Tag Archives: google

Google’s Chromium OS

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The other day, Google released its open source operating system. This has been expected for some time, and I was keen to have a look.

Well following some instructions, I managed to fail to compile my own image of the new operating system. Having quickly bored of trying, my next option was to download a pre-compiled version. This was easy to find, and ended up with having a VirtualBox appliance on my hard drive.

Now this is very early software, so it would be unfair to be critical. However, it does look promising. For someone who only used a computer to email and surf the web, it would be great.

It has been suggested that it will another year before this becomes a full release. In the mean time, I intend to keep an eye on it.

Google Sync with Sony Ericsson K810i

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Google used to tell you how to do this on their website. I cant find it now, so maybe they are no longer supporting this. However, at the time of writing this, it still works for syncing contacts at least.

On the phone, goto Organizer->Synchronization->New Account

Give it a name, such as “Google Sync”

Server Address https://m.google.com/syncml
Username Your google account username
Password Your google account password
Connection Your Connection Profile
Applications Contacts

Then under App. settings, select Contacts and then for Database name use contacts

That should be it. Now you can set it to sync on a schedule. Don’t forget to back up your contacts on both your Google account and on your phone first just in case it all goes wrong.

Google OS

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Well it has been expected for a while. It is now official. This is the first I have seen from Google about them creating their own operating system.

Will it be any good? I don’t know, but I will give it a try, when it is available.

Google Chrome

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This has been rumoured for a long time. Now it is here. Google have created their own web browser. Unfortunately it is only for Windows at the moment, but I understand that it will eventually be available for Linux.

In the mean time I plan on using it at work.

First impressions are that it is very fast. Certainly on Google pages such as Gmail and Google Maps. Even Openstreetmap seems very smooth.

As it is Open Source, I hope that it has the desired intention of moving the whole browser world forward. The next question is, how long before I start to see Google Chrome appear in the logs of my web server?

Powered by Google!

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For some time, I have run my own mail server on the stuphi.co.uk domain. The idea was that I could offer email to my family as a service, and I would have full control. Spam filtering would also be under my control. One slight downside was that I did not like the available web interfaces to email. Roundcube and Squirrelmail both seamed a bit lacking.

In parallel to this, I have had a Gmail account for some time. The main reason for this was so that I could subscribe to multiple mailing lists, and avoid exposing my own address to them. Also, the web interface to Gmail and search facilities are the best I have used, in my opinion.

A little while ago, I found out about Google Apps for Domains. After a little reading, I decided to take the plunge, and sign up.

The end result is now I have handed over the email handling of my stuphi.co.uk domain to Google. I did check with my users that they were happy for this to happen, and they had no complaints. I can now have all my spam issues handled for me. A nice web interface for my mail, and I can still use my traditional mail clients using IMAP.

There are those that think that allowing a large American Corporation to handle all my email is not a wise idea. I have always considered email to be the electronic equivalent to a post card. It is not a suitable medium for secure communication, and therefore only use it for trivial matters that I am not concerned about keeping private.

So far I have been happy with the switch. I will keep the option of running my own server open, in case the situation changes in the future. I should have kept some notes on the transition, but in reality, it was not hard. If you all ready run an email server, then you will be able to follow the process with ease.

gOS – Something to keep an eye on.

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Today I downloaded gOS so that I could have a look at it.

I was impressed. If you are a fan of Google™ then this could be right up your street.

I have no idea who is behind it, but it is based on Ubuntu and uses the excellent e17 version of the Enlightenment window manager. I have liked e17 for a long time, and it is great to see it used like this in a distribution.

The end result is a system that is lightweight, suitable as a portal to common web based services, particularity those provided by Google.

I will be keeping an eye on how this develops.

April what?

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Every year April 1st comes along. I take no notice and start reading Slashdot. Invariably I read a number of posts without even raising an eyebrow. I will even click on a few links to read the attached articles. Eventually the penny drops that what I am reading is a little too unusual, and then I realize that it is a hoax.

At this point I then have to go back and re-read all the posts so that I can check that they are all hoaxes. I have to do this to make sure that I don’t quote the story thinking that there was some truth in it. I was almost caught out this year by the Gmail Paper story. I only read the slashdot summary, and believed it. Although I did think, I bet it will only be available in the states.

Once I realized the date, I went back and read the actual story.

I like this type of humor.