Lets ignore the fact that iGoogle exists, which Google launched in 2005 (and officially gave it the name iGoogle in 2007) which already helps users clutter up their homepage to their hearts content.

Why should I trade a site that takes me places (and in theory helps me become more productive) than one that is full of distractions from the 4 corners of the Earth?

Come on Yahoo!, the portal world died out with AOL! Why are you trying to resurrect that dead beast?

Why not instead focus on what you’re good at? Like Flickr (especially the video aspect), Yahoo! Search BOSS (which is totally awesome) and whatever else is left in your portfolio (sorry, your rivals have out shined you elsewhere).

Truth be told if I want to view info from “everywhere,” all I have to do is check out Twitter and Google Reader, or open up Facebook if I want to hear from my non-geek friends.

Instead of mocking Google, why don’t you do something instead like highlight why users should choose your various sites (like Flickr), without showing bitterness towards your rival.

That strategy didn’t work for Apple (as Window powered PC’s are still on top) and it won’t work for you either.

Highlight your products. Tell us what they do and why we should use them and your glory days will return again.

But if you choose the way of the dark side, you will only end up fighting against a zillion Google fan boys, and shouting back in a noisy crowd full of deaf ears.

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

I hate to dissappoint the fan boys and girls on both sides of the fence, but this is not a post bashing one side or the other.

Rather it is simply my reflection of two of the most popular blogging services, Blogger (as well as it’s eternal beta Blogger in Draft) and WordPress.org (not to be confused with WordPress.com, which I would not recommend using due to it’s limitations, which I’ll explain below).

Where WordPress Excels

What I love about WordPress can be summed up in one word: design.

You’ll won’t find a larger collection of beautiful themes outside of this platform, which probably explains why do many Blogger themes are imported from WordPress.

While there are plenty of free WordPress themes out there, I would recommend purchasing a premium theme (like Elegant Themes which is inexpensive).

Another thing I love about WordPress is that it is comment friendly. Instead of using CAPTCHA’s or weird puzzles, WordPress users can use Askimet (spelling?) which uses geek magic to decipher between the spammers and the humans (WordPress.org users I would recommend using WP Spam Free which is better–and free!).

These anti-spam plugins keep make the WordPress commenting design much friendlier–unless of course you are a spammer.

Last but not least the ability to add pages is a plus, which allows you to create an “about me” section, making your blog much more professional.

Where Blogger Excels

Owned by Google, Blogger is the most popular blogging platform online. If I could sum up Blogger in one word, it would be this: freedom.

When it comes to posting media content (whether images, video or iframe documents) Blogger has IMHO no close rival. Users are allowed to embed content from anywhere, without the fear of it being blocked due to “security reasons” (which is why I don’t use WordPress.com).

You can also embed content from Google Docs, a feature I found to be lacking in WordPress (both of them).

Over in the Blogger in Draft arena, users can easily adjust the position of the image within the post by simply dragging it, a feature that makes “dressing up” the post all the easier.

This one feature saves me a lot of time, as I don’t have to muck with the code in order to find the perferct picture placement.

Users can also upload video directly into Blogger, without the need to upload it on YouTube or elsewhere, which is great way to keep the video on your blog instead of infront of the public masses.

Last but not least Blogger’s widgets make it very easy to add, adjust or remove content from your blog, without the need to enter within the admin arena.

Conclusion

While I could have mentioned other items (like WordPress Plugins or specific Blogger widgets), these above pretty much sum up the major differences between the two.

Since neither WordPress or Blogger are meeting my complete needs, I’ve decided to use both platforms until one of them steps up their game. I already have 8 blogs (4 on Blogger, 2 on WordPress.com and 2 running WordPress.org on my own server).

Both WordPress and Blogger are excellent services, although if you are short on cash I would recommend using Blogger (as you can blog on your own domain for $10/year) although if you prefer to host you own blog on your own server, I would suggest using WordPress.org.

–Posted via iPhone

Okay, before this reaches Techmeme, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am not suing Google, rather I am VERY frustrated that one of their online office suites, Google Calendar will NOT stop sending me text messages reminders despite the fact that I sent the STOP command, and even turned off reminders in my gCalendar event.

I thought this was an isolated case, but it seems that numerous folks are experiencing the same thing, on various carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile).

Since these texts are costing me money, I am going to ban Google indefinitely until this problem is either resolved, or Congress grants me a personal bailout.

Note: For those of you suffering under the same thing as well, just simply call your provider and have them block 483-68.

Here is a video explanation below (I think before Google bought them out).

Unfortunately with the recent shutdown of several Google services, some are wondering whether or not Google will be shutting down other services like GrandCentral (which I use on my iPhone thanks to GrandDialer).

Even though GrandCentral is currently free, I am perhaps one of the many users who would be willing to pay a monthly fee to keep it alive.

While Google has not announced any plans to cut any other services, I am attempting to start a mini blog/twitter campaign in order to keep GrandCentral from falling under the Google Axe.

GrandCentral is not only one of the few Google projects that has the potential of revolutionizing its respective arena entirely (in this case voicemail), but also pull its own wait (with a premium feature).

So Google, if you are reading this, please DO NOT DISCONTINUE GrandCentral!!!

Pretty please? :*-(

I was wondering if anyone would


Update (1/27): It looks like Google has some big plans for GrandCentral. Stay tuned!

What took them so long?

(Google Photos Blog) Okay — on to photo editing. A new text tool lets you add text to your pictures, and lay it out exactly as you wish, at any transparency level. We have also created a new retouching brush to take care of unsightly blemishes, camera dust, damaged photos, and the like. The red-eye removal tool does a lot of its work automatically now — there’s no need to draw boxes around people’s eyes. Our crop tool will also recommend interesting starting points to crop, based on faces and objects in your photos. (As you might’ve guessed, we’re using some of the technology from our name tags feature in Picasa Web Albums to make Picasa 3 smarter, which means less work for you.)

Note: Emphasis mine.

The inability to post text upon images is what drove me into the arms of Paint.NET, which is currently being developed by one lone person.

While this feature will help me take a second look at Picasa (or at least the beta), I will probably cling to Paint.NET for awhile–at least until they release a Mac version (as I plan on purchasing the rumored Mac tablet that is suppose to come out later this year).

After waiting many impatient hours, Google has finally launched their browser, Google Chrome!

While everyone has an opinion about the new browser, I am loving every moment of surfing the internet with Chrome.

While Firefox, Maxthon, Opera, etc. may have more features, its the simple fact that my entire browser will not crash because of the fact that one tab tried to open a faulty web page.

Chrome is now my default browser (although I wish there was a way to insert GreaseMonkey and Google Toolbar within it).

Update: Here is a video from Walter Mossberg highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of Google Chrome.

Just when I was having even more problems with Firefox 3 (its hogging memory again like its predecessors), Google goes ahead and announces that they are releasing a browser to the world (aka the rumored “gBrowser”).

(Official Google Blog) Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build. [...]

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

I currently use three different browsers (four if you count Safari on my iPhone). While Firefox is my main browser, I have been finding that the browser often crashes whenever I visit GoDaddy.com, forcing me to open up Internet Explorer 8 (aka IE8).

The situation gets even worse whenever I attempt to open up FeedBurner, in which both Firefox and IE8 are unable to display portions of the page, forcing me to open up Opera.

Hopefully Google Chrome (which is launching tomorrow) will help put an end to this chaos, as the last thing I want is to be juggling between several different browsers (with iTunes, Skype and a half of dozen programs on the side).

You can check out their “cartoon explanation” regarding the new browser over here.

(Hat Tip: TechCrunch)

For those of you who are not into geek lingo, the phrase “Googleing oneself” basically means typing in your name (first and last) into Google in order to see what appears.

This is a good exercise, as many employers, potential clients and friends will do a quick Google search on you in order to see what appears.

Example: When I Google Darnell Clayton, a bunch of “relevent” links appear, most of which deal with me. Unfortunately, there are a few random ones that appear–ironically dealing with other people named Darnell Clayton.

Here are just a few “unrelated Darnell Clayton’s” that appear when I Google my own name.

• Darnell Clayton on LinkedIn: This Darnell Clayton is located in Georgia (the US state, not the country) and is currently a Senior Information Architect.
• The Polish Darnell Clayton on Facebook: I think this page is the polish version of Facebook (since “pl” represents Poland online).
• The Male supermodel Darnell Clayton: This guy apparently was reviewed by a blogger, and I think this is also his Facebook profile too.

None of these guys are me, and if you were having a hard time telling the difference, here are a few clues for you:

• I no longer have a LinkedIn profile (note: I previously had one, but found other social networks to be better).
• I don’t speak Polish–although I am trying to learn Hebrew.
• My body isn’t sexy enough to be a male model–even with the six pack (note: not that I would ever consider becoming one anyways)

Ironically, one of the reasons I bought DarnellClayton.com was to help avoid this confusion (at least online) of who the real me was all about.

I would recommend other people doing the same thing, as the last thing you need is a future employer/client mistaking you for a high tech geek who poses in fashion magazines during “the night shift.”