Tag Archives: google

Avoid Google+ lock-in by using Picasa with Dropbox

Posted on by
4

We all know that Picasa Web Albums will be shut down in 2013. Or given a lobotomy and renamed to Google+ Photos.

But desktop Picasa is a decent enough photo management tool that you can use without any reference to Picasa Web or Google+. And Dropbox is fab. However I find the Dropbox photo import mechanism both unreliable and crude. Everything gets dumped into one folder, and that’s when it works at all.

So I now have the best of both worlds by simply setting my Picasa Import folder to a Photos folder on Dropbox. Picasa handles everything locally with the camera and Dropbox syncs everything to the cloud.

My Second Spring Cleaning

Posted on by
Reply

We’re living in a new kind of computing environment. Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It’s been a long time since we have had this rate of change—it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago.

To make the most of these opportunities, I need to focus — otherwise I spread myself too thin and lack impact. So today I’m announcing some more closures, bringing the total to 70 Google features or services closed since my spring cleaning began in 2011:

  • I first used Google+ in 2011 in an effort to make it easy for me to discover and keep tabs on my favorite topics. While the product has a loyal following, over the years, my usage has declined. So, on March 14th, 2013, I retired Google+. Users and developers interested in alternatives can find me on Twitter, Facebook, App.Net, Github and Flickr.

Google Hangouts Extensions point to a richer Google+ Platform future

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday I read about a delightful project involving LEDs, Arduino, Processing, Node.js, Google+ and Google Hangouts.

I was originally interested due to the Arduino angle but then I realised there was something extremely powerful going on with Google+ Hangouts and had to dig in more.

Have a look at the video first, it’s an extremely cool mashing together of a bunch of things.

I’m not sure how the Hangouts Extensions and API announcements passed me by, but they are a really fantastic idea. To quote Google:

The Google+ Hangouts API allows you to develop collaborative apps that run inside of a Google+ Hangout. Hangout apps behave much like normal web apps, but with the addition of the rich, real-time functionality provided by the Hangouts APIs. Apps have the ability to control aspects of the user interface, synchronize data between hangout participants, and respond to various events in the hangout.

So in the video above, it’s a simple LED toggle that anyone on the Hangout can flick. The Google example mentions games but really anything involving user interaction is possible. I think I now understand how Red Bull managed to integrate a Twitter stream with the Live Hangout of Felix Baumgartner!

What else? Live Polls obviously. Did anyone use it to do realtime voting during last night’s presidential debate? The showcase also highlights Slideshare and Pulse News.

Whilst I am extremely impressed by the Hangouts API, it reminded me yet again of the giant hole at the heart of Google+. I’ve said it many times before but Facebook’s approach is still 100% correct. Provide a Platform and APIs and let developers/businesses provide the ideas and innovation. Facebook is a flavour factory, Google+ is currently vanilla only.

But the Hangout API and Extensions give me hope. If that type of wide-open functionality is made available in every part of Google+ (particularly Business and Local Pages), then Facebook has some real competition on its hands. That’s good for both Google and Facebook. And of course, us.

 

Google (and all of us) should revolutionise the interview process using @Sugru

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve interviewed many many people myself over the years and only hired two real duds in that time. Mostly I did it with gut rather than asking people to write code on a whiteboard or drilling them on software lifecycle. My aim was to get a sense of “can I work with this person?”, “does it look like they have a creative streak?” and “have they any interest in software outside of work?”.

Years ago, I even passed on the number one person in their year in Comp Sci in TCD because they ticked none of those boxes. They were just very smart, and I need a lot more.

I don’t know anything about the Google interview process apart from what I’ve heard about the crazy number of sessions and the silly logic puzzles. If true, I’d worry that you end up with a ton of people who all have a very similar profile.

Sugru’s post today about how Google commissioned them to do branded Sugru for Hiring Fairs suddenly made me realise that Sugru could totally change the way we all do interviews.

After the usual CV trawl with the person, hand them a few packets of sugru and a box of bits and pieces. Give them 20 minutes to do something interesting. If they come up with nothing, don’t hire.

What better way to see if someone really does have the type of creativity that is critical in this business?

 

Dear Vodafone/Meteor/O2, please give Google a hard slap from Irish Android Owners

Posted on by
Reply

The first Google Android phone went on sale in Ireland at the start of November 2009. It is now May 2010. And we still don’t have Paid Apps in Ireland. All of the networks are losing Android phone sales because of this and all of those people who have Android phone are pissed off and wishing they’d bought bloody iPhones.

What the hell is the hold up Google?

As I have posted here many times, I can stick a PAYG Three UK SIM in my phone when in Ireland and see all of the paid apps. I can then buy them in Google Checkout using my Irish Credit Card.

There is even an app out there to trick the phones into thinking there are not in Ireland to achieve the same thing.

So the problem is not technical.

Where is the problem? Taxation? Surely you have that sorted, given the billions you run through the Irish operations here?

Not setup to get your 30% cut? 30% of SFA is still SFA. The rev-share you’ll get in Ireland on App sales would barely cover petty cash for paper-clips in Mountain View.

I would guess that minimal revenue is the reason until you look at the list of enabled countries. It’s tiny. 

  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Canada
  • France
  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

And I don’t think I have seen that change in more than 6 months.

Wait a second. New Zealand? Are you kidding me?

Sort this.

Now.

 

Huge mistake by Google with Earth on Android

Posted on by
2

Today Google released Google Earth on Android and it sounds impressive. But they have made a huge error of judgement in the release. It only runs on one phone, the Google Nexus One. 

I have just tried it on a G1 with OpenEclair (a community version of Android 2.1 which runs on the Nexus One). It installs but refuses to run. The only app of 30+ that I have tried which has failed to do so.

Quite apart from compounding the negative message they are sending to other Android phone vendors with the Nexus One launch itself, it looks like they are repeating all the mistakes of J2ME.

Android was supposed to be the realisation of the “write once, run anywhere” promise made by Sun for Java in 1995. Fragmentation of J2ME on mobile turned it into an unmanageable mess with software vendors having to generate potentially hundreds of variations of their apps for different phones. The alternative was to create lowest-common-denominator apps that worked everywhere but were totally hamstrung and ugly as hell.

Now here we are 16 months after the first Android phone and it is happening all over again. Millions of G1, Hero, Galaxy and other Android devices were sold in 2009. All of them run Android v1.x software. None of them can run Earth. None of them can run the mobile browser version of Buzz.

Google will tell you that it’s the handset vendors job to keep the firmware up to date. I’m a punter, I remember what it’s like to wait for the Vodafone branded version of my Nokia N70 software, months after Nokia released it. It was annoying as hell with the operators then, it is just as annoying with handset vendors now. 

If I buy an iPhone, my apps just work. Ok, they may not have any smut in them, but they work. If I buy a DVD, it works. If I buy almost any Windows application, it will run on W2K, XP, Vista and Win7. That’s OSes spread over an 12 year period. 

If I install Google Earth on a Motorola Droid I bought in December, it won’t run.

Of course OSes have to improve and evolve but Android has both backwards and forwards compatibility breakage. Apps written for v1.5 may not run on v2.0 and apps written for v2.1 won’t run on v1.5.

This is a really really serious problem. Fix it Google or you will hit a brick wall in 6 months time when there are 40 handsets running 400 different firmwares and app developers and punters head back to the stable predictable iPhone platform.

I know I have re-considered my next Android device. Whilst Google might be happy that I would now default to the Nexus One since I know it will get the most support (as the G1 did before it), it does not bode well for other manufacturers supporting Android. With Samsung launching Bada and Sony Ericsson trying to support Android, WiMo and Symbian, it’ll be a brave person who buys their Android phones.