You shut up about Google Reader!
Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
51–60 of 132 posts
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently caught myself thinking: "How much would someone have to pay me to never use another Google product?" While contemplating my use of gMail, Search, Calendar, YouTube, etc., I wrapped my head around how powerful and irreplaceable Google and its products are to me. Now that they're winding down Reader, I'm reminded at how vulnerable we all are given this reliance.
I've actually been putting numbers on this: there are many fans of NewsBlur, apparently, as a replacement for Google Reader, so that's $12 a year; I'm worried about being tied to my Gmail address, so I finally got around to setting up a vanity domain address which forwards to Gmail and that's going to be about $10 a year. So I'm up to $22 a year, and I haven't looked into any free or paid replacements for Google Cale…
pobox.com (http://pobox.com/pricing) is a fairly stable domain for email with lifetime hosting for as low as $20/yr (forwarding only) or $50/yr (hosting)
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#53I think Aaron Swartz hit the nail on the head with his "What Does Google Mean by “Evil”?" blog post[1]: > "They specifically name three: showing irrelevant ads, using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and selling off actual search results. Hardly the stuff of comic books. But what do these three have in common? They’re all instances of refusing to make things worse for your users in order to make more money " This…
> "They specifically name three: showing irrelevant ads, using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and selling off actual search results. I think omitting a border around ads and intentionally reducing the contrast from the background to make it invisible to older people and people with bad monitors does count as an annoying gimmick and a user-hostile anti-pattern. The A/B testing would've shown a lot of ad clicks an…
The important part is where it specifically says Ads, and then a link to why these ads? though. Contrast should be high enough you can see why ads end, but other than where it's been cropped in the picture you posted, it's still very clear that at least the top result is an advert. You are right that contrast should clearly distinguish ads from not, but you shouldn't crop out the label clearly identifying it as an advert to prove your point.
In addition to that, I'd argue looking at your picture that it really doesn't matter if it's an ad or not - if it were an organic result and you didn't want to file a lawsuit, you wouldn't click it anyway.
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#54Is there any stated reason for deprecating CalDAV support? I hope the new Calendar API is open enough for platforms like Blackberry, Ubuntu Mobile, Jolla and Firefox OS etc to tap into. It's increasingly looking like Google is making it hard for other platforms except it's own Android and iOS(can't ignore iOS because of the number of users) to interoperate with its services like Youtube, Gmail, Calendar etc.
Even if the Calendar API were open to all platforms, it's not a standard, it's just an API unilaterally defined by Google. CalDAV, however, is a standard " rel="nofollow">https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4791> . It is certainly an evil move from Google to try to replace an existing open standard with an API defined exclusively by them (unless they have technical grounds to do so, and considerate and documented extensio…
To make things worse, Google's support for their own APIs is pretty weak - I had some bad experiences with them.
Calendar API wasn't the worst - okay, I didn't get any response from Google guys on a bug I ran into, but they eventually fixed it (and lack of user support is pretty much a norm for them now).
The situation with Spreadsheets is way worse - the API is pretty much abandoned, no changes or any reaction to bugs/complaints for a few months now. They'd roll out a new API version, remove the old documentation (instead of marking it as deprecated but accessible), but the new documentation is really lacking - only has examples in C#, and even these are incomplete.
So, yeah, moving from open standards to their own API is very bad - not just because it's locking up people or something, but also because they are not supporting _their own APIs_ properly.
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#55I think this news highlights a more general problem. How can we call something an "open standard" if it's controlled by one company in such a way that they can shut it down at whim. Open sourcing should be a requirement to be an "open standard", or am I missing something?
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently caught myself thinking: "How much would someone have to pay me to never use another Google product?" While contemplating my use of gMail, Search, Calendar, YouTube, etc., I wrapped my head around how powerful and irreplaceable Google and its products are to me. Now that they're winding down Reader, I'm reminded at how vulnerable we all are given this reliance.
I've actually been putting numbers on this: there are many fans of NewsBlur, apparently, as a replacement for Google Reader, so that's $12 a year; I'm worried about being tied to my Gmail address, so I finally got around to setting up a vanity domain address which forwards to Gmail and that's going to be about $10 a year. So I'm up to $22 a year, and I haven't looked into any free or paid replacements for Google Cale…
Between Google retiring stuff and Twitter's ongoing war against client developers, I'm seriously considering just packing up and self-hosting everything I care about on my VPS.
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exchange server is $10 per month at Rackspace [1] I've heard good things about Microsoft Office 365 as well. Then, there's always Google Apps for Business... [1] https://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/exchange_hostin...
Been using Office 365 for a year now. Never had any problems. I'd suggest it over GApps for business if you are looking for a paid service.
Are you paying $150 per user per year? What is the most important feature/component for you?
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't you just be reliant another another company? What's to guarantee that they won't close down the service one day?
Well, that depends. I had the same reaction, and my thought was to basically go the opensource route, but some products almost have to be replaced with a company. Products I use from Google: * Search - replace with duck duck go * Chrome - Firefox, most likely, but there are tons of browser options these days. * Voice - this is the one that really has me hooked into the service. Not sure what I'd use instead, if not j…
Interesting list. This got me wondering if there are any zero-knowledge email providers out there, especially ones that let you use your own domain. Only thing I found so far though is an empty Quora question:
http://www.quora.com/Cryptography/Is-there-any-zero-knowledg...
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#59I think Aaron Swartz hit the nail on the head with his "What Does Google Mean by “Evil”?" blog post[1]: > "They specifically name three: showing irrelevant ads, using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and selling off actual search results. Hardly the stuff of comic books. But what do these three have in common? They’re all instances of refusing to make things worse for your users in order to make more money " This…
>This is just about the first time I've seen Google unambiguously break their own definition of 'evil'.
Shutting down a service is now considered "evil"? That's a stretch if there ever was one...
Re: Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're going down the Facebook route, they want to lock you into their AOL-style walled garden. I was surprised the other day when I went to share a video from Google+ to Facebook, turns out I couldn't, it wasn't a youtube video as I had expected.
Just like PG said in one of his essays, Google is now the new Microsoft. It used to be about giving hackers tools to build on top of their services. Now, its all about turning the search engine into a social network. And before the Google army comes in, let me say one thing. I used to love Google. Used all of their services. Built stuff with their services. Each computer I touched got Chrome installed. I was a fan bo…
Embrace, extend, extinguish [1].
We have heard it before, with Microsoft, we are hearing it again with Google, and we will hear it again with someone else in the future.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish