I few of my friends (including Om) are crazy about the Sonos, but I’ve been a Squeezebox user for 6+ years now and have stuck with them through a few upgrades and the acquisition by Logitech. Some of their new products like the Squeezebox Radio are super-handy, I like that the whole thing works over my Wifi network, and it runs Open Source server software. (I used to run it on a Linux box, now on a Mac.) That said, the software has always felt clunky to me, the lack of a good iPhone client is annoying, and the multi-room sync is temperamental. They also seem to have stagnated under Logitech, for example the Radio is cool but the battery for it (which is half the sell) doesn’t come out until April, and costs another $50 — lame. Has anyone used both Squeeze devices and Sonos and have a preference? ¶

In celebration of my arrival in Bangkok the opposition party is apparently planning a million person “red shirt” rally. Exciting! On the bright side, “The UDD [United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship] can only afford to keep its protest going for three to five days. If the government has not fallen by that time, it will have to withdraw and draw up a new strategy.” I always pick the best times to travel. (Mom, don’t worry. I’ll stay safe!) ¶

After a good while (I can’t search my Twitter stream) on Chrome I’m switching back to Firefox as my primary browser, and actually uninstalled Chrome. Why? I was getting the “Oh snap” failure page all the time, even on Google’s own Youtube! The only support I was pointed to was this page, and when I followed the instructions there when I restarted Chrome everything was gone. The sentence “copy the relevant files from the “Backup User Data” folder to your new “User Data” folder.” is useless when you consider the folder has 50+ files to sort through and I wasn’t sure which one was causing my previous problems. So back to Firefox, and thanks to Xmarks all of my stuff is there. I’m also using this persona which is pretty sweet. The feature I missed most on Chrome was lame: the ability to click and hold a folder then release on a bookmark I wanted to open. On Chrome you have to click twice. It bugged me. Now back on Firefox I feel like the browser has a large head. ¶

Toni Schneider, the CEO of Automattic, writes 5 reasons why your company should be distributed. ¶

The Harvard Gazette is now on WordPress, with a beautiful magazine-style design. There’s a whole meme/argument going around a few blogs and Twitter saying WordPress isn’t a CMS. Who cares what you call it, look at the amazing sites you can create. (And manage content on.) Who woulda thunk it. I thought WordPress was only good for “just a blog” — what are these Harvard gonzos doing? Fie! I say. ¶

WordPress.com User Accounts now auto-login to IntenseDebate blogs no matter where they’re hosted, any website in the world. Connect services like Facebook’s and Twitter’s always require at the very least a click or two, and in worst case can be a full login and several bounces to the origin site, which increases the friction of commenting and can actually decrease the number of comments you get. (Oh noes!) This is much smoother, and faster. Previously this was only available if you actually hosted on WP.com, now it’s for any website, anywhere. ¶

WP.com is now Pubsubhubbub-enabled, and the code we used to do that is now available as a plugin as well. It took me 30 seconds to add to this blog using the dashboard “add plugin” functionality and searching for “pushpress.” I love it when we’re able to do these simultaneous releases, it falls in line well with WP.com’s goal of all its useful code being available to everyone, for example the custom CSS release. ¶

Guardian: When using open source makes you an enemy of the state. “The US copyright lobby has long argued against open source software – now Indonesia’s in the firing line for encouraging the idea in government departments” ¶

Thunderbird in 2010 by project lead David Ascher, who I met with a few days ago. I’m sticking with Thunderbird for this year, just hoping for some kick-butt Gravatar integration. ¶

10 media and tech luminaries on the future of reading, I’m number 10. Also includes Jimmy Wales, Marc Andreessen, Jeff Jarvis, and Kevin Rose. ¶

As I noted on Twitter, Jay-Z now has a WordPress-powered blog. It’s  bare right now, but hopefully they really start to stretch WP soon. By the by, Jay, let’s grab a bite and talk tech and design. Hat tip: Michael Koenig. ¶

In April I’m going to be participating in an event called Seven on Seven put on by Rhizome. “Seven on Seven will pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new — be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine — over the course of a single day. The seven teams will unveil their ideas at a one-day event at the New Museum on April 17th.” ¶

As reported on BoomTown, I’m joining some cool folks including Biz Stone, Chris Sacca, Mike Tatum, and David Liu as an adviser to The Start Project. ¶

We’ve just released WordPress for Android 1.0 which is a continuation of the WpToGo development now under an official WordPress banner, and of course as Free Software. Congrats to Dan and the team on making this happen. Mobile stuff is really starting to come together for WordPress. I’ve been playing with this on my Nexus One for about a week and loving it. ¶