…and here it begins…

http://www.filesonic.com now only allows Downloading of files personally uploaded, all sharing has been disabled.

There is no reason why. More than likely it is either because the company feels they are at risk of a MegaUpload style shutdown, or they are already currently being forced into this decision.

The US Government is succeeding in spreading fear in the corporate cloud world. Who is next? Dropbox ?

SOPA and PIPA are the equivalent of the government demolishing a street because I was standing on it selling a bootleg copy of Spiderman 3. – Daniel Chambliss

Any website with a Browse and upload file button, whether it is for pictures, music or movies, or even a search through files button, has the possibility of enabling, even if not promoting, piracy.

Any company, any website, with this type of functionality, (which is almost all) is at risk should a law like SOPA, PIPA or ACTA get passed. Moreso are file sharing companies such as Dropbox or Box.net .

Shutting down all channels for Piracy on the internet means shutting down the internet. Anywhere that you can share information, pictures or video enables a user to share or receive pirated digital property…there is NO avoiding this.

The spirit of the internet is free flow of information, any restriction, technically imposed, means the stifling of that spirit.

Our only hope is that the people of the World (not just the USA) want this channel for freedom to remain open.

Speak up, don’t STOP speaking up. It is NOT over. Tell your representatives first why an open internet is important to maintain. Show them the wonders that have been created. Then tell your friends, tell your family, help them understand what is going on.

The media isn’t covering this, it can only spread via the net and word of mouth. Those who primarily use television for news need to know what is on the horizon…the death of the internet.

Not only is MegaUpload not based on the United States ( It had only 2 servers in VA, allowing the US to claim jurisdiction over the whole site), but it was one of the top 10 to 15 websites visited daily in the world. Over 50 million people used MegaUpload daily.

It is generally known that MegaUpload is a haven for pirated content, as users are not restricted when they post. MegaUpload complies with DMCA noticed when asked, but probably not as much as it should have. I would like to say I do not support MegaUpload in any endeavors of piracy.

The problem is not the piracy, its the real users, and the message that was sent today.

Any data stored online, legal or illegal, can disappear in an instant without warning due to United States government ruling.

The first thing I thought when reading up on the situation about MegaUpload was: What about Dropbox? What about any of the sites that I store files in the cloud? What if some jerks want to store pirated movies in Dropbox and Dropbox gets shut down?

I should take my data off the cloud! It’s not secure!

That is the message they sent today!

MegaUpload didn’t just store infringing videos and music, it stored documents, user created movies and music, as well as other files that may even be critical to Business! Where did they go? What if they didn’t have a backup? What do they do now? What if most of their business surrounded non pirate use of Megaupload?

This is such a step backward, we were making so much progress moving further and further into the cloud, making things secure, connecting people and data in a wonderful weave of free flow information and now….this…this takedown sends us right back to where we were. Now we will have to hide our information on our own devices, keeping it off the cloud not for fear of theft but of legislation that threatens to cause unreliable service!

It’s bad enough that the ISP’s have enforced Bandwidth Caps, but now there is no point to store data in the cloud at all! You cant upload or download it all due to bandwidth caps and if you do manage to get it there a government takedown threatens to disintigrate your data in an instant.

If you keep taking down major websites at a whim, with no public notice, even after years of private investigation you are going to destroy the consumer trust in the cloud that has been painstakingly built over the past few years! Stop this! It has to stop now! Put MegaUpload back up!

We cannot innovate on the net if we cant rely on the connection to one another, if you keep destroying websites that matter to people, how will we know what websites will be there tomorrow? Which ones can we trust? Which ones can we invest in?

Any application that stores any information online is at risk! Because if content can be stored, then piracy is possible, not to say it is done, but possible.

So we are now saying that if a certain fantastical and made up number or % of the traffic or storage on a service is pirated and infringing copyright, (which would take YEARS to prove) we can shut down a service completely, without warning, and disregard any of the valid files that people might want to back up?!

The decisions for cloud products will no longer be based on price or quality, but based on who passes MPAA / RIAA inspection!

To imagine that SOPA and / or PIPA would expedite the process of taking down / blocking sites like what we just saw with MegaUpload, with even less notice to both users and the infringing site, not to mention not even needing much proof!

Can I get a MPAA / RIAA Seal of Authenticity or Badge to show on my website to ward off authorities? Throw us a bone!

Over 5600 Hackers gathered together to choreograph this attack after a very prominent website, Megaupload, was taken down for copyright infringement. No details of the copyright infringement have easily surfaced, but Megaupload is a relatively simple channel to trade pirated virtual goods, knowingly or unknowingly.

Just a day ago, protests broke out on the internet regarding SOPA and PIPA, two bills, which if passed, would ruin the internet as we know it and make it a playground for frivolous claims of copyright infringement from the entertainment industry and its affiliates. And heck, it could been be used as a weapon by competiting businesses to knock people out of the game. The protest was held by major players, everyone from Wikipedia (who blacked out completely for a day) to Google had some sort of protest or message.  Thousands of online businesses and websites also followed. A list can be found at sopastrike.com where my company Esotech is also listed. Millions of letters went out and thousands of phone calls were made to local house and senate representatives as a result of these efforts.

“Guilty until proven innocent”

This is the fundamental tenet behind SOPA, your website goes down before you are notified, and then you have to fight the legal system to get it back up. Win or lose, you get nothing as compensation. There is no bond here folks. Whether you are Facebook.com or hosted at Geocities; if you have anywhere that someone can upload copyrighted material to your site, or if you use it yourself, knowingly or unknowingly, you are liable, and immediatly bannable from the United States DNS servers (Also destroying any trust we have in DNS, but that’s another story). There are plenty of articles on why SOPA is Bad.

The protests seemed very successful, just check out this chart.  It looks like we were making progress…then suddenly…Megaupload is gone. They didn’t even need SOPA to be active to do it! But Why? Why NOW? Why a Day after a huge public uproar about Censorship?

The internet was outraged of course, millions visit megaupload every day. Out came the hackers, and the new modified low orbit ion cannon began to fire, this time with both unwilling and willing subjects creating a DDoS on government and music industry sites. The firepower came from the people. Links to the cannon on Social Media sites such as twitter,  hidden as updates on the whole Operation by Anonymous, allowed millions of computers to bombard these websites shutting them down for minutes if not hours at a time. Some were hit harder than others, and some bounced on and off. But the point was made, people are pissed.

We come back to the simple question of why today?

I believe the reason has to do with discrediting the opponents of SOPA, the tech guys, as being anarchistic nutcases that are against the American people. I think it also had to do with the government wanting to show the technology community, that it can do whatever it wants. Big or small, they can bring up charges of copyright infringement and shut you down, with or without SOPA.

Its a power play, and it can go one of two ways:

1. The acts that happened today are seen as a reason to enable DNS filtering, and those who opposed SOPA  and PIPA are seen as irresponsible and incapable of diplomacy, further fueling the fire of censorship and corporate domination of the internet.
2. The reason for the acts today are discussed: The reasons and effect that a sudden disruption / takedown of a service like Megaupload has on both users and Megaupload as a Business. This disruption could make even more of the nation aware of the issues regarding SOPA and PIPA, ensuring that our internet remains free from censorship as people rally behind the hackers as defenders and retributors instead of anarchists.

…unfortunately the media is on their side and will display it in their favor to bring SOPA back to the table. Remember, they control television and news media. Never has the fight for something like this been so fierce. This is a historic time. This is a fight for something that has never existed, but was expected to be a human right…the free flow of information through technology. Most websites, and indeed, social media platforms developed on the idea of sharing content between users, but SOPA and PIPA oppose this idea, labeling the internet as a medium for piracy, and anything that RISKS promotion of piracy, should be shut down. Imagine the innovation that would have been stifled had this been in effect while Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Google were developing? With a lawyer at every turn, no one is going to want to develop for the internet anymore…it would cost too much just to be compliant with this silly bill.

The entertainment industry is trying to indirectly control the internet by introducing the only things they know they have control over because of their vast wealth: law, lawyers and lawsuits. If these acts change Congressmen’s stance on SOPA and PIPA we could be in a world of hurt, the internet will change as we know it, our favorite websites will disappear in seconds, without notice. The entertainment industry needs to stop seeing its end users as opponents instead of customers.

Indeed, it will be interesting to see how the next few days pan out…I hope you all will be watching as closely as I will.

I am an avid Android / Droid fan but struggled with putting together a notifications theme.

One of my favorite video game series, as for most, is the Legend of Zelda. I’ve only had the fortune to keep up with it through the Ocarina of Time. Although I did play and complete Twilight Princess; it doesn’t hold as much memory for me as Ocarina and a Link to the Past did, probably because I was so much younger at the time.

Although at times annoying, Navi is one of my favorite characters from Ocarina of Time. She is essentially, Links smartphone, giving him notifications and warnings as to whats going on. I was able to find a great site for downloading Zelda Sounds and grabbed as many Navi and Ocarina of Time related sounds as I could. I have provided them in the following Zip with descriptive file names telling you what sound it is and for what application.

I did not include Ringtones with this theme, but I did provide suggestions in a text file. I purchased and downloaded Zeldastep from Ephixa, which I use for both my ringtone (Lost Woods Dubstep) and alarm (Gerudo Valley Dubtep). I highly recommend buying their CD or digital download,  listen for yourself!

I bundled a copy of my Droid Wallpaper – the inverted Esotech Logo with Navi floating away which came out looking really nice! For those of you who just want Navi, I also included her alone on a black background. Enjoy!

Download navi-droid-theme.zip

Here is a list of the Files and What they do:

• Navi Hello – Google Voice
• Navi Hey – G+ Notification
• Navi Fly In – Twitter Notification
• Navi Listen – Google Talk
• Navi Look – Google Calendar Notification
• Navi Fly Out – Foursquare Notification
• Navi Watch Out – Battery Low Notification
• Ocarina of Time - Gain Heart – Gmail
• Ocarina of Time – Pause Sound – General Notification
• Ocarina of Time – Unpause Sound – Text Message

I am open to any suggestions for improvement!

The best way to grow is to keep your confidence level slightly above your skill level.

Why do I say this? Because it pushes you past your boundaries without breaking them. As a technician, manager or even business owner, if you remain within the comforts of what you know how to do, you stay there.

I am not saying if you are a IT geek, go get a job as a cook, no. I mean, as the IT person who is used to a certain way of programming, or language…step out of those bounds and start working at something you have never encountered or been asked to do. Make small projects for yourself that test your limits, slightly. Try writing in a language you never had before, and let Google be your guide! Search! Learn! Solve!

Doing this keeps you on your toes and forces you to figure out a new way to do things. The only thing that comes out of this is growth, as long as it is done slightly. No sense trying to do something that completely forces you to reinvent your own wheels! You want to grow, not break yourself down.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team takes a similar approach, he has a “30 day” program where you tell yourself you are going to do something for 30 days, and do it no matter what. This is an excellent program however my approach is somewhat different…take what you are good at and modify it so its a bit more difficult, not comfortable. When that becomes easy, move onto something new.

Don’t get caught in a rut doing the same thing day in and day out. The more you can do, the more valuable you are, and the easier it will be to overcome opportunities in the future.

She describes a geilt as:

It is translated as “one who goes mad from terror, a panic-stricken fugitive from battle, a crazy person living in the woods and supposed to be endowed with the power of levitation, a lunatic.” It may also be the name of some kind of bird or it might mean “grazing.” The title I’m using here, geiltadecht, is a neologism to describe the practice of the geilta.

This is the title that I also found from a book called the Lost Books of Merlyn, where I originally encountered the word “geilt”, though the description was vague and only mentioned Merlyn as a Geilt. Although Meryln had not technically gone mad, as Suibhne Geilt did, there can be other interpretations of the word. Madness, has different meanings from different perspectives, as can be seen in this next quote:

Other “madmen” in the Celtic literary tradition, including Myrddin and Lailoken, were regarded as prophets — seers and possessors of a certain “crazy wisdom.”

Crazy wisdom may not mean that the person is insane, but could mean that the standard of knowledge they have attained is seen as crazy by others. Philosophies and concepts such as Non Dualism (Advaita), Emptiness (Shunyata), the World as Illusion (Maya) are examples of ideas that don’t work in society. Try telling someone that love does not exist, nor hate, nor any emotion they feel; that its all an illusion; and see what kind of response you get?

This next excerpt is excellent as it show the contradictory nature of the term, and the philosophy I see behind it.

That said, the nature of the geilt means that control is often an illusion. Interpretation and acceptance is a more fruitful path for one with these proclivities. This is not in any way suggesting “giving up” but merely a statement that the world and the Otherworlds are vaster than we can understand and we, mere humans, have very little power over some things that happen.

Knowing control is an illusion, that what you do is not actually you, but something that is just happening, and accepting it. It is hard to describe. A Geilt realizes that they are doing something and have choice in doing what they are doing, but then realize that this thing that they are doing, is only being done, without purpose, reason, and even without need for control…

a geilt is an outsider, someone who lurks on the boundaries of groups and societies. That inclination to solitude is part of what marks someone as geilt

Every Geilt is different and so are the symptoms of madness! But this much is true, the “mad wisdom” a Geilt has usually stays with themself, and why? Because most aren’t ready to hear it, or if they are, are not willing to discuss it. “That person is just “crazy”, he doesn’t fit into my little box that i’ve put the world in and what I have defined as it’s “parameters”.”

Within the experience of geiltadecht, madness and destruction is the foundation for transformation.

Madness and Destruction happen both physically and metaphorically, in the mind and body, these experiences are transformative and depending on how it is harnessed, can open doors or close them. Concepts of geiltadecht exist in Eastern Traditions as well such as Shaivism, where there is Worship of Shiva the Destroyer, who brings about wondrous transformations. Even the older Rigvedic God’s such as Rudra are worshiped for their destructive yet regenerative qualities.

Erynn will have a paper on the concept of Geilt in a academic book that is soon to be published by Macmillan: Disability and Religious Diversity

Amazon markets to the masses, they make their money by having you buy lots and lots of their stuff. I myself use an Amazon.com Visa card as my primary method of payment for everything, because I get a minimum of 1% back in gift cards (2500 points was $25.00 gift card.) Happy as I was with that, Amazon just lets me SHOP with the points instead of having to redeem the cards…amazing. Have to love when companies make customers lives easier.

So, being a happy Amazon Prime customer already, your damn right I ordered that thing right then and there, jumping from the news page to the newly redesigned Amazon.com home page to see the beautiful Kindle Fire, add to cart, add a nice leather case and a warranty, and there goes my $300( I had $400 in points just sitting there ).

Amazon’s new front page says something too. It’s a search bar…they are a search engine for products, get whatever you want, just type it in! They are one of the first merchants that, I believe, is so popular they really dont even have to have a single product on the home page to make a sale. They can use it like a real home page, giving real news, the latest and best products and information you need. If you want something, you’ll just search for it. Thats what 10+ years of search engine indoctranation and use has done to us.

After ordering the Kindle Fire and knowing almost nothing about it, I saw a link on Amazon’s home page that discussed about it’s new Silk Browser. Essentially, the browser uses Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) to process a web page in the cloud, and serve it optimized, and near complete, on a device.

It’s a Cloud Browser…

This removes any hardware limitation for web pages due to the intense Javascript processing and image downloading done by AWS, and then sent to you.

Cloud Browsing is an amazing idea. I’ve known ans enjoyed cloud servers for years. Load balancing is a must for high traffic sites, but never did the though occur to me that the user could use the same power. I took for granted that our devices just always get better, and when my current device starts to lag I replace it with something more robust…now…this may not ever need to happen, to a certain extent.

If amazon can control the complete output to screen and user interaction with that output, and translate it into small sized optimized communication between AWS and the User, then we have something huge. The web is changing. Our interfaces will get simpler, not more complex, the heavy lifting can be done in the cloud.

In my opinion, cloud browsing could even solve the issue of bandwidth caps, having AWS process and filter out the uneeded data that is sent to your home devices. If you could install Silk on the PC, the browsing experience would be lightning fast, and you would reduce the load on your bandwidth.

Unfortunately, evil service provider companies like AT&T and Comcast probably would just LOWER the bandwidth caps even further if the web became more optimized and less bandwidth heavy…gotta love not having almost no competition for service providers…

I say cloud browsing is a great step in a new direction. Let’s optimize what we have and utilize the massive backbones that these successful and giant companies have been creating. Support them and let them give the public something amazing for free or even for a small fee.

I’m still waiting for a “Google ISP”, so this nightmare of worrying about how much bandwidth I’ve used month to month can go away…

I called ADT, had a salesperson come to the house to give me a quote; $700.00 to install, and they would use the already equipped system that was in the house, the screens and connectors, etc. The salesman even gave me a used panel and motion sensor to help bring down the price. I was happy, they started the process of pulling permits.

A week passes and the technician finally comes to the house. I feel relieved because now I can leave my house without worrying about thieves coming back to take whatever little is left in the house.  I hadn’t left the house alone in a week. The technician tells me suddenly that they cant use any of the screens or connectors in the house because they are too old. This means all this stuff has to be replaced…costing an extra $900.00 dollars (Now about $1900.00 dollars total with first and last months, etc.). This made the total price more than twice cost of the original quote! I reluctantly agreed  and the installation started…it needed to be done, even if i felt slighted by the whole situation.  I had to wait for the weekend to pass to recieve the new screens and finally be able to leave the house. At the same time I had cameras installed…by an ADT Technician working off duty (who was late multiple times because they decided to finally GPS his Van…and also always had an excuse.).

The ADT Technician who was installing the pieces at my house left many unsecure spots, especially on the sliding glass doors which was the main point of entry for the robbers previously, where you could literally stick a finger in the open door after cracking it open and pull the sensor off and then just stick it to the one on the frame, giving full access to the house…I notified him about it as he was installing it and had him fix that, pulling the sensor further away so it would trip when the door was opened a crack. Well guess what?

It’s only been 3 weeks having the damn alarm system installed and already one of the sensors fell off of the sliding glass door on its own and went missing…Now I have an insecure house again because the alarm wont allow itself to rearm. Why did the sensor fall off? Because when you install it as he did on a sliding glass door, sliding the damn door open fully rips the sensor off. Did he test it or know about that? No…did he say anything? No? Is there a way to secure it without that happening? I have no idea. But I am pissed. I am pissed that after spending all that money I already having problems. I am pissed I was lied to about the price by the salesman and about what technology they could use in the house. I am pissed that I had to deal with a technician and salesman fighting each other over the phone in my presence about what could and couldn’t be installed, and I am also pissed because the ADT guy who did the cameras has blown me off to run an ethernet cable for the past 2 weeks so I can view my cameras remotely due to his laziness.

Lazy unskilled technicians, lying salesman, lack of professionalism that is my experience with ADT so far. It makes me feel as if ADT is taking me for a ride, and are just as bad, if not worse, than the thieves that ransacked my house. I feel used and violated by both, and exceptionally angry. The thieves that ransacked my house started the job by clearing out my valuables, now ADT is finishing me off by clearing out my bank for a crappy installation and terrible service.

Aside from the metaphysical ramifications, and belief system altering experience that this can be, there is a unspoken effect of both believing and communicating with ones past life, that is the problem of Egotism. The self importance, pride, and majesty that comes from believing one was even a relatively famous figure.

It becomes very easy to identify oneself with “those who came before”, and accept them as part of who a person is. This acceptance; even the tolerance of the notion begins to heighten the ego with visions of grandeur, exciting the brain in new ways. Verily, new experiences cause excitement. A seeker knows this. A seeker also knows excitement is only a delay on the path, however pleasurable.

Who you are, who you were, and who you will be, are all in the same, null and void. The culmination of experience is just that, the gathering together of a non existent that believes it has a righteous fury to impose itself on reality. When amplified by a legion of personalities, and without the proper care and concentration, this indignation becomes permanently affixed in the mind, barring any growth until a new cycle begins.

The latest wave in music apps have focused on organizing and playing music in the cloud, detaching us the tethers of the wire as well as introducing us to music we have never heard. For all you iTunes fanboys out there, this is serious competition. Gone may be the days of “syncing” your iPod to your PC. (and having to erase and restore all your device data if you reformat your PC.)

Spotify

I only recently got an invite into Spotify and was disappointed to find out I have to pay to use it on my mobile device. Kind of lame, and is the primary reason why I don’t use it. What is nice is that it imports your current music and playlists from Windows Media Player, iTunes, and other devices. It also will allow you to add your Facebook “friends” which at the moment I only have 7 of the 300+ friends I have showing since Spotify is relatively unknown in the USA. What has come from those friends? Nothing much, apparently though you can “send” friends songs you like, and even make your playlists searchable. The problem I see with this is that its too much “me go to you” type of social networking. If you want to expand your music library you have to have the music come to you, Pandora taught us this and is a clear example.

Overall though, Spotify is kind of boring, other than looking up some songs and making a playlist, in terms of music discovery its just not intuitive or easy to get into. If you know what you like, its a good alternative for PC music listening, and if you want to pay for the mobile app, its a great alternative to Pandora since it lets you control the songs that are played. Perhaps its just me, maybe I haven’t looked deep enough into all the features of Spotify, but nowadays adoption rate is clearly based off of how simple you can make the navigation and features. I consider myself a power user, and if I find Spotify boring, and I am missing some “key” features, then they need some work making them more apparent.

Google Music

My Google Music Invite finally went through and I must say I am happy with it. I downloaded the client and over the course of a few days it uploaded all 6000 songs into my Google Music account and it synced flawlessly with my Android phone. The only problem I had is that it tried to use my full upload at first and KILLED my bandwidth (I work from home, this is bad) and the bottleneck wouldn’t stop without saving the setting then killing the app to restart it. I can see this causing a panic with some users who may think they just downloaded a virus, or call their ISP complaining. Not to mention, with bandwidth caps today, users should be notified that this is going to use a serious amount of upload (Bandwidth caps pool Upload and Download btw, just ask your data provider.) Google Music is nothing fancy, just a wireless way of keeping your music organized, and best of all, safe. A must have app for audiophiles and those with a large music library.

Even though I grouped Google Music into Social Music, its not exactly Social. I only grouped it because it was released around the same time Spotify and Turntable where. Google Music is part of Google’s attempt to move everything to the Cloud and have all your devices sync wirelessly. I am sure Google Music and Google+ will get some sort of neat integration in the near future turning it into a social music platform of sorts.

Turntable

When it comes to “music coming to you”, TurnTable.fm stands Pandora on its head and gives it a spanking. Wouldn’t you be interested in what other people with similar interests enjoy and are listening to, than what a computer algorithm thinks is relevant to your previously listened song? I am sure we have all had the experience on Pandora, where you end up listening to an entirely different Genre of songs just because some random trumpet was in your dance electro station.

Turntable is different, you hop into a room with 5 DJ’s, real PEOPLE, playing music from their own playlists. You can search and pick music from a huge library that is constantly growing because…you can upload your own tracks! This is an amazing way for upcoming musicians to spread their own music without having to resort to YouTube and random searches!

I have discovered tons of awesome music on Turntable I would have never tried listening to, just because I am in the room either DJing or spectating with hundreds of others to the same songs. You can rate songs that are awesome and give the DJ points, or lame them down and make it skip to the next song. You even get rewards for getting points, allowing you to have different “avatars” and reward good DJing. Your avatar becomes a status symbol as to how awesome your music taste is, which normally gives you a DJ spot almost immediately if you have a rare enough avatar. The community is amazing, many sites and extensions have been written specifically for Turntable such as Turntable Dashboard which is a stats site for the most popular rooms.

TurnTable is a “Crowd Sourced DJ”.

When you like a song, it also gives you the ability to add it to your own DJ queue, buy the song on Amazon or iTunes, add it on Spotify, last.fm, or rdio, which is great advertisement for music producers. My disappointment with Spotify comes from not being able to find every track in Spotify to make a playlist of songs I like.

There are some negatives. Sometimes idiots get on the DJ table, playing the wrong kind of music for some rooms, and there are not enough people paying attention to lame them out. There are also a couple of flash related issues that are constantly being worked on (It is in Beta after all). You can’t get into Turntable unless someone you know on Facebook is in, so the limited amount of people using it gives it an interesting feel, sort of like Google+ as it is invite only also. Playlist management is also rudimentary, you only have one playlist, so if you want to make more than one you have to install a Google Chrome extension, which doesnt always work that well (my extra lists kept disappearing.) The last negative is that there is no mobile app…yet. I heard there is one in the makes.

Sounds like a lot of negatives  for Turntable huh? But the experience is exhilarating, I recommend everyone give it a try. Even with its flaws its by far the most fun I have had online with music.

The future of Social Music looks bright, as long as the RIAA or some other legal crap doesn’t come around and shut these things down. I am very happy with the way people have been opening up channels to get things shared around the world. There is still money to be made in every industry but distribution methods have to change, and the direction in which they are changing is astounding and, I think, wonderful. It finally feels like some companies and developers are trying  keep up, if not meet the expectations of  a public that is being molded by greater and free access to global information and the adoption of new technologies.

So what do I have now? E-mail, Voice, Chat, Video Chat, Calendar, Docs, Contacts, Task List AND Social Network all on one screen? Amazing. *Clap* for Google.

The integration is Seamless, albeit in order to use it you have to use Gmails newest theme (Preview). I highly recommend it. It transforms Gmail to look similar to Google+. This was why they were rolling out the black Google Menu bar, it was part of the Google+ Project and eventual Gmail integration. Google Calendar got the same Treatment!

Google seems to have realized that uniformity of look and feel among their products was a must, and this round they decided to change all of them. I wont be surprised when Google Docs gets the same skinning treatment. I rather like the new look, it has that soft edge yet square feeling to it, somewhat metallic with nice simple unobtrusive highlights.

Oh, and can I say…its about time the “Back to Inbox” button got replaced with a real button!!!

The only drawback is information overload. There is so much to do now…and on one screen, it makes it hard to filter out. How can I not check that I have 20 notifications in Google+ when I can see it glaring at me in my google bar’s top right corner?

Information overload isn’t that much of a problem for me though…here’s looking at whatever other Goodies are coming our way from Big G+.

Google Latitude used Google Buzz to pull this off, but it was much more difficult to do. You could only do it from Google Maps, and for a while only from your phone, and you would have to navigate over chat bubbles on the map to click and see them. There was also no real ability to follow the person from that menu and it was just tedious to use, although cool. The way it worked also changed frequently without word, or at least an easy way to get to some update notes.

The big problem with Buzz + Latidude is that it was 2 apps, and 2 apps most people don’t understand, so it kinda went the way of Google Wave. Without publicity and ease of use it just wont work. Google+ is a great step toward that usability. It is simple, clean and makes sense very quickly.

This has already helped me! I started adding people talking nearby that looked like they were in tech and already found a designer I may be interested in commisioning. The applications here are pretty endless for those seeking or providing services.

They also seem to have a check in feature similar to Foursquare for the mobile apps, that may make sharing info about places easier, though I think we need a “stream” per location rather than just overall nearby.

So far I am rather Impressed with Google+. especially with it’s integration into Gmail. Being able to check updates and respond in the same window that I am always in is very helpful!

As someone who specializes in SEO, and especially knows the importance and sensitivity of domain transfers, hell, the sensitivity when changing your site toward a new structure, file extension per page, and the catastrophe that most people turn this into…I was appalled. Here goes another unmitigated disaster…sigh.

I will explain this in laymens terms, as much as I can.

Firstly, when you have 2 hosts, and you want to move from Host 1 to Host 2 there is this one simple little domain setting known as the “A”record. The “A” record tells the world what IP Address (I.E. 74.125.229.52) your website, or a subdomain of that website is actually hosted/located. Servers don’t care what your website is called. Your browser goes through what is called DNS (Dynamic Naming System) lookup before connecting to a site. The name is purely cosmetic.

So, why is the “A” record important? Because you can have 2 websites setup at the same time with the SAME domain name but on different servers…where a user lands is pretty much up to what the “A” record points to.

In fact, you can spoof your real website with another locally by changing whats known as your HOSTS file (in windows: c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts) by just typing in the domain name, a space, and the IP Address. (I.E: “74.125.229.53 google.com”).

Right, so waiting period…what waiting period? If both of your hosts are active, new and old, you can work on both without any interruption.

You 3 different choices when it comes to moving your site over.

You can:

1. Change DNS Naming Servers from Host 1 to Host 2.
2. Change Domain Registrar
3. Change the A Records on Host 1.
4. Use a 3rd Party as your DNS and change the A Records.

No matter what you do, settings should be preserved, and as soon as they switch, you will just see the new website instead of the old one. The only time something could go wrong is when you change DNS Naming Servers from one to the other and haven’t prepared the DNS entries on the new server, they should be exactly the same as before, or should reflect the IP Address of the new site. Also, when switching domain registrar, make sure that you check off that current DNS Settings should remain the same, that way everything will move smoothly, otherwise you will have a couple hours downtime as the world servers propagate your new IP Address and DNS Settings.

Ok so the point all this is, there is no reason your website should go down for 30 days unless you had a catastrophic loss of data, of which you would then be making a new website.

Regarding 301′s, if you are making a new site with a new structure, and not using 301′s, you are hurting your rankings. I will save that for another blog!!

These are accessed by going to start, run typing in “cmd” and typing the following in the command prompt:

Reset TCP/IP

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

Reset Winsock:

netsh winsock reset

Back in the day, I used to reset Winsock by a longer and more risky process which involved deleting the Winsock and Winsock2 registry folders and reinstalling TCP/IP by hand from a windows INF File; the above command is much much easier.

Once you reboot your computer your network settings should have been reset and you should be able to connect to the internet and see other local computers on the network, barring your network is set up right.

I always use these commands especially after removing a virus. Virus tend to corrupt whatever they were infecting and often will destroy your networking settings in favor of their own. Most anti virus / malware removal tools will remove the virus but not reset your settings to what they used to be as any record of that is usually long gone.

Hope this helps, and good luck!