Tweet of the year, if you ask me.
Posts Tagged: google
26
Feb 10
R.I.P. Palm
Come on, admit it: we all knew the Pre would not save Palm, didn’t we?
I mean, I must have bought/used Palm’s complete product line back in the 90s, but they really lost me with the Treo. They dropped the ball a few years ago when the competition started to do ‘proper’ USB, synced to Outlook without 3rd party software. Turning to Windows Mobile made Palm into e “me too” company, so I didn’t even take notice of their new stuff anymore.
Had the Pre come out before the iPhone it might have had a chance. Not that it’s technically necessarily worse, but it has lost the fight for developers before it even hit the market. The type of developer that is attracted by making money fast will certainly aim for the iPhone. Open source developers are much better off developing for Android, which also has a well established marketplace.
So, what would make anyone develop for the Pre? That’s a question I find hard to answer.
The marketplace seems to agree – this is what the Wall Street Journal writes:
“As we mentioned in our press release, our softer than expected performance is due to slower than expected customer adoption of our products, which in turn has prompted our U.S. carrier partners to put additional orders on hold for the time being.”
This means that the carriers have unsold inventory and will not buy any more devices from Palm. This happens at a time where the iPad will soon be here and new Android devices are appearing in the store any other week.
From a consumer side I can’t see a lot of buzz for the Pre either. O2 has TV spots in germany, but I have yet to see someone I know use a Pre.
OK, who wants to disagree…?
UPDATE 2010-03-22: Seems like I have a point: http://www.mondaynote.com/2010/03/21/who-will-buy-palm/
22
Feb 10
Google desparately need to implement Identity Management
I’m a really really happy user of lots of Google services. I have my own domain linked to Google Apps For Your Domain (GAFYD). I use Google Docs. I’ve been a GMail user before. I put pictures I want to share on Picasa. May contacts are in Google Contacts. Some of my appointments are shared through Google Calendar. Of course I jumped on Google Wave immediately…
So, all should be fine, right?
Nope.
The trouble began when Google Apps For Your Domain became available, and I had to migrate my data over from the old GMail account. I ranted enough about this, so I’ll spare you the repeat.
Ever since I completed that move, I feel like a second class citizen for all services that use Google’s authentication system, and the worst thing is – this is even true for Google’s own services.
Picasa, for example, is not included in Google Apps, so I have to use a different login. That GMail login uses the same email address than Google Apps, but a different password. You can run face recognition, but unfortunately Picasa can not access the Google Apps contacts for names, faces or email invitations – you have to maintain a second set of identities.
I still have my old @gmail.com email account which uses the same email for login, so that makes for all kind of strange confusing messages. I now have two Google Calenders, two Google Docs sites, both completely separate yet under the same email address.
Do you know all those other services that allow you to pull in your contacts from GMail? You probably guessed it – they can’t access my Google Apps account.
It gets even better when you pull Google Wave (they give you _yet another_ email @googlewave.com!) and Buzz into the mix – complete confusion guaranteed.
This post has been sitting as a draft for a few weeks, only recently Gina Trapani picked up the issue on Smarterware. They found someone at Google with a half ass explanation, but do come on – there has to be a better way!
“When you add Android into the mix, Contacts get weird. Because, I think, you can add your Google Apps account to Android and not your gina@example.com “vanilla” Google Account. (GT: Yes, this is true.) But, when you sign in to Google Voice on Android, you will need to enter the password (which might be the same) of your vanilla Google Account. BUT, on Android, your Contacts are read from the system’s phone book. Not necessarily the vanilla Google Voice Google Account that has its separate contacts (accessible through the normal Google Voice webapp). Ugh. The “Contacts” issue is by far the most ‘hurting’ in this whole scenario.”
Eh… ok….
An update to the post brimgs it to the point:
“Clearly FREE vanilla Google Accounts get more preference than potentially-paid Google Apps accounts, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Welcome to third class citizenship.
What’s your experience with this – how do you make it work for you?
8
Dec 09
4GB SDHC Eye-Fi Home video card for $50
That’s quite a bargain:
“Buy 200 GB of storage for $50 and get a free Eye-Fi card
Make your camera wireless, automatically upload photos to Picasa Web Albums, and save $95 while you’re at it.”
A pity it’s only valid in the US ;(
13
Oct 09
Dear Google – Can you see what’s wrong here…?
That was in my email today:
And that is what I get when I click on the invitation:
I *hate* that – it’s the internet, stupid!
4
Sep 09
w00t! GMail has an 8-bit-theme!
How Retro can you get?
It’s called “High Score”, and it’s the first theme that really appeals to me.
3
Sep 09
Sort your feeds in Google Reader
Ah! This is something I’ve been trying to do for a few months: you can easily re-order feeds in Google Reader by accident, just by clicking a fraction of a second too long when selecting a different feed. SO far I had not found a way to fix this.
Just found the solution here: http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/14/sort-subscriptions-alphabetically-in-google-reader/comment-page-1/#comment-738193
Yay!
6
Mar 09
GMail Labs adds browser bar tweaks
There’s a new feature for GMail users, something that some of us may have already been using for a while. They moved the title around a bit so that it’s easier for you to see if you have new unread email when the browser window is minimized, or you’re working in another tab.
This is what it looks like:
There is a small issue with that. This is what it looks like in the taskbar on my screen:
And like this in the browser tabs:
Not really perfect, right…? Now let’s compare it to another way. Browser tabs:
And the taskbar:
A lot better, isn’t it?
How do you get that, I hear you asking? Easy: it’s Lifehacker’s Better GMail 2 Firefox Extension.
Sorry if you’re on IE, there’s nothing I can do for you then. But then again, you have enough problems already ;)
