Yours Truly, Jay Miller from JayDaily.com

Hello folks, it’s me Jay from Jaydaily.com and today I’d like to explain to you what Twitter is. Continue reading

Talk About A Bombshell (Which everyone knew was coming eventually, but we pretend to be surprised anyways)

Google, the big little company we all know and love, has decided that a logical extension of their vision for Google Chrome is the Chrome Operating System.  While the original Chrome was marketed as being similar to an OS in how it handled the web, Google decided that the desktop OS is built for an age where people are tied to desktop applications.  Google says that ChromeOS will be a lightweight, fast-to-boot-fast-to-run OS that focuses on getting people to the web.  While aimed at netbooks, it will also be available for desktops and laptops (so presumably not a Moblin-like interface).

While it will be Linux-based (like Android but seperate), ChromeOS will build many things from the ground up.  Now, I probably won’t wind up using ChromeOS (this is purely speculatory with no screenshots or anything) as I like the full-fledged Desktop OS provided by Ubuntu, but because the project is open source and builds on open source projects there will be a lot of new material coming in to the FLOSS ecosystem which will inevitably be picked up by the mainstream Linuxes.

I incorrectly reported on Twitter (based on a misunderstanding of Gizmodo) that it would be able to run Windows and OS X apps.  As far as I can tell, there won’t be apps per say but rather web-based applications which can be run on any operating system from any modern browser.  This, needless to say, makes more sense, though I am dissappointed because geting Win/Mac compatibility in an open source project would mean Win/Mac compatibility for the Linux universe.

So yes, I’m excited.  Can’t wait to see where this goes.  I am a fan of Chrome as a browser (if it only did Flash it’d be my default on Linux – it’s alpha is great) and I’m sure Google will do a great job on ChromeOS

Microsoft’s marketing department has reached new lows.

I mean, really new lows.

You had best read it for yourself from Microsoft Australia.  You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/ie8/competition/

Yes, Microsoft has decided to “hide” $10,000 on a website and post clues, but only people who download and use their Internet Explorer 8 browser will be able to participate.

Anyone thinking of the money hole right now?

Is this desperate?  Is this pathetic?  Is this pathetically desperate?  Check check and check.  Microsoft would, of course, be the only browser maker to actually shovel money at their browser.  I mean, Google is supposedly taking the unorthodox step of advertising its browser on TV, but that’s completely different from throwing money to anyone who will catch it.

But wait:  there’s more!

Let’s look at the ad copy (which is, in true Microsoft web-standards-adherence fashion, an image):

“We’ve buried $10,00 on the internet and if you’re the first one to find it you get to keep it.”

The hook

“But you’ll never find it using that browser.  (So get rid of it, or get lost.)”

The line

“If you want a serious shot at the ten grand, upgrade your browser to Windows Internet Explorer 8 now.  Then follow @tengrand_IE8 on Twitter for daily clues that point you to the buried loot”
The sinker.

Excuse me, upgrade my browser?  The only upgrading I’m doing is to Firefox 3.5.  How can you call it an upgrade with undeniably worse security, significantly slower, and iffy-at-best standards adherence?

To quote @dpogue: …”oh my! I… didn’t think Microsoft was capable of stooping *that* low o.o”

Neither did I. I mean, I knew Microsoft always won at the web browser/OS game of limbo (limbo limbo limbo! How low can you go?!?) but I never thought they’d actually throw money at people.

Besides, it’s not enough. I’d need at least $100,000 CAD to make me switch (for the record, the prize is about $9,000 CAD or $8,000 USD)

Even better:  at the bottom, it says “It’s not as stupid as it sounds”.  Yes, yes it is.  At least that crossed the mind of someone at Microsoft.  Otherwise I’d have serious doubts as to the future of Humanity.  The ironic part is that there will be the inevitable Firefox extension that will allow Open Source fans to participate.

EDIT:  I have greatly expanded upon my review

For the longest time I’ve been looking for a good Twitter client.  Gwibber (Ubuntu Native/Source) was really underpowered, TweetDeck (Adobe AIR for Windows/OS X/beta for Linux) was bloated and had annoying notifications compared to Ubuntu’s new standard really nice notifications.  I tried Synapse (Ubuntu/openSuSE/Foresight/ArchLinux Native/Source) which was really nice but an unstable alpha.

So then I saw that someone in my Twitter feed was using DestroyTwitter.  I’ve looked at all the appls people use but they’re usually for Mac or Windows only.  Destroy Twitter (Adobe AIR for Windows/OS X/Linux) is an awesome, lightweight client that does everything.  You can set it up in a one pane view (like I have here) or a three pane (like TweetDeck).  It comes with animations switching between panels that are really well done and it has been the first Twitter client that I actually like.

First thing I suggest doing is switching the window chrome to your OS’ native decorations (Preferences -> turn off Use Custom Chrome.  Custom Chrome has a few bugs (at least, running Compiz effects on Ubuntu 9.04) and the custom chrome is honestly not great shakes).  In the preferences you can say how many tweets you want in your Home/Replies/Messages panels and even chose a theme (you can build a theme at the website www.destroytwitter.com).  It’s easy to use and fast as lightning.  The notifications – like TweetDeck’s and all other AIR applications – are not native, but they give  you options (reply, etc) so that they’re useful and come with well done animations.

Excellent piece of software.  Check out another app in the Destroy series, DestroyFlickr (which I will review when I get Flickr to fix a stupid misdirected link that stops me from using 3rd party app…)

DestroyTwitter is a free download for any application running Adobe AIR (MS Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (Universal), and perhaps BSD under Linux mode)

READ THE NEW STUFF WITH THE EXPANDED REVIEW! Continue reading