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June 5, 2017If you still use Google Plus (Google+) for social networking you are one of the few, but if you don’t I guess you’re wondering why Google+ is still alive. Google is hanging onto Google Plus like musicians are hanging onto Myspace. A little history behind Google plus. Google Plus is the company’s fourth try at social networking following the failure of Google Buzz. Google+ launched in June 2011. Google Buzz – launched 2010, retired in 2011 Google Friend Connect – launched 2008, retired by March 1, 2012 Orkut – launched in 2004 retired in September 2014 The social network was considered a major competitor for Facebook and even forced Facebook to step up their game to match some of Google+ features. Google used their existing customer base and Google+’s enhanced properties, like Gmail, +1 button, Photos, Videos, and YouTube comments to push fast and hard growth. In 2015 Google announced a major redesign of the platform. In July in an effort to make YouTubers happy Google split off Google+ comments from YouTube and just let users go back to using their Gmail account. Google removed Google Plus from Google Hangouts as well. In March of 2016, Google hired 4Chan founder Chris “Moot” Poole and stated he will be helping Google create communities. A lot of buzz was around him possibly helping get Google+ off the ground there has been very little if anything heard from him since the announcement. Google Plus has been the very quiet regarding news releases, 9to5 Google reported: “Google+ getting improvements to UX, spam control, & moderation in coming months.” But besides that, it’s been since January when Techcrunch reported: “Google+ won’t go away”. The platform itself has very little news attention and had zero mention at Google I/O. Which I would like to point out...
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October 12, 2016It’s amazing to me at times in tech the tech world what’s old is now new again just in a different way. For example in the 70’s and 80’s everything was terminals and dial up modems connecting to a mainframe computer hosted at data center. Then in the 90’s Microsoft changed the industry by making servers and workstations affordable on local networks with the Windows client and server architecture. Then the industry changed again in 2007 with the release of the iPhone, broadband adoption and the cloud. What I am trying to get at is the recent push for messaging. Back in early 2000’s messaging was all the rage as AOL, MSN, Yahoo and ICQ fought to be the instant messenger that everyone used on daily basis. Slowly over time as social media and SMS messaging got adopted instant messaging started becoming less since if you were not at your computer it really was not an instant message. Users started making phone calls, sending SMS text messages and receiving email on their phones. At that point instant messaging started to die out. Then with the release of the iPhone and Android the cultures shifted again. Talking on the phone has become less and less the messaging war has returned. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Snapchat and Apple are the big players trying to win the messaging war with users this time around. Google has Hangouts, Allo, and Duo all doing different things in different places to try and draw you into their messaging echo system. Google with the popularity of Gmail, Google Apps for Education and Business (now called G Suite) gets users to use Hangouts as part of Gmail. YouTube uses Google Hangouts as part of its live offerings for content creators all designed to push users into Google messaging experience....
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October 2, 2016This week on the show were giving you the news from Microsoft Ignite. We talk about me switching from iPhone to Android and using a Chromebook as my daily machine. We discuss the whole messaging war between Google, Microsoft and Facebook. Google rebranding Google Apps For Work as G Suite to compete with Office 365. We talk about new Roku devices and Google Chromecast plus much more…… Join Me Today As We Talk About…. Skype Google Allo Windows Hello Peripherals Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 Blackberry No Longer Making Hardware Microsoft Teases OneDrive Placeholder Office 365 Analytics Roku Introduces a New Streaming Player Lineup Google Audiocast Disney interested in buying Twitter Windows 10 is Now on 400 Million Devices Microsoft Authenticator for iPhone iPhone 7 Secret Headphone Jack And Much More…
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March 24, 2014Do you want to become cleverer at once? Google put on the market a new version of the “clever eyeglasses”. Google released a new, complete and renovated version of its “clever spectacles” that is called Google Glass. Besides, the Internet giant reports about the widening of the testing program of the Internet spectacles by opening the access to this gadget to nearly twenty-four thousand of people. The renewed version of the eyeglasses a little differs from the first one. Perhaps, the main difference that has a new version is an existence of one headphone, which the first version didn’t have. Additionally, software was renewed in the second output. In this case, they became bigger and heavier, that is not convenient for the users. The representatives of Google approve that an earphone in Glass can be disconnected from the device and its usage isn’t necessary. Within the next several weeks the number of testers within the Glass Explorers program will be increased, because every of the current users of the glasses will be able to invite three men for testing. Initially, eyeglasses received about eight thousand of testers, and now this number can treble. Let’s remind that Google distributes spectacles to testers not free, but for charge of $1500. Besides, the testers must be in the USA and have the possibility to go to New York or San Francisco, where they can buy these spectacles. It is told that it is necessary to show the invitation and pay $1500 and then, wait for the delivery of the spectacles to the house or in the office. “The bigger number of users means the bigger number of feedbacks and the bigger number of the feedbacks means the product of the highest quality” – Google informed. Let’s note that the company starts delivering newer...
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March 5, 2014An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away There seems to be a new collaboration in town. Apple and Google and…healthcare? Recently, Google has announced its smart contact lens project, which could have a profound impact on the monitoring of glucose levels for diabetes patients. But Google isn’t alone in its dreams to venture into healthcare. Apple too, has announced plans to introduce an iWatch that will also monitor health concerns. Image Source: Enfuzed.com That’s right: Apple has plans to expand its arsenal of products to wearable computers and medical sensor devices. Fans of Apple have been looking forward to this kind of wearable tech for awhile now, but this time, the company plans to increase its focus and resources on the project. And it was just recently that Apple had the chance to collaborate with engineers, scientists, and managers skill in biomedical technologies, fitness, and glucose sensors. In addition to hiring a new time of specialists, Apple has also met with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials. This development, coupled with the rumors of the new technology, could indicate the direction in which Apple is heading. While it’s still in the developmental stages, designers of the iWatch are aiming for a 1.5-inch display with “full” iOS, biometrics and other sensors, and a 4-5 day battery life. If all goes according to plan, we might be hearing about a release date for late 2014. And what’s a device without an app? Jeff Williams, Senior Vice President of Operations at Apple, and the Vice President of Software Technologies, Bud Tribble, met with FDA officials late last year to talk about developing mobile medical applications. Apple is also said to be working on a product labeled “Healthbook,” which will be designed specifically for tracking health metrics. Supposedly,...
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January 16, 2014Google will release an update to the mobile version of Chrome, which promises to decrease data usage while browsing by as much as 50%. The iOS update will also include Google Translate, which translates webpages while browsing. Google announced the upcoming changes to its browser Wednesday in a blog post, saying, “In the U.S. alone, more than a fifth of adult smartphone users now do most of their online browsing on their mobile device.1 Around the world, we’re seeing a similar trend towards more mobile browsing. That’s why we’ll be rolling out a new feature on Chrome for Mobile to help you reduce data usage and save money on your mobile plan. When enabled, Chrome’s data compression and bandwidth management can reduce data usage by up to 50% while browsing the web on Chrome for Android and iOS. This feature also enables Chrome’s Safe Browsing technology which helps protect you from malicious webpages.” To start saving data and turn on an even more secure browsing experience, visit “Settings” > “Bandwidth management” > “Reduce data usage.” Then simply turn the toggle to “On.” From this menu, you’ll also be able to track how much bandwidth you save each month as you browse on Chrome. This is a huge update for users as the majority of cell phone users now have limited data plans not unlimited anymore.
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December 27, 2013Googlebot is Google’s web crawling robot, which finds and retrieves pages on the web and hands them off to the Google indexer. It’s easy to imagine Googlebot as a little spider scurrying across the strands of cyberspace, but in reality Googlebot doesn’t traverse the web at all. It functions much like your web browser, by sending a request to a web server for a web page, downloading the entire page, then handing it off to Google’s indexer. Googlebot gives the indexer the full text of the pages it finds. These pages are stored in Google’s index database. This index is sorted alphabetically by search term, with each index entry storing a list of documents in which the term appears and the location within the text where it occurs. This data structure allows rapid access to documents that contain user query terms. To improve search performance, Google ignores (doesn’t index) common words called stop words (such as the, is, on, or, of, how, why, as well as certain single digits and single letters). Stop words are so common that they do little to narrow a search, and therefore they can safely be discarded. The indexer also ignores some punctuation and multiple spaces, as well as converting all letters to lowercase, to improve Google’s performance. In Google Webmaster Tools the Google Index section allows to make changes and monitor how you site is being indexed. The Google Index section has 3 parts Index Status, Content Keywords and Remove URLs. For more information on Google Webmaster Tools Google Index Section watch the video below.
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August 29, 2013Microsoft is relying even more on the opportunities provided by the cloud technology. Microsoft is said to be working on come up with a cloud operating system that is specially meant for government purposes. From what we know the name of the Operating System will be Fairfax. Government agencies already use two of Microsoft’s basic cloud products Windows Azure and Windows Server. A Microsoft government cloud OS would be, in some ways, similar to the Office 365 for Government offering which Microsoft rolled out a year ago. Office 365 for Government is a multi-tenant service that stores US government data in a segregated community cloud. This Cloud OS for government would not run in Microsoft’s datacenters, instead, it would be a customized variant of Windows Server, with physical servers residing on site at government locations. A cloud operating system designed for governments agencies would not only give Microsoft a serious advantage over the competition but will also contributed to the increase of company’s authority in its field. Google tried something like this years ago with Google Apps for Government. Google did have quite a few entities move over to the cloud system Boston replaced Microsoft Exchange with Gmail and the Governor’s Office of Colorado now uses Google apps for government. At Berkeley Labs, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, the labs have migrated more than 4,000 users to Gmail and expect to see $1.5 million to $2 million in savings over five years, Google officials said. The National Archives and Records Administration has become the latest federal agency to move to cloud-based email and applications. Companies like Unisys have become full fledge consultants migrating government agencies from existing environments to Google apps. The National Archives and Records Administration has become the latest federal agency to move to...
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Two security engineers for Google say the company will now support researchers publicizing details of critical vulnerabilities under active exploitation just seven days after they’ve alerted a company. That new grace period leaves vendors dramatically less time to create and test a patch than the previously recommended 60-day disclosure deadline for the most serious security flaws. The goal, write Chris Evans and Drew Hintz, is to prompt vendors to more quickly seal, or at least publicly react to, critical vulnerabilities and reduce the number of attacks that proliferate because of unprotected software. Vendors have long been criticized for using responsible disclosure to their advantage to delay issuing a fix as long as possible, sometimes even years. Only once a patch is issued does a researcher reveal details of the software flaw. Under the concept of full disclosure, both the company and the public are given details at the same time. The 60-day notice was announced almost three years ago by a Google security team, which included Evans, as a compromise between full and responsible disclosures for critical vulnerabilities, particularly those that require complex coding to fix. But the regular appearance of zero-day exploits targeting unpatched software has prompted Google to reconsider that timeline. Read Full Article