Google

Google Public DNS announced

Google announced a Public DNS service, which is extremely easy to configure and which will improve your web browsing speed and security. This service is not revolutionary however. There were a few ones before, and the one that seems most popular these days is OpenDNS. In case you wonder what’s the difference between OpenDNS and Google Public DNS, take a look at this Google Groups discussion.

From the end-user point of view:

Right now the difference is that Google Public DNS does not use any sort of redirection or display any ads. If a host (domain name, web address, etc…) doesn’t resolve, it will just fail. With OpenDNS, they hijack these failures and redirect you to a search page that displays ads and makes them money.

From the administrator or customer point view there are things like stats, control panels, and more – all in OpenDNS. Google Public DNS seems to be focused differently. At least for now.

Update: Jason Kottke explains why Google did it.

Internet users in Cyprus

Blogoscoped reports that Google has expanded their Public Data Onebox functionality and now you can see the Internet penetration rate for population of any country. All you need to do is search for “internet users in cyprus” (or use your favourite country). Currently, it reports Cyprus having 38% of the population connected to the Internet. And that sounds just about right.

The country with the highest Internet penetration rate that I know of is Netherlands. Google reports it having 86.8% of population connected. Which also sounds just about right.

Google Wave vs. Adobe Wave

I know that smart people tend to think the same and that naming collisions happen once in a while, but is this just a mere coincidence or is there more to the story?

Here is a description of Google Wave as per Wikipedia:

Google Wave is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” announced by Google at the Google I/O conference, on 27 May 2009. It is a web based service and computing platform designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages, and numerous other extensions. It is expected to be released later in 2009.

And here is a description of Adobe Wave as per Adobe web site (no Wikipedia description yet):

Displaying a desktop notification is as easy as sending an email. Adobe® Wave™ is an Adobe AIR application and Adobe hosted service that work together to enable desktop notifications. It helps publishers stay connected to your customers and lets users avoid the email clutter of dozens of newsletters and social network update messages. Adobe Wave is a single web service call that lets publishers reach users directly on their desktop: there’s no need to make them download a custom application or build it yourself.

Of course, once you get into it things get more obvious, but can you really tell the difference between the two without reading more about each technology and watching preview videos?

How it was back in 2001

Some weeks ago, as part of their 10th anniversary celebration, Google presented Google Circa 2001 (yes, I know, I am doing very old news right now – Slashdot, CyberNet News). Google Circa 2001 is basically the way Google was in 2001, including the web index of those times. What’s the big deal? Well, for those of us who were on the web from back then, it provides for a way to see how things were different.

For example, back in 2001 I was better known as “Leonid Mamtchenkov“, not “Leonid Mamchenkov”. That was due to another spelling in my Russian passport. Also, my web site looked pretty different from what it is now. But it was already a blog, even if in the simplest form. Surprisingly even, I found a few posts that were not migrated to the current archives, or got lost somehow after a few CMS and back-end script changes. I’ll restore them for historical purposes later on.

Oh, sweet memories …

New phone : Sony Ericsson G900

A couple of weeks ago my beloved Sony Ericsson P910 died. It got dropped one too many times. A rather large semi-lequid patch appeared in its left bottom corner and touch screen stopped working. Since the keyboard died a long time ago, I was left with no way to input or navigate the phone. Being an exceptionally smart individual I decided that a reboot might cure this, and, obviously, that left me at the “Enter your PIN” prompt with no hope what so ever.

Next morning I rushed to the mobile shop. The first two on my way were closed, since that was too early in the morning, but gladly I remembered that there is a Germanos branch in Debenhams, which opens pretty early. Like 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning. And indeed it was open.

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