How Google is slowly losing me as a client to Microsoft

It all began when Google decided to axe their Reader service (switch reason #1). Google Reader is was regarded as the single go-to solution for an RSS aggregator.  It was The Little Google Service That Could, and everything it did, it did well.  An API used by countless of 3rd party services and mobile apps, fast, clean, integration with other services like Pocket, sharing to social media, etc.

Since I used Reader multiple times a day, and there initially wasn’t an awesome alternative around that had the same to offer, I was really displeased.  Especially since, in my view, together with Gmail, it was one of the irreplaceable cornerstones of Google’s application landscape.  Why are they discontinuing it ?  I’m pretty sure it has to do with money somewhere (as in not-generating-a-fortune money).  Removing iGoogle ?  That I understand.

Ever since this news was published, I have switched over to Feedly.  As long as Reader is still alive, they sync with it, and once it dies, they (promise to) switch over to a proprietary system called Normandy.  I’m cool with that, because Feedly has filled the Reader gap to the best extent of all the alternatives.

Then there is also the fact that I switched from an Android smartphone to a Windows Phone one in December 2012.  I changed partly because I simply wanted to try something fresh.  After having used Windows Phone 8 for a couple of weeks, I realised I wouldn’t want to go back to an Android experience (on a phone).  I still have an Android tablet to tinker around with, but I am of the opinion that WP8 is the superior smartphone platform today.

I use the Google services on my Windows Phone, most prominently Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, and to a lesser extent Google Drive.  I never really cared for SkyDrive, until I moved my pictures to it as a cause of switch reason #2: Picasaweb.

Picasaweb, the online photo album service of Google, I was always reasonably happy with.  I found it a bit unintuitive at times with the coupling to the Picasa desktop application with regards to online synchronization, but it offered good features and storage space.  But then Google decided to hide Picasa(web) in the background and annoyingly push for integration in Google+.  In fact, I think that annoyed me the most.  Yes, you could go back to the classic Picasaweb view, but I am sure it too will be axed in favor of Google pushing their social network down our throats. I don’t want my photo albums on a social network, only a selection of separate pictures.

So I gave SkyDrive a try, also because I though it would be handy to move my Dropbox files there, and end up with one integrated system for pictures, documents and files that are automatically synced, easily shared, and provide a good online interface to share photo albums.  As an extra, SkyDrive currently has roughly the same pricing as Google had until about a year ago: around $5/yr for 20 GB.  Switch reason #3: storage pricing.  Granted, my Google storage subscription plan is kept as an early adopter, but if I want to expand it, or I miss a payment, pricing will become $10/month for about the same. SkyDrive is unquestionably the cheapest at the moment.

In conclusion: so far I switched RSS reader, online file storage and online photos to Microsoft.  The integration on their mobile platform, interweaved with social media content, is awesome.  Google’s integration used to be awesome, but at least for me, it’s dwindling at a rapid speed (especially photos).  I still use Google Drive, but that I could also switch very easily to SkyDrive. YouTube I don’t care for much (Vimeo is a good alternative), and I already switched search engines long ago to DuckDuckGo.

Remains: mail, contacts and calendar.  The most difficult triplets to switch.  I have a huge history kept in Gmail, and my calendar and contacts are meticulously maintained.  An import of all my mails from Gmail to Outlook.com has already been completed, but for the moment Gmail is still ahead in terms of speed and options.  Labels I can map to Outlook categories, but that manual task is beyond my situation.  The fact that many logins are linked to my Google account helps them a bit as well.

But it won’t take much anti-user decisions on Google’s part to make me also switch those last remaining services over.  And why wouldn’t I, aside from the hassle ?  It would mean an even leaner integration on my phone, desktop and possible future Windows tablet.

 

I kind of just ‘had it’ with them, to be brutally honest.  It has actually come to a point where I trust the old Micro$oft more than Google.  Who knew ?

 

Update

Oh, I even forgot to mention what irritates me the most about the current Google policy.  The fact that they deliberately ignore the Windows Phone customers.  There are official Google apps on every platform (Apple and even Blackberry), but they obstinately refrain from releasing Windows Phone apps for Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Drive, etc…  I guess they are afraid of something.  This is nothing more than blocking a promising player in the mobile market.  And that is exactly the kind of egotistic behaviour that ticks me off, and drives me further away from them.  Remember your own slogan, Google: “Don’t be evil”.

 

How changing my blog’s address was a bad idea, and a reflection on blogs vs social media

I changed my blog’s name (and corresponding URL) around september 2012, because I had come up with a half-decent alias to use globally (on Twitter, this blog, handles in games, on forums, etc…). pleinolijf is an anagram of my real name, and it’s a word that ‘could’ exist in my native language, as in it’s linguistically correct; it’s a concatenation of two existing words.

Anyway, I wanted to change as many logins and usernames as possible so as to have a uniform, global name to use with online services, including my WordPress blog.

I only noticed this a few days back, as I haven’t been very actively blogging since the beginning of 2009. Up until then, my blog was averaging about 2,000 visitors a day, even when quasi no new content had been added over the three-year timespan from then up until now. When I checked my stats again after cobwebs had gathered over them, I noticed a huge drop in visitors all of a sudden. The drop occurred mid-way September 2012, which is around the time I changed the blog’s name (and URL) I think. I obviously hadn’t thought it through, because the change of address meant that all the links that pointed to posts of mine now effectively went nowhere. So my posts before Sept. 2012 were no longer getting any hits. The average visit count for my blog in total was one a day. ONE.

Oops.

Now, I could change the address back to the former, but since I don’t generate any money with my blog, I honestly can’t be bothered. To me, it’s important that my user logins and urls are consistent (with the new pseudonym I created).

The good news however, is that I am inclined to create new content and use my blog again to do this. I think the drop of activity had come from the popularity of Facebook over the years. Especially for short posts (sharing a clip on YouTube, posting a link to interesting stuff, …), social media are a better platform. It’s just that I notice I am slowly but surely beginning to be more inclined to really create content, instead of only sharing links.

The latter is ideal for Facebook and Twitter, but the former is what blogs were made for. I hope this feeling persists and that new posts with proper content created by me will start (and keep) appearing here, and with that, the visitor counter going back up.

Connecting Oracle SQL Developer to database without tnsnames.ora

Just a quick tip if you need to reconfigure an Oracle database connection for use in Oracle’s SQL Developer.

I recently had to reinstall Windows on my computer, and sighed heavily when I realised that meant I also had to reconfigure the connection to an Oracle database I use. That meant installing XEClient, creating a tnsnames.ora file in the right location, and adding the service connection.

But it only took me a couple of minutes to search the Internet for an easier solution that required only setting up a connection string in SQL Developer and be done with it.

In SQL Developer, you can connect in several different ways, and one of them is ‘advanced’. When you select that, you get only one textbox in which you can form a JDBC URL. This is how it should look like:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=<ip-address or hostname>)(PORT=1521)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME=<service-name>)))

Aaand done. Wish I figured this out sooner, instead of messing around with the infamous tnsnames.ora file.

HttpContext.Current.Session is null, but it shouldn’t be

Annoying issue yesterday.  I was meaning to write a dead-simple web application in .NET 4.0 that talks simultaneously to a referenced .NET 3.5 assembly, and uses an in-house .NET 4.0 framework of services (also referenced).  The goal was to test the correct operation between these different .NET version assemblies.  In most cases, that’s not even a thing to consider, but we wanted to be absolutely sure.

When calling a method of the referenced 3.5 assembly, which acts as a facade between a client and a web service, there is code that uses the HttpContext.Current.Session.  I was assuming that with my test client, being a web application, this would be all fine and dandy, but apparently not.  The HttpContext Session was null.

The solution ?  Adding

<sessionState mode="InProc" />

to the client application’s web.config, in the <system.web> section.

 

It’s not clear to me what the cause of this is.  I strongly doubt it’s default configuration behaviour, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the code of the referenced assembly.  From what I know and have read on the subject, the session would have been instantiated by starting the application…

If you have a clue, be sure to leave it in the comments.

 

Switching Search Engine from Google to Duck Duck Go

Today I read about a new search engine on Lifehacker [ link ], and I have switched since then. Partly because of the fact that Google is indeed watching you, but mostly because it has some nifty features that Google hasn’t or hasn’t implemented as well.

The name is Duck Duck Go. Like any modern online entity, you can find them at multiple spots: on their site, on Twitter, on the founder’s blog, on Facebook.

Things I like most:

• Absence of clutter, much like how Google first started out. There is literally no advertising to be found.
• Less spam results. Searching for very general keywords typically results in pages that exist solely to redirect you to other link sites. Not the case here !
• Disambiguation, like we know it from searching Wikipedia for example, but this time ’round with search keywords. So it goes further than the obligatory and simple “Did you mean?”-functionality.
• Zero-click info: automatic recognition of keyword subject. Other search engines do this as well in some form, but Duck Duck Go takes it up a notch.
• !bang-searching: handy stuff. Read more.
• Keyboard ninja features: navigate the results etc. by keyboard.

Things I would like:

• Better recognition of (international) addresses: searching for my home address in Google works as expected (showing a map result), this does not (yet?) work in Duck Duck Go for my Belgian style address.

Take a look for yourself or compare with the common search engines.

Browsera: Simultaneously Test Your Web Design in Multiple Browsers

Browsera is an online service that will show you how your web site is rendered by the different browser engines, as to expose compatibility issues. It will also analyze your design and show you the parts which are prone to errors.

 

Too bad I’m not into web design at the moment, this tool would have saved me some time back in the day.

No more trying to install a legacy IE6 version or messing around with virtual machines etc…

 

As read on Lifehacker.

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Result: light weight virus scanner without all that other junk: webblocker, scriptblocker, firewall, adware filter, network scanner, IM scanner, …

Just virus and rootkit protection is what I need. And preferably at a low system resource cost. And preferably for freez

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