I love Google! I really do! Never has one company had so much impact upon my life (for the positive) and I doubt I’ll find another that will.

So why am I migrating away?

Answer: it isn’t wise for me to put all of my eggs in one basket.

On the rare occasions when Google was down/inaccessable, 90% of my geek life suffered sending me into nerd panic mode.

After much internal debate I have been slowly moving my life off of Google’s servers & choosing alternatives.

Here is my list thus far (with reasons to boot):

Blogger.com –> WordPress (self hosted)
• Reason: wanted anti-spam comment protection minus the word puzzles. Also plugins & pages were a plus.

Picasa Web Albums –> Facebook
• Reason: Much more interaction with friends, plus the fact that Facebook is much more mobile friendly (at least for the iPhone, Blackberry & Palm Pre).

Google Voice –> Skype
• Reason: Skype is an actual stand alone phone service, where Google Voice just rediects. Both are cool though!

Google Checkout –> PayPal
• Reason: PayPal is a lot more flexible. & I like their guarentees better.

Picasa (Destop Software) –> Paint.NET
• Reason: Paint.NET has a lot more features. Microsoft really needs to hire this guy.

That is it thus far, but I am going to be seeking out more alternatives (as the competition has drastically improved in the last few years).

Other Google services I’ll probably never leave (like YouTube, Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Reader, Google Earth, Google Calendar, Google Analytics, AdSense, Google News, etc.) while others I might consider (replacing Google Docs with Zoho, & Google Search with Bing).

And for you Android fans out there, I’m probably not going to use those phones (& before you whine about openess, the iPhone is only a jailbreak away).

If anyone has other suggestions for Google alternatives, feel free to let me know in the comment section below.

– Posted from my iPhone

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So the new geek fad nowadays outside of Google, Facebook, teeth whitening and discovering the latest, greatest iPhone App is increasing one’s tweep count (or Twitter following in non-geek).

While there are a bunch of scams business opportunities groups offering to sell you software to spam the twitterverse to gain attention, it may not be beneficial to your wallet.

Instead, here are some tips for free–provided you sell your soul to me.

1) Think of 100 product categories everyday (like fish, finance, computers, Apples, etc.)

2) Tweet those phrases everyday, and every spam bot, marketer and lobbyist (note: yes, they’re on there too now) will follow you.

While your new found fans will probably not care about your physical, emotional and financial state (unless you buy something from them or endorse their cause), you will have a mass of followers inflating your ego like a fragile balloon.

Oh, for those of you applying these tips, I almost forgot the last step.

3) Do not follow me (@Darnell) as I desire to communicate with humans–at least the smart, funny and lovable kind.

– Posted from my iPhone

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Update: Changed permalink as posting via YouTube simply left a weird number. Ghetto! (Hat Tip: Engadget)

So if you haven’t already seen the anti-iPhone Verizon ad, here it is in all its glory.

Here are the the points it lists, which I’ll update later on why its flawed.

• iDon’t have a real keyboard
• iDon’t run simultaneous apps
• iDon’t take 5-megapixel pictures
• iDon’t customize
• iDon’t run widgets
• iDon’t allow open development
• iDon’t take pictures in the dark
• iDon’t have interchangeable batteries
• Everything iDon’t

More later (as I’m posting this via YouTube).

Here we go!

iDon’t have a real keyboard

When Apple launched the iPhone a few years ago, Steve Jobs explained why they didn’t include a physical keyboard.

iDon’t run simultaneous apps

This has probably been one of the biggest gripes about the iPhone in general, as many of us have longed to run apps in the background.

In fact the only way to enable this was to jailbreak your iPhone via QuickPWN. With many angry users at their throats, Apple explained why they went with push notifications instead:

iDon’t take 5-megapixel pictures

The iPhone 3GS (which I have) has a 3-megapixel camera. While not perfect, I have yet to find a camera that is easier to use than the iPhone.

In fact, the iPhone is sooo popular that it has dominated Flickr as the camera of choice–despite superior digital camera’s out there.

(LA Times) Here’s a tidbit that’s sure to irk Flickr’s elitist photographers: The iPhone has just topped Canon’s high-performance Digital Rebel XTi as the most popular camera on Yahoo’s popular image-sharing site.

The iPhone, with its bare-bones, two-megapixel camera, has been battling for the No. 2 spot for months in a tight race with two other Canon cameras and the Nikon D80, according to a graph plotting the overall user percentages of each model on Flickr’s Camera Finder.

While the iPhone is not the best camera at taking images (and yes, this iUser will admit there are a ton of smart phones with better camera’s), it is the easiest to use–hence the reason people use it more often.

iDon’t customize

Apple currently does not allow users to customize the iPhone (i.e. having a real wall paper). So Verizon is dead on about this issue.

iDon’t run widgets

Verizon is right about this one as well. Unless one jailbreaks their iPhone, they can not run awesome widgets like these.

iDon’t allow open development

Apple allows developers to build anything. The only catch is that they have to approve the apps that come through the gate.

While Verizon may boast about Android’s open approach to their SDK, the fact is they have two problems the worry about, the first being “splintering.”

(TechCrunch) Android, an open source operating system, must avoid the fate of J2ME, an open source mobile applications platform. Open source is great, until everyone splinters off into their own world. That’s what happened to J2ME, and a number of frustrated Android developers are now saying that there is a risk Android will follow the same path. [...]

We’ve spoken with a number of high profile Android application developers. All of them, without exception, have told me they are extremely frustrated with Android right now. For the iPhone, they build once and maintain the code base. On Android, they built once for v.1.5, but are getting far less installs than the iPhone.

And now they’re faced with a landslide of new handsets, some running v.1.6 and some courageous souls even running android v.2.0. All those manufacturers/carriers are racing to release their phones by the 2009 holiday season, and want to ensure the hot applications will work on their phones. And here’s the problem – in almost every case, we hear, there are bugs and more serious problems with the apps.

The second major issue is that Verizon has to worry about hackers, who may build an app that hijacks a person’s android phone.

While Google does have a kill switch, it may not be too little, too late, especially if a hacker is able to use his Android app to hijack and steal personal info.

iPhone users do not have to worry about that (as Apple approves what goes in, and has a kill switch just in case anything gets by).

iDon’t take pictures in the dark

Since I have a FastMac battery extender with a built in flash light, this point doesn’t matter to me.

But for those of you who do not, I’d recommend buying one–you can purchase one over here.

iDon’t have interchangeable batteries

This might look like a major issue, but in reality its not.  One only has to look at the Macbook to see why they didn’t allow interchangeable batteries.

Everything iDon’t

There will always be a better phone out there, as there is always engineers creating breakthrough technology.

While I do not have any hate against Android or Verizon (which are both excellent products/services), they need to let other people praise their products, as well as tear down their rivals as well (Apple included).

Verizon seems to be following the footsteps of Sprint, whose Instinct didn’t do to well afterwards (and if you were wondering what happened to that “iPhone Killer,” I am asking the same question and getting blank stares).

While I am glad that Verizon is finally embracing a decent phone (so now my extended family can stop drooling over my iPhone), they need to stop focusing on “the iDevice,” and instead focus on promoting their phones/services.

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Hmmm….what should I capture?

Testing out BlogPress on my iPhone.

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It looks like I discovered another great theme by Elegant Themes (aff.) called Glow (still in development).

When I was figuring out themes for my blog, I originally went with LightSource, but wanted something with a more traditional blog layout (like eNews), without losing the elegant background.

While I do love this current theme, its a little too bland for me, so I am looking forward to a new upgrade to compliment the other sites that I’ve purchased.

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