I am probably a bit late writing about Google video as it’s been around for what seems like forever! Although my saving grace is that it is still in Beta (like every other bit of new software nowadays).

Anyway, I visited the Google video page when I first heard about it, I had a quick look around and decided it was good. I didn’t think it was great, I thought it was good for people who want to watch videos all day. And that’s what I thought…

Until now! Tonight for some reason I decided that I wanted to see the Jackass gumball rally again. I saw it a few years back, and found it funny.

Anyway, I went to Google and typed in ‘Jackass gumball’, the second result came from http://video.google.com. I remembered going to the site previously, I remember it cost about the right amount, FREE! So I clicked it, within about 3 or 4 seconds the video was playing. A smile instantly came to my face, not because Jackass was on, but because technology had done exactly what I wanted, no registration, no plugin to download. I typed what I wanted, clicked the result and had it. This is exactly how the Internet should be. Simple.

So I now had a video playing in an Internet Explorer window, I tried to maximise it but although it increased in size, it was still in a window. So I downloaded the Google video player, at under 5mb this didn’t take long. Once it had finished downloading, the player started to play the Jackass video. It was also at this point downloading the video to a file on my hard disk. I gave it about 10 minutes and that’s it, I had it.

In under 20 minutes I had gone from remembering a video I saw over two years ago to having a copy saved on my laptop. Perfect.

The last thing, as much as I liked the Google video player for saving my video for me, I actually prefer Windows media player. So off I went back to Google, to find the answer to playing my Google video file in WMP. Convert it! That’s the answer. Very shortly after finding that answer I found the answer to the next question… “how?”  And the answer was GVI2AVI. You can find this tiny (44k) file from this site http://www.kultiras.net/programs.html. A very simple way to convert a file, it just wants the input file and the destination folder. That’s it, I searched, downloaded, converted and watched.

I like things to be simple. This was. Well done Google.
N.B. If you are going to convert the GVI file make sure you have DivX. If you haven’t, go to www.divx.com

Ok so I have an O2 Exec, I update my firmware when a new version comes out. This has happened twice since I got it. I have chosen to download the update, and when to install it. I also make a full backup before I install it. It’s good that I do this because the update resets the phone to factory defaults.

I saw today that phone manufacturers are going to be testing a new updating service. This does bring back memories of when Microsoft told us the world would be a better place (after a thousand or so patches) with Windows Update (and we all know how that ended up!).  But from what I can see the new phone updating service will have one main difference from the MS package, and the old way of updating, the phone update service will not let you choose what to install. If the manufacturer decides to make an update available, your phone will automatically get it.

I suppose this is the way forward for mobile phones as they are coming with more and more features, and more and more things to go wrong. So with that in mind the updating is a good thing! But if we look back at the MS update that I spoke of earlier, maybe mobile phone updating isn’t such a great idea.

Phone operators seem reluctant to actually add Servers to host this updating service until the phones have the technology built in, and the phone manufacturers are reluctant to add the technology to the phones until the operators add the servers! So we could have a pretty long wait until the new service is actually live, and probably a longer wait until it works?
I personally think in order to make everyone happy they need to have an option to not use the automatic update option, but instead to download the updates yourself and choose whether to install them or not. I know this isn’t as good a use of technology, but it will make me feel safe. I really don’t like the idea of someone else remotely putting ‘fixes’ onto my phone without me knowing, whilst I’m 200miles away from home. I want the choice to leave my phone in a working state and add the update when I get home so that if it does go wrong I can pick up my home phone and call the operator and tell them what I think of their latest update.

There’s been plenty of press on the Internet and everywhere else about Microsoft releasing the Windows Genuine Advantage tool (WGA). Just in case you’ve been in a black hole for the past couple of months I’ll explain briefly. WGA is a tool that Microsoft have released that checks to see if you have a genuine Windows license key. If it cannot confirm this it moans about it every time you start you PC and periodically after that. It also stops you from downloading updates from the Microsoft Windows update site. This brings me to the reason for writing this entry. Microsoft has a rival in the patch management department, Shavlik. Shavlik have a product called NetChk, this works very similar to the Windows Update system. But it isn’t restricted to the same products as Windows update, it will update Windows, Office, server products and products from companies other than MS.

The best thing about NetChk is, IT’S FREE!

Well to it’s free for the first year for up to ten PC’s. We’ll worry about what to do when it runs out when it runs out!

To download NetChk go to http://www.shavlik.com/netchk-protect.aspx

Ok, I have had Internet Explorer 7 since Beta1. Being the overly keen MS lover i am, I instantly liked it. Then I actually tried to browse the web with it and found it couldn’t or wouldn’t display half the websites I tried to view. I do however think Microsoft have done a pretty good job in fixing most of these bugs. I am now using IE7 Beta 3 and most sites work. But as i’m sure your aware if you use IE7, it’s still not right. I know this is why it’s still in Beta, but it seems to me that MS software is staying in Beta for so long now days! See Alan Stevens blog entry:We’re all beta testers now.

I have always though of myself as pretty faithful to MS but it proving more and more difficult. Even to create this entry I have been forced to use Firefox as IE wouldn’t let me create a new category, instead it ‘gave’ me an error on the page.

I still believe Microsoft make good software, I just wish they would do some testing before releasing it to the public. It seems at the moment if you want to be able to use Active features on sites you must use IE6, if you want to extra features like tabs you must use IE7. If you want both use Firefox.

Maybe this will change when IE7 finally leaves beta?