Google Wave, in a Week?

Well, I never thought I would see the day but according to the google article HERE the wave preview will finally be released next week. As I have all of my email addies on the waiting list I hope to be able to give this a spin soon and let you know what I think of it =P.

For those that don't know what Wave is I recommend going to the google wave site and watching the 1.5 hour long vid (yes it really does take that long to show everything this piece of kit can do). If you are way to impatient to watch 2 Google Geeks text each other across the room though you can go HERE and get a run down of the highlights of how this will change the way email, photosharing, txting, IMing, doc writing and every ruddy other thing under the sun will be changed by this.

On another note I think it was awfully nice of google to offer chrome frame for all you poor IE sods out there. This delightful pluggin is used to push IE (forcibly) into the modern Java and HTML5 world. Just think about it Explorer masses, it will almost be like using a decent browser, yet still let you have your clunky, ungainly, virus infesting web portal of the 90's (this is assuming it lets you on the net at all and doesn't block your pop-up or tell you the site is a phishing site or any other host of messages that a person with half a brain does not require to navigate the web scam/virus free). The thing is, Google doesn't want your poor, uninformed browser choice to make them look bad so they are playing nice with you for now. In the end though I think Google' well played download button says it all:




Notice the pleading tone coming from the "Or, you can use one of these (functional/quick/customizable/not built by a block head) browsers" -amplification added for those using IE; and yes I know Safari doesn't customize well either but...

Peering into iTunes 9

Hands on: iTunes 9 refinements cool, but hard to find - Ars Technica

Ok, so rabid Apple fan-man(a weak sauce way of weaseling out of being called a fanboy) I may be but usually I know longer put much weight on iTunes revisions. Half the time they are nothing more than instructions for working with the newest jeweled iPhone and the other half of the time I really just am not sure what they do. iTunes does not join in these lackluster additions to Apples management software. I highly recommend the Ars article but for those of you lazy (like myself) here is an oober recap of why you should love iTunes.

New Library Structure

Now things are finally in their proper place for a media library (no longer just music). Your iPhone apps will be in the right place, all the extras from your movies will be with their parent file (more on extras later) etc etc. Make sure you read the ars article as it tells you how to enable this on old library files (like what 99% of you already have from past versions of iTunes).

Theres a watch folder
That does the same thing as you going to File->import to library..... um, woot? (Just thought I'd include it as all the tech blogs are spastically happy over it, guess it would be good for shameless torrent pirates =P.

Home Sharing

I think this pic says it all, i have a imac and air, this rocks =). Just so you know this works with all mp3's and other none iTunes purchases you already have (don't know why not a single other article mentions that). Does this sync star ratings? I don't know and am too lazy at present to find out.

Extras
Finally we get all the deleted scenes I have given up for the instant gratification of movie time. Oh true, now there are LP albums too.... (woot woot, 1. record labels, do you honestly think we care about what a MUSIC artist, likely on drugs at the time, squiggles on there cover? 2. Do you honestly think this means iTunes will bend you over any less?). I don't know if this is news or not either but I noticed that now all movies, not just hd come with digital 5.1 which dvd has had for ever but... progress is progress and movie studios, take bending over lessons from the music folks now because this is right where iTunes was with them 4 years ago.
iPhone Syncing
Um, now you can organize your 150 apps over 9 screens on the comp instead of in the easy multitouch interface of the iphone itself.... at which point you will promptly forget just where you put your various and assundried fart and baby shaker apps. Just repeat to yourself you have OS 3.0 with finder and you really should relax...

So thats it, iTunes 9 pretty, mostly dead steve jobs hates me and won't give me an iPod with camera and sigh..... he still makes the best kit out there.... now to play some wii sports resort... (hey, its a white, pretty box too, i got confused)

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Pogue on the new iPod Nano: Smash hit!

I have to say, nothing really does say "child-like wonder" like the expression on smurfy pogues face in the above god-father-esc shot from FSJ. Lol, Pogue has just been hilarious since SL came out saying how wonderful it was... even though it crashed repeatedly... oh yeah, and he is selling 2 books on it. Personally, if the same child-like wonder inducing system was only being built to provide architecture improvements, under the hood, out of site and there is literally only one freaking button to install the new version, how many smurf books does it take to hold someone hand through the ordeal? Should that person even have a mac? I don't mean to sound elitist here, but really, ok I am (I have a mac after all)...

BTW: I am now posting into facebook as well as blogger.... muhahahaha you can never escape.... unless you hit the hide button, but really that wouldn't be very nice.

WTF Apple, you broke my wifi

See above image for everything you need to know. 4 hours for that is not right on N plus i can barely post this blog while its doing it cause it is sucking all the interwebs away. i have downloaded things faster than this... To make things even cheerier, this also makes anything else in finder run impossibly slow/freeze (yes apparently changing the volume is too taxing). As soon as the transfer is done finder tries to execute my last half dozen commands all at once. How was this not caught before snow leopard went gold?

UPDATE: why is network traffic jumping like this?

Google Reader Adds Social Sharing and Mark as Read Controls [Feeds]

Ok, I must say that lately the features Google has seen fit to add to its reader client have been less than optimal (anyone say "like it" button) with most adding no extra function with the cost of more screen real-estate. Well, now it looks like we may actually be seeing some good from the ever changing google cloud world.

The first of these addresses a problem i have had from day one, RSS overload. You surely have experienced this too. Every time you go on vacation or some obscure auntie comes for a multi-day visit your precious (yes, insert a golum voice there if you wish) rss feed will simply go bonanza. On the rare occasion that i am actually away from the dear interwebs for a week i can come back to find 1000+ entries in my reader. As much as i love reading unfounded iTablet rumors as much as the next man i really don't need to see 30 columnists WAGs spanning 300+ entries (all word for word copies of each others, each extolling the identical virtues of a device we have never seen, has never been specced and oh yes, we aren't actually sure if it exists). Well now google has fixed all of that in a simple pull down from the read bar. Now reading through one solid day of feeds is much more manageable than a weeks worth or more (not that I ever usually let mine go more than a couple hours but... I need to get out more).

The second new treat from google is what you will see below here. Now I can has other peoples blog posts without even having to copy and paste. Simply brilliant if you ask me. Honestly though I really do like the ability to forward strait here to blogger if I want to comment on something or straight to twitter if I want friends and company to immediately look at something. All in all nice additions Google. Now if only you would add the "remove like it button" link to your options screen....

Google Reader Adds Social Sharing and Mark as Read Controls [Feeds]: "

The Google Reader team's been busy of late, adding social network sharing and friend following features, but also giving power users a (long-awaited) ability to mark items of a certain age as read.

Most noticeable, on an item-by-item basis, is the new 'send to' menu. Head to Google Reader's settings, click off the social networks you want to add access to (or manually add a URL, if you're hack-friendly like that), and they'll appear on the send to menu. Reader will also notify you when friends you're following in Reader have web sites with feeds attached in their Google Profiles.

But the most important changes, for those using Reader to get their news reading done, are the Mark as Read tweaks. It's not a custom search by date, exactly, but it does let you skip through a huge pile of unread items after, say, a long weekend, week's vacation, or general absence from your feed reader. You get the ability to mark items older than one day, one week, or two weeks as read, which is a pretty good start.

A few other changes are in effect for mobile users and note sharing, so hit the link to learn about them, and share what you're able to do now, or what you don't really like about Reader's changes, in the comments.

A flurry of features for feed readers [Official Google Reader Blog]

"

AT&T, meet Google Voice... Yeah, you're done

For anyone who is a an Apple or Google fan the last two weeks have seen rising fears and tensions over your most commonly used/loved devices and services. David Pogue actually wrote a good article HERE (i know, it surprised me too that he had a useful insight). So what does our smurfy compatriot have laid out? In a way i haven't seen anyone on the net yet compile he lays out every offense Apple has made in the last couple of weeks with their crazy app blocking progress. I could go on but the more i think about it, how AT&T is a blood sucking parasite and how Apple must be caving to the man etc., the more i think you will get everything you need from Davids post. What do you all out their with shiny iPhones and Google voice think of all this? Let me know.

To iPhone or not to iPhone, that is the question...

Hey All,

I was hoping you could help me out with a quandary I find myself in. As you all know, the next iteration of the god phone is upon us once again and once again I have managed to beat a piece of kit to death right before hand (my g1 ipod touch). Now I love the iPhone, loved having one back in the day but now I am left with this problem, should I get another one? Is 70 dollars a month, $840 per year worth it? The iPod already does many of the things the iPhone does, but lacks a few critical things (I am betting it will finally get some of them here in sep when gen 3 comes out). Alright, there is Elite Force I would like to be playing so lets cut to the quick. Here is my situation now.

1. I have a corporate Blackberry 8820.... it sucks BIG time but does make calls (if you sift through enough pointless, slow menus to get to that stage)
2. I have an AT&T wireless card which I think is still unlimited 3G (unlike the poor saps that now have a 5 gig cap)
3. I have the already mentioned beaten up ipod which miraculously still works

When I first got the BB and let my wife have my iphone I hoped that the ipod would be all I needed to work with the Rim device. It has been... irritating. I WANT SPEAKERS! I WANT VOLUME CONTROL! I WANT SKYPE TO WORK! All of these things now work on the new ipod (will still be waiting for the third gen though so it has the new chipset). The one thing really lacking though on top of these already fixed problems is, even if I have skype and speakers and stuffs when i am not at home (where I would just use one of my computers anyways) its somewhat difficult to stay connected (yes i am an internet junky and yes this does mean shakes when i am away from my twitters for too long).

Now there are two solutions to this problem as I see it. Get a 3GS iPhone and rock out with its eternal life. Plan 2?

See HERE and HERE and HERE

Pogues post on the mifi got me thinking about the idea of mobile hotspots and low and behold, someone makes one that uses someones existant USB stick. If you read the articles above I think you could have a really good idea what this gadget does. This would allow me to not only have my skype on my ipod, but allow anyone of my friends to have wifi around me as well. There would be no extra $840 dollars to spend (can anyone say new jeep tires right there?) and combined with even the already existent updates to the iPod touch I will probably be a happy man. I am thinking that when i have everything set in its little case I shouldn't ever need to remove any of it. With the car charger just toss it in and go. From the time I am off work to home I am connected, any where i go with a car i am connected. When i do want to go to a restaurant i use the cases caribeaner and take internet (fast internet) with me anywhere (my wife can use the faster connection with you iphone gen 1 if she wants to as well).

The downside, something else to carry and charge (though it can charge off a usb as well as wall wart which is nice) and I still might not have features like gps on the next ipod (sounds like camera is almost a done thing by now though).

So what are your opinions? Are there things I have not thought of here? Do you think that carrying the hotspot around will drive me nutters? Post your comments and let me know what you think. I would appreciate it.