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Link Love: Star Wars Crafts, FridgePad, and more

March 26, 2011 · 0 comments

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Apple’s WWDC 2010 Keynote Debriefing

June 7, 2010 · 3 comments

iphone 4Who else always feels like Apple events are such intense experiences that they require a debriefing before you can get back to your normal life?

I think these are today’s biggest paradigm jolters:

  • iBooks now supports PDF I see this as a big step towards standardizing the ebook format.
  • App store as a “curated platform” Content curation is the next big thing. It’s the only way to deal with the overwhelming volume of digital information available in this day and age. Apple is putting their stamp of approval on the concept.
  • Netflix for iPhone Free app coming this summer. But will you still need a paid Netflix account to use it?
  • Farmville for iPhone With push notifications so your crops won’t wither no less. (No I don’t play Farmville myself but with 35 million users this is big news. And the iPhone is suddenly going to appeal to a lot more little old ladies.)
  • iPhone 4! Available June 24th with preorders starting on June 15th. OS updates for older devices coming June 24th as well.
  • HD Video and iMovie Will these new video features make the new iPhone a suitable rival for the Flip?
  • Multitasking Now you can play Pandora (and get your cloud music fix) in the background while using other apps.
  • Search Engine Options Set your default to Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Several months ago I played with a tool to help you find out which option is best for you and decided that Google is best for me so I won’t be adjusting my settings.
  • iBooks comes to the iPhone See point #1. This move pretty much brings everything that I thought made Amazon’s Kindle the strongest ebook reader on the market to Apple.

But what didn’t we see?

  • colored iPhones (The Perfect Thing talks about how the pink iPod mini was such a shockingly huge hit. Why not bring that to the iPhone as well?)
  • iTunes in the cloud
  • Apple TV updates
  • wireless syncing for iPhone
  • iTunes/Safari/OS X updates
  • Beatles on iTunes (but maybe the new Guitar Hero app is a step closer)

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links.

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Overwhelming Search Engine Options

August 30, 2009 · 2 comments

After years of being a faithful, exclusive Google searcher, I’ve recently become inundated and overwhelmed by my search engine options.

First up we’ve got Swagbucks:

Swagbucks actually sucks as a search engine and unless you know exactly what page you want to reach (like your search terms are the name of the site), you aren’t going to find anything useful.

The awesome thing about Swagbucks is that on some searches you earn points that can be redeemed for prizes like Amazon gift cards (I’ve gotten $15 in gift cards in a little under 3 months of use).

Because I absolutely love ordering stuff from Amazon.com, I’ve got Swagbucks set as my default browser in Firefox so it always gets used first. If and when it doesn’t find me anything useful (I get the points whether or not I find the results useful), I move on to my next options.

Then there’s Bing:

Bing is Microsoft’s latest effort to be competitive in the search engine market. Bing boasts features like being able to track packages and get local traffic info on the search engine results page rather than just telling you what site you can find that information on.

Not to mention new features from Google:

I was starting to feel like it might be worth swaying from my loyalty to Google but then they went and added some handy new features too. There’s now a “Show options…” link in the blue bar right below the search box on the results page. When you click that you get a slew of new options that let you do things like narrow down your search results by date posted or navigate possibly related searches with the Wonder Wheel.

Take the taste test:

So after getting my Swagbucks should I use Bing or Google? Or should I use Yahoo, which has still never appealed to me despite the fact that they’re based in my home town?

It’s time to try out Blind Search, the search engine taste test. A few days of using Blind Search reveals that my search engine of choice should be Google. I do question if maybe the results are skewed in favor of Google since it is my normal search engine of choice and I know how to tailor my keywords to get the results I want.

What search engine do you use? Are you going to try out Swagbucks or the Blind Search taste test?

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