Google, the Innovator

Today I was thinking about Google and why I like it so much. I was asked what was so cool about the current doodle on the Google Search home page. The cool thing about it is that it is animated completed in HTML5. They couldn't see the movement. So I explained you have to be using a browser that is HTML5 compliant like Chrome or Firefox or even Opera. IE8 (which is the corporate standard because 1)Programmers keep writing for IE specific browser versions and 2)Because IE9 breakes those corporate things that require IE. So they loaded Chrome and Ah.... There is was, "First HTML5 Google Doodle Honors Alexander Calder, 'Inventor of the Mobile'" moving slowly around the screen. I started to tell them if they blew on the screen it would move, but that seemed cruel.

Google Innovates. How long did browsers stay stagnent until Chrome came along? Yes, it could easily be argued Mozilla caused the current browser wars but Chrome is winning and now Mozzila is promising more frequent updates to their browser after it took years to get out of version 3.x after being influenced by Google's rapid releases. Additionally Google practially make it required to download updates rather than optional. Now this is push behavior but if you asked Microsoft their feelings about this and IE6, they would say that is a neat option. Being that Microsoft has to keep the Enterprise Overlords happy as well, they can't easily play this card. But people let Google get away with this.

Google pushed the HTML5 standards to allow for better video and they and others really pushed AJAX into the forefront and brought us pages that seem to come to life without any plugin software (namely Adobe Flash). So we kind of wound up waiting for everyone to play catch up to Google and now Apple hates Adobe and Joanie Loves Chachi and Microsoft and Oracle and Apple all hate Google...
So Google must be doing some thing right.

I love my Android phone. I thought the iPhone would be the only game in town for so long. Apple deserves its own posting thanking it for making mobile phones useful. The word Smart and phone didn't go together until Apple came alone. I digress.The Android phone has given iPhone a run for the money. It is a great phone and for the most part I enjoy the fact that the Android phones are usually (given what mobile provider you have) open. I could root my Android phone but there isn't much reason to. There isn't really anything I am prevented from doing on my phone that I want to do. The only missing piece I have found is there isn't a Cisco VPN client for my phone. I would be willing to pay Cisco for this option. To be able to connect to work and fix a problem from my phone would be awesome.