One Shot Design

Google announced a Cloud Computing operating system targeted at netbooks. The announcement met with mitigated response. Some GNU/Linux users do feel that this initiative is adding to an already fragmented Linux panorama where Ubuntu seems to be standing out.

It almost went unnoticed, but Google has changed the Googlemail and Google apps status from beta to final, which suggest that the company is pleased with the level achieved. Google apps is ready for cloud computing and Googlemail and the calendar are well integrated with android, their operating system for mobile phones.

PC World posted a very useful article about tips on protecting your privacy on Facebook.

Avoid Facebook Disasters
Ignoring Facebook’s privacy options–some of them fairly new and not well known–can trip up the social-networking site’s users in a number of ways. Here are some that everyone who has a Facebook account should be aware of.

Read the full article here.

After several months of waiting and pondering I have decided to jump in and get an HTC Magic running Google’s Android platform.

The choice of a carrier was tricky. I eventually chose Orange, which would be the weakest network in Switzwerland, but they have extremely good costs for calls and roaming in Europe.

The first days, I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to type correctly. The best solution seems to be anticipating the fingertip roundess by typing a few millimeters closer to the dial center.

Update: Android is seamslessly integrated with online Google services. I can access my calendar, create and modify events; and gMail runs like push e-mail on Android. The first time I logged, the address book synced with my gMail contacts but the application seems to fail to refresh. I performed a soft reboot to achieve the result. I have also installed on my laptop a Thunderbird plugin called Zindus that consolidates and syncs the address books. Zindus syncs most address book fields between Thunderbird and gMail contacts, but street addresses have to be written manually.

Founded in 2002, British company Last.fm offers three complementary services: playing customized audio broadcasts on its corporate player, keeping track and statistics about of all the songs played or rated on one’s multimedia application, and building an extensive artist and songs database.

Failing to load music on the Last.fm player for the last few days, I logged onto their portal only to find out that Last.fm now asks users to register for a 3$ monthly fee. This comes as no surprise, considering that in order to be able to podcast copyrighted audio content, the company must have had a way of monetizing it. This seems to be a logical step two years after the company being acquired by CBS.