Google’s two-front war with Apple and Facebook; who are the winners and the losers?

I wonder what Robert Scoble has been smoking lately.

No antivirus application will have an interface which looks like the one shown here. It's a hoax. But that isn't what caught my eye.

What I want to see is an app that actually manages this sort of integration. It should give a quick count of the number of infections in a folder (and its subfolders) in Explorer itself. It should let the users to go to each folder which contains the threat and nuke the nasty file by simply deleting it. I know that the information can be a bit overwhelming when displayed all the time. It doesn't have to be. The antivirus app can add a button to Explorer's toolbar that switches on/off the overlay.

Too bad I'd never have to use it though. I use Linux. ;)

Image Source: The How-To Geek

When Apple launched the iPhone, Cisco cried foul regarding the name. They filed a lawsuit against Apple for copyright infringement. Even though Cisco owned the trademark rights to the name, they lost the case because of minor technicalities. Now with the launch of Apple's iPad, it's Fujitsu's turn to cry foul.

Apple's predictable naming scheme ― iABC, iXYZ, iBlahBlah ― means that if you register a trademark for a name with an "i" prefix (and release some product with that name), you could file a lawsuit when Apple decides to use that name, right? I think somebody should go ahead and register iShirt. Wearable computers are the future.

Jeff Atwood in his blog entry COBOL: Everywhere and Nowhere wonders why he hasn’t met any COBOL programmers even though it’s one of the most-used programming languages in the world:

I have a hard time reconciling this data point with the fact that I have never, in my entire so-called “professional” programming career, met anyone who was actively writing COBOL code. That probably says more about my isolation as a programmer than anything else, but still. I find the whole situation a bit perplexing. If these 220 billion lines of COBOL code are truly running out there somewhere, where are all the COBOL programmers? Did they write software systems so perfect, so bug-free, that all these billions of lines of code are somehow maintaining themselves without the need for legions and armies of COBOL programmers, decades later?

If so, that’s a mighty impressive feat.

Of course you won’t find COBOL programmers showing off their skills at some fancy conferences or even on the Internet. Unlike those Web 2.0 RoR and AJAX kiddies, they don’t boast about their skills. But they do exist. Tucked away in the cubicles of IT outsourcing vendors in India, you’ll find several diligent COBOL mavericks scratching their heads and straining their eyes at those green terminals performing all sorts of jugaad.

Come to India.

Boy I’ve missed your kisses all the time but this is
twentyfive minutes too late
Though you travelled so far boy I’m sorry your are
twentyfive minutes too late.

Every time you miss a beat in the race for real-time web, remind yourself of these lines from the song “25 Minutes” by Michael Learns To Rock.

With technology’s focus shifting to Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and its ilk, everyone seems to be hopping on to *the real-time web* bandwagon. Even non-geeks & late adopters.

We’re no longer responding to events that shape our lives. We’re reacting. From mundane observations on day-to-day events to the latest BREAKING NEWS, opinions and counter-opinions are *published* as soon as the events occur. Aren’t we starting to resemble the 24x7 news channels on TV?

Isn’t it time we hit the pause button and start enjoying life more. Let’s slow down.

You were a twitterholic. Why are you saying this now?

I was jobless when I joined Twitter. Twitter was a great networking tool. I met some really cool people online & offline through Twitter. I will continue to use Twitter because of this reason alone. To stay in touch with the hip crowd.

Aren’t you doing this because you’re tied up at your new job?

Yes and no.

Work has certainly placed several limitations on my ability to participate in social media the real-time web. I cannot post to Twitter, browse FriendFeed or go through my Google Reader quite as often as I used to. Yet it’s possible for me to return to the almost-spammy frequency that I used to have. The only difference would be that I would not be posting anything valuable. I’ll just be one of those narcissist oversharer.

So, are you going to slow blog?

The Slow Blogging Manifesto is something that has made me sit and think a lot. It’s one of the reasons why I’m giving up on any dreams of Google search result nirvana. I don’t care about SEO for my personal domain. There, I said it!

But I’m not ready to commit to slow blogging either.

No rules, No manifestos blogging

I commit to nothing. I will write, I will blog. That’s all.

Connections & Not Popularity

My primary goal on the Internet will not be about winning a popularity contest or creating a money-spinning machine. I will use technology to connect to people, educate myself & as a medium of expression.

Okay… Are you drunk? WTF are you saying?

I need to stop wasting time. I need to start doing meaningful stuff online.

To begin with, I’ve sent a personal email to my dad now. Before today, I have never sent an email that has more than 5 sentences in it. Usually these emails are only to send some scanned documents. I talk to him through the phone or IM him. All these conversations are short and never as good as the ones I have when we meet face-to-face. And it is not often that I get to spend time with my Dad. Only when he comes home for a month or two during his annual leave.

The Wikipedia's long, boring definition of Social Media:

Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.

I know you didn't read that. Most people don't. In fact, I didn't read it either (thanks to the pleasures of copy-paste). So why didn't I read it? Because I've seen countless number of definitions, explanations, studies of origin, growth & other predictions... and chest-beating war cries on Social Media. It takes the form of blog posts, tweets & every other inch of space on the interwebs. Heck, even on TV and newspapers! Like The Matrix, it is all around me. Escape was near impossible.

Now I do not hold any grudges against new technology but shouldn't we all draw a line on the mindless chatter? A LoC (Line-of-Control) where we say Enough-is-Enough and end the discussion. [woof! lots of Indian buzzwords in there.]

Buzzwords are only passwords to increase web traffic. Yea, it is one of those SEO thingy. I admit there are some really insightful articles on the subject and intelligent people who can do wonders for your business. But they are a rarity.

Do we really need another 10-point article on how to "increase brand equity using social media"? [I coined that title now. If you happen to have written a kick-ass article with the same title, I didn't mean to insult you. It is only an example for illustrative purposes.]

Social Media isn't the only buzzword that is being abused. Here are some others:

1. Recession: Yes, it's the most abused words these days. So much so that it has become fashionable for celebrities to be associated with recession.
2. Innovation: This one used to be a much coveted word a couple of years back when reducing the size of the cups near the coffee machine was an innovative way of cost-cutting. Ask me and I'll tell you that it was just a cheap trick.
3. Social Networking: Closely related to social media and therefore has now been amalgamated to the latter. Another reason this word is not used very frequently these days could be the similarities with social notworking.
   

But when it comes to what irritates me the most, social media takes the cake. Now only if I could throw a shoe at Social Media.