August – 2010 – TechVirtuoso

Trillian for Android beta released, continues its multi-platform/multi-protocol domination

August 20th, 2010 at 10:01 AM 7 Comments Michael Stanclift

The good folks over at Cerulean Studios have released the first public beta of their Trillian instant messaging client for Android. Having recently dumped my Nexus One to go back to iPhone 4, I have not had a chance to test this software, but knowing the quality that is the entire Trillian platform, I’m going to tell you to go download and install this client anyway.

They’ve engineered Trillian for Android to run on devices running at least Android 1.6, which means your 2-year-old G1 won’t be left behind! At the same time, users with the latest and greatest phones can enjoy shiny high-res graphics!

For anyone who lives on multiple IM networks (AIM, Facebook Chat, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ) Trillian is one of the original multiprotocol clients, having lived through the times when they’d frequently be clicked off AOL’s network. I’ve been using Trillian for Windows forever (their new Windows 5.0 beta is out, and it’s awesome as well) and have been using Trillian for iPhone since the day it was released.

Cerulean Studios have done a fantastic job of making sure their clients are native to the environment they’re running on, yet are all tied together by their Astra cloud platform. They also have clients for Blackberry and Mac OS available, as well as an awesome secure web client for getting to your IM’s on public computers. For anyone who is multi-platform as well as multi-protocol, Trillian is the best choice to keep your instant messaging contacts in sync.

Intel buys McAfee, way overpays for an ineffective engine

August 19th, 2010 at 11:18 AM No Comments Michael Stanclift

I’m not sure I would have paid $29 for a copy of McAfee, but Intel decided it was wise to go all in and spend almost $8 billion to acquire them.

Of all the security companies out there Intel had their choice of, they picked one of the most bloated and ineffective scanning engines, and the one that has one the worst track record when it comes to false positives that eat your computer alive.

I can say that having spent almost 4 years managing their corporate suite, and having their software updates crash my systems (I eventually dumped their software for Microsoft Forefront) and rebuild my configuration multiple times, I’m not looking forward to them integrating their technologies on Intel chips.

(McAfee Press Release)

Facebook Places, you’ve #failed me already

August 19th, 2010 at 10:16 AM No Comments Michael Stanclift

Oh Facebook, I was so excited when you announced your Places feature last night. I rushed to my iTunes account to update your client, and was so looking forward to dumping Foursquare and Gowalla. I even reserved this very post to talk about how anyone working for those two companies should start looking for alternative employment, like, yesterday.

Alas, you have failed me on the first try. I live in Kansas City, and while we may not be the biggest city in the country, it’s not like we’re out in the middle of nowhere. (Although it may seem that way if you’ve never been away from the coasts.)

It looks like Foursquare and Gowalla get to hang out on my iPhone a little while longer. In other news, I’m now the mayor of the local Ann Taylor Factory Outlet due to my wife’s shopping habits. Oh joy.

Update: Facebook has released an update (3.2.1) for their iPhone app (gee, that was quick) to fix some bugs, and explain to users outside the United States that the places feature is not currently ready for them. However, inside the US, no one I’ve talked to has been able to use Places yet. It’s been explained to me that Facebook is rolling out the feature gradually to users, which seems to kill any buzz or excitement there may have been for me.

Dropping JS-Kit, moving to Disqus for story comments

August 18th, 2010 at 2:02 PM 2 Comments Michael Stanclift

I’ve made an Executive Decision here recently, and decided to drop the use of the Echo/JS-Kit commenting system on the site in favor of Disqus. Unfortunately comments have not been migrated from the old system (yet) so all of our previous stories show up with no comments. I hope to have this corrected soon.

15% off custom phone cases, review coming soon

August 18th, 2010 at 12:52 PM 4 Comments Michael Stanclift

The folks over at Coveroo have extended a cool offer to TechVirtuoso visitors, 15% off any of their customizable phone & mobile device cases. For not much money, you could easily put your company logo on the back of every Blackberry in your company. They have a really cool laser engraving and color logo application process that we’ll be posting up a review of soon, as soon as they get my custom iPhone 4 review unit* shipped out. They claim their logo application process is so strong that it will never fade, peel, or rub off your phone.

Just pick out your case and enter HOTAUG15 at checkout, and the 15% discount will be applied to your order.

They also frequently give away free cases to followers of their Facebook and Twitter feeds. What is not to love about that?

*FTC disclaimer: Review unit provided to TechVirtuoso by Coveroo at no cost.