.Me - Apple’s missing link

Except it’s not.

It’s a nice thought that the revamp of .Mac will yield a brilliant and usable service to connect everything in your digital life, but the likelihood of that happening just isn’t very high.

Colin Pape of Seeking Alpha thinks that Mobile Me (or .Me as some are calling it) is going to be the magic bullet for Apple, and it will suddenly tie all their products together. I’m sure that’s what Apple is aiming for, but they’ve neglected .Mac for so long that I’m not sure an overhaul and a new name is going to be enough to breathe life into it.

On the other hand, some rumors suggest that Apple will be turning .Me over to Google for a portion of it’s revenue. Though with Steve’s ego, I find this hard to believe. It’s a nice idea though, imagine a Google run service that would allow for unlimited email/file storage and instant syncing of your contacts/calendar/photos/email/music from your phone (iPhone or Android) to the web, and your home or office computer.

While the promise of an easy solution all in one place is nice, why pay for it? Nothing .Mac currently offers is worth the yearly fee, you can easily find free or cheap alternatives to most everything it offers.

Only time will tell I suppose. I’d be more than happy to be wrong on this, the more innovative products and services Apple launches the better.

[ In the interest of full disclosure, I currently hold stock in Apple ]

Tags: .Mac, .Me, Mobile Me

Google’s new fav icon

Correct me if I’m wrong, but pulling up Google now yields a styilized blue g instead of the classic G.

The significance? Nothing really, just thought I’d share.

Tags: Fav Icon, Google

GrandCentral is Down

I use GrandCentral as both a business number and as a filtering system. When I fill out a form online that needs a number, I give them my GrandCentral number, that way if they start stalk calling me I can send them straight to voicemail or block them completely.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that GrandCentral has been down all morning, with no information posted on their blog or on Google’s main blog. Their website was down earlier today, but it appears to be up now. Though none of my three GrandCentral numbers are currently working.

For more info, hit up TechCrunch.

I’ve Returned

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but apparently that doesn’t apply to Google, although it is slightly reassuring to know that their server clusters don’t actually incorporate human hearts. I digress. Over the course of a few days I’ve all but disappeared from the hollowed pages of Google Search, major bummer, I used to be the number two result (also numbers 3, 4, 7, 12, and 42) when searching for ‘Aaron Nelsen‘ but now I’m stuck at the bottom of the first page of results, plus Hijinks Inc. doesn’t show up until page two.

In other news, banks cut interest rates because of the cuts the Fed made, and the market continues to be as unpredictable as an inebriated schizophrenic. Both of which are major thorns in my side.

Along the same lines, I’ve made more money in the past six months by changing a portion of my cash holdings from the US dollar to the Euro than I have from the stock market. That’s depressing.

Oh and I’m in the process of upgrading my iPod touch to the 1.1.3 firmware and attempting to jailbreak it, if I’m successful I’ll post instructions on how to rock that scene.