Blog Index for 2013

Google+ Shared Endorsement's - probably everyone should turn them off

(Mon Oct 21 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) Google recently introduced "Shared Endorsements" which means Google will repurpose your Like's in advertising. In other words, while showing an advertisement, the ad might show "So-and-so liked this" using data derived from your Likes or +1's on Google+. This could be helpful to someone browsing for a product to see that their friend liked the thing. That might influence a buying decision, right?

Google's Blogger now supports autoposting to Google+ pages

(Tue Sep 10 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) The Google-Plusification of Blogger is proceeding, with Google now making it possible to immediately create a post on a Google+ page for any post made on a Blogger blog. This raises the spectre of blogs roboposting and filling Google+ the way it happens on Twitter. However, it's quite convenient to automate some of your social media interaction. This is a new feature, and follows a move a few months to use Google+ for comments on a Blogger post.

Sony's new QX10/QX100 cameras are a marriage between Internet and high-res Photograph

(Mon Sep 09 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) Is it still a camera if there's no viewfinder or display screen? Sony just introduced a pair of cameras meant to pair with smart phones. But these are cameras unlike any we've ever seen before. They're just a lens, sensor, and memory card, no display screen or viewfinder. Which might leave you wondering just how to compose a shot. However, these cameras are meant to clip to the back of a smart phone, and use the smart phone as the display.

A quick guide to buying the best SD card for a digital camera to shoot movies

(Sat Sep 07 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) As I wrote in

a recent post, I'm buying a new digital camera. That means thinking about which SD card is best to get for the camera. Fortunately the memory card format war is largely over, meaning pretty much all digital cameras today use the SD card format, but there are multiple types of SD cards. Primarily they vary on memory card speed and most of the card makers print a speed like "15 MB/second" on the card, like on my two-year-old card, or the one shown here which says 94 MB/second.

Feedspot takes lead as Google Reader replacement by making RSS export free

(Fri Sep 06 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time))

The race for a credible Google Reader replacement has been on for months since the Google Reader Shutdown. One of the contending services, Feedspot, just gained a big advantage with an announcement this morning that their RSS Export feature was now available for free accounts. The RSS export feature had previously only been available with the paid accounts, and fills a big functionality hole none of the other Google Reader Replacements had successfully filled - easy export of your data from your Feed Reader.

Some of us Google Reader users had used it as part of a workflow of generating content for later re-use in other software or other venues. We depended on being able to easily export items we tagged or starred, reusing them elsewhere. For example, as input to a list of news items you'd put into a newsletter.

The general principle is that it's your data, and therefore you must be free to make use of that data.

Oddly named BazQux could be excellent Google Reader replacement

(Wed Jun 26 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) Recently my favorite iPad based news reader,

Feeddler, announced they'd chosen their new back-end service - BazQux. The race is on to replace Google Reader, and the Feeddler guy spent the last few months looking for an alternative back end service, and chose BazQux, leading me to go take a look. It's a competent news reader that imports your subscriptions direct from Google Reader and does a great job displaying them. However it has a fatal flaw for me.

Feedly is a great Google Reader replacement, almost

(Wed Jun 26 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) Feedly's newly launched Google Reader replacement is very good, with most of the Reader features I want. While its' feature set is incomplete today, the company is clearly planning to implement everything and to be responsive to their user base in developing additional features. I have a fairly specific workflow for processing news items, and Feedly does almost everything that I need it to do, including support for iPad applications. Further, they're planning to implement the full API for Google Reader which should make it trivial for other news reader applications to hook into Feedly as a back end just as they used Google Reader in the past.

Newsify mobile news reader app supports Feedly, doesn't do tags

(Wed Jun 26 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) I'm looking for a Google Reader Replacement and in reviewing Feedly, I came across Newsify because it now uses Feedly as the back end. This means that Newsify users can quickly switch from using Google Reader, to using Feedly, and still use Newsify to read the news.

The Old Reader probably not fit for new paradigms of news reading

(Wed Jun 26 2013 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) The Old Reader was originally developed by people upset that Google removed social sharing features from Google Reader. The idea was if Google was going to gut supposedly useful features from Reader, they'd develop their own Reader to preserve those features. Fast forward a couple years and now we have Google about to kill its Reader, and Old Reader isn't quite up to the snuff of replacing it.