New Google Reader

Ok so the last time I looked at Google reader, I dismissed it right away. Then today they released a new interface, so I gave it another skeptical look today. I have to say, I absolutely like it, bordering on loving it. So for now I am making the switch to Google reader. I have been using Vienna for a while now, but the new google interface and the ability to use it on my Treo really excites me.

So check it out if you have not. It is great, the keyboard commands and look and feel and auto refreshing. Vienna bogs my whole computer when it refreshes. Not Google Reader.

Thanks Google.

Use your tech like the movies.

An post caught my eye today, via someone that lists the ten worst tech movies / moments or something, its here. Which got me to thinking, what are some of the things that are displayed in movies that we can do, you know the really cool things. So here are a few, and their references, as best as I can remember them.

1. Self destructing Treo. Jack Bauer (of 24) used a Treo in an episode in either season 4 or 5 to pass of data to another spy, data he did not want that person to have. After the spy gave Jack what he wanted he left only to have the Treo later explode on him, brilliant. Well I can’t tell you how to make that happen, there is a similar thing that you can do, that I can tell you about.

It is a program called Central for the Treo, and if you go in to the utlilities menu you can turn on a feature called SMS Kill Signal. With this on all you have to do is text message the password you entered to your Treo, and the program will erase everything, even the SD card. Though I have this, I have never tried it. But it is still very 24ish.

2. The spy looking OS. While personally I think this is easy to do, there are a couple of things that you can do to make this look real and fast. There are a lot of ways to do this, but I am going to point out a few that are not skins and can be done fast, when you need to look like and uber-geek to a non-geek. And all of these are for Mac OS X, I don’t really care to get into Windows methods.

Review: LaCie mobile SAFE with Encryption

I use two Macs, and for over a year now I have been struggling with how to keep the files on the two machines in sync, and up to date, also how to deal with the limited storage capacity on my Powerbook. I have tried just about every syncing program out there, and they work, except when the Powerbook is asleep. I don’t want to sync my machine while I am awake, it hampers my use of the machine, and my Powerbook is asleep 60% of the time that I am. So this was a problem for me, as most of the time me machines were out of sync. This lead me to the grand idea of buying an external mobile hard drive on which I would store all of my documents.

With the exception of the ones that I am really using all the time, those would be on the mobile HD and my Powerbook. So I went on a quest to find a good mobile drive, and for me the only choice is LaCie drives, this is my fourth one, never had a problem and they are excellent drives. So I was going to get the new rugged one, but man is that expensive, so I look at the F.A. Porsche design ones. This lead me to the one I bought the LaCie mobile SAFE with encryption 120 gb.

Why?

No I really have no need for all the encryption, i needed the space of 120gb for future use, and mobile is what I wanted, it is bus powered which is great. So why the SAFE and the one with encryption to boot? Well first I do not use Filevault (though I will when I reformat / get a new mac), I do employ other security measures. Long complex passwords (that no one knows), locking my computer, not user name in boot up, and so forth.

Smug Apple ads work.

There has been a lot of discussion circling lately regarding the new get a mac ads that Apple is making. People either love them (Mac faithful) or they hate them because they are too “smug.” Well I was originally going to comment on that fact that I use the Mac as a business tool and creative tool, and the Mac ads don’t show that you can still use them for both, until I saw an ad run in Canada that did just that (way to screw up a post youtube). So I thought I would comment on the effectiveness of the ads.

First, are they truly intended on getting new customers? Or is it that they are made to sell more computers? I know what you are thinking, they are one in the same, current Mac users already have a Mac, so they don’t need one, so selling more would be selling to new users? Right? Wrong. I think Apple made these ads with a few things in mind, first to sell more Macs, second to push the envelope, third to be different.

As Mac users we love the ads, because they poke fun at MS and PCs in general, and make us look good. This in turn strengthens our irrational love for Apple, and causes us to want to keep buying Macs, and yearn to buy another new one, right now, and now, now. These ads also push the envelope in terms of being like a political ad, making fun and discrediting the other side, the opponent, and that is really risky for a huge corporation such as Apple.

I do think that they do it in a great way, that is edgy for a large company, but not to dangerous. A good mix of the two, yet it still conveys they point without losing anything. Lastly it is different, it is not a Dell ad, not an MS ad, it shows no product! Dell must be laughing their asses off saying you have to show product. But you don’t, Apple is transcending its ads from computers, to lifestyle. It is humanizing a product, and doing a great job at it.

All in all these ads, work. They get attention and reactions, and that is what you want. Apple is getting known, and features are being known. As much as PC users may hate them, I assure you they are thinking twice before they purchase another PC, and perhaps even trying out a Mac and then deciding. Either way the banter between the PC and Mac is ringing in their heads. And that is a very good start. Though they are not as catchy or annoying as the Head On commercials…apply directly to the…nevermind.

Why Dell is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Scary thought? Maybe, but here’s the thing, I have been watching the latest Dell commercial closely, you know the one where the guy calls up late at night, orders a PC, they build it and box it. Yeah and from the looks of that commercial we can conclude a few things about Dells business.

First

Dell doesn’t get many orders, from the looks of the commercials it is late at night, probably past 9pm. And there is no staff there, and the workers are not even producing anything. Then some guy, we’ll call him PC calls and orders a Dell. The lady starts the order, the people appear, assemble then a machine boxes it. All the people go away, the lights turn off. So they don’t get many orders, cause those people are not even going to bother sticking around. Not a good sign for Dell.

Second

For a company that prides themselves on efficiency you would think that they could wait until they have a few more orders to assemble a team to build them, you know the whole assembly line concept. And that way there would not have to pay staff to sit around waiting for these orders that from the looks of things are rare.

Third

Why in the world would you not wait until the order is complete before you start the packaging, I mean the guy never even paid in the commercial, he could change his mind. And he did once look what happened, let to waste, a person had to take one monitor off and put another on the line. Big waste of money there.

…more after the jump.

More people get upset at Vista features.

Ars Techinica is running an article today about Symantec and Adobe petitioning the European Commision about some of the new features that Microsoft is building into Vista.

Symantec objects to features such as Patchguard, which locks third-party vendors out of the kernel. The company wants the European Commission to make Microsoft open the system to security vendors. Rather than simply petition the Commission privately, Symantec is taking its message to the public, apparently in an attempt to counter Microsoft’s own public campaign.

This is just Symantec’s reaction, or shall I say next move, in its battle with MS, and the fact that MS is starting to move into their territory. Symantec is showing that they are not going down like Netscape did to IE, and they are going to pull all the stops. While I don’t know if this is the best approach, nor do I care (I don’t use Windows), I think it is noble. But for it to succeed they need to create controversy, they need to inspire people to be outraged and pissed at MS. Something that they may succeed with in Europe, but will be harder pressed to do so here in the U.S.. One thing they need to do is be heard, run ads, make this like a political campaign, then the news outlets will cover them, instead of the new paper clip that Apple just announced.

Next up Adobe:

Laptop Battery Safety: Why Mac users are safest.

With all this craziness going on over battery recalls, over Sony, over Airlines that seek to make the air safer banning Dell and Apple notebooks, there is one bright point, atleast for most Mac users. What is that? Is the aluminum skin on Powerbooks and Macbook Pros going to keep us safe when our battery decides it has had enough? Probably not, though it has got to be better than some cheap plastic, well atleast it will go out in style.

No. What is going to keep Mac users safe is heat. Yes that is right heat. Not just nay kind of heat, but the heat that Powerbooks, and Macbook Pros (as well as Macbooks and the occasional iBook) puts out on a regular basis. We all know that Macs run really hot, mine is so hot that I never put it directly on my lap, I always use something like a book, binder, pillow, clipboard, to place the laptop on before putting it on my lap. Anybody who uses one of these computers on a regular basis knows this, and probably does the same. I would bet a lot of Mac users even use a desk or table for their laptops (I know, novel concept huh?).

So why does this keep us safe? Simple when our laptops explode / catch on fire, we are farther away, more protected, and used to the heat, therefore we are safer. Told you it was simple.

The Best OS X Web Browser?

I have been using Safari since I started using a Mac, I love it, I have also always held a spot on my Mac for Firefox. I have tried to make a switch to Firefox, only to switch back to Safari, I have tried life without Firefox, and that didn’t work. Lately I have begun to get frustrated with both web browsers, and I am always a reader of any post or article about browser wars and such.

One that continues to pop up is Omniweb, I tried it, it sucked. Its like something that wants to be Safari and Firefox, but failed to live up to it. Don’t get me wrong I love Omni products they do a great job, but not with this one. I know that it is supposed to be the fastest one out there for OS X, but its not for me.

One of the biggest gripes that I have with Firefox is how it looks, it is too Windows 95 and no Mac. Yes I have the skins and such installed to make it look more Safari and Aqua, and for the most part that makes it very handsome looking, though not as good as Safari. The other gripe that I have is the bookmarks, no good, I don’t like the drop down menu I prefer Safaris method of having a page that opens. Oh and I think I uses way more RAM that Safari, atleast it takes much longer to open, and that bugs me. Even though once I open it I don’t quit the app.

Techdirt: For All The ‘Significant Blows’ To Piracy, Shouldn’t Piracy Have Gone Way Down?

This is most definitely worth a read, I could not agree more.

Techdirt: For All The ‘Significant Blows’ To Piracy, Shouldn’t Piracy Have Gone Way Down?:
I’m beginning to notice a pattern. Following just about any “high profile” shutting down of a file sharing or content counterfeiting operation, an entertainment industry exec will proudly state how it’s a “significant blow” to piracy. Yet, it never seems like any of these “significant blows” have even the slightest actual impact on the marketplace. Remember how shutting down the Pirate Bay was supposedly a “significant blow” against copyright infringement online… when the reality was that (1) if it stayed down people would have just gone elsewhere (2) it was down for just a few days and (3) when it came back online it was much bigger than ever before thanks to the publicity from the raid. So, why is it that the media still has no problem claiming that a raid on some counterfeiting operation is a “significant blow to the nation’s piracy market”? Indeed, it does sound like a fairly large counterfeiting operation — and these are exactly the types of operations the industry should be moving against. However, it’s hard to believe this will have any real economic impact on the market for counterfeit DVDs and CDs. The operation had a grand total of 208 CD and DVD burners. That’s clearly more than your average home user, but that’s still not a huge number.

Hypertag: Advertising in a Bluetooth age.

Hypertag is a company that has been in the news recently because it has developed technology that allows billboards and such to transmit data viewable and usable on mobile devices that are equipped with bluetooth and infrared. This is very interesting and valuable, but for a change it is not just valuable for marketers, this also benefits the consumer, something that does not always happen.

Why does this benefit the consumer? Simple, trade expos. You know how when you go to trade expos and you want more information about a product you are looking at, you have a couple of options (for the most part). You can either fill out a generic form to get information, or you can contact the company later on by writing down their information (or googling them). Although some of the larger trade shows offer badges with barcodes that you can scan at booths and be sent information at a later date (same as the form concept, with out the hassle). None of these systems benefit the consumer, for two reasons. First they have to wait to get the information, meaning they forget about the product and lose interest, and secondly they have to do too much to get that information.