Google made a big announcement Monday night that has the web development community talking. They announced and released a preview version of App Engine, a set of tools that lets you quickly build web applications and deploy them to Google’s infrastructure for instant scalability. I want to talk a bit about why it is important […]
Tag: Google
Several months ago, I received an advanced copy of Nicholas Carr’s newest book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. I immediately read through most of it while on a business trip and yesterday finally managed a few minutes to finish the last few pages. So, here’s my slightly-late review of this […]
Earlier today, Google released the latest version of their Google Maps application for mobile phones, including the BlackBerry. This update includes one really great new feature that us Verizon BlackBerry Pearl users will find especially useful. Because the GPS on our handsets is locked-down to only work with the carrier’s VZ Navigator subscription software, Google […]
So Google made a big announcement on Monday about the much hyped gPhone, or lack thereof. For what seems like years now, people have been speculating about an ad-supported phone to be given away by Google. Reality turned out to be a little more boring, but much more significant than a free phone. Android The […]
Google has recently been busy making some impressive updates to Gmail, its three year old web-based email app. Last week it added support for the IMAP protocol for easy mailbox syncing across multiple machines and now they’re overhauling the Gmail backend to increase performance and allow for easier changes in the future. These are all […]
I’m a big believer in the potential of integrating VOIP technology with business applications, as you may have gathered if you read my recent post on Asterisk and Adhearsion. However, right now I see most of that potential reserved for businesses with the need (and cash) for an on-site PBX system. Microbusinesses, small businesses, and […]
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Google’s Collaboration Agenda
Timed with the release of their web-based presentation application (aka, Presently), Google just published this video which does an awesome job of explaining one of the big problems that their Google Docs suite of programs aims to solve: Everyone is eager to compare “Google Office” with Microsoft Office, and while I feel that comparison is […]
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More Thoughts on Google Docs
Back in March, I mentioned my plan to write my independent study in Google Docs instead of going the usual route and using Microsoft Word. Now that I’m officially done with that project, I thought I’d give you a postmortem of how things went. Thinking back, Google Docs (at least the word processor component of […]
There’s a term we use in programming and development to describe system interfaces that are designed with maximum flexibility in mind. They are said to be loosely coupled. In plain English, it means that applications have stable and consistent ways for other programs to communicate with them. More importantly, since there are clear boundaries that […]
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My Thoughts on Google Web History
So last week, Google replaced its “search history” feature with an updated one it calls “Google Web History“. It previously stored a dated list of all the searches you did on their site while logged into your Google account, but if you have the Google Toolbar installed (and the PageRank feature enabled), it will now […]