Practical Technology

for practical people.

May 3, 2012
by sjvn01
0 comments

Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton thinks Google+ is becoming an annoying mistake

Google is increasingly using its social network Google+ as the glue that binds its other Google services together. Wil Wheaton, the writer and actor probably best known for his role as Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, recently wrote, “I like Google Plus. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever read are on Google Plus, and the Hangout is amazing. But Google is doing everything it can to force Google Plus on everyone, and it’s pissing me off.”

Wheaton rants on, “Yesterday, I tried to like a video on YouTube. I wasn’t signed in to my Google Plus account, and this is what I saw: Where the thumbs up and thumbs down used to be, there is now a big G+ Like button. When you go anywhere near it, you get a little popup that tells you to ‘upgrade to Google plus’ for some reason that I don’t remember, because the instant I saw it, I made a rageface.”

He continued, “Oh, go f–k yourself, Google. This is just as bad as companies forcing me to “like” something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want me to ‘like.’ The worst part of this? For a producer like me, I’m going to lose a crapton of potential up-votes for Tabletop, because the core of my audience is tech-savvy and may not want to ‘upgrade’ to yet another f–king social network they don’t want or need.”

Say hello to the new look of Google Plus (screenshots)

To all of this, I can only say, “Deal with it.

Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton thinks Google+ is becoming an annoying mistake. More >

May 2, 2012
by sjvn01
0 comments

Amazon tries to catch up in personal cloud storage and falls further behind

Google Drive isn’t the holy grail of personal cloud services. But, Google Drive’s introduction has forced all the other players to up their game. Microsoft added paid storage options to SkyDrive. Dropbox doubled the free storage you got for bringing friends and families on board. And, Amazon introduced a desktop client for its Amazon Cloud Drive. Unfortunately, it’s just not that good.

First, if you don’t know the Amazon Cloud Drive, like the other personal cloud storage services, it offers you 5GBs of free storage for starters. You can also store any MP3 music files you buy from Amazon in it without those counting towards your limit.

You can also buy more Amazon Cloud Drive storage at the rate of a dollar a GB per year. All the paid plans also offer unlimited music storage. Before you upload every MP3 in your collection to the Amazon Cloud you’ll want to take a close look at the service’s terms of service. They’re disquieting.

But, until today, to use any of that on a desktop you had to go through a browser. One of the best features of the new big three of cloud storage, Dropbox, Google Drive, and SkyDrive is that they have desktop clients that make moving files around on Windows and Macs as easy as moving files around on your hard drive. So, when Amazon released its desktop client that’s what I expected to get. I was disappointed.

Amazon tries to catch up in personal cloud storage and falls further behind. More >

May 2, 2012
by sjvn01
0 comments

Google brings automatic e-mail translation to Gmail

Do you have friends and co-workers around the world who have trouble reading English? Or, on the other hand, do you speak Spanish, French, or German, but have to deal with sending e-mail constantly to those darn Americans who never, ever speak a second language? Well for both of you Google’s forthcoming Automatic Message Translation for Gmail may be just what you need.

Automatic Message Translation as a Gmail feature has been in the works since 2009. At the time, Google engineers weren’t quite sure how people would use it.

According to Jeff Chin, the Google Translate Product Manager, “We heard immediately from Google Apps for Business users that this was a killer feature for working with local teams across the world. Some people just wanted to easily read newsletters from abroad. Another person wrote in telling us how he set up his mom’s Gmail to translate everything into her native language, thus saving countless explanatory phone calls (he thanked us profusely). I continue to use it to participate in discussions with the global Google offices I often visit.”

Google brings automatic e-mail translation to Gmail. More >

May 2, 2012
by sjvn01
0 comments

What’s what with Barnes & Noble and Microsoft

Last year, Microsoft sued Barnes & Noble for breaking patents in its Android-based e-readers. Most companies, like Samsung, when sued by Microsoft over similar claims folded and paid off Microsoft. That’s why Microsoft makes more money from Android than it does from its own mobile operating system offerings. But, Barnes & Noble didn’t roll over. Instead, the last big bookstore company counter-attacked and they were winning. The International Trade Commission (ITC) seemed to be siding with Barnes & Noble. Uh-oh. So, Microsoft played let’s make a deal and created a new partnership with Barnes & Noble.

So, did Microsoft do the deal just because they realized that if their anti-Android patents would be ruled to be FUD? No, but it did have a heck of a lot to do with it. As Alison Frankel, senior writer at The American Lawyer, commented, “Microsoft paid B&N, the patent defendant, a sum of money that exceeded the marketplace value of its investment. How often does a patent plaintiff pay the defendant in a settlement? Especially when that defendant is on the ropes and urgently searching for a strategic investor?”

I know the answer to that one: Never.

What’s what with Barnes & Noble and Microsoft. More >

April 30, 2012
by sjvn01
0 comments

Klouchebag: The un-social social network measurement tool

Like it or hate it, Klout, the self proclaimed, “Standard for Influence,” has become an increasingly important measurement of how much attention you get on social networks. As Wired recently reported, whether you get a job or not can depend on how high your Klout score is. A lot of people hate this. For these people, there’s now a new standard for measuring one’s “asshattery online:” Klouchebag.

Tom Scott, Klouchebag’s creator and a UK-based developer, speaker, and self-confessed Gadget Geek, explained that Klouchebag is the standard for measuring asshattery online. A bit more seriously, he explained, “I got annoyed with the fuss around Klout, the horrible social-game that assigns you a score based on how “influential” you are online. This is the result.”

Klouchebag: The un-social social network measurement tool. More >

April 30, 2012
by sjvn01
0 comments

Oracle vs. Google: Dead lawsuit walking

The Oracle vs. Google lawsuit is ending its first phase. On April 30th, Oracle and Google will make their closing arguments. Then, within a week or two, we should get a verdict from the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, and… it will all begin again when Oracle appeals its inevitable defeat.

Oh, it’s possible that the jury will award Oracle something, but in the end Oracle will lose in this court and any other court they try to take their case to. I can say that without any fear of doubt because, just as with the SCO case in its early days, anyone with a real clue about the issues already knows that neither SCO then, nor Oracle now, has a leg to stand on.

There are several reasons why the case continues to get so much attention. First is is Oracle going after Google over the most popular of all the mobile operating systems, Android. The other reason is that, frankly a lot of the coverage of the trial and the events leading up to it has made it seem like Oracle actually had a case. They didn’t. They don’t.

Oracle vs. Google: Dead lawsuit walking. More >