Adrian Barnes' Blog

Google Wave

// June 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Software, Technology

Google Wave…the future of web-based personal communication/collaboration. Coming in late 2009.

Wolfram Alpha: Answer-Engine Technology

// May 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Software, Technology

Check out the evolution of answer-engine technology at Wolfram Alpha (tentatively scheduled to launch later this evening).

Digsby

// December 30th, 2008 // No Comments » // Software, Technology

I’ve been playing with some software over the Christmas Holidays and I’m quite impressed with Digsby which is a multi-protocol IM (Instant Messaging) client.?On the never-ending quest for PC environmental simplification, I have used a number of multi-protocol IM clients over the years including;?Miranda,?Pidgin and?Trillian but never stuck with any of them. Up until a few weeks ago, I had been using?Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk (which alerted me to emails from my primary?Google Apps account) and I used a Google Gadget on my PartnerPage (the Google Apps equivalent to iGoogle) to keep track of my Facebook alerts.?Digsby does all of the aforementioned centrally. For example, Digsby?notifies me when I receive email (can be setup via POP3 or IMAP settings), when I receive Facebook alerts and I can chat across?multiple IM clients simultaneously (Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk). If so desired, you can even log into the same IM client multiple times (i.e. have two Windows Live Messenger accounts active simultaneously). Digsby also supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Yahoo!, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. The only short-coming of Digsby is that it doesn’t support IRC (yet) but, for most computer users, this is a moot point. Digsby is also skin-able.

Google: Chrome & Picasa 3.0

// September 2nd, 2008 // No Comments » // Software, Technology

Busy day at?Google as they took a shot at Microsoft and Mozilla with their Chrome browser and also released a major update to?Picasa. Please visit the Official Google Blog for more detailed information on both announcements. At a glance:

Chrome: It shouldn’t come as a shock to see simplicity and user-friendliness reign supreme in Chrome. However, don’t be sand-bagged into thinking Chrome is a “bare bones” browser as there have been a number of subtle and intuitive features that users will benefit from. One of the largest improvements (over traditional browsers) is Chrome’s multi-process environment (similar to an Operating System) whereas each browser tab is a stand-alone process running independently of the other(s). For example, you can close a tab when a page or a process on your computer acts up opposed to closing/re-opening the entire browser and losing an email or a cool site that took you forever to find. The multi-process approach also optimizes memory usage and eliminates memory bloat whereas closed tabs in single-threaded browsers still hang onto memory fragments long past the time you closed the tab (try using multiple tabs in the same IE session for a day). But, above all, Chrome has out-performed existing browsers in the time it takes to load web pages which, when boiled down, is the most direct user benefit of using any browser (assuming functionality requirements are met).

Picasa: Picasa’s always had a reputation for being a decent entry-level photo organizer but Google’s upped the ante with 3.0 with a number of improvements, especially around collaboration. Previous versions of Picasa allowed users to upload/share photos on?Picasa Web Albums but 3.0 allows users to bi-directionally synchronize photos and create slide-shows and movies that can be seamlessly ported to?YouTube. However, one of the coolest new features is Picasa Web Album’s “name tag” option that scans your albums and allows you to tag people using face recognition. If you’re still not sold…it’s free!