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Microsoft’s History of Attacking Google – Only To Give Up And Conform

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Microsoft used to have a internal mantra known as “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” that helped to ensure that they always maintained market dominance. This was the driving force behind Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft’s Microsoft Java Virtual Machine, Microsoft Virtual PC and countless other products. This strategy essentially had Microsoft embracing promising new technologies and extending the features of the technology (often by adding exclusive features that work best on Windows) and then using their newfound market dominance to destroy the competing products. Aside from a few legal battles, this strategy often proved very successful for Microsoft however for some unknown reason, Microsoft decided to take a different approach with Google’s line of products – “Troll, Smear and Embrace”. I have compiled a list of my top 3 examples.

Update : T-Mobile 512 GB Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Experiencing Major Shipping Delays

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I published a notice last week that T-Mobile is suffering from severe delays with the 512 GB Samsung Galaxy Note 9. These devices were expected to ship on August 24th but the shipment date has long gone. I reported that the delays could delay pre-order shipment dates to the last half of September. I checked my credit card account about an hour ago and saw that T-Mobile charged me for the pre-order which T-Mobile does not normally do until the phone ships. Sure enough, I checked T-Mobile’s website and sew that that the shipment date has been updated to “September 4th – September 6th”. I pre-ordered mine early so it is hard to tell if all pre-orders are shipping this week. If you also pre-ordered a 512 GB Note 9, you may want to check your credit card statement online to see if the charge is pending.

Review : ZMI 20,000 mAh USB Battery Pack/USB Hub with Power Delivery – My new favorite USB Battery Bank

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I have a problem, I love USB battery packs and my collection keeps growing, it is getting so bad that I am running out of space in my backpack. Many of my USB battery packs have a similar set of features, the ZMI 20,000 mAh Battery Pack is very different as it not only puts out enough power to charge my PixelBook at full speed but it pulls double duty by acting as a USB 2.0 hub at the same time.

Google Assistant Brutally Slaughtered Siri at I/O 2018

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If you have been a user of personal assistants for a while, you would have noticed that Apple’s Siri has been falling behind, outpacing Microsoft’s Cortana with Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant taking the lead. It was not even a fair fight to begin with but if you were one of the folks who attended Google I/O 2018 in person or remotely you would have caught a demo of some of the features that Google has been working on bringing to Google Assistant. Lets explore a few of these features in more detail.

Six Changes I Would Make To Improve the Pixelbook

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Since its launch in late 2017, the Google Pixelbook has been a smash hit with owners (including myself) regardless of the early criticisms of some tech reviewers. I have owned by Pixelbook for several months and it has quickly become my daily driver. It is simply great but if Google were to let me loose in their development lab for a day, these are the changes I would make to the Pixelbook.

[TIP] Using a VPN from the Google Play Store on ChromeOS

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If you are a Chromebook owner who uses a VPN, you probably noticed that:

  • ChromeOS’s VPN Support Sucks
  • Setting up a OpenVPN Connection on ChromeOS Sucks

There are of course countless VPN Solutions on the Google Play Store however if you ever tried to use one of these, you will notice that the VPN appears to be functioning correctly however only traffic from other play store applications will flow through the VPN while the main ChromeOS traffic bypasses it – Potentially exposing sensitive data. I even wrote a long rant about this a few months ago. Fortunately there is a simple fix.

Odd Tech : Sylvania SLTDVD9220-C – A Portable DVD Player that Doubles as a Android Tablet

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I often have a hard time passing up odd or unusual tech when I find it. While on vacation visiting family, we popped into a Wal-Mart in a small Texas City and I spotted one of the most unusual pieces of technology that I have ever seen – The Sylvania SLTDVD9220-C is a sub $100.00 portable DVD Player with a average (for a portable DVD player) 9 inch screen and a sub-par 4 hour battery. Where the SLTDVD9220-C falls short, it makes up in a big and strange way – it doubles as an Android Tablet!

Short Tutorial – NextCloud + Guacamole

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I published a video last year showing a fully functional SSH Client riding inside of my OwnCloud Install but sadly did not include any documentation on how to actually set it up. There was a reason for this as the steps were very involved and required a lot of added code that would break between OwnCloud/NextCloud Updates. I have had several requests over the past several months to revive the project but due to time limitations I have not been able to do it. Instead I have put together a basic tutorial to get your own similar setup running that has even more features than my original demo – This tutorial will be a starting point and you will need to locate the steps for your exact server setup.

  • in tech, rant
  • 3 min read

Tech Pet Peeves

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My life is centered around technology and I like to stay current with the latest offerings. I read hundreds of articles, reviews and websites every week to gorge myself on the latest news that is circulating the internet and have come across several things that bug me. Here is a list of my top tech pet peeves: