Software

Why companies should not invest in online monitoring

“If the news is that important, it will find me.” source This one of the most famous quotes in the last few years.  We do not only expect that news will find us, but also if we have a complaint about a product or service, we expect the manufacturer or the provider to find us [...]

Diaspora: by far not the ultimate social network (yet)

The way Facebook handles privacy (or not handles privacy) is a well known topic. Maybe less well known is Diaspora, which is positioning itself as an alternative for Facebook. Diaspora is, as they say: the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network.

Google Buzzkill or why I am a Luddite

You might have noticed that Google launched Buzz somewhat 12 hours ago. And since the fanboys are already cheering: I won’t be cheering, since I think it is not the best thing since sliced bread. Google tries (and fail) again to get one of the most important parts of the Internet: creating a massive social network.

Some reasons why I think Google will (again) not succeed with Buzz

Nobody cares about browsers

A lot of people seemed to be shocked that Google is advertising for their browser, Chrome. Even in the small town I live in (Spijkenisse) there is a multitude of bill boards which are promoting Google Chrome. However this is the only way to gain market share in a market in which people don’t care about your product.

Why Chrome OS (and Google phones) could fail

Google is a great company or as they state it: “we are not evil”. However not being evil isn’t enough in the current marketplace. You have to be more than not evil, you have to be helpful and if there is one thing Google isn’t, than it is being helpful.

Happy 5th Birthday Firefox!

Mozilla Firefox is 5 year’s old today. Firefox 1.0 was released on 9 November 2004. Perhaps Mozilla’s greatest achievement is that Firefox changed the IT industry. Five years ago, few web applications were considered viable alternatives to the desktop and Microsoft stated that the web browser was dead. Mozilla’s success prompted Apple and Google to [...]

Is Apple still the same company as 25 years ago?

Short answer: yes it is. Read this quote from a review from John C. Dvorak on the release of the Macintosh in 1984: San Francisco Examiner, John C. Dvorak, 19 Feb. 1984 The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes [...]

5 Google Wave robots you might like

Although I am still a bit of luddite regarding Google Wave (I still think it is just a Google thing, not something that will change our life dramatically), here a five robots that might add value to your wave experience: Eliza the robot shrink You might know Eliza from the old days, she is just [...]

Dropbox, it saves me

Due to my work I use many different desktops, laptops and other devices to store data on. Which isn’t really a problem anymore, since I use Dropbox. Dropbox allows me to store all my important documents (which I should be able to access all the time) online and it allows me to sync them to [...]

Posterous: being cool by using the uncool

A week ago I had mixed feelings about Posterous. And now I know why: Posterous uses a way that distributes its content that is uncool. Simple: sending email is not something the cool kids do, everybody is sending email daily. Therefore my first feelings about Posterous was that it was totally uncool. We are struggling [...]