Google recently killed Google Reader, a very popular product used to organize and consume RSS subscriptions. This was a surprise for me and many others, and the web started complaining rapidly about it.

This event made me think about all the products (that I use) that Google could shut down anytime they want: Gmail, Google docs, Google Calendar… And then I started getting into some kind of panic!

Cloud computing itself is amazing and brings flexibility and scalability in incredible ways to all of us, but as everything, it has its disadvantages.

I think we all know the pros, and they are easily identifiable, but the problem with the web products, cloud computing and SaaS comes when these get so popular and so widely used, that their power might become a serious concern.

On top of accessibility, scalability and convenience, cloud computing and web technologies can be changed, any time. Additionally, just the same way they are created and accessed, they can be shut down or sold.

Can you imagine what would happen if Facebook goes offline for a couple of hours? What about Gmail? Now this might sound unlikely, but so was Google Reader.

I think this is inevitable and it’s the way this industry is evolving. I’m sure solutions will come down the road to solve this risk… Probably that’s a good niche right there for disruption and entrepreneurship, who knows?

The only thing we can do now is selecting wisely the tools that we use, analyzing its user base, its company, and always put our time and effort around big players. Of course this won’t guarantee anything, as Google showed with Reader, but at least it reduces the odds.

By the way, this reminds me why Software the traditional way is not dead yet.

Example: Let’s say you are very used to Windows 7, you like it, and you’ve invested hours learning all of it, your employees are trained on it, and even your mom is used to it… Then Microsoft releases Windows 8, with a redesigned interface, you go to the store, you try it, and you conclude that you don’t need to upgrade, you can perfectly keep doing on Windows 7 what you would do on Windows 8, so you decide not to upgrade. It was your decision, not theirs. They can release as many new versions as they want, but it’s your call to change.

On the other hand, you use Google Chrome, a web based OS, or Gmail, or anything. In this case, if they change the interface, the look and feel, anything, you will have no other choice but to quickly learn the new “better” way…

Again, this has a lot of advantages, but this article is about the risk and disadvantages, so, to conclude, I strongly believe that as consumers we are giving up control for accessibility, and sooner rather than later, that control and power will need to be somehow regulated.

What do you think?

I know some people are against using a blog to just post videos from YouTube, but considering the incredible amount of videos around the web, I think it is pertinent to post here those that I find interesting, inspiring and also relevant to the topics that matter to me.

In this opportunity, the CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, provides some interesting tips not only for local entrepreneurs in the U.S. but also around the world.

I want to highlight a couple of things that caught my attention from everything he said:

• He was an employee for over a decade, which provided him a lot of business experience. This doesn’t mean we all need to spend that amount of time as an employee, but what I think it means is that being an employee for some time has value. Even Steve Jobs had a job for some time. 
• He took a sabbatical year in India. Now, we don’t have to go to India nor shave our heads (as Steve Jobs did), but I think the message here is highlighting the importance of stepping back, slowing down, disconnect, and think in perspective. I think we should do this every once in a while.
• The importance of being and staying focused: I already made this mistake, and probably will do it multiple times again. Staying focused is very difficult and every successful entrepreneur out there talks about it.
• Having mission and vision, and writing them down: This is not the first time I hear this. What is it that you want? How will you accomplish it? Write it down and re-ask yourself the same questions periodically. That helps staying focused.

These four points caught my attention, but the whole keynote is worth watching, so probably other points will caught your attention… Please share them in your comments.

I was thinking about this the other day and the more news I read, the more I convince myself that my thoughts were/are correct.

Look at Medicine: You study to become a doctor, but then you practically “have to” get specialized, whether it is in Cardiology, Intern Medicine, Neurology… You name it. If you are a Neurologist, and your patient has an issue with his heart, you will refer him right away to a Cardiologist.

This started with Medicine, mainly because of its ever growing complexity and importance, but if you start looking at other areas of knowledge, the same has been occurring for years. And now is the turn for Internet Technologies.

When I say “Internet Technologies” I mainly refer to: Online Marketing, Internet Software Development (Web development and Mobile Apps Development), Information Technology… and so on.

Let’s take Software Development: You don’t only need to know the basics of programming, but you need to specialize in a programming language, or a platform. It’s impossible to know them all. And then once you do that (get specialized), it’s hard to actually provide support or solutions in another programming language. Why? Because it’s so difficult and complex to master one programming language, that once you become an expert on it, there’s no going back.

One area I’m seeing this more and more is Digital Marketing. When this all started, you were OK with basic Search Marketing knowledge and a little bit of Banner ads. Today, you can become an expert on Web Analytics and Tagging, Paid Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Display, E-Commerce, SEO… And the list keeps growing.

I’m seeing we will soon reach the moment where an Analytics guru will know only the basics of Paid Search and companies will need to have different departments for this kind of stuff, that were once implemented and controlled by one person (generalist). Actually, this has already happened with SEO and SEM, although I wouldn’t consider SEO marketing, but it’s a related field, not doubt.

The trick here will be to identify the “good fields” where we, as professionals, will specialize in. I define “good fields” those areas where after specializing, we remain relevant to the market the longest possible. Additionally, we should also maintain an updated general knowledge that will allow us change specialization relatively easy, when needed.

Sometime ago I wrote a post regarding cloud computing and cloud storage, and explained how I kind of extensively use the cloud and the technologies out there to access my data from anywhere, keeping it safe at the same time.

If you read that post (I recommend you to do so), you can tell that I use a lot of Google services, and there is a reason for that. Google was one of the first company that started pushing the cloud computing industry forward. Gmail, Google Calendar, GTalk, Google Docs, are just a few examples of cloud computing products that set and created the trend.

Let’s just keep in mind here that I’m talking about cloud computing and storage altogether and not only cloud storage (Cloud storage is just saving your data in the cloud, like Dropbox, Box.net, and the new Google Drive)

These cloud computing products are excellent, providing incredible functionality and convenience to many people (me included) and businesses around the world. Companies like Twitter for instance run their calendars and meetings on Google Calendar, and their corporate Email under Google’s servers.

On the other hand, millions of users around the world use Gmail as their primary not only email service, but email client and email storage as well. People are also extensively using Google Docs to create, edit and share documents with co-workers and friends.

All this is great, so what is the problem then?

Now imagine, for one moment, that Gmail breaks down. You will lose the ability to send and receive emails, and you may say that it’s not a big deal and that you can get the service from other providers (i.e.: Hotmail or Yahoo). But the problem is not the actual email service, is the fact that all of your emails are in Gmail servers, so if you lose access to Gmail, you may be losing access to years of email communication, with valuable information and attachments in them.

But it gets worse! What about Google Docs? All of your files are there, only editable in that online office suite. If you were to lose access to it you will lose the files, and the software!

And Calendar? All your past and future meetings and events will be lost, without any way to recover them, or restore them.

Do you get the big picture? Depending entirely (files and the software to manage those files) on the cloud put your online productivity at risk and out of our control. It looks like that’s the price we would have to pay for the convenience and accessibility of the cloud? Who knows.

The Apple approach

I’ve been an iPhone user for the past 3 years, and iPad user for 2 years, and a Mac OS user for 1 year. I’ve seen the creation and rise of their cloud service: iCloud, and I’ve been comparing it to the other cloud services that I use, mainly Google’s.

Their approach is different. Instead of having everything on the cloud (software and data), you will have everything on your devices, as long as you have an Apple device.

On my phone, I have a calendar app, completely functional, that doesn’t depend on whether I have Internet or not. I also have the same software on my iPad, and also on my laptop (Mac OS).  The calendar apps will work, independently, in each one of these devices, and will use the cloud service to stay in sync.

Same goes with to-do’s lists, photos, files, music, documents, and email. Everything is pushed to my devices, and I own my data, because is locally stored on my devices, and stored in the cloud.

You can say that this is the way Apple can keep us buying their products, and that’s fine. But, forgetting about that hater mindset for a minute, just picture these 2 scenarios:

1. Google Docs goes down: You don’t have a writing program/app anymore, and you don’t have your files either.
2. Apple’s cloud service goes down: You have your writing software on your computer and all your files as well, that also happen to be on your iPhone and on your iPad too.

The user of the Apple scenario will still be able to work, view documents, edit them, even print them. The Google user will need to wait for the services to be re-established.

You can also say what if you laptop breaks down? Having everything locally creates the same, if not bigger, risks as having everything on the cloud! Well, that’s what backups are for. Combining Apple cloud’s approach, with local hard disc backups and online backups (i.e.: Dropbox) will allow you to just get a new laptop, and download your files.

What about web access? I mean, Will you always need to have an Apple device to access you email, notes, documents, contacts and pictures? That’s not fair! I hear you, and that was the main advantage Google had over Apple’s. Not anymore though: www.icloud.com, a web interface that gives you web access to you email, notes, reminders, contacts, documents, and files.

So, you don’t only have all you data locally in all your Apple devices, you also can access it online.

If you are thinking that the odds of a massive Google outage are so small that is not worth worrying about it, you should read this article about a recent Amazon outage.

To me, the Apple’s cloud approach gives users more control and ownership over their data and files, creating multiple points of failure, instead of just one, allowing us to have some level of redundancy and protection.

Do you agree with me? Let me know what you think on your comments.

So I was just surfing the web and stumbled upon this interesting learning resource.

It’s called EdX, and as their “About” page says:

“EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web. Based on a long history of collaboration and their shared educational missions, the founders are creating a new online-learning experience with online courses that reflect their disciplinary breadth…”

They are offering courses in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Circuits and Electronics and some others nice topics.

What’s very interesting is that the courses are pretty much the same ones offered in the campuses of these top universities, and they are free (for now).

Even though the courses are self-paced, they have a start and end date, exams and even a certificate if you pass it.

I’ll confess it here: If there is such thing as “another life”, I was a Computer Scientist with a doctorate in Astrophysics.  I’m just extremely fascinated by these subjects; I guess that’s why I studied Electronic Engineering.

Anyway, I couldn’t resist and I signed up for 3 of the 7 courses offered, and my plan is to report here my experience with these. So stay tuned!

Here are the links and the videos to the 3 courses I’ll be taking:

CS50x: Introduction to Computer Science - CS50x is Harvard College’s introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming for computer science majors and non-majors alike. Starting October 15th 2012.

6.00x: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming – 6.00x is an MIT introduction to using computation to solve real problems. The course is aimed at students with little or no prior programming experience who have a desire (or at least a need) to understand computational approaches to problem solving. Starting October 1st 2012.

6.002x: Circuits and Electronics – An MIT course that introduces engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include: resistive elements and networks; independent and dependent sources; switches and MOS transistors; digital abstraction; amplifiers; energy storage elements; dynamics of first- and second-order networks; design in the time and frequency domains; and analog and digital circuits and applications.  Starting September 5th 2012.

I couple of years ago I decided to stop doing a bunch of things that I considered were non productive. I studied my life, my habits, and I was able to identify these tasks that most of us know are bad or a waste of time, but for some reason, we continue to do.

Society, marketing, friends, everything is against ourselves in a way that without noticing, we just go along, we just do things, and we don’t stop and say: “How is this action or habit helping me achieving my goals?” or even worse: “How is this action or habit PREVENTING me from achieving my goals?”

So, I decided to remove these rocks from the road I considered and defined as the road to my goals.  I don’t think these obstacles are special or unique to me, in fact I think they are pretty common and chances are that you should remove them too.

• Stop watching TV. I don’t even have cable! Educational documentaries and weekly movies are permitted, avoid everything else, it’s a waste of time! I only spend 1 hour a week on TV.
• Stop eating junk food. Everybody knows junk food kills you, but they keep eating it. It’s unbelievable.
• Stop eating so much. It is not only eating well, but also with moderation.
• Stop playing video games. That includes smart phones, consoles, and computer
• Stop drinking so much. Just drink for social purposes, small amounts.
• Don’t live on Social Networks. The TV of nowadays is called Facebook my friend. Just like TV is a great tool, and a very bad one as well (depending on how you use it), Facebook and Social Networks can enrich your social interactions and circles, but also detriment them if you don’t use them correctly.
• Stop being lazy: Come on!! Stand up, do what you know that needs to be done. Stop procrastinating. The only way to stop procrastinating is STOPING. Just do it, period. There is no guide, no book, nothing. Just fu***** do it!

What habits did I incorporate or still trying to at least?

• Read, read, and read. Incorporate the habit of reading; it is good for you and for your mind. Get that TV out of your bedroom, and put a nice book on your nightstand.
• Workout, exercise, and get fit! Are you young? It doesn’t matter, just because today you don’t see those effects of being sedentary, you will  soon.
• Practice awareness: Look around you, see all you have, bad and good, focus on the good stuff, express gratitude, then focus on the bad stuff, and design a plan to improve it and change it. But, most important, be aware, be present, stop the rush, stop the crazy life we are all into, and look around you.
• Learn something useful: I like languages, travel, Internet and entrepreneurship. I spend a lot of time learning about these and participating in activities to learn them. What are yours?

Why did I decide to do this? I guess because I was afraid. I was afraid when I realized that life passes so fast, when I realized that life is so short and fragile, that I just didn’t want to spend it like a zombie doing what everybody does.

I keep doing this all the time, trying to optimize my life, improving my skills, and getting rid of those rocks in my road. I’m not perfect, it is just an ever going process, and it feels wonderful, a lot better than just becoming a couch potato watching Two and a Half men.

Think about it, do what must be done, today, so tomorrow you can have what you want.

This is a great motivational video. Specifically listen to what the man says.
 

Second part to the previous video. Even better.
 

A little video to stay motivated. Listen to what it says.

I like adventures. I love adventures. And this video, which promotes a camera for recording adventures, is simply amazing. I watch it every time I can. Check it out: