Change of Course for Alltech

Dear Readers,

The last few months have been a wonderful experience for me, over time I have found my voice as it relates to this topic, and I have enjoyed interacting with you my readers. On a recent vacation into the Maine woods I made some decisions as it relates to my writing. I wont bore you with every detail of my thought process but the main belief that came out of it as it relates to Alltech is that I think its important to only write about topics I am truly passionate about.

I am passionate about Technology, but mostly in the abstract as it relates to truly improving our world. That is why I have decided to cease producing this blog. I will be leaving the current blog up for awhile, but will eventually take it down.

Again, thanks so much for all of your support!

~Dave

To Google, with Love

Dear Google,

Today you made your search page personalizations default without an opt-out option. This was likely to draw attention to the new background feature as so many of your products have features no one has herd of. This is to be expected since you offer so many products, with so many great features. In the purest sense this move makes sense, especially if this is a one day only move and the option will return to opt-in tomorrow. For one day, I can deal; all be it by using a different search engine for today (shout-out to Duck Duck Go, a great search site btw..with a minimal homepage ala old Google).

One blogger over at Pcworld posted his confusion over the “outrage” of your move, and he really doesnt seem to understand why this is a big deal. True many reactions are way over the top, and really this in no way make Google a Bing clone…not by a long shot, Bing is annoying on so many levels the least of which being the start page. For me this comes down to function.

I use a Nokia Tablet, and I have spoken to several netbook owners, along with others with embedded processors, and the reaction is the same: it takes a noticeably longer to load these images over the old Google home page. My tablet has a full fledged browser and no mobile search as a result; I get the full Google experience. It is older, and I have given up on watching video on it…but having to wait to load a page that I know can come up in less than three seconds is maddening.

In the future I would ask that you remember that Google is the gatekeeper to the web for many and that those people do not always access your page under optimal conditions. I am sure both your developers and the blogger at PCworld are accessing the homepage with fairly new hardware, broadband internet, a full sized screen, and a pretty modern graphics card. Though that is more normative there are still millons of older computers, pdas, early tablets,embedded devices, and folks on slower connections. In the future don’t forget us.

Thanks, Alltech

Make Money and Get Rid of Tech Junk

Technology is moving so fast it is very easy to get left behind, whether you are playing a modern version of “Keeping up with the Jone’s”, have bad luck, or have been using tech forever your likely to have a few old cell phones  and other electronics laying around. Were you aware that they could be worth money and there are some easier ways than hitting up ebay to get rid of that old phone of yours to get that value?

One great way is the website Gazelle. They buy laptops, Mp3 players, Cell Phones, Gaming Systems, LCD’s, DVD’s, Calculators, Camcorders, and pretty much any personal consumer electronic device you can think of. In many cases the price they will give you is neglegagble to what you could have made selling it on Ebay with significantly less bother. Another good part of Gazelle is they will send you a prepaid box, you shove your stuff in, and recieve cash. If your items have no value they will take them off your hands and recycle them for free.

Another new comer is the EcoAtm, which is a product I have been following for some time. As the name suggest you simply walk up to the EcoAtm, put your cellphone in, it gives you the value, and if the price is acceptable it spits out your cash. They will also recycle your phones, old batteries, and other accessories that have no value free of charge. Right now they are mostly located in CA, with one in NE and KS but if you are in those markets be sure to check it out.

My Social Media Quest

I thought I would take a step outside of my normal posts to share a bit about some decisions I have made in the past few weeks. Firstly I am pretty much a social media junky in that I am constantly on sites like Facebook but never do anything useful with them. For instance I did 13 “notifications checks” one day last week.

Facebook is the main issue I have, I can stare at my damn feed for 20 minutes at a clip and do nothing else. When I don’t log in I get rather edgy, like I might miss something. Its a pretty bad scene. Whats worse is that most of my “friends” post very little and I directly communicate with them even less. Further I do not write notes or use apps.

I was recently reading the Quit Facebook Day‘s website out of curiosity and even though their message didn’t really click with me I was left asking myself a few questions: What do I really get out of Facebook? Do I waste more time than I should there? What could I do if I took that time back? Do I really even need Facebook at all?

Social Networking is supposed to widen our horizons, get us to socialize more with new/different people, and engage new ideas. This “what the heck are you doing soup” that is swirling around in my mind has left me thinking that I have squandered some truly wonderful tools. So now It seems reasonable to go on a quest (I love quests) to take back my time online and find a more useful “voice” in the realm of Social Networking.

I have decided to cut my Facebook time drastically and to blog more, tweet more, and reach out more. I am a social person but I am tired of being locked in a closet with every friend I have had since grade school (most of which I don’t care about). So follow my adventures/decisions on the new topic here at Alltech: Netsocial.

Apple and MS, snore!

I have seen many stories about how Apple edged MS’s market cap and is now the “most valuable” tech company. I found this so laughable a tear came to my eye. I grew up an Apple Fanboy and had long debates with my friends that swore by Windows, but those days are relegated to a bygone era as far as I am concerned. Frankly I find all the long Apple/MS trolling on sites like Cnet totally out of touch, clearly these folks haven’t gotten the memo: the landscape has changed.

Firstly MS is a massive, sprawling corporation with its fingers in every pie. MS isn’t about any one thing, its a blue chip. It would be more fair to compare MS to IBM. Really I can see a day where MS distances itself from consumers just as IBM did, as IBM has shown you don’t need to sell directly to consumers to rake in the dough. Comparing MS to Apple now is like comparing a dolphin to an asteroid.

Apple is a great consumer electronics company, but that’s it. I look at Apple today as a leaner, meaner, Sony (just the consumer division) with a very clear sense of purpose. In many ways Apple has made an entire business out of what is normally a small part of a larger business and it is this distilling that has catapulted them to the top. Companies like Sony,Sharp,LG,Nokia and Motorola don’t have the agility to keep up and companies with similar business models like Archos are not even a blip on the radar. As long as this is the case Apple will have a special status in the consumer electronics arena. This status has little to no effect on MS just as Exxon/Mobile’s market cap has no effect on Apple.

**I didn’t pick Exxon/Mobile randomly, its the only American company with a higher market cap than Apple’s

Chrome Goes Stable for Mac/Linux

Google Chrome finally went to a stable release for the Mac/Linux platforms and on the Linux side of things it is a marked improvement.

Firstly I can now access Google products…which was a pretty big issue with the last release for me. Literally anything from Google wouldn’t load or allow me to login. Also I have been cruising for awhile with the new version and have yet to get a kill screen, again very much welcomed. The browser is noticeably faster and video streams much better. So I officially say if you have Linux give Chrome a try.

I am using the 32bit Ubuntu version.

If anyone is using Chrome for Mac please report in, I’d like to here if the stable release is indeed stable.

If you want to download it go here

A Great Open Source Twitter Client for Windows/Mac/Linux is Here

I just found this great client in my wayward travels online, its called Buzzbird. Simply put it is a Mozilla based Twitter client that has the works:

• Cross Platform Win/Mac/Nix (works great in Ubuntu!)
• Supports multiple accounts!
• Built in Url shortening
• Retweet, Unfollow, and Favorite
• Access to profile information
• The goodness of open source
• Runtime independent (no need for Air/JavaFX/and so forth)

Check it out, so far I really like it!

Three Easy Steps to Secure Your Facebook Profile

Facebook has been around for about six years, over that time privacy has become a big “problem”.

The solution seemed really obvious to me even before the Beacon problem…but still seems to evade people. So I am giving you these steps to insure your private data is secure:

1. Lie…no really, lie…about everything. Use a fake birth date, make up a profile that is funny/creative/and has nothing to do with you (mine is based on Brain from Pinky and the Brain cartoons), open an email account that also has nothing but false info connected to it for you’re login. You can use youre real name though…without any corroborating information most names are pretty unhelpful.

2. Create a limited profile, then put all but the ten people you actually communicate with on Facebook on it, then block them from most of your content. Along the same lines block most applications, coworkers, students, and ex’s BEFORE they find their way to you.

3. Turn off the ad program, public search, and connect services.

Beyond deleting your FB all together this is about as secure as you can get.

The problem is most people won’t do these things…most folks want their cake and have it fed to them by a naked Spartan or Supermodel too.

Think about all the private conversations you have on your cell in public, the mean comments you leave up on news sites, all the pictures that are snapped of you while being in “plain sight”, the fact the most defamation lawsuits never go anywhere, the fact the government can’t stop you from posting your own information in the first place…limiting their role to damage control after the fact only, and ask yourself this question:

How can I have a “right” to privacy that has almost no protections and usually made irrelevant by myself providing TMI in the first place?

Fore-sight is the only real protection people have, Hind-sight is only usefully if you want something to complain about. Of course complaining and making impassioned comments to cover-up ones own inadequacies is pretty much a the great internet past time.

Go in peace and don’t forget to look more than a few feet in front of yourself for a change.

A Little Spring Update @ Alltech

I was getting a bit board with how the blog looked so I have added and changed a couple things, further there is more to come!

First off I have added a “My Links” (top right) section if your interested in seeing some of the other things I have going on around the web. I will likely change things around a bit in the coming days as well.

Also I finally got around to creating a customer header for the site. I kept it simple and it certainly looks better than the default header that came with the theme. Id like to thank the Gimp Project for giving me the quick and easy tools to personalize this site and the great public domain images from this fine website that will ensure that my new header won’t tick anyone off.

That is all for now, more to come!

Interesting Linux Distro

I just came across gNewSense a Ubuntu/Debian based distro for the GNU user. GNU has always interested me and to find a Ubuntu based GNU/Linux distro as one of the few suggested distro by GNU itself was very intriguing. I think I am going to try this on my test box to see how it does. Does anyone have any experiences with gNewSense to offer me?