Confirmation

According to sources around Twitter, that certainly seems to be the case.

While some Turkish journalists have been protesting against the blocking of YouTube and other sites, it appears the some Google services have come under fire as well.  Presently, we have confirmation of Google Weblogs being blocked, but we have not yet been able to confirm any other services.

The blockages seem to stem from sites that criticize Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.  Some Turkish citizens, however, have argued that they should be allowed to make their own decisions and not have a lack of information forced upon them.

According to the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News, a Turkish court can ban a complete website merely because of a single piece of content while other sites like YouTube are banned by several court decisions, instead of just one.

We’re still digging around to find some solid information on this, and would appreciate any reports that we could get from inside the borders of Turkey.

Update:

We’re hearing unconfirmed reports that this in a failed attempt to block YouTube, the Turkish government have blocked every Google Service out there.

Thank you to Oğuz Serdar for the tip.

Mozilla Bringing Firefox to the iPhone With "Get Up and Go" Browsing —

Mozilla is following in Opera's footsteps by porting an AppStore friendly version of their browser over to the iPhone with their upcoming free app Firefox Home. Due to Apple's restrictions the app will not offer a full fledged browser experience and thus you will not be able to simply navigate to any website. Instead, users will be able to sync their browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs onto their iPhone using Mozilla's encrypted Firefox Sync technology.

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As shown in the early demo video embedded below, users will be able to search their history, browse their bookmarks or load the tabs they left open on their desktop - all with the handy Awesome Bar functionality which allows for minimal typing. Mozilla says this is useful for "get up and go" situations, such as pulling up a ticket confirmation at the airport, or remembering directions to a restaurant you looked up on your desktop.

"Firefox Home for iPhone is part of a broader Mozilla effort to provide a more personal Web experience with more user control," the company said in a blog post Wednesday night. "For devices or platforms where we're unable to provide the 'full' Firefox browser (either technically or due to policy), we aim to provide users with 'on the go' instant access to their personal Firefox history, bookmarks and open tabs on their iPhones, giving them another reason to keep loving Firefox on their desktops."

Fans of Firefox with iPhones may be disappointed they aren't getting a full browser on their device like Android, Windows Mobile and Maemo users, but this app is still pretty useful with over-the-air syncing. The inability to browse at will may turn some off, and it remains to be seen how well the Firefox Sync technology works, but this could be an interesting spin on mobile browsing from Mozilla.

Discuss

Facebook recently introduced the world to its Open Graph vision and with it came the Facebook ‘Like’ button.

Prior to the Like button, Facebook had its own retweet, like Share button which gave users the ability to share content they came across into their Facebook stream.

Both the ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ Buttons did very similar things except the Share Button would permit images and other content to be imported whereas ‘likes’ would simply show a comment like format in your personal Facebook feed showing that you had liked something (shown below).

At some point in the last 24 hours, Facebook seems to have sensibly combined the two and in effect made the original Share Button negligible. As a publisher, this is welcome news, with the masses of buttons and limited space, being able to remove one button shouldn’t feel this satisfying.

We’ve contacted Facebook for confirmation and will update this post with further details as soon as we hear back from them.

Update: If you’re wondering why this post isn’t showing identical likes and shares. I’m pretty certain it’s merely a delay on the Share button’s part.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Productivity, Web services

Email attachments may still be the best way to move small files around the Internet, but it's extremely limiting when it comes to file size. Until recently, the quickest and easiest options for transferring large files have been services like RapidShare or MegaUpload, but both services have relatively low file size and usage limits for free users.

WeTransfer differs from the other services in that it's completely free for everyone, allows transfers of up to 2GB of data to up to 20 people, and holds the data for 14 days. There is no registration, no usernames, no premium version -- it's all built for simplicity and ease of use.

In fact, the only gripe I could come up with in using the service was the fact that the entire site runs on Flash. For people who get annoyed by Flash websites, know that it's not overdone. It's very smooth, very minimal, and loads very quickly. They're also building a purely HTML version of the site, so we can look forward to using that pretty soon too (I hope).

Granted, if you're looking to stash some nefarious data in a server and provide a download link somewhere (like a message board), this isn't the service you're looking for. It's only meant to be a point-to-point service; you upload a file that you want somebody to download, they get an email with a download link, and the transaction is complete. You get an email confirmation when the intended recipient completes the transfer, and they can download the file as many times as they please so long as two weeks haven't lapsed.

This simple screen is what you're greeted with when you visit the site. Add your file, a couple of email addresses and a note (should you please), and you're ready to upload.

This is what your buddy gets when he clicks the link sent to his email.

The page's background image changes regularly while your friend waits for the download to finish. All the images are pretty decent looking, and since they're all technically ads they support the process and make the whole service free.

Overall, it's a pretty nice way to handle large file transfers that can't be sent by simple email attachment, and since the download is good for two solid weeks you don't have to worry about somebody being away from their computer when you send the file.

WeTransfer makes file transfers not just painless... but kind of enjoyable originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 07 May 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When we last left our hero, he had come to a settlement with eBay and the nation of Canada. We pick up the story one week later.

The instructions I received from eBay were pretty clear. The buyer was going to send the comics back to me within the week. He would also get a tracking confirmation on the package and upload that number to the eBay case file. The reason for this was so that eBay could track the package and verify when it was delivered to me. Then and only then would eBay (not me) process a refund to the buyer. Then they’d bill me and all would be said and done. Seems simple, right? I go on with my life and re-list the comics. This guy does whatever he does being a comic book nerd and all is right in the world.

Apparently not. On Wednesday (4 days into the week the buyer had to send me the comics), I get a message from said buyer. He says that eBay has told him to send the comics back with a tracking number but he’s not sending anything until he gets his full refund plus the amount for the return shipping. While I can understand where he’s coming from, that’s not what eBay (the governing body here) has instructed. I thought about not responding to this message at all, thinking that if I don’t respond, I’ll just wait out the clock and be done with this. I’m not that kind of guy though and I wanted to show that I was still being responsive and supportive throughout the process.

I responded to the buyer explaining that according to everything I received from eBay, the refund won’t be processed until the items are received. That’s why they asked for the tracking confirmation. I also pointed out that I’m not actually going to be processing the refund. eBay will be doing that. Then they bill me for it.

That was on Wednesday. I have yet to hear another peep from the buyer. I woke up this morning to find an email from eBay.

This case was automatically closed on May 07, 2010. The buyer was required to submit information regarding this case, but we didn’t hear back. The item won’t be returned to you, and the buyer won’t be issued a refund.

It seems the buyer didn’t do what was asked of him from eBay. He dropped the ball and now the whole thing is over. Although I’m sure it’s not over in the buyer’s eyes. I’m waiting to see if he’ll either send the comics anyway, expecting the refund or send me another nasty message making demands. He can do whatever he likes, but according to both me and eBay, this transaction is closed. I did everything by the book. Take that, Canada.

A number of bloggers are today reporting a noticeable change to Facebook's website when viewed from the built-in Safari web browser on the Apple iPad: videos now work. Previously, videos appearing in a user's News Feed wouldn't play on the iPad due to Facebook's use of Adobe Flash technology, which is not supported on the iPad. Apple has, somewhat notoriously, banished Flash from its mobile lineup which includes the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, in favor of supporting the HTML5 web standard instead.

Although still in development, HTML5, the latest revision to the markup language used to create web pages, offers a feature that allows videos to play in a web browser without the need for a plugin like that used by Adobe Flash.

But has Facebook actually implemented HTML5 on its site?

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Tests Don't Prove HTML5 Usage

In our tests this morning, it appears that Facebook isn't actually using HTML5 to display the videos. Instead, what appears to be going on is that Facebook.com is detecting that you've arrived to the website via the Safari web browser on the iPad. When you then attempt to play a video on the iPad, it doesn't play inline (which would have been a clear confirmation of it being HTML5). Instead, Facebook is linking out to the actual video, transcoded to MP4, a video format that plays on Apple devices.

We confirmed this by uploading a video file to Facebook in WMV format (a non-iPad compatible video format) and then attempting to play it on the iPad. It played as an MP4 file.

Still Being Rolled Out

Also interesting: this implementation of transcoding (converting one format to another) appears to be still in the initial stages of rollout.

We went to one user's News Feed (belonging to our own Marshall Kirkpatrick, in fact) and discovered he had uploaded two video files last night using iCamcorder. On the iPad, one video played, launching a full-screen MP4. The other, when clicked, informed us that we needed Flash in order to view it.

Both videos were uploaded around the exact same time last night - sometime after midnight EST and the newer one is the one that plays. We've asked Facebook to confirm what's going on here but have not yet heard back.

Why Transcoding, Not HTML5?

It's interesting that Facebook has chosen to do transcoding instead of using HTML5, especially considering how many other major media sites are making the switch.

A number of publishers, when alerted to the iPad's impending launch, quickly pushed out HTML5-compatible versions of their websites. In many cases though, those changes are just skin-deep. Despite Apple's claims (via the "iPad-ready websites" section on the company's website) that many major publishers have switched over to the new web markup language, it's not an entirely accurate statement. For some of the sites listed, only portions of their content has been made "iPad-ready." Reuters, Time and MLB.com, for instance, were recently called out for claiming iPad-readiness when, in fact, they don't offer 100% of their website content for iPad visitors. MLB.com directs you to download an iPad app if you want to see videos, for example, while the other two only offer some of their content in an iPad-ready format.

Apparently, using HTML5 throughout the site isn't required to be dubbed "iPad-ready" by Apple. It appears that Facebook is making changes to get on that list now, too.

Discuss

Free turn-by-turn Google Maps Navigation has already threatened an entire industry of GPS navigation companies whose livelihood depends on selling paid versions of what the search giant is now giving away for free. Currently Google Maps Navigation is available for Android phones only, but in a London press conference Google said it will bring free navigation to the iPhone along with other platforms.

The presser ushered in the arrival of Google Maps Navigation in the UK, but perhaps the juicier part of the news was the official confirmation of free nav in development specifically for the iPhone. Unfortunately, the company still won’t say exactly when we should expect the feature to roll out on Apple’s smartphone platform, but knowing the light speed at which Google prefers to move it won’t be long before we have more news on this front.

What do you think: can free turn-by-turn direction service on smartphones replace the traditional in-auto GPS system, or do standalone navigation devices still have value? How will GPS manufacturers adapt to the changing satnav landscape?

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Tags: android, Google, gps, iphone, navigation, turn-by-turn directions, uk

When Martin Bryant at The Next Web says that the importance of what Facebook announced today shouldn’t be ignored and that we do ignore the announcements at our own peril he is absolutely correct.

In one simple keynote speech Mark Zuckerberg has served notice to the Web in general and bloggers specifically that Facebook wants to own the Web and you will help them do that because if you don’t … well, don’t expect to be successful or to experience any real growth because Facebook now has the keys to your future.

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb is wondering if this next generation Borg machine is really a deal with the devil and Liz Gannes at GigaOM wonders if there is enough trust to go around for people to be willing to live in a Facebook powered Web.

To Marshall I would say that the average web user won’t see as it as any deal with the devil but bloggers on the other hand may have no choice but to sign on the dotted line. As to Liz’s question – my only answer would be that anyone who trusts Facebook is a fool. They have already proved more than once that the biggest obstacle they face is our warped concern over our privacy and that they will do whatever they have to in order to shift the bar on this. Today was just another example of them shifting the bar while couching everything that they are doing in terms that they are doing it for the betterment of the web and the users.

Don’t be fooled.Seriously.

Facebook is only concerned about two things. Amassing the biggest profile database in the world and to convert that into a sickening amount of money. Today’s announcements where just the opening salvo on their march to integrate themselves so deeply in the web that we can’t do without them.

For the users I have to admit the pull is immense and to a very large degree makes sense. For them today was a victory of simplicity and further confirmation that Facebook wants to make their lives easier.

Regardless of where they might be on the web for the rare times they venture outside of the safe confines of Facebook they know that everything they do will safely make it back to their Facebook streams for everyone to see. They rest easy knowing that no more will they lose track of whet their friends are doing should they also venture outside of the wall.

However for me, both as a blogger and as person who loves the web, Facebook is the constant Faustian bargain. I understand what their purpose is and while the lover of the web part of the web rails against what they are doing the blogger part of me see the inevitability of dipping the pen in blood and signing on the dotted line.

The fact is that as Facebook continues to grow and insinuate itself into the fabric of the Web to the degree that today’s announcement will let it, users – our readers – are going to come to expect all those Facebook goodies to show up on all the pages they visit. They are going to want the familiarity and so-called ease of interaction that Facebook provides. So when they come across a blog – your blog, my blog, and don’t see those familiar landmarks they won’t stick around.

Facebook understands this and is counting on this. So we, as bloggers with families to feed or dreams to express, are put in the position to decide if we can live without Facebook having that kind of control or where we start adding all those cool social plugins. It’s not an easy decision and anyone who says it is … well .. they are only fooling themselves.

I know that prior to today I was one step away from deleting my Facebook account because quite frankly I don’t trust them and I feel that their affect on the Web is dangerous. After today though … well .. I’m not sure what to do.

I do know thought that I trust them even less and I fear that they are truly stealing our Web away from us.

There is more drama going on at Digg than meets the eye. The new Digg.com relaunch has (we have been told by people we trust) has been pushed back two months.

The original launch date was to be next week. Now, we can expect to see the new Digg in June. As it will not surprise you, this is directly involved with the company’s CEO shake-up that recently made Digg founder Kevin Rose the company’s leader once again.

Now ex-CEO Jay Adelson wanted to launch the redesign quickly, while Kevin wanted more time for testing and tweaking. Their disagreements went further however, down to the root of Digg. In short, they had a basic tension over what Digg should become. Jay lost, and is now gone.

In short, that means that Jay’s comments on how he wanted to go work for smaller companies, in particular startups, is generally not true. It was a graceful exit, but we now know better.

Whenever the new Digg does launch it will be a vast change to the iconic company, but perhaps with the extra time that Kevin has demanded and received it will better than we are all expecting. The new redesign is a large reshaping of the Digg idea, with websites inputting RSS feeds so that all their stories are in Digg, not just stories selected by users for submission.

This conflict resonates well with Kevin’s first act as Digg’s CEO, the unbanning of all websites from Digg. With Jay gone, Kevin is running things his way. More as it comes.

Kevin, we would love an official confirmation of the delay.

Original title and link for this post: Digg Relaunch Reportedly Pushed Back 2 Months

One of my personal favorite Twitter clients, Echofon, has announced the official release of its desktop Twitter client for the mac.

Despite Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie and confirmation that Tweetie 2 for the Mac will soon come to the desktop, Echofon seems to be striving forward with development.

So what are these unique features I speak of, well aside from a clean UI, Echofon for Mac features keyboard navigation and shortcuts, multiple accounts, super easy media sharing (screen captures, current iTunes song, or current page in Safari) and icons on tweets so you can easily spot different types of tweets (video, music, photo tweets etc.).

Syncing is another feature unique to Echofon. Unread tweets are synced between the Echofon for Mac and Echofon for the iPhone, with little effort on your part.

Above all of the above, the most intriguing feature for me is “Never Read the Same Tweet Twice”. If you’re following the people within a particular industry, it’s highly probable that you’ll see the same tweet float on by which can be frustrating. With this feature, Echofon aims to solve that. I can’t confirm how well this works just yet but it’s an interesting feature all the same.

Echofon is free or $20 bucks for an ad-free version.

Original title and link for this post: Echofon for the Mac Officially Released. Clean, Simple With Lots of Unique Features.

Apple announces iAd to take on Google & Admob —

Steve Jobs is announcing Apple’s new mobile ad network – iAd. The network / feature of iPhone’s 4.0 OS is a direct attack on Google and it’s acquisition of AdMob.

While Google and AdMob are still waiting to see if the acquisition will be approved by the FCC (and this announcement should solidify that approval), Apple is taking a stab at unfamiliar territory for the hardware/software giant. Going up against Google on advertising is always risky, and this confirmation now means that developers will soon have to choose between going with Google or Apple in many cases.

From what Jobs showed on stage, the ads will run kind of as apps within apps, and will not use Adobe Flash – they will be HTML5 (another dagger in the heart of Flash on these devices). iAd will seemingly use location as a main ingredient to deliver ads. iAd will actually be run directly from iPhone OS 4.0 and users will not actually ever leave the app that they are in. From what Jobs showed, Apple wants to focus on video ads.

Jobs also said that they will give developers “an industry standard” 60% of ad revenue. Ads will be able to offer in-store purchases (presumably through an iTunes account) and are very integrated in with the OS – for example, a user can shake their phone to see the next stage of an ad. Here’s a video from Slashgear from the event showcasing an ad:

Original title and link for this post: Apple announces iAd to take on Google & Admob

The Opposite of Fitts’ Law [via Berserk’s comment at the spiky button post] asks:

“What should we do with UI elements we don’t want users to click on? Like, say, the ‘delete all my work’ button?”

The possible answers given: Make the button hard to click, offer an undo, and/or show a confirmation alert dialog before proceeding.

The piece also highlights Alan Cooper’s interesting “ejector seat lever” analogy:

Certainly gets the point across.

Here’s an example of separating a dangerous element from a harmless one in Backpack: The recently added add/edit an event box that pops up in your features a trash can icon that deletes a post. It’s located far away from the Save/Close actions.

In Basecamp, the Delete/Edit message links are close to each other. But if you do click on Delete accidentally, you have to confirm it:

We go the dialog route when the action does irreversible damage to something you might care about a lot. Loss of a calendar event is unfortunate but easily reparable. But loss of a message with comments can cause significant pain.

(Btw, one thing about the examples used in the Fitts’ Law post: There’s actually a setting in Gmail that lets you undo email sends up to 5 seconds after a message is sent.)

Confirm your Buzz settings — Posted by Todd Jackson, Product Manager

Shortly after launching Google Buzz, we quickly realized we didn't get everything right and moved as fast as possible to improve the Buzz experience. We made a number of changes to the getting started experience based on your feedback, the most significant of which was replacing auto-following with suggestions for people to follow.

Rather than automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with most, Google Buzz now suggests people for you to follow instead. This way, Buzz is still simple to set up (no one wants to peck out an entire social network from scratch) but you aren't set up to follow anyone until you choose to do so.

But many of you started using Google Buzz before we made these changes, and we want to help you ensure that Buzz is set up the way you want. Offering everyone who uses our products transparency and control is very important to us, so if you started using Google Buzz before we changed the start-up experience, you'll see the following confirmation page the next time you click into the Buzz tab:



This page highlights your current Buzz settings and makes it easy to change anything you want. You can view and edit the people you're following and the people following you, elect whether you want those lists appearing on your public Google profile, and modify any of the sites you have connected to Google Buzz, like Picasa, Google Reader, or Twitter. If everything looks good, you can confirm your Buzz set-up with a single click. And remember, you can always change who you're following by clicking "Following XX people" from the Buzz tab or modify your preferences from the Buzz section of Gmail Settings.

To keep up to date with all of the improvements we're making to Google Buzz and provide your feedback, follow our team's Google Buzz account. For tips and tricks on using Google Buzz, check out the videos on our new YouTube channel: youtube.com/googlebuzz.

In the company's continued efforts to reduce the impact rising from the initial confusion around Google Buzz controls and transparency following the social network's initial launch in early February, which saw many claiming privacy breaches or unsavory connections related to the initial autofollow feature, Google will ask all Buzz users to reconfirm their settings tomorrow when they enter Buzz. This move, albeit a minor one, is likely another requirement to get the network's house in order after taking numerous body blows in the press - which have helped to sully Buzz's reputation and cloud its success to date.

The settings, which are already available in the Buzz section of Gmail settings, as highlighted in mid-February, ask you to confirm:

1. Who you are following
2. Those who are following you
3. If the connections can be displayed
4. How many sites you have connected to Buzz

The changes come amid the resurfacing of stories around undesired visibility of connections, labeled as "privacy flaws", and the news that congressional representatives are asking the FTC to investigate Buzz for allegedly exposing private information from Gmail to outsiders.

All the bad news, which hasn't seemed to ebb in the two months since the service debuted, has often unfortunately overshadowed the very capabilities of that network and its activity - and has made it hard for Google, a company with assumed tremendous resources, to compete more directly with Facebook and other social sites. In a note from Google's PR team tonight, they promise the setting confirmation screens will roll out gradually to users throughout the day, and a post summarizing the move will likely appear Monday afternoon. They also promise more updates in the future through a number of Google channels including their own Buzz (of course), and on their YouTube account.

In my opinion, much of the problems have arisen from standard Gmail users who had Buzz enabled, but either ignored the network or were unfamiliar with it. The promise is to show this screen upon entering Buzz, but I believe it would be even more transparent and effective to show this announcement to all Gmail users - regardless of their Buzz history. That's a big step indeed, but one that could go beyond the series of small steps the Buzz team has had to make to step away from the brink. I have sent an e-mail to their PR team to ask if that is planned.

I know who I am connected to and what I am sharing. You can find me on Buzz here: http://www.google.com/profiles/louisgray.

In an effort to address mounting criticism of the privacy issues surrounding Google Buzz, the search giant is going to ask all Buzz users to confirm or change their privacy settings.

In an announcement that will be coming soon, Google will admit that they “didn’t get everything right,” which has resulted in serious privacy tweaks since its launch. However, many users weren’t affected by these changes because they had activated Google Buzz before the privacy updates.

Now in a renewed effort to correct its gaffs, the search company is going to ask all Google Buzz users to confirm (or change) their Buzz settings. This will be gradually rolled out tomorrow, but the result will be that every user will be prompted with a confirmation page the next time they click the Buzz tab.

It will look something like this:

The page isn’t anything new — it’s really just the Google Buzz settings page. However, Google’s taking a step in the right direction by giving every user a big opportunity to change their privacy settings. It had to be done.

While tomorrow’s move won’t fix the damage that has already been done, perhaps it’ll help get Congress off of its back. If it can appease critics on the privacy issues, then it can tackle the bigger challenge: making Google Buzz into a competitive threat to Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: Google, google buzz, privacy

Filed under: Google, Browsers

What started off as musings about the possible arrival of internal plug-ins in Google Chrome has already come to fruition. Both Adobe and Google have officially announced that the non-NPAPI plug-in version of Flash is ready for us to test in the latest developer channel build of Chrome.

If you've already got the build installed, you need to add a command line switch to enable the magic: --enable-internal-flash. Need help adding the switch? Check our tutorial post for more details.

Once the switch has been flipped, you'll see the confirmation dialog pictured above. There seem to be some performance benefits to the internal plugin -- the HD clip I tested on YouTube never reached more than 19% CPU utilization.

According to Adobe, "Moving forward, Google will be including Flash Player in Chrome so users will always have the most current release and a safer and more seamless experience." As I mentioned earlier, it makes sense for Google to start bundling the internal plug-in for a number of reasons. The internal plug-in will also automatically update itself using Chrome's built-in mechanism, eliminating the need for out-of-browser Flash updating.

The official Adobe post concludes by saying, "Our hope is that the robust integration between Chrome and Flash Player will serve as a showcase for more consistent, seamless, and efficient Web browsing experiences. We feel that this significant effort by both Google and Adobe will directly improve the speed of innovation and move the Web forward, benefiting the entire community of developers and end-users."

Internal Flash plugin integration hits Google Chrome originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Chrome - Google - Adobe Systems - YouTube - Adobe Flash

The publisher is rapidly becoming the central tool for publishing information through Facebook to the feed, with events being the latest product to integrate the feature. This evening Facebook began rolling out an upgraded version of events which places a publisher directly within the wall, enabling event administrators to publish content which tags. We believe that all confirmed attendees will also see the content within their stream.

Up until now, all events could only reach out to users via messages to the users’ inboxes, and anytime a wall post was made, there wasn’t any sort of notification. By integrating a stream directly into the wall, it enables events to have more of a conversation before, during, and after an event. While it may not be a complete redesign of the Facebook Events product, it is a significant upgrade.

While Facebook hasn’t articulated the product roadmap for events, my guess is that the functionality (and design) will slowly begin to mimic Facebook Pages. The idea is that Facebook is slowly becoming a platform which enables users to socialize around various objects: events, pages, groups, photos, videos, applications, and friends. How this socialization takes place is relatively consistent from product to product.

Whether it’s a wall with comments and likes, or tabs that provide extended functionality, Facebook is aiming to be the product which enables anybody to instantly socialize anything. It’s a broad vision but it’s pretty clear that the products are all evolving in this direction, with this upgrade being one step along the path. We’ve reached out to Facebook for confirmation about the event integration with the stream and will be sure to update when we hear more.

Thanks to Mari Smith for the tip.

Syncing data to the Internet (“the cloud”) is all the rage these days and with the coming of the iPad, we’ll surely see more of it. Whether you are using MobileMe, Dropbox, or any one of the variety of other syncing programs, you may be one of the increasing number of people using these services to backup their data.

The problem, though, is that syncing is not backing up.

Syncing’s main focus is making sure your data is accessible and identical at multiple locations. If you have a disaster at one of these locations, a syncing service will make sure you still have access to your stuff. That’s handy and is seen by people as a way of backing up. Lose your iPhone and your contacts are accessible via the web. Sync to Dropbox and if your MacBook hard drive dies, you can access your synced files via the web or another computer.

Unfortunately, syncing operates under the age-old computer principle of Garbage In Garbage Out. When syncing is working properly, a change made on one device is propagated to the web and to all other devices. If that change was unintended, the service might have a previous revision, but don’t count on it. A problem with data on one device is copied to all other devices in your sync scheme.

When it’s not working properly, stand back because things get ugly. I was a recent victim of this. I’ll be polite and won’t mention the name of the service, but it wasn’t a “sweet” experience. Somehow this company’s database was corrupt for my account and instead of syncing changes I made on my Mac to my PC, the server decided I had deleted a critical folder. I literally watched as the software started deleting folders from my Mac without warning or confirmation. I immediately unplugged my Internet connection to minimize the damage. While only the fates of the cloud know what really happened, the post-mortem analysis I had with their engineers indicated my PC’s sync database somehow “thought” I no longer had a folder on my hard drive and then told the cloud to delete it from other computers. Blame it on a PC to mess up a Mac. Of course, their server didn’t have a backup. A two-fisted punch right to the gut.

These same concerns also hold true for your calendars and contacts from MobileMe. Even though you sync them to the cloud, you should still perform a local backup of your Address Book and iCal. Don’t be lulled by the siren of the cloud assuring you that your data is safe. The cloud is a jealous mistress who can swipe data right from your hard drive. Being old school, I don’t fully trust syncing or the cloud and so I fully backup my hard drive via Time Machine and dedicated online backup services. While my sour experience was annoying, I was able to quickly recover.

Others have not been so lucky. Account and database corruption are a fact of computing and because syncing doesn’t only copy data, but remove it, it’s not a backup solution. A true backup solution cannot remove data from your drive, only copy it. Whenever I read backup software reviews, commenters ask why synchronization services aren’t mentioned. Now you know why.

Don’t rely on services like MobileMe and Dropbox as a backup. Your data will thank you.

There's more data coming in on the extent to which low income Americans depend on public institutions for broadband. A new report released by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says that 44 percent of those living below the poverty level access e-mail and the Web via their local public library. And nearly a third of Americans over 14 used library Internet services in 2009. That's about 77 million people.

The study was based on almost 50,000 telephone and Web form surveys. It also found that:

• Forty percent of those 2009 users accessed library Internet resources to find employment. Seventy-five percent of these looked for a job online. Half posted their resume or filled out an online job application.
• Another 37 percent researched some illness or medical problem, or searched for or made an appointment with a doctor.
• Forty-two percent used their local library's Internet for education; over a third of these did their homework online. A big portion of these users were teenagers.
• Sixty percent accessed a library computer to contact someone else.

The study is further confirmation (if more is needed) that low income Americans know that broadband is now an absolute necessity in this economy. It's also more evidence of the huge pressure on libraries to meet this demand. About a third of libraries say they lack both the 'Net connections and staff power to provide the services for which low income patrons ask.

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Kwaga, which offers a semantic search-based solution to help manage email, has launched a new desktop widget. It replaces Kwaga's existing Firefox add-on, which is being discontinued, following a 6 month Beta testing period that saw nearly 2 million emails analysed, says the company. Dubbed Kwaga BirdsEye, the Windows/Mac OS app keeps an eye on your in-box and attempts to single out the most important emails or the ones that require more immediate attention and flag these up while you work in other applications. The idea is that it negates the need or temptation to keep checking your email in situations where you're waiting for a meeting time confirmation or for an answer to a question you've asked a colleague. It makes these intelligent guesses using the company's semantic search technology.

Hulu app for Android revealed by Google search — Dell's Android-loving Thunder already boomed about its future "integrated web video Hulu app," but now we're also getting confirmation, albeit an unintentional one, from Hulu itself that an Android app for the streaming service is in the works. A reader spotted the incriminating info above when searching for more info about just such a program -- as you can see, "Hulu App for Android devices" is specifically named in the blurb below the link to Hulu Labs. The actual Labs page has no new info, and our suspicion is it will stay that way until Android 2.2 brings integrated Flash support to the platform. We're also seeing a reference to an iPhone OS application, but since that bit of text trails off, it's a more equivocal implication -- though not an illogical one at all. Either way, this is the most concrete indication we've had yet that Hulu is going mobile, in what seems to be a pretty big way.

[Thanks, Zach S.]

Hulu app for Android revealed by Google search originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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