Ron Guest

Yeah, that Cloud thing you keep hearing about means many different things. But whatever it may mean to you be certain that the Clouds are no longer just on the horizon. They're a storm a-coming your way :-)

via BGR Skype gearing up for a huge cloud-based offering?

After race fun

Since I watch nearly everything using my DVR (yes, even live sporting events) I don’t care as much as I would have 10 years ago. But this is long over due. Unfortunately I’ve noticed the ads inserted into online content (e.g. via YouTube) have started to use this same “blow out your speaker” approach to getting attention.

via Ars Technica: CALM Act passed, will quiet loud TV commercials within a year.

I suppose this is a great leap forward from Notes. But given the reliability issues I experience with GMail I can only hope this agreement involves assurance regarding availability… Otherwise we will start hearing about Government projects getting screwed up due to GMail issues.

This definitely a trailblazing deal which will lead to many more and helps validate Cloud computing.

via Information Week General Services Administration Picks Google For Email

Our elf on shelf is named Foddle

Fruits of day’s labor - Tree; Instagram

I was really looking forward to the release of AirPlay and my first day enjoying it was not a disappointment. We had some friends over for the evening and our quiet get together turned into a rockin’ evening as we used my iPhone to stream songs (mostly club mixes) and music videos through the AppleTV. “How can you do that???” was the understandable first reaction from our friends. Their second reaction was “can I just go to the Apple store to buy one?”

AirPlay is, to me, a great example of why Apple products are so popular. Apple products in a given category may not be “the best in class” but taken together as a lifestyle system there is absolutely no other company or product family that comes close. Technology implemented in such straightforward ways even my 6 year old can understand and use it with ease. It is getting harder and harder to resist buying a couple more Apple TVs for the house…

via TUAW Hands on with AirPlay: iPad and Apple TV updates make a magic combination.

We started scouting early for Christmas gifts for our kids as there is so much “looks good but is junk” stuff on the market a bit of research is required. Yeah, I know, hard to believe it but that simply amazing toy heavily advertised on TV may end up in a drawer and never used.

As a result I just discovered, this year, it is impossible for me to decide what to buy in the store. Why? Because there are no customer reviews/ratings available. I could use my iPhone to look them up but no single site (I know of) has the critical mass of reviews required and the process would be too tedious. Yes there are barcode scanner apps good for price shopping but the ones I’ve seen are no real help in consolidating reviews.

As a result I ended up taking pictures of the products in the store and once home I started hitting up the Amazons and ToyRUs of the world for the reviews. In the process I help but do price comparisons. Having done all that work, time I would have preferred spending on something more enjoyable, I’m sure not going to bother to drive to the store to make my purchases. With the websites right in front of me that would rob me of even more of my valuable time.

The bottom line is even the largest, “big box”, brick-and-mortar stores are losing sales because they don’t making it possible for me to decide on the spot what to purchase. They had me - I was there and ready to buy - and watched me walk out the door. So while these stores complain about damage caused by Internet shopping the reality is they should blame themselves for not being shopper friendly.

Interesting article on how one firm’s IT department is viewing the cost (savings) of moving to iPads for their Sales staff. Apple’s screen size advantage will play very well in this market segment (yes, size does matter).

Why one company is switching sales laptops for iPads - Computerworld.

With Google Voice dropping yesterday and now editing available from iPhones for Google Docs it is a good week for the Apple + Google crowd. It is a rolling deployment so you may not see it for a few days.

Via Ars Technica Google Docs editing finally comes to iPhone, iPad, Android.

It's official and official. The HTML5 version wasn't bad but this is a nice step up...

You can view it in iTunes in case it doesn't show up in your store yet.

Official Google Voice application for iPhone lands in App Store | BGR.

Maybe he needs money from SAP to buy his legal bills…

Judge Allows Federal Fraud Suit Against Oracle – Oracle – InformationWeek.

Glad to see a Tech leader blog about this tax - as US companies do more and more business overseas they face a heavy tax rate that effectively prevents them from bringing the funds home to invest in growth in the US. I just don’t see how fixing this hasn’t gained bipartisan support. It’s not like we don’t need more investment in job creation. Plus the jobs this would create are better paying and would yield more leverage than “stimulus” jobs the politicians typically create. This is clearly a case where letting the private sector spend the money would be far more efficient than having the government spend it (via taxation).

via Cisco Blog » Blog Archive » U.S. Jobs, Innovation, Growth and Investment.

One of the few - very very few - sensible talks I’ve seen on shifting power across the world including the rise/recovery of Asia. I highly recommend this especially if you’ve seen one too many doomsday talks.

TED Blog | Global power shifts: Joseph Nye on TED.com.

The fine folks over at MacWorld have completed their benchmark of the new MacBook Air. The article is definitely worth a read especially since flash storage is really a game changer when comparing performance to the hard disk based MacBook Pro models. Depending on your needs the Air could actually deliver significantly better performance.

via Lab report: MacBook Air benchmark results Review | Business Center | From the Lab | Macworld.

The Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page gives you a convenient way to stop a long list of companies from tracking your online activities. Supposedly all the tracking is done to deliver “behavioral” advertising but we all know that in reality the companies could be doing anything they want with the data. The tool works by installing a “opt out” cookie which means you will need to run it on every computer/user account in order to completely opt out. Also, given the method used, an “advertiser” could ignore the opt out. That would be a violation - those never happen, right?

Safari users like myself have a convenient alternative. If you open Safari’s preferences and go to the Security tab ensure the “Only from sites I visit” option is checked on the Accept Cookies section.

This preliminary (and incomplete) benchmark indicates the new MacBook Air is a very viable candidate if you’re in the market for a new laptop. Especially in the case of the 13” model. Based on this it indeed seems the Air should be fast enough for all but the most CPU-intensive users/apps.

via Early Benchmarks on the New 13-Inch and 11-Inch MacBook Air - Mac Rumors.

As Evelyn says “Wow”! A FireFox extension to easily log into other users’ accounts.

Thanks to Ray for the heads up.

Firesheep In Wolves’ Clothing: Extension Lets You Hack Into Twitter, Facebook Accounts Easily.

Come next week you’ll be able to get free use of Amazon’s EC2, in the form of one micro instance of Linux, for one year and it comes with free permanent and runtime storage as well as time-limited free SimpleDB services. Nice way to launch a new business or dip your toe into using the Cloud. New EC2 customers only.

via Amazon To Offer Free Cloud Services – InformationWeek.

Yesterday’s announcement of the MacBook Air and yawn Lion got me thinking (a usually dangerous, sometimes expensive, situation). The MBA is one sexy device. It calls my name. Even more so than an iPad. But as soon as I let any rational thought enter the picture the MBA quickly takes second place to the iPad. Even though the MBA shares some cool features like instant on and SSD storage having to - gasp - open a lid to use a portable device now seems nearly pre-historic. I don’t own an iPad but my iPhone 4 has completely hooked me on the idea of one-touch access to all my common needs. Yeah, there definitely is a market for something portable and cool that runs Mac OS apps instead of iOS. But apparently that is one market I don’t belong to.

I’ve had a chance to see some of the smaller tablets (7” display sizes). At the moment I have to agree with Steve they are a very inferior experience. Not just because of their less capable software but, as he said, the smaller size really detracts from the experience. So, yeah there is a market for the smaller tablets and they are definitely not DOA. But it’s another market segment I don’t belong to.

Here’s hoping the next generation iPad is compelling enough to make me pull  the trigger on a purchase. I think a front facing camera is about all it will take :-)

Via arstechnica:

This is a housekeeping post. Please ignore…

Claim: AN3PRG97GMUC

This is a highly credible “rumor”. It is also being reported over on CNET. At least to me, post-iPad the Air seems like more of a hobby product than the AppleTV…

via Apple to Introduce 11.6-Inch MacBook Air With ‘SSD Card’ Integrated Storage Next Week? [Updated] - Mac Rumors.

The word Cloud means many things to different people - pretty much the norm for a new hot tech buzzword. This is great for marketing people as they can define - and redefine - to suit whatever purpose is at hand. In any event, here is IBM’s latest spin on Cloud. In the old days we’d call this solution selling :-)

via GigaOM IBM’s Cloud Effort Shifts from Workloads to Industries: Cloud «.

Verizon stores will carry the iPad and bundle it with their Novatel WiFi. The bundles will be priced at $630 for iPad Wi-Fi 16GB + MiFi, $730 for iPad Wi-Fi 32GB + MiFi and $830 for iPad Wi-Fi 64GB + MiFi. Service plans will start at $20/month for 1GB.

Note that AT&T stores will also start selling iPads. Which is the better deal depends on how you feel about MiFi and which service plan works best for you. AT&T’s start at $15/month but that only covers 250MB.

via Information Week Verizon Inks iPad Deal With Apple – InformationWeek.

They call this a “hands on” - it definitely isn’t a review. But it does provide a glimpse of what an integrated Google TV would look like. For my needs I wish someone would integrate an AppleTV.

via BGR Sony’s Internet TV with Google TV hands on « Boy Genius Report.