Author Archives: Cory Brunsel
I thought 2008 would be a non-year for events, at least as far as technology was concerned. I was off on that prediction — there were a few notable points (such as an attempted Yahoo! takeover and the iPhone 3G launch). I played it “safe”.
This year is different. “Safe” isn’t an option. This isn’t going to be an easy year, folks. It’s gonna get ugly. That’s how I see it, anyway… (more…)
A year ago today, I put on my prognostication cap and looked to what we’d see in 2008. At the time, I declared that I was playing it safe, owing to “not seeing any change”. Well, when you play it safe, you’ll probably get things more right than wrong.
In that sense, I did pretty well for predicting. But that’s also like saying the Dallas Cowboys will probably win against your local high-school team — not really cheating, but going with the obvious.
That said, I’m still going to go over what I said, and toss in some new commentary. (more…)
There’s been a lot of talk lately about people saying you shouldn’t blog anymore. The arguments seem to break into two categories:
- Don’t blog because you probably have nothing interesting to say and no-one will read it
- Don’t blog because it’s passé and there’s better places to go
The problem with these arguments is that they’re missing the big picture, and that’s presence. Namely, your presence (either your company or yourself) on the internet.
The internet is a noisy place. It’s filled with every type of company and personality, all trying to make themselves heard all at the same time. (Marshall McLuhan would have exploded from joy if he’d lived to see today’s internet). Like standing in the middle of a loud party, it’s hard to be heard. That’s why presence is so important — people will pay attention to those they perceive as important. You need to be staking claims in a variety of places, and investing time and effort in key areas to ensure the quality and intensity of your signal can rise to the top.
Earlier today, Google released their latest contribution to the internet: Chrome. This effectively ended years of speculation that Google was writing a browser, that it would throw its hat into the ring and kick off another heated browser war.
(Oh, and those of you paying attention might also note that this effectively also answers the question about a Google OS.)
Figures that Google wouldn’t just drop a bomb, it would lay waste to the expectations of a browser. My hat is off to the Chrome development team — you guys pulled off a doozy.
Google (correctly) identified that there is a significant problem with browsers today: They’re too slow. That generalisation is borne of the increasingly complicated apps that are being developed each and every day on the web. There’s so many websites out there that require extensive scripting and content richness that even the most advanced browsers sometimes chug away.
A couple of weeks ago a colleague pointed out a new social application called Brightkite had popped onto the social network radar screen. I’m looking forward to playing with this application more – it promises to deliver a location-based networking service. After checking it out I couldn’t help but think what we’ve all said or thought at some point over the past year – another site that requires me to register, build my profile, add my friends – you know the rest. I also could not keep a certain White Snake song out of my head, but that’s my concern. 
The part I find interesting is that this was a big rant often heard 12 months back – but now there seems to be nothing. Have we decided to stop whining and accept the pain?
My wife had experienced strange (and very uncomfortable) abdominal pains for a number of years. No one could ever properly diagnose it. Every time the pain flared up, she’d trundle off to a clinic, they’d run a couple of tests (which would always be inconclusive), and a couple of days later it would disappear again. Painful and frustrating, since the obvious conclusions were that no one was reading the history of what was happening, and we both knew it would come back again.
Finally, last December (during another bout of pain), she lucked out and got in to see her long-time doctor. (Yes, read that sentence again. I said “lucked out” to see her own doctor. But I digress.) After recounting the last few years of goings-on, the doctor recommended something a little different. A new test revealed acute appendicitis.
In all of this running around, one thing struck me as being so backwards that I was amazed that someone didn’t accidentally remove, say, my wife’s spleen. Everyone communicated verbally. Is it just me, or did we suddenly regress 100 years?
