So it looks like a week is all it took. Looking at my Contacts list in Adium, only three people are still bothering with Google Talk. Everyone’s back to AIM or .Mac on iChat.
Tag: tech
Jon reports that Google Talk has gone live. The IM product builds on Gmail accounts and the open-source Jabber IM service.
I’m already up and running on it with AdiumX, so I guess iChat will be taking a hike, and my fun balloons won’t be used in the future. (Can anyone point me to a reasonable substitute for Adium?) If you want to jaw via Jabber courtesy of Google, use my site name at gmail dot com, but you have to have a Gmail account to play along. Let me know if you’d like an invitation via the e-mail address noted in the previous sentence.
MacDevCenter recently featured an article about ClamXav, a free virus scanner for Mac OS X. ClamXav is based on the open-source, antivirus engine ClamAV.
With the loss of Virex as an incentive for purchasing .Mac, François Joseph de Kermadec’s article convinced me to download ClamXav and give it a whirl. I now have it configured to automatically scan my home account every night at 3 AM, after it checks for the latest updates. It also will scan, in the background, any file that ends up in my downloads folder.
The app is Java-based, so it’s a little slower than I’d like on my 1 GHz PowerBook, but hey, it’s free. It does appear to be put together well, otherwise.
We have very few virii to worry about on the Macintosh side of the fence, but it never hurts to be prepared.
Secure online storage and file sharing. Eight bucks a month gets you 4 gigs. No bandwidth charges, no contract. Nifty.
[Via Todd Dominey.]
I have a soft spot for working dogs; I’ve always told my wife that if I were in law enforcement, I’d want to be a K-9 cop.
It’s important for working dogs to keep cool, as it is much harder for dogs to cool down than it is for humans. Military working dogs in Afghanistan and Iraq are especially at risk, but the Space Coast War Dog Association is working with Glacier Tek to provide Glacier’s ChillyDog cooling vest to dogs in those theaters of operation.
Regardless of how you feel about the politics of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, remember these dogs have no say, and are just happy to do the job they were trained to do. If you can support the effort to get as many vests as possible to the dogs that need them, stop by the SCWDA web site and learn how to donate.
At least that’s what VitalSource is hoping you’ll do: buy eBooks from them in the same way people buy music from the iTunes Music Store. James Duncan Davidson just finished the new version of their client application, which looks pretty nice.
I, for one, cannot get in to the whole eBook thing. I have a few PDF-based books that I use for reference material, and I’ve read Cory Doctorow’s books in electronic format, but the latter is really because I’m unemployed and have to do what I can on the cheap. I much prefer the dead-tree edition of literature still.
Not content to rest on his laurels, Jon’s decided to start GoogleRumors.com. I also can not believe there wasn’t a site like this already.
On my way to a doctor’s appointment this morning, I was listening to WBAP; the morning news crew is hysterical. During a commercial break, the station plugged it’s “On Demand” services, MP3 and WMA audio files of show broadcasts, nationally syndicated ones excluded, of course.
The on-air advertisement for the service had a line about joining the WBAP “Pod Squad,” a reference to dumping the audio on to your iPod. Everyone’s favorite digital audio player is the only such device referenced on the On Demand page, though it is misspelled as “iPOD.”
iPod, podcast, Pod Squad. Is it any wonder Gates and Ballmer have the willies over Apple’s digital music strategy?
[Leftist mouth-foamers beware: WBAP showcases those evil, twisted, right-wing neanderthals known as “conservatives”. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though I’m sure they’d appreciate any ratings bump they can get.]
The company Michael Dell said should be sold off and the money given to its shareholders is kicking his butt:
Overall customer satisfaction with the PC industry is unchanged from a year ago at 74, but changes within the industry give Apple a commanding lead. The PC maker maintains big improvements from 2003 and 2004, holding at 81 for a second year. Apple’s sales are up 33%, net income has grown 300% and its stock price has nearly tripled over the past year. A slew of product innovations and an emphasis on digital technologies and customer service have been very successful for Apple with a high degree of customer loyalty as a result.
Dell is a different story. Based on a strategy of mass customization, the #1 PC maker worldwide has been a leader in customer satisfaction for several years. This quarter, it suffers a sharp drop in ACSI, down 6% to 74. Customer service in particular has become a problem, and service quality lags not only Apple but also the rest of the industry. Customer complaints are up significantly with long wait-times and difficulties with Dell’s call-center abound. Still, competitive pricing as a result of Dell’s direct-sales business model keeps overall customer satisfaction slightly above other competitors, with the exception of Apple. Whether Dell’s declining satisfaction will have a negative impact on the company’s stock performance remains to be seen; however, ACSI history has shown that changes in customer satisfaction often signal similar changes in future financial performance. Apple’s stock price is up 35% for the year-to-date, whereas Dell’s is flat.
[Via MacInTouch, emphasis in quoted text added. –R]
This must be one of those things that keeps Bill Gates up at night. Windows Vista, the next version of Microsoft’s flagship operating system, already has its first virus.
[Via MacInTouch.]