Posts Tagged ‘Google’
Are the big names bad for us?
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under General
Earlier today I spoke to some colleagues and none of them knew who Steve Jobs was, well one did, the rest just weren’t informed. Its not a bad thing not to know, its not good either, because I believe you have to know about the people who make visible contributions to technology and lifestyle. Apple, for instance, is not a PC that I work with everyday but I have respect for the brand, and I understand what the Apple brand has done. Just think about the IPhone and the IPod, two outstanding devices that have changed the way we look at cellphones and MP3 players.
In the same conversation I asked the people around me who Eric Schmidt was, and none knew. I wonder if I ask them who Sergei Brin and Larry Page if they would know. Google has come to not only revolutionise internet search but have been pioneering all kinds of development, from browsers to cellphone operating systems. True movers and shakers in every sense, the same goes with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Linus Torvalds, Bjarne Stroustrup, and the list can go on and on.
Coming back to the question though, are these ‘big names’ bad for us? I don’t think so because its the populace that determine the extent of the influence that these ‘big names’ have.
Do you code through Google?
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Application Development, General
On my way to work this morning I thought about some code I used yesterday for object serialization and object deserialization, and I must admit that I got the code through a Google search, and that I did not really take much time to understand what the code is doing. So in a way, if asked to reproduce the code, I would not be able. I say in a way, because maybe I could reproduce it (but only if I understood it). Serializing objects means taking an instance of an object and transforming it into a format such as XML or JSON. Once the object has been serialized you can deserialize it again and have an instance of a class available. So in essence the XML representation is an object that has been instantiated. It seems I do understand the concept at least, but the implementation is a bit more tricky.
My point though is that some percentage of code that I use comes from code searched for on Google. Are we really developers then if we just regurgitate other people’s code? The other day I also used an IMAP class library to check an IMAP email account, specifically GMail. I just tweaked the code a bit here and there. The fact that I am just using the library does not mean that I understand where IMAP fits into the Internet Protocol Suite, because POP also forms a part of it, and items such as TCP/IP. It also doesn’t mean I understand that HTTP is a stateless protocol! Or maybe it does I’m not sure.
I often find myself going to MSDN and referencing some piece of code, because I do not know it. For instance I find myself checking out implementations for things like the StreamReader/Writer class or how to implement IEnumerable for a class. Do you ever find yourself doing this?
Google Phone coming to South Africa
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under General
I had a brief glimpse of the Google phone and I must say its not a pretty phone when compared to the iPhone. The other interesting thing to note is that the iPhone does not support Flash or Silverlight at this stage and that Microsoft will be looking at putting Silverlight on the Google phone. Silverlight 2 has also just been released.
How often do you use GMail?
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Browsers, Firefox, Web Technologies
How often do you use GMail? Well, if you use Gmail and you use the web-based version in your browser then you will know how boring the interface can be. With that being said I found Globex Designs and the Stylish Firefox plug in that literally transforms a mundane and boring looking GMail into a slick and awesome looking interface.
Google, iGoogle, GMail… the whole thing
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Web 2.0
Okay so Googleness is the awesomeness and wholesomely goodnessness of the world and they have a great image of never harming anyone ever. Right. I am a great fan of GMail and all the services you get for “free”, but one thing that has been bothering me for a while is navigating from GMail to say Google Analytics. Getting from GMail to Google Analytics means opening a new tab, going to the Google homepage, clicking on My Account and then clicking on Analytics. Google Analytics is not easily accessible from GMail, but instead from iGoogle. iGoogle is a customizable page that you get when you sign in with your Google Account. You can click on Web in your GMail account and navigate from there as well. I would have liked it if I had access to all my Google accounts from GMail.
Publicly searching Facebook
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Web Search
As you all know by know Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. Just do a search on the number of pages that link to Facebook by typing link:www.facebook.com in Google. My results show that around 194,000 pages link to Facebook. Its difficult to say whether the amount of pages that link to Facebook is a way to gauge the amount of attention it gets, but its interesting nonetheless. Facebook has a pagerank of 9/10 in my Google toolbar, which indicates how importantly Google thinks of Facebook. Another interesting fact is that you can search for people on Facebook by using Google. So for instance if you use my name and type Fredrik Erasmus site:www.facebook.com in Google then you will see 4 results. Now I wonder if those 4 results mean that those 4 people that have me as a friend have not made their profiles private. If for instance you type ASP.NET site:www.facebook.com then I get around 498 results and the majority seem to point to job opportunities. If I alter my search to ASP.NET South Africa site:www.facebook.com then I get 15 results, the majority of which are listed in the Marketplace application of Facebook, which generally means that a job/vacancy is being advertised.
