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Google Wave Invitations

After having Google Wave for a few weeks I must say I have hardly used it, I check out what I can do with Google's new tool, after playing with it for a day or two I had enough.

When I need to connect some one through the web I use one of following.

1. E-mail, in my case Gmail.
2. Instant messaging, again Google Talk in my case, some times I use the one in skype.
   
3. Skype, when I need to talk.
   

I have a few friends who also have Google Wave, but same like me they hardly use it, everyone is already used to use e-mail and I.M.

More then that all of them use Gmail, they prefer their e-mail, then heir new way of communication, meaning Google Wave. Another problem with Google Wave is that you can only use it to communicate with friends who have Goolge accounts, as apposed to e-mail which can be used a lot wider to communicate people with accounts in other places.  By creating G-mail Google had prevented from most users to change their way of thinking and start communicating in a new way.

On the other hand I must say that a lot Google's experiments have ended in very good products like G-mail, Google Calender, Google Reader and Google maps and there is rumor that they are working now on a new web protocol, "spty" which is 50% faster then "http".

If you are still interested in trying Google Wave for your self I have some invitations left, you can leave me a comment with your mail and I'll send you an invitation.

Google Chrome OS

Finally it came out the Google Chrome OS, I installed it in a virtual machine (virtual box) and gave it a test drive. Here are some of my thoughts:

• It's A browser  and you can't change to any other browser.
• You can't logon or work when you're offline.
• You can only surf the web.
  
• When you look under the hood, you find something familiar.

To make things short until now all I see is Chromium on Ubuntu.

No Internet No OS

Look's like Chrom the browser

The applications tab, all web applications

It's not the browser it's the operating system

This is what you happens when you want to get in "Microsoft Live Office" when using Ubuntu, you are asked to install I.E. or Firefox, the only problem is that I am running it through Firefox. The problem isn't the browser it's the operating system, Microsoft can't tolerate competition.

Google Wave

What's the big fuss about 100,000 users and how much posts about "Google Wave" !?

 Now there is a Firefox extension and probably it's a mater of time until there will be a chrome extension for "Google Wave".

To make things short and simple i'm still waiting for my invitation to see what the big fuss is all about.

Buy the way I love the new Blogger editor, works a lot  better then the older one , great work !!!

Georgia

Four days ago we just came back from Georgia. I've been traveling a lot and I must say that Georgia is one of the most lovely place. Here are some pictures I took.

My quest after a Ubuntu blogging client

Those of you who've been following my twitter may have noticed I've been looking for a good blogging client for Ubuntu. I've tried scribe, an extension for firefox, but it made a lot for problems when I published, some times it just crashed, some times the design changed (font size etc') and I had problems every time I wanted to add a picture or embed a video.

Yesterday thanks to LazyFeed I discovered Bilbo Blogger, I must say it looked very promising, since all the other clients haven't been updated since 2004 or 2005, like BloGTK. I installed it, and went on to configure it, already while configuring the problems started, I have two blogs, it couldn't distinguish between the two, it showed one blog and published a post on the second blog. There is a side bar to see the last posts on the blog that doesn't quiet work, while writing the editor stops responding for a few seconds and some times the client just crashes.

But to finish with a face forward this is a very good sign, for the beginning it means that some one is aware to the problem and is working to solve it, the design is quiet good and intuitive so Bilbo Blogger is on the right path and hope fully those problems will be solve and maybe more people will take on the challenge of developing a good and easy to use blogging client for Ubuntu

Until then, while working off line I'll continue writing my posts on OpenOffice Writer.

LazyFeed

Since keeping track of things I like on the web is getting harder and harder, I found some tools that could help me. The most trivial and commen is RSS feeds, there are some desktop apps such as Thunderbird or FeedDemon (on Windows) the can read feeds, I prefer a web app once I used NewsGator this days I use Google Reader.
Another way of following things on the web is following people on Twitter who have the same interests that you have. Two more social media ways are Stumble Upon And Digg.
Last week I found out of a new way of keeping track of thing I like, it's called LazyFeed, I just tell it what am interested at and the service finds things for me, things I liked I can save, share on Twitter, Facebook or mail a friend.

Flock, Shame on you

Flock is one of the open source browsers it uses the Mozilla public license, you would accept that an open source browser would be more friendlier to open source operating system users, like Ubuntu which I use. This is what I got when I downloaded flock today.

Until now everything is cool, but look what happens when the download begins.



A Linux file can start download, but all Installing information is for Windows.
What kind of open source is this ?

Is Apple becoming Microsoft

Is Apple becoming Microsoft (or should I call it M$). No doubt Microsoft's designs are no match for Apple's , nor are most of there products specially Windows Vista. All that matters is money. Until now Apple had tried to keep away from the image of a big and money hungry corporation, but apparently they can't hide forever .All big software companies are interested in one bottom line MONEY and everything that is related to money, like P.R. Lately Apple is getting more and more to Microsoft, products are sold with defects , reminds me of some of Microsoft's operating systems. Apple is behaving like a monopoly by preventing from other companies to develop applications to it's products, the same way Microsoft is doing by changing it's office format every tree years, this way no one can develop an alternative office suit. It doesn't let other devices use it's services, and the most amazing, they want unhappy customers to shut up !!!
May be all big companies behave this way, it doesn't mean it's right, there should always be an alternative, in the case operating systems there is Linux.

My Firefox Extensions

1. Gmail manager - So I cam manage my Gmail.
2. Google Reader Notifier - So can manage RSS feeds.
3. Drag & drop.io - Because I work with more then one computer and two operating systems, this is a easy way for moving files around.
4. Shareholic - The easiest way for sharing bookmarks on Delicious & Digg.
5. qtl - The best dictionary you can find.
6. Smart Bookmarks Bar - Saves me a lot of space on the bookmarks bar.
7. StumbleUpon - A great way for waisting time, having fun & discovering new things.
8. Foxy URL - Good for twitting links.
9. Google Gears - So I can access my mail and calender when i'm offline.
10. Google Redesigned - It just looks better this way.
11. Twitter Fox - So I can follow Twitter.
12. Undo Closed Tab Button - Saved more then once.
13. WiseStamp - So I can edit my Gmail signature with HTML.
14. Yahoo Mail Notifir - To keep track of my Yahoo mail.
15. Colorful Tabs - Makes life easier.
16. Customize Google - Makes searching easier.
17. Fox Clocks - For keeping track of time around the world.
18. ScribeFire - Makes writing a post so easy, you can even do it offline.
19. Google Bookmarks for Foirefox - Makes it easy to access my Google bookmarks.
20. Taboo - For reading things later.
21. Locator - For locating any address on Google maps.
22. New Tab King - for opening new tabs.
    

On Ubuntu

1. Ubuntu Firefox Modifications - Allows me to install Firefox add-ons through the Ubuntu package manager, it comes already installed.
   

On Windows

1. IE Tab - Unfortunately there are sites that still don't work on Firefox.
2. AVG Safe Search - Protects my computer.
   

If anyone uses any useful or interesting extensions I would love to hear about it, please live me a comment.

Ubuntu

Two month ago I tried Ubuntu Linux on my desktop, I realy didn't install it on my computer I used WUBI which installs Ubuntu on Windows. I fell in love immediately, a week later i installed it on my laptop, this time in a separaet partiton, at the begging I was a little bit nerves that it wan't work. It went smooth, and evrything went as plan.
The first thing I did is read Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference which you can download in PDF or by here, this is a basic guide to help you understand how things work in Ubuntu.
It wasn't enough so I bought Ubuntu Kung Fu, this book shows you nice tricks and hacks that you can do in Ubuntu, the next book that I want to buy is Ubuntu Unleashed .
Finaly if you fall in love with Ubuntu the way I did, you sould now htat if you get in to any problem the Ubuntu support is amazing there are tones of people who would help you in any problem. There is also a nice magazine which comes out once a month, on the last friday of the month, it's called Full Circle Magazine or FCM.

Google, Microsoft & Yahoo....

It's all about choice, for anyone of those big companies there are alternatives. For search engines, for operating system, e-mail and there's more......