Logging in just got easier

I always had a difficult time having to 'join' or log-in a blog or website just to make a comment.

Although I understand the logic, there have been many times, I've turned the page on a post on CNET (and numerous other sites).

While Disqus has made this a LOT easier, at least in many of the places I travel, the latest move to 'log-ins you may already have', is making it even easier.

The 'inspiration' for Alltop, Thomas Marban's PopUrls perhaps has the widest group I've seen yet (graphic above).  Friendfeed and many others are also implementing this easy way to log-in as well.

Keep in mind, that in some cases, your favorite blogger is paid by page views and the more comments, the more likely the piece will stay fresh and they're hard work rewarded (I don't know how they do it ...... but they do, and MANY are still very much around).

Perhaps the most significant example of what I call 'easy log-in' is the use of Facebook Connect by Digg.

Instead of having a network which includes a bunch of people you probably don't know, the recently implemented connection allows you to send an invite to your FB friends.  Result (at least for me and many, many others so far) .... an instant Digg network of people that you've been hanging with on Facebook and probably share your true interests.

Should you trust your password to others sites?

Despite steps taken by those offering the vehicle and / or the log-in, that decision is yours.  It's an open question how much 'real security' is in these pipes.

Reality dictates that if a hacker really wants you .... they're probably going to get you one way or another.

As opposed to a few short years ago, there's hardly anyone that's completely invisible on the web anymore.

I suppose it's a good time to remind those who haven't recently taken a look at their Facebook privacy settings.  Many changes have been made there and you now can be much more selective on what you share and what you don't.

.....and yes, I'm going to do it again. Wander over and check out Friendfeed (no I'm not on the payroll :).  While it's hard to make predictions in this crazy economic climate, it's my guess, you'll see Frieddfeed right along side Twitter and Facebook on blogs and websites in less than a year ... maybe two.

Update: August 3 - Since the piece was written both CNET and GigaOM have implemented Facebook  Connect comments.

Where to find what on Google

In 2004, Google began rolling out 'a few' blogs.

For the most part, these blogs are written by the individual product dev teams but occasionally are cross-linked to the Official Google Blog when a significant announcement is made.

There were a slew of so-called cheat sheets put out by individuals to find them in 2006 beginning in the SEO community and later in the tech news and other communities.

Enter 2009 - Google now has A LOT of blogs.  They're chock full of information to the extent that at least one of them probably interests you.

How do you find them?

You don't have to 'search' far ....

The Official Google Blog Directory can be found here.

Note: Beyond the myriad of blogs and updates you'll find in the directory, it is not all-inclusive. There are actually a few beta blogs and others that don't appear in the listing but there should be enough to capture your interest if you haven't been there before.

Great week all
Charlie

Touch First! Microsoft launches Surface Partner Program

It appears that with the announcements today coming from Microsoft about Office 2010 and the electronic and 'regular' media all over it, Microsoft subtly took the opportunity to launch the new  Microsoft Surface Partner Program just a few moments ago.

The new launch comes along with the Touch First Microsoft Surface Developer Challenge.

An official Surface SDK is now available and full details on the launch can now be found in the Microsoft Surface blog here.

Windows 7 - Should you upgrade?

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Windows 7.

I think it's fair to say that most others running the current Release Candidate have reached the same conclusion.

In my case, there were a variety of reasons I embraced Microsoft's latest:
1) It's the closest to 'plug n play' Microsoft has ever gotten.
2) Lots of flexibility on turning on and off features and tweaking CPU / memory use.
3) Dramatic improvement in graphics rendering on many platforms.
4) Literally out-of-the-box networking, back-up, repair, and more.

I've been running the Windows 7 RC on 4 PC's ranging from relatively current to about 6 years old. The only box that had problems was one using a legacy Intel chipset (845GV) on an ECS motherboard. Despite numerous attempts by Windows Update (and directly by me), the drivers, at least so far are not there. On the other hand, this is NOT the 'Vista problem', where both hardware and software updates simply weren't ready on time (or for a long time).

On the other hand, every dual (and quad core) machine I tried found all the drivers necessary from either the install disk or Windows Update. I'd call that pretty impressive.

Problems are greeted with an easy, plain English screen that allows you to troubleshoot quickly.

There's obviously a lot more under the hood.

The bottom line for personal or enterprise users on upgrading to Windows 7 is once again hardware, but in this case, pre-release drivers and full release drivers are either already on-board (in most cases) or being released as I write this for the new WDDM architecture.

Use the tools! The latest Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (version 5.5) can be found here.

There's also a simple Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser here and ....
A brand-new Windows 7 Compatibility Center is being readied here and is set to launch simultaneously with Windows 7.

Numerous other links, videos, walkthroughs, and other information are already posted to TechNet, MSDN, and the dedicated Windows 7 website.

Overall, it's a pretty safe bet that your IT guy (or gal) may sleep a little better with a Windows 7 network. They'll still need to be around ..... but the 3 AM 'Help!' calls should go down dramatically :)

Edited July 13, 2009 2 PM cba

Microsoft goes Clubbing ?

Well, it may not be as fun as it may sound ... but it appears Microsoft has purchased the URL ... clubbing.com.

As part of the ongoing multi-million dollar campaign to promote their new search (woops ... decision-making) engine, Bing, Microsoft has launched ClubBing at yes, clubbing.com here.

There's games, prizes and it looks like a decent amount of users already.

Careful ... there's a few games that might keep you goin' for a while :)

Great weekend everyone
Charlie

Microsoft launches Silverlight 3 (Update 2)

Microsoft quietly began rolling out the latest version of Silverlight (3.0.40624.0) late yesterday.

Visitors to numerous Silverlight-driven websites were greeted with a message "You do not have the latest version of Silverlight ... Would you like to install?".

Details on the new Silverlight 3 can now be found at the Silverlight website here.

The roll-out of Microsoft's rich media competitor to Adobe's Flash, came a day sooner than the official announcement, which took place a short time ago.

Update 1:  Previous developer builds of Silverlight 3 must be uninstalled (from Windows Update in the case of Windows 7) before installing this new version.

The demo is now up and running at seethelight.com, and a few moments ago, Microsoft product manager Karen Corby posted links 'to the good stuff' (including the all-new Microsoft Expression Blend 3 Release Candidate) at her blog here.

Update 2 Jul 11, 2009 12 AM: A comprehensive rundown of the new features in Silverlight 3 (including HD and more examples of the technology) can now be found at Scott Guthrie's blog here.

Google : We're looking at you Microsoft (Update 2)

There was a lot of speculation last year when Google announced their own Internet browser Chrome.

The search giant was developing a competing product to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Firefox (heavily funded by Google), Apple's Safari (and numerous other products).

This morning, Google reintroduced Chrome as an Operating System.

Cloud computing has been in heavy development by both Google, Microsoft and others.  Essentially, using the web for your applications rather than having them loaded on your hard drive. 

In a prelude to today's announcement, Google dropped the Beta tag (finally) from a host of online products including GMail, Google Docs, Google Sites, and more yesterday.  The Google online 'office like' suite was, in fact, one of the first, and now competes directly with Microsoft's Office Online (now known as Microsoft Office Live)  which has been growing a rich feature set as well.

Enter Google's browser Chrome. Available in three 'flavors'. Developer, Beta tester, and a stable release.

Initially targeting Netbooks (mini-Notebook PCs), Google has used the phrase Google Chrome OS for the first time today and announced that Netbooks running the Google Chrome OS will be available in the second half of 2010 confirming that Google is also working with hardware manufacturers.

While some will speculate that Google is taking a shot at Microsoft with this announcement, it's more likely that Google is looking at the bottom line and other products and services that make money.  Google needs to go beyond search and this is one direction they are taking seriously.

With there's little doubt that the tech community will be all over this rollout, it still remains to be seen whether or not large enterprise users will embrace (or trust) cloud computing.

Our take for now is that this very possibly could effect the price of Microsoft's (and other) client products as well as their online offerings, depending on how aggressive Google gets.

Everyone is looking at the huge potential of an economic turnaround (worldwide) and the outright fact that almost every company in some way (including most in the Fortune 500) have a lot of delayed technology upgrading to do.

Competition is healthy for the consumer.  Google just kicked it up a notch for next year.

Update 1: An informative Q and A has been posted regarding the Google Chrome OS to the Chrome Blog here.

Update 2: Google has confirmed (on the Chrome Blog) that they are working directly with hardware manufacturers including Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.

Beta invites go out - Microsoft Hohm

 

A few hours ago, beta invites were received by a variety of Microsoft Connect members, other registered Microsoft users, and even by quite a few users that simply have a .net log-on address.

The Hohm beta website, which is open to ALL, is now live and can be found here. 

You'll need a .net logon (IE: @live, @msn, @hotmail, etc.) to access the site.

A critical examination (with links to other articles as well) was posted this morning by my colleague Peter Troast at Energy Circle here.

Friendfeed on Steroids - NO LIMITS

It's no secret that I've been a fan of Friendfeed from just about the beginning.

Watching the service mature, change, experiment and react to suggestions by users has been not only fascinating ..... but I've always felt just a preview of the 'next big thing'.

While I'm the first to admit I've never taken the time to truly leverage Friendfeed's capabilities like Robert Scoble, Louis Gray and others have (particularly lists), those of us that have watched Friendfeed evolve and participated as possible, easily saw the potential of what these ex-Googlers were doing.

The one thing Friendfeed still lacks is a guide of sorts for new users. The feature set is not yet obvious despite numerous changes.  (I have been asked by lots of people why I'm so loyal to Friendfeed.  The reason they ask is that if you just stumble across it, you can engage, learn, even have some fun .... but you won't really  realize what it can do).

Factually, in the past year, some of my best (and profitable) business contacts have been made on Friendfeed.

Earlier in the week, Friendfeed added a few themes.  It had to be a teaser, although I like the Helvetica theme a lot:

This morning, Friendfeed which is already real time with no limits on followers, unleashed Friendfeed Real Time search.

This is more than gravy.  This is back to ' Friedfeed month one'. It's a whole new ball game.

Example (hat-tip Louis Gray):

This is my current Friendfeed:



If you're currently logged in to Friendfeed, you can literally access it right from here. There's no denying it. This is HUGE (and updating in Real-Time!).

Get lost?  Type in a couple of letters to Friendfeed's new search box and locate your groups, follows and more .... in seconds.

Then came a suggestion by Googler Matt Cutts:



It was implemented in less than a couple of hours (and yes, you can embed someone's else's stuff in your blog too .... :)

The reality (that Scoble, Gray, more recently Leo Laporte and others) have been trying to drive home is that if you take the time to set up Friendfeed to your own taste (including over 50 online services, most with import and export) you can have discussions, get serious, have some fun, or network the way networking should be.

Do yourself a favor and head over to the newly-updated (again!) Friendfeed.

Join in ..... or just find out more on the 'FriendBlog' here.

Just try not to get addicted ... like I did all over again tonight :)