When Google launched Google Chrome, I did have a go with it and eventually uninstalled it mainly because I was frustrated the way Google Chrome installed itself on my machine.

Some weeks ago, I decided to give it a go again because I remembered one cool thing about Chrome, the application shortcut. That particular feature is a real adding value one. So I eventually used Chrome again not for my daily browsing activities but for gmail. I must admit it is very cool to launch my “gmail” application shortcut from the quick launch bar just like I would do for any application. Indeed experiencing gmail through Google Chrome with the application shortcut is great.

However as soon as I was using a link from an email, Google Chrome was used as the browser. It does the job; I didn’t come across browsing problem, but I discovered the web again: crowded and polluted with Ads. Damned, Adblock (or similar) is cruelly missing.

Recently I’ve been testing Google Wave (and still do). To make the Wave experience as full as possible I used a Google Chrome application shortcut. Indeed using Google Wave that way makes me feel I use a regular app on my machine. The experience is nice. But again, clicking on links launches Google Chrome as a browser and here comes the Ads.

I’ve been surprised that add-ons for Chrome haven’t exploded in numbers. The most wanted one, an adblock-like is not a reality yet. For sure, some solutions exist (scripts to install, Adsweep, Privoxy) but none of them are smooth to install and use for a typical user (those ones that are not IT savvy). For a second time, Google Chrome failed to become my preferred browser.

How can I get this great application shortcut approach then on my preferred browser, Firefox. This gets resolved with Prism Add-On for Firefox. This is nothing new (version 0.2 was out in March 2008) but its 1.0b2 is freshly installed on my machine.

I now have my Google Mail and Google Wave application shortcuts through Prism and Firefox.  Yabba badda boo!

I guess I don’t need Google Chrome anymore.

What is your view ? Do you still use Google Chrome ? Have you installed an Adblock-like add-on/program for Google Chrome? Did you returned from Google Chrome to Firefox ? Do you use Prism add-on for Firefox?

Like many I requested a Google Wave account and like many I did not received an invite directly from Google. No moaning here, this is part of the game. Did I complain not winning at the lottery?

However I’ve been lucky to receive an invite from a friend.Thanks Georges. (On the lottery side though, no friend of mine ever shared a chunk of their win so far)

This article isn’t about how good or how bad Google Wave is. I’m rather interested to understand what Wave is about and how it could transform the way we approach email and IM with collaborative content creation.

Daniel Tenner wrote a very nice article about Google Wave: What problems does Google Wave solve?

I must say I started dropping a comment to Daniel’s article but stopped halfway though. I felt an article would better highlight my current view based on what I read from his article and knew of Google Wave so far.

Daniel’s article explains nicely what Google Wave could do. Go and read it first before continuing your reading here.

I agree largely with the points brought by Daniel. There are pieces that make me smile in his article and especially in some of the comments. Many of us (IT/Technology enthusiasts that talk about it) seems to forgot that majority of companies is not ready to go outside for their email system. Typically these companies will have an Exchange (or Lotus Notes or something else) on their Network, behind a Firewall. Start-up companies, high-tech companies (being IT or not) are more likely to grasp on Google Wave as they are already widely more open on SAAS and online applications.

So unless Google Wave can be installed completely inside the network of the company I don’t see how Google Wave could get serious attraction from the corporate world.

Ryan (I’ve no link for Ryan) is one of the very few to point this important aspect:

How many corporations would allow these collaborations to take place outside of the firewall? Not many I have to believe. With that in mind, there would still need to be some steps taken in order to make it a viable corporate solution.

However, I learned from the comments sent by  Daniel that federated server is a possibility.

Also, Wave allows each organisation to set up its own server, using federation to sync with the rest of the world – so they could implement custom controls at that level.

As I understand it, the federation system means that everyone can have their own server(s) (much like Exchange servers), but still interact with servers outside of the company network.

I need to further investigate on this aspect of  Google Wave as it is clearly a key aspect in my opinion. More googling and reading for a later day, definitely. The starting point is a whitepaper from Google: Google Wave Federation Architecture

In the meantime, I’ll be testing Google Wave with a few friends (not my uncle Bob, though, but some IT enthusiast friends). I hopefully will have debates about how Google Wave could be (or not) a reality in a professional environment and what it could be used for!

I don’t see yet how this would get massive adoption (replacement of email) from typical home users any time soon, but time will tell us.

(Second day) The more I think about wave and use it,  the less I feel it can replace email. It will probably hit other needs like live/asynchonous interaction between small group of users to collaboratively create content. I can’t define this any better yet, more testing and usage required.

What is your view ?

The pitch: I wanted to transfer all my contacts to a second mobile phone but something went wrong* and I lost many phone numbers from my mobile.  The story is a little bit longer but it doesn’t really serve the purpose of this post. (*: I messed up)

The piece that is important is that it forced me to think more appropriately about backup and restore for my phone contacts’ list.

Let’s be fair, like many of us, I store many phone numbers on my mobile only and do not have a copy of them somewhere else. Should you loose that phone number’s list on you mobile, you could collect them back investing some effort and time.  It turns sour when you think about having to retype them by dozens on your mobile: time consuming and rather boring. Best would be to have an electronic copy somewhere that you could automatically upload on your mobile.

I found, amongst others, this good article from mobilementalism: Top 5 Ways To Backup and Safeguard Your Mobile Data. I recalled about Zyb from a discussion I had with a good friend of mine 2 years ago: I didn’t liked the “social dimension” of Zyb. I didn’t know about Mobical.net nor Mobyko.com. I discarded Mobyko because I’m not ready yet to pay for a online backup of my mobile phone data.

Here is my review of Mobical.

The first impression that I have accessing the website is very pleasant: Simple, light, no bling-bling. I notice that the Mobical home page is https by default.

Browsing the “About” section provides you a lot of good info. Mobical is a demonstration service from Tactel. … Mmmm… I wonder if the Mobile Phone Backup service offered by Proximus to its customers is built from Tactel’ solution. I’m investigating on this.

You can verify that your mobile is compatible with Mobical on this page: Certified Devices.

Registering an account is very easy: minimal number of information to provide. Then you need to configure your mobile phone to synchronize with Mobical. I used the automatic configuration approach (via SMS) but manual steps exist too.

Mobical can synchronize the following components: calendar, contacts, appointments, tasks, notes, bookmarks, and SMS. Bear in mind that there is no automatic/scheduled synchronization. You have to do it yourself, initiating it from your mobile phone.

I must say that I did not test extensively all the features except how my phone contacts were handled. This is indeed useful if you want to add multiple contacts or modify details of your existing contacts. Import is possible using vCard file. Last but lot least, export is also available, outputting in a vCard file (vCard version 2.1). The interface for adding, editing an entry is a pop-up window generated by the webpage itself.

There are 3 additional sections on the page “My Account”. The section “Settings” is all about configuring Mobical for you. The section “Backups” is the master piece: you have here the possibility to create multiple backup/restore sets of your data, storing them online. Finally, the section “History” shows you all the synchronizations that you triggered from you mobile phone.

If you want more details about what kind of experience Mobical is about, give it a try!

Conclusion:

I wanted a online service that provides backup for my mobile contacts list and that could restore them should I lose my phone or some of my phone numbers. Does Mobical fulfill my needs ?  Yes it does, … easily and nicely.

Début de l’été, j’avais reçu une publicité Google pour Adwords dans ma boite aux lettres, pas la digitale, la vrai, celle que le facteur utilise. Je me suis laissé aller à l’expérience d’utiliser Adwords: 50EUR de bon cadeau pour faire des campagnes de publicité. Loin de moi l’idée d’amener du trafic supplémentaire sur mon blog, tester le service est le but avoué de cet expérience.  3 click en juin m’ont permis de vérifier que “oui, le service Adwords de Google était bien en place”

La campagne de test est définie comme suit.  1eur par jour; mots-clés: “Gaetan Dhont”. Elle a généré 15 clicks vers mon blog en juillet et 21 clicks en août. Cela représente respectivement 1,9% et 2,7% du nombre de visite sur mon blog pendant ces 2 mois. Cette campagne a couté à ce jour 7,73 EUR. Il me reste donc pas mal de crédit du bon cadeau initial pour continuer l’expérience. Je laisse donc tourner encore quelques mois la campagne.

Au final, c’est amusant de voir cette campagne génèrer du traffic vers mon blog, j’étais loin de me douter que cela amènerait des clicks.

Cette semaine, j’ai reçu une drôle de lettre, estampillée Google. C’est bien la première fois que je vois une publicité matérielle (enfin que je peux toucher).

Ouverture de l’enveloppe… Haha… C’est en fait une publicité pour tester Google Adwords.

Un lettre m’explique que c’est une offre spéciale “Online Stimulus”.Blablabla avec un flyer “3 volets” qui décrit comment utiliser et tester Google Adwords.  Cette lettre est envoyée “en collaboration avec Roularta MediaGroup”.

Et bien,je me suis lancé , j’ai créé un compte Google Adwords. Google fera maintenant la publicité de mon nom: Gaetan Dhont.

Autant la création de la publicité AdWords est facile, autant l’utilisation du bon “Online Stimulus” au travers l’interface de Google Adwords m’a semblé difficile. Après navigation et lecture de plusieurs pages, c’est fait. Néophite du web s’abstenir. Ou est la simplicité d’enregistrement et d’utilisation d’un code promotionnel que l’on retrouve en standard sur d’autres sites? Inscription, 1,2,3, Code promo et hop, “Ride On”.

Quelques précisions sur l’offre promotionnelle de 150 euros. C’est en fait une offre de 55 euros (50 euros + 5 euros d’activation du compte); 100 euros supplémentaires seront attribués si vous alimentez votre compte Google Adwords d’au minimum 100 euros et ce avant le 31 juillet 2009.

Bon ben, je pense que tout est prêt. Y a plus qu’à voir si cette campagne amènera un click.

I’ve been observing Twitter for a while already, reading news or articles about it, having IRL discussions with  some friends.

Today, I opened the door of Twitter’s house. Not stepping into it yet, though… Observing first from the door’s entrance…

I know someone who will smile reading this.

Tell me your point of view about Twitter or more widely micro-blogging.

At first I thought: “Damned, Google’s homepage is having some sort of problem: their logo doesn’t display right!”

Hovering over where the Google logo should be, I realized it was a Doodle.

Today, 27th April 2009,  Google celebrates Samuel Morse and created a great Google logo for its birthday.

Google logo changes once in a while, eventually more than that. Today’s doodle is particulary great. Google displays its Google logo in Morse.

Thanks Google for making my day using Google Search a little bit special.

Having commented already on the installation of Digsby (see here),  this article will focus on my Digsby experience.

The first thing I had to do before being able to use Digsby was to create an account on Digsby website or directly from the Digsby application. I did not used the embedded account creation steps in Digsby application but I rather created my account from the Digsby website. Why? Because I fell I have a better understanding of what I sign for.  All right, yet again an additional account created. I stopped counting all the account I created trying out various applications or services.

My Digsby account being created, I configured Digsby Application: adding a couple of IM accounts, emails account and some social network accounts. It is only when I installed Digsby later on a second computer that I really realised that my accounts (IM, email, etc) were stored on Digsby server side which I’m not confortable with. Indeed, signing on Digsby application from the secondary computer pulled all the accounts AND settings of the Digsby Application I set up on my primary computer.  Some people could say: “It is great your Digsby profile follows you from one computer to an other.” A typical application of this is Work/Home. My position on this is that Digsby shall let the user decide if he wants the same config on each computer where Digby is installed (pulling from the Digsby server) or a specific config per computer (local profile taking over some/all settings of the pulled profile). To achieve this today you would need to create multiple Digsby accounts to create profiles on various computer.

Let’s go back and focus around the Disgby config being stored on Digsby server.  I’m not enthousiastic to have Disgby server storing accounts that doesn’t belongs to them on their servers. So I had a closer look at their Privacy Policy and Security Policy. They both seem fair. There is though 1 sentence that retained my attention in the Privacy Policy, section Collection of your Digsby Information: “… your DIGSBY information may include… information about contacts on your Buddy List (such as alias, SMS numbers, and email addresses)“. Mmmm… I found some clarification here (read the comments). I also asked clarification to Digsby by email. Here is the answer I got from them:

I sent : Could you please clarify the following (found in your Privacy Policy, section Collection of your DIGSBY Information) ?
“…Depending on how you use DIGSBY Products, your DIGSBY information may include … information about contacts on your Buddy List (such as alias, SMS numbers, and email addresses) ….”
What are the triggers for collecting alias, SMS numbers and email addresses of my Buddy List ? (does is cover also Contacts and Favorite group ?)
More importantly, what is the usage made by Digsby of these collected information ?

Steve Saphiro answered: In the IM window, if you click the “email” button in order to send the buddy an email right from the IM window, you need to enter that email address.  Digsby saves that email address so next time you click on them it will show the email address you entered.  It is the same thing with the “SMS” button in the IM window.  However, the first time you click “Email” Digsby guesses their email address based on their username (that info is not saved).  As for aliases, when you rename a buddy in Digsby it saves that info.  Lastly, if you have multiple IM accounts and you rearrange buddies, the order of the buddy list is saved so it is in the same order next time you log in.

Let’s talk about my experience with using Digsby now (using build 21443).

I set up a couple of  IM, email and social network account. Disgby now receives the updates from all of these accounts via its interface. In the past I had on my machine several tools installed and running to either chat or receive update from my email or social network accounts. I no longer need them. They might be still installed but at least their are not running on my computer anymore: Less processes,  less icons in the taskbar, less assle.

Digging into what does Digsby on your computer…

Digsby installed itself classically under “Program Files”, uses 58MB of disk space and has 2905 files in 316 folders.

Starting the application without logging on with your Digsby account, it uses 26,332 K. After my login, the memory usage grows to 30,900K (I had 3 IM accounts, 3 email accounts and 2 social network accounts defined when I mesured these). Having said that, every time Digsby shows from the side, its memory usage increases. (using Process Explorer and monitoring “Working Set” value). Could it be a memory leak problem ?

I also noticed using Process Monitor some interesting aspects. When starting Digsby from the shortcut created during the installation, Digsby.exe is first launched, then creates a new process (digsby-app.exe) and finally exit. digsby-app.exe creates also twice a cmd.exe process and they both ends shortly after being created. I wonder what these 2 cmd.exe executions are about. Any Idea ?

What features do I dislike about Digsby?

I feel that the conversation window is not minimal enough: too much space wasted. The default skin that approach the most to a minimal space usage is “Smooth Operator”. Though it doesn’t reach the minimalistic approach of Google Talk application for example.

I don’t like my profile to be pulled automatically from the Digsby server when I use Digsby from multiple computers. The IM, email or Social Network accounts  I setup on my personal computer might be different from what I want to see on my computer at work and vice-versa. As a matter of fact, I set up 2 accounts, one for my private environment, one for my professional environment. This might look “oldskool” but if you consider that IT policy can apply at work it makes full sense.

I didn’t like that “Join the “Fans of Digsby” group in LinkedIn” was set by default when adding my LinkedIn account. Opt In would be better.

What features do I like About digsby?

Being able to merge from multiple IMs into one single contact entry is really a plus. You don’t care if you contact is on Google or MSN or Yahoo or whatever, you simply start the discussion with your contact. I have one comment though they is no way to differenciate contact that are merged for those that aren’t. A specific icon would be a good idea.

I like the logo: fresh, colorful. I know it has nothing to do with how good or bad the application is but it is a factor that participate to the fact Digsby will stay or not on my computers.

I like the granularity of the options in the settings. This allow you to customize the experience you have using Digsby. I felt sad not to be able to customize the popup notification like with the conversation windows. It will not ruin my pleasant experience of this tool.

I like the “dock and hide on the side” feature. I recommand docking it on the left. When Digsby is docked and hidden on the right, if you move to genereously your mouse for closing a window that is maximized, Digsby will slide from the right. Pretty frustrating. That why I recommand docking Digsby on the left.

Conclusion:

Digsby is a real adding value tool for people having multiple IM accounts but also for those that whant to regroup their accounts from major IM, email and social network systems (AIM, MSN Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ Jabber, Facebook Chat; Gmail, Yahoo! mail, Hotmail, POP email, IMAP email, AOL/AIM mail; FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter,LinkedIn).

Should you want to install digsby on multiple machines and uses them with the same Digsby account, the settings and IM,email and social network accounts will follow you as well. I understand this can be a great plus for many people. Though It is not something I want for myself.

I have adopted Digsby and I recommand giving it a serious try (without InstallIQ of course).

Vinciane Born, une amie, s’est lancée dans l’aventure d’un blog: www.pause-chocolat.com. Elle y public chaque jour ou presque un article. C’est fresh, c’est agréable à lire et divertissant.

Je lui souhaite beaucoup de succès dans cette aventure.

Allez donc y faire un tour ! C’est par ici.

Back in early 2008, I heard about Digsby. I didn’t tested it at that time but recently I’ve been told that Digbsy got awarded by WebUser. Eventually I decided to give it a try in 2009.

I naturally went on the digsby web site to download the installer. First visit to the Digsby website ever. The experience is *very* pleasant: colorful but not-flashy, engaging color theme with dynamic visual effect while hovering with the mouse over some areas of the home page.After reading through the various information from the home page I clicked on the big Free Download button, I liked to see it transforming into buttons for the supported OS’s (I realized though while writing this article that both Mac and Linux version are not available yet).  Clicking on the button representing the Windows’ logo redirects you to a clean page with yet again a bif “Download Now” button. Hey didn’t I just clicked once (euh actually twice because of the OS selector sequence) and it asks me again to click to install. This frustrated me a bit and I clicked on the big button waiting no more to start downloading Digsby installer.

Clicking on the Download Button causes Firefox to pop up with a download confirmation box.

Something bizarre just hurt my eyes. Did it to you ? Digsby.exe is downloaded from http://download.freeze.com ! My sensors are now awake. I’m turning into “proceed with caution” mode. I eventually accepted the download. 4.36MB, FireFox said in the Download History window. Mmmm, I bet it is going to be yet again a netinstaller rather that the real install program.

I launched digsby.exe and my second surprise was about the Publisher of digsby.exe: W3i, LLC.  Yet again my sensors were wide open. I eventually clicked on Run.

And now here was the surprise:

Do you see something bizarre ? … Of course InstallIQ instead of Digsby!

Huh. I thought I was about to install Digsby. Bad feeling. What the heck is this?

Tadaaa…

Waw. This first screen is rather crowdy. Digsby will be installed by InstallIQ. Mmm, Okay, so installIQ is the netinstaller. But the piece that definitely put me on hold is this:

I understand by Clicking “Accept” I am agreeing to the InstallIQ Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Why do I need to accept Terms and Conditions as well as Privacy Policy for InstallIQ when I install Digsby. Mmmm… This is rather bizarre. I’m not going to accept before some careful ready here.

I read these as well as the links Lean More and Why is this free?. This is really not smelling good:

• Learn More told me that InstallIQ creates a key into the registry to uniquely identify you should you cross InstallIQ again that you may uninstall manually the created key. This makes me think that if you uninstall Digsby, that InstallIQ key is very likely to persist ensuring InstallIQ to uniquely identify you later on.
• Why is this free? indicates that additional but optional software are going to be offered for installation.
• Terms and Conditions refers to changing my home page and my default search engine to Freeze.com

That was enough for me –> I clicked Cancel. I’m not going to install Digsby on my machine and I’m not going to recommend to any one installing Digsby with such Installer in place.

Oh, by the way, I checked into the registry after cancelling the install (so not having accepted the Terms and Conditions and Data Privacy of InstallIQ)… Guess what!… InstallIQ created and entry with a unique ID in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Freeze.com\Installer !

UPDATE (from 09-July-2009): I received a comment from W3i telling this is not longer the case. I went through the same installation sequence again. Indeed, after cancelling the install, the Unique ID is not in the registry anymore but the “folder” HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Freeze.com\Installer still is.

Nevertheless being curious I googled to discover more about InstallIQ in the context of Digsby. The least I could read on the official Digsby forum is that a part of Digsby’s user community is not happy with the installIQ approach that Digsby took. Digsby’s developpers also posted on their blog a clarification about the installer.

More importantly I found a blog talking about this and providing a link to install Digsby without InstallIQ.

Should you want to install Digsby without InstallIQ netinstaller, see on this screenshot taken from Digsby’s download page or click here.

Now I may decide to install Digsby.