Bing Maps

HP is Catching Up

Look what HP is releasing. Interesting that they look almost identical to Apple's OLDEST laptops available (well, only one of them is still available). I guess now HP is only 3 years behind Apple...

Google Search Suggestions

I just can't figure this one out...

Facebook Commenting

Two of my favorite things in one post...

1) people that "like" their own comment
2) people that are the first (or only) to comment on their own post



Way to go Grant...

My Coder Girl

I'm pretty sure the song is only half that long and then he just sang it twice...

Android on Desktop

Sweet!

Street View Goes Offroad

Google's working at getting "Street View" for offroad objects which begs the question, "Does this still count as 'Street View'?"

The real question though is, "Why is he wearing a helmet riding a tricycle?"

Metal Statues in the Googleplex

These things were just put into the Android department at Google. Man, these things are awesome. I should get some of these for my apartment...

(Iron Man)

(Alien)

(Alien was made entirely out of car parts)

(Images courtesy of Evan Millar)

Facebook Chat Error

Does this happen to everyone else all the time now? Names disappear a lot from the online friend list for me.

Invent

They made this for an HP video competition... pretty cool. Read more here

"Detractors on the Vimeo video page are shaking their fingers at the large volume of trees that were sacrificed in the making of this video"

Ok, dorks... it's a video about a company that makes printers!

Lifehacker is Hurting for News

Today, Lifehacker posted an article on how to "Cool Down a Scorching Car as Quickly as Possible". (Lifehacker didn't write this article, wikiHow did, but they still wasted time posting it.) The instructions are as follows...

1. Roll down the windows.
2. Turn onthe A/C on the fresh air setting, do not recirculate.
3. Crank the fan up all the way and make sure the thermostat is on the coldest setting.
4. Drive for a minute or two with the windows down, to force out the superheated air.
5. Once the air in the car begins to feel cooler than the outside temperature, then switch from fresh air to recirculate.
6. Adjust temperature using lower thermostat and fan settings.

Who doesn't know this already? Do you really need to post this article? If you are learning this information for the first time then you have probably never driven a car.

Come on Lifehacker, you're better than this...

The Plot Thickens...

Microsoft is coming out with it's own free, online version of office to compete with Google Docs...

It would be kinda cool actually if it had good syncing with Word and Excel so you could use the desktop version and then your file gets automatically saved to your online space (I guess probably SkyDrive).

Gazelle vs Chrome OS

So the rumor was that one of the reasons that Google so quickly announced Chrome OS was because Microsoft was cooking up a similar announcement later this week and Google wanted to beat them to the punch. Microsoft's "Gazelle" was a bit of a disappointment in this field because their Chrome OS competitor is just a "research project"... for now. No planned ship date or anything, just research to inspire future versions of IE.

Read an articles here.

Maps: Google vs Live

I use Google Maps daily... but a recent discovery for me is that if you want to see satellite shots of your maps, Live Maps does a MUCH better job. Just look at these two satellite images of my apartment complex in Provo for comparison... (Click on each image to be taken to the map)

Google Maps:

Live Maps:

Transformers

I knew that movie was going to come true...
(you only need to watch the first 30 seconds to get the idea here)

iPhone 3G S

Each version just gets better and better...

Google Chrome OS

So Google just announced a few hours ago that they're going to release a very web-centric operating system late next year. Here is the article.

First of all, I'm not so sure I like all of this anti-microsoft talk...

But here's my real tiff with this idea: I'm actually a fan of system applications. I use a lot of google apps like gmail, google calendar, google reader and gtalk. Anyone that has me as a gmail contact knows that I'm online 24 hours a day (mainly because my phone keeps me logged in, but also mainly because I'm always on a computer). I can't get myself to use the browser version of these apps though. I have my gmail synced with my Apple Mail, my google calendar is synced with my iCal, I use Mail for some RSS feeds and I use Adium for gtalk. I can't remember the last time I actually went to gmail.com for anything. I just don't really like using it, and I have a couple of reasons for it.

1) Web applications are great because they are cross-platform and let you access your data from any computer, which is awesome, and even though most pages are asynchronous now, you still have to refresh pages every once in a while to get a real refresh. The AJAX portion of web apps just isn't good enough for me. I never have to refresh my Apple Mail or my Adium gtalk. They just work, all the time, 100% and I love it. No refreshing involved.

2) I want my data available all of the time... not just when I'm connected to the internet. As much as google thinks that everyone is online all of the time, it's just not the case. There are many times throughout the day that I am somewhere that I can't get an internet connection (on campus, in my car, etc). Sure, this will improve with time, but it will be a while before you ALWAYS have an internet connection. Just this last weekend I went to St. George and guess what... no internet connection. I was glad I had my email, calendar and RSS feeds all stored on my computer, not just online. I would have gone insane otherwise. I could get to all of my stuff even though I wasn't online. You can never do this in a completely web-based OS. It just doesn't work. As much as I really like google applications, I'm not so sure how I feel about this idea.

I guess I shouldn't really worry about it because it will be a LONG time (if ever) before most people use this new OS. Chrome's been out a 9 months already and they still don't really have that many users.

A Great Blog

Check out this blog that I read a bunch. It's my cousin's blog and he does a really good job of constantly updating it with some helpful computer tips and the occasional hilarious picture.

Graduation

It took Gmail just as long to graduate from "beta" as it took me to get through college... and now we're graduating at the same time. Congratulations to both of us.

Learn to Geek

I'm starting a new blog called "Learn to Geek". It is going to be dedicated to tutorials on how to take the step from computer stupidity to computer unstupidity. I hope it helps some people out.

Check it out and post requests if there is something you want to know...

http://learntogeek.blogspot.com/