TweetDeck finally announced a new version that includes an easy way to sync groups. At the same time, a TweetDeck iPhone application is now available for download in the iTunes App store.

You can forget my old clunky way of syncing TweetDeck groups and install the latest TweetDeck desktop beta.

Once the new version is installed, you will be asked to sign in or create a TweetDeck account. This TweetDeck account will be used to keep your groups up-to-date in the cloud. Use the same TweetDeck account on other computers and your groups will be automagically synchronized.

If you have an iPhone, you can download the TweetDeck application. Once again, you can sign in your TweetDeck account to have access to your groups on your iPhone.

The main reason I use TweetDeck is because of the groups feature. In the new version, I noticed some welcomed improvements in its speed, specially when editing groups. However, I feel that mass editing groups is still clunky at best. Hopefully, in the future, they will build a Web interface (or better TweetDeck interface) that makes it easy to browse through people you follow on Twitter and assign them to different groups in one page step.

A little while ago, Facebook recognized the need to manage lists of friends. All friends are not equal. I feel that it’s the kind of feature Twitter (and any social network) needs in their API. I’m glad the TweetDeck folks recognize this need, but I would love to be able to bring my lists in any other third party applications.

My friend Michelle, the most famous blogger in Quebec, recently re-opened the Pandora box (text in French) about content piracy. Her case is simple: as an avid Lost fan, she simply has no legal means to watch the first 4 episodes of this season to catch up to her recorded episodes.

Another friend, Philippe Martin, tweeted about an article from France that talks about the 3 strikes law they are looking to adopt in France. In France, some suggested an amendment that propose to intervene only when the downloaded content is already available on the Internet. Interesting idea. In another tweet, Philippe points me to “Quebecor Opens Door to Canadian Three Strikes Policy”.

With the CRTC currently investigating net neutrality and being lobbied by companies such as Quebecor for a law similarly abusive than what a few countries like France want, I decided to play the role of a legislator and ask myself:

What would be the perfect anti-piracy law?

I don’t know if it’s perfect, but I think I came up with a damn good one.

Please note that to simplify the language I loosely use the term content owner. I am targeting the music and movie industry when referring to content owners.

Here’s the draft of my perfect anti-piracy law:

• An individual can download and share digital content from any source unless:
• the content has already been made available for download by the content owner
• the content was never released for personal listening or viewing by the content owner
• the content made available by the content owner is not copy protected

I haven’t talked about any coercive measures. That wasn’t the point. I wouldn’t wish for ISPs to spy on individuals. The point is that if you make content available for download through purchase (or freely with advertising), you are answering the needs of the consumer. You wouldn’t have any excuse to pirate and it would be easier to go against real pirates (those who profit from piracy).

Such a law would be progressive because it forces the music and movie industry to rethink their business model.

For example, no more region locking. If Hollywood wouldn’t make a movie available for download in Canada but would in the USA, it would be fare game for Canadians to download and share freely. It would force them to review global licensing issues.

It would also incite Canadian content owners to offer their content for download across the globe. I think it would benefit artists and everyone involved. I am confident artists would increase their royalties through increased sales.

It’s also important to allow individuals to be able to play the content the way they want to play it. To simplify things for consumers, content should not be copy protected. If I want to play my purchased movie through an iPod, the computer, an XBox, whatever, I should be able to. If I want to play a digital movie I purchased on the TV screen instead of the computer, I should be able to. Hollywood is just realizing, though the Hulu/Boxee saga that digital content can be played on the TV and want to control how users play Hulu’s content. It’s laughable since it is technologically easy to have a browser control play content on any screen, including the TV.

I also think we should force download availability as a prerequisite of content availability. Streaming-only technology put limits on the way we can play content (we need an Internet link). So, if a content is only made available through streaming, downloadable copies should be fare game to individuals.

What do you think?

What would be your perfect anti-piracy law?

UPDATE: TweetDeck finally added sync support.

I use multiple PCs. I have a Windows Vista laptop at work, a desktop Windows XP computer always on at home and a MacBook for work and pleasure. I also love using TweetDeck and it's groups feature is invaluable when you follow a lot of people. I needed a solution to sync group definitions and settings so that when I add someone to a group, the change follows me on my 3 computers.

Here's my solution.

Sign up for Live Mesh and add your computers

I find Live Mesh very useful to sync folders between computers and now has support for Mac OS X. It is free and I thought it would be the perfect answer to my problem. To set up your computer with Live Mesh:

• First visit the Live Mesh Web site and sign up.
• On each computer, click the "Add Device" button and install the Live Mesh software on your computer

Adding TweetDeck's data folder to Live Mesh using Windows

Start with the computer that has the TweetDeck data you want to keep.
You first need to find your TweetDeck folder. On Windows Vista it will be located here:

C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Roaming\TweetDeckFast.FXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.1\Local Store

On Windows XP, the path would be something like:

C:\Documents and Settings\[Your UserName]\Application Data\TweetDeckFast.FXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.1\Local Store

The TweetDeck folder name begins with "TweetDeckFast.F" and is followed by a bunch of numbers. Inside this folder is the "Local Store" folder which contains the settings for your TweetDeck installation. It contains two files and a folder:

• An XML file with your TweetDeck settings (mine is named: preferences_JeromeParadis.xml)
• A database files that contain your TweetDeckdata (mine is named: td_26_JeromeParadis.db)
• A folder named "#ApplicationUpdater" which contains information about your latest TweetDeck version

Our strategy is that we don't want to synchronize the "#ApplicationUpdater" folder. It is used by TweetDeck updating process. When we' update TweetDeck we don’t want other PCs to think TweetDeck is updated. We cannot simply sync the hole "Local Store" and Live Mesh syncs all the content of a folder, including subfolders. So what do we do? Well, Live Mesh will not sync an hidden Windows folder.
To add the folder to your Live Mesh, here's what you need to do on Windows:

1. Right-click the "#ApplicationUpdater" folder inside the "Local Store" folder
2. Select "Properties" in the menu
3. In the "Attributes" section, check the "Hidden" option
4. Right-click the "Local Store" folder
5. Select the "Add folder to Live Mesh..." menu option
6. Give it a name you will remember like "TweetDeck Local Store"
7. After a moment, Live Mesh should begin uploading your xml and db files to Live Mesh

Syncing other TweetDeck instances under Windows

On a Windows computer, here's what you need to do to sync a second (or more) computer:

1. Make sure TweekDeck is closed
2. Locate your "Local Store" folder
3. Make a backup copy of the db and xml files inside the "Local Store" folder, just in case you mess up
4. Delete the db and xml files
5. Mark the exiting "#ApplicationUpdater" folder as "Hidden"
6. Open the "TweetDeck Local Store" shortcut that Live Mesh will have added to your Desktop
7. Live Mesh will ask you to enter a destination folder. Be sure that this path points to TweetDeck's existing "Local Store" folder
8. Answer Yes when warned that your folder will be merged with the Live Mesh folder
9. You should see the Live Mesh icon in your task bar flash which means it is active downloading.

How to selectively sync under Mac OS X

Remember that we don't want to sync the "#ApplicationUpdater" folder. We need a strategy to ignore this folder from the Live Mesh synchronization. Since I don't know the equivalent of hiding a file from Live Mesh under Mac OS X, here's a summary of what we should do:

1. Instead of directly syncing TweetDeck Data Store folder, we will sync with a second folder, say "TweetDeck Data Store"
2. We will make hard links between the xml and db files in TweetDeck's actual folder and the "TweetDeck Data Store" folder. Making an alias using the Finder won't work. We need to open a bash console using the Terminal utility and use the command line. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I recommend you to stop reading now or that you proceed with care.
3. Then, we use the "TweedDeck Data Store" folder to sync with Live Mesh. The "#ApplicationUpdater" will therefore not be present in that new folder and not synced with Live Mesh.

Adding TweetDeck's data folder to Live Mesh using Mac OS X

If your computer containing your groups and settings to keep is Mac, you will want to first add your TweekDeck folder in Live Mesh from this computer. Here's how to proceed:

1. Locate your TweekDeck Local Store directory using the Finder by opening your hard drive icon. It should be something like [Your User Name]/Library/TweetDeckFast.FXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.1/Local Store
2. Make a backup copy of the xml and db files in the "Local Store" folder in case something goes wrong. Note their names.
3. Add a folder named "TweetDeck Local Store" in your Documents folder
4. Open the Terminal application (in Applications/Utilities).
5. In the command prompt, navigate your new "TweetDeck Local Store" folder:
   1. cd /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/[Your User Name]/Documents/TweetDeck Local Store
6. Create hard links from your xml and db files to you "TweetDeck Local Store" folder:
   1. ln "../../Library/Preferences/TweetDeckFast.FXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.1/Local Store/preferences_[TwitterName].xml" ./preferences_[TwitterName].xml
   2. ln "../../Library/Preferences/TweetDeckFast.FXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.1/Local Store/td_26[YourUserName].db" ./td_26_[TwitterName].db
7. Then, add the "TweetDeck Local Store" folder to Live Mesh.
8. It should soon begin syncing your files to Live Mesh.

Syncing other TweetDeck instances under Mac OS X

To sync TweetDeck settings already on Live Mesh from Mac OS X, you follow these steps:

1. Using the Live Mesh application, add your existing "TweetDeck Local Store" Live Mesh folder to your Mac. Create the Mac folder in "Documents/TweetDeck Local Store".
2. Wait that Live Mesh has finished syncronizing the folder.
3. Locate TweetDeck's "Local Store" folder.
4. Make a backup copy of the xml and db files in TweetDeck's "Local Store" folder in case something goes wrong. Note their names. Delete them.
5. Open the Terminal applications and make hard links from your Live Mesh xml anbd db files in the "TweetDeck Local Store" folder to TweetDeck's "Local Store" folder:

cd /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/[Your User Name]/Documents/TweetDeck Local Store

ln ./preferences_[TwitterName].xml "../../Library/Preferences/TweetDeckFast.FXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.1/Local Store/preferences_[TwitterName].xml"

ln ./td_26_[TwitterName].db "../../Library/Preferences/TweetDeckFast.FXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.1/Local Store/td_26_[TwitterName].db"

Caveat

When syncing with Live Mesh, the downside is that files should not be in use for syncing to proceed.
This means that to sync your TweetDeck settings, to other computers, you will need to close TweetDeck for the Live Mesh syncing to proceed. When using another computer, if it was shut down, you will need for the Live Mesh sync to finish before using TweetDeck. In my case, it means that:

• When using my desktop at home, I leave TweetDeck open. When going to work, I close TweetDeck. My upload connection is slow; this takes about 15 minutes.
• When arriving at work and boot up my Windows Vista laptop, I wait for the Live Mesh syncing to finish before opening TweetDeck. It takes a few minutes. 15 minutes before leaving work, I close TweetDeck for the syncing to start and finish.
• It's the same when using my MacBook: I also wait for the syncing to end before opening TweetDeck and before shutting it down, I close TweetDeck and wait for the syncing to end.

Note that my TweetDeck db file is quite large. It is 45 MB. I've looked at its content and it is due to the fact that TweetDeck used to store messages locally. I have a bunch of old tweets stored in it. TweetDeck never cleaned up nor compressed my database. If you started using TweetDeck recently, it shouldn't be a problem for you.

Compacting the TweetDeck database

If you've been a long-time TweetDeck user, your database is big enough that it's an inconvenient to sync. To compact the database, you need to clean up stored tweets that take too much space and compact the database. Follow these steps:

• Download the SQLite command-line tool at http://www.sqlite.org/download.html
• Make a backup copy of your db file.
• Execute the tool with your database as a parameter:
  • sqlite3.exe "[path to your db file]"
• In the command-line utility, delete the tweets, compact the database and quit:
  • delete from tweets;
  • vacuum;
  • .quit

That's it. Doing this my database shrank from 45MB to 1MB. Doing this, my upload syncs went from about 15 minutes to less than a minute!

I recently went for a week to Los Angeles. I did some geeky stuff like going to the BSGCast Frak party. Plus, at the same time there was an auction for Battlestar Galactica props. So, I had to tweet and make my Facebook friends salivate and stay in touch.

The iPhone is the perfect companion for such events, but you need to be careful with the data usage.

For example, the default data roaming fee for Rogers in the United States is 6$ per MB. Since I use maybe a MB or two per day (or even more), it can add up really fast. I was glad to learn Rogers has a new data roaming plan for the iPhone which costs:

• 10$ per month
• 1$ per MB

As far as I could see, this plan is not yet advertised on Roger’s Web site. When I called Rogers a week ago, I was told this data roaming plan was just recently added.

This means if you think you will be using more than 2MB during a stay in the United States, the plan begins to make sense. You can remove the plan when you come back so you don’t pay 10$ each month.

During my trip I must have used about near 25MB of data. With the 10$ monthly fee and data usage fees, this amounts to 35$ of data roaming fees. It does not come cheap, but it would have cost me 150$ without the plan.

To further monitor and control your data roaming usage, here are must-follow tips for your next trip in the United States.

1. Don’t forget to call Rogers about voice roaming packages if you plan to make or receive many phone calls
2. Call Rogers to enable the iPhone United States data roaming plan
3. Before the plane takes off from Canada, when asked to shut down cell phones, you can activate Airplane mode in Settings
   
   
4. To minimize unforeseen bandwidth usage while abroad, go in Settings/Fetch New Data and set Push to “Off” then Fetch to “Manually”. This way, you will only download new emails when going to look at your emails.
   
   
5. In Settings/General/Network, set Data Roaming to “Off”. If you plan to use only Wi-Fi you would leave that there always when abroad. However, even if you plan to use data roaming, it’s a good idea to disable it before arriving at your destination.
6. Clear your usage statistics. Go in Settings/General/Usage and press the “Reset Statistics” button. You need to scroll down the Usage page to see this button. This will clear your Cellular Network data usage.
   
   
7. When arriving at destination, leave the Airplane mode and put back data roaming to “On”.
8. During your stay, you can monitor your usage statistics to keep track of how much you will be paying for your stay.
9. When coming back to Canada, put back your Data Roaming to “Off” to be sure it’s off if you ever go to Europe or another country where data roaming rates would cost you a pension.
10. Don’t forget to call Rogers again to remove your data roaming plan from your account.
11. Remember that browsing Web sites can consume a lot of data. Refrain from visiting too many graphics-heavy Web sites. Try to browse iPhone optimized Web pages or use specialized applications. You will consume a lot less data and it will reduce the extra fees that will appear on your invoice.

EDIT 2009-01-22 23:34

1. Funny thing! A few hours after my post, my wife, Kim Vallée, independently posted on the same subject here. We didn't even knew about each of our similar posts! Of course, we had extensively discussed the subject, which explains the eerie similarity of our posts. :)
   
2. Highlighted some key words and the title after some tweets. Seems the new US data roaming plan is news to some.

In his post, Sebastien Provencher asks: Who will control your online identity?

I think we can answer the question by also asking: Who will control your network?

One thing of particular interest in light of Facebook Connect the question of real identity versus anonymous identity, which is dear to me.

Facebook is well placed to become a provider of non-anonymous login functionality through Facebook Connect. Google Friend Connect are positioned as anonymous login providers. Both also want to aggregate your friends and their activities. Other solutions like OpenID and oAuth only focus on the login (but do not exclude Google Friend Connect support).

I think these services (Facebook, Google) that help bring your friends through the login process to other sites will have more success. These are very attractive, as Sebastien mentions, to jumpstart initiatives that need login. But, they are also really attractive to publishers because they help users bring their social network with them over different Web properties. Other services might not die quickly, but it is my opinion that they won't be as attractive to publishers since they don't add added-value other than facilitating login.

Because Facebook provides real identities and Google supplies anonymous identities, both have a bright future for different Web activities.

English

The webcom-Montreal conference arrives soon. I had to pick winners to the contest. To make it fair, I used a proven technology that you can inspect in the photos below. And the winners are…

• Geneviève Lefebvre
• Nathalie Rivard

Congratulations! See you at webcom! I will email the winners get their contact information so that the organizers can prepare their passes. Unless I can’t contact one of them, these are the final winners!

Français

La conférence webcom-Montréal arrive à grand pas. Il fallait choisir les 2 gagnants au concours. Pour choisir les gagnants j’ai opté une technologie éprouvée. Voir les photos qui suivent. Et les gagnants sont…

• Geneviève Lefebvre
• Nathalie Rivard

Félicitations! Je vais envoyer un courriel aux gagnants pour leur demander leurs informations de contact pour les organisateurs préparent leurs passes. À moins que je ne puisse contacter un des gagnants, ce sont les gagnants finaux!

I would like to remind my readers that I will be giving a conference in French at webcom-Montreal about Facebook application development. webcom-Montreal will take place on November 12, 2008. Here’s the teaser for my speech:

You want to benefit from Facebook’s social graph?  You wonder if a Facebook application could give you an edge?

An engaging Facebook application could become a pillar of your marketing strategy.  This session, given in French, covers everything you need to know before developing a Facebook application.  Learn about the challenges, the design, the marketing and the development of a Facebook application.

Come discover how to meet your business goals by taking advantage of Facebook’s model and platform while avoiding costly mistakes.

In the spirit of Web 2.0, I thought of asking you what you would like to see in a speech on Facebook application development.

Have you ever dreamt of a killer Facebook application? What kind of questions comes to mind? Is there anything you would like to hear about? Do you wonder if Facebook is appropriate for some kind of applications? Would you like me to have an editorial approach or segment? (ex.: my thoughts on the future of Facebook, some app reviews, etc.) Want a lot of stats? Anything goes…

Here’s your chance to help generate content you would like to see for my conference! But be warned, if your suggestion rings some bells I haven’t wondered about, you might even be quoted…

P.S.: Don’t forget also to participate to have the chance to win a webcom-Montreal pass.

I am not sure what’s Firefox algorithm to refresh Web page titles in its address bar suggestions, but here’s what appears when I type their Web site’s address:

It’s been like that for a while. My browser thinks I want to go to Twitter’s fail whale!

What about your browser?