Tony Bevilacqua

I recently decided that I was going to start blogging again, and do something with the Tony Bevilacqua dot net site. I have set it up multiple times, and it has never really gone anywhere, I usually get distracted… lazy, you know, the usual…

Since getting my new mac, I have been working with a lot of great applications that have been created by the community, and specifically for this blog, a great little application called “MarsEdit 2” by Red Sweater.

Just a few of the features…

Intuitive Interface
MarsEdit’s no-nonsense interface works just like email. Edit your drafts in a convenient text editor, spell-check, and publish.

Wildly Compatible
Works with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal, and Vox. And that’s just to name a few.

Easy Uploads
Upload images and files directly to your weblog. When you want to reuse an item, just select it from the media catalog.

With it’s user friendly interface, 10 second setup and configuration, it’s definitely something that I would consider taking a look at. MarsEdit offers a 30 day trial for this application. If you have a Mac, and are on any of the above compatible platforms, I recommend checking it out!

Yahoo reports that Microsoft will stop making HD DVD players for its XBOX 360 video game system after Toshiba Corp. ceded the HD video format battle to Sony Corp.’s Blu-ray.

Microsoft was one of HD DVD’s main backers, along with Intel Corp. and Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp., and its support for the format was seen as a big win for Toshiba’s format.But support for the HD DVD waned as major movie studios — Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co., News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. Entertainment — picked Blu-ray to distribute high-def DVDs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. struck what seemed to be the final blow just over a week ago when it said it would only sell Blu-ray players and discs.

Read the entire story, and the continued demise of the HD DVD format. Do you have your blu-ray player yet?

OpenAds have re-branded (Again) over to OpenX. Recently OpenX has received significant investment, and it seems that this has helped this latest move towards another rebranding of their organization.

OpenX has been through its fair share of identities, phpAds… phpAdsNew… Max Media… OpenAds… the list goes on. What’s in the future? OpenX will begin to offer a hosted service and continue quickly evolving their ad serving suite.

SpawnPoint and PHXX have been active users of phpAds, phpAdsNew, and OpenAds over the years, serving millions of ad impressions through this open-source software. I am quite excited to see the evolution of their software, and this “hosted service” that is on the way.

Word of advice to the OpenX team, add the ability to “Forecast” ad serving over periods of time; this is an essential tool for ad sales team looking for information and delivery expectations for clients. This missing feature causes quite a few issues with our group. This feature is offered by DoubleClick (DART).

GamePolitics.com is reporting on an acquisition proposal for Take Two that has now become public. In the proposal, EA is offering $26 per share for Take Two stock, a 60% premium over recent share prices. The value of the transaction is pegged at $2 billion.

An EA press release claims that it offered $26 per share for Take Two stock in a February 19th letter from EA CEO John Riccitiello (right) to T2 boss Strauss Zelnick (left). After Take Two management rejected EA’s offer, Riccitiello decided to appeal directly to T2 shareholders. The $26 offering price represents a better than 60% premium over recent T2 share prices.

Read the entire letter from John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts.

This morning I spent some time trying to figure out how to hack the Entourage 2008 signature editor… didn’t work out so well. I was hoping that somewhere I could find the raw HTML files that are created by the signature editor in Entourage… nope.

I have searched around the net a bit, and from what I have read, their “HTML Support” is limited to changing the colors, size, and adding an image. They don’t allow you to externally insert any sort of HTML code, HTML code that is entered goes it as text and doesn’t render. Entourage 2008 apparently storages the signature source within your Mail Datastore, Great.

What does this mean? No HTML code, no external images, no links on text, or on images! I did however, find a work around to get a link into your signature.

How to Add a Link to Your HTML Signature in Entourage 2008

1) Send an email with your prefered signature in HTML from another computer to yourself.
2) Copy it from inside Entourage 2008, and paste it into the Signature Editor.
3) Done.

Yep, pretty sad work around, but it’s the only way that I could find to pull it off. Pasting from Safari, or even Microsoft Word failed. For now, I’ll be forced to leave out an external image from the Entourage signature.