Planet Utah

I know what you bought last summer

You want to do a creepy, paranoia-inducing experiment? The next time you're thinking about making a particular purchase--I mean a purchase of a single item--do all of your research and window-shopping on the Web. Make it known to the Internet that you've got a couple of hundred bucks burning a hole in your pocket, and you want to buy a Blu-Ray player, a cheap outdoor grill, a framed poster of Winston Churchill, whatever. 

Once you've done that, go about your life as you normally would. The next time you get back on the Web, though, and the time after that, and the time after that, pay attention to the advertisements that show up in the margins of whatever you happen to be looking at. You'll find that all of a sudden, the people who sell the item that you were looking for the last time you were on the Web are now coming out of the woodwork. They know you want what they have. So they (with the help of Google) are going to start flashing tailored ads at you.

Of course, this all makes perfect sense, and I don't resent Web-based advertising any more than I resent newspaper advertising. But I do resent how much the Internet knows about me.

Footnote: "Just what do you think you're doing, SAJU? You used that promo code on a purchase yesterday. If you use it again today, you will be violating the merchant's terms of service. I'm afraid I can't let you do that." (The foregoing should be read in the voice of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

Attention technology nerds

I've had a Blackberry Curve on ATT for two years. I just switched to an HTC Incredible (on Verizon), which runs the Android operating system. The change is like going from an abacus to a calculator, or chopsticks to a knife and fork, or a rickshaw to a taxi cab, or pretty much from anything that's old, Asian, and of limited utility to something that's more modern and useful (it can be Asian or not...up to you). Particularly if: (a) you do a lot of stuff on Google; and (b) you are comfortable with the WWW as a place for work and fun, this phone makes your technological life a lot simpler and more efficient. 

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo

As Google has expanded its services far beyond the search engine, I've sometimes asked myself, "How can they possibly make money on this?" For example, I use Google Maps on my Blackberry all the time. It has no advertisements and, therefore, no capacity to generate income for Google.

Except...at some point, I had to get on the Web to find and then download the program. And at that point I'm sure I did see advertisements, and possibly even clicked through on one or two. Also, Google undoubtedly made note of the fact that someone at my IP address owned a Blackberry with GPS and was interested in mobile mapping software. Presumably, that information can be used to target me for particular ads.

And that, from what I gather, is Google's strategy: Get you onto the Web as often as possible and learn as much about you as possible, and then hit you with ads for products and services that are of maximum interest to you.

Consider another example (stolen from PC World or PC Mag; can't remember which). I use the Google Docs online spreadsheet program. As with Google Maps on my Blackberry, the online spreadsheets have no advertisements. Again, though, I had to get on the Web to find the spreadsheet program in the first place. I'm also filling out spreadsheets online with information that tells Google a little more about me. Furthermore, in response to Google's online document functionality, Microsoft has announced that it will be offering a scaled-down version of its Office suite online. This means even more people on the Web, seeing more advertisements and providing more information about themselves.

All of this plays into Google's business model. Clever fellows.

Footnote: I think you can also see why Google and Microsoft are considered "enemies," even though at first blush this doesn't make much intuitive sense. After all, one is a search engine company (or, more broadly, an information management company) and the other is a software company. They're not even competitors, right?

I suppose that's true to the extent that there's not much overlap between Google's core products/services and Microsoft's. But what Microsoft wants is for you to run their software locally, that is, off of your own computer or a server to which your computer connects. If you do that, Microsoft makes money. Google, on the other hand, wants you to do everything "in the cloud," that is, access all of your computer software and services through the Web. If you do that, Google makes money. You can see the conflict there...

Anklenote: Is Yahoo still in business? I almost never hear about them doing anything interesting or innovative.

Why compute in the cloud?

News from Microsoft is that the Office 10 release will include scaled down, free, Web-based versions of the major Office applications. This will be handy for collaborating, but even if you work in complete isolation, there's still a good reason to create and edit your documents online: speed.

I'm REALLY impatient when it comes to technology. I want everything to happen instantly. Running Microsoft's applications from my hard drive doesn't quite cut it.

Example: I use a spreadsheet to keep track of assorted projects for work. Opening that spreadsheet from the "Recent Items" menu in Windows Vista takes a full 25 seconds on my computer. (That's the time from when I click and release the file name to the time when the file is open and ready for me to edit.) Opening the same spreadsheet in Google Docs via a bookmark in my browser takes three seconds. Three seconds!

Now, I know that my computer has slowed down with age, and that if I could clear out the clutter, the registry errors, and assorted other cobwebs, I could probably cut the 25-second local launch time considerably. But it's never going get anywhere close to three seconds.

Google Chrome?

I've been using Firefox to browse the Web forever. For all I know, then, the latest version of Internet Explorer might run circles around my browser of choice. But I'm looking forward, not backward. Looking forward inevitably means checking out Google Chrome.

Why would one do this? Over the years, I've found that the stuff I love about Firefox--namely, all of the extensions and add-ons--has really started to slow down the browsing experience. Firefox is very slow to open, and it hangs around, sucking up RAM, even after you've closed it. At its worst, the browser can make you feel as if you're doing your computing at the bottom of a reservoir of  molasses. In January. In Alaska. During the Ice Age. After taking a handful of codeine and chasing it with Nyquil. In Alaska again, but this time folded over on top of itself.

Google Chrome, on the other hand, is lean and quick. In part, that's because it doesn't have all of the nice add-ons that Firefox does. But come on, people, this is a Google product we're talking about. Over time, Chrome will probably have all of the bells and whistles of Firefox and more. Plus, if you're a user of other Google products, as I am--stuff like email, maps, reader, calendar, documents, and oh yeah, did you know they have a search engine, too?--you can look forward to the day when you'll see a tight integration between these things and the browser.

So for now...and probably forever...I'm jumping over to Google Chrome. Oh sure, I'll make the occasional booty call to Firefox when Chrome isn't able to meet my needs. But let's be honest: The future belongs to Google.

Has Google been hacked? UPDATED

I tried a bunch of Google searches this morning, and virtually every site that was returned came back with this warning: "This site may harm your computer." These were not porn sites I was looking for, either. We're talking about shopping sites, news sites, blogs...even the Google site itself. And in Firefox, at least (don't know about Internet Explorer), if a site came back with this warning, there was no way of disregarding it and proceeding to the site anyway. If you try to Google a solution to this problem, guess what? All the sites come back with the same warning...

Footnote: Crisis over. Somehow, all of this has been fixed.

UPDATE: Here's a little more on what happened.

Smart phones and PDAs

I'm a bit of a gadget freak, but I find that my favorite gadgets are things I can use in conjunction with my desktop and my laptop (and my other laptop). When it comes to smart phones and PDAs, I start having big form factor issues. Any device that I'm going to carry around has to fit inconspicuously in my pants pocket. At the same time, data entry needs to be easy, and the screen has to be large enough to replicate the computer monitor experience reasonably well.

Here's my experience to date: there are devices that pass the pants pocket test, and there are devices that pass the easy data entry/big screen test, but there are no devices that pass both tests.

I suppose I could just wait for the technology to come around--for someone to build an iPhone, or a G1, or a Blackberry Storm that will fit comfortably and inconspicuously in my pocket. But I'm also going to suggest a workaround: two separate devices.

The first device would be a very basic phone that needs only one smartphone feature: the ability to synch with my Outlook contacts. That's all I need. Shouldn't be difficult. (And in fact, such a phone may be out there already. The problem I found in the last go-around was that any phone smart enough to synch my Outlook contacts wasn't content to stop there. It wanted to be able to do a bunch of other things, too, which turned it into a big, bulky smartphone. You can, of course, turn a dumbphone into an Outlook-synching faux smartphone, but that requires the purchase of third-party software. So somebody just give me a phone that is generally dumb, other than the ability to synch with--or at least import contacts from--Outlook.)

The second device would be something like the iPod Touch. Unlike the Touch, though, it would need to come with a data plan that allows for 24/7 Internet connectivity (not just Wi-Fi). Then, wherever you were and whenever you needed it, you'd have the whole Web at your fingertips, and a big enough screen to make the Web worth having. It would also need to include productivity applications: a calendar, a to-do list, document/spreadsheet/presentation software, and GPS capability. To make data entry easy, it would need some kind of thumb-based keyboard. I don't care if it's a slide-out keyboard or a virtual, on-screen keyboard, but it needs to be thumb-based. Finally, there needs to be voice recognition software for times when I want to dictate a long email or create a new document. There's just no way I'm going to type a one- or two-page document with my thumbs.

Okay, technology companies, you have your assignment...

Footnote: I carry a Blackberry Curve now. It passes the pocket test, gets a B minus on the data entry test, and fails the screen size test.

My next GPS device

I've spent the past couple of years playing around with various online mapping services, phone-based mapping services that don't include GPS, phone-based mapping services that do include GPS, and a dedicated GPS device. My conclusion is that none of this technology is quite ready to do everything I need/want it to do. I suspect it will, however, be ready some time in 2009. So, here's what I'll be looking for: a dedicated GPS device (that is, not phone-based GPS) that costs less than $300; that offers data entry via voice command; that gives spoken, turn-by-turn directions; that includes a traffic receiver; that will give you the option to re-route when it detects unusual congestion; that has a massive points-of-interest database; and that includes the traffic service subscription in the purchase price or that has the option of a lifetime subscription for a fixed fee.

There are devices out there today that have most of these features, but I haven't found one that has all of them. Next year, though, I think the GPS industry will deliver the holy grail.

Footnote: I'm telling you all of this in case you are thinking about buying a GPS device of your own. The features I've described are the ones that I think are necessary to make the device a valuable piece of technology that you'll be happy to have and willing to carry for years to come.

The problem with Google

I was flipping around channels tonight, and I blew past some nature show at about 90 miles per hour. All I heard was a single word, "Cheetahs..." As it hung in the air I thought to myself, "...never prosper. Say, wait a minute...I may be on to something here. Cheetahs never prosper... Yes, yes, that's it -- Cheetahs never prosper!!! Brilliant!"

I immediately wanted to turn "Cheetahs never prosper" into a headline on some ridiculous blog post. Before doing so, however, I Googled the phrase, "Cheetahs never prosper," just to be sure it was original with me.

It wasn't. There were lots and lots and lots of hits.

Damn you, Google! (shakes fist)

Anyway, I'm going to be taking a mini-break from blogging...just four or five days. Nothing like when I went to the UK. (The blogosphere breathes a HUGE sigh of relief.) My blog-posts have been getting a little weird, anyway (have you noticed?), so the break will probably do me good.