it's all garbage.
Honestly, email is the biggest load of garbage I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. Yet, we rely on it, every single day, on our smartphones and computers, to communicated with colleagues and coworkers, bosses and subordinates.
There is a better way, but that's completely irrelevant, since the entire market is so ingrained in this concept of email that it's no longer worthy of any discussion. So put away your high hopes of a wave-like interface for communication. Email is horrible, and it's not going anywhere. With email being so prevelant, it's impossible to keep up. Users get bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands of new messages every day, many are never deleted, instead left to waste in the enterprise server's inbox, unopened, unread, unloved, and irrelevant.
Aside from the growing problems of users inboxes being too bloated with unread messages, you have costs on costs on costs.
What's nice is that Microsoft has made it pretty easy, buy Windows Server, buy Exchange, voila, a nice, simple, easy solution. works, add your users, give them mailboxes, and set quotas based on how many people you have, and how much disk space there is on the server. done.
Cost: 1xServer, 1xOS, 1xExchange.
If you want to add mobile access, tick a box to enable Activesync, voila, now iPhone, Android and (last but not least) Windows Phone (formerly Windows Mobile) can now obtain any and all Exchange content. What's more, they can enjoy instant delivery with push notifications. Users can access their Exchange calendar, contacts, email and more, all sync'd with the server, and to their enterprise outlook. ... Wonderful!
Cost: whatever you want to spend on a mobile phone.
Now let's add... let's say, 5 blackberry users. We want full integration of the system, so BES is the way to go. and let's say, just for kicks, that the server we previously purchased is powerful enough to run BES along side Exchange, etc. So no new hardware here, besides the phones. Well, That's great, the Blackberry users have full exchange sync and can access their stuff.
Cost: BES (not cheap, look it up) plus a licence for every blackberry device, and, obviously, the phones.
.... okayyy, what the...
so it's going to cost me how much to just get blackberries working? okay, what if we go hosted?
Well, no server cost, no cost for base exchange or BES, so that's good right?
I have to pay an amount for every email account, but that's okay, I suppose, and for every email account I have access to it from iPhone, Android and Windows Phone, as expected.... but what about blackberry, I have to pay DOUBLE for BES ACCESS? are you joking?
just to have a blackberry?
I'm sorry, but I will continue to rage hard about this, Blackberry isn't special, their system isn't significantly better than Android, or Windows Phone. this is unjust, and the market is realizing that.
I've never really been on the "RIM is dying!" train, but I think I'll have to jump, because with this, as an IT professional, I would never suggest for any organization to buy into this. avoid it at all costs. Unless a company REQUIRES blackberry for some SPECIFIC reason, that no other platform and fulfill, there is no reason to buy it, or use it.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
SOPA/PIPA
Today is SOPA awareness day. The day were many sites are "blacking out" to show their support of stopping the bills, commonly known as SOPA, and PIPA (or Stop Online Privacy Act, and Protect IP Act).
I'll start by saying I support the Anti-SOPA/Anti-PIPA movements; and I want to move quickly into HOW this affects us. Everyone knows about the screening of sites for privacy, what will be their criteria etc, what they can do, etc. but I see, more and more, people saying something along the lines of "I don't care, I don't live in the U.S.A."; I have news for those people: You're going to be very unhappy if this bill passes.
Here's why. The bills don't target US based websites, they target any websites. Those sites can be closed at any time for any reason... well, how? They revoke your DNS entry. What does that mean?
DNS, or Domain Name System, for those that don't know, translates something 'human-readable' into something a computer can work with. You see, the internet is not made up of google's and yahoo's, it's made up of 10.12.111.233's and 172.18.222.32's. That's how computers see the internet. These fancy names we've made up are called Domain Names; the Domain Name System (or DNS) was created to make reaching a site, easier than typing in (up to) 12 numbers that you would have to memorize for each site.
DNS basically is the internet equivilent of the yellow pages. You want to get an oil change at mr.lube, look in the yellow pages, and find the phone number for Mr. Lube. hey, there's an address too. In this analogy (which is fairly accurate), SOPA/PIPA type legislation would basically blast Mr. Lube from the Yellow pages, so you couldn't look them up if you wanted an oil change (all because they didn't pay their contribution to the RIAA's profit margin because they were caught playing Britney Spears in their customer waiting area).
Sure, if you have the phone number (or in SOPA/PIPA's case, IP Address) memorized, you can still call them, and if you know their address, you can still drop in for an oil change, but you can no longer find that information from the yellow pages.
Well, on the internet, the name you type in, EG GOOGLE.COM is the name of the place you want to go, the IP address returned, is the "phone number" to connect to that location. Without the DNS "yellowpages" on the internet, there would never be a connection. Simple as that.
So how does all this work? simple. DNS works backwards, which is to say, the last item comes first in terms of registration. so ".com", ".net", ".org", ".gov", etc. are all what are known as "Top Level Domains" or TLD's for short. so what SOPA will boil down to, is what DNS registrations they can revoke. Well that's simple, any TLD's where the company that owns that TLD is in the United States will be vulnerable.
Sorry to tell you this, but all the common ones you love so much, are owned by the states. That means all ".com" websites, and ".net" and ".org"... all vulnerable to SOPA. and since the distribution system for DNS all stems from the TLD servers, which is dictated by the central servers (all of them are America-based), nothing is safe. We're talking about the potential that an entire TLD is reposessed due to SOPA. That's right, poof, all of the .cn addresses, now property of SOPA. or .ca, or .uk, or whatever. GONE, like that.
Sure, the sites will still be there, and the pages will still be able to be accessed.... but NONE OF THAT MATTERS, because YOU WONT BE ABLE TO REACH THEM.
So pull your head out of the sands of "I don't live in America, it's not my problem", and realize, THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM TOO! Do whatever you can about it, even if that means yelling at your american friends, to yell at their elected representatives, DO IT, DO IT NOW! or you, me, this blog, google, youtube, and the internet as we know it, will simply cease to exist.
... Here's some links to get you started and help you out:
http://americancensorship.org/
http://fightforthefuture.org/
http://demandprogress.org/
http://www.fsf.org/
Joining in the protest today:
http://sopastrike.com/on-strike/
I'll start by saying I support the Anti-SOPA/Anti-PIPA movements; and I want to move quickly into HOW this affects us. Everyone knows about the screening of sites for privacy, what will be their criteria etc, what they can do, etc. but I see, more and more, people saying something along the lines of "I don't care, I don't live in the U.S.A."; I have news for those people: You're going to be very unhappy if this bill passes.
Here's why. The bills don't target US based websites, they target any websites. Those sites can be closed at any time for any reason... well, how? They revoke your DNS entry. What does that mean?
DNS, or Domain Name System, for those that don't know, translates something 'human-readable' into something a computer can work with. You see, the internet is not made up of google's and yahoo's, it's made up of 10.12.111.233's and 172.18.222.32's. That's how computers see the internet. These fancy names we've made up are called Domain Names; the Domain Name System (or DNS) was created to make reaching a site, easier than typing in (up to) 12 numbers that you would have to memorize for each site.
DNS basically is the internet equivilent of the yellow pages. You want to get an oil change at mr.lube, look in the yellow pages, and find the phone number for Mr. Lube. hey, there's an address too. In this analogy (which is fairly accurate), SOPA/PIPA type legislation would basically blast Mr. Lube from the Yellow pages, so you couldn't look them up if you wanted an oil change (all because they didn't pay their contribution to the RIAA's profit margin because they were caught playing Britney Spears in their customer waiting area).
Sure, if you have the phone number (or in SOPA/PIPA's case, IP Address) memorized, you can still call them, and if you know their address, you can still drop in for an oil change, but you can no longer find that information from the yellow pages.
Well, on the internet, the name you type in, EG GOOGLE.COM is the name of the place you want to go, the IP address returned, is the "phone number" to connect to that location. Without the DNS "yellowpages" on the internet, there would never be a connection. Simple as that.
So how does all this work? simple. DNS works backwards, which is to say, the last item comes first in terms of registration. so ".com", ".net", ".org", ".gov", etc. are all what are known as "Top Level Domains" or TLD's for short. so what SOPA will boil down to, is what DNS registrations they can revoke. Well that's simple, any TLD's where the company that owns that TLD is in the United States will be vulnerable.
Sorry to tell you this, but all the common ones you love so much, are owned by the states. That means all ".com" websites, and ".net" and ".org"... all vulnerable to SOPA. and since the distribution system for DNS all stems from the TLD servers, which is dictated by the central servers (all of them are America-based), nothing is safe. We're talking about the potential that an entire TLD is reposessed due to SOPA. That's right, poof, all of the .cn addresses, now property of SOPA. or .ca, or .uk, or whatever. GONE, like that.
Sure, the sites will still be there, and the pages will still be able to be accessed.... but NONE OF THAT MATTERS, because YOU WONT BE ABLE TO REACH THEM.
So pull your head out of the sands of "I don't live in America, it's not my problem", and realize, THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM TOO! Do whatever you can about it, even if that means yelling at your american friends, to yell at their elected representatives, DO IT, DO IT NOW! or you, me, this blog, google, youtube, and the internet as we know it, will simply cease to exist.
... Here's some links to get you started and help you out:
http://americancensorship.org/
http://fightforthefuture.org/
http://demandprogress.org/
http://www.fsf.org/
Joining in the protest today:
http://sopastrike.com/on-strike/
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
MIMO the best thing ever?
I've just been studying wireless a lot in the last little while and I was considering how MIMO could be one of the best innovations since 802.11a.
For those that don't know, MIMO, or Multi-in, Multi-out (to paraphrase), is a transceiver method that uses multiple radios for a single line to enhance throughput and clarity of signal, being able to be fine tuned to even make reflections and phase shifting due to environmental disturbances, helpful to your wifi signal.
That being said, a lot of newer, mid to high end wireless b/g/n and a/b/g/n cards are coming out with multiple radio chains. The 802.11n standard supports up to 4x4 radio chains, but I have yet to see anything utilize that. Most commercial grade hardware has a max of 3x3 radio chains, which is to say 3 full transceivers in a single card. A good example of this would be the Intel 4965, 5300, and 6300 cards; all of which, I believe, are 3x3 radio chains for a/b/g/n wireless at 2.4ghz and 5ghz. The maximum rates differ, but that's another matter entirely.
My thought is, how useful is this? I mean that. It's beyond what I thought could be useful, but it really depends on what the hardware, driver, and software is capable of. I havn't checked into this, but if you have 3 almost entirely independent radio chains on a single card, would that not mean that you could, in theory, develop a WDS where roaming is entirely seamless? Having all wifi distribution traffic go through a single vlan to a central server that switches the 802.11 traffic into the 802.3 backbone? Then the question becomes, would you be able to separate a single radio chain for roaming and connection discovery? It could have the new connection, to a new AP, with better signal, fully authenticated before the previous (poorer signaled) connection is interrupted. Furthermore, you could simply configure it for a layer 2 notification, to now send all layer 2 packets destined for this layer3 address through this route instead (maybe by a gratuitous ARP or a ping type packet to the WDS Server?) - Meaning no more interruptions while roaming between nodes....
That is, provided the wireless nodes in your network support it.
Furthermore, network troubleshooting and analysis would be further simplified. Considering that you require 2 full channels on either side of the centre channel in order to not interfere with neighbouring networks, that interference could work in your favour when doing network analysis. With a 4x4 radio chain, you could potentially configure each radio chain to listen to a different channel, and catch all overlapping channel traffic too, getting a much faster, much clearer picture of the entire topology of the area that updates more frequently with less work on the hardware side.
I mean, the possibilities here are awesome. No more frequency hopping and incessant probing to try and find your AP.
Of course, the beamforming and everything else included in the 802.11n specification are also nice; and yes, they rely on the MIMO underpinnings to work, but that type of benefit, I believe, would be second to this... at least from a network adminstration point of view.
That's just my thoughts on it. I might be way off base or key, but I find this to be rather exciting. I know they're already working on the next standard, so we'll see.
For those that don't know, MIMO, or Multi-in, Multi-out (to paraphrase), is a transceiver method that uses multiple radios for a single line to enhance throughput and clarity of signal, being able to be fine tuned to even make reflections and phase shifting due to environmental disturbances, helpful to your wifi signal.
That being said, a lot of newer, mid to high end wireless b/g/n and a/b/g/n cards are coming out with multiple radio chains. The 802.11n standard supports up to 4x4 radio chains, but I have yet to see anything utilize that. Most commercial grade hardware has a max of 3x3 radio chains, which is to say 3 full transceivers in a single card. A good example of this would be the Intel 4965, 5300, and 6300 cards; all of which, I believe, are 3x3 radio chains for a/b/g/n wireless at 2.4ghz and 5ghz. The maximum rates differ, but that's another matter entirely.
My thought is, how useful is this? I mean that. It's beyond what I thought could be useful, but it really depends on what the hardware, driver, and software is capable of. I havn't checked into this, but if you have 3 almost entirely independent radio chains on a single card, would that not mean that you could, in theory, develop a WDS where roaming is entirely seamless? Having all wifi distribution traffic go through a single vlan to a central server that switches the 802.11 traffic into the 802.3 backbone? Then the question becomes, would you be able to separate a single radio chain for roaming and connection discovery? It could have the new connection, to a new AP, with better signal, fully authenticated before the previous (poorer signaled) connection is interrupted. Furthermore, you could simply configure it for a layer 2 notification, to now send all layer 2 packets destined for this layer3 address through this route instead (maybe by a gratuitous ARP or a ping type packet to the WDS Server?) - Meaning no more interruptions while roaming between nodes....
That is, provided the wireless nodes in your network support it.
Furthermore, network troubleshooting and analysis would be further simplified. Considering that you require 2 full channels on either side of the centre channel in order to not interfere with neighbouring networks, that interference could work in your favour when doing network analysis. With a 4x4 radio chain, you could potentially configure each radio chain to listen to a different channel, and catch all overlapping channel traffic too, getting a much faster, much clearer picture of the entire topology of the area that updates more frequently with less work on the hardware side.
I mean, the possibilities here are awesome. No more frequency hopping and incessant probing to try and find your AP.
Of course, the beamforming and everything else included in the 802.11n specification are also nice; and yes, they rely on the MIMO underpinnings to work, but that type of benefit, I believe, would be second to this... at least from a network adminstration point of view.
That's just my thoughts on it. I might be way off base or key, but I find this to be rather exciting. I know they're already working on the next standard, so we'll see.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
First, there was the Nexus One, manufactured by HTC, which set the bar for Android powered phones. Then, the Nexus S, which barely moved the bar at all, and everyone ignored in terms of innovation (which is to say the only new features in the Nexus S were all but neglected by other manufacturers, nobody implimented them); now, there's the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. They're not even HIDING the fact that samsung made this version, and it is raising the bar again.
Allow me to elaborate. The Google Nexus One, was all but unknown to be manufactured by HTC, you actually have to look it up to find the information. of course, the phone was only so popular, considering you could pretty much only buy it, unlocked, from google (a smart move, if I do say so myself). At the time at which the Nexus One hit the market, Android was primarily running Donut (v.1.6) on phones like the HTC Hero. a 500Mhz BEAST with a WHOPPING 256MB of RAM... The Nexus One raised the bar and said no more to these pathetic clock speeds and measly amounts of RAM... THIS is what Android should run on! A 1Ghz Snapdragon processor with 512MB of RAM! Twice as powerful as almost everything else on the market at the time, the flagship Google phone paved the way (and the specifications) for a multitude of variants, including the Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Desire, and Motorola's Droid 2. There were also new sensors introduced and a whole pile of great stuff that really defined a new standard, that almost all manufacturers followed from thre on out, until recently.
The Galaxy S brought nothing new to the tabe. Well, that's unnecessarily harsh, it had NFC. The Galaxy S is the first major Android phone to include NFC. Despite this, the majority of the Galaxy S's hardware was nearly identical to the Samsung Galaxy S, from where it borrowed a portion of its name; with the obvious technical exception of NFC, which the Galaxy S was missing. They were both manufactured by Samsung, so the phones are practically identical. What's hilarious to me is that the Nexus One defined the standard by which the Galaxy S was based on, and the Nexus S was based on that. So you end up with a phone that's identical in almost every way.
To be fair, probably the biggest consumer-oriented change with the Nexus S was the move to internal NAND style memory, as opposed to the SDHC, External style found in the Nexus One. This memory is faster and more efficient than using an external SDHC card, with the obvious downside of not being able to be upgraded, and if something goes horribly wrong, anything saved on your phone, while that data may still be intact, is impossible to retrieve without special hardware.
The Galaxy Nexus has the same level of innovation that it is bringing to the market, as the Nexus One did. The Galaxy Nexus stands as a new standard for Android; it's a dual-core, 1.2Ghz System with 1GB of RAM. The phone also has all the usual sensors, aGPS, Gyro, Compass, light sensors, capactive multitouch, etc. and the same communication functions as the previous Nexus: NFC, Bluetooth, Wifi and Cellular. Though, it's notable that the Galaxy Nexus has an upgraded Wireless chip, capable of 802.11a/b/g/n - this indicates a dual-band chip (both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, also a feature yet unseen in cellphone technologies). This has already spurred a whole line of new phones from every major manufacturer; from HTC: Sensation, Evo 3D, Amaze, etc. from Samsung: Galaxy S II and S II X. from Motorola: Atrix, Droid Razr, Droid 3, etc.
To put it briefly, I am not, and have never been a huge fan of the Nexus S. It was more popular than the Nexus One based on two merits: it was more widely available, many carriers actually sell the Nexus S in-store on contacts, making it faster and easier to get ahold of one than ever; the Nexus One, 9 times out of 10, you had to buy at full cost, no contract, from Google directly. Secondly, the Nexus S came out much later into Android's development, as a much more mature ( and much more popular ) platform, it was easy for the Nexus S to become as popular as it has become; despite not bringing much new to the table.
Allow me to elaborate. The Google Nexus One, was all but unknown to be manufactured by HTC, you actually have to look it up to find the information. of course, the phone was only so popular, considering you could pretty much only buy it, unlocked, from google (a smart move, if I do say so myself). At the time at which the Nexus One hit the market, Android was primarily running Donut (v.1.6) on phones like the HTC Hero. a 500Mhz BEAST with a WHOPPING 256MB of RAM... The Nexus One raised the bar and said no more to these pathetic clock speeds and measly amounts of RAM... THIS is what Android should run on! A 1Ghz Snapdragon processor with 512MB of RAM! Twice as powerful as almost everything else on the market at the time, the flagship Google phone paved the way (and the specifications) for a multitude of variants, including the Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Desire, and Motorola's Droid 2. There were also new sensors introduced and a whole pile of great stuff that really defined a new standard, that almost all manufacturers followed from thre on out, until recently.
The Galaxy S brought nothing new to the tabe. Well, that's unnecessarily harsh, it had NFC. The Galaxy S is the first major Android phone to include NFC. Despite this, the majority of the Galaxy S's hardware was nearly identical to the Samsung Galaxy S, from where it borrowed a portion of its name; with the obvious technical exception of NFC, which the Galaxy S was missing. They were both manufactured by Samsung, so the phones are practically identical. What's hilarious to me is that the Nexus One defined the standard by which the Galaxy S was based on, and the Nexus S was based on that. So you end up with a phone that's identical in almost every way.
To be fair, probably the biggest consumer-oriented change with the Nexus S was the move to internal NAND style memory, as opposed to the SDHC, External style found in the Nexus One. This memory is faster and more efficient than using an external SDHC card, with the obvious downside of not being able to be upgraded, and if something goes horribly wrong, anything saved on your phone, while that data may still be intact, is impossible to retrieve without special hardware.
The Galaxy Nexus has the same level of innovation that it is bringing to the market, as the Nexus One did. The Galaxy Nexus stands as a new standard for Android; it's a dual-core, 1.2Ghz System with 1GB of RAM. The phone also has all the usual sensors, aGPS, Gyro, Compass, light sensors, capactive multitouch, etc. and the same communication functions as the previous Nexus: NFC, Bluetooth, Wifi and Cellular. Though, it's notable that the Galaxy Nexus has an upgraded Wireless chip, capable of 802.11a/b/g/n - this indicates a dual-band chip (both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, also a feature yet unseen in cellphone technologies). This has already spurred a whole line of new phones from every major manufacturer; from HTC: Sensation, Evo 3D, Amaze, etc. from Samsung: Galaxy S II and S II X. from Motorola: Atrix, Droid Razr, Droid 3, etc.
To put it briefly, I am not, and have never been a huge fan of the Nexus S. It was more popular than the Nexus One based on two merits: it was more widely available, many carriers actually sell the Nexus S in-store on contacts, making it faster and easier to get ahold of one than ever; the Nexus One, 9 times out of 10, you had to buy at full cost, no contract, from Google directly. Secondly, the Nexus S came out much later into Android's development, as a much more mature ( and much more popular ) platform, it was easy for the Nexus S to become as popular as it has become; despite not bringing much new to the table.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Why Google?
Many people have raised concerns about the trustworthiness of Google and all the services that google provides. I understand; in an age of information, and the open exploitation of people's personal information for gain and marketing, it can be hard to trust a corporation with anything.
There are also those that get very upset about the heuristic nature of google searching, which also, has merit.
I use google because I consider it to be trustworthy and the heuristic searching makes things significantly better, overall.
I'll explain. Have you ever read Google's service agreements? Neither have I. Honestly, I blow past them in a the blur of a new application faster than... well, it's fast. From what I've seen, Google requires your authorization to release your information to anyone for any reason. I mean, they ARE their own advertising agency (Adsense anyone?) so any information they've gathered on you (marketing-wise) is used to filter out advertisements that will not interest you.... eg. if you're constantly searching for product X, then google will show you ads regarding product X or it's competitors, retailers, accessories, etc. it will do this automatically, the people that made the advertisement, tell google, or google derives from their ad, what they're trying to sell, and their target market. If you're not in it, why would they show you that ad? It makes no marketing sense.
My point here is that advertisers come to google with an ad, a site to link it to, and a target market (demographic data) - google then shows the ad to people who fit that pattern of viewing, YOUR information never leaves google; with the possible exception of being part of a statistic, which I would consider to be fair. (eg, you're one of X people that google'd the new iphone... or whatever)
In addition to targetted ads, google can also figure out what you google'd and what site you went to, and if you came back to google after visiting the site. This gives google a very small idea as to whether or not the site is relevant to the search. obviously keywords and meta data is factored in, and for very unique searches, it definitely is, however, for very common stuff, there's SO MUCH data out there, and there's a lot of BAD or MISLEADING information on the internet... For example, let's say the website for a resturant, let's say, the Keg, since it's common, let's say the programmer didn't really add a lot of meta data, so the phrase "the keg" does not uniquely appear on the site in anything more than the URL, and perhaps .jpg references or something. That's not a lot to go on. but imagine a firm who's main job it is to sell vacations, and one of the big selling points at a more major destination is that they have a keg resturant. The marketing firm, selling vacations, is going to use "The Keg" in every way, shape and form, increasing that phrase's hit count when being indexed... imagine there's quite a few marketing firms like that..
Now imagine you google "The Keg" without heuristic data, it would be a mess. the keg's website would probably be on page 15 buried among coupon offers. However, with heuristic data included, google would logically factor out most of these sites, since many people who google "the keg" would visit them, thinking this is a way to get to the keg, or information on the keg, then be bombarded by not-keg-related material, go back to their search, and keep trying. The massive amount of returns from that site would indicate to google's search engine that maybe, this site is not as related to "the keg" as the meta data suggests.
Additionally, when people go to the ACTUAL Keg website, they end up going and not coming back, either they close the tab/browser, or they browse the site for a long time and likely never come back to google, since they found what they wanted... potentially coming back to do another search, but not for the same thing. This would indicate that maybe this site is more relevant than the metadata would suggest.
Obviously this is not actually a problem, since if you google "the keg", www.kegsteakhouse.com/ is the first link.
My point is, Google, time and time again, has given control to it's users. Even with Google+ it's easy to delete your entire profile and all related information. Or back it up. Or not. It doesn't matter. You can delete the pictures from your picasa web album, making them unavailable forevermore. You can delete their references on your G+ account. You have full access to tag, untag, delete, or edit any of your comments, or delete unwanted comments from your posts. Your information is yours, and google knows, and respects that.
Sure, one day, Google could go bad and become the next facebook (but much much worse), but as far as I'm concerned, that day, according to all the evidence so far, will never happen.
In addition to that, without the heuristic data they use, searching online would be less than useless. You would never reach any relevant data, and with information growing and expanding constantly, there's no way anything that's remotely useful now, that doesn't classify results by relevance based on user data, there's no way it will be useful for long.
I love google, and everything it provides. and as a disclaimer, that doesn't mean I think everyone else's products are bad, or not worthwhile, or should not be used/enjoyed.... I just prefer google myself, I think they're awesome, and I'm sure google does too. If you disagree, that's fine, you're just dead to me.
There are also those that get very upset about the heuristic nature of google searching, which also, has merit.
I use google because I consider it to be trustworthy and the heuristic searching makes things significantly better, overall.
I'll explain. Have you ever read Google's service agreements? Neither have I. Honestly, I blow past them in a the blur of a new application faster than... well, it's fast. From what I've seen, Google requires your authorization to release your information to anyone for any reason. I mean, they ARE their own advertising agency (Adsense anyone?) so any information they've gathered on you (marketing-wise) is used to filter out advertisements that will not interest you.... eg. if you're constantly searching for product X, then google will show you ads regarding product X or it's competitors, retailers, accessories, etc. it will do this automatically, the people that made the advertisement, tell google, or google derives from their ad, what they're trying to sell, and their target market. If you're not in it, why would they show you that ad? It makes no marketing sense.
My point here is that advertisers come to google with an ad, a site to link it to, and a target market (demographic data) - google then shows the ad to people who fit that pattern of viewing, YOUR information never leaves google; with the possible exception of being part of a statistic, which I would consider to be fair. (eg, you're one of X people that google'd the new iphone... or whatever)
In addition to targetted ads, google can also figure out what you google'd and what site you went to, and if you came back to google after visiting the site. This gives google a very small idea as to whether or not the site is relevant to the search. obviously keywords and meta data is factored in, and for very unique searches, it definitely is, however, for very common stuff, there's SO MUCH data out there, and there's a lot of BAD or MISLEADING information on the internet... For example, let's say the website for a resturant, let's say, the Keg, since it's common, let's say the programmer didn't really add a lot of meta data, so the phrase "the keg" does not uniquely appear on the site in anything more than the URL, and perhaps .jpg references or something. That's not a lot to go on. but imagine a firm who's main job it is to sell vacations, and one of the big selling points at a more major destination is that they have a keg resturant. The marketing firm, selling vacations, is going to use "The Keg" in every way, shape and form, increasing that phrase's hit count when being indexed... imagine there's quite a few marketing firms like that..
Now imagine you google "The Keg" without heuristic data, it would be a mess. the keg's website would probably be on page 15 buried among coupon offers. However, with heuristic data included, google would logically factor out most of these sites, since many people who google "the keg" would visit them, thinking this is a way to get to the keg, or information on the keg, then be bombarded by not-keg-related material, go back to their search, and keep trying. The massive amount of returns from that site would indicate to google's search engine that maybe, this site is not as related to "the keg" as the meta data suggests.
Additionally, when people go to the ACTUAL Keg website, they end up going and not coming back, either they close the tab/browser, or they browse the site for a long time and likely never come back to google, since they found what they wanted... potentially coming back to do another search, but not for the same thing. This would indicate that maybe this site is more relevant than the metadata would suggest.
Obviously this is not actually a problem, since if you google "the keg", www.kegsteakhouse.com/ is the first link.
My point is, Google, time and time again, has given control to it's users. Even with Google+ it's easy to delete your entire profile and all related information. Or back it up. Or not. It doesn't matter. You can delete the pictures from your picasa web album, making them unavailable forevermore. You can delete their references on your G+ account. You have full access to tag, untag, delete, or edit any of your comments, or delete unwanted comments from your posts. Your information is yours, and google knows, and respects that.
Sure, one day, Google could go bad and become the next facebook (but much much worse), but as far as I'm concerned, that day, according to all the evidence so far, will never happen.
In addition to that, without the heuristic data they use, searching online would be less than useless. You would never reach any relevant data, and with information growing and expanding constantly, there's no way anything that's remotely useful now, that doesn't classify results by relevance based on user data, there's no way it will be useful for long.
I love google, and everything it provides. and as a disclaimer, that doesn't mean I think everyone else's products are bad, or not worthwhile, or should not be used/enjoyed.... I just prefer google myself, I think they're awesome, and I'm sure google does too. If you disagree, that's fine, you're just dead to me.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
New celly
So the other day I decided to get myself an upgrade from my old Moto Milestone. I moved on up to the HTC Desire HD.
While there are other phones on the market in canada that are also very good, or even better (ergo, Moto Atrix), I'm not big on locked bootloaders. I am however, big on HTC Sense. I've only read all the great things about it.
Using my phone for only a few days, Sense is great. But I'm looking at the community seeing much room for improvement, since my carrier is historically bad for updates and there's a mostly stock 2.3.3 update floating around the community... So within a week, I switch my phone Eng S-Off and went ahead with the flashing, I couldn't be happier. It's amazing the amount of battery life improvements that google made, software side, between 2.2 and 2.3 simply amazing.
I chose a very stock rom to maintain HTC Sense and all the features in sense. I especially love Locations, where you can browse maps, offline. Which is amazing.
With this new knowlege, of flashing on HTC, I'm starting to take an interest in Android as a platform. I'm probably going to try to pick up some Java coding manuals, and get started on some apps. What I was hoping to ask, if I could, is if anyone wants to see an app that does not yet exist. The simpler the better. Has to be for Android. I'm looking for start-up projects to get me started learning the coding so that I can learn how, while producing something useful.
When posting please include your device, so I know what platforms I should expect to make the app work on.
I'll try to post again soon if I get some good ideas.
While there are other phones on the market in canada that are also very good, or even better (ergo, Moto Atrix), I'm not big on locked bootloaders. I am however, big on HTC Sense. I've only read all the great things about it.
Using my phone for only a few days, Sense is great. But I'm looking at the community seeing much room for improvement, since my carrier is historically bad for updates and there's a mostly stock 2.3.3 update floating around the community... So within a week, I switch my phone Eng S-Off and went ahead with the flashing, I couldn't be happier. It's amazing the amount of battery life improvements that google made, software side, between 2.2 and 2.3 simply amazing.
I chose a very stock rom to maintain HTC Sense and all the features in sense. I especially love Locations, where you can browse maps, offline. Which is amazing.
With this new knowlege, of flashing on HTC, I'm starting to take an interest in Android as a platform. I'm probably going to try to pick up some Java coding manuals, and get started on some apps. What I was hoping to ask, if I could, is if anyone wants to see an app that does not yet exist. The simpler the better. Has to be for Android. I'm looking for start-up projects to get me started learning the coding so that I can learn how, while producing something useful.
When posting please include your device, so I know what platforms I should expect to make the app work on.
I'll try to post again soon if I get some good ideas.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
HTC EVO 3D
I just came across this little tidbit
http://youtu.be/JSuD45mRl_o
now, I have a lot of mixed feelings about the supposed "3D" technologies, but one outcry I keep hearing is how horrid they are for straining your eyes. Having products on the market, like 3D Televisions, and the Nintendo 3DS is bad enough, but they want to take something you use, all day, every day, and make it 3D? talk about eye strain.
Prescription glasses time.
I'm sorry HTC, but if you produce this, I will NEVER BUY IT.
as a side note, could you guys POSSIBLY, put out a newest generation cellphone (no 3D please), that has a dual-core 1+Ghz CPU and MORE THAN 512MB RAM, running android 2.2 or newer, that has a keyboard? possibly? please?
My moto milestone is getting dated.
http://youtu.be/JSuD45mRl_o
now, I have a lot of mixed feelings about the supposed "3D" technologies, but one outcry I keep hearing is how horrid they are for straining your eyes. Having products on the market, like 3D Televisions, and the Nintendo 3DS is bad enough, but they want to take something you use, all day, every day, and make it 3D? talk about eye strain.
Prescription glasses time.
I'm sorry HTC, but if you produce this, I will NEVER BUY IT.
as a side note, could you guys POSSIBLY, put out a newest generation cellphone (no 3D please), that has a dual-core 1+Ghz CPU and MORE THAN 512MB RAM, running android 2.2 or newer, that has a keyboard? possibly? please?
My moto milestone is getting dated.
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