Social Networking is a big thing in the world right now. Can Google+ be the next big thing? Here are my first impressions of it.

Google+, the new attempt by Google to go up against Facebook. I was able to get in it last night, and immediately started poking around, seeing what was what, and how things worked on a basic level.

Basic is the best way to describe the look of Google+. so basic and spartan, which is nice in some respects, but maddening in others. It is easy to see your stream, your circles, etc, in fact the basic layout of where things are located is very similar to Facebook. The learning curve on what is what, is not too bad, although a few hours in I was still trying to find some settings.

The biggest issue I ran into with the main stream page, was the stream itself. It seemed like there were posts put in random order. It made things rather confusing, and I have yet to find a setting to force it to be in an actual timeline that makes sense. This is something I feel needs to be addressed, and pretty quickly, as Facebook’s news feed is well beyond Google’s stream in look, feel and custom-ability.

After looking and tearing my hair out with the stream, I went  into Circles and started setting things up. Circles, to me, is the nicest feature. I proceeded to set up a few special circles for myself and started adding people I knew into different circles. Being able to segregate people into different areas so they only can see what I want them to, allowing for certain things to get out, while other things don’t, is a great idea, and well done by Google.

Posting to one’s stream, you get some nice options, including sending the post to people you know who are not in Google+ yet which would work as an invite to them. Other options such as which circles, or even down to individual people are allowed to see the post, gives a granularity of privacy that Facebook does not have, nor cares about.

Sparks is probably the second most interesting aspect of Google+. The idea of getting what amounts to a RSS feeds based on a keyword for an interest, is amazing. Again, you can get real specific with you information and search. this is definitely right up Google’s main alley, with its search engine.

Some areas where I find it to really feel beta, or need to be improved, besides the stream order, include the Settings. It is not as easy to find some of them, especially the privacy settings, as I would like. Its definitely no more difficult than on Facebook, but I think Google can do better. Also, there is no event calendar system for setting up events. Considering that could be integrated with Google Calendar, I am surprised that they didn’t do that out of the box.

Google did give a tab on Your profile page to keep up with Buzz to some extent, but I haven’t played with it enough to really see how well Buzz got brought into Plus.

Keeping in mind that this is still beta software, and there are bugs, slowness issues, and other things that can and will change or be adjusted, what they do have right now is a good start. Its a solid base upon which to build on. the question really is, will Google advance with this or will it drop the ball like it has in the past.

Mozzila decided to be aggressive with Firefox releases. Not a problem, just keep the old version till add-ons are all compatible. Doesn’t work that way if you want to be secure.

Mozzila announced that Firefox 5 is the security update for Firefox 4. There will be no other updates unless there is a major, and they mean major, security hole. Fine, I have no issues with doing that, keeping people on the latest version, making sure people know that is the way it is. Except for one thing. Only about 80% of the add-ons out there are going to work on Firefox 5.

The issues I have are now pretty simple, but extremely important. They are also why I think Firefox is trying to push itself to extinction. First, Firefox 5 came out today, same day as the announcement about Firefox 4 security updates. Second, one of the add-ons that don’t work in Firefox 5 is for LogMeInRescue, which I use on a very regular basis. I am now forced to use a different browser for supporting clients, because Mozzila decided that to be secure I had to update and break what I need. Not very smart on Mozzila’s part.

This also leads to another issue. People will stop upgrading, just so their add-ons will work. Of course, if they don’t upgrade, they are open to more security problems. Firefox becomes a security threat due to its aggressive upgrade policy. Someone better explain this to the keepers of Firefox.

I’ve been a fan of Ubuntu for a number of years. Over the last month I’ve been playing with version 11.04 which has unity. So here is my take on it.

Being one of those who is a tech person, and always wants to find a way to hook new users onto Linux, I was really curious as to the new Unity interface that Ubuntu was putting out. Could it be something that brings Linux to more people? The answer I found is no. At least not yet.

Unity is a slick looking GUI. It is lacking though. First, there is no menu scheme, access to any software is done off the new launcher bar. This wouldn’t be so bad, except to find any software not tacked to the bar, you need to really go digging. the applications window that you get to can get confusing, and won’t show you everything without at least 3 mouse clicks, and even then things can get missed. Yes, as you get used to a new layout, it becomes more natural, but this is a big deviation from what most people know. Its not intuitive, and really needs a lot of refining. While on the login screen you can switch to a classic mode, for someone new to Ubuntu and Linux, it again isn’t intuitive.

The other issue I’ve run into is with a customized dual monitor setup. Unity doesn’t seem to like it too much. I’ve had nothing but problems with that setup.

The underpinnings are fine, and yes if you know how to replace the GUI with Gnome or KDE, 11.04 is a solid system. Unfortunately for a version that is supposed to be for the everyday person, the Unity interface has a long way to go.

Going from Blackberry Enterprise 4.1 to Blackberry Enterprise Express 5.0.2 looks like a daunting task, but really it is not that tough.

So there I was, ready to find the stash of nukes I hid somewhere. In anticipation of the migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 coming up real soon, I had to upgrade our BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) to the most recent version. the prior guy who had gone through 2 weeks of Blackberry training kept putting it off, coming up with excuses, and now is no longer with the company. I had done what anyone should do. I read up on the product and learned how to do the upgrade. Then the worst thing happened. Upon running Windows Update and Rebooting, the Blackberry Server came up but only enough to be pingable. I couldn’t remote into it, which meant so much for doing everything after hours.

First thing in the morning I went to our server room at the office where the BES is located, forced a hard reboot and the server came up normally. then came the task at hand. Few small things about going from BES 4.1 to BES Express 5.0.2. First you have to completely uninstall 4.1. Second, 5.0.2 is extremely slick. Once installed, and I got the users added into it, the majority of phones were found and automatically connected, as if they had always been on the 5.0.2 version of the BES. There were a couple of problem phones, but for the most part, all the planning on having to reactivate 50 Blackberrys went to the trash.

Sometimes, when things get done right, good surprises happen. Just never let it stop you from planning for the worst case scenario. Next step will be the final Exchange Migration.

The iPad and Tablet craze is upon us. The amount of these devices out in the business world is increasing at an extreme rate. I recently got an iPad from work, and here is what I think about it.

Being in the IT Consulting field, one has to keep up on the latest fads. The iPad is the biggest of these fads right now, and I was able to have my office get me one so I could learn it and support it. Besides My office, a lot of my clients are getting these nice little devices in.

The iPad itself is a neat idea. The form factor, touch screen, and clarity of the device makes it something people want. Then there is the “it” factor, which means everyone wants one. For uses such as games, note taking, and e-mail, it works fantastic. The speed of the processor is adequate, although it does hang a bit at times. Its multiple tab web browsing ability works nicely also. I can understand why people tend to be so up on it, but like everything there is a downside.

First thing I noticed was no built in apps for PDFs or Word Documents. The ability to at least open these items so one can read them is essential for any business class device. I am not saying edit these items, cause there are pay for apps you can get that will give you a full Office suite of tools. I mean just Acrobat Reader, or an Office File Viewer is really needed.

Also, the size. I have a Samung N120 Netbook, which I loaded with Ubuntu 11.04, and it is almost the same size and weight as the iPad. Yes, the iPad is quicker to access, but the Netbook gives me a full keyboard, and with Ubuntu on it, a full office suite for no more cost than the device itself. Then there is the price difference. Most Tablets are starting at about $500 (The first gen Galaxy Tab 3G is costing less with a Verizon data contract) and that is usually for a 16GB Wi-Fi only version. Netbooks start at $250 and have at least 160GB of storage. The iPad is even more restrictive as you do not have any USB ports nor SD card slots to expand storage on it.

The downsides from my perspective are why I don’t think the iPad is a proper business solution at this point. When you have something that gives you more versatility and storage such as a Netbook, at around half the cost, you have to wonder why the iPad is doing so well. In the near future tablets like the iPad will be more business savvy, but right now, its a neat, overpriced, toy.

Firefox 4 is out. For a browser that re-sparked the browser wars, Firefox had been falling behind lately. Can 4 bring back Firefox?

I have a tendency not to download betas of web browsers. I’m not much of a bug hunter, haven’t been able to establish myself in those communities, don’t have a ton of time for actual hard core testing, and I’m not a developer. I just like having things work, especially where web browsing is concerned. So when I heard that Firefox 4′s final release was going to be the exact same as the last Release Candidate, I decided to actually jump the gun and start using it. I figured it couldn’t be any worse than using 3.6.

I’ve been using Firefox as my main browser since version 2, and overall have liked it. There have always been some issues with it, such as the memory hole it has, but they were things I could mostly live with. As  Firefox 3 kept getting updated though, it was all getting worse and worse. To open my iGoogle home page, which is set up with a bunch of news widgets, would take 5 minutes. Not only that, but the whole browser would be slow and unresponsive until it fully opened.

So I finished downloading Firefox 4 and installing it, expecting the same sluggishness. Surprisingly to me, my iGoogle paged opened in under a minute, and I was all set to go to other websites in other tabs, even while the iGoogle page was loading up. This is starting to look promising.

I continued on my browsing way, going to sites I frequent such as Tech Republic, ZDNet, Krebs on Security, and many more. All rendered faster than in Firefox 3.6. I did run into an occasional site which just wouldn’t open in Firefox 4 (Buffalo Wild Wings being one), but considering that there have been a lot of changes in Firefox 4, this doesn’t surprise me.

Everything isn’t all roses though. Java rendering (I enjoy playing Text Twist) and some Flash rendering is slow and painful. The Java being the worst of them all, as it slows to a crawl with a java game on Yahoo’s website. Once loaded, it works ok, but still a bunch of issues. Also, Firefox still uses a lot of memory, and doesn’t have the best memory management in the world. I have also heard reports of people who have had issues with it upon install, although the percentage seems to be small.

Is Firefox 4 an improvement? Definitely. Is it a game changer? No. Can it fend off Google Chrome? Maybe. Personally, I’m not going to Chrome unless I have to (Google has enough info on me from Android, Gmail etc, they don’t get any more if I can help it), and I don’t care of IE, Safari, or Opera. In the end, its really about what you are comfortable with and what works. On that, Firefox 4 is a solid, fast browser.

Just over a month ago, I decided to get a Nook Color. Now after a month of using it, here is the good, and the bad.

I have friends who have the Kindle, and family with the regular Nook, but I wanted something more than just an e-reader, since I would be using it for IT related items. An iPad or Galaxy Tab were right out of my budget, as much as I felt a tablet would be fantastic. Besides their higher initial fees, then you needed a monthly data plan for 3G. Sorry but I’m not going to cut down on what I spend on items I really need, like food, just to have a tablet. I had been hearing good things about the e-readers out there, but everyone agreed that the web experience was not as good, and PDF rendering was poor at best. Then I saw the Nook Color, and I did a double take.

The Nook Color is the next generation of Nook e-readers. Yes it did away with the e-ink display. This allows for better web site viewing. The drawback is a bit more reflections when reading in bright light, although I have not had a major issue with that. The special coating that Barnes and Noble say they put on the touchscreen to help cut down on the glare seems to do its job decently.

The Nook Color runs on Android 2.1, with a special front end which was developed with help from Adobe. The fact that it is Android 2.1 is noticeable in speed and sensitivity of the touchscreen. while not completely awful, if you don’t do a hard power down every now and then, the lag time between opening a book, and the time it opens becomes unbearable, let alone the slowness of page turning. I haven’t had to do a lot of reboots, but once every few weeks seems to do the trick. This isn’t a game breaker for anyone, but more of an annoyance. It should get better with Froyo when that comes out early in 2011, but there is no exact time frame on it arriving. Also coming out in Early 2011 is supposed to be a marketplace, which I am curious to see. I really feel that the Nook Color could become the perfect thing for students, but alas while you can view Word Documents, you can’t edit or create them. I am hoping that sort ability comes from apps in the marketplace.

There are some other disappointments with the Nook Color also. One being that Watermarked PDFs do not open. I haven’t tried the DRM PDFs, which are supposed to open on it, but the watermarked ones will not. Regular PDFs open nicely, but if there is graphics behind the letters, you well get a light red X on the screen because it cannot display the graphics properly, which is another annoyance. Yes you can still read the PDF with the red X through it, or at least I could, but this is something else they might want to fin a solution for. I know plenty of people who play RPGs, and while the Nook Color is better than the Kindle or regular Nook for dumping all those source books onto, the Watermark and red X issues do cause pause for thought. Considering Adobe helped with the technology behind the Nook Color, these issues are a bit surprising.

The Nook Color comes with WiFi only, no 3G. Considering how much WiFi is out there now this isn’t that big of a deal, although it would be nice to see some sort of plug in 3G modem that would work with it. Web browsing is as good as any Android device, although it won’t have flash until Froyo comes out for it.

Small thing to note if you do decide to get the Nook Color, it is larger than the regular Nook. As of the last time I went into Best Buy, they still did not have any cases for the device, and had no clue as to when they would have cases. Barnes and Noble stores do have the cases plus the devices.

Overall, the Nook color is a solid device, and I have been enjoying it. I keep my tech books on it, along with some magazine subscriptions, and find it very nice that I don’t have to carry 1000 page tech books anymore. For $250 you get a mini tablet that really can become a full tablet and overtake the market if Barnes and Noble make the right choices.

I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the Android keynote from Google I/O. I was impressed with some of the stuff they talked about and showed. I was amused by the jabs at Apple also.

The new version of the Android operating system, named Froyo, looked as impressive in a demo. The features such as natively being a wireless hot spot, speed increases, the new API for pushing from the web, the new update features, all of it seemed to work rather nicely and smoothly. Even the peeks at the future beyond Froyo looked nice. The addition of flash was one of the biggest improvements people wanted to see, and it didn’t disappoint either.

To compare, they had an iPad, and tried to bring up Nickelodeon’s website. This is a children friendly, Flash based website. Of course, the iPad failed at it, as would the iPhone. The new version of the Android OS, opened it and showed it no problems. The dig at Apple was complete. The OS that allows porn, also allows a kid to view a site that has Sponge Bob on it.

After the keynote, I was chatting with some friends about it, when we all came to the same realization. We’ve seen this fight before, and we know who loses.

At this point, lets set the wayback machine to 1984. the computer world has a number of players, but the 2 big ones are IBM with its PC, and Apple who has just announced the Macintosh. The Macintosh, was an innovated, fantastic machine. the price points between the PC and Mac were about the same. The Mac offered that simple GUI interface and a mouse in a compact, all in one unit. The PC was larger, ran DOS, and you needed to get a monitor for it separately.

It was the start of a war that would last for a number of years, with Macintosh staying as a closed system. The PC opened up, a number of manufacturers started making them and selling them with Windows 3.1 on them in the early 90′s. Prices dropped on the PC. Windows 95 Came out, and made the PC even more popular.

In the same time frame, Macintosh got rid of Steve Jobs, and became a niche product, that was amazing for graphical artists, but not worth the price for an everyday user. Limited software, due to the tightness of the development terms was a big problem. The hardware was all controlled by Apple, with no competition for other types of Mac OS machines. Even when they tried to license the OS companies couldn’t compete to drive the prices down. The Game market took off, and those games were not as readily available for the Mac, again because of restrictions, or cost of getting the proper information to program the games for Macintosh. Apple needed to stay in control of all aspects of the Mac and force others to follow super strict guidelines.

Now don’t get me wrong having to follow those guidelines does help prevent some crashing, make things work nice and seamless, etc. Apple, though real innovative, had gone ahead and limited itself. Basically what ammounted to trying to kill itself in small increments. Microsoft came in the 90′s and infused money into Apple to help keep it afloat. Jobs came back, created the iPod, then the iPhone, and now the iPad. Apple was back in a position of innovative importance.

So you all know, I use a Blackberry Curve from work, my personal phone is a Motorola Droid. I support clients that have iPhones in a SMB environment. I have had a chance to play around with the iPhone, and it is a nice phone. It does just work. The issues I’ve had with it are, the lack of being able to change the battery out on it, and how much control Apple has over it.

You take a look at the market now, and its really iPhone OS vs. Android OS. the Android OS has become viable in the 18 months its been around, and continues to impress. It also works on multiple devices, on multiple carriers, and is open to developers. The new terms of the iPhone OS developers agreement tightens the requirements again. If the rumors of an Android tablet from Verizon and Google is true, Apple could be in major trouble.

I hope that Apple turns around and learns from the mistakes of the past that they made, because competition is good and needed. If they don’t, well, we already saw this happen to Apple once, and I don’t know if they can survive another downturn like that. After all, those that don’t learn from the past, are doomed to repeat it.

Apple has announced the long rumored iPad. Will the iPad bring about a new age of tablet PC growth or not is the real question. I say no.

It will bring about a series of wars with the eBook readers. Looking at the specs and what the iPad does, I can’t call it a tablet PC. You load software from the app store like the iPhone. You can’t just go out and buy software for it. There is no CD/DVD drive. Heck even the developer kit is included as part of the new iPhone developer kit. How is this a tablet PC instead of an overgrown iPod touch (there is no phone or camera on the iPad also) with eBook capabilities?

Microsoft has been trying to crack the whole tablet PC area for years. They have come a long way, but its still not perfect. The plus side is that if you get a tablet from a vendor like Lenovo, its a laptop with a special screen than can rotate into a position on top of the keyboard so you have a tablet. You get the best of both worlds, even though the OS is still shaky (I have not seen the tablet features of Windows 7 to make a comparison with).

Lets look at the other issue with the iPad. The versions with cellular capabilities are partnered with AT&T. We all know about the overtaxed network due to the iPod. Not only that but most of AT&T’s coverage areas are still 2G compared to 3G. If the iPad takes off as a gadget, and that is what I look at it as, AT&T is going to have more problems.

The iPad’s price could be its downfall in the near term. With the way the economy is, I can’t see why someone would choose this over a lower end laptop in the same price range.

A person I know recently wrote a nice little blog piece about how Windows 7 is a Crossgrade. They made some really nice points, but missed the mark on a bunch of others.

First off, the statement that you do not “own” your copy of Windows is correct, this statement is also true of OSX. From the EULA for OSX, “The software (including Boot ROM code), documentation and any fonts accompanying this License whether on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Computer, Inc.” This is why its called Licensing, and while even the GNU Public License allows one to modify the source code, there are still restrictions as to what you need to do for distribution otherwise you have broken the agreement. This is not inductive of owning the software itself.

The next thing is about viruses. I do not deny that Windows has more Malware made for it than any other Operating System, but in this case its about security through obscurity. The people who are writing the majority of viruses now seem to be doing it for money, a way to get personal information and sell it. The best and easiest way to do this efficiently is to target the weakest link, which would wind up being the end user. The majority of end user machines run Windows software. Now to be a bit more fair, Apple has finally started recommending that its users get some sort of anti-malware protection. As a matter of fact there was an OSX Botnet that was found to be active last year. Heck even Linux has a botnet which winds up distributing Windows Malware. So much for that argument.

Apple did a great thing with the $30 upgrade to Snow Leopard, and yes it has Windows beat on the price point there. Microsoft did have some good short term deals when Windows 7 came out such as special student pricing and family packs, but it does cost a bit more to go to Windows 7, and in the long run for an everyday user, it would be more efficient to get a new machine. Of course last year there were a number of companies that would send you Windows 7 for free if you bought a computer from them, a free upgrade from Vista.

Finally, is Windows 7 perfect. No it is not perfect, but it is better than prior versions, and is a step in the right direction. Nobody gets it 100% correct (Snow Leopard shiped with an old version of Flash with a major flaw), but they try. Honestly Microsoft’s OS is closer to Linux than Apple’s in my opinion, considering how much more guarded Apple is about allowing people develop for it. Speaking of Linux, I do use Ubuntu, and I love it. I would love to see more people use it, but I know that comes with some risks and more chance for it to become scrutinized more. I look at Firefox and see what could happen to Linux if it became more mainstream. Linux, I feel,  first needs to become more homogeneous so people don’t have to worry about what flavor of Linux they get.

There are pluses and minuses to every OS out there, and not everyone is going to agree on everything, but at least look at things logically and thoroughly first.