Review of Best and Worst Techo Twitter Posts week ending 04 Oct

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Welcome to my review of the week in tech – each week I’m picking out the things that I liked the most that I submitted via Twitter for you all to read. If you haven’t already seen my Twitter feed of tech tips add me @aholesgrove or have a look at http://twitter.com/aholesgrove and subscribe to the RSS feed of my tweets.

This week I found myself not tweeting as much as usual – there was certainly news out there, but it was news that was mostly worthless to the people who read my Twitter posts and this blog.  I don’t like posting news just for the sake of it and I try to keep what I put out there to being stuff that I know the kind of people that we talk to would actually be interested in.  There was somegood stuff out there for sure nonetheless, such as the trial launch of the Google Wave service (which is massively overrated), the official launch of Microsoft‘s free Security Essentials software (which is pretty good) and the emergence of a few HTC mobile phones which are very much blurring the lines between phone and handheld computer and are really demostrating the power of the handheld device (more about that below).  I found a few good tips for enhancing productivity in the office too, one of which is mentioned below.  As always, check out my posts for more info like this every single week.

THE GOOD

• Great article – How to Upgrade From XP to Windows 7 http://tinyurl.com/ycw99uj #LatestfromComputerworld

Windows 7 launches on Oct 22 worldwide – only two weeks away – and this is definately a topic of discussion that is heating up intensely.  Windows 7 is a extremely needed update to the Windows platform and in our company we have been recommending that all people upgrade to this latest version – especially Windows Vista users.  There has been a lot of talk about how there will be a few problems skipping a version of Windows and going straight from Windows XP to 7 and this article gives you a good idea of how to get through it as painlessly as possible.  In our company, we have a specialist IT partner called Superior IT Technologies whom we have been working with to offer computer support to our customers and we are well equipped to help any of our customers who would like some guidance in making the switch.  Feel free to give us a call if you’d like help with that – it could be a good time to get everything upgraded and up to date particularly for our HireEzy customers, who will be receiving a major update with our next version of HireEzy as well over the next coming weeks.

• I’m in love with this phone, truly… 1Ghz processor in a phone! – HTC Leo Lowdown http://bit.ly/2kGe2V

I always like to post about at least one gadget each week and this one is quite surprising.  Simply put, this is a phone using the very latest version of Windows Mobile – version 6.5 – which is a huge update making the environment more finger friendly and taking advantage of the latest mobile hardware such as power conservative processors and other technical stuff.  This phone has a 4.3 inch screen which is huge – aside from being a decent size for useful web browsing this would also be great for playing games and video if you like that stuff – and it has a 1Ghz processor – in a PHONE! – to give you a bit of comparison, the latest and greatest “super fast” iPhone 3GS has a 600Mhz processor, so this thing is rocking out at 1000Mhz.  I think that the Microsoft App Store will be great for competition too – incorporating features such as carrier billing, which means that you can buy an app and it will appear on your phone bill, you don’t have to link credit cards or buy credit, which is good for business users who have phones on company accounts and the like, amoungst other features.  In addition to looking at the tweeted article, you can see pictures of the phone here and a video of Windows Mobile 6.5 here to see what this phone is like.  Remember, some companies don’t want people using iPhones because they worry about people bludging at work, so this might be the next best thing to grab as a work phone.  HTC Leo is the project name for the device, the rumoured final name of it is apparently the “HTC HD2″.  Bit of a tongue twister hey.

• The Microsoft haters are going to love this – Independent tester: Security Essentials ‘very good’ http://bit.ly/msnkD

Microsoft’s new anti-virus program was big news this week – mainly for the fact that there will be a bunch of people thinking that Microsoft’s anti-virus program should have been a decent version of Windows itself, but the reality is that seperate security applications have become necessary for two reasons: Firstly, a huge market for 3rd party security software has emerged, with big players like Symantec, Trend Micro and AVG just to name a few, and if Microsoft built stuff into Windows to make these competing products obsolete there would be another anti-trust trial; secondly, computer security has become more than just viruses – the biggest threat to computer security nowadays is in the form of phishing exploits, malware and Cross-site scripting exploits in websites (known as XSS), all of which Microsoft’s Security Essentials treats and manages in addition to it’s competitors.  It’s a free program and Microsoft are in a good position to know all about problems as soon they happen, so I like the fact that they are getting into this space to help people out – I installed in on my work machine here without a hitch, it doesn’t annoy me at all and for those two reasons I like it.  And, as you’ll see in the article I tweeted, other people are positive about it too.  Feels good to know that Microsoft are doing good things in computer security and it’s definately an overdue service on their part.  Windows 7 + Security Essentials is making for an excellent proposition for everyday computer security.

• This is a great idea – Copy Path Puts a File’s Location in Your Clipboard [Downloads] http://tinyurl.com/yawvyj2 #Lifehacker

This is a very simple application with a very simple solution to a simply annoying situation – ever looked at a document/picture/whatever and thought “Oh I should email that to [insert name here]” and then launched up your email program, clicked the attachment buttion and then Browse and then find youself clicking through a number of folders to get to that document, or moreso clicking and clicking and clicking trying to remember which folder you viewed that document in?  This tool adds an extra option to your right click menu behind files in the File Explorer to remember the folder path to a document and auto add it to memory, so you can simply open up a new email and PASTE IN the path to that file, and bam it’s attached.  Simple, effective and really handy.  It’s a free program too so it’s worth grabbing it and installing it, I’m already finding it handy – once I get into the habit of copying a file’s path with the tool first of course

• This thing belongs in every boardroom with a projector connected – Switched On: A keyboard PC seeks to Eee-peat success http://bit.ly/jKbYS

When you look at a picture of this you’ll say “big deal, what’s so special about a keyboard”.  The big deal is that that “keyboard” is a WHOLE COMPUTER.  Seriously.  I mentioned that this belongs in each boardroom because I’ve sat in enough boardrooms where companies have computers hooked up to big screen tellies or projectors, wires everywhere or even worse connected wireless keyboard/mouse combo’s that fail them regularly and this addresses all those problems by being an all in one solution.  You just connect a monitor to it (and optionally, a mouse) and you’re set with a full Windows computer.  This device also has a wireless monitor solution so you can have it connected to a big TV in your boardroom with no cables – VERY handy.  To top that off, the right hand side is a 5 inch touchscreen which shows the numeric keypad by default but you can get rid of that and put shortcut icons there instead for fast access to launching programs and stuff like that – developers can also build applications that purposely run in that screen as well for super tricky stuff and I can imagine that people would do stuff like run a web browser there looking at search results or Twitter posts of whatever whilst not disturbing what is being shown on the main monitor.  The device was designed to be a loungeroom computer but I can see this thing being really handy in boardrooms and removing all the clutter.  Best of all, this thing will be pretty reasonably priced – about $800 in Australia is the best indication I’ve heard so far.

THE BAD

• Wow, AOL really really sucks – http://bit.ly/155GnR

This was an article that I thought people might have found interesting – the writer, Henry Blodget, is a funny character because he’s a guy with share holdings in mulitple tech companies (he’s always having to do disclosures in his articles) and writes from a frustrated investor standpoint about companies all the time.  He’s a notorious Microsoft hater and seems to love everything Apple does.  Anyway… this article goes into detail to describle AOL’s big problems moving forward and it’ll be interesting to see what happens next – I reckon one of two things will happen – AOL will be bankrupted (which is why Time Warner could be cutting it loose at this stage) or once independant they’ll start selling off it’s crappy assets to make itself more attractive to potential acquirers – there is rumbling about deep talks between AOL and Microsoft at the moment revolving around search but I reckon something bigger could happen, such as a merger with Yahoo who could then in turn eventually become a part of Microsoft overall, for example, as that seems to be Yahoo’s long term fate now that they have created a deal to merge search assests (which I suspect is an an interim step towards something bigger, anyway).

• Just tried multiple times to find a link to MSN’s My Health Info service in Bing. Nowhere to be found. Thanks Microsoft. #FAIL

In my posts I often make reference to Microsoft’s Bing search engine, as its battle with Google for search supremecy is definately going to be a tech battle for the ages, and stuff like I mentioned in this post are just silly if Bing is going to have any credibility.  I use it everyday and I find it realy good, as good as Google in fact if not better, except when looking for Microsoft’s own stuff.  Maybe Microsoft are really trying to make a point that their search engine doesn’t have any bias in it whatsoever towards their own stuff.  Maybe.  Nevertheless, I was interested to play with MSN’s new health service to see what it was like – I spent a few months last year working on a web startup called MiVitals which got me pretty involved in that space at the time.  MiVitals ended up folding because of the financial crisis which was a shame.  If someone can make a decent online health records service that would be a huge step forwards for the medical industry – Google has one but that doesn’t seem to get much respect in the online world it seems.

• Hillarious – Google Wave crashes on beach of overhype (Robert Scoble/Scobleizer) http://bit.ly/zYo1J

I’ve had a few customers ask me about this thing this week – there is a good 2 min video that does the job of explaining it simply – and honestly I think this thing is dumb and will just bomb.  I’ve always said that the best Google services on the web are the ones that they’ve bought, such as Google Earth, Google Maps, YouTube, their various blogging applications, etc, and the ones that they’re built themselves have been mostly worthless.  Google Wave is designed to be an email and Instant Messaging/Twitter replacement all in one, it’s sort of like turning email conversations into online forums – a good idea I suppose but if Google think they can persuade people to stop using email and use this instead, they have another thing coming.  People are creatures of habit, which Google should know all too well with their continued dominance in web search, and aren’t about to ditch email anytime soon.  I mean, to give you an example, Blackberry users are typically people addicted to email, referred to as a “Crackberry addiction”, and there’s even a whole website dedicated to it, just as an example.  Maybe someone will create applications that blend email accounts with Wave accounts or something, but I just don’t see it really taking off.  I truly believe that Google are pulling shenanigans like this to try and fragment the web, so that people will have to continue to rely on web searching in order to be able to feel like they can get around on the net.  You might not know this, but the reason Microsoft originally thought web search was mostly a waste of time due to the fact that they felt that as the web matured, people would have their 5 or 6 places they would go to look for the things that they want – YouTube for a video, Twitter for interesting things to talk about, Hotmail to look at messages, Facebook to catch up with friends, etc, and this was the reason they ignored they’re chance to BUY Google back in 2003/04 for $5 billion or so when the Google guys were looking to cash in on their idea.  They were sort of right at the time, people search more often in particular areas rather than broadly in a search engine, except for the fact that advertising attached to search results has become a $16 billion a year business for Google and helped them create a net worth in the vacinity of $150 billion.  Whoops.

• About time someone wrote about this. You wanna advertise? Use social media – Barely Anybody Clicks On Banner Ads Anymore http://bit.ly/MNw9t

Pretty self explanatory in this Twitter post.  We are on a constant education path with our customers discussing the merits of social networking as an advertising medium and this article is just adding to the mountain of evidence that is proving that traditional advertising is continuing to become irrelevant when compared to social media advertising.  We are really looking forward to the new tools we’re launching this year with auto Twitter posting and creating an eco-system of links backs to your site and increasing your search relevancy.  I’ll blog more about this when our tools are live.

• Ahahaha ROFL!!! – RT @technologynew: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: Chrome And Safari Are Rounding Errors http://bit.ly/SVMs3

You’ve gotta love Steve Ballmer’s un-ending loyalty and dedication to the Microsoft product and the fact that he’s happy to act like the competition is an illusion.  In fact, the ’rounding error’ comment is becoming somewhat of a favourite of Steve’s, but you know, this Twitter post ended up in this end of my blog post for a reason.  Chrome and Safari are legit competitors. And when you see statistics like these published on the internet, whilst somewhat debatle a good indication of the real numbers, there is definately healthy competition in that space which is benefiting the end user in features and end experience and there is definately people abandoning IE in favour or something different.

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• Security Essentials fares well in AV-Test trial (news.cnet.com)
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in Google, Security Essentials, Windows Vista, Windows XP