Author Archives: slimboyfat

Flock – all it’s cracked up to be?

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Well, here we are – blogging from Flock to see what it’s all about, and if it’s any good….

I have to say that I like it so far – the Flickr integration and the auto-detection of my blog settings are superb – as for what it’s like as a browser? I dunno yet – I found this feature and had to try it!!

Flickr Photo

I can drag photo’s into the post from my flickr accout – or anyone elses!! It’s just easy – as it should be….. blogging made simple – no finding links to photo’s, just drag and drop – even my Mum could use this!!

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Kahuna – a-go-go!!

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well, it finally happened! I got a mail from Omar last night, my account has been moved over to one of the Kahuna servers!! I’ve only had time for a very brief look – but so far, I’m VERY impressed!

The look and feel is really good – it’s clean and intuative – and the drag and drop functionality gives it the edge over GMail – on the “ease of organisation” side of things anyway…..

I’ll post more and in more detail once I’ve played some more – for now I just need to get some mail to it!!

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Kahuna Beta opened up to more users

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According to Omar Shahine (and numerous other sources), the “Mail Beta” or Kahuna (to use its’ codename) is being opened up to more users, and you can sign up here

Best estimates are that 200,000 people will get invites to the new system – so get your name down fast!!

As for my invite, well I heard back from Imran Qureshi today about it:

Unfortunately your account was on one of our old clusters so it will take some time to move it to the new ones that are kahuna enabled.
It should be a couple more weeks.
I’m sorry

So it looks like I might have to wait a bit longer…… bummer 🙁

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Google Office?

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Well, it’s all a bit vague at the moment, with no links to anything substantial – but if the Inquirer and the Brisbane Courier Mail (talk about bizzare places to get a scoop!) are to be believed, then the Sun Google partnership announced earlier this week is bigger than they initially admitted…

According to the Inquirer:

GOOGLE has confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets.
Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun’s OpenOffice from a toolbar.

The Courier Mail describes it thus:

Search engine Google has declared war on Microsoft, announcing plans to launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online.

It then goes on to mention the details of the original deal:

Google has joined forces with US-based technology giant Sun Microsystems to allow web users to access Sun’s OpenOffice from any personal computer.
Sun will offer Google’s search toolbar with downloads of its free Java software, which now powers more than 2.5 billion gadgets around the globe, including 700 million PCs.

but there’s no links to < quote > yesterday’s announcement < /quote > to be found in the article…… suffice to say, I remain sceptical – but hopeful…..

Just imagine, online office – storage integrated with your GMail account, throw in the option to privately archive your gtalk conversations into that said-same storage, and then make it all searchable (voice recognition anyone?) – superb…. but the privacy issues need to be addressed before people will really go for it I suspect.

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My Golden Ticket!

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Well, it looks like today is my lucky day….. the kind folks over at WordPress.com have picked me as a recipient of a hosted blog there – you can find it here and it’s rather nice all in all.

From what I can see, it running on WordPress 1.6 (which is still beta) but the UI is lovely – the admin side of things is much improved, and more intuative to use – I can’t wait to be able to upgrade this site 🙂

It’s not as customizable as a “proper” install like this one – as I have no FTP access or anything like that – so I can’t install add-ins or change the look and feel much (at least I’ve not found a way to do so yet….)

Why not trip on over to wordpress.com and sign up with your e-mail address – you might just get lucky too!!

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Kahuna Invite!!

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I’ve got one!!

Following my post here a couple of days ago….. Imran Qureshi has kindly picked me for an invite to the new Hotmail Beta – codename Kahuna!! So he’ll be getting a mail in a moment from me (slimboyfat at gmail.com) to confirm what I need to do etc – this is proof of who I am as much as anything!!

I can’t wait – maybe it’ll be the final thing to move me away from GMail – but I might have to wait until GTalk can talk to MSN Messenger 🙂

Edit – < note to self > Spell check things before you post!! < /note to self > Cheers Grasshoppermind!!

Edit II – FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PEOPLE – please pay attention to what I’m actually writing…. I DO NOT HAVE ANY INVITES TO GIVE OUT and if I did, I’d be offering them to people I know – or with something worthwhile to offer in return. If you want to try and get an invite read my post here for more info.

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GoogOS – Could it be closer than you think?

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I think I’ve got it sussed – GoogOS could be just around the corner…..

Just put the core pieces together:

  • Google Secure Access (GSA)
  • A U3-style Device setup with a bootable image
  • The huge amounts of “Dark Fiber” that Google is reported to have been buying up.

    • So, you plug in your Pen Drive anywhere, power up the machine, and away you go – the Image on it boots and connects you to your GoogOS profile using GSA and away you go – search, browse, e-mail (or is that GMail?) throw in a web-based word processor like Writely, Image management through Picasa & Hello, they’ve just launched GoogleTalk for instant messaging and you have what most people need for (at least basic) computing – I know it’d do me for trips away….

    Anyone else excited by the possibility?

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    Hotmail (Kahuna) Beta

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    More of a “placeholder” for a trackback than a real post this – I’m trying to wangle an invite to the Beta for the new and improved(?) Hotmail – codename Kahuna from Imran Qureshi

    I’m intrigued to see what it looks like – apparently it’s more OWA 2003-like, which sounds superb – I just need convincing that it’s better than GMail now 🙂

    Fingers crossed…..

    Edit – Just read Imran’s post properly and realised that I need to trackback to a different post on his Blog – so I’ve ammended that trackback now – Sorry Imran, I guess I just got carried away in all the excitement!!

    Edit II – FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PEOPLE – please pay attention to what I’m actually writing…. I DO NOT HAVE ANY INVITES TO GIVE OUT and if I did, I’d be offering them to people I know – or with something worthwhile to offer in return. If you want to try and get an invite read my post here for more info.

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    Spam Maps….

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    F-Secure have posted some interesting stuff about a program from Mailinator.

    Mailinator is a service that provides throw-away email addresses you can use for web registrations – very handy in this day and age…. but given the “nature of the beast” the system ends up getting lots of spam.

    Now, here’s the cool part: they’ve created a realtime map using Google Maps to actually show you where the spam is coming from. Well, actually, it shows the location of the proxy – ie. the Zombie PC that’s been owned as a result of Mydoom, Bagle, Mytob or any of the multitude other viruses that install spam proxies as their payload.

    Take a look at the Map

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