There, I said it. Actually I wasn’t even the first one to say it, but I strongly agree. While it has a rather strong social thing going on, Google+ is actually a really cool platform for personal sites and (micro)blogging, which happens to make it very easy to share stuff with your friends.

The strongest argument for this is the profile page. Before you drop to the comment box without reading the rest and/or go out shouting “but it’s just like Facebook!!1!”, step back and look carefully at the differences.

First of all, Google+ is a lot less noisy; there’s not much besides your posts, your name/picture and the circles. The profile page on Facebook, on the other hand, is a mish-mash of information about your friends, groups and updates from apps, all in small fonts surrounded by a heavy helping of lines and shaded rectangles. On top of that, your page is actually a “wall” where everybody and their dog can post (with your permission, of course).

On Google+ no such thing exists. Your content is front and center - and it’s only yours. You could actually use your profile as a blog, since get comment moderation and threading for free.

But the killer feature is the personalization that comes with the Circles. If someone you don’t know looks at your profile, s/he will only see your public content - just like whatever you post to Twitter or, again, a blog.

Now, if someone in your Extended Circles looks at it, a few additional posts will show. This is for people who have some idea of who you are, but with whom you don’t want to share much.

Finally, the people who are actually in your circles will be presented with different kinds of posts depending on their relationship with you. Everything is contextualized and truly - wait for it - personal.

This only works because everybody has a Google account these days. After all, Gmail, Picasa, Youtube, Calendar and Docs all share the same login. Most people are always logged in and don’t really think about it.

(If you work with information security, you probably just freaked out a little right now. I’ll give you time for the feeling to sink in.)

Because of all this, I doubt that Google+ will kill Facebook anytime soon. Sure, lots of people who don’t care about the games and pokes are going to abandon it, but this won’t change the fact that Google+ has a different rhythm to it, more akin to Twitter and Tumblr than posting updates to your wall.

If I had to bet, I’d say that Twitter and Foursquare have a lot more to lose, since it’s pretty quick and easy to post short updates (with pictures, even) and check-ins (there’s no mayorship yet, but most people never cared about it).

So what about Hangout and Huddle? I see both almost as separated “products” that are available firsthand through Google+, but will be present in other places soon. They’re both improvements to Google Talk, pushing features that were one-to-one into a group context.

(Also here, if you want to +1 me.)

I’ve just got a new modem from Rogers and updated my connection to the next tier (Hi-Speed Extreme - gotta love those names!). So far, so good… but!

I only managed to do this on my own because I’m a geek. See, the modem is a router too - a wireless one, at that. If I left it unattended, I would have an open wi-fi broadcasting my connection to everyone around and no control at all.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the manual included with the modem contains incorrect information. I needed to login to the modem’s admin to change its settings, but there was no mention of passwords at all - actually the manual instructs you to leave it blank! I had to google the password and then navigate through the modem’s admin interface to disable wireless and make it a “dumb” bridged modem instead of a half-assed router (compared to my Netgear running DD-WRT, of course).

Again: I’m a geek. I knew where to poke to make things right. Novice users would end up with a wide open network if they just plugged the modem and went on with their lives.

Scary stuff.

On the other hand, I’m apparently getting more than I paid for in terms of speed. Let’s hope it stays like that!

This is me making a beat in real time with NI Maschine, pure and simple.

Aside from adding titles, I didn’t edit anything. Actually I didn’t script it either. This is an honest product of “I have nothing better to do right now”. :-)

I always loved this song, and after the intentionally bad remix I made for ‘Nothing’, I thought DM deserved something better.

I started the remix while learning how to use Native Instruments’ Maschine (which kicks major ass, by the way). All the sample-chopping and filtering was made on it. I might still play around with the mix, but this is pretty much the final version.

Enjoy!

Transit

I don’t have a lot to do while I’m on the TTC, so sometimes I take pictures. I’ve already posted some of these here, but here’s the link to the whole “series” (so far) for the sake of completeness (you know, for my ~17 fans).

My phone’s homescreen, clean and minimal with folders. I’m really enjoying SiMi Clock and SiMi Folder.

Now I have a camcorder! It’s a totally el cheapo Kodak Zi8, but still much better than using a cellphone.

What I’m gonna do with it? Oh, just screw around… and some production tutorials!

As a fan of the first Tron movie, I obviously just had to watch Tron Legacy. I had very low expectations for everything except the visual effects and soundtrack.

Unsurprisingly, I was basically right. It’s a visually stunning movie, especially if you watch it in 3D. The sound design and soundtrack are really something (Daft Punk really nailed this one), but the story…

Well, you can’t really say the story of the first movie was a masterpiece, but the whole thing with programs and users was described in a way that made sense. I always remember the accounting program that was taken out of his usual function and thrown into the games arena. In the prison scene, he mentions long term savings plans and their advantages. In other words, he acts like a program written for a set objective, like all normal computer programs. You could almost imagine how Excel or Powerpoint would look like if they were in the same situation. As absurd is this may seem, this made the whole “program as a character” thing believable, and made Flynn stand out as something different - a user, free to decide his destiny.

This sort of distinction simply doesn’t happen in Tron Legacy. The programs are just regular characters with free will. They are able to change their minds and do however they please, which would mean - if Legacy followed the metaphor drawn out in the original movie - that they are able to rewrite themselves.

The grid is not a representation of what regular, day-to-day software would look like from inside, but something purposefully built to be an artificial world. Whoever wrote this decided to ignore the possibility of showing what a computer connected to the internet would be. Imagine malwares, social networks, 4chan… that would be fun!

This is even more baffling if you played the Tron 2.0 game. Guess what? The game goes there! In it you’re battling file corruption caused by a computer virus. The programs can move from one device to another (desktop computers, mainframes etc.) and at a certain point you’re inside an old Palm PDA activating as many features as possible to drain the device’s battery - just brilliant. Why didn’t they put this in the movie?

Anyway it’s a fun action movie with amazing fight scenes (that helps selling toys and videogames, right?), cool visuals and an incredible soundtrack. Just don’t expect it to achieve the same cult classic status as the original.

Perfect for today.

Someone posted the CD Cover Meme again on Facebook, so here’s my contribution. Click for full size.