Chrome Updates by Adding Apps

Chrome's update added Apps

Chrome's update today added an easy-to-use apps link on the toolbar and in the blank tab to easily access all Google products at the flick of a mouse button.

I think this is a great addition that will make it easy for me to quickly access the program I need during a busy workday.

Have Geek...Will Travel?

If you're a geek looking for a quick buck to move somewhere odd while practicing your magic skillz, the city of Chattanooga has a deal for you.

According to Brazen Life (New Programs Pay Geeks to Move Somewhere Unlikely) the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee (a.k.a., The Gig City) has begun a program, Geek Move, that offers $10,000 mortgage moolah and $1,250 worth of relocation expenses to geeks who live > 50 miles from Chatt. and who are willing to move there to work.

A similar program exists in Detroit *gulp* called Challenge Detroit.

Free MIT Classes, Certification for Peanuts

I was reading an article on Inc.com today (How to Get an MIT Education for Peanuts) that kinda blew me away. Apparently, MIT is going to start offering free classes that lead to a low-cost certification.

Free classes from major educational institutions are not news, because for years now you can get some pretty awesome free classes on Apple iTunes U. However, getting a certification at a low cost from a major institution is a groundbreaker.

According to a little research I did (What is MITx?), MIT plans to launch the program in spring of 2012. It's worth checking out if you think this might be a good course of study for you.

Definitely worth checking out.

iOS 5

Today Steve Jobs and the Apple team released info about the upcoming iOS 5 update.

The best source for concise info about what the new OS will do is from Mobile Crunch (Everything You Need To Know About iOS 5).

The biggest deal for many seems to be the addition of notifications, and missed notifications on the lock screen that allow you to swipe directly to the pertinent app. Apparently many folks felt this was a major issue on the Apple vs. Android battlefield.

I'm personally more interested in the newsstand portion of iBooks, where your subscriptions to magazines will now appear.

Many folks were also stoked to hear about the reading list option. From Safari, you can now add items to a reading list which will showcase your articles in a "prettied up" version. Sort of like your very own magazine or newspaper.

Reminders, the way I understand it, is the least useful change for me personally. I already have reminders popping up from my calendar, which I've synced to Google Calendar for years now.

One thing that is interesting is the photo shortcut from the lock screen. This makes capturing spontaneous shots easier, faster, and better. They say the camera's improved as well with this latest software update. This is probably aimed at higher-pixel camera phones coming out daily nowadays.

The thumb keyboard cracks me up. It's the keyboard separated into two areas, one on the left margin and one on the right margin.

The "PC Free" concept is pretty much, yes very, a huge deal, since we've all been tethered to laptops and desktops indefinitely for iPhone and iPad updates and syncing...and let's not even bring up iTunes syncing *shiver* The Wireless synch to iTunes and the iPad mirroring are nice add-ons that make a difference without much effort from the user.

Twitter is now better integrated, and iMessages promises stealth and speed when sharing between users--not something earthshaking since I don't really use my IM app of choice (eBuddy) all that much anymore, nor IM in general. And I doubt this is that relevant for most, since they're anyway used to texting.

I am very excited that this latest iOS update brings with it so much functionality, that I can barely contain myself to run home and plug in the little buggers to see how it all applies to the particular models of devices I own (iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS).

If anything interesting happens once I update, I'll be sure to follow up with a post.

Cheers and happy iOS-ing. Of course, we have to wait until the fall, but what's a couple of months!

US International Strategy for Cyberspace

Today the White House launched their strategy for cyberspace. Check out the script for President Obama's presentation. or the fact sheet.

Blogger's Outage

This just in! Blogger blog says that while the engineers at Blogger were updating something in the back end, some corrupted code came to the surface and snatched the entire system offline, as well as removed a number of posts and comments(!).

iOS 4.3

Friday was the official rollout of iOS 4.3 to all iPhones (3Gs and above) and iPads.

According to the Apple OS update page, the benefits are mostly for iPhone 4 users:

• personal hotspot for up to five devices
• iTunes home sharing
• new AirPlay features
• faster Safari performance via the newfangled Apple Nitro JavaScrip engine
• HD video via Apple's Digital AV Adapter
• Ping features
• new settings for message alerts
• single-tap conference calling pause
• and a number of bug fixes

Of course, March 11 was also the day the iPad 2.0 came out.

The Naperville, Illinois Apple store reported a line so long down Jefferson Avenue, that it bent around the corner where the Eddie Bauer store is (Crowds Come Out to Naperville Apple Store for New iPad 2) located.

I even read somewhere that they offered customers in line a free Starbucks drink, since the line and wait were so long.

After a few hours of sales, Apple officially reduced the shipping time wait for a new iPad 2 to 2-3 weeks, according to an update by ZDNet.

So...did you get yours yet? Are you going for an iPad 1 because it's much cheaper now? Or are you favoring an Android tablet?

iPad 2

Today was the greatly anticipated Apple iPad 2 keynote. I was able to follow along by reading Endgadget.com's great live blogging page.

It looks like the iOS update, 4.3, will be out March 11--when I believe the new iPad will come out.

Apps and Electronic Subscriptions, Oh My!

Apple announced subscription rules for electronic publishers on Tuesday (Apple Launches Subscriptions on the App Store), saying it will keep 30% of subscription profits. Google immediately followed up on Wednesday (A simple way for publishers to manage access to digital content) with their own rules: you get to keep 90% of your tablet subscription profits.

To say that Apple's statement stirred up some healthy discourse and controversy, would be an understatement (Apple’s Big Subscription Bet: Brilliant, Brazen, Or Batsh*t Crazy?). Twitter and blogs alike lit up like Christmas trees with criticism and analysis.

Obviously, Apple is trying to place a structure in place that will create revenue for all involved, and since it's the creator of the system, it wants to get its fair share. Yes?

If you are an app programmer/publisher, which team would you be on? Door number one: the Apple team that is building something to last, and that creates some revenue for you, or door number two: the team that wants to get traffic and quantity and will get you more moolah.

And if you are an app creator negotiating with a publisher, wouldn't you like to know there's a difference in what you can take home and what you gotta give up?

I'm going to keep an eye on this and see what comes out of it.

Verizon iPhone: Now For The Bad News...

According to a compiled reviews post on CNN Fortune today, the Verizon iPhone is leaving folks unsatisfied.

Although calls are not dropped as often as on the AT&T network, and the reach of the signal is stronger for many, the user can't multitask on the 3G network (phone call and surf the web at the same time).

Second, is data speed. AT&T is almost 50% faster at download speeds. This is a cause for concern for most folks interested in a smartphone for data transfer (documents, photographs, email, etc.).

But there is a neat little hook with Verizon: the hotspot feature. You can use the iPhone to get your iPad or other gadget free reign over the Internet, without having to pay for a data plan that's only available to that particular gadget *cough*iPad*cough*

I'm seeing two pluses and two minuses here. What about you?

From what I read thus far, the Verizon pluses are not enough to get me to switch...particularly with the carrot dangling in the horizon of AT&T possibly releasing the iPhone's hotspot feature in a near future.

Blogger Mobile

As I was logging into my Blogger account today, I saw a little pop up that said Blogger now had mobile templates.

WHOOOOO

To activate Mobile templates log into your Blogger account, and in your dashboard, select the "Settings" option for your blog, or the blog you wish to modify. Under Settings look for the "Email and Mobile" option. The first radio button, "yes" option should be clicked, then at the bottom of the page select Save. All done!

I'm very excited, because being able to see blogger blogs on my iPhone is actually pretty important to keep up with my friends and just to stay upated on news and other stuff like my Google Reader subscriptions. This is very, very cool.

I went ahead and enabled the mobile view for all my four Blogger blogs, and found out there's a little QR code you can use for each of your blogs. I decided to post that here just for grin and giggles. I really am giggling tho, cause this is the bomb. Thank you Blogger, you guys rock, as always!

EU vs. Google

ZDNet reports this morning that the EU is ready to tackle Google head on about sponsored listings in search results.

According to the article: "The commission said it will investigate whether Google lowered the page placement of unpaid results of services with which it competes, such as price comparison or specialized search, and placed its own services higher to shut out competition. The commission also will investigate allegations that Google lowered its Quality Score for so-called sponsored, or paid, links of competing search services."

Ouch!

Can Your Company Turn Off Your Phone?

The answer, amazingly, is yes. If you've set up your personal cell phone to connect to an exchange server, the company's IT personnel can and will send a kill command if they feel you are sharing private company information. Read that again, your personal cell phone.

Then again, the kill order can also be sent out by mistake, such as it happened to Amanda Stanton in this NPR news story.

Several of my co-workers don't think twice about having IT connect their personal phone to the exchange server. However, the possibility for outside control of one's personal phone should make employees think twice about making themselves available during off-hours. Don't you think?

Facebook Updates Mobile Places Logins

Today the big news on the interwebs was how Facebook updated mobile apps to enhance their Places login feature.

Here's an article by CNet (Facebook to Foursquare: You're out, by Caroline McCarthy)
pondering if perhaps, Facebook is trying to pull one over on Foursquare.

I'm very eager to try out that "deals" feature, to help figure out where to have a nibble or sip of something delectable whenever I'm out and about...especially useful for workday lunch decisions!

Facebook Like?

So Facebook this week gave up on their "Become Fan" button and replaced it with "Like." I'm not sure why but I guess they felt this was important.

So now they released their web like button, which allows you to share/connect with friends and to be recognized on partner sites with a personalized interface. After reading this FB landing page, I found out that the like button shows up automatically on partner sites as you surf.

Here's a screen print of what the message at the top of my FB page looked like. This "web like" button announcement is being called the Connect with Friends.

TheNextWeb.com says you shouldn't ignore the little graph -- or do so at your own peril. *insert suspense music here*
Thoughts? Does anyone care?

Blogger Photo Upload

I noticed the photo upload UI has been updated a wee bit since the last time I uploaded an image (last week?). There's now a window with the option to upload from the Blog (upload from computer also), from Picasa, and from a URL. It used to be just from your computer and from a URL.

A couple of extra click throughs are now required, but all around I think I like this more sophisticated UI.

New Twitter Front Page

Pandora

About two or three years ago, I used to listen to Pandora quite a bit to help me pass my longer flex-time work schedule faster. That was, until a good buddy suggested I switch to Last.fm like he had. Although I switched, I did go back on occasion to Pandora, there was something about it I liked better. It may have been my opinion that Pandora's recommendations matched what I was looking for a little better than Last.fm. Something about how they differ in their songs categorization, I guess.

I was pleased to read a success story article about Pandora on the NYTimes, by Claire Cain Miller, titled How Pandora Slipped Past the Junkyard and Found Success.

Our intrepid author shares with us the anguish and victory Pandora has witnessed in nine years. It goes through the  downward but then upward swing the company experienced from 2001 when its entrepreneur/founder did all but give up on his struggle to make his baby succeed.

It looks like Pandora now has a deal with Ford to be included in its Sync nav system as of January of this year. The company is also making deals to incorporate its service in new blu-ray and other devices by manufacturers such as Samsung and Vizio (check out the Pandora-in-the-Home page).

Enjoy your truffle-oil Kobe burger Mr. Westergren. Good job. Meanwhile, I will be listening to your music from my work 'puter today.

That Sync-ing Feeling

New post on my Automotive Blog about Ford's expected revamp of its Sync onboard nav/entertainment system. Did someone say...free WiFi?!