A web log, a test of my design web software, stories about the absurd, the dumb & interesting stuff. Labels All Android Evil Google Google Chrome Gmail Apple / iPhone / iPad Stephen Fry Optical Illusions Bad Press Science & Engineering Electric Cars Bankers Web Fonts September 2009 Google - the evil empire. Google’s - ‘Don’t be evil’ motto is B.S. according to Steve Jobs. He’s not wrong. Google are not only becoming ‘the evil empire’ abusing of their monopolistic dominant position (hey, everything they hated about Microsoft, Google are now being accused of, by someone or other), but they are hypocrites as well. Here’s why My lawn mower broke and so, in no time at all, my lawn has become a flower meadow. Very pretty it is too. Perhaps I should leave it like this. Click to enlarge iPad I’ve owned an iPad for a couple of months now. I was one of the first owners in the UK, and had mine shipped from the US a couple of days after it was released.  I believe this is a revolutionary device. It will change the computing landscape. It’s also fundamentally flawed, as many Apple devices are.  Read here what I think is wrong with it and why you’re probably better of waiting for the clones.  More... I want one Awesome looking electric car.     Source: autoblog.com Read More... Copy / Paste pictures into Gmail Cloud computing is the future. I’ve believed this for a very long time - even started a company doing cloud-based software more than 10 years ago. I’ve been surprised how long it’s taken to become established, but cloud- computing is now becoming mainstream. And there’s almost no type of software that can’t be done better in the cloud. The highest profile examples are web-based email, such as Hotmail and the current king Gmail (from Google). But one problem of using a web browser to operate software such as Gmail or Google Docs (web-based Office applications) is a pretty basic one - you can’t copy pictures from desktop applications into web-based ones.  If you do a lot with graphics and photos, as I do, this is a real pain.  The only way to copy a graphic from Word, say, into Gmail, is first save it from Word then in your email program select Upload, browse to the image and upload it to the server. And some email systems don’t even provide image upload. Well here’s a utility that solves the problem.  It’s called PicturePaste. It’s great. (I would say that though.) Let’s screw the bankers - tax them 98% I'm no lover of banks, but when I see the witch hunt going on in the media regarding the bankers bonuses and bankers in general I despair. This is a McCarthy-style witch hunt, lead by the media (as always), whipping up anger, hatred and jealousy. I never thought I'd live to see 98% taxes imposed on anyone in this country, but that’s what is now imposed on bankers. No it’s not the 50% ‘bonus tax’ you thought it was. It’s a lot, lot more than that. Of say a £200,000 bonus, 98% of it goes as tax. Unreal, but true. Check this out. Android is going to be huge For those that don’t know Android, it’s a mobile phone operating system created by Google. And Android is going to be larger than the iPhone, by far, for exactly the same reasons Microsoft Windows beat Apple the last time a new platform emerged. I can’t stress how significant Android will be to the future of computing. Read more Bad Robot Android is actually crap.  It's a broken robot. ‘Hang on, you just said it is going to be BIG, in capitals no less’ I hear you say. Ah yes, but big doesn’t mean good. Just look at Windows. In the early days the Mac was better, and Windows merely adequate. But ‘adequate’ was all that was needed when it was a cheap as peanuts and everyone wanted to get on the PC bandwagon. Apple was not interested in licensing the Mac OS. So Microsoft cleaned up. Eventually Windows got a lot better and after a while it was actually better than the Mac (back when Steve Jobs was no longer there and Apple was run by a bunch of corporate types who had no clue). Over this period of relatively few critical years, Microsoft gained the world. (See above.) So why is Android bad? There are some major technical drawbacks to Android. Read More... December 2009 Jan 2010 Feb 2010 September 2009 May 2010 June 2010