IT Solutions Blog | Trigon Technology

GoogleTV: This Isn't Your Fathers Cable TV.

GoogleTV will not be my savior. But it could be cool.

Today it was announced from Eric Schmidt that GoogleTV would be coming out this fall. Videos circulating online shows a beta tester running through the menus of what looks to be a test GoogleTV unit. It attaches to your already existing cable box to give a better cable viewing experience. Not only that, but you will be able to browse the web in it's entirety. 

Several of the features are very slick. The main feature, allows you to search for any show or movie, say, Bones. When you type that in you'll get search results from your cable provider and also from the internet of various places you're able to watch. Netflix, Hulu, and also FiOS, for instance. The results all show up in a very clean manner so that it's almost indecipherable that you're getting results from other places. 

You could say that it looks like a full featured AppleTV, but with a cable subscription. That's a negative in my book. Certain providers are going to have this Google Experience built-in to the box, so you won't need another one. You will, however, be able to buy one separately.

Let's just hope this isn't another Google Buzz, Wave, or Shopper. Am I right, folks?

Apple Event Wednesday - Schedule Lunch Breaks Accordingly.

Apple jerks across the east coast will no doubt be taking their breaks inside of their dark, depressing offices so that they can follow the live-blogs that will be uploading nerdy pictures and text for the frothing masses.

Sure, you can include me in “the frothing masses”, but at least I can admit it. And so what if my frothing towel has my initials on it? I’m in the IT Support field, so get over it, poindexter.

Rumors are once again swirling to tornado-like levels relating to just what Steve Jobs will announce in two days in California. So sit back, sip your overpriced Frappé, push your Wall Street Journal aside, and close that SEO Webinar taking place on your sweet Toshiba ThinkPad. Here are my predictions/hopes.

To the tech nerds, like myself, that have an average of 400-500 new Google Reader items per day, it’s pretty much a given that Apple will unveil a new iPod touch with FaceTime capabilities. Sweet, right? FaceTime looks to be Apple’s new big thing in iOS and they will be pushing it pretty hard. You won’t even need an actual phone to contact other people on iPhones for video chat. The new beta of iOS 4.1 includes making FaceTime calls via phone numbers AND email addresses. Not only does that open things up for an iPod touch, but it looks to open things up for Mac OS X computers as well.

AppleTV is being heavily rumored to be getting an iOS upgrade, but would they do so at an Apple “music” event? The invitations that were send out were of a guitar without mention of anything else. It’s possible this could be Job’s, “one more thing” announcement at the very end. I’m hopeful for an iOS AppleTV with its App Store. Though, if that’s the case, it would still be a long ways off as they would have to push out the beta SDK for such an item long before it would hit the masses. That would be the same reason I’m skeptical of the iPad getting iOS 4.1 any time soon. There has been no beta for the iPad in….forever?

And what about iLife? Apple has a suite of apps designed for digital creation ranging from creating your own website, DVDs, movies and also music. I’m going to guess that Garageband will be getting a significant update, maybe even an iOS app? Oh man, just the thought of recording a podcast on my iPad just made me spill my Frappé all over myself.

So an iPod touch w/ FaceTime, AppleTV announcement, iPad 4.2 beta SDK, and an updated iLife suite are my hopes. 

If those don't happen, I'm gonna be, like, so mad.

Technology News| If There’s not an App for That, Make one…

My blogs are biased, I’ll unashamedly admit it.  I talk an awful lot about Apple, sing their praises, and flaunt the fact that their mobile technology products are changing the game.    Well, pretty soon, with the help of Google, there’ll be a new game changer in town; you.  You’ll become your own game changer, optimizing everything for yourself and for your business. 

“How”, you ask? 

Simple. 

I first came across this factoid in the New York Times.  The article states that “Google is bringing Android software development to the masses.”  Starting yesterday, Monday, July 12, 2010 – Google will be offering a tool that allows for the easy creation of apps for Android phones. Need an app that will help you optimize your business processes, or maybe one that will help you stay up to date with the meetings your sales team members are currently at?  If so, there’s an app for that…potentially, if you create it. 

The article states that, “The free software, called Google App Inventor for Android (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/), has been under development for a year. User testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not computer science majors.”  Sounds like it can’t be too hard to use. 

Don’t believe me? 

Well you should, because later in the article it’s mentioned that some of the apps can be created in just a manner of minutes.

According to the article, “The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world,” said Harold Ableson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on sabbatical at Google and led the project.”  Mr. Ableson then goes on to say, “The Google project is intended to give users, especially young people, a simple tool to let them tinker with smartphone software, much as people have done with computers.”

I don’t know about you, but I like the way Mr. Ableson thinks.  Having the ability to create apps that you need, when you need them, will truly be a blessing.  In terms of IT Support and IT Mobility, there is so much that can be done with apps that will improve each individual business and its daily processes.

Welcome to the world of game changers (at least in my one-sided mind), Android.

Does the Internet need another iPhone3Gs review? Yes, deal with it.

First of all, I'm pretty vendor agnostic when it comes to the Microsoft vs. Apple holy war. I never really got caught up in it. They both do different things well. As Rodney King famously said, "can't we all just get along"? You will not get a biased review like you may from self appointed Apple fan boy and blogger extraordinaire, Matt Kolowski.

A friend asked me how I like the new iPhone so far and after thinking about it, my answer was... "it's a game changer". It's like the Phillies (the defending World Champion Phillies, that is) adding Cliff Lee at the trade deadline. A good thing just got better. So, here are the top 10 things that I like about the new iPhone 3GS.

• 1. The apps are just outstanding. They range from useful (compass, salesforce.com, Google maps, level) to entertaining (trivia, Pandora, XM Radio) to ridonkulous (glow stick, Zippo lighter, beer pong, Sponge Bob, bug spray and the LIGHT SABRE!). I hope that I just used "ridonkulous" correctly in a sentence if that's possible.
• 2. Like Bob Barker, the price is right. The phone itself is $199. I may be wrong, but I believe that the first generation iPhone started at $399 if memory serves correctly. All of the aforementioned apps are free. You can buy others for a mere .99 cents. It boggles the mind. My mind is boggled.
• 3. The iPhone automatically manages your voicemail. During the initial setup, you set up your VM PIN # and then you can retrieve individual messages from your voicemail, create custom greetings and delete messages without actually dialing directly in to your voicemail account. It's all done through the graphical interface on the phone. It's a simple feature but works flawlessly and greatly increases productivity.
• 4. Email integration with Exchange is more advanced than any other "smart phones" that I've used in the past. The messages are easy to read and manage. As a side note, it should be mentioned that the iPhone scrolls very smoothly and you can almost type a message as fast as you can on a traditional keyboard. In addition, it completely integrates with the Global Address List in Exchange. You can view all GAL entries without effort. You can even "send as" different accounts as if you were working within Outlook. In the past, I had to save contacts to my phone and then manage them there.
• 5. When viewing the calendar, it scrolls to the first appointment of the day whether it's at 8:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m. Once again, the little details make the iPhone experience worthwhile.
• 6. One particular app deserves special mention. The Nike+ tool is already pre-installed on the phone. You can purchase a tiny chip to go in to your Nike running shoes and it will wirelessly send information to your iPhone, which tracks and saves your run details! It gives times, distance and calories burned among other things. It even has a special "kicker" song on queue when you need that extra burst of energy (Elton John's Tiny Dancer anyone? Don't judge me). It also connects to the treadmill at my gym, which gives me the ability to not only listen to "Eye of the Tiger" but also watch the inspirational training scene in Rocky III (the finest of the series in my opinion. Mr T AND Hulk Hogan? Not even debatable.)
• 7. My buddy in the construction industry turned me on the Otter Box, which is a heavy duty protective case. The one that I got from him is "LOOK OUT" yellow but it definitely serves it purpose. It's sort of large and clunky but will ultimately save me the humiliation of asking my friends for their contact information because I accidentally dropped my phone in to a creek... again. If I can avoid the cruel fate of having my iPhone instanteously combust like a Spinal Tap drummer like it's been reported previously on our blog site, I'll be a happy man.
• 8. The voice activation features seem to work especially well. The phone can bring up songs, contacts and initiate calls with simple voice commands. The Google app is voice activated and surprisingly accurate. I do enjoy the "voice memo" functionality, which allows you to leave messages and reminders for yourself such as "pick your daughter up from school, you idiot" or "feed mayonnaise to tuna ahead of time, so that people don't have to mix their own tuna fish salads". Like I mentioned before, it's a game changer.
• 9. The camera is exceptional. It automatically focuses on the subject of the picture. If it chooses the wrong subject, just tap the screen and it will focus on the new subject. The 16 GB (or 32 GB depending on the model) will allow for plenty of storage for photos, videos and songs.
• 10. The text functionality is very easy to use. I especially like the nice, graphical tracking of conversations.

What don't I like? Even after pairing the phone with my car via Bluetooth, I can't get iTunes music through my speakers... just phone calls. I'm sure that is easily solved with an additional accessory or more research. Also, the battery life seems to be lacking but that may just be due to excessive (read: obsessive) usage of a light saber. Please... don't judge me.

Google (and Others) Are Watching You – But Only for the Betterment of Technology

When I used to get lost while driving, I'd call my Dad.  And somewhere along the line in trying to figure out exactly where I was, he'd always ask "Well, which direction are you going?"  The hell if I ever knew - I'm not a damn compass (By the way, I think my father isn't really the child of my grandmother and grandfather, but rather, he's the product of some secret government experiment in which a compass and a human were crossed to form a new species.  What can I say, the man's good).  

Anyway, I just picked myself up a fancy new toy; the iPhone 3Gs.  That's right - I have a compass on deck at all times now - take that, Dad!  But forget the compass for now; I'm about to one up my Pops right here. 

Google Maps.   My iPhone has a Google Maps App.  I don't even need a compass, nor do I have to worry about which direction I'm going.  It's all right there.  Now, while Google Maps is nothing at all new, have you ever stopped to think about where Google gets all the information to put on the map?  Neither did I, until a read an article on CNN about it. 

It's interesting - companies such as Google, MapQuest, and a few others use a service called Tele Atlas to literally drive around and take pictures while also mapping out a given area.  According to the CNN article, "Six cameras, two side-sweeping lasers and a GPS sit atop each bright orange Mobile Mapping Van" that drives around and takes the images for the base maps.  Basically, the van drives around and it captures a 360 view of everything around the van, snapping 3 pictures every second.  From these pictures and images, Google and other map providers are able to piece together their maps. 

And CNN reports that while Tele Atlas doesn't have an application like Google Streets, (that's how they get those neat close-up pictures of your house that show you standing in the driveway), they are currently working on something bigger and better - a 3-D world.  Tele Atlas' vans use the side-sweeping lasers that, according to CNN, are continuously "recording information that Tele Atlas calls the "first reflective surface." This includes the width, height and contours of every building the van passes."  What the lasers catch combined with the images the cameras take will help Tele Atlas create its 3-D world. 

Now I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty neat.  So Tele Atlas, along with mapping out the world and helping Google form a basis for taking those creepy close up pictures of my house, is now working on its own 3D Maps.  Forget my compass of a father - we're about to have the whole world at our fingertips, literally.  If you didn't find this at all interesting, at least remember to keep your windows closed while getting changed.  I don't want to see any X rated stuff as I look at my 3-D Tele Atlas world. 

Google, Apple No Longer BFFs

It was a good ride while it lasted.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple's Board of Directors. Schmidt's company has started to come into conflict with Apple's more and more with Android, Chrome and Chrome OS and even Google Apps debuting. Therefore it was in both companies best interest for him to no longer be involved in their top secret meetings.

Gone are the days where Schmidt and Jobs would skip down the street happily for Ben & Jerry's, slapping each other 5 after using the iPhone Maps application to find the nearest Starbucks and giving each other pounds, laughing hysterically while they see someone using a Zune to listen to music. Yes, those touching heartwarming moments are over, friend. But it's not like they were going to last even without this Board resignation.

Remember that amazing blog that was on this very website about the Google Voice app? (It was the one with amazing writing and rapier like wit.) It turns out there is a slight update. The FCC is investigating Apple, AT&T and Google as to what the deal is with the application approval process. They want to know exactly what happens when an application is submitted, and just who has say in the whole thing. The only one to come out of the investigation unscathed looks to be Google.

As Apple and Google distance themselves even further, prepare to hear the phrase, "Going Google" a heck of a lot in the next few months. Think Apples old school ‘Switch' ads for a new, nerdier generation.

Is that even possible?

If so be afraid, very afraid.