Daily Bits

Arnold Zafra

Google Buzz Now Has Reshare, Not Rebuzz

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For Buzz users, have you wanted to share an interesting buzz that you want to share with your other Google Buzz followers? Are you tired of the copying the buzz and pasting it to a new buzz just to let your followers find it?  Google finally gives a solution. Nope, sorry folks its not called “rebuzz” but rather a more correct and dandy tag called “reshare.”

If you’re familiar with Twitter’s “retweet,”  well Google Buzz Reshare practically works the same way. You found and interesting Google buzz post from your followers, click on a link, add an annotation or any comment and then hit the button to publish it as a new buzz on your Google buzz account. Yes, in two clicks, Google made its Buzz product more social.

In addition, “resharing” a buzz creates a new buzz that contains link to the original post. And it creates a buzz thread as soon as more followers started resharing the buzz to their followers as well. Now, when two or more Google Buzz users share the same thing to you, the buzz is collapsed to avoid cluttering your Google Buzz inbox. Sounds fair?

On why Google implemented its buzz sharing feature this way, the Official Gmail Blog tells us the following explanations: [Read more…] about Google Buzz Now Has Reshare, Not Rebuzz

Are You Happy with Facebook’s New and Simpler Privacy Controls?

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Here’s could probably be Facebook’s last ditch effort at convincing everyone of us that it minds user privacy. And this could possibly make or break Facebook, either retaining loyal users to driving them away to other “more secured” social networking sites.

So as Facebook is confronted with issues about its “complex” privacy policy, it now announces a simpler privacy control measures via a long post on the Official Facebook blog. But essentially, there are three major issues addressed by Facebook’s new privacy controls.

First thing which Facebook did was to build one simple control for setting who can see content that you post. You can now specify whether the content is viewable by everyone, friends of your friends or just by your friends. Which ever settings you choose will be applied to new products which Facebook will introduce in the future.  You don’t need to set them up once new products are introduced.

Then Facebook also reduced the amount of basic information that are visible to everyone. The connections privacy model was also removed. You now have the ability to control who can see your friends and pages and those information are no longer default to public. Of course, as these are basic information, it is but logical to have these for public viewing since its the only way for other people to find you. Otherwise, there’s no point in maintaining your Facebook account anymore.

Finally, Facebook also made it simpler to control how apps and websites access any of your information. Turning this off is now easier and can be easily done via a simple click. Turning off instant personalization is also easier now and gives you the facility to allow only partner sites to see things you’ve made visible to everyone.

With that, Facebook is proud to announced that its privacy model is now complete. And it hopes that issues concerning user privacy would be finally put to a rest.

These new privacy controls will be rolled out to everyone in the next few weeks. By then, we will know whether users are satisfied with the measures and make them stay with Facebook.

Google Puts Chrome for Mac and Linux into Stable Beta Version

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Alright, Chrome browser users, here’s some good news from Google. The latest Chrome for Mac and Linux has been finally put into a stable beta mode and will be gradually rolled out to all Chrome for Mac and PC users. You know what it means when something comes out from being “unstable” to “stable” version, right? Well, it simply means that most often than not, the stable version is more reliable and has lesser bugs. Plus of course, tons of new features are also brought in.

For both versions of Chrome for Mac and Linux browsers, these features come in bunch. Generally these new features include – browser preferences synchronization in addition to the previous bookmark synchronization feature. Browser preferences include themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages and even page zoom settings.  This means that once you’ve synchronized all these settings in one of your Chrome beta installation, you’d get the same settings in all your Chrome installations on various dekstop and laptops that you use.

In addition, the new Chrome beta release also enables each Chrome extensions to work in incognito mode. You can set this up via the Chrome extension manager.

The new Chrome beta release also incorporates HTML5 features including Geolocation API, App Cache, web sockets and file drag-and-drop.  You may want to see how HTML5 function by browsing websites developed in HTML5 such as http://scribd.com. You can also try dragging and dropping attachments in Gmail or enabling geolocation in Google Maps.

If you’re a Chrome for Mac user like me, you’d be glad to know that the latest version of Chrome beta now has full-screen mode and a powerful bookmark management feature. We’ve been wanting these features since Chrome for Mac was released and so the Google Chrome folks are finally giving it to us.

If you can’t wait for Chrome for Mac to be automatically updated, you may want to download it from this link.

Millionaire City Wants to be the Monopoly Game of Facebook

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I’m pretty sure that for once in your life you’ve wanted to become a millionaire.  To be exact, a millionaire who happens to be a CEO of a rich firm. Come on, don’t be shy, admit it. I did. Well if you are already a millionaire or a CEO, then good for you. As for us, poor, simpletons, the only way we can become a millionaire is on Facebook,  through Digital Chocolate’s new Facebook game – Millionaire City.

To be honest, I liked it when Digital Chocolate CEO Trip Hawkins tells us:

“Not even Zynga has a game like Millionaire City. We all grew up enjoying Monopoly but this is a real simulation and even easier to play. People who love property can now trump their friends on Facebook.”

Well, the game concept maybe different from Zynga’s Farmville or Mafia Wars, but bottomline is, it’s still just another Facebook game which could only be good as a time-waster, especially if you’re in the office.

So, Millionaire City lets you build a monopoly from the ground up. You purchase properties, build houses, and sign contracts to make your company grow. Yeah, just like what a normal CEO does.  The game also lets you select two game advisors to help you amass as much wealth as possible. Either you choose Ronald Goldtooth or Cindy Jewels.

Millionaire City also lets you decorate your city and build commercial buildings. To earn more experience and coins, you will be given several missions at the start of the game. Fulfilling these missions will earn you those experiences and coins.

For its social aspect, Millionaire City allows you to visit friends’ cities and help them in upgrading their houses. This deed will also earn you extra doughs and experience points. You can achieve various decoration that will enhance your city’s status and of course, in the end – for you to become a millionaire.

So, does the game appeal to you at all? Or have you grown tired of these Facebook games already that you don’t see yourelf playing Millionaire City on Facebook?

Official Twitter App for iPhone Goes Live, and It’s Good

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So finally, the official Twitter app has landed on the iPhone, following earlier release for the BlackBerry and Android devices. In case you forgot, Twitter app for iPhone is actually a “refurbished” version of the previously available Tweetie app. I didn’t get to use Tweetie before so I couldn’t really say whether this official Twitter version is better than Tweetie. But what I can say is that Twiiter app for iPhone has loads of goodies and you won’t have a hard time liking and using it from this day on.

So, what’s new and what’s hot with the  official Twitter app for iPhone? To be honest it’s probably the same as other previously released third-party Twitter apps. You get to post tweets, read timeline, retweets, see your lists, attach photos from your camera, send DMs, search Twitter and a plethora of other usual Twitter features and functionality.

One feature of the app worth noting is support for multiple Twitter accounts. And the interface for switching from one account to another is quite intuitive. Given then small screen real estate of the iPhone, I’m not expecting the app to support multi-columns. Although TweetDeck has done an easier interface for scrolling through your multiple accounts and it was quite good. I’m actually looking forward to the iPad version of  this apps and hoping that the two column format will be carried out quite well.

Another notable feature of Twitter app for iPhone is that you can now search and browser Twitter.com even if you haven’t signed up for a Twitter account yet. Wait how could you not, still?

Overall, the official Twitter app for iPhone is a very good app. It might not be the best among the currently available Twitter apps for iPhone but it is certainly among those above average.

So, have you downloaded Twitter for iPhone? How do you find it so far? Share with us you experience using Twitter app for iPhone by leaving a comment below.

Kindle App for Android to Let You Buy Books In the App

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With Amazon Kindle apps already available to major platforms – PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry, the only one left for now is an Android app.  Well, Android fans, your wait will soon be over as Amazon is launching its Kindle App for Android phones. In fact, it’s already slated for a summer release.

Guess what’s so different about the Kindle App for Android? Something which the iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry apps won’t let you do. Yes, you guess it right, the app will let you buy books directly right in the app itself. Other Kindle apps kicks you out of the app whenever you want to score an ebooks from the Kindle Bookstore.

This is of course, over and above all the other great features that you’d love from other Kindle apps including access to your Kindle books even if you don’t have your Kindle with you, automatic synchronization of the last page you read and annotations between devices through Amazon’s Whispersync, text size adjustment, bookmarks, portrait or landscape reading and tap to flick through ebook pages.

Amazon tells us:

“Kindle for Android is the perfect companion application for Kindle and Kindle DX owners, and is also a great way for customers to enjoy over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store even if they don’t yet have a Kindle,” said Jay Marine, director, Amazon Kindle. “We think customers are going to love the convenience and simplicity of having instant access to a massive selection of books from Amazon on their Droid, Nexus, Incredible and many more Android devices.”

Kindle for App would certainly be a good addition to Android phones’ stable of useful apps. With the high-resolution display  and large screens of most Android phones, ebook reading would certainly be a pleasure plus of course the convenience of buying ebooks you fancy right away.