Database Info

Good News

While reading http://mobilitybeat.com RSS on my HTC Fuze
http://www.wmexperts.com/microsoft-reportedly-launch-cloud-services-announce-windows-mobile-65
Some news is appearing (thanks to the Web site Neowin) ahead of Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona, namely in the form of mobile cloud services that should take on Apple's MobileMe service.
First up is SkyMarket, which was discovered last fall thanks to a couple of job postings. And as we learned then, this is still expected to be Microsoft's mobile app store.
The bigger news comes in the form of SkyBox — think of it as "one cloud to rule them all." You'd get automatic backup and restore services, cloud syncing with your contacts, calendars, pictures and the like. Nothing groundbreaking there, except that it's Microsoft offering all of this in a tidy little package, and we'd expect it to be pretty slick.
What is pretty interesting is that Microsoft would offer SkyBox on devices that don't run Windows Mobile. (Hello, Android?) The SkyMarket app store, however, would still be limited to WinMo devices, which makes sense.
Finally there's SkyLine, the business version of SkyBox.
Neowin also says that Windows Mobile 6.5 should be officially unveiled at MWC.
No word on pricing or release dates yet, but we should have plenty to look forward to in Barcelona.

[Q] Google Wave App

I just wanted to know if anyone has developed a solid app for Google wave. I use Google wave allot, but there aren't any good ones in the market place.
If someone can give me a good app for Google wave (with notifications, and updates, like the Facebook app) that would be awesome.
If no one made one yet, this is an opportunity, I need a good Google wave app so bad that I would be willing to pay for it, and I am probably not the only one.

DROID_INC said:
I just wanted to know if anyone has developed a solid app for Google wave. I use Google wave allot, but there aren't any good ones in the market place.
If someone can give me a good app for Google wave (with notifications, and updates, like the Facebook app) that would be awesome.
If no one made one yet, this is an opportunity, I need a good Google wave app so bad that I would be willing to pay for it, and I am probably not the only one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably are actually, google wave is very unpopular. I doubt you'll find one if i'm honest !
Good luck anyways!
edit: go to www.googlewave.com in your mobile browser, should be a mobile version? Not sure if that's any help though.

Wave Lives!
I think Wave is popular amongst certain developers (the kind that were let in early) but i'm not sure what it's future is now that Google has announced it's closure towards the end of the year.
On the one hand the whole wave-server is free to download and install on our own machines, but on the other hand, Google hasn't (and probably won't) release much of their native client. The "textual" client that was released was so basic as to not catch on for "syndication", or "federating" as it was called. I got as far as setting it all up on a VPS hosting, but wasn't up to the task of coding my own client, at least, not at the time. (thou i would've joined such a group if had found one, which i didn't)
I still see a future for Wave, or a derivative thereof, but the original Wave client would be hard to replicate if Google choose not to release it. Until we hear what Google intends to do with that "popular" client, it's really anyone's guess.
For myself, i was gearing up to code an Android client for Wave using Adobe Air once they (Adobe) have finalized the feature-set (it's still in pre-release for month or two). I would still like to do this, but getting it to the quality of the current Wave client would be large undertaking. Would prolly have to settle for something that looks and works a bit differently. (ie. more suiting Android screens for example)
As for a central server to run it on (since Google are pulling the plug) it would need to be either another central server, or at least partially shoe-horned to run on Google's App Engine, which i have also done some prep work for. (passing waves thru as a web interface, storing of waves in big-table, etc)
Along with character-by-character communication, and having compatibility with existing robots and gadgets (protocols, and everything) it's quite an involved project. Most likely a team effort, which is what Wave is actually designed for after all. ;O)
The only tricky part is getting paid to even attempt it. So even thou there's definitely some latent demand for Wave to continue, method of sponsorship is what really needs to be sorted out first. See my previous post (here on XDA) about "donation bidding" for example of what is really needed.

This is the one i meant... "Developer Bidding"

Ok, thanks guys.
I have used the mobile version but it just plainly sucks. Since I go to college, I do a lot of group projects and its easier through google wave because your group can comment attach, post, etc..., and your entire group can see and discuss. If google is pulling the plug, is there any alternative I can use for what I am doing?
Again thanks for the help.

A popular one before Wave came along was Etherpad (Etherpad.com) but as Wave was gearing up for public release Google bought the company, shut down Etherpad, and got the Etherpad team to help the Wave team improve Wave's usability.
Initially there was a public backlash, since the two services looked and worked quite differently, and many people preferred Etherpad's simplicity. Perhaps because of the growing backlash, Etherpad was then quickly released as open-source (see Etherpad.org) such that it can be downloaded and setup on your own server.
When Google announced Wave is closing, several sites promptly listed some alternatives.
http://www.techmaish.com/5-popular-google-wave-alternatives/
http://www.worldtech24.com/business/10-great-alternatives-google-wave/
Also worth noting that although Google are closing Wave, they are now planning to integrate some of the Wave's technology (whatever that means) into existing products. Think of; google mail, google buzz, google talk, and google voice, all becoming something "more collaborative" and generally more social.
Personally, i liked Wave the most (robots, gadgets, etc) so hoping to catch the timing between Air for Android releasing, and Wave closing, since my background is mainly Actionscript/Javascript, and have already coded a partial client.
Happy hunting thou!

Where are voip app??

Since mango beta has been released, im waiting that some software house announce that they are working on wp7 voip app. but till now nothing. Anyone has soem news?? Skype said in autumn, but others like Viber, frings.... ???

As you wrote, Mango is still beta. So, Marketplace does not accepts apps with new API. Wait for official release plus few month...

Of course I wasn't talking about app in the marketplace, cause as u wrote,there can't be any mango app in market. I was talking about announcements of developers or software house, which till now have not been made.
For example BBC already demoed his mango app...

I'm thinking it's because:
- VOIP apps requires a lot of investments to infrastructure, servers, customers support etc. Also cell providers not welcome that kind of apps
- also everybody are waiting for MS/Skype release. It's too risky to invest some money without knowledge of future WP7 Skype features.

Hopefully they add Lync VOIP.. not just the IM part.

Confessions of a Google junkie (or, Privacy? What privacy?)

the original link.....http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/confessions-of-a-google-junkie-or-privacy-what-privacy/3553
Summary: A lot has been made of Google’s new privacy policy and terms of use. I say bring it on.
There are very few aspects of my life that don’t somehow involve Google. My phone runs on Android, my favorite tablet just got an OTA update to Ice Cream Sandwich (!!!), I use Chrome across all of my computers, I develop AdWords campaigns, I use Analytics to develop metrics for the day job and dive into SEO, I handle many of the CBS Interactive Google webcasts, I use Google Docs almost exclusively for productivity, and my wife doesn’t know where I am half the time until she checks my Google Calendar (which, in fact, aggregate two other Google Calendars).
I’m increasingly turning to Google+ as my source of relevant information and opinions, a function previously reserved for Twitter, and I’ve even dispensed with bookmarks, instead using Google Sites to organize important pages and resources.
I live, eat, breathe, work, and play Google and there aren’t many people more aware of Google’s business model and the amount of data it collects than I. So is it just sheer stupidity and naiveté that has me utterly embracing the Google ecosystem and relatively unconcerned about newly announced privacy policies that have caused so much consternation this week? Before you jump down to the talkbacks to tell me how stupid I really am, read on for another couple paragraphs.
As Larry Dignan pointed out in his post about the new policies last night,
Google noted that it already has all that data, but it’s now integrating that information across products. It’s a change in how Google will use the data not what it collects. In other words, Google already knows more about you than your wife.
From my perspective, though, I can live with Google knowing a lot about me. It knows, for example, that I’ve recently developed an obsession with the electric guitar and have been researching inexpensive models that I might just be able to justify as a birthday present to myself. It doesn’t judge, it just shows me the best deals in display ads on the three models of guitar and 2 models of amps I’ve been reading about the most. My wife isn’t aware of this obsession and her take on it would be judgmental (God love her!): “When will you have time to play guitar? And we’re supposed to be saving money! And what’s wrong with your acoustic guitar?”
Taking this a step further, as Google’s new privacy policies and terms of use do, I should expect to start seeing guitar-related apps in my suggestions in the Google Market and the Chrome Marketplace. Guitarists on Google+ should start appearing in suggested people to add to my circles and Google Reader should offer to download Guitar Player Magazine feeds for me. And, more likely than not, I’ll start seeing more guitar-related ads as well.
Google’s goal, of course, is to sell advertising. That’s about 97% of their revenue. By pulling people like me into their increasingly unified ecosystem, they can demonstrate very high click-through rates to potential advertisers and charge a premium to reach highly targeted and yet incredibly vast audiences.

They need to give me something in return
For me to buy into this, they need to give me something in return. Something to make all things Google really sticky. Like a wide array of free tools from Google Docs to Google Music to Google Voice. And cheap tools that I buy for my business like Google Apps and AdWords. Their new policies are designed to be more transparent, but also to pave the way for these tools to talk to each other better, making them even stickier through a unified experience and more relevant services.
Back to the wife comparison that Larry brought up. My wife knows that every Friday night is pizza night in our house. So does Google, since every Friday around 4:30 I pull out my Android and use Google Voice Search to find the number of whatever pizza joint we decide to patronize that week. Fine. Google, however, can actually do something more useful with that information than my wife can (”Where should I order pizza, sweetheart?” “Wherever, just not that place down the road. Or that other place. And make sure they’re having a deal!”).
Come Friday morning, the ads I see on Gmail or Google search should start being pretty pizza-heavy: Dominos, Papa Johns, and a place or two that has an active Google Offer. As I’m driving home that evening, the GPS on my phone should set off an alert when I drive past a well-reviewed pizza place (assuming I’ve set location-based preferences to alert me to destinations with at least four-star average reviews). And the minute I type a P in my mobile browser, Google Instant should leap into action and display nearby pizza places and a news story about a new place to get pizza in the next town.
We’re not quite there yet, but this is the sort of integration and experience that Google is covering in its new policies and terms of use. I know that my privacy red flags should probably be going off. Google has gigabytes of information about me and is using that information to help its advertisers sell products. That’s bad, right?
Guess what, folks? This is the semantic web
And yet, I don’t think it is. Many of the same techies who cry foul over these new policies have also been pushing for the development of the semantic web to make it easier to find what we actually need in the trillions of web pages floating around the Internet. Guess what, folks? This is the semantic web. When our search engines know what we actually mean, when data on the web automagically becomes information we can use easily and quickly, we’ve arrived.
And the semantic web can’t exist without “the web” (whatever that is) knowing a lot about us. It takes data for a computer to understand our needs and process natural language efficiently. Some of those data will necessarily be fairly personal.
Now, if I start getting spam from pizza places or calls on my Google Voice number from Dominos because Google has sold my contact information and preferences to advertisers, we have a problem and I’ll be waving my privacy flag as high as anyone else. However, when I opt in by opening a Google account and staying logged in as I surf the web, I’m not only consenting to the collection and aggregation of data about me, I’m asking that it be done so that the web and related tools can be more useful to me. This sort of data mining lets me work faster, play easier, and find the best pizza in a 20-mile radius.
For its part, Google needs to remain the trusted broker of these data. No, I don’t like the idea that our government could brand me a terrorist and seize these gigabytes of data under the Patriot Act. The alternative, though, is an ever-growing morass of web sites and tools that I get to dig through manually.
And, by the way, even if I’m not logged in to my Google account as I’m doing it, my ISP knows the sites I’ve visited, too, and could just as easily (if not more so) be compelled to turn over this information to the real Big Brother in all of this.
Far more trust in Google than the Feds
Honestly, I have far more trust in Google than I do in the Feds. Google is motivated by money: they need my trust to keep collecting those data to keep making it easier for me to buy things from Google’s paying advertisers. If that trust is broken by inappropriate sharing of data, then my eyeballs go elsewhere and so do the advertisers who target me via AdWords and AdSense. Our government has no such financial motivation. Money talks.
The fact that the speech recognition on my phone kicks ass because I use Google Voice all the time and it’s learned how I talk might be a little creepy, but it’s far more important that I can do a Google search or send a text while I’m driving without taking my eyes off the road.
Welcome to 2012, folks. The semantic web has arrived. Use it well and let’s keep Google’s new policies in perspective. And Google? Don’t be evil. I have a lot of colleagues who will be pointing, laughing, and saying I told you so if you ever are.

Nice article.
I think the key for Google's continued success is to keep the advertising passive, suggestions when you're searching etc. aren't in your face but they work.
You see a lot of people complaining that they've been searching for something online and then all of the adverts on the websites they visit contain something pertaining to that, and they grumble that it's annoying. Personally, I'd much rather see an advert to something that's relevant to me rather than a cluttered webpage of irrelevant information.
By targeting adverts and increasing their relevance to the individual, they are far more likely to be successful. This means that the revenue per advert is going to improve and websites aren't going to need to cover their website in adverts (at the cost of the user experience) to make it profitable.
Plus given the huge amount of free stuff that google gives you, it's a bit rich for somebody to complain that they're trying to get something back off you.

I too would much rather see things directly targeted towards me then just random ads. And everyone is up in arms about google recording what you do. Well i think of it this way, i'm fine with them getting to know me and my behavior and what i do, as long as they keep providing FREE products for me.

Ahh the good old "If they are going to screw me without consent, I would much rather they knew my name, stroked my hair and whispered sweet nothings into my ear while they did it."
I prefer to treat my online habbits like the strange neighbour a few doors down. Say "hi" in passing, and realise that while they probrobly know more than I would want them to from when I've invited them over for coffee and from peeking in my windows as they walk past, know that I don't actually have to put up with their $#!+ if they become too creepy.
Thats why its important there are alternitives and competition, and that we as consumers don't put our eggs all in one basket and be prepared to protest or move on if they stretch the friendship too far.
I know privacy is impossible in this day and age but that doent mean you have to lie back and take it. "because you know it means well and it does give you nice gifts once in a while"
My suggestion is cut your reliance on any one brand and spread out the load.

hungry81 said:
My suggestion is cut your reliance on any one brand and spread out the load.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like the author am reliant on Google these days. I'd be happy to look at alternatives. Granted they work on the platforms I needs them to, Android 2.X and 3.2, Linux+chrome, windows XP + chrome, and windows 7 + firefox or chrome. The linux requirement cuts out a lot of things, iTunes/iCloud for example.
Have any suggestions who/where i could go for:
Music
Docs
G+
Gmail
Needs a slick webUI, and the searching ability of gmail
Calendar
I need delegation and the ability for my wife to add me to events and share calendars.
Reader
works on all my devices, and syncs between them
I would very much like my phone to know when I leave work. Now i could do this with some sort of timer, but I end up working somewhat flexible hours, and have a leaving time of anywhere within an hour and a half. I would like it to know that since I now have "buy bread, milk, and eggs" on my to-do list (thanks hun!), that it needs to remind me of that on the way home. Even better if it can just direct me to a store with a deal on one or all of those things.
I like that the first hit in Google I get for cookies is the wikipedia page for http cookies and the second is to pythons cookielib module. Where as I bet my grandmother gets, chocolate chip cookies. The ability for Google search to know that I have a particular artist in my collection, and show me the bind's page near the top of the results without me having to add "band" to my search terms.
Anyways, if and when Google starts selling my data to 3rd parties, I'll export my data and move. Google makes it fairly painless to do that.

Google Latitude (is no more) :(

Hi all.
I could not find any mention of this in the forums although I suspect many of you already know that Google Latitude will soon be retired (next month I believe)
In fact the current version/update of Maps is missing the Latitude feature.
This is a shame as I used this App more than anything else. It was a great way to let my family/friends know where I was. It was so handy to keep my mum a little more calm as she could see where i was while i was out riding the motorbike.
Does anyone know of any other Apps that offer real-time background location sharing (that does not require the B-party to install an app)?
Google+ does offer location sharing but from what I can see it simply makes a new post each time you check in somewhere. This is not what i want.
Cheers
Heath

Well, you get some you lose some, and in Google's case, whenever an app becomes less used, they will decide to close shop and move to other projects. That's how Google mobilize their project teams, and trust me, Google has A LOT on projects in mind. Who knows, in the future, Google+ might just join the ranks of Wave & Latitude as fallen heroes ...

Ah yes. Google Wave. Thanks for the flashback. We had some fun on that.
I thought it was a very useful tool.
Does make me wonder what they have in mind to replace Latitude.
But i cannot help wondering why they shelved it. I imagine it would have been a pretty worry-free app. All the meta-data is basically contained in Google Maps so its not like it would have been too much hassle.
I cannot help but wonder if it were n00bs complaining about Privacy issues (after not understanding how it works)
No?

petrofsky77 said:
Well, you get some you lose some, and in Google's case, whenever an app becomes less used, they will decide to close shop and move to other projects. That's how Google mobilize their project teams, and trust me, Google has A LOT on projects in mind. Who knows, in the future, Google+ might just join the ranks of Wave & Latitude as fallen heroes ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google did not close Latitude because of lack of use. They did it to force its users to Google+. They did similar thing with Picasa - made it part of Google+ - it used to be a great program but now it is much less fun.
I too am very disappointed that Latitude has been discontinued in an effort to troll people into Google+ and am beginning to dislike Google's policies more and more and trust them less and less.
I am going to jump on the first decent Ubuntu or Firefox phone that comes along and say goodbye to android.

Oh great... I was looking for it. First Google Reader, now Latitude.

I was heart broken too...i was the fan of google maps because of latitude...lets see what google has to offer...google+ is no fun...every time i have to check in to show my location..time consuming and no fun.
Sent from my Micromax A110 using xda app-developers app