Progress, technology, and attitude

Progress is an interesting concept. It evokes thoughts of technological advancement, personal growth, or task completion. When talking about technological progress, we often hear people generalize and say things like, "things progress so quickly that it's hard to keep up." And as much as us gadget nerds might not like it, it's true.

For the vast majority of consumers, the tech world moves too quickly and in to many different directions to stay informed about it all. Most of them don't necessarily know or even care how their laptop, smartphone, or digital camera works, what they can and can't do, or how they compare to similar gadgets. They simply want it to do what it's supposed to do.

Flash, Apple, and the Future

Ask any Mac user what they hate most about browsing the web and you'll almost always hear the same answer: Flash. Complaints about Flash are moderately common for Windows and Linux users, too, but it's almost a universal headache for Mac users. Why? Because Flash performs very poorly on OS X.

Before I get into this post, let me make a few points very clear: I am not a fanboy of any single OS. I have both a Mac and PC at home and use both regularly. I have even used Linux from time to time and I think all three are viable choices. I am also not a huge Flash proponent. I think Flash has its place and that it's an important part of the web. But I also think there's plenty of room for improvement.

So it's important to know that I am not writing this with an agenda for or against any particular company or platform. With that out of the way, let's examine why Flash behaves so poorly on Macs and take a look at the Flash debate in general.

Pro tip: Send to Buzz and QR from Reader

By default, Google Buzz offers to let users automatically send their shared items from Google Reader to Buzz. So anything you share in Reader gets posted to Buzz for all your Buzz followers to read. Most people I follow have this turned on, and it works for them.

But I tend to share a lot on Reader, and by having it all go straight to Buzz feels a bit like I'm spamming my followers' Buzz streams with shared items. Plus, if my Buzz followers use Reader themselves, then they are already receiving my shared items within Reader. So I turned turned off Reader-to-Buzz posting and it feels a lot cleaner, less spammy, and more controlled.

But every so often, I come across a link that I really want to share with my Buzz followers. Up until now, the only easy way was to copy and paste the link to post it manually. Google Reader has a nice Send To option, but Buzz isn't a choice in there, either because the Reader team hasn't incorporated it yet, or because they expect you to use the auto-posting setting.

However, with a bit of simple hackery, you can make it work. Here's how:

AppBrain.com Android apps list

AppBrain.com is a pretty awesome site for organizing, searching, reviewing, comparing, and sharing Android apps. I checked it out a while back and it was pretty sparse, but they seem to have seriously upped their game and the site is now quite powerful. There's an Android app that users install and the app syncs a list of all your other installed apps back to the AppBrain website. You can then chose to keep that list private, or share it with the world. AppBrain uses all the data they collect to provide a nice web interface for the Android Market with some powerful features. Ready for this? Once you're all logged in and your account is created, you can install apps from the website. You hit Install next to an app you like, then go to your phone and tell the AppBrain app to sync. It syncs the apps you marked to install and installs them from the Market for you. How cool is that? Above is my list of apps in the nice, embedable gadget AppBrain offers. You can also embed links, complete with QR codes, to individual apps, like I did below. All Android users should definitely check it out. If you find any awesome apps that I don't have yet, feel free to share them with me. :-)

Using Google Voice

I've been using Google Voice full-time for about 3 weeks now. As I mentioned in my previous post, there are a number of advantages to using Voice as your primary number, and only a few very slight disadvantages. I thought I'd give an update on how Voice works on a day-to-day basis.

First, though, I want to give a quick refresher on how Voice works. If you're not familiar with it, Google Voice is a web-based telephone system that does not replace your existing phones, but rather helps them work better. You get a new Voice number that (if you use it full-time) becomes your primary phone number. You then set your new Voice number to forward to your existing phones (home, cell, work, whatever) based on whatever conditions you set. For example, you can have it forward to your home phone on weekends, your work phone between 9 and 5, and your cellphone in the evenings. Or have it ring all of your phones at once. Or have it forward selectively based on who's calling. (Check out lots of videos on how Voice works at their YouTube channel.)

Tagxedo.com

click to enlarge

Everyone should immediately check out Tagxedo.com. You can use it to create seriously stunning tag clouds based on words, shapes, or even uploaded logos. You can modify and change everything. including color, font, text direction, and what words are used/skipped. You can even have it pull words from a website, like I did here. Here's another Dastardly Report logo in black. Awesome, eh? The site uses Silverlight, which may upset some (I personally like Silverlight just fine), but if you're bothered, you should read the creator's FAQ about why he chose Silverlight.

Definitely head over and take a look while it's still in free beta, as some features will be going paid only once the beta is over.

Enjoy!

Facebook privacy settings

In a follow-up to my previous post about Facebook, I wanted to offer a quick guide to how to change your Facebook privacy settings. There are dozens of various settings burried under menus and sub-pages, many of which are hard to find. I even found a few new ones when I was changing my settings last week.

Your desired privacy settings may be different than mine, depending on how much of your information you want to keep private, and how much you want to share. But it's very important that everyone take a look at their settings, because the default settings are often not what you think. By default, most of your information will be set to Everyone, which is very dangerous.