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June 6, 2011
My admiration to Google for standing up for what's right. Even in the face of Chinese retaliation, Google has gone public with the revelation that the hacking activity of Gmail accounts had a Chinese connection.
The allegations are as of yet uncorroborated, but Google deserves much credit for standing up to China when there's evidence of wrong-doing.
We'll see how far Google is willing to go on this issue before it permanently damages its prospects in China. But for me, Google's stance has elevated its stature and image.
China paper warns Google may pay price for hacking claims - Technology & science - Security - msnbc.com.
May 9, 2011
youtube, google's video site, is beginning to beef up its roster of movies, adding some big productions too, like inception.
netflix shouldn't worry quite yet. youtube's list isn't as extensive and its pricing not as competitive. but when google starts to muscle in on a market, it won't be wise to ignore it either.
Google’s YouTube Adding 3,000 Rentals, Challenging Netflix - Bloomberg.
August 30, 2010
 Still shot from 'You are the Girl' - The Cars Apparently The Cars knew about Droid back in 1987 and seems like their version was more fun that Google's smartphone version of today 
Yep, that's Ric Ocasek getting ready to unleash the "Pleasure Droid". If only the product and the song were released at the same time. Google and Motorola could have used this clip to promote their Droid platform.
August 13, 2010
 Back when Oracle acquired Sun, you really didn't think that it was going to continue with the free open source model, did you? Of course not. This is Oracle, and Oracle is all about business. It has expensive products and even more expensive support and maintenance terms. And if someone like SAP starts to offer cheaper support, Oracle has the legal resources to sue them out of its turf very quickly.
Those lawyers are now busy suing Google over Java license violations in its Android platform. Meanwhile OpenSolaris is seeing its last days in the sun as the focus shifts to its commercial counterpart, Oracle Solaris, where there's money to be made.
It won't be long before Java, MySQL, and OpenOffice will be history too, at least in terms of their current forms. In Oracle's world if a product doesn't substantially contribute to the bottom line, it's axed. That's an unfortunate hit on innovation and open collaboration.
Oracle has a good track record of successful business ventures and profitable acquisitions. But the company is basically reliant on old legacy systems from itself and acquired companies to drive its earnings. When is the last time you heard of an innovative or exciting product coming out of Oracle? Probably in 1977 when its flagship product, Oracle Database, was conceived. And even then Oracle Database wasn't that novel. It was based on an existing IBM database product.
July 15, 2010
After missing the expected earnings and profits numbers, Google's shares are down 4% in after-hours trading. Apple's shares however are up by 1% in reverse sympathy.
Google Android is beginning to look like a real contender for Apple's ubiquitous iPhone, so the companies are now regarded as serious rivals. Bad news for one parlays into good news for the other.
With the options expiration tomorrow combined with the Google's earnings release, Apple's iPhone 4 antenna press conference, and BP's capping of the oil leak, the market should expect a busy and volatile day.
Related Article
July 14, 2010
 Ever needed to go to a web page only to be road-blocked by an insipid form with a million questions? Ever needed to test your own web forms and wanted a tool to quickly fill out a bunch of fields and pick a bunch of options for you?
If you use Chrome, you're in luck. I developed the JunkFill Chrome extension for just that purpose, something to get me quickly through testing web forms. There are other extensions that have similar or better functionality. For most, you need to configure them and save the data so they can to fill out the forms properly for you.
JunkFill isn't about being proper, it's about being quick. It works right out of the box, so to speak, no configuration necessary. You can download it from the Chrome Extension Gallery. Give it a click and see how it works out for you.
June 30, 2010
Google has added a new feature to their search page allowing users to get the next Sunrise and Sunset times for any location. This is great for people who schedule their activities based on daylight or night hours, for example running schedules, prayer times, or planning to watch the Sun rise or set on a beach resort.
Here's a sample link for the next Sunrise time in New York City, and here is a link for the next Sunset time in Kathmandu, Nepal.
June 29, 2010
Yesterday without any indication my Gmail account went into a lockout mode displaying this message when I try to login:
Sorry... account maintenance underway
We’re currently performing maintenance on your account. You won’t be able to log in while maintenance is underway, but your account data and messages are safe. Unfortunately, we can’t predict exactly how long this will take.
If this maintenance lasts more than 24 hours, please contact us at gmail-maintenance@google.com.
As a developer, I put nary a confidence level in the veracity of this message and I'm fairly sure there is no maintenance underway. Something has gone wrong with the program logic or someone has flagged my account or a bunch of accounts to investigate something and now my crippled account is just sitting there until someone gets to it.
So for now I have no access to new or existing emails and judging by the Gmail forum it could be offline for days with no access to tech support. Which makes me wonder, this is the same platform as Google Apps and if a business decided to host their online apps on Google, would they be able to afford this kind of downtime and no support?
Larger businesses may receive some form of technical support, but what about the smaller ones? Something to consider as an overall migration strategy. Meanwhile I wait and see when my Gmail account is resurrected. Doesn't look promising though.
Update: After nearly a 26-hour outage, Gmail is back up for me as well as a group of other users who were affected by the maintenance lockout. There was no explanation on what caused the outage. Google is notorious for ignoring individual emails from people with issues, but they do appear to skim the forums and apparently in this case the number of people posting complaints got their attention.
May 31, 2010
 One of the features of Google Voice that I really like is the transcription service. Anytime a message is left on my number an email with the transcript of the message is shot out to me. That lets me quickly determine the nature of the message and take action.
As good as the service's speech recognition is, it's not perfect, so sometimes it generates hilarious or incoherent ramblings, like this one I received recently:
Hi Larry King, I don't know Michelle about it, but she I'm concerned it be a member of the panel initial back you cat and then they handle the hike so I don't have to do so if you got it. I don't know I said If you look. I think if you gimme a call some time with you and I think it's about. I don't really know close contact, we'll get to know that the back fish. I just got back and I will be at a short of message. Mostly across Hunting with a panic, but I don't know even.
Thankfully a player is also included with the transcript so one could listen to the actual message. Imagine my surprise when I clicked "Play" and heard my mother's voice speaking in Persian. Obviously the transcription service isn't tuned for the Persian language. My mother might get forgetful at times, but I'm pretty certain she wouldn't address me as Larry King
May 27, 2010
It's hard to believe, but today Apple's market cap of $222B is larger than that of Microsoft which finished at $219B. That makes Apple the biggest Tech company on the block today. Microsoft will probably reclaim the top spot tomorrow, but Steve Jobs must be happy to have surpassed its old nemesis.
And Google? Today its market cap stood at $151B. Still has a long way to go to catch up to the big guys. Don't shed any tears though, Google is much younger than the duo. It'll get there in due time.
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