I recently renounced my role as Database Administrator and accepted a new job as Chief Web Developer. I am really excited about the opportunity because I get to write ASP.NET MVC apps on a full time basis. Not too many people get to do what they love for a living so I consider myself fortunate. As a result of switching careers and companies, I had to turn in my Blackberry Bold. Since the new job does not require after hours support I finally had the opportunity to buy the phone that I wanted instead of the phone that the company provided for me. Since I was in the market for a new phone, I spent a fair amount of time researching the various plans and phones that were available. Initially I was thinking about picking up an iPhone but I discovered a few key factors which pushed me towards getting a Android instead: 1. If you want to develop apps for the iPhone you need a Mac OS. In my humble opinion this is bullshit. 2. The iPhone's operating system is completely closed. It is being ... [More]

The Google Chrome OS is kind of a mystery to many people, including me. So what really is it and why would I want to use it? Perhaps, regurgitating this tidbit of information from the official Google Blog will help "We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome - the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be." In case you haven't seen the news lately, the Chrome OS will target netbooks. The reason being is that netbooks are meant to be devices made specifically for browsing, checking email and catching up on the news. Sound familiar? The poster child for the Chrome OS is the Chrome browser. I personally have been using the Chro... [More]

It was announced today that Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers. The transaction will have to go under regulatory review before it can be made official. Therefore it will probably be early 2010 before we actually see this deal come to fruition. In the mean time the Microsoft and Yahoo! have established a website at http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com to provide consumers, advertisers and publishers with additional information about the benefits of the agreement. This "merger" is a step in the right direction for Microsoft Bing if they want to compete with the search giant Google. If you look at the graph below you can see that Google has a large lead on the competition but second and third place belong to Yahoo and Microsoft. Combining the two together could finally put some competitive pressure on Google. Read the full article here: http://yho... [More]

I requested a Google Voice account a few weeks ago and over the weekend I finally received my account information. I wasn't really sure what to expect because I only had a vague idea about what Google Voice really was. The first time you log onto Google Voice you are presented with a wizard. The wizard guides you through the process of establishing a new phone number for your account. The dialog prompts you for an area code and some optional text in case you want to associate your number with some words (e.g. 123-Ima-Geek). Once you pick out your phone number from the pool of available numbers, you are ready to set up call forwarding. So why is this useful? Well, here are some possible uses: You can consolidate your phones. If you have an office phone, home phone and cell phone you can now use Google Voice to route all these calls with a single number. You can route phone calls to one or many phones  You can even setup rules on a per contact basis. For example if your boss c... [More]

In Google's ongoing quest to dominate the world they have announced the new Google Chrome Operating System. The new operating system is based on Linux and it will be open source. It is expected to be free, but perhaps they will follow in the footsteps of other companies who give away the OS for free but make money on supporting it. This is exactly what Oracle does with Unbreakable Linux. Oracle's Unbreakable Linux is simply Redhat Linux rebranded with a few minor tweaks so the Oracle products will work a little bit better. Anyway, I digress... The new OS is expected to launch by the second half of 2010 and apparently they are going to target the netbook market first. This is probably due to the fact, that traditionally, netbooks are shipped with some form of Linux on them because they can maintain a lower price point by distributing a free OS. However, this may change because Microsoft has been making strides in capturing their share of the netbook market. They have recently partnered... [More]