Web Warp Blog has been retired. For new posts please head to dmather.com.

Thursday 19 May 2011

Web Warp Blog Mobile Version

From today if you access Web Warp Blog via your smart phone you will automatically be redirected to the new mobile version of Web Warp Blog! Here's a link to manually try it today: Click here for Mobile Web Warp Blog.


Facebook Email

Facebook now offer their 600 million users a new unified message service - Facebook messages, Facebook chats and even a Facebook email address all find their way into a single inbox. In order to get this service you will need to upgrade to the Facebook Messages service. Invitations will appear when you log into Facebook.com but until you receive yours you can find out more from Facebook New Messages.

Once upgraded you can claim your @facebook.com email address. Here's how: Click Here. by default your @facebook.com email address will be your vanity URL which you may have chosen in 2009. Here's a quick reminder of the username/vanity URL feature.

It will be interesting to see if the addition of a facebook email service will have any impact of the existing web based email dominance of Microsofts Hotmail, Google's GMail and Yahoo's YMail. The Facebook email experience isn't as fully featured as GMail, for example. Facebook Messages seems to focus on continual conversations with friends, in a similar mannor to the old facebook messaging service. The ability to start these conversations from an external email service would appear to be the only real benefit.

The iPhone app highlights the change:

Wednesday 18 May 2011

White iPhone 4

Apple's iPhone 4 was originally advertised as being available in Black or White. However it has been almost a year and only now is the iPhone finally available in white, both front and back. This is different to the iPhone 3G in white which sported the same black front as the black one.

The new iPhone 4 in white has a small black strip above the speaker for the proximity and ambient light sensors. And it's release follows the recently released iPad 2 which is also available in white and black. The images show the iPhone press release image and the real world look.

Image: Courtesy of Apple Inc.

Saturday 14 May 2011

Chromebook

Google announced Chromium OS, an open source operating system, based on the idea that the internet (via Google Chrome) was all you needed. Then Google ran the CR-48 beta project where Google Chromium OS was the only installed operating system loaded onto a dedicated laptop given to participants in the trial. The information collected and extensive research conducted by Google has lead to their recent announcement of fully fledged Chromium OS laptops called Chromebooks.

The new Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung will be available in the US on the 15th June 2011. To explain the difference between a regular PC and a Chromebook check out this video from Google.