My Thoughts Exactly

Google Plus - Not a New Social Network But New Aspects To The Social Giant

2011-06-29T11:45:00.002-04:00

Everybody is talking today about this new social network Google started.

Google have decided a while ago to go into the social media business and you can see it everywhere the +1, Youtube, Buzz, Wave, Social search, Trends, Realtime search, Google Voice Google Chat and many other services that Google offers and can somehow be social.
Google are not building a new social website, Google are turning themselves into a giant social machine.

Now using your Google profile Google will connect all their social aspects together and now with the new Google+ we will share differently, instead of managing one wall for hundreds of friends we will have "Circles" and each circle will have it's own group of friends that can see and share and control (a lot like Wave was supposed to be before it failed)

"Huddle" will be everything group chat needs to be including a nice group video chat that will automatically center on whoever speaks louder and a mobile app for group chat.

"Sparks" will be a renewed way we share stuff with our friends and will give us a constant stream of stuff we're interested about.

and everything will revolve around our Google profiles that must of us already have (and some of us don't even know it)
So check out your Google profile and get it updated. (like mine)
Learn a bit about your information at Google here, and check who are the people that google already think you are connected to.

Enjoy the Google Experience.

And finally don't forget to request an invite from Google

Great new look for blogs

2011-04-05T02:46:00.001-04:00

If you can't see it head up here

google came out with greats new looks for blogs, and I love it!

Just add that to the end of the blog URL

Flipcard: available at [blogURL]/view/flipcard

Mosaic: available at [blogURL]/view/mosaic

Sidebar: available at [blogURL]/view/sidebar

Snapshot: available at [blogURL]/view/snapshot

Timeslide: available at [blogURL]/view/timeslide

Latest Development in JoliOS (formerly known as Jolicloud) And Why It's Better Then Chrome OS

2011-03-28T12:40:00.002-04:00

If you followed me or my blog you already know I have the Google Chrome OS Netbook (CR-48).
I spent the last couple of months exploring it and getting to know it.
I also have another Netbook (Dell Inspiron mini 10v) that has JoliOS on it (dual boot with XP).

After a while of comparing them I can say without a doubt that JoliOS is much better for number of reasons.

Support native apps.
Great cloud services integration. (I will add more about that soon)
Support for a wide variety of machines (netbooks notebooks and desktops).
Great support team.
Stability
Flexibility

For those reasons and maybe some more I would prefer JoliOS if you are looking for a cloud operating system.

Just to make it clear - Chrome OS is a great operating system (which is probably an exaggeration to call it that) but it is not yet ready for mass production IMO.

Before I will elaborate on JoliOS latests updates that makes it even better I must say its still have a few cons.

Some apps feel to much like a website I would like to see an email app that blend into the OS.
Lack in social approach. I would like to see a live stream from Twitter Facebook and maybe other social networks.

Now for the latest Joli OS updates:

Seamless Dropbox integration. you feel like Dropbox is actually a drive in your computer and not a cloud service
Seamless Google Docs integration that let you see a thumbnail preview of the document, you can even open and edit the document without the need for a new tab.

Now Jolicloud team - this is what I was waiting for! you guys are doing great job!

Flashing Cr-48 bios

2011-03-10T02:10:00.000-05:00

I decided to wait and wait and now that I decided to finally flash the bios and install Joli OS instead of ChromeOS apparently hexxeh disabled the ability to use his script (correct me if I'm wrong)
So know I need to know how to flash the bios manually.
It turns out there are not so many instructions out there how to do that. step by step.

So hopefully after I will find that out I will be able to help those of you that have a Cr-48 machine from Google

Also I felt like I had a too long of a break from writing. I kind of missed it.

The Gamers' Portability Solution for the Cloud

2011-02-20T23:03:00.000-05:00

I have recently solved what I like to call the gamers' portability problem. Nowadays when many people, particularly techies and gamers, use multiple computers and/or a variety of operating systems on a regular basis, I believe that the computer gaming system has become unnecessarily complex.

The real problem with cloud operating systems (such as Chrome OS) for personal use is that you are limited to only browser capabilities. One area where this becomes particularly problematic is elaborate software-based gaming, which is still widely used, and necessary for a number of games. I believe I have found a solution which will let you play your games everywhere-- whether on your own desktop or on any random computer that you come across.

Right now I am looking for Linux developers, especially Linux games developers, who can further develop this highly relevant and exciting idea. I am looking for ways to improve and expand, and for people that can join me in the building of this product.

I wish to keep it as an opensource, but nothing is set in stone right now.

Let me know if you are interested.
yishai.k@gmail.com

ChromeOS on Google Cr-48 Netbook

2011-02-08T19:03:00.060-05:00

This past week Google shipped out the second wave of their "just-testing" notebooks with Chrome OS installed on them. This is part of a pilot program to test out the Chrome OS and is not supposed to be about the hardware at all, as shown by the unbranded laptop.

I was one of the lucky ones and this past Saturday I got myself a brand new CR-48 from Google and now is the time to say it--Thank You Google!

And now for the review:
Hardware specs thanks to (Brad Caris) on Chrome OS forums:

Processor: Intel Atom Processor N455 1.66GHz 512K Cache

Chipset: Intel CG82NM10 PCH

Motherboard: Tripod Motherboard MARIO – 6050A240910 – MB – A03

Ram: Hynix 2GB DDR3 1Rx8 PC3 – 10600S Ram
Read Only Memory: ITE IT8500E Flash ROM

SSD Drive: SanDisk sdsa4dh-016G 16GB SATA SSD

Wireless Wan: Qualcomm Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card

3g Adapter: AzureWave 802.11 a/b/g/n PCI-E Half MiniCard

Bluetooth: Atheros AR5BBU12 Bluetooth V2.1 EDR

Software:
Chrome Browser the same as installing the latest version on Windows\Mac or Chromium on Linux.

Good things about CR-48 and Chrome OS:

Its free! Also, really really cool!
Very fast booting process. 7-8 seconds to turn on and about 3 minutes for first time run.
It has built-in 3G 100MB\month on Verizon and can easily be configured to work with AT&T, T-Mobile and probably other cellular carriers in the US.
Easy to get used to.
Battery holds up for 8 hours of work with wifi and about a week of standby mode.
Anything you do with this system is being saved on the cloud so you can replace the computer or reformat it at any time and no changes will be made.

You can have multiple browsers sessions open at the same time and they all will be restored if you restart the computer.
Quite. With no moving parts it is very easy for it to be really really (REALLY) quite.

The bad stuff no one is saying out loud:

Other then the obvious crashes that are expected from an unstable beta like Google openly say that this is, there is also the annoying lack of keys such as Backspace, End, Home, Delete and others. While some of these most of us never use, backspace and delete are two big ones and many people use both. While there are keyboard shortcuts that will replace all of those keys, and you can see all this shortcuts if you press ctrl+alt+/. There is also the touch-pad mouse issue which I'm still not sure about. It is the hardest feature to get used to you need to use one finger for left click and two for right click or scrolling. Some possible solutions might be to hook up a USB mouse or play around with sensitivity settings.

Going back to the fact that this is an early beta with lots of crashes - the OS is still not ready to deal with the number of extensions which are needed when you only have a browser.

Things you could do with Chrome OS and Cr-48.

1. Switch to developer mode and play around with the GPS.

2. Get your SIM card to work.

3. Even install any OS you want- like Ubuntu, Win7 or even OSX and Android using Luigi created by hexxeh.

Things I've done with Chrome OS and Cr-48.

I've flipped the secret switch under the battery (covered with tape) and updated to developer mode. then I managed to get my T-Mobile SIM card to work on it.

I tried a few times to restart from scratch and delete all the data which is really easy and happens with a flip of the switch. All the settings are saved on the cloud so after the login it feels like nothing has changed.

My final thoughts on the whole program

This pilot program is extremely awesome and getting a free computer from Google is super fun BUT Google still has plenty of developing to do in order for that OS to be right for everybody. It still feels really unstable and slow when you work with many extensions on your browser (as is necessary when the browser is your whole desktop), but more then that, the whole cloud computing industry is still in early developing and not ready for everybody. The transition to move all your computer to work onto the cloud is still not easy to the non-techy user, and many regular computer users would probably still be wary of making such a big change. Google docs is not yet as high functioning or widely used as MS Office. Even relatively simple programs which are still used by a good number of people, like MS paint, did not made a full transition and Aviary is not user-friendly enough. That being said, Dropbox is a great tool that will help anyone who has decided to make the move and need file storage on the cloud.

But if you already live on the cloud and you don't use any other software other then the browser, or think you wouldn't mind a computing experience which is entirely cloud-based, then Chrome OS is being designed expressly for you.

What do you think? Have you tried CR-48? Would you buy a Chrome OS netbook when they will be released in mid 2011?

If you already made the transition to the cloud tell us about it and which apps and extensions you use.

Facebook Privacy Settings Tips Part 2

2011-02-07T01:25:00.007-05:00

Last post I discussed the basics of privacy settings and recommendations about what Facebook call "Things I share". Today I want to discuss "Things others share" and websites\apps privacy settings.

All the following settings can be set here under "Customize settings".
Things others share includes photos I'm tagged in, posts and comments of friends, allowing friends to post on your wall and lately Facebook has also added the option to suggest to your friends photos that look like you using facial recognition technology.
If you have Facebook friends that you don't trust I suggest you do not let them tag you or view your tagged pictures. As to the new feature of suggesting your pictures to your friends I advise you as a precaution before using a new feature like that which can actually compromise your privacy to just keep it disabled for a little while until it has been investigated thoroughly and shown to work well and securely.

You will also notice you have the option to let others "Check In" for you, which gives your friends the ability to make it look like you were somewhere you never went to. The most worrying thing about this feature is that with some new legal precedent this can be held against you in extreme cases. again I highly recommend that you disable that, at least for the time being.

Next is your contact information which by default is open to everybody to see. You should carefully decide who you want to be able to see your phone number or email address, and now with the new Facebook e-mail addresses you can always decide to leave that address available to anyone to see and hide all the rest (for more about the new Facebook e-mail and messages read here).

Going back to the main privacy setting window you will find the "Connecting on Facebook" link where you can control who can contact you, find you, or even add you as a friend. I really like this page because here I can set that no-one will find me unless they have a direct link to my profile. this way I don't get friend requests I wouldn't want to accept. Here I suggest you to let friends of your friends to find you and let everyone send you messages, friends request I believe should only be available to friends of friends (I let everyone send me messages or add me as friends since I'm giving away invites to all kind of services that are Facebook dependent such as RockMelt and Facebook Messages)
If after all the tinkering and playing around with the settings you are not sure how your profile looks like to other people you should try the "Preview My Profile" button on the top right. Here you can see how your profile looks like for a specific friend or to anyone else.

Last tip for today:
Apps And Websites Privacy Settings

Here you can revoke access you previously gave any app or website - I recommend going back to this page every 2-4 weeks.
You can also set which information apps that your friends use can get - I think its best not to trust your friends judgement on who can get your info. Remove all!
Public Search will control how people that finds you on Google or other search engines will see you - My preference is not to let'em find me at all.

Last for today is "Instant Personalization"

When this option is enabled all our information is automatically shared with all of Facebook partners and will expose all your information and your friends information to this websites to do whatever they want with it. Please! Disable this and ask your friends to do the same.

This was part 2 of Facebook Privacy Settings Tips.
If you find this information wrong, annoying, not informative enough or TMI please let me know and I WILL get the guy that wrote this bullshit fired. (but seriously if you have any comments you can easily and anonymously comment in the text box below)

Facebook Privacy Settings.

2011-01-23T21:52:00.006-05:00

I want to use this post to talk about a topic which has been coming up a lot recently: Privacy on the internet, and particularly on Facebook. In today's world almost everyone has a Facebook account, which is sometimes used as a character reference when trying to get a job or into a college--and certainly a date! In short, your profile page maybe subject to a search, and most people, even those who are careful about what content they post, don't always want anyone to be able to find them or see what they posted. Some of my friends, particularly those looking for jobs or applying to schools, have taken very drastic measures to protect their privacy, such as changing their last name, or disabling their profile every time they log off of Facebook. While these actions do get the job done, in many ways it's overkill, since there are a number of simpler ways to protect or hide yourself using your privacy settings on Facebook.

While Facebook really does hold plenty of personal information, which is particularly problematic because most of it can definitively be linked back to you, since you use your real name, they also give us some tools to control the information. For example, you can choose not to show up on searches done by anyone who is not your friend or a friend of one of your friends, or you can choose not to show up in searches at all.

What I find most upsetting is that while technically we are provided with these options, Facebook seems extremely reluctant to let us know about them in a clear and straightforward manner. Whether or not this is intentional, or simply an oversight or poor design on their part, has been the subject of much speculation recently and there is no clear answer.

However, as things stand, I believe it is important that every Facebook user is aware of their options regarding privacy, and should take advantage of the privacy settings. Most important is to check your settings every once in a while, because Facebook is known for regularly making changes to their site which affects all users without giving them a choice on the matter. So in addition to visible changes to your personal profile and news feed, etc, they also often make changes to the privacy settings, which you as a user may not know about if you don't check it regularly.

Facebook Privacy Settings Tips
Part I

Facebook Privacy Settings Tips, Part 1

2011-01-23T06:46:00.007-05:00

First and most important, not everything should go online. But if we still want to share, we don't have to share everything with everybody.
It is very important to always be aware of who has access to your information. A good rule is to try to periodically set aside a specific time of the month or week to go over your allowed apps and websites. If you don't use it, take away the authorizations!

Here are a few ways to share with your friends and still keep yourself some sense of privacy.
(Disclaimer: If it can be protected it can be hacked.)

Please. If you see that this post is missing information-- let me know and I will update it.

My first rule for privacy is to sort your friends to lists. For example:

Family
Work Friends
Ex Girlfriends
Friends from a former job
Etc.

These groups (called lists) are good for controlling all privacy settings, since Facebook lets you define who can see what according to lists. Under 'Privacy Settings' --> customize --> edit --> you can choose either to "make visible to" or "hide from" specific people, which includes lists.

Customize your Privacy
You can choose to share with friends, friends of friends, everyone, or customize. You should choose to customize it. The you can decide for every individual type of content (such as status updates, photos, etc.) who you are comfortable with seeing it (here those groups you made earlier really come in handy), and who to block, including specific people. I find that what I'm the most comfortable with is letting only (some) friends check out my photos, but letting friends of friends comment on my status. For you this might be the other way around.

The Basics
This is your name, gender, work place, etc.. You might want to let friends of your friends see that, or maybe its stuff you want to share with your friends only. Check whats right for you!

Remember that this is usually available for people searching for you on Facebook, and you may want people you actually know to be able to recognize you based on things such as:
Posts by me, Family, Relationships, Interested in and looking for, Bio and favorite quotations, Website, Religious and political views, Birthday, Places I check in to.

That's why I usually set the settings for things I know I'm already careful about posting to "Friend of Friends", assuming that almost anyone I would be interested in knowing on Facebook has at least one friend in common with me. So if we do have someone in common, you can get my basic info (note: special care should be used around "Posts by me", which depending on the nature of your status updates and wall posts might need to be on a more private setting).

It almost goes without saying that if you set your settings to "Friends of friends", anyone who is friends with one of your friends can then see all this content- not only the people you want to be able to see it. If you regularly post things which could actually offend someone or might reflect badly on you (at work, say, or when applying to schools or jobs), consider changing your settings for posts or pictures to only friends, if necessary blocking members of certain groups.

That was Part 1 of Privacy Settings Tips. in the coming parts I will include how to control things others share that relate to me, ways of communication also on the list, how to not found and how let anyone find you, Apps and websites and the Block List.

New Facebook Messages Are They Worth It?

2011-01-16T14:56:00.004-05:00

Short answer - no!. Facebook are known to push their new features whether you want it or not, this specific feature is cool but probably will be pushed to everyone in the next few months.
Facebook tries to convience us to get a @Facebook email address because it's easy and will keep all your conversations in one place and also they're promising to never change your e-mail address. If you ask me - this is not convincing enough Gmail won't change my address as well.

Thank You for InsideFacebook.com for the picture.

all that said but still I believe everybody will love the Facebook messages eventually.
Facebook messages is not here to replace your email. Facebook messages is simply a messages service.
a surprisingly nice and easy messages service, people today already use Facebook messages as a main tool of informal communication and Facebook try to make it easier for everybody. and this is how:
you get an @facebook.com email address based on your username in Facebook.
When your friends send you an email or a message it will go into your messages inbox, if the message is from a friend not in facebook or a commercial email it will be forwarded to your "other" box unless you decide to get it in your main messages inbox.
Facebook will transfer the message to the device which you would probably use to see the message. if you are online any message that you get will go directly to the chat and when your not online on Facebook it gets to you as an sms or as a message on Facebook depends on your mobile settings. when you go into your messages inbox you can see the all conversation and you can scroll up and see a full history of all your conversations on Facebook.
Messages will look like Facebook conversations even when forwarded to gmail. with the profile picture, and the recent messages.
When checking messages from Facebook the last message will be at the bottom, and you can expand the all conversation and see it in a similar way to the way it would look like in an e-mail, with the new email address we get the ability to send messages from Facebook to non-facebook e-mail addresses, you can send a message to a couple of recipients or forward the message to both Facebook and non-Facebook users, you can choose to send it as a text to a mobile device if the other person have his mobile settings set up, and since we would never let just anyone to send us a SMS we can set the privacy settings to block anyone who is not our friend or a friend of our friend from sending us a message.

The interface is very nice, Facebook decided that the subject line is just a waste and got rid off it. I believe they right doing so, as long as I'm not writing an e-mail there is no reason for a subject line which turns it from a messages to a formal e-mail this is not what I need when I'm talking to my friends, this is not an e-mail and you should not send a formal e-mails through facebook, its not proffesional and it looks bed. you can add a picture or a video directly from your webcam you can attach a file and you can set a message to be sent through SMS.
Every e-mail can be archived, forwarded or report as spam you can also report a user if your being spamed.
You can also Unsubscribe or remove yourself from a public conversation when you no longer wish to receive new messages.

here are a few Frequantly answered questions from Facebook help section that I think are worth reading about the new Facebook Messages:

Q. How are messages organized?

A. Messages are grouped into one ongoing conversation with each friend or group of friends, not by date or subject line. Thanks to smart filtering, you’ll always see messages from your friends, and friends of friends, first.

Q. Does the new Messages give me more control over which messages I see?

A. Unlike traditional messaging systems, where you have no control over who can message you once someone has your contact information, Facebook Messages lets you decide how you connect with friends and the people around you. Some key features that give you more control include:

Smart filtering: The tiered mailbox system allows you to focus on messages from the people you’re closest to, based on who you’re friends with on Facebook. Messages from other sources (such as spam and bulk email) automatically go to the "Other" folder.
Privacy: Your "Send me messages" privacy setting controls your Facebook messages. If you want, you can edit this setting so that certain messages are never delivered to you.
Selective delivery: The only messages you’ll receive are those that fall within the setting you choose. For example, if you have selected the "Friends of Friends" setting, then messages from email addresses that we can’t determine belong to a friend or a friend of a friend won’t be delivered to you. Instead, those senders will receive an automatic bounce-back reply.
Blocking: As always, you can block people, applications and websites on Facebook. When you block an application or a person, they will not be able to send you messages or contact you in any way.
Optional email address: You can choose to set up to an @facebook.com address that is compatible with traditional email systems. To start including email, text messages and chat as part of your conversations within Facebook Messages, click the "Edit: Settings" links at the bottom of your main messages page.
Leaving a conversation: You can leave group conversations if you no longer wish to participate.

Q.How does message privacy work for minors?

A.The "Everyone" privacy setting works differently for minors than it does for adults. If minors choose the "Everyone" setting for "Send me messages," only messages from their friends and friends of friends are delivered to them. Senders who fall outside these parameters receive automatic bounce-back replies.

My own prespective about the Facebook Messages:

It is a nice way to talk to friends but when you see how Facebook saved all your conversations even 6 years back when Facebook just started this is a bit creepy for me. I don't believe that the new messages will change anything about how we usually use messages but it will definitely will make it easier. as for now there is a bug in RockMelt that will not let you see conversations and I had to use a different browser to try it. the service as a whole works pretty well but missing the built in documents and PDF reader that was promised during the launching a few months back.

A few of my followers have been invited by me and some of them already got the new messages. please guys - let me know what you like or dislike about this and last small request - if you enjoy reading here feel free to accidentally click an ad or two.

UPDATE: I've just read that when you press the small X next to the message it will not delete your message but it will archive it - remove it from your messages until you get another message from someone and then the message will reappear. If you want to delete a message go into the message and from the tools choose delete.

Just Got The New Facebook Messages - Invites.

2011-01-11T01:42:00.010-05:00

Just got the new Facebook messages, and I will hopefully post a review about it in a few days.

For now I have a few invites for readers of my blog.

Just add me on Facebook, and leave a comment here with your name and I will send you an invite. If you don't post your name here I won't accept your friend request and won't be able to invite you.
(I can only invite my Facebook friends)

I don't know how many people would be interested so I can't promise anything to anyone.
This is new and in (probably) pretty early beta stages, not all messages got through and I had trouble reading messages, but more on that later when I post my review.

For now, I'm glad to help out the first few interested reader in trying it out for themselves!

UPDATE: 2 invites sent! - I still have more invites waiting - tell your friends about my blog.

UPDATE 2: a couple of invites for RockMelt available in the same way.

How To Make Your Gmail Even Better

2010-12-29T01:26:00.001-05:00

I am a longtime Gmail user- since the first beta version, if I remember correctly. I use Gmail for all sorts of things (as most of us probably use our e-mail): personal, work-related, both private and public mailing lists, groups, etc. Over the years, I've found ways to improve and personalize my Gmail experience which I wanted to share with my readers. The following are a few neat apps, browser extensions and features which I have come across and found useful or noteworthy:

I want to start off with a few of my favorite features which can be found in every Gmail account, are simple to use, and I believe are not taken advantage of enough.

Labels- sort the e-mails in your inbox into different labels which can be color coded. This is very easy to set up and is a tremendous help in organizing your e-mails. If you use this function together with filters, your inbox can sort itself.

Filters- This feature can do almost anything. It can automatically apply labels to incoming or existing e-mails based on sender, subject, recipient, containing words, etc. You can also automatically perform actions (i.e., forward, star, mark as read, delete) on e-mails with specific criteria, both to old and future conversations. The 'create a filter' wizard provided is very easy and self-explanatory. This is a very useful options if (like me) you get e-mails from different mailing lists, or if you want to automatically sort mails to labels.

Web Clips - Notice the annoying Google Ads toolbar at the top of your inbox? If you would also like to see news items, jokes, or content from pretty much any RSS feed or website by topic there, Gmail has a nifty feature called Web Clips listed under the 'Settings' bar.

Gmail Labs - Labs are the opening to a whole world of great features built for Gmail in order to personalize it. To take advantage of the labs, you need to go into 'Settings' and find the tab name 'Labs' (make sure your Gmail preferences are set to English). This is where Google developers publish beta features of all sorts- what they refer to as "crazy experimental stuff".

[If you need it there is an escape: in case a Lab feature crashes your inbox, you can open your account and disable the labs additions by using the link provided at the top of the list. Thankfully, I have never had to do so, but it's good to know that there is an easy way out.]

There is a very long list of available labs, but here's a shorter list taken right from the labs of features that I love and use:

Authentication icon for verified senders - Displays a key icon next to authenticated messages from certain senders that spammers attempt to fake (PayPal and eBay).
Create a Document- Allows you to create a Google Document from an email conversation.
Don't forget Bob - Once you pick some email recipients, Gmail suggests more people you might want to include based on the groups of people you email most often.
Google Maps previews in mail - Shows Google Map previews of all the addresses found in an email.
Hide Labels from Subjects - Working on a netbook with a small screen? Labels next to mail in your inbox take up valuable space. Hide them, and you'll be able to see the subjects of your emails themselves.
Mail Goggles (Anti Drunk Mailing) - Google strives to make the world's information useful. Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems and you're good to go. Otherwise, get a good night's sleep and try again in the morning. After enabling this feature, you can adjust the schedule in the "General" settings page.
Sender Time Zone - Should I reply to this mail or just call the guy? Ooops… it's 1 am. Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb.

I am really trying to keep the list short but it's hard. Admittedly, most of the labs are useful for a select few Gmail users, depending on your e-mail usage, however I believe that there is definitely something for everyone, regardless of how you use your Gmail, so go into the labs and set yourself up!

The rest are download-able extensions to your browser which work with Gmail, but are only available when using the computer and browser where the extension was installed.

Boomerang - Boomerang gives you the option of sending e-mails at a later time. The "send later" button can schedule a specific email to be sent at a specific time. When Boomerang is installed, it adds a small button at the top of every e-mail with a drop-down list of set times (such as tomorrow morning or two hours from now), or you can manually set an exact time. This is very useful for a range of e-mail usages, such as sending yourself a reminder, a virtual birthday card, or even a work-related message.

Rapportive- This is a great concept, an extension which is supposed to show you information about the sender of a given e-mail. A complete contact information profile is displayed on the right side of the message as soon as you open the email, including the sender's picture, work info, and more. This is a really interesting concept, but I couldn't get the extension to work properly. If anyone has tried this, I would love to hear how you feel about it.

Gmail Facebook Integration - Adds Facebook news feed directly into Gmail, just like Google Buzz was supposed to. There is also nice Twitter integration as well (thanks to David Mulder). On the Gmail left panel toolbar, in addition to Inbox, Sent Mail, etc., there are Facebook and Twitter buttons, which show you your Facebook news feed and Twitter home page. You can update your status or tweet from the Gmail window, but in order to interact (comment, like) with friends who appear on your news feed, you need to actually go to the Facebook homepage.

WiseStamp - Another neat extension which lets you add a signature to your emails. This is a step up from the built-in Gmail signature feature in many ways. First of all, you can have two different signatures (personal and business are the default options). You can add links to all your social profiles (including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, AIM, Amazon, eBay and many more- you can even include your latest tweet, FB status update, recently listed eBay items). You can also include a random quote of different topics, a green footer, or a legal disclaimer, as well as design options such as borders and backgrounds, and (of course) a link to any website under the sun.

Teach Parents Tech

2010-12-13T12:49:00.005-05:00

Teach Parents Tech is a new Google project ~~not yet published~~ published this morning.

teachparentstech.org

This project is a very ambitious project that is aimed towards teaching "parents" (a.k.a., any non-tech savvy adult over a certain age) small tech tips such as Google calendar, resizing pictures, Gmail auto reply an much more. Because this is created by the people at Google, it would probably be more accurate to say that it teaches "parents" basic PC and Mac skills but mostly things which can be done using Google.

Google uploaded lots of videos already to a playlist in this link.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AE6B03CA849AD332

Google placed a link on their official blog to a very funny cartoon to show why this is needed.

Knowing Google, I expect them to ask people to share with them tips they think will be useful. (And if they don't, I'm not sure how successful the website will be, since "parents" often use the computer for things other than the internet- even non-savvy one). Tell me which tips you think should be there, or comment here and I will try to make a video tip for that myself.

If you are going back home for the holidays and want to enjoy your vacation instead of spending all your time giving tech advice, or if you just want to help any technophobic friend or family learn small tips you should share these videos with them.

UPDATE:
The site is online and now you can create a customized email to share with Mom, Dad or anyone else.
Just choose who to share it with and which video you think they should see.

Good luck and happy holidays.

Jolicloud - The best way to go on the cloud

2010-12-10T05:28:00.005-05:00

For the past 10 months I have been using Jolicloud as my main operating system. Starting from Jolicloud 0.8 and going up to 1.1, this team is great - they provide by far the best support ever. Every question you ask on Jolicloud Facebook page or on their GetSatisfaction.com page and Twitter account receives a prompt and informative answer.

Jolicloud Dashboard

This free operating system is aimed at the netbook using techies. Netbook users are usually people who like to work on the go and get online fast.

They even encouraging you to keep your Windows system and install Jolicloud as dual-boot. When installing Jolicloud from Windows you get a software in your add\remove programs window. Theoretically you could go back to windows whenever you want, but why would you want to? A great option for advanced users is to download an ISO file and install Jolicloud on a flash drive and partition your hard drive during the installation.

After installing Jolicloud in dual boot you get a screen asking you what operating system you want to boot in.

In order to access the system you need to log in with either a Jolicloud user name or a Facebook account.
Once logged in, you get a dashboard with your apps icons. Jolicloud has two types of apps, those installed locally and apps that are really just a link to a web page.

Jolicloud has a very intuitive interface and is very easy to customize. You can personalize by rearranging your apps using drag and drop or by changing your wallpaper.

Jolicloud also has a great synchronizing option, for people who regularly use more than one computer. Whichever machine you are using, you can simply log in to get all of your apps. If for some reason you want your entire OS with you when using another computer, you can just go to my.jolicloud.com and you get your dashboard right off of the cloud. It also integrates well with some other e-drives such as dropbox which give you free online storage, so you can get your documents everywhere as well.

One thing that I can't get enough of is going to the add+ button and look for great apps. Its easy and so much fun. I find great new services and websites this way. There are always new apps under the recent tab and if you're a fan sometimes there are great suggestions from the people at the Jolicloud Facebook page.

Another very nice feature is the stream where you can follow friends who have installed Jolicloud. While the concept is on the right track, personally I think this feature needs major improvement- possibly in the direction of social networking, taking the lead from social web browser like RockMelt.

The guys at Jolicloud have worked really hard to get this system to work almost on any computer- especially netbooks, but desktop and laptops too. There is a very wide range of supporting machines and pretty basic requirements so almost any machine can run it great.

Wide range of supported computers

However, if you're in the UK (or know someone who is) you can buy yourself a Jolibook. This neat netbook is all Jolicloud, including a Jolicloud button and some great hardware: Atom N550 processor, 250GB, memory of 1GB DDR3, and a 10.1 inch screen.

I believe this is a great operating system and I highly recommend with no reservations it to anyone who has a netbook already, and suggest that anyone who is looking around for a new one right now in the UK look into buying a Jolibook.

A few tidbits about Jolicloud:
1. Based on Ubuntu Netbook Remix but with better driver optimization.
2. Easy keyboard shortcuts.
3. Works with touch screens.
4. Based on HTML5.
5. Lets you have as many apps screens as you like.

Follow more great news on the Jolicloud Blog

RockMelt - Change The Way You Browse.

2010-12-08T07:10:00.005-05:00

Today I will review RockMelt.

This is a new Facebook-based web browser and it changed the way I use my internet.

This browser is still in early beta mode and already very stable and very easy to use.

Here is a short video from the RockMelt team:

Once you managed to get an invite, you need to go to the RockMelt website and give RockMelt full access to your Facebook account. This is in order for RockMelt to work properly. The RockMelt team say that they take privacy very seriously- in their Privacy section, RockMelt say they will never ever spam you or your friends, nor they will ever auto-post. From my experience this is definitely true-- RockMelt won't even try to convince you to post stuff to your wall.

If you want to share - go ahead and do it. Its extremely easy. But if you want to keep the browsing experience to yourself, that works just as well.

The first thing you see when you open the browser is a small Facebook login screen. From now on you are always logged into Facebook. If you would rather not be visible on FB chat, you can set chat to "Invisible" mode.

You will notice the edges on the sides of your screen. On the left side there is a friends edge where you can chat with your friends or check their recent activities. You can set favorite friends, friend groups, or just see who is online right now. You can also drag links to your friend to share with them via Facebook message or a post on their wall.

On the right side there is the apps edge, which is what I'm most excited about.

The apps edge lets you know every time there is an update on your Facebook news feed or on any other website you decide to follow. Personally, I follow my Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and a few tech websites, but you can connect to any website that has RSS simply by going to the website and press the small plus button on the bottom of the right edge. If the website has an RSS feed this button will appear in green, allowing you to add it to your apps edge. You can even add friends' Facebook pages. With each update to the websites you are following there will be a small number next to the website logo. The updates do not open in a new tab but in a nice box that lets you see a short version of the post. From that box you can share or like any post. That box can also be detached from the edge and move to the top of every tab or software. So you can watch your YouTube, talk on Skype, or do whatever it is you want, and still have the information box with whatever content you are following right in front of you.

On the top there is the usual address bar and what looks like a simple search bar- which is actually a very advanced search bar. The new search bar shows you Google results of whatever you are looking for in the same kind of simple box. It also loads the sites in the background, which means you can use the arrows to move between those sites really fast.

Up there between the regular chrome-like address bar and special search bar there is a share button, which allows you to share any web page (such as this blog) easily as a Facebook message, wall post or tweet.

My list of Pros and Cons for RockMelt:

Pros

- Very good Facebook and Twitter integration.

- Makes it easy to follow what interests you, whether its news or friends.

- Very easy to customize and personalize your browsing experience.

- Works great with all the websites I've tried.

Cons

- No Facebook group integration at all.

- The Gmail app doesn't open in the same kind of nice separate window, instead it shows you the number of new emails and opens a new tab when pressed.

- No Linux support, only Mac and Windows support for now.

RockMelt have many many other nice features and the browser is still in beta mode, so I think we can expect real progress and increased social integration.

A few quick tidbits about RockMelt:

1. You can only use it if you get an invite.

2. If you invite someone and they accept the invitation you get more invites to give away.

3. It is founded by one of Netscape's co-founders.

4. It is based on the Chromium Open-Source Project- which means it looks a lot like Google Chrome.

5.This also means you can also use most of your Google Chrome Extensions.

Let me know if you want to read a more in-depth review of RockMelt in my blog.

A Statement of Purpose - My First Post

2010-12-08T05:30:00.003-05:00

So for some reason that I can't quite explain, I have decided that its time to try and write about some of the things that I'm interested in.

I've never tried it before, so if you read it- let me know what you think.

In this blog I hope to talk about new technology that interests me and which I believe are worth knowing about, spreading around, and reviewing, whether it is a new browser, OS, or my thoughts on the direction the market is taking.

Stay tuned. My first review will be the best social browser. RockMelt.