the last 24 hours, it now includes the ability to Digg multimedia content such as video and podcasts.   Huge coverage all over the place in summary:-

Interface Design, Digg Goes Widescreen
We’ve gone from a fixed width layout to a flexible one allowing you to make use of your screen real-estate on larger monitors. Navigation has also been moved to the top allowing you to quickly switch between sections.

Top 10 Stories/Videos
Digg stories move fast, so we’ve created a quick view of the top 10 hottest on Digg, updated in real time. This list changes as other stories accelerate in Diggs – so make sure to check it often. Think of this as your quick pulse of what’s hot in any given section.

Videos Enhancements
Aside from giving Videos their own position in the top navigation, we have added a couple cool features: Top 10 hottest videos, and on-Digg video previews. Simply click any video with a play icon to get lightbox window in which you can preview and Digg the video.

Podcasting
Now you can Digg your favorite podcast series and individual podcast episodes. Not only can you see a list of the most popular podcasts by section, you can also dive into any individual podcasts to see the most Dugg individual episodes. And don’t forget – every time you Digg a podcast or podcast episode that is bookmarked in your profile and shared with your friends.

Profile Enhancements
Now quickly jump between your Dugg News, Videos, or Podcasts. With three separate sections we make it easy to sort through your own Diggs or the Diggs from your friends using the friends tab.

Great new features, but it seems the Add Podcast feature is broken, which is a pity as many of the podcasts I listen to are not listed and I wanted to add them.

Sunday 17 Dec 2006 – Water start day!

Just back from another windsurfing session about 1.5 hours today in 15-20 knot winds and I got my water starts nailed!  Even got the board up to a plane a few times and was brave enough to go out from shore beyond standing depth, cause I can now get home.

Lots of fun, can’t wait until next time!  Which due to travel plans will probably not be until 2007!

More windsurfing

Yesterday was day 2 of windsurfing, and a fairly poor one at that, for me at least. Too much wind to control the sail. Went out too late and the wind was already hoving at around 20 knots, gusting up to 25-30 (probably not but it felt like that!). Got in a few good (ok every things is relative) water starts but did not want to stray too far from land, but that meant I was knocked about by the waves a far bit. Gave up after a hour.

Today waiting for a bit more wind, just not too much, 9 knots now at St Kilda but 15 on the other side of the bay. Figure I need a constant 15 knots.

Voting in the Recruiting.com Awards

I have been ignoring the HR blogosphere for the last couple of months, partially by accident and partially on purpose. In the last couple of days I noticed that the 2006 Best Recruiting Blog awards are on, strangely enough I am not nominated this year but I think I know why :-).

Anyway enough about me and onto the awards. This year the categories are gone and you get to choose your top 5 blogs and then the overall winner will be selected by an esteemed group of judges, Michael Keleman, Jim Durbin, Heather Hamilton, Joel Cheesman, David Manaster, Harry Joiner and of course Jason Davis.

Looking through the nominations myself I see some of the best blogs out there on HR and recruiting, which is a testament to the owners of the blogs and to Jason for pulling this all together.

Unfortunately as is seeming to happen a lot within blogs these days commercial interests seem to taking over and detracting from the content. But it seems people have been spamming each other trying to solicit votes in these awards! Luckily I have not been on the receiving end of these emails, or maybe I have but don’t realize as I tend to delete if I don’t know the send or like the first sentence.
What do people hope to achieve by being named Best Recruiting Blog 2006? Will the fame provide them with inspiration for better content, or peer recognition?

Or is it just more traffic, more speaking engagements, higher consulting fees and just a plan grab for dollars? I feel for Jason and his team as I am sure this is not what they anticipated.

I am not say people should not post to say that they have been nominated and to get your readers to vote. But in any popularity contest the people with the biggest mailing lists win, which is why having the judges is a great idea.

Qantas being sold and their web site goes down

Went to book a hotel room through Qantas and well I can’t:-

An error occurred while processing your request.

Reference #102.2c8fc7d.1166082445.1dc9160

I hope this is not a sign of things to come now they are being sold off…

UPDATE : The site is still down, I wonder what is going on.

UPDATE 2: Qantas you are still down, sorry we booked with WebJet and not with the Vibe Savoy, instead the Hotel Lindrum.

New Whooiz Widget

Just saw this post from the guys at Whooiz, they are giving away a Wii so I had to join in.

We are giving away a Nintendo Wii and all you have to do to win one is create your wHooiz profile and install a wHooiz blog widget on your blog it’s that simple.

If you don’t already have a whooiz profile go here to create one http://www.whooiz.com/Signup.aspx

So I already had a profile (its a bit poor) and now I have the widget on the side of my blog.  Clarke, drop me an email and I will send you my shipping address for the Wii 😉

Don’t listen to the Global Geek Podcast!

I warn you just don’t listen to the Global Geek Podcast #30 if you want to keep you your productivity. On the show they speak briefly about a little site called Swivel.

What can be so bad about one site! It is so addictive it should be outlawed. To quote the Swivel web site “Swivel is a Web site for curious people to explore data.” Essentially you can upload any data and compare it to any other publicly available data on the site, then create really nice graphs. They make money by allowing you to sign up to keep your data private, you can still compare your data to everyone else’s public data.

Overall a very interesting tool with huge potential that take user generated content to the extreme. Right no not a huge amount of HR/Recruiting related data but I can see opportunities for organisations to open source their data to allow major mashups.

My only complaint is the site can get a little slow at times, I also wish when you saved changes to your data it did not default back to the overview page again.

My Xbox playing nicely – sort of

Well, I can now stream video’s from my Windows XP PC to my XBox using the Windows Media Connect product.  I can only assume when Microsoft annouced the video download service they changed something to allow this!  Very happy.

However I have learnt tonight that you cannot stream unprotected AAC files using Windows Media Connect and that sucks!  I own this music and therefore I should be able to choose how I use it!  But thanks a little post over at hollimb.net I have found an easy way to convert my unprotected AAC files into MP3s.  The question now is do I have enought disc space to complete the conversion?

links for 2006-12-03