Ryo Central Blog

New Chromebooks Almost Perfect And Still No Buy

2012-05-31T15:06:00.000Z

I read an article at ReadWriteWeb about the lauchn of the new Chromebook. Faster and more features. While I completely disagree with the article as such, I had to make an extensive comment on the post.

I thought it might be interesting to post it here, too.

No, no, no and no.
The new Chromebook is awesome. Everything is good... except the price.
I don't see any need for a OS anymore that I have to maintenance. Just now, again even on Linux... Upgrade, now Google Talk-Plugin doesn't work anymore. 2 years before, it was WIfi. Windows? Don'r bother me with Virus protection to renew every year and sucking cpu power to scan my system. Screw it. Mac? Really? I'm not in bed with the worst from both world. (sry, mac users, no offense, but it's not for me. I care about how a company behave. And Apple is not for me.)
The Cloud is the future. Wait, nooo. It's the present for me for nearly 4 years now. Everything (sic) I do is in the cloud. And I never regret it. Again, maybe it's not for everyone. I would think twice if I plan to take over the world and stored my critical documents on any webserver. But no, I like to hear "Johann Sebastian Bach" from the cloud everywhere.
Yes I have to admit, I work the whole day without starting a program other for the system itself. Without the need to maintain it, I could make 90% of all my work without leaving the browser. From photo editing to movie cutting, I do it in the cloud. So everything is fine.
Except the price. This thing is TOO EXPENSIVE. Why? Because even if a browser is all I need, I don't want to pay as much, or even more, than for a Notebook/Netbook that can do much more. And seriously, the price is where the masses is looking for. You could have the best thing, people will buy the thing with the best price/performance relation. And so I do. Sell me this for $199 and I'm ordering today. But for $449, I would rather ordering a custom netbook with much better technical data and install a low-end Linux system with chrome and hassle with maintaining it. But for $250 it's worth to have a little bit more work.
Samsung and Google needs to realize that. A sad thing.

Lib-Ray Is the Free Blu-Ray Format

2012-05-31T13:00:00.000Z

The team from Lib-Ray.org is about to bring you a HD video format that is capable to replace Blu-Ray quality for distributing movies without DRM.

Sounds like it's too good to be true. In fact, the team is urging that everything at Blu-Ray is against their business model and the kind they treat media.
While in early stage it's likely that VP8 will be used to archive this goal. Together with Matroska and Ogg Vorbis sound, a high quality is possible without patent encumbered stuff. this combination is used in WebM, too, but the site says the format will not necessarily be identical to WebM. That leave the team room for their own improvements.

The VP8 codec has constantly made progress since it's release, and not only equals the quality of MPEG4, but in some cases, even overcome it.
However this project is completely independent from WebM and also wants to establish a region-free, non-drm distribution standard that plays in different devices and could be used to replace Blu-Ray.
While it's very unlikely that the big movie companies are ever releasing their stuff without drm-crap, independent Indy-movie companies might very welcome this format. They will save a lot of money for licenses.

The project is at Kickstarter, ready for your support. In my eyes, it's one of the most remarkable projects. The goals are high, but the techniques are pretty there already. Take a look for yourself if you like.

Project site: Lib-ray.org

Towel Day 2012 - Something Special

2012-05-25T09:21:00.000Z

Again, I grabbed my towel and went off to watch out for spaceships to rescue us from the Vogons. :)

And of course I checked the date exactly and found out this:
05/25/12 ... Can you see it?

5+25+12 = 42

So I'll guess we have to celebrate this especially good.

Here is my quote for today:

The Facebook Hype... Save Our Money

2012-05-18T10:40:00.001Z

It's been a fantastic start. I was wrong. They made even more money than everyone could have hoped for. It's a big thing. The tech IPO hype continues. Everyone rejoice, money is made out of thin air. With no real basis, this hype is doomed to blast your money out of window.

All this chit-chat about the tech-bubble. It bust once. And nobody seem to have learned something. We want to believe. Believe, that it will go on like that. But it won't. It's obvious and everyone knows it, that the Facebook stock market hype will soon be over. And then there will be pure fear. The fear of people losing their money, because they trusted a malfunction system.

Français : Phases d'une bulle spéculative English: Evolution of stock-market bubble (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For people outside the finance markets the stock market is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is that a company with no real material value is entering the unreal stock market, apparently making money out of thin air. But may nature help them if people demand their money. There is no money, face it. That doesn't mean a lot of people won't get money out of this. The quick traders will. They always do.

My totally unqualified and biased prediction:
Within 2 years, Facebook stock will fall, as the competition close up very fast, and people realize Facebook has nothing which can't be replaced in no time. Traders will then quickly sell their stock and than the panic spreads. Money is going to be wasted. Oops sorry, there is no money.Value will be wasted. Facebook will be bought by a big media company after that happened, and it's going to be ruined. It will be around, but ruined from false values and creepy media ghouls.

Don't bet on my prediction. I don't even bet on the photo sharing services of Facebook.

Germany Is Not Allowed To Talk In Hangout Air

2012-05-15T12:57:00.000Z

How low can you go? Who is to blame for that.
The new big thing is going on without Germany...again. "Hangouts on Air" are not available in Germany.

F**k who? Germany or Google?

Not only that you can't start a HoA from a Germany IP, no can't even join one. It's ridiculous. This situation is not acceptable. While some say the "Rundfunkmedienstaatsvertrag", a law in Germany, is too blame, I doubt it. This law would probably violate the constitution and get ousted by the BVerfG, if it really would reach for having a public hangout.

Even if this law would possibly be interfere, I would have demand Google to do it anyway and possibly giving the responsibility to their users. If the Germans can't technically make actions against a malicious law, then the Internet is doomed once and for all. It's a localnet then.
All Google needed to do imho, would have been stating there is no support in other countries, and users need to act according to local laws. So then everyone could go against that in court, if one gets sued by whoever want to sue a private person for having a hangout in public. I'm quite sure such a case would have no substance in court.
But this way, Germans can't do anything. Is Germany still a free country? I mean Saudi Arabia and the UAE are allowed to have Hangouts on Air, and Germany not? Really?

Google, lawyers, politicians, I don't know who to blame, but on Ustream.tv and Justin.tv and many other audio streaming services, you can stream without limits even from Germany. So I would have thought Google had a bit more courage against non-free countries. Germany apparently doesn't have the same level of free speech than other countries in Europe have. Or is it just that Google didn't launch it there? Like Google Music?

YouTube, Copyright Claims, And Real Artists

2012-05-14T15:32:00.000Z

A few days ago something happend to me at YouTube, I only heard about it on the TwiG-Netcast and read some articles about. I uploaded a Geocaching-Video and it triggered the YouTube rights system.

A company, I've never heard about, should now be able to insert ads into the video. Instead of my own ads. It was because I used a music track from Zero-Project. An artist I really like and I used his music for a netcast before.
The strange thing is, the music was licensed under a Creative Commons License BY. So what happend. I'm allowed to use the music according to the free license. Yes, Zero-Project used a free license for that song.
So, I disputed the claim. After getting in contact with the artist, it turned out that this company was given the right to act like this. Basically it looked like a good idea. Some other people wrote him about this problem, too. But Zero-Project did not want to give a hard time for them who wanted to use his tracks.

Now something happened, what shows the difference between a real artists and the music industry behavior. He contacted that company and also stopped the order to monitor for his songs on YouTube. He got the confirmation that it will be removed within some weeks, the period Google needs to stop their systems from monitoring videos for those tracks.
Now it's up to YouTube and Google what will happen to my Video. Approx. until mid-June it will take for my video to come with my ads. So I missed on that. Nobody will watch it then anymore :).

The disputed video

The system has flaws. Obviously. I can understand that Google must use such a system. They are forced to do so. But I really think it shouldn't be so easy to claim stuff for middle-man companys. It's not Google's fault, it's not those company's fault and it's certainly not the artists' fault. It's the need for it, that is wrong. This is a typical example for collateral damage in the fight of the music industry against their own costumers.

Zero-Project's response was great. In some weeks, I and all the people on YouTube can use his great music again for their stuff. And you can support him. If you like his music, show him that there is no need for such a system. You can buy his works on his site, in high-quality sound formats, the lossless FLAC e.g.

I'm not promoting stuff easily, but this new generation of musicians, that get it, deserves your support. Just listen to some of his tracks before you buy, and you will be happy to do so.

Google Hangout On Air Could Be A Big Thing

2012-05-08T13:54:00.000Z

There it is. Over the next weeks, more and more users will be able to use Hangouts On Air. Live Streaming and recording to YouTube. A feature many can't waiting for. It could be a new killer feature for vloggers and podcasters.

Unfortunately I have no access until now. So I couldn't really try it. For me it's important that it is possible to record a hangout hassle free on YouTube. Without a lot of restrictions. That will be key. A 10 minute conversation is one thing, but to address vloggers and podcasters, there need to be no length limit.

I do some podcasts. One normally ranges between 30 and 60 minutes and one between 60 and 90 minutes. I ditched live streams, because it was horrible to broadcast. With Hangouts, I totally see coming back, or at least, having discussions recorded.
There is a whole new set of possibilities. You could add community engagement in your netcast. You could easily having a conference with guests from all over the world. Or have a simple way to do a multi-camera setup recording on GNU/Linux. A webcam and 1 or more Android phone(s). You can click which one will be shown easily.
Talking about Android phones. From Gingerbread upwards, you can enter in Hangouts via the Google+ app and participating quick and easy from almost anywhere.

I'm thrilled to stream from a live geocaching trip out of the forest :) Honestly, you could let people chime into your podcast and having something like outdoor reporters. You see, there is a wide range of possibilities. If, and only if, Google sets the limits very high. For everyone and not only for a few "approved" celebs.

I have no problem with the TOS from Google, stating that the user who started the Hangout is fully responsible for all the content shown in the recorded video. This is mandatory and should be clear anyway.

Let's see...
[via Official Google Blog]

Google Drive Is Here, Google Docs Is Gone, Price Insane

2012-04-24T18:56:00.001Z

Here is the Google Drive. Finally. And my worst thoughts about it came to life. But let's start with the good things: Google Drive is here. 5GB for free.

The bad imho is, it's integrated in your Docs storage. Nope wait. Google Docs is ousted. It's now Google Drive. The old Docs storage plan, with those good prices? Gone!
I don't know where to start. It's a disaster in my eyes.
Instead of having 20GB Docs storage for $5/year, you can now choose 25GB for $2.49/month(!). 30GB for GMail is separate. While this is not so bad, if you want a REAL Drive you need Terabytes of space.

The competition, Livedrive e.g., is offering UNLIMITED Backup space for 5 PCs and an additional 5TB(!) Drive to sync across all devices, including Android phones for $24.95/month.
The Google Drive offers 4TB for $199.95/month(!) with no unlimited backup space.

So all in all you could say, your old Google Docs Storage got more expensive now, with a client for PC and Mac. NO GNU/Linux at the moment. Livedrive offers at least SFTP and WebDAV for Linux-Users to have at least a virtual drive on their desktop.

And really, Google Docs is now Google Drive. No kidding. Docs is now a folder and file oriented system. Not like the Docs before. The Android-App is no more. It automatically updates to Google Drive basically to an file-manager with an editor. This is not as bad as it sounds, but if you got used to your Docs, this is totally different.

This is the new Google ~~Docs~~ Drive

I think there will be said a lot more in the next days and weeks. I really need to understand what just happened. For now one thing is sure: Google Drive will not be my place for cloud storage. It can't be. It's way, way too expensive, has no real backup, and is not usable with Linux the way most other services are.

I already believed it can't compete with real cloud storage services like Livedrive or Carbonite, but this is completely off the track. This is a better USB-Stick for monthly cost.

Docs Storage Raised 5GB For Free. Google Drive Coming?

2012-04-24T10:42:00.000Z

Now we are talking. After some reports on Google+, I checked my Google Docs Storage and indeed it has been increased by 5GB for free.

This adds to the existing plan. I had a 20GB plan already. Now it's been raised to 25GB for Docs. The internet is a wild place and now speculations are all over that the Gdrive, or Google Drive, will start very soon. Some say even today on Tuesday.
It may indicate that there is something going on. Let's pray to the lords of Kobol, that Google isn't thinking about to just add more storage to docs storage and call that a "drive". We need sync and a fricking drive icon on our desktops (LINUX!) to get use out of it.
Box.com has it. Do you hear, Google? :)
[Via Google+]

Blogger Now With Affiliate Ads. Not For All.

2012-04-20T08:10:00.002Z

Nice to see progression with blogger.com on the affiliate ads. If your blog is eligible for those kind of ads, and you are writing a post, a new option appears in the post settings.

The problem is, you first need to have a US blog. Whatever this means. Do you need to live in the US, that means your Google AdSense account needs to be registered on a US-address? Or is it enough to blog in US English setting, intended for the US only?
Who knows. It's not easy to tell and apparently you can not see if or if not your blog is participating. Only if you write the post about a topic that fits to the ads, you will see this anyway. E.g. if you blog about a product like Motherboards, you could search affiliate links for that topic in that box and showing ads about that in the posting.

So it feels little bit weird, because we won't know if we are allowed to use it or not. And it's again not for all. That is not good. Many of bloggers that do hard work on writing articles, won't get any benefit from this new feature for one reason or another.

Come on, Google, be more transparent. Show if or if not a blog is allowed to use this new feature. And give a guideline what to do to get affiliate links on your blog.

Google Drive: I'll Believe It, when I Use It

2012-04-18T08:16:00.001Z

So many times before we heard about the start of the GDrive, Google Drive, or whatever it will be named. And it never was around the corner. This time, it looks much better. But still, is it even interesting anymore?

25 GB of space at Google (Photo credit: vscarpenter)

Last year I wrote about the awesome prices of the Docs storage. But if you need more storage, than the usual 20GB for $5 a year(!), you might be disappointed. Time is moving, and so are the need for storage. Remember those 40MB(yes, megabyte) hard drives? And when we said, that no one will need this much space at home. Yeah. Now we have 1 Terabyte minimum.

And with cloud storage there is one problem: You can't just buy another hard drive for $60 one time, and go ahead. You'll need to have unlimited space. And for a good, affordable monthly price. This is the real problem. I for myself need about 6 Terabyte at the beginning, to store all my data I have in the cloud and make it accessible for my devices. But every day there is more data that will need space.
I Just for recording the TV shows I watch on my receivers disk, it will take about 120GB per week! But not HD. That will take more. That's about 6.2TB a year! Hum...yeah.
And the amount of data we store will not get lower, it increases every year. But what if you have cloud space and your provider doesn't have a reasonable offer for more. Or even no offer at all?

These are the problems that need to be solved. As long as GDrive is not solving these, it's just another cloud space service with 1999 storage sizes for high prices. And before I believe the media hype, that GDrive killing all the other cloud services with it's own, I need to see their offer for unlimited space, for a price that knocks me off the socks.

Progress at Blogger.com Promises Google+ Integration

2012-04-03T16:21:00.003Z

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a Google+ post, the team at Blogger.com introduces a "new" interface and promises Google+ integration. But there is still a long way to go, while social networking is splitting between blogging and ... yes, and what?

In today's post, the team is hinting for the new design. In fact, the design doesn't differ much, the elements were introduced many weeks ago and continuously improved. Almost all the important features are now integrated. I ranted about the absence of the "Enclosure Links". But now it's back in the interface. So far so good. But the most important thing is still missing in most aspects: The Google+ integration.

Sure, you can share a post to Google+ after blogging with a requester opening. But not if you use the mobile client. Then this takes additional steps, which feels like 1998. Automatic sharing to Google+ must be coming. The problem is, that social networking, especially Google+ with its many features and awesome commenting crowd, is splitting blogging.
With every post I'm not sure where to open the topic. How can we solve this problem?

Posting on your blog, automatic share to Google+, and a full cross-commenting system where comments made on your blog appear in Google+ and vice-versa.
At least the comments-part was already confirmed from different Google employees as "coming soon". No real confirmations on the auto-share. I think this is an important step to let blogs being useful in the social hype.

Posting an important article to any social-network only, is not acceptable. You have no control over content, not nearly enough style options and layout features for postings, and the surrounding site is not yours. That makes not a good place to go for your customers or readers in the first line. having no own website or blog is like being homeless in the digital age. On the other side, benefits of social networks can be huge in terms of discovery, comments (actually people do participate there...weird) and sharing. We need to combine these two worlds.

I found myself posting more and more short status updates, instead of doing a regular post after some hours about a topic. And I found to blog much less than before. The content is gone forever, sucked into the big choke of social coughs. In a sea of words floating without getting to the surface ever again.
For the status updates I made a microblog, so I can still keep my content. But comments are made on Google+. Not at the blog site. And still, blogging rate has dropped dramatically here. We need to combine the best of both worlds by crossing the streams. Even if we shouldn't do it, it will safe our content :)

Google's Redirection of Blogger-Domains Is Problematic

2012-03-28T15:14:00.001Z

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Google, Google... what are you doing with the .blogspot-domains? I think it's not thought-out well. There is a problem for users in specific countries. But lets start at the beginning.

Google are redirecting blogspot-domains now in over 15 countries. That means if you are accessing an blog like <your blog>.blogspot.com from Russia, it gets automatically redirected to <your blog>.blogspot.ru. Google is doing this for law in different countries. If a jurisdiction wants to block out your site, they can do this by ordering Google to stop access to the site. Other countries could still access the site. While this is a double edged sword, it's understandable. But for the blog author, there is some questions now open. I'm not talking about statistics, which is also questionable, but legal stuff.

If you are blogging with a com domain, in english and not intended to target a special local audience outside, US law will apply. But if there is another domain-ending involved, you need to apply to the countries laws. That means in this example, you need to apply to Russian law. But you also need to apply to ALL other jurisdictions where from your blog is visited. There are even countries that require to ridiculously have an imprint with your personal address and telephone number even for non-commercial blogs. Insane.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now how are you supposed to blog without getting in touch with legal problems? Don't think it's enough not to live in this country.

It's a bad move from Google. It leaves many legal questions unanswered. To prevent redirecting you can add a piece of javascript to the header of your blog.
Put this right under the <head> tag:

<script type="text/javascript">
var blog = document.location.hostname;
var slug = document.location.pathname;
var ctld = blog.substr(blog.lastIndexOf(&quot;.&quot;));
if (ctld != &quot;.com&quot;) {
var ncr = &quot;http://&quot; + blog.substr(0, blog.indexOf(&quot;.&quot;));
ncr += &quot;.blogspot.com/ncr&quot; + slug;
window.location.replace(ncr);
}
</script>

But that requires the user to have javascript enabled. Very bad.
You can visit a blogspot-domain by adding /ncr after the domain like <your blog>.blogspot.com/ncr . Then it wont get redirected. That doesn't help if someone just visit your blog normally and thinks you need to get a letter for abusing local laws somewhere.

Solution anyone?

Lying As A Blogger Is Still Lying

2012-03-21T14:07:00.002Z

If someone wants to convince you, lying is okay because you're a blogger, that definitely makes him no blogger, but a liar.

LIES (Photo credit: Leo Reynolds)

Every Blogger has responsibility. If you lie, there is nothing what can make this less bad, even if Mike Daisey may think so. Jeff Jarvis reported about the Incident at This American Life. The staged visit to a factory that produces for Apple in China, is firing backwards.

This American Life now retracted from the story. And asking, what is really known about the situation. Almost anything we know, comes from Apple. But it's a player in this game. So there are only a few really trustworthy sources. But this should not lead bloggers to report all kind of crap about it.

if you don't have enough information for a story, don't break one. Too bad for your clicks, but just writing something up, might help you with the Apple-church, but someday, it will leak, and then your reputation is gone.
Bloggers are not allowed to lie, because they are bloggers and no old media journalists. Hey wait a minute. Journalists don't lie? Geez, you really believe that? But still, that doesn't mean, bloggers may lie.
The opposite is right. Because you're a blogger, you have to, and you can, tell the truth. The public is skeptical with bloggers content. One bad article, and it harms the blogosphere once more. You have to watch out even more carefully, not to bend the truth, because people will prove your article more than they will do with a regular press article. Because they almost want you to lie. You're a blogger.

So let us get our crap together and stop breaking constructed stories, only to get clicks. If you don't have a story, shut up and get another one. But please, don't hurt the blogger scene with more untrue crap.

Google+ Photos With New Album Organization

2012-03-15T16:36:00.002Z

The long rumored end of Picasa seems to be fulfilled in the near future. With the integration of new organization features, Google+ Photos, or simply Google Photos, it makes sense now.

For some month, the link in the black Google bar on every Google page, leads you to the new photo service in Google+. That was frustrating, because not nearly the function were available there. No competition to Picasa. Now you can also organize your albums with Google+ photos. That's a major leap. You can move, delete and sort photos in bulk. The interface lets you do this even more quickly than Picasa. Many effects of Picnik has been integrated. Picnik shuts down in April and hopefully more features will be coming to G+ photos.

The way is set to end Picasa. But there is still some work. Removing photos from the map (aka gps coordinates) and set albums not to show the location but preserving that gps location for you, is an essential feature for privacy and comfort.

Update: Of course, I almost forgot. The restriction of 2048px must fall, too. That means, everything you upload from Google+ photos is scaled down to 2048px on the largest side. The resolution is too low for serious photo archiving. Until then, Picasa is still the place to upload.

[via Google+]

New Zynga.com Portal Boosts Your City

2012-03-14T13:27:00.001Z

If you play e.g. CityVille on Zynga.com instead at G+ or Facebook, you can benefit a lot.

The tip came from Sam Chi, and totally surprised me. Instead of only getting material and help from yoe Facebook-Fans, you can participate with anyone playing the same game. No registration needed. It uses your City from Facebook, if you already play.

This is good news for gamers. Since Facebook changed the view of the stream to a very complicated piece of crap, almost no one sees your game notifications anymore, even the persons that really want to help you, and need help on their own. With using the games directly from Zynga, it's much easier to get materials and help instantly if you set it that anyone can see your requests.

In addition, it's slightly faster than the Facebook-version. Nice move. Thanks Zynga.

Google+ Makes A Big Misktake With The API

2012-03-12T17:38:00.000Z

What is wrong with Google lately? I know some people don't like automatic posting, I learned from that Google+ article, but the consequences are bad.

io2008_vic (Photo credit: Fotinakis)

This is really a downturn for Google+.
+Vic Gundotra tells us at SXSW, the Google+ API will not have write access anytime soon. And it's not even planned for this year. Kiss your idea bye bye for having apps posting your check-in or likes.

Well, I tell you what is not going to happen: Massive amount of people, businesses and news sites are giving up their own blog or site and come to Google+ to post their stuff trapped inside another social network. Not even if Google+ would be the leading network.It's not going to happen.
News agencies dual posting manually to G+ and their own site. Most professional bloggers won't either. There is no value that outweighs the afford.It's not going to happen.
Mobile bloggers and quick mobile news postings, wont be made, because you would need to manually post it twice to "the rest of the Internet" and G+. Guess who will win? It's not going to happen.

I can't see me doing this. My blog is my home. Not yet another social network. My blogs have survived many shifts and services over the last decade. I tried to be "exclusive" on an social network before. It was a disaster.
I can't see businesses are doing it. The companies homepage is important. Having the newest articles on G+ is fine, and users will appreciate it. But there needs to be a way to do that automatically.
I'm wondering about some people, not all, supporting this absurd read-only API with the fear of "spam" or "bot-posts". I can't understand that fear. Here's why:

You have to circle someone to see their post. If you do so, and seeing that someone pulls in some crap feeds, or never engages in conversation, it's just a click and they are uncircled. You can even block/report someone if it's plain spam. So where the heck is the problem? I don't get it.
On the other site, without the ability to autopost stuff on Google+, the users there will lose a lot of, possible very important and interesting stuff, because of the above mentioned sites and users that will never manually post their stuff.

Without the write-access for the API, users on G+ are the losers. With the quick mobile world, nobody will post to every network separately. It looks like Google trying to force people to be on G+ exclusively. But I don't see how they will force the important people to go completely to that service.
I can't give someone a link to my Google+ profile, because not all of my activities on the net are aggregated there. So I still have to give my Twitter-feed. Because anything related to me is there.
The questions remains what Google wants to go with G+. A small private network, or a big source of information for everyone?

Facebook Not Reachable For Me And WhoIs Hilarious Entries

2012-03-07T07:33:00.000Z

As I wanted to play CityVille this morning, I found Facebook is not reachable for me. Chrome comes up with a message saying:

This webpage is not available

That is strange. Ping does work, but slowly with ~160ms. So I checked WhoIs and found some hilarious entries. I don't know, maybe they are there forever. I never checked that domain before, but it's quite funny what's showing up...

Really?

Hum... But anyways, I can't reach Facebook. I don't have a clue why this is. I found no messages up until now, saying that it's offline or something. So I assume the problem is only for a number of people, or just me :)

The Hysteria Of The Usual: Apps, Photos And Usage

2012-03-06T16:09:00.000Z

I didn't even want to write about this, because I thought it's so hilarious. But unfortunately, maybe because of the awaited clicks and ad-$, some of the big internet-sites and of course the old media, reported about this.

So let's begin slowly. The Path-hysteria just a few weeks ago, which I couldn't understand. But okay, there was a legit fear that, despite all logic, address data could be compromised. Despite all logic because everyone should know that searching for friends automatically needs access to some kind of address data or it simply doesn't work.
After that, the hype about the Google privacy policy. It's insane that people complain. Kudos to the media that stirred up that illogical rage against making the terms more clear for anyone to understand. Like pigs rolling in the mud, now some privacy advocates that don't understand anything, are going for that.

I thought it couldn't get worse. But it did. A horrible news spread across the Internet and soon in the crap ol' dying media. Apps can access photos. OMFG! What can we do now? Were the Mayans right? Oh well another hype. They never said the world is ending 2012, just their fricking calendar does. Whatever, the end of the world because Google and Apple are not restricting apps from accessing photos on your device.
This "news" is so insane, that I couldn't even laugh, I was dazzled. I must have looked my display like the Easter bunny had sex with Santa on my mobile device display. But then I thought it must be satire. It's hilarious. But it wasn't.

Oh noez. My Blog can haz accezz to the piktures I uploaded!

So now, I have very bad news for all PC owners. Any program on your PC can access all data on your hard drive. Exactly. Don't believe it? Install e.g. Gimp. Open a photo you just saved on the hard drive. There it is. You never allowed that program an installation to access the data. Now you can "manipulate" that photo and overwrite your photo. And then your browser can just open the photo and send it to the I N T E R N E T. What?
Yes, because that's how things are working. That's what is making computing possible. That's the whole effing point of computers. And of smartphones. Of course my phones' app need to have access to my photos. How else can I edit, manipulate, upload and have fun with possibilities from underway? This is a basic feature.

Welcome to the real world!

Google did a bad job on trying to get around the hysteria by telling it's a function "back from the days" when photos were stored on sdcards. I hope they still will be saved there, or Google can have their Androids back. It's insane. I'm outraged by the hysteria and the reactions of companies and politicians because people are too dump and have no clue what they are talking about. I want full access of photos for all of my apps. And dare Android or Google to put up one requester in my face, to confirm a basic feature that is perfectly essential. It's like connecting a VCR and complaining it has access to the TV stations program.

Can someone educate people on what a computer is, and what a smartphone is, and for what they are? Sorry, but if you want a golden cage, keep away from electronics. They are not for you. They are for people who understand them just a little.

Blogger Dynamic Views Now With Gadgets

2012-03-01T16:27:00.000Z

Progress at Blogger's Dynamic Views. There are now Gadgets on the right side.

You can edit and add new gadgets in Settings->Layout on your Blogger-Dashboard.
However, not all gadgets appear. It looks like only certain one can be shown. Interestingly, HTML/Javascript-Widgets seem to show up.

I'll have to play around a little with it, but this could be a huge improvement. It looks nice. If you like Dynamic Views, it could get interesting. Visitors seem to like those views a lot. Blog-authors of course want more customization. But blog-authors likes and reader likes are not always the same ;)

Google Applies For TV Voice Control Patent

2012-02-21T08:52:00.001Z

Apple began the war, now Google is ready to fight it. Google applied for a patent to control TV with voice commands, and shows big plans for their Android@home. We will see more about that at MWC 2012 in a few days. This also means, if Apple will bring an Apple TV, it might lack voice control, because Google will for sure, fight for that patent. As you know, if you don't actually defending your patent, you're going to lose it.

Google 的貼牌冰箱（Google refrigerator） (Photo credit: Aray Chen)

Now the lesson was learned by Google. Unlike in the past, where Google invented a lot of things and didn't applied for patents, they have learn, they need to do so, not to get ripped off by other companies.

The patent system is broken. It's wrong from the beginning. But if nobody is going to fix it, Google have to play with the given rules. And now it looks like they finally will. You woke up the sleeping dog, now it's going to be very angry. Poor Apple. If Apple is losing the capability to control their rumored Apple TV with voice commands, it's losing their most discussed feature. Everyone said the "Siri for TV" will be a revolution. Now Google seems to have that revolution and worked long before at voice command than Apple.

We know "Voice Actions" from Android. And Google missed on that one to get a patent. Siri would have never happened if Google had the patent for voice controlling your phone. With the war Apple is bringing to the consumers, Google won't miss a second chance again.

New Google Bar In Google+ And Gmail

2012-02-16T11:26:00.000Z

Today I saw the new Google bar in Google+ and Gmail. You know, I want the grey one with the drop-down menu back.

The new bar has a consistent black row on top of the screen and then a non-consistent part within the page. I can't understand this design-wise. It's not clear and looks different on almost any page. On Google+ it's a balck bar with a grey bar below, in Gmail it's a black bar with a little transparent field on the upper right side of the page when using themes or a short grey bar in the original theme, and in Google search it has something like in G+ without the gray bar.

New bar on Google+

New bar on Gmail

So basically, it's always different depending on your settings and service.
However, not all services does have the new one by now. Picasa still has the new old black bar and YouTube has no bar at all.
That's when you listen to every naysayer on the net. Maybe it's best to give the user options to select which type they want. I'm not happy with this one at all.

Asus Raised The Price For Webstorage drastically

2012-02-15T14:55:00.000Z

Asus Webstorage. Unlimited space, for about $9 for 3 month? Yes that was an offer. Now everything is gone, making it another expensive and very limited cloud storage.

The leftover of a former outstanding cloud storage

Out of nothing, Asus cut the AsusWebstorage down. Now offering 50GB $49.99/year and 500GB $99.99/year. Limitations are going even further. Max file upload size is 1GB/2GB instead of max. 4GB, which renders the service useless for some backup functionality, and 10GB/20GB limit for file sharing (don't care much about this one). Backup (snort) is now limited to 1/2 computers, before it was a max. of 5 computers.
This is quite a downturn, and now nothing is left to be special against the competition. Such a raise in price and cut of features is very uncommon.

Does Asus know something about what the Google Drive is going to cost and justified their own prices? Or is Asus losing it? Because one thing is sure, if Google Drive comes out with a proce like they charge now for Docs Storage, Asus Webstorage and some others are out of business.

[via AsusWebstorage]

Free Playlist #086

2012-02-14T12:06:00.000Z

Another free playlist from Jamendo.com. Trance all the way. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Royalty Free Music - Stock Music Library | Jamendo PRO

Playlist:

1. Land of Dreams by Atomic cat

2. Abyss by Atomic cat

3. Afterwork by DieAitsch

4. One Step On Time by Snabisch

5. To Walk Alone by Jarek Laaser

6. Steam maschine by The-Watcher

7. Trance is in the Air by The-Watcher

Path hysteria, now Instagram reacts

2012-02-12T14:01:00.000Z

I'm not exactly an Apple fan by any means. But I can't get the hysteria about Path.
So Path took your contacts to compare if another user in your contacts is already using the service to notify you.

Path (Photo credit: SimonQ錫濛譙)

This is pretty much the same than many apps are doing. I'm not sure why the panic started now, but Instagram now seems to react before the light sheds on them, too. Now so many services are doing this. And that's a logical thing. How else you could make this feature happen? Hashes? Well, this wouldn't work much. If you want to now e.g. if your friends on Facebook are using this service, they need clear names. May it be that the app can make a hash out of your contact-entry on the phone, but it would also require to make a hash from your Facebook account with exactly the same value. Clear names are okay to compare with a secured connection.

Now what are those companies doing? The only wrong I can see here is, they should have stated this clearly, with a big prompt, that they are using your complete contact-list for comparing. That's the only thing. And those hysteric users need to chill a little. There are much worse things going on, and Apple did good on not blocking Path from the App-Store.

Wait until the panic-makers find out that basically WhatsApp is doing the same thing. And Kik, and KakaoTalk, and ...

[via TheNextWeb]

Instagram Now Prompts You to Share Contacts:

"With Path coming in for some intense criticism last week for uploading a user’s entire contact list without their permission, it appears that Instagram has used its most recent update to safeguard itself and its users by introducing a new privacy prompt when matching friend lists."

'via Blog this'

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