Been kinda busy, so this will just be a brief collection of links. I will comment on some things later on today, hopefully.
First off, Google Spreadsheets! It's a funny thing that the article doesn't mention OpenOffice, which, as far as I know, offers the full MS Office Suite.
Next, after a year of waiting, the Nokia N91. Apparently pretty lack-luster, despite (or maybe because of) a year of hype.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Friday, June 02, 2006
Opera and eBay: together at last
What, weren't you waiting for it? You weren't? Oh. Well, that's okay. I wasn't, either.
Just a quickie update. Found this at, yes, The Register. Yummy, Opera's increasing its distribution by joining up with content providers, this time eBay.de.
I've been a fan of the Opera browser ever since it was first introduced to me like six years ago by a very technologically forward friend of mine (thanks, Thomas!). Now, I have both Firefox and Opera installed on every machine I use. (This is despite the fact that when Firefox first came out, I got very annoyed with it because it was (1) huge; (2) didn't work out of the "box" and crashed my machine during installation; (3) boldly and arrogantly claimed tabbed browsing was a new thing; (4) lacked mouse gestures...I could go on, but I won't. I'm over it. Really, I am. .. So over it.) Anyway, when OperaMini first started to show up on mobiles, I became very happy because I think it's an awesome product. I hope Opera Mini eBay does well because I want Opera to do well, although I think that the co-branding is rather cheesy. What they should do, or at least what I hope they'll do, is bundle the additions they're building into OperaeBay into a newer release of Mini and have it become the new mobile browsing standard.
On a side note, I will review the Nokia 770 soon (the browser loaded on that is also provided by Opera).
On another side note, find ComputerWorld's review and tour of Windows Vista (Beta2) here. To save you the suspense (and maybe whet your appetite), here's a tasty nugget:
"Where does Windows Vista fit among many of the PC-based operating systems of today and the last couple of decades? With Beta 2 running on multiple test units, I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability. It's hard to beat Apple's top-notch GUI design grafted onto an implementation of Unix variant BSD. Mac OS X has excellent reliability, security and usability. That isn't to say that the user interface wouldn't gain if Apple adopted some other best ideas of the day, but Apple has the best operating system this year, last year and next year. It'll be interesting to see what the company delivers in its 10.5 Leopard version of Mac OS X."
Yummy.
Just a quickie update. Found this at, yes, The Register. Yummy, Opera's increasing its distribution by joining up with content providers, this time eBay.de.
I've been a fan of the Opera browser ever since it was first introduced to me like six years ago by a very technologically forward friend of mine (thanks, Thomas!). Now, I have both Firefox and Opera installed on every machine I use. (This is despite the fact that when Firefox first came out, I got very annoyed with it because it was (1) huge; (2) didn't work out of the "box" and crashed my machine during installation; (3) boldly and arrogantly claimed tabbed browsing was a new thing; (4) lacked mouse gestures...I could go on, but I won't. I'm over it. Really, I am. .. So over it.) Anyway, when OperaMini first started to show up on mobiles, I became very happy because I think it's an awesome product. I hope Opera Mini eBay does well because I want Opera to do well, although I think that the co-branding is rather cheesy. What they should do, or at least what I hope they'll do, is bundle the additions they're building into OperaeBay into a newer release of Mini and have it become the new mobile browsing standard.
On a side note, I will review the Nokia 770 soon (the browser loaded on that is also provided by Opera).
On another side note, find ComputerWorld's review and tour of Windows Vista (Beta2) here. To save you the suspense (and maybe whet your appetite), here's a tasty nugget:
"Where does Windows Vista fit among many of the PC-based operating systems of today and the last couple of decades? With Beta 2 running on multiple test units, I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability. It's hard to beat Apple's top-notch GUI design grafted onto an implementation of Unix variant BSD. Mac OS X has excellent reliability, security and usability. That isn't to say that the user interface wouldn't gain if Apple adopted some other best ideas of the day, but Apple has the best operating system this year, last year and next year. It'll be interesting to see what the company delivers in its 10.5 Leopard version of Mac OS X."
Yummy.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Now taking bets. The stakes are high, and there's no pointspread info yet, but the winner will likely take all:
QualSoft vs. NokiAppleTI.
Ahh, divisive battles in the war of convergent devices and technologies.
Get info (and lots of background) regarding Qualcomm and Microsoft alliance here.
Get info (and not so much background) regarding Nokia, Apple and TI (well, really just Nokia, but I like saying "NokiApple") here.
In the QualSoft corner, this snippet:
"Qualcomm and Microsoft have a lot in common, and not just intense scrutiny by anti-trust authorities and huge market influence. They share some key strategic goals, notably leadership of the emerging mobile content and media industry, and control of the device architectures for this sector. They are both venturing out of markets where their dominant position is almost unchallengeable in to new waters where they face different and powerful competitors.
This means they also share several common enemies, most importantly Nokia. So, while the close alliance hinted at by last week's announcement of a smartphone collaboration may be seen in parts of the wireless industry as the gathering of the forces of darkness, it is also highly pragmatic and shows the two giants huddling together for warmth as they face increasingly critical challenges in the world of ubiquitous connectivity and mobile multimedia."
And in the Nokia corner, this snippet:
"Nokia has been licensing Series 60, which runs on the Symbian smartphone operating system, to other vendors in a bid to create a de facto standard. This effort has gained importance as the competitive differentiation on high end handsets has shifted from the operating system itself to the higher layers, notably the user interface and browser.
Gaining multivendor support for Series 60 was the first step in the effort to take, on mobile devices, the role enjoyed by Microsoft on the PC – thereby mounting a major challenge to the Windows giant as enterprise and consumer activity shifts inexorably from the PC to mobile devices.
The next stage is to go fully open source, with the aim of accelerating uptake and creating a major developer community – always Microsoft's trump card in any battle against Windows and the .Net software architecture."
Yummy. Agi has the Nokia 770 (the wi-fi tablet that's NOT a phone, referenced in the article), by the way, and it's awesome. I might review that at some point.
I really hope it goes Nokia's way--they're so much more innovative, I find, and I'm tired of Microsoft, and Qualcomm's BREW, while cool, is very restrictive even from a user's perspective. As the article mentions, QualSoft's alliance is a gathering of dark forces in the mobile industry.
QualSoft vs. NokiAppleTI.
Ahh, divisive battles in the war of convergent devices and technologies.
Get info (and lots of background) regarding Qualcomm and Microsoft alliance here.
Get info (and not so much background) regarding Nokia, Apple and TI (well, really just Nokia, but I like saying "NokiApple") here.
In the QualSoft corner, this snippet:
"Qualcomm and Microsoft have a lot in common, and not just intense scrutiny by anti-trust authorities and huge market influence. They share some key strategic goals, notably leadership of the emerging mobile content and media industry, and control of the device architectures for this sector. They are both venturing out of markets where their dominant position is almost unchallengeable in to new waters where they face different and powerful competitors.
This means they also share several common enemies, most importantly Nokia. So, while the close alliance hinted at by last week's announcement of a smartphone collaboration may be seen in parts of the wireless industry as the gathering of the forces of darkness, it is also highly pragmatic and shows the two giants huddling together for warmth as they face increasingly critical challenges in the world of ubiquitous connectivity and mobile multimedia."
And in the Nokia corner, this snippet:
"Nokia has been licensing Series 60, which runs on the Symbian smartphone operating system, to other vendors in a bid to create a de facto standard. This effort has gained importance as the competitive differentiation on high end handsets has shifted from the operating system itself to the higher layers, notably the user interface and browser.
Gaining multivendor support for Series 60 was the first step in the effort to take, on mobile devices, the role enjoyed by Microsoft on the PC – thereby mounting a major challenge to the Windows giant as enterprise and consumer activity shifts inexorably from the PC to mobile devices.
The next stage is to go fully open source, with the aim of accelerating uptake and creating a major developer community – always Microsoft's trump card in any battle against Windows and the .Net software architecture."
Yummy. Agi has the Nokia 770 (the wi-fi tablet that's NOT a phone, referenced in the article), by the way, and it's awesome. I might review that at some point.
I really hope it goes Nokia's way--they're so much more innovative, I find, and I'm tired of Microsoft, and Qualcomm's BREW, while cool, is very restrictive even from a user's perspective. As the article mentions, QualSoft's alliance is a gathering of dark forces in the mobile industry.
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