Joost (The Venice Project), part deux
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
It was earlier this year when I wrote about the Venice Project. I talked about how I had trouble installing it on my computer since my machine at that time did not meet the requirements.
The code name “Venice Project” has now been officially released as Joost. I was looking forward to making good use of my beta account, but the delay was due to my computer. Now, after the purchase of my new Toshiba, I was anxious to test out the application. The install went through successfully, but when I tried to execute the application, I got the following error below:
I decided to visit the Joost knowledge base in the support center. Lo and behold, I found a solution over here. After following those steps as noted in the knowledge base, my Joost was up and running.
Once I was in, I could not believe my eyes. For one thing the quality of the videos are beyond amazing!! I cannot even describe how good the quality is. I run a 1440 by 900 wide screen resolution, and the picture was sharp. When I tested Joost, I was also on a wireless connection with only 65% signal strength…AND THERE WAS NO LAG! I called my buddy over to look at my screen, he was in shock. YouTube lags, the resolution is small and the quality is still not up to par. Sorry to say, but I think Joost will crush competition…Cable will die in time.
Joost has a couple of things going right for them. (1) The user experience within the application is rich, clean, seamless, simple and just plain intuitive. (2) For a product in beta mode, they already have a good array of channels online. (3) The ability for users to watch what they want, when they want and wherever they want with no restriction. (4) The creators have already built a reputation in the industry from Kazaa and Skype.
Joost provides some neat functionality such as ability to chat with other users watching the same channel. Ability to add widgets to your Joost, like clock. Ability to browse through upcoming programs and new channels. The UI is just brilliant. Below is a screen shot of Joost:
All I have left to say is that this product will fly!
LOVE: The snipping tool is a very good addition to Vista. Seems like it only comes packaged with the premium editions of Vista though. At first, I was shocked that Microsoft could come up which such a neat tool. The snipping tool lets you draw a boundary anywhere on your monitor, that area is then captured (like a screenshot) and imported to the Snipping Tool editor. You can then save your snip as a JPG/PNG/GIF.