Gadzooki

Google Talk: what now?

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While not very uncommon in the Google universe where products and services are in a perpetual state of beta, Google Talk sticks out like a sore thumb in contrast to the adoption and improvements other products have seen, such as Gmail (where frankly, the only thing missing is IMAP support and I’ll be a happy boy) and Google, the one search service to rule them all in the Web 2.0 world, that not so long ago implemented “integrated search results” where links, images and video all appear in the same search results page without having to go to Google Image Search and Google Video separately.

Google has made enough truckloads of money to cover acres and acres of land and sometimes I find myself asking if that has somehow made it into their heads, thinking dipping a foot and single-handedly stomping the competition at the already-saturated instant messaging market should be a piece of cake. What was it exactly that Google missed? Like every other one of their services, they did the obvious by using the existing accounts without having to require users to sign up independently for Gtalk, and thanks to Gmail, these days a Google account is about as ubiquitous as having a social security number. Later on Gtalk even got integrated into Gmail, but that didn’t help much. Gtalk also implemented making calls over the internet right from the beginning, hot in the heels of Skype and Yahoo doing the same thing. There was also lovin’ for the influential open-source community, in the form of Jabber support and libjingle. On paper, it seemed like the perfect plan to dethrone AIM, the mothership of all IM clients.

For one, we’re now seeing the results of the sticky situation that was choosing an IM client people faced back in the day. Actually there was no “choosing” to begin with; I was 11 when I first discovered the joy of IM, and I was on a crusade for the use of MSN Messenger, fought tooth and nail against Yahoo Pager, because I didn’t like the dated interface and weird-looking smileys (seriously). IM is no fun when you’re all by yourself and alas, I had to give in to the obsessed Yahoo crowd I was around with. Fast forward 11 years and here I am, still around the same set of people, still on Yahoo Messenger. I doubt that’s going to change soon – not for me, not for the MSN users in the U.S., not for ICQ/AIM users of the rest of the world.

Oh and another thing, the Gtalk interface is too spartan. People like their IM clients pink and fluffy and bloated with features that are never really put into everyday use (think of Live Messenger and AIM Triton).

Right when Gtalk seemed like a doomed project, best left for logging chat transcripts you want to keep records of, the big surprise: last this week we see Google getting ready to snap up the 700MHz band opened up in the U.S., up against Verizon and the others. Why would they want this, and what would Google do with it? TWiT 106 raises a very interesting and not-so-far fetched possibility: the “Google phone” rumors might actually be a set of applications designed to make over-the-internet calls. Now let me add to the conspiracy: remember GrandCentral acquisition just a few weeks back? The writing’s on the wall: the acquisitions and bids for more is extending Google’s hold into the communications market, and the instrument of doom: Gtalk. Hah!

My premonition: GrandCentral’s technology integrated into a wifi-enabled device, iPhone-looking with a button on the main screen labeled “Gtalk”. User pushes Gtalk button and makes a call – over the internet via the exclusive Google-owned spectrum untarnished by all other web traffic from the unregulated internet pipes. Lovely. When that day comes, we’ll all say goodbye to unreasonable air time rates.

Windows Home Server: networked computing comes to the home

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While not exactly kept under the tightest of wraps as WinFS was until it was unveiled, to everyone’s surprise, on a previous Microsoft PDC (only to be axed from Windows Vista later on), the project known under the name “” has gone “gold”, which means it is of production-level quality by software terms. The gold code has been released to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), and we can expect retail “boxed” editions and actual server boxes to hit the shelves in the next two to three months.

So what is Windows Home Server, and is there really a need for a “server” for the home? Now that digital media has reached ubiquitous levels, and storage – be it in the form of expansion cards that come with almost every consumer device there is (cameras, digital audio players, even cell phones – who would’ve thought three years ago?), front-end solutions (Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 equipped with hard disk storage that slideshow photos and play video DVDs), we how have more-than-ever loaded operating systems that arguably pushed the digitization of the media we’ve previously enjoyed in other ways (Premium versions of Windows with Media Center functionality and Apple’s FrontRow front-end to iTunes, iPhoto and the rest). (I have not verified whether Windows Home Server actually supports operating systems other than Windows, but that’s just ludicrous.)

Windows Home Server is built on the same core as Windows Server 2003. Think of it as taking out unnecessary functionality and all other entry points into the operating system (no fancy Windows Media Player, or the outdated Address Book, heck, even Internet Explorer is nowhere to be found!). ALL, except one – a “website” (it’s really just running off the box where it is installed) that is accessed from one of the other computers in the network the Home Server appliance attaches to – where all activity central to maintaining available storage is performed.

Windows Home Server is meant to take as much storage as you can give it – RAID up all the hard drives you have from your retired home computers, plug in the external hard drive you forgot about since you got the laptop with a terabyte hard drive, and don’t forget the cheapo, standalone NAS box (network-attached storage) you bought and realized did not come with automation software – Windows Home Server pools it all: no drive letters to be concerned about, it’s all one huge container.

As a bonus, it is also from here you can monitor whether the rest of the computers in the network have the latest Windows updates, antivirus and malware signatures, disk fragmentation and file backup status; and automating the across-the-board updating process. Microsoft will also provide a means for the users to have access to their storage pool from across the globe via an interface in the WWW.

At this point I may be making it sound all too nice – and I can most definitely say it is. Once the idea is implemented effectively, and if the Home Server product works as you’d expect it to (read: without the security holes brought about by deep-level Internet Explorer integration). The idea of pooled storage alone even without the “control room” technology that’s only been seen in corporate setups until now is very enticing. If Windows Vista is any indication that Microsoft has had its act together, we’ll be in the lookout to get our hands wet on a final shipping product and give it a long, good review. Do watch out for a full run-down soon. #

Smarter Microsoft for a happier Windows

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Some weeks back, Google jumped at Microsoft for – or so the charge goes – making it difficult for third-party providers to implement desktop search solutions – in Windows Vista. Microsoft responded by promising a change in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 where desktop search options will be included in the “Program Defaults” control panel option. From here you can select built-in search, Google Desktop Search and whatnot. Microsoft insists that native search indexing is too baked into the core operating system that it’s impossible to shut it down altogether, but a link alongside each window’s search box results which they will be providing should compensate. End of story? Not just yet.

Google, probably thinking it has one-upped Microsoft, tries to push it even further, and started asking for something more than a link – a “step in the right direction”, but not quite. The funny thing that happened here? In a manner unlikely you expect of the DOJ, they actually sided with Microsoft and declared the concession “enough” already. Google shuts up. Turns out what seemed like a weakening Microsoft, giving in to Google so easily, was actually just being coy about the whole thing. The book of what was bound to be a lengthy series of lawsuits on a matter as focused as desktop search suddenly gets closed, and Microsoft gets away, with Vista relatively unscathed.

While we’re on the topic of Windows Vista SP1, you might have heard that Steven Sinofsky (from the Microsoft Office 2007 group) replaced the reverend Jim Allchin when he stepped out of Redmond’s campus. News is, all the transparency that was while under Allchin gets thrown out the door. No more roadmaps if only to drop features down the pike, no more release dates only to slip, none of that. I specifically remember only three points in Office 2007’s development, what was Sinofsky’s group at that time, where screenshots flooded the internet: (1) a peek at Office 12 immediately after Office 2003’s release, which made sense since people are always on the lookout for what’s next; (2) the limited-group Office 12 beta – which was over a year after the first; and (3) the unveiling of Office 12 at PDC 2005 (or was it WWDC?) with the Ribbon interface and the public beta that followed.

If that’s anything to go by, we’re likely to see less press fodder on a significantly smaller project such as a service pack over a full-fledged suite as Office. True enough, it’s already the end of July and we’ve heard practically nothing – and Microsoft is required by the US DOJ to have some form of Vista SP1 ready by November this year. On a more typical day we would’ve at least heard of a target date. Today? Nada. Zilch.

Turn down the aggression slider a notch, and play smart, not hard with the rest of the tech industry. Under-promise and over-deliver. Maybe Microsoft isn’t so dead after all.

Your first step towards online security awareness

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It seemed only yesterday when I first received my first phishing email: one fine and dandy Tuesday afternoon, I saw in my self-hosted mailbox what purported to be “PayPal” sent me a very lengthy (it was very lengthy, I tell thee!) email to verify my (at least the email said so) latest online purchase. The message was fancy in HTML, complete with the logo, pale blue PayPal-style border and all that jazz, with a confirmation link at the bottom. It took me a few minutes to realize, and thankfully I did, that I actually used my Gmail account to register for PayPal instead! (I would also like to point out that Gmail with its community-driven spam mail filtering system catches more malicious messages than any man-is-an-island, self-hosted solutions. Go Web 2.0 and community!)

Finally, an online test that’s worth spending some time on: McAfee SiteAdvisor has set up a 10-item quiz that test your mad, l33t phish-catching skillz with screen captures that range from funny grammar to poorly-recreated company logos and spotting the badges of certifying third-party body.

For a 10-item quiz, I certainly took a longer time and zapped more brain neurons to complete this one. Sometimes the hoaxes are not immediately identifiable until you actually read the miles-long texts (even bordering to what looks like a magazine article bleeding with already-proof-read draft with red pen marks all over).

Phishing is not all FUD. It is a real threat that has cost millions in the offline world. Read all about phishing here. Also thanks to my friend Arbet for tipping me in.

How did you fare? Here are my results:

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Taking portable browsing to the next level

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This would be the first of Fire Eye’d Boy’s software picks for the power users. No better way to start than with my favourite killer duo: Portable Firefox with Google Browser Sync

The first piece of the puzzle is Portable Firefox; if you’ve been living under a rock, Firefox is the alternative to that blue “e” you’re so familiar with, only with a bajillion more ways to make it work the way you want it to. The “Portable” part of the name is just that – it’s a version that extracts (like a ZIP file), say, to a USB thumb drive, that you can run from there without having to install the vanilla version on every PC you use. In our little experiment, we’ll put it in a folder in the network, say, \\FileServer01\User\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable.

Image credits to www.versiontracker.com

The other piece is a wonderful little Firefox add-on: Google Browser Sync. What it does is put all of your cookies and saved passwords, even bookmarks, browsing history and opened tabs and windows – up in the “cloud” (that’s tech-speak for a remote server, or servers) where you can access them from anywhere, given that this add-on sized at roughly the tenth of a megabyte (that’s 115 KB for those with OCD) is installed. Launch our FirefoxPortable.exe (why .exe, you say? Honestly now, how many all-Mac network environments are out there?) from the FirefoxPortable folder and browse to the download page. After restarting Firefox, signing in with a Google account is necessary (who doesn’t have one these days?)

Image credits to moz.sillydog.org

How is it in real-life use? In our little experiment, Google Browser Sync complements Portable Firefox such that you can take your Firefox from anywhere in the network (which is already an excellent thing on its own). When I get home, I jump onto Firefox on the Mac (yes, the system is OS-independent) and it takes all the bookmarks and passwords I entered while I was in the office, all without having to recreate my Blogroll RSS lists and re-entering my passwords each time.

Image credits to www.tinyscreenfuls.com

If this works for you, or if you know of any other Firefox add-ons that take portability even more notches higher, hit me up with a comment.

What [that darned phone] tells about the next iPod

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(My apologies for the title; I did not want to upset anybody with yet another iPhone article, or so some might think if I used the iPhone word)

Now that the immaculate phone of multiple facets is finally out the door, we can finally start looking into the next generation of iPods, like any true Apple fanboy. Apple is a company with the most extreme of marketing strategies and generally play its cards close to the chest. And while they never had a history of making product announcements until they are made available on that same day, last Friday’s events will certainly go down as the release date for another product that’s been pre-announced (oh, how times have changed) – and for a stealthily-slipped note about “OS X based iPods currently in development”.


Never been an iPod like this

Yes, I think El Jobso just said they’ll be OS X based.

Why exactly would you need a full-blown OS on an iPod, when it’s already come under 5 non-OS X based reiterations, each one having contributed to the mega success that the iPod now is? Why did the iPhone forego the long-hailed touch-wheel experience in favor of coverflow and ticking, the new paradigm for the iPhone’s iPod application?

I think we’re about to see a complete about-face from the wheel paradigm of 2001, when the first iPod was released. Facts point to the likelihood of an iPhone without the phone:

A full-screen experience. Actually, I’d be surprised if it didn’t come in full-screen, multi-touch goodness. The iPhone demonstrates the maturity of touch technology, and that Apple can implement it the right way. My mobile phone has it, my laptop has it; when you’ve had a taste of touch control, you’ll never go back. Throw in the nifty orientation sensor as well and you’ve got yourself a winner.

No click wheels. Or touch wheels. Just pure cover flow and flicking bliss. Contrary to the most popular renditions with virtual click wheels, the iPhone’s iPod’s new way to navigate through your library shows very well how a wheel is not the most efficient way, a flawed one even, to implement and take advantage of a fully touch-sensitive screen. (well who said it’ll be full-screen and with multi-touch anyway? if it ain’t, I’ll be dead)

Image by Engadget
No, it can’t be this retarded

Integrated speakers and out-of-the-box recording. If Apple wanted to save time and get the new babies out the door by the year-end shopping season, they’ll settle with an iPhone and leave the internal speaker and mic intact. Then it’s easy enough to implement recording and speaker output on software, all the more since it’s got all the OS X love it can get. In any case, these two features have been a long time coming on the iPods considering how a lot of the competition has them.

Wi-fi, a la Zune. Then again, maybe not like the Zune’s paltry excuse for Wi-fi “features”. If it’s got OS X and can run Safari and iTunes iPod in there, then I see no reason why the iTunes Store would be a far cry. So keep that iPhone wi-fi module in there, Apple. Please? Thank you.

Anything else I may have overlooked? Hit me up with a comment or two below, or here.

Is Google showing signs of growing pains?

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In a move that will potentially position me as Gadzooki’s official Google warden (after Mac basher, Microsoft fanboy, and what-have-you), today we will delve into the wonderful world of technology politics making it more obvious that Google is not an industry sweetheart out to just spread the love. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Google is laying out (and probably already has!) the foundations of its world domination schemes.

Earlier this week they already took center stage for whining to the authorities about how Microsoft, with Windows Vista, is making it difficult and unfair to third parties who think they can do a better job at local/desktop search. Google’s contention is that like the browser and mail client and media player applications, local search is central to the end-user experience and that Microsoft should play the field as such and provide means for alternate solutions. Surprisingly, Microsoft announced that Vista’s first service pack will indeed provide this means, via a socket in the already-existent Default Programs dialog, which itself was an outcome of a previous ruling against Microsoft’s perceived monopoly. Google then recognized this “step” in resolving the issue, and looks forward to a fairer move (read: put competitors in equal footing with native Vista search) to ultimately end this tussle.

Here’s an über-burger analogy: should Burger King put a McDonalds’ Big Mac poster next to one with a Whopper right in their own stores because McDonalds makes better burgers? I didn’t think so.

Another big story of the week: a post entitled “Life at Google” over at the freshly-minted No2Google blog details the culture and goings-on of life Google. While it says “The Microsoftie Perspective” right up front, there appears no official Microsoft financing whatsoever (frankly, something like this from the Redmond camp will put them at a bad rep, plus I’d figure they’d change the theme to something other than the WordPress default). It makes for a very interesting read, if not to only have a better insight at who’s been brewing all these very compelling services.

Does the future bode well for Google? With the amount of dependency we as the internet community have grown, it certainly does not look like Google is going away anytime soon. The closest thing I see to “fall down”, or “demise” if that’s even a valid argument against Google, is the very essence of what Web 2.0 is – the No2Google blog is already a crack in the ice – in the end, democracy in the Web prevails, and those who power and drive this new age on the Web will not let them get away with more than what they should; be it Google, or Microsoft, or any other evil empire.

No, desktop mail is not dead just yet!

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If you happen to have lived your early- to mid-teen years in the late 90’s, you realize those years have greatly influenced your habits both online and offline. This was the height of the first dot-com era, when Yahoo! and Hotmail doled it out on a battle for audience share. Incidentally, this was also the time when people were weaned away from Eudora and the now-forgotten Netscape Messenger, among others, and the new age of web mail has dawned.

And it wasn’t a very bad thing. Browsers were able to cope up with their new role as desktop mail replacement clients. Fast forward to 2004 and Google unleashes Gmail with extensive use of AJAX, and it seemed like desktop mail is gone for good. It didn’t help either that Outlook Express (bundled with Windows) the earliest of which I remember is Windows 98, and even up to Windows Mail bundled with Windows Vista (more like putting lipstick on an old, farting pig) – is really just a farcically inept cough-up of Microsoft’s own cash cow of an enterprise (Exchange) mail client, Microsoft Outlook.

Me however, being a a tech hippie wannabe and a Windows fanboy, etc., and one who would want to do it another way when everyone else does it this way, started playing with old-school clients like Eudora (whose interface I never got wrapping my head around with), then eventually, and for the longest time, Mozilla Thunderbird (my attachment to Firefox of which is the primary reason).

To the dot-com babies who know no mail other than web mail (those at most in their early 20’s), using a desktop client’s biggest advantage is being able to funnel multiple email accounts into one single interface. If you’re like me with different accounts all over the place, a desktop client makes managing (read, reply, etc) your messages just a little less of a pain, and you can use a single account for all outbound email. You’ll need either a POP3- or an IMAP4-enabled service: most services offer either. If your email service is managed via cPanel, you’ll find the settings in a little option called “Configure Outlook” under Email > Manage Accounts in the main page.

Yahoo! Mail does neither POP nor IMAP, which is sad, where most of Asia’s netizens are dependent. For the rest of the world, though (read: America) Windows Live Hotmail is holding steadfast, and is now tightly tied to Windows Live Mail, and is the easiest one I’ve seen without the messy configuration screens other desktop clients are guilty of.

Tip for the geeks: IMAP > POP. Think of it this way: POP forces you to download your messages as they come, and when shuffling between email clients (your smart phone, the one in your personal laptop that you carry around, the desktop you have at work) – you’ll have messages scattered across each station and this defeats the everything-everywhere premise of desktop mail.

IMAP, however, synchronizes everything, anywhere you try to access it from. Since Google Mail cheaped out on us by implementing POP over IMAP, you can work around this limitation by using an intermediate service with IMAP, such as AIM Mail.

(1) Set up your client’s incoming settings to hose emails from your AIM Mail’s IMAP service; (2) set Gmail to forward ALL email to your AIM Mail; (3) set up your mail client to send email via your Gmail’s SMTP service.

Windows Live Mail’s interface is very much Outlook 2003-ish, here with Windows Vista’s Aero treatment:

Junk Mail controls that don’t work just yet:

Reality check (stoking the fire long after the Apple fanboys vs Ryan Block faux pas)

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Short version of the title story: Engadget reports “they have it on authority” that the iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard will be delayed; Apple’s stocks go down; the whole thing was found to be a kludge; Apple’s stocks shot right back up.

The story doesn’t end there, however. The debacle stirred the Mac faithful, and illogical, inconsistent, and irrelevant attacks were all there was to find among rabid Mac fanboys’ podcasts and blogs (no need for a link there, that’s a whole lot of pimping work). Surprised? You must have been sitting duck with your Windows 98 machine without an internet connection, but that’s just because you’re careful of catching the latest attacks against the NT kernel and how the whole thing succumbs to a sneaky little mouse cursor like a house of cards.

While on the topic of Mac fanboys polling against the NT kernel employed in Windows 2000, XP and now Vista (albeit reworked every step up): it’s amusing how they still use the eons-dated argument about Windows being so much less stable than Macs. There is not even need for technical knowledge to understand what’s going on here: the more factors that come into play, the better flexibility there is to the system, and the more odds there are that something will go wrong. We suddenly begin to wonder, is the world lacking common sense nowadays?

Which leads me to a bit wisdom my girlfriend taught me: if one finds something seemingly too expensive, he is not the market segment targeted at, and the call at which price point products and services are offered does not fall on the consumer. The only one consideration on pricing is how much the consumer is willing to pay for the products – nothing more, nothing less.

There is something utterly disgusting about all forms of fanboy-ism and reality distortion. (Yes, the earth is flat and I would not have it any other way if the authorities say so.) Members of the religion I instituted that is Tech Agnosticism also do not understand how is it logical to attribute abhorrence of a certain technology to the personalities that run the companies that make them. Finally, there is something utterly shammy about using strong language against the anti-fanboys in the public space that is the Internet, and then taking offense when one is dealt with in the same unfriendly manner.

Jumping to Windows Vista this early is a grin-and-bear-it proposition

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My Windows XP machine runs Blink. Compared to Symantec and McAffee’s monster suites, it’s very lightweight and has the least impact to the system by any other utility suites I’ve seen. This thing has everything – system and application firewall, intrusion detection, and protection against identity theft, malware, registry protection, and application and execution protection that work in tandem with data execution prevention for those sneaky rootkits the big, bad, and evil companies are itching to plant on your systems. The best part: the Personal Edition (with everything that’s been mentioned) is free* (disclaimer: this is not a paid ad).

Windows Vista users are out of luck, at least for the time being: it is currently not compatible, and this left my laptop (running Business Edition) out in the open interwubs for all evil-doers to prey on. While waiting on a Vista-compatible (currently in the works), I decided to get a free trial of Windows OneCare.

And then all hell broke loose. This same notebook running Vista has been beaconing system logs out into some remote server. Not that I keep information that is of great financial importance to anyone, but the thought of being compromised sends chills down my spine. Later on, I realized how I wrought it upon myself, as I had to open a number of ports to allow outbound traffic for testing utilities I need. It appears that the hackers have caught up to Vista’s defenses, and neither the third-party vendors nor Microsoft themselves are in their own game. I’ve since wiped my hard disk out. Against my own will, I’m sticking with the Norton suite that came with in the box until Blink for Vista is out. it’s Windows XP all over again: early adopters have to go through the new OS’s growing pains like guinea pigs.

(Of course, the root of all this evil is the proliferation of Windows itself. The crackers, seeking the widest user base possible that can be compromised choose Windows over the remaining 10% of the market left to Macs and other *nix-es.)

A totally unrelated rant: Windows’ bad habit of restarting itself after a system update without so much as a little note or two about shutting down your running applications and losing unsaved word does not sit well with me. Mac and *-nix users have it all too easy. The modular architecture of *-nix where there are no unnecessary associations and dependencies from one part of the operating system to another lets it sit quietly on its own for much longer. This puts even Windows Vista (and its supposedly reworked modular architecture) to shame, really.

* for US-based sign-ups.