Oy, Google

Oh gosh, oh golly, Google. What hath become of thee?

If you haven't noticed yet, Google has a new home page for you! It's called iGoogle, which sounds strangely reminiscent, to me only probably, of MyYahoo. Funny how that came to me, since my default iGoogle page has news headlines, weather and other assorted junk that I don't have much need for. Guess they want to make MyYahoo redundant, but heck, I've already wasted countless precious minutes adding RSS feeds and backgrounds and other important customizations to my MyYahoo page, and I don't see the point of doing the same with another page.

I guess I'm a purist, but I like the start, no-nonsense old Google.com, with a lot of white space and a big blank box right in the middle, which I can hit with my mouse even at 6AM when my vision is fuzzy and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.

Fortunately, if you search around a bit you can find a link called "Classic Google" that pulls up a page with the address of http://www.google.com/webhp. Quick, make a shortcut before it disappears. Hey, maybe I can customize my iGoogle to look good ol' Google! Oh, shoot. Now I forgot what I wanted to 'google' in the first place.

"Apple" Comes Before "Amazon"

"Apple" Comes Before "Amazon"
No, not in your Wiki, in sales!


Holy Apple Pie, Batman! Apple has just passed up Amazon in the music retailing biz.

When iPod was born, we all hit Snooze, since it was just another MP3 player, but we woke up quick when Apple followed it up with iTunes. As the saying goes, content is king, and Apple knew content would be what made its iPod zoom past all of the MP3 players already on the market. Now Apple is proving that content, services and Sssstyle are way more lucrative products than the nuts and bolts hardware platform. Listen all you dinosaur computer and gadget vendors: people don't fall in love with your RAM size or your logo! They want art and instant gratification by way of instant downloads!

You may have missed a smaller story in the news today that said CD-R for OEM is now only $0.10 a piece, due to a glut of materials. In other words, no one's buying CDs any more. Well, now we know where the music money's going. Look out, Hollywood, with your DRM dissolution...DVDs are the next to go!


Sources: Yahoo! News/Informationweek
and other random synapses

Flickr a favorite of the digital photo amateurs?

A look at the Flickr camera recently finds that cheaper models are taking the lead in popularity.

Flickr tracks the most popular digital cameras used in posted photos via the EXIF data from the cameras. Digital SLRs from Canon, Nikon and Olympus had been in the lead but they have been usurped recently by point and shoot models.

Yahoo, which now owns Flickr, explains that the merging of Yahoo photo, which appealed to the snapshot crowd, with Flickr has diluted the high end pro shots with photo album faves.

Keep in mind though that users have the choice of uploading scanned images and images with EXIF data stripped out, as is often the case with RAW images shot with high end cameras, so I wouldn't count their camera polls as entirely accurate.

Source: Tech news blog - Web 2.0 - CNET News.com

Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton
Paris....

Woah! Sorry about that. I guess I was feeling left out by not talking about her. Not that I ever would. Although if there is a Hilton in Paris, France I might visit it sometime.

USB Portable Paper Shredder

USB Portable Paper Shredder


You've got your mini spy camera and your talking watch. Now it's time to upgrade your James Bony spy persona and highten your mistique with a portable shredder. Take it on the plane, in a restaurant, anywhere you can plug in to a USB port, and shred documents in public. Sure beats eating your top secret spy instructions from headquarters.

US$22.50 at Usb.brando.com.hk (mid-Juy)

Heart Keychain Digital Album

Heart Keychain Digital Album

Looking for a cool gift for mom or your favorit digital shutterbug? I know my mom loves showing off pictures taken by her kids of just about anything, so this little trinket would make her smile. The Heart Keychain Digital Album is a lightweight photo storage device, that you can attach to mobile phones, key rings, handbags, etc. It comes in pink, red or white.
US$23.00 at Usb.brando.com.hk: