The Four-eyed Journal » Google

Signing up for Google Drive

jhay — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:25:41 +0000

Alright, bear with me. It’s been more than a month since my last update on this blog it feels like I’ve forgotten how to go about this whole exercise.

Moving on to the topic, the internet is abuzz with the news that Google will launch its much-awaited and might-be-too-late cloud storage service, Google Drive next week. Google fans say it with me, Yay!

I’ll tell you honestly that once it is open for sign-up, I’d sign-up right away. For a Google fan like myself, it is the logical move. I use Gmail, Calendar and Docs, but up until next week, I’ve wandered between non-Google online storage services like Box.net, Ubuntu One and my least favorite, DropBox.

And it seems that the universe has conspired with Google to make this decision for me because hopefully, next week too, I’d be back to using an Android phone. Coincidence? I call it destiny.

Google Drive’s 5GB of free storage is more than enough for me and since it’s tied up with other Google services, the mess that is my digital files would be put into order. Finally!

While some privacy issues have already popped up, I am confident that a Google Drive will see a healthy wave of sign-ups once it opens next week.

How about you? Would you sign up for Google Drive and dump your current cloud storage service?

Short-of-expectation iPhone 4s and Samsung Galaxy Nexus leads to hopeful 2012

jhay — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 06:41:41 +0000

When it was first announced that Google has partnered with Samsung to make the Galaxy Nexus which is the flagship phone to carry Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, anticipation among Android fans grew as Apple fans salivated for the next iPhone.

It turned out that there was no iPhone 5 just the iPhone 4s. So we all thought that it was a good opportunity for Google to score with the Galaxy Nexus or so we thought?

Gizmodo has come out with a review of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus which said that it’s the best Android phone to date simply because of the raw Ice Cream Sandwich on which it runs. No questions there as Android 4.0 has been received well by critics and tech pundits.

However, one cannot ignore the Galaxy Nexus’ shortcomings, Gizmodo points out:

the worst thing about this phone: The camera, the camera, the camera! Sweet Jesus Diaz, what were they thinking? When I heard they’d gone with a 5MP sensor instead of the now-standard-on-high-end-phones 8MP sensor, I promised I’d reserve judgement until I’d tried it. The camera does pretty okay in bright daylight, but it doesn’t come anywhere near its competition, plain and simple. Colors are washed out, low-light shooting is a noise-fest, and it’s not nearly as sharp. Why would you totally revamp your camera software, make it fast and awesome, include time-lapse, panorama, and really fun face-morphing video features, and then put a piece of crap camera in there? It’s utterly baffling.

Other deal breakers are the lack of an SD card for extra storage, the lack of a dedicated camera button and the cold hard fact that it is easily outperformed by the Samsung Galazy S II which is an older-generation phone.

With both Apple and Google falling short of expectations with their new ‘flagship’ phones, 2012 will be exciting as other phone manufacturers will try to fill in the void with their new handset offerings running on Android 4.0

But with the Christmas shopping season soon to pick up with stores offering current generation Android phones on great deals, it’s hard to resist waiting for another 6 months for great phone running the latest version of Android.

Image by laihiu

Quick thoughts on the Google Reader Update

jhay — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:47:39 +0000

Yes, I still get my regular fix of web content via RSS and my feed reader of choice remains Google Reader. Just a few days ago, it received a major update in terms of the UI, similar to what has been rolled out to Gmail: a very clean, minimalist UI with tons of white space and a generous use of the gray color for contrast.

Redesigned Google Reader

The new redesign also comes with Google+ integration allowing us to +1 any feed we like and share it on our Google+ accounts. A cool feature which re-aligns Google Reader with Gmail and Google+ for a tighter integration.

However, and this could just be me, but I find the redesign a bit too cramped, like there’s too much white space that the feed you’re reading has been squeezed to the lower-right area of the screen. Unlike with the old design where most of the screen is occupied by what you are reading, which is the point of what an RSS reader should be right?

Still, the redesign is a welcome update to Google Reader. What I’m really looking forward to is the updated Android app. What do you think of the new Google Reader redesign?

Belated happy 20th birthday to the Internet

jhay — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 10:15:35 +0000

What better way to return to blogging than to give my birthday greetings to the Internet which had just turned 20 last August 6 according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee because on the same date in 1991, the very first web page was born.

It’s amazing to look back on how much the Internet has changed the world, especially mine. If I recall it right, the very first time I encountered the Internet was when a friend of mine told me that I could look for pictures of Ferrari F1 cars using Google. It was after my introduction to the sport back in 1999. It was the British GrandPrix where F1 champion Michael Schumacher had that infamous crash resulting in a broken leg that forced him to sit out most of the season’s remainder. Since then, I had become an F1 enthusiast and a fan of the Ferrari F1 team.

After abusing Google for pictures of Ferrari cars, my next obsession was fanfiction stories based on the Gundam Wing series. It was around during that time that the anime was shown on GMA 7. Every day, I rushed home from school just to catch an episode.

Come 2002, in my last months of high school, my buddies succeeded in recruiting me to join Friendster, which was king of social networking sites back then, at least in the Philippines, and started to regularly haunt Internet shops to roam the world wide web.

Shortly, I stumbled upon HTML, free web hosts and Blogger.com. Two years later, I started The Four-eyed Journal, on a subdomain of a website intended for the fledgling advocacy group Lasallian Students for Justice and Peace in DLSU-D using WordPress.

Then I got on board Gmail via an invite from my college mentor, soon after I was blessed with a free .com.ph domain that has been the home of this blog since 2002.

Along the way, I received many checks and PayPal payments from Google, Text Link Ads, Chitika, LinkWorth and PayPerPost. The foreign exchange rates back then allowed me to stay in college and get my own laptop PC. The more fun part of it was the chance to meet a lot of cool folks, fellow bloggers and advocates locally and from around the globe.

It has been an incredible journey so far and I can’t imagine life without the Internet. We may be still stuck with pen and phone pals but I’ve had no regrets so far. Cheers to another 20 years and more of the Internet!

Image by Will Clayton

Google+ the wrong way to compete with Facebook

jhay — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:19:42 +0000

I‘m a Google fanboy. Despite the company fumbling about privacy issues in the past year, I still enjoy using its products and services like Google Apps, Google Chrome and Android.

So when news broke out that it has recently launched its own social network, Google+, to go up against Facebook I decided to give it a try.

Social networking FAIL

Unfortunately, the app cannot be downloaded and installed on my LG Optimus One because I’m in the Philippines. Second reason is that since I’m using a Google Apps account instead of a regular Google/Gmail account, I won’t be able to sign up even if I do get an invite.

It’s not just a bummer. It’s totally the wrong way to start a new social networking site/service that’s supposed to go against Facebook.

Google+ = FAIL