Microsoft's Newest Partner

Microsoft announces their newest partner. (Just kidding!)

Microsoft Surface Ads: Out of Touch and Pointless

    In recent years, it has become more and more obvious that Microsoft is getting more and more out of touch with their customers. One of the best examples is their release of Windows 8, which is a huge departure from all previous versions with a huge learning curve.

    One of the worst things to come out of Microsoft recently are the advertisements for the Microsoft Surface tablet. Guess what major feature these ads cover? How you can make them click. That's right, the major features of the Surface tablets are not being able to run Windows programs on a tablet, the power of a laptop in a tablet and being able to open Office documents on the go. No, the best feature is that it clicks. Watch the videos below and you will see what I mean.

     The bottom line is that Microsoft is full of old men trying to act hip and with it. So when they want to connect to the younger generation they pull our the mod music and the dancing and start clicking. Dumber and dumber.

Help Me Sell My Nook Color

Sorry for the crappy picture, but my iPod does not take very good shots.

Hi, guys. I bought a Nook Color a couple of months ago. I've decided to upgrade to a Nexus 7, but in order to do so I need your help. I just posted the Nook on Ebay. I installed Cynogenmod on it after I bought it, but I have since reflashed it to the original software. I updated the software to the latest version (1.4.3). I tested it to make sure that it works by downloading a couple books and apps. (I since erased and deregistered.) It also comes with a screen protector installed and a cover. I'm also throwing in a 16 GB microSD card because the Nook only has 1GB for non-Barnes and Noble content.

Why am I selling it? Because it works great as an ebook reader, but not so good as an Android tablet. If you want a device to read book and listen to music, that has all the extras that all tablets need (i.e. screen protector, cover, and extra memory), then give this auction a look. If you are not interested, but know someone who might be, send them this link.

You can find the auction here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221171260112.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Facebook Uses Firefox Integration to Fight the Exploding Growth of Google Plus

Back in April, I wrote an article entitled What Browser Should Facebook Buy? about the need for Facebook to use a browser to direct traffic to the social network. It is important for them to do this because Google will eventually leverage Chrome to do just that. In that article, I stated that Facebook had two options: build or buy. It turns out that there is a third option: integrate.

Starting with Firefox 17, Facebook has been integrated into the browser. This feature is called Messenger for Firefox. It adds the ability to chat, check notification, and friend requests. You can turn it on by going here if you have Firefox 17/

The Kindle App is My Favorite App (Android or iOS)

The Kindle app is my favorite app for both iOS and Android.

I say this for one simple reason: you can use it to read any document or article on any device.  I have tried other e-reader and read later software. The best one I found was the Kindle app. The beauty is that this app turns your device into an e-reader without limitations. With a Kindle DX or Paperwhite, you are limited to reading, unless you jailbreak or root it. Not so when you use one of the Kindle apps. If you have an iPod with the Kindle app (like I have), you have all of the power of a Kindle e-reader plus access to a world of other apps and games. My point is that you can use a FREE app to turn your device into an e-reader instead of shelling out extra money.

Out of the box, the only way you can get documents into the Kindle app is to email them to an Amazon account. However,the file types that you are allowed to email are limited. To over come this limitation you can use a site called WappWolf to convert documents to a Kindle friendly format. You can configure WappWolf to monitor a DropBox folder. Once it detects a file it will convert it to a Kindle format and sent it to  your Kindle.

Another great tool is called Klip.me.The Klip.Me extension for Chrome is the best extension I have found to send articles to Kindle from your browser. It works better then the official extension from Amazon, for some reason. The best extension that I found for Firefox is Push to Kindle.

To download the Kindle apps for iOS, Android and other, go here. Enjoy reading.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Windows 8

A couple of days ago, I decided I would give Windows 8 a try and installed the Consumer Preview on VirtualBox. In fact, I am writing this post on Windows Live Writer 2012 on Windows 8.
Here are my initial thoughts about Windows 8 after spending a few hours with it.
The Good

• Desktop UI (User Interface) is very similar to Windows 7. The glass taskbar from Windows 7 is still present.
• Integration of Microsoft products. In order to sign in, you need a Microsoft (or Windows Live or Hotmail) ID. Once you enter your Microsoft ID, your calendar, mail, pictures and other data is automatically populated.
• The task manager has been redesigned to give you tons more information about processor, network and hard drive usage.
• The Windows Explorer has gotten it’s biggest makeover since Windows XP. Like many other Microsoft products, it is equipped with the new Ribbon interface. It gives you the ability to perform many functions with only a few clicks.
• The Desktop UI is only slightly different than Windows 7. There are no rounded corners, only square edges. Overall it’s not much over a change, but still nice to look at.

The Bad

• In order to install the touch friendly Windows 8 apps, you need to use the Store tile. I tried it and it was slow and painful to browse. Thankfully you can still download the latest version of your favorite program and run it like before in the desktop.
• Windows Media Player no longer has DVD playback support, so you cannot play DVDs out of the box. However, you can download VLC to enjoy your films.

The Ugly

• Microsoft announced that you will not be able to boot directly to the desktop. This means that every time that you boot up, you are forced to see the new Start Screen covered with multicolored tiles.
• As far as I know, there is no way to turn off the Start Screen. For computers that do not have touch enabled screens this will become annoying very quickly. To understand what I mean, make all the icons on your screen an inch square.
• No Start Button. This is my biggest gripe. Hitting the Start button pulls up the Start Screen, which is a pain to use.

Conclusion
There are some nice features in Windows 8, but there are also some real pains. I think that Microsoft spent way too much time trying to make Windows 8 touch and tablet friendly by default. These features should be optional to desktop and laptop users. It is almost like they are forcing touch technology on you. Since I just installed Windows 7, I will not be upgrading anytime soon and I would not recommend that anyone rush out and do that either once Windows 8 comes out in the Fall. Wait for Windows 9 to see if they come to their senses.

What Browser Should Facebook Buy?

The other day there was an interesting article on Cnet.com entitled “Why Facebook Needs to Build a Browser”. The main idea of the article is that Google's Chrome browser would soon over take other browsers, including Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Since Google's overall strategy is to send people to their products to get as much ad revenue as possible, once Chrome becomes dominant all social network users will be sent to Google's very own Google Plus social network. Google has already begun building Google Plus buttons and connections into all of their products. It's only a matter of time before it becomes a built-in feature in Chrome. This mean that Facebook would need to build a browser.

The problem is Facebook should build a browser or buy one? At the current rate of Chrome market share growth, Facebook would need to move quickly, so building a browser from scratch is out of the question. Their best bet is to purchase an existing browser and adapt it to their needs. But which one? It would have to be one of the current top four browsers.

Facebook could made a deal with Microsoft to create a fork of Internet Explorer, but I don't like that idea for two reasons. First, I doubt Microsoft would appreciate losing control of their property. Second, IE is very slow and it's extension system stinks.

I doubt they could use Apple's Safari because of Apple's strict proprietary rules.

That leaves Firefox or Opera. I doubt they would use Firefox because there would be an uproar in the open source community.

Opera is the best bet for Facebook. Among other things, Opera has its own social network for its users and an email system. It would be easy for Facebook to fold these services into their current line up of features. Once again, Opera is the best bet.

One thing that Facebook should keep in mind when they create their browser is to make sure they are not too obtrusive. They need to take a look at MSN Explorer and AOL Explorer and then do the opposite. The problem with these browsers is that they force their products on the users. Subtle is better. Less is more.