Google Wave Will Be More Like a Tsunami

Google's many development teams have given us some great stuff through the years. Google Search, Blogger, Gmail, and their recent acquisition of YouTube are just some of the highlights of how this tech powerhouse in Mountain View, CA drives us to increase the potential of what we can do with the internet.
Hold on to your hats, because later this year Google is going to release to the masses a communications platform so dynamic and powerful that some people are already throwing around the term "e-mail killer."
I'm talking about Google Wave. It's a first-of-its-kind internet communication protocol that will allow you to communicate with friends, co-workers, family or anyone in a more advanced way than e-mail or even instant messaging can support. In fact, this new platform is sort of what you'd get if you mixed e-mail, instant messaging and microblogging (like Twitter) and served them up in a bulletin board/chat room.
You can use it to share photos or videos with friends, and everyone is able to respond in near-instantaneous real-time with replies,comments, tagging, etc...all at the same time. Co-workers can collaborate on projects the same way; everyone has a hand in creating and revising the project moment-by-moment, with the ability to see every step of the developing project, who made which changes, and have multiple conversations about it.
In short, this is going to be revolutionary in much the same way that cell phones, e-mail or instant messaging were when they first became popular with the general public. Not many of us saw much of a use for those beforehand, and now we don't want to do without them because they changed the way we communicate.
The best part of this is that it isn't proprietary. Google is not sitting on this protocol. From the beginning of their development of Google Wave back in late 2007/early 2008, they've designed it to be Open Source. This will allow other companies (like Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Mozilla, etc) to create a Wave service or client and develop plug-ins and applications for it.
It's still in development currently, meaning that average users won't see it for several months. Meanwhile, if you want to know more, hit the highlighted link a few paragraphs back...or watch Google Wave Developer Preview over at YouTube. It's 1 hour, 20 minutes in length, so if you don't have time now, just bookmark it for later. Also, don't let the title scare you away...it was recorded at Google's Developer conference for tech geeks, but there's plenty of simple explanation for the rest of us.

Read more...

Two Great Freeware Disk Utilities: AusLogics Disk Defrag, CCleaner

Not long ago, I found that there are loads of useful freeware utilities out there. I know that many Windows users are content with the default utilities found in the "System and Maintenance' menu of Windows Explorer...that is, if they take it upon themselves to perform upkeep.
In the interest of learning to do things for myself, I stumbled across a couple of awesome software utilities for Windows hard disk maintenance. And both of them are free to download. Now, since we are tech novices here, I'm going to give you my advice: Before you actually download, install, and use these or any other utilities...educate yourself on what it does, how to use it. The sites linked below have lots of useful information you'll want to look at, and you'll also want to remember that friendly search bar in your browser.

First up, CCleaner. It has been said that the name used to be "Crap Cleaner," but that the C now represents the C drive on a computer (the most common letter designation for the hard drive).
Since I'm not a hardcore techie, and you're probably not either, I'll put it in understandable terms. It cleans your hard disk; removing the temporary files that build up every time you download and/or install software, move files, change files...almost anytime you do anything. As you can imagine, all those temporary files (most of which are unnecessary) begin slowing down your performance because they're lurking all over the hard drive. Besides removing those temporary files, CCleaner also has an uninstall tool, a startup menu tool (to make your machine start a little faster), and a Registry Integrity Tool (I'm still learning about this one). It's recommended that CCleaner be used regularly. That can mean once a day, once a week, whatever...of course, the longer between cleanings, the more you'll notice the sluggishness creeping back into your computer's performance.

Great, now you've gotten rid of all that crap. Follow it up with Auslogics Disk Defragmenter. Why? Because even temporary files leave holes when they get deleted. And don't forget about all the things you've consciously and purposely deleted recently. Those applications you've uninstalled and the spaces left when you move files, blah, blah, blah. This particular disk utility works a bit better than the default available on Windows. All you really have to do is open it up and turn it on. It's a nice and easy follow up to CCleaner.

I'll say it again: Educate yourself. In using these utilities or any other, a little research goes a long way. If you don't know what something is, look it up.

Coming Soon: Amazon Kindle 2 is here, Checking out Media Monkey, Chris Pirillo and Geeks.com

Read more...

The Compressed Backstory

Okay, so we start back in my childhood. Since I'm in my late thirties, that means the glorious '70s. Everyone was on the Bell system and, at my house, there was ONE wall-mounted rotary phone. By the way...I'll try to remember to post the Google Video link for the educational film I watched in Mrs. Mintz's second grade class; produced by AT&T and called "Telezonia," its sole purpose was to teach elementary school students about telephone use and all of the magical things the "Phone Company" could do.
Let's not forget the other areas of life. Television (in the Chicago metro area) consisted of ABC, CBS, NBC, WGN, WTTW (PBS), WFLD (Before it was FOX), and two Spanish-language channels: 26 and 44 (I have forgotten the station call letters). Back then we were rockin' the Vinyl LP's and 8-tracks. Before MTV, radio was everything...and no, I won't list all the great Chicago radio from the 70's. If you get it, you get it...if you don't, you don't.
As I grew up, I did stay a bit behind the times where tech is concerned. The main reason for this is being lower-middle class and not having the funds to jump on every tech development that came along...whether just a trend or 'here to stay." As a result, I kind of stayed with the "johnny-come-lately" theme.
I built up a huge cassette tape collection and didn't switch to CD's until the mid-90's, when no one was releasing new stuff on tape anymore. Never had a full-on stereo system; I just used those "boomboxes." Never had cable T.V. in my parents' home (they still don't), Though, these days, I'm not watching T.V. anyway. Internet? I had a brief encounter with it in the early 90's, and while the concept blew me away, I didn't think it had any practical uses for me at the time. I finally got an email account in 2001, and had to use an "Internet cafe" for a while. Nothing wrong with those, but if it's your only source for Internet, even moderate usage adds up to big $$. I held out on a cellphone until early 2002, when I ditched my land line and got a Cingular prepaid phone. That didn't last long, because I had seriously misjudged my usage and it seemed I was forever loading more and more minutes, spending way too much. At the moment I'm with Sprint PCS, but I have an upcoming change to AT&T Wireless (and whatever tasty smartphone/PDA I end up with). What really brought me up to date, and has shortened my tech lag time, was moving in with my former roommate in 2004. He's an Internet/Systems tech, so his PC (Windows XP) along with all the hardware and gadgety goodness really has given me an education.
I moved out of his place a year ago, got my own little Toshiba laptop with a Sprint Mobile Broadband (Sierra Wireless Aircard 595U), Vista Home Premium (don't hate...pre-loaded Vista is not as problematic as "upgrading" XP to Vista) and should soon be adding a home Internet connection.
So, there you have it. As you can see, I fall somewhere in the middle (along with most people) between "total tech noob" and "grand supreme tech guru." I'm neither bragging, nor putting myself down. I'm an average end user who learns when he needs to, and is a fairly quick study.

Read more...