When Life is Busy, I'm a facebooker and Not a Twitterer

For the past week, life has been very busy. What I have realized during this

hectic time is that I can always find time for facebook, but not for twitter. As the day progresses and I'm in need of a break, I flip through some facebook photos, respond to some wall posts, and glance at a few videos. I rarely log into twitter, and I may get at least 1 tweet out per day, but that's about it. I'm not sure what is behind this behavior, maybe the reasoning is that I physically know my facebook friends whereas I haven't even spoken to most of my twitter followers. Maybe I use facebook more for social networking, whereas I use twitter for getting real-time news. Or maybe I just enjoy the brainless photo flipping and video watching of facebook. Finally the busy life is slowing down a bit, maybe I'll have time for both.

Explore The Moon With Google Earth

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Moon can now be explored in Google Earth. To see this, plus much more, check out the video below, it looks amazing (especially the tours). You can also explore the moon in maps (screenshot below video, this may have been released before today's announcement). This is going to be such an excellent teaching tool, my brain is currently on overload thinking about teaching/assessment strategies.

Quotes From Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer....Why Isn't He Fired Yet?

Here are some quotes from Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, that I pulled from from an excellent article on TechCrunch:

“The last time I checked you don’t need two client operating systems. We tried it before. Windows 95 and Windows NT. It’s good to have one. So I can’t — I don’t really know what’s up at Google.” (July, 2009)

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance,” (June, 2007)

“I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people,” (October, 2007)

“Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards,” (March, 2004)

The one regarding social networks is my favorite. It really shows that he's not clued in; the web itself is becoming a social network, people depend on social networks, and they have changed the way that we socialize!! Now I'm sure that he has done some wonderful things for Microsoft, but he should definitely get out of his Microsoft shell and see what the rest of the world is doing.

Will My Next Computer Be Running Google Chrome OS?

    Since this is old news in the technology world (it was announced last Tuesday), I won't go into all of the details of Google's operating system, but here are a few highlights: it's called Chrome, it's web based, it's going to be lightweight ( = fast), it's free, it will be available during the second half of 2010, it's targeted toward netbooks but will be available on desktops, it's going to be running the Linux kernel, and it is separate from Android. How well will this work? I think it will be work fine, but my concern is for areas with limited internet. I gave my analytics account a quick glance and 10% of my viewers are surfing with dial-up, how will Google deal with this group and what happens when we loose our internet connection? This doesn't happen often, but it still happens. Google Gears is obviously part of the solution. This technology allows Google Docs users to edit documents, and view spreadsheets and presentations without an internet connection (also allows Gmail users to check email without an internet connection); it performs well but has limitations. 

    It's going to be very interesting to see what Google has been working on (Chrome OS was detected back in March by CNET). They've  released (or bought) some amazing products that have pushed the technological boundaries, and they will probably do the same with Chrome OS. Will we, all 90% of computer users, switch from Windows? Maybe.....

I Want an iPod Touch!!

To begin with, my source of portable media is a LG Dare dumbphone (check out my review). The phone is OK, but the internet browsing is dated, games and apps are very limited, I've been waiting 7 months for Telus to fix the My Email app, and the music player is horrible. I was thinking about purchasing a netbook as a means of portable media, but then I sat down and thought about my portable computing needs; web surfing, twitter, games, Google Earth, and occasional Google Docs editing. Then a light bulb went off somewhere in my brain, "an iPod touch can do all of that.*" So now, I am seriously considering buying an iPod touch. I am going to wait until September because rumors have it that a 3rd gen of touch is coming this fall which may have a camera and GPS. I'm kind of expecting it to happen since Microsoft is releasing a new version of it's Zune player and Apple again has a back to school deal that offers a free iPod touch when you buy a Mac, some people see this as getting rid of inventory. So, I think I definitely getting an iPod touch, even if a new one is not released. 

*I forgot to mention that I could get a smarter phone, but the monthly bills up here in Canada are just too high.