Wired is reporting that YouTube now has a 720p-ish (reports vary on what resolution it truely is, but it’s sure good) video playback support. Even more important, the audio is stereo instead of mono (you can really hear the improved quality).

YouTube’s default video resolution is utter crap (not sure what the resolution is) and the existing higher quality video was 480×360. This new video resolution is 2-3 times as good as the previous “high quality” resolution.

To prove it, here’s some sample videos. The difference is more apparent if you click the fullscreen button, especially if you have a large monitor. Make sure to also have your speakers or headphones on to notice the improved audio quality.

YouTube Default (Low Quality)

YouTube’s Previous High Quality

YouTube’s New HD Quality

I have added support to my Video Quicktags plugin but note that if a video does not have the HD quality version available (99% or more don’t), it will drop back to the lowest quality format. As a result, I don’t recommend making the HD format your default on your blog. Instead, set the quality to 22 like this:

[youtube width="630" height="380" quality="22"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY[/youtube]

This is an improvement upon my earlier post on how to keep SVN checkouts automatically up to date.

DD32 used his awesome Googling skills to find this page in the TortoiseSVN docs that talks about automation. Turns out you can launch TortoiseSVN via the command line, have it update the folder(s), and then close when done. So here’s an updated guide.

These instructions are for Vista, but they are likely similar for XP.

1. If you don’t already have TortoiseSVN installed, download and install it.
2. If you don’t already have a copy of WordPress checked out to a folder, do it. WordPress’ in-development SVN URL is http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk/
3. Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler
4. On the right, click on “Create Task” (not the basic one)
5. Fill out as follows. Paths will likely be different! Click for bigger versions and hover over the images (even when the lightbox is up) to display the comment text.

Done!

To test it to make sure it’s working properly, delete a few non-custom files from your SVN’ed folder. wp-trackback.php, xmlrpc.php, etc. are good test files. Then click on “Task Scheduler Library” in Task Scheduler (it’s on the left), click once on your new task, and then click “Run” on the right-hand side. If it’s working properly, the files your deleted will be restored.

This post has been deprecated as a better method was discovered. Please see this other post for details.

Read the rest of this deprecated post anyway »

Check out this really badass clock called the Corpus Clock:

[Via: Slashdot]

More fun experiences with iTunes today. Trying to upgrade my iPod Touch’s firmware after manually downloading iTunes 8.0 (automatic update kept failing) only to find I need to upgrade to iTunes 8.0 from 8.0 in order to upgrade my firmware.

Clicking on “Download iTunes” does nothing. Awesome.

Yep, that official WordPress App for the iPhone and iPod Touch that I mentioned earlier is now available!

You can download it right here. I’m off to do it myself!

Thought I’d share a little bit of code I use to easily translate any webpage I’m viewing into English in one click.

Open your Bookmarks and add a new Bookmark to the “Bookmarks Toolbar” folder in Firefox (sorry IE users, you’re on your own). Name it anything (I did “Translate”) and for the location, enter this:

javascript:void(location.href='http://translate.google.com/translate?tl=en&u='+location.href)

That should make a new button show up in your toolbar and when you click it, it will take you to Google and translate the website into English.

As awesome as WPhone is, it is now officially obsolete thanks to the official iPhone app. It will be available for free from the Apple store and it will of course even be open-source!

I know what I’m installing on my iPod Touch!

Just incase anyone’s wondering: HDMI is noticeably better quality than component even though they are both HD. I had figured since VGA isn’t noticeably better than DVI, the same would apply to HDMI and component, but this just isn’t the case.

All this came about because my monitor only has one HDMI input which is normally used by my computer, but I wanted to hook up my PS3 as well. So I bought a cheap HDMI switch off Newegg, but my monitor would drop the signal from time to time (I’m guessing loose cable connections on the back of the switch) and that’s just not something that you want in the middle of a video game. So, I decided to use the component inputs on my monitor for my PS3. I got the new cables for my PS3 the other day and finally hooked them up and I can indeed tell the difference. Sure, it’s technically 1080p still, but the fine detail just isn’t there. The screen is also noticeably darker. I guess I’ll go back to my switch or just manually switch out my cables (ugh).

So yeah, incase anyone’s wondering whether to hook something up to their HDTV with either HDMI or component cables, without a doubt use HDMI. Don’t learn the hard way like I did.

Firefox 3 came out today. It is entirely awesome and I really suggest you give it a try. I’ve been using the betas for a week or two and I love it to death.

Oh, and before you complain about the “awesome bar” (aka the new address bar), give it a few days to learn your browsing habits. It’s sorting order will greatly improve as you surf the web.