Bye, Bye Google Chrome

You did evil (probably), and now you are gone.

All the controversy over privacy issues and the failure of Google Buzz to understand the differences in the use cases for their products, made me notice that because I was logged into Google Groups (for my work) Chrome was now showing I was logged-in. In all likelihood Chrome was tracking my web usage and relating it directly to me! Now I know that it is completely possible to relate Web activity to an ip, but an ip is not me, well not necessarily when behind a firewall and when mobile. So Google knows exactly which sites I looked at, which pages, how long, when, etc., etc. Something for them to sell? If so they are now the new evil empire.

Upgrading the Mighty (Big) Mouse

Having only recently upgraded my Macs to OS X Snow Leopard (I was waiting for some key apps to get their act together) I've experienced some problems with my Bluetooth Apple keyboard and Mighty Mouse, so I thought I'd better install (or re-install) the keyboard firmware and mouse software. I was somewhat surprised to find the Mighty Mouse software weigh in at a hefty 67MB download and on installation it would take over 101MB of hard disk space to install!

The Might Mouse drivers are mighty fat. Does it honestly take that much software to deal with gestures and if so that'll take a lot of CPU time? Probably not, so what else is being installed or updated? This all makes me remember, all misty-eyed, the days of OSes on floppy disks and makes me wish for some super super fast broadband. I hope the iPad doesn't need quite such big upgrades especially across 3G.

On Becoming Hip

I've never really taken many pictures with my iPhone probably because I felt the quality of the lens, the CCD etc. wasn't up to much. It was certainly useful to always have a camera with me, but the camera app that came with the iPhone, and the time taken to get to the point of pressing the 'shutter' button, meant I didn't think about using my iPhone. Then I was recommended the Hipstamatic app and I've been taking photos everywhere with it and my iPhone.

Highgate Cemetery - gothic imagery is what Hipstamatic was made for!

Hipstamatic is fun and funky with choices of lenses and films with crazy names to use, plus the small 'viewfinder' make the outcomes unpredictable and exciting.

Bournville Green taken from the number 11 bus

It has it's flaws though. It's slow to start-up and it is seconds per frame rather than fps shooting. But these are minor points considering the creative fun that can be had. The basic set of "lenses" and "films" are great but add on the Hipstapaks and the range of choices are multiplied and so is the creative fun.

No, I don't want my photo taken!

I just wish I had a iPhone G3s (or what ever the next iPhone will be) as the image size on my iPhone 3G is quite small. I'm certainly looking forward to the upgrade of Hipstamatic to version 150 (none of this 10.6.2 rubbish).