Netbook or Notbook?

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

I enjoyed the recent Labs round-up of netbooks and was sorely tempted to cash out. These days I spend quite a bit of time working in the browser producing cms-based websites, so a lightweight system dedicated to making net access effective and pleasurable would really make sense.

But then I thought about it…

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The NeverEnding Beta (Google, 2004)

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Remember when Gmail first arrived? Unless you’re unlucky enough to be called John Smith you probably got the username you wanted first time, and without having to add six digits on to the end. Then you experienced the fun of sending invites to your mates so they could join you in your exclusive little club – after all, Gmail was still in beta, they couldn’t have every Tom, Dick and Harry overwhelming it before it hit its stride.

Fast-forward four and half years and guess what? Google Mail, as it’s now known, still has that little BETA label under it, and it shows no sign of buggering off.

Over at the Royal Pingdom they’ve gone through the whole Google catalog and counted the applications that are in beta today. While 22 out of 49 may sound reasonable – Google is always coming up with innovations, after all – when you realise that these include Google Mail, Docs, and Product Search, you have to wonder if Google interprets the word beta in the same way as the rest of us.

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Chrome and the multi-core cloud

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

The constantly-evolving nature of technology is, for me, a source of endless fascination — and frequent amusement when it catches us off guard.

Just last night, our own Dear Leader was on the radio talking about Microsoft’s latest salvo in the browser wars. This morning, the battlefield has changed completely, thanks to the surprise arrival of Google Chrome.

To be precise, Chrome isn’t here quite yet: the beta is due out later today. For now, I’ve had to content myself with reading the product notes, which Google has oddly elected to release in cartoon form. Cute, but hardly practical.

Still, it looks like a lot of good ideas have gone into Chrome, and there’s one idea that excites me in particular:

As I say, we’re still waiting for the beta, so we don’t yet know how this works in practice. But running each tab, and each extension, as an independent process should, in theory, enable Chrome to make very effective use of multiple CPU cores.

Thus, not only is Google set to shake up the browser wars; it could actually make “cloud” computing as stable, efficient and responsive as local software – or more so in many scenarios. That would set the scene for a revolution in our very model of personal computing.

Of course, for now this is all just speculation. But even without seeing the software, I can confidently say this much: Google hasn’t lost its knack for disrupting the market.

What rights do I have to my photos? #!

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Recently there’s been a lot of excitement about Adobe’s launch of a free online version of Photoshop, Photoshop Express. However the biggest squeals weren’t of delight and you only have to take a look at the original Terms and Conditions to see why…

8. Use of Your Content. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

You don’t have to be a lawyer to see that basically you were handing over your all rights as originator and giving Adobe free rein to make money from your photos however it saw fit!

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