Posts by Steven Hodson

Now this is what real gadget buying is all about

Category: Odds & Ends
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Posted 1223 days ago

You can brag about your fancy pants iPhones or trot out your oh so cool Nexus Ones or even show off some silly netbook but when it comes to buying gadgets this is what it is really all about.

computer_parts

Yup. That is my newest batch of hardware I picked up today. I’ve been using my current setup for just about four years so I was due to have some fun like this.

Here’s a few details about my new goodies

A Gigabyte S-series motherboard
An AMD Athlon II Multi-Core Processor
Add in 4GB Corsair DDR2 800MHz RAM
Plus a new LG Super Multi-Write DVD burner

Now as soon as I get some post caught up and a podcast recorded I’ll be setting about getting my hands dirty putting everything into my existing case.

This is fun.

Cellphones .. not so much.

If Google’s move is really about censorship then let’s do it right.

Category: Uncategorized
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2 comments
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Posted 1223 days ago

censorship

Twitterland is all abuzz about Google’s threat to pull out of China because of censorship. I personally doubt it but hey, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and go with the flow.

If this is indeed the case then let’s do it right.

Let’s have a press conference with the following people seated at the table: Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Carol Bartz, Michael Dell.

Let there be one unified message from the people at that table to China: Until you stop censoring your citizens and radically improve your human rights we are calling for a tech blockade of China.

No new technology into China and no access via the Internet to the outside world. No new technology business will be done with China or Chinese controlled companies.

That is getting serious about censorship.

That is trying to make a change.

Anything else is window dressing and beating of the chest. It means squat.

CobWEBs Daily Edition podcast: Get a grip, Google smack talk isn’t about China’s censorship

Category: Podcasts
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Posted 1224 days ago

cbn1-podpost In tonight’s show Sean and I go after the easy target of the day’s happenings because that’s just how we roll. First though Sean gets the fact that he was wrong (and I was right <snicker>) in yesterday’s show when it came to Google’s learning how to screw its customers.

Anyway once that was dealt with we got on with the meat of today’s show which of course had to do with the late breaking news that Google is threatening to pull up stakes in China because of the whole censorship thing. Except its not and it had nothing to do with censorship.

Post referenced in the show:

Corporate Bravery from Google – Robert Scoble
Google’s “we’ll leave China” has nothing to do with censorship – The Inquisitr
Google Is Just Saber Rattling And Won’t Pull Out Of China – Paul O’Flaherty

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“Mice nuts” this Mr. Arrington

Category: Uncategorized
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Posted 1224 days ago

mice

As per usual in the blogosphere memes get started and then dragged out until all manner of stupid things are said.

Case in point: the discussion over the fact that privacy is just an illusion which has left the train station. I had my say on the topic the other day and was quite happy to let that dead dog lie.

That is until Michael Arrington decided to extend the life of the meme for a few more days with a post that reminded me of Clinton’s “depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”.

What do you expect from a bunch engineers?

Category: Technology
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Posted 1225 days ago

nexus

Joe Wilcox had a long and passionate post yesterday about his fling with the Nexus One. It is in his opinion simply one of the best smartphones he has ever used and yet he is having a hard time wanting to keep it.

He jokingly tells of his first reaction on seeing the Nexus One up close was to look for the “Designed by Dell” logo.

I like what Nexus One does for me, but I don’t love the device. In June 2007, I described the original iPhone as "life changing." The way iPhone responded to touch, to movement made it highly personal. There was something magical about how iPhone’s screen responded to facial proximity. The device knew when not to get in the way and cause unwanted touchscreen actions or phone calls. Nexus One has many of the same features, but there’s something human missing behind them.

What do you expect Joe from a company of engineers. For crying out loud this is the company that slices and dices numbers to pick the right shade of blue to use. This is a company that is obsessed with literally shaving milliseconds off of page load times.

Apple is all about design. Luscious sexy design. No other company can match them on that front and I sincerely doubt anyone will for some time to come. They don’t care if you hate how they do business – just if you fall in love with that sleek sexy gadget in your hand.

I’m not surprised when I hear words like ‘lifeless’, ‘utilitarian’, ‘boring’ when people describe the Nexus One.

Not surprised at all.

CobWEBs Daily Edition podcast: Please Microsoft save us from a Facebook-Google world

Category: Podcasts
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Posted 1225 days ago

Tonight’s show see Sean and myself going from one extreme of reality to another.

We start off in a totally non-tech related discussion of what the hell is Sony doing with Spiderman. Like didn’t having a billion dollar franchise give them enough wet-dream they have to now go and reboot it. How many times do we need to see the angst of Parker getting bitten by a spider?

Speaking of angst there was plenty of it to go around in our discussion regarding my fervent wish that Microsoft get a clue when it comes to the social media world before it is too late and we are stuck in one controlled by Google and Facebook. Regardless of how much people love Google there are a lot of things it is doing that have cause some concern and then we have Facebook who will sell our privacy to the highest bidder.

Posts referred to in the show.

Spider-Man 4 Canceled; Franchise Reboot Planned – Sean P. Aune
Google sure has picked of the tricks of screwing their customers pretty quick – The Inquisitr

Enjoy the show

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My women of the Web

Category: Uncategorized
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9 comments
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Posted 1225 days ago

thumbs-up As part of making up my list of people I want to be a part of my “10 Questions” interview series (which will be returning this month) I realized that there were more women making up the list than men.

Sure we all know who Kara Swisher is or that the cupcake queen is Marissa Meyer but for the most it seems that when it comes to the tech field and social media it is the guys that get all the attention.

So I figured I’d pass along some of the women rockstars that are out there because if you aren’t reading them; or following them on Twitter you are missing out.

Marketing

HPC – Otherwise known as Tara Hunt (Twitter)
Michelle’s Blog – Michelle Greer (Twitter)
Liz Strauss / Successful Blog(gers) – Liz Strauss (Twitter)
Marketing Mystic – Mia Dand (Twitter)

Social Media

Altitude Branding – Amber Naslund (Twitter)
Penelope Trunk (Twitter)
Suze Muse (Twitter)

Technology

Profy – Svetlana Gladkova
Go2WEB20 – Orli Yakuel (Twitter)
SheGeeks – Corvida Raven (Twitter)

And just because you should

Sex and the 405 (Twitter) – this isn’t the most work safe blog but it is definitely interesting or as their tagline goes “What your newspaper would look like
if it had a sex section.”. While there are a couple of men of the staff roster the majority of writers are women.

Cleavage – Kelly Diels (Twitter) – while those with tender sensibilities (read no sense of ha-ha) might not like Kelly’s writing I look forward to each of her posts.

A Universal Address Book – one contact list to rule them all

Category: Uncategorized
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6 comments
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Posted 1225 days ago

Address_Book Look at anything we do on the web today and what is the one common thread that weaves through it all?

Our contacts.

Yet it is this one simple thing that is the biggest mess and most duplicated of our data,

Email clients, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, web forum memberships, and any of the other dozen or so services we belong to that has some form of contact lists. They are all treated as proprietary property. Our contacts in a locked up format.

If we really want to be serious about data portability this is where it needs to start. There needs to be a single Address Book standard that all applications must support. Just as browser support HTML email clients need to support a common contact list format. Just as MP3 players support a universal audio format so to should Social Media services support a common contact list format.

Louis Gray touched on this idea over the weekend but this is something that has to go beyond just talk and move to a real standard. I don’t want Twitter owning my contacts. I don’t want my email client telling me that I can’t use that information in another service or application.

If we want to be really serious about data portability let’s start with the simple shit – give me my contacts where ever and however I want to use them. You want to talk open standards then start with the core of our life on the web – give me my contacts that are locked up in proprietary formats or some illusionary benevolent web service.

They’re my contacts – not yours. Give them back.