Alfred's musings

On turning on my Chromebook at work today (I don't bother brining my Mac to work any more), I noticed that, instead of the usual screen mirror or switch, I can now view my desktop on *both* my Chromebook screen and external monitor with no problem... at full resolution, just like what Windows or a Mac could do. If you spend most of your time on the web, a Chromebook really becomes more and more compelling!

Thanks for the tip  +Allister Frost  - the "Science of persuasion" is a good reminder of the things we could be doing every day to increase our ability to influence.

I've been lucky enough to receive a prototype Nexus 10 a few months ago to help testing. Thank you Google! And, until recently, I did not float my boat. Why? Well, my Motorola Xoom is pretty good too (and also on a fresh recent Android Build), and it was not very stable, being a new device that is still in Prototype stage. BUT, this all changed... all except for the Xoom that is still a great device, and now the preferred media player in our house (that also have a Windows Media Center machine connected to the big TV). What changed? The Nexus 10 got the latest Android bits which is just soooo sweet and smooth, and I'm now allowed to take it out of the office, and suddenly it's real value came to light. Being office bound (and pre-release) just limited the value so much. Now that I can read on the train, and productively clean my inbox AND create content (the keyboard is awesome), craft responses, plan the day productively... it's beautiful. The screen is fantasti...

Right now, my favourite three gadgets are these: My helicopter. This Syma S107G is incredible because it's so simple to fly (thanks to incredible electronics). It's lightweight and my son and I love to try and fly it around the table and then land it on a small Lego platform. I paid £12. (And then another £60 for 5 more... some of my friends have their Christmas presents ready ;)) It's really an engineering marvel: The quality of design, materials and electronics all really impress. Put it this way: If there was a life-sized version, I would not have hesitated to get in myself. My new heaphones. After reading this Machable article , I just bought 'em. (I think I was sort of spending my Christmas bonus early, without thinking it through!) But I love 'em. They are really a class *way* above what I'm used to compared to my fairly expensive floor standers and I even prefer it to my Google-issued Sennheiser HD 280 pro cups, and definitely over my Sennheiser in-e...

A few months ago, when Google had a birthday in the UK, we had a street view car drive past the office ... and capture a few pictures. Well - I'm excited to confirm that it's live. If you play around with street view near our offices , you'll spot us... and the big red pin! Also, yesterday was pretty special: Amongst other things, I've also had the privilege to hold the Olympic torch yesterday in the office. ( Matt Brittin is not only Google's VP for our region,  he was also an Olympic athlete in the past and recently participated in the torch relay, and he shared his torch with us. :) ). Back to business... building our Geo partner eco system, putting partners on the map!

I really, really value the opportunity to work at Google. It has good surprises around so many corners, and allow us to contribute to making this a wonderful environment too. So - one of these quirky things I'm involved in, is the Gleeglers. A group of us just sing. And with our new recording studio at Google, we also recorded one of our songs. And thanks to the video editing talents of one of the group, you have a chance to also enjoy this now :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nof9ChDEXw The tie... that was with compliments of Microsoft-designed advert that felt all Googlers has to wear something like this, so our marketing team issued us with these :)

The trend these days is to offer a cheap flight, but then demand a bunch of additional payments for "tax", "surcharge", "supplement" and don't forget to pay for the suitcase too. (Oh, and we might even have to pay for the optional seat too , soon.) There is another way: Include everything in the one price. Google Apps does that. £33 per user per year gives you email. And Google drive. And therefore a great word processor and spreadsheet, and presentation tools. And collaboration. And web sites for intranet and extranet, oh, and internet. And instant messaging. And video chat. And Video storage. And backups, storage, SLA, support.... you get the picture. And today I experienced another brand doing that: Victorinox. I got a IT branded Victorinox suitcase *many* moons ago (with a firewall appliance in it!), and eventually it started to die on me on a trip with our award-winning partners to San Francisco. When I started looking at replacement su...