Today ICANN approved the use of non-Latin characters in domain names:

The first Internet addresses containing non-Latin characters from start to finish will soon be online thanks to today’s approval of the new Internationalized Domain Name Fast Track Process… (view the release here)

ICANN’s President and CEO says that with this change there will be 100,000 more characters added to what we can use today. Some think that this is a pain, is inconvenient, and will divide the internet more than it already is. Like David Coursey.

Open it up

I say that this change isn’t as bad as some of these xenophobes says it is. I think that with technology growing at a rapid pace, something will be developed that will help us make some sense of these new characters being added to our domain names. For instance Google Language Tools is pretty damn robust and adding more functionality every day. Who is to say that services like this will not pick up the slack and help us latin character users become more comfortable with this change.

What about URL shortners?

Something else that Coursey may have overlooked is the ever growing popularity of URL shortners. Although the reliability of these shortners is debatable, there use and adoption is almost becoming ubuiquitous when passing around links via Twitter.

What if, instead of typing in characters that we don’t understand to the address bar, we just create a shortened URL and then pass it along? This is probably what will come from the use of non-Latin characters in the future. And who really types a URL into the address bar anymore anyways? Most people just do a quick search via Google and filter their information that way.

Because of this, I am not as scared that our internet is being taking away from us as some are.

So, of course the net was filled with an Android splattered passion that almost felt like hystery, or maybe it was just me. Anyways the Motorola Droid will be released on the Verizon network for $199.99 with a two year contract and your soul.  Here is what is not about the Droid and why it was a geek frenzy today:

• Full (landscape) QWERTY, slide-out keyboard
• 3.7″ touch screen (bigger than iPhone’s w/ higher resolution)
• Android 2.0 (Google’s open source mobile operating system)
• FREE Google turn-by-turn GPS (beta of course)
• “thinnest full QWERTY slider” – .53″
• dockable – can be turned into a GPS or alarm-clock/media-unit (see the video for a better description)

Here are all of the links related to the new Moto Droid that give exhaustive critiques. As reviews come up in the next couple of days I will add them here:

• Motorola Droid (PC World)
• Motorola Droid first hands-on! (Engadget)
• Motorola Droid unboxing! (Engadget)
• Motorola Droid First Hands On: It’s a Terminator (Gizmodo)
• Google Maps Navigation: A Free, Ass-Kicking, Turn-by-Turn Mobile App (Gizmodo)
• Motorola Droid Live Review (CNET)
• Motorola DROID review (Engadget)

And that’s the best of the best for right now.

One more thing

There is something I have to say about Android in general and it is the reason that I tend to write about and get excited over it. It’s the fact that Android, more so than any other phone OS is open. Ever since I understood what Linux and open source software stood for a number of years ago, I have had a fixation with any thing that is open and inherently “hackable”.

The future of Android is in any and all of the devlopers hands and I don’t mean just Google developers. This system is open to all coders and do they ever take advantage of it. If you are interested in the Android project check out Android Developers. They are doing awesome things there and without that group, user experiences like that of the upcoming Motorola droid would not exist.

With the refresh of the iMac and the “lower-end” MacBook last week it seems that Apple has once again disregarded the idea that a cheaper option in the Mac family is needed. Most Mac enthusiasts are touting that the $999.99 white, plastic,  unibody MacBook is a “great value” and that this is a great price point for entrance into the Mac family.  With the release of Windows 7 the web is full of insane deals on new notebooks, netbooks, and desktops that are damn good. Does Apple need to do something about the “middle-of-the-road” consumer line who wants quality but not at a premium cost.

The Tablet Argument

Most analysts are saying that the tablet is coming (yes, they are still talking about it) and that the tablet will be the device that finishes the Mac family. On, average most analysts speculate a $700 dollar price tag. They say that it will be bigger than an iPod Touch yet smaller than a MacBook; physically and monetarily in the middle of the road. But, for $700 you could get a sweet Windows 7 machine with the same specs as a $999.99 MacBook.

Although $700 is a good price for a decently powered notebook, a tablet priced at that amount seems, well, sort of useless to the common consumer. Apple will once again have to create the need for this device, the same way that they have created the need for the iPod and iPhone in the past, and you better believe that consumers will buy it even if it isn’t a netbook.

Apple products aren’t cheap, because Apple isn’t cheap

Just because every other company has to charge less for more product does not mean that Apple does. In fact Apple has convinced us that what they give consumers is a premium experience and in return they expect a premium profit.

Apple has and will continue to convince consumers that their products are hands down the best on the market. Not just with clever marketing but with price. They will continue to keep their prices relatively high compared to any competitor. This helps make the consumer feel that he has purchased a product that is different, cool, and so much more valuable than the other guys.

After listening to many podcasts in the TWIT universe I finally decided to give Dropbox a try last night.  The only reason that I was finally moved to do it was I didn’t have a jump drive near me and I wanted to work on a school paper on my MacBook. The paper was on my desktop PC. Yes, I could have emailed it but that seemed so 1998.  Instead I decided to download the dropbox client on my Vista machine and then my Mac. After about 5 minutes with Dropbox I realized that anyone that is super mobile should be using it.

So easy

I have tried in the past of creating a web folder with my unlimited account at HostGator and then sharing it between multiple machines. This was always janky and never seemed to work right (definitely not HostGator’s fault, those guys are awesome!), so I resorted back to using jump drives and email to get files back and forth.

Dropbox creates a folder anywhere you want on your drive. Anything that goes into this folder will be automatically synced to your Dropbox web account and therefore synced with any other machine that has your Dropbox file on it. It is seriously that easy. There isn’t anything else to say about it.

Can you say ‘convenient’?

I primarily work off of three machines on a daily basis; my home PC, my MacBook that is glued to my back, and my work PC. Knowing where my files are is sometimes tricky.  I work on several website projects and sometimes files are in the wrong place, meaning that I forget where they are. I put my entire project folder in my free 2GB dropbox and that was that. Anywhere I go now I know that I will have the files that I need to work with.

Sharing capabilities

This is something that I am excited about but have yet to try out; mainly because I installed Dropbox last night. I can imagine that this would change the way that I work at school with other students, the same way that Google docs has. This could be especially useful when I want to share a Visual Basic program with someone; rather than send them the code in text I could share the entire solution folder. Pretty awesome.

And that’s about it. Dropbox is one of those programs that “just works” or has worked for me thus far. If you have a bunch of PCs, Macs, and even Linux boxes (that’s right, Linux) that you work on daily or are a student that works on multiple systems, then Dropbox is for you. Go get your 2GB of free storage here.

Hey, maybe this is a good piece of software to add to this list.

Recommended books about this topic:

• Dot Cloud: The 21st Century Business Platform Built on Cloud Computing
• Cloud Security and Privacy: An Enterprise Perspective on Risks and Compliance (Theory in Practice)
• Cloud Computing, A Practical Approach