Hijinks Inc.

Category: Random

  • Google Owns My Soul

    For years I’ve been giving Google unfettered access to my email and my search history without giving it much thought. And over the course of the past couple years, I’ve continually kept giving them more and more access… That brings us to today, when I finally came to the realization that Google really does own my soul. That is assuming my soul is comprised of personal information, browsing habits, etc.

    Let me break it down for you:

    • Each morning at 5am my company website sends an updated list of products that we have in stock to Google Base to get listed in Google Shopping.  Google now knows what products my company likes to carry as well as how quickly we sell said products.
    • My company uses Google Analytics, not only to track our corporate website, but our clients websites as well. Google now has access to very detailed information about how popular my websites are and  just who’s visiting them.
    • The afore mentioned company also uses Google Places to attempt to draw in new business. This one isn’t that big of a deal, since it doesn’t really increase Google’s access to information about my company. I’m just trying to be thorough.
    • Each of my sites generates a Google SiteMap.  Making it even easier for Google to catalog every little page on my websites, even some that I may have forgotten about.
    • All my websites that run advertisements run Google AdSense. Now I rely on Google to get paid.
    • I use Gmail for my personal email. Google gets to scan through my entire life and contextually provide ads to me. Yay?
    • I also use Google Apps for my business. Which includes the occasional Google Doc upload of a spreadsheet or presentation. Potentially giving Google access to sensitive company information. As well as Google Calendar, which lets them know where I’ll be and when I’ll be there.
    • Several of my ventures use Google Voice numbers for texting and calling. Google has access to an archive of my text messages and voicemails.
    • When I subscribe to an RSS feed I do it through Google Reader, so that my RSS feed reader on my laptop, desktop, phone, and iPad all get the same feed. Guess what? Google gets some solid feedback on what kind of blogs/articles I read.
    • If I record and upload a video it usually goes to YouTube, I also watch movie trailers and the like on YouTube. All the sudden Google knows whether or not I watched Rebecca Black’s “Friday” music video, and if so, if I watched the whole thing.
    • I often use Google Maps to get directions. Now Google knows where I’m planning on visiting, which new restaurant I’m likely eating at, and where my Uncle Phil’s house is.
    • Did I mention that I have an Android phone? Making it even easier for me to continue to use Google products in my day to day life. If I use the Barcode Scanner app to check the price of something, Google instantly knows what I’m out shopping for.
    • And last, but not least, I use Google for 99% of my internet searches. If Google didn’t already know what things I’m interested in, they do now.
    • Oh, and I use Google Chrome to do all my web browsing.

    Don’t worry, there’s still more I can do to give away my life to Google. For example, I could start using Google Latitude, or start accepting Google Checkout on my company’s store, maybe use Picasa to start sharing family photos. Or actually update that Google Buzz account of mine… nah, that’ll never happen.

    [Note: I’m sure I’m using even more Google services and not realizing it, so I may update this list at a later date]

  • Wake Me Up When September Ends

    So here we are, at the end of September and my game/movie pass at Blockbuster finally ended. Along with that comes the end of ‘movie month’, but since we were able to focus on movies this month, I’ve got a few game reviews coming up for you next month, so that will be nice to change things up  again. Our library of movie reviews is looking much healthier these days compared to the beginning of the month. This month alone we reviewed 12 movies:

    12 movies in one month, I don’t see that number being eclipsed any time soon. I hope you’ve appreciated my reviews, as always, you can reach me on twitter if you’d like to get my take on a movie or just to talk. I’m always looking for some good tips on movies to watch, many of these were recommended to me in the first place. Have a happy October.

  • Did MySpace hack Facebook, or did I go crazy for five minutes?

    And for the “what-the-crap” moment of the evening, we bring you this.

    Seriously people. What. The. CRAP?

    (Please note, it was back to normal less then five minutes later.)

  • Something’s… missing.

    Although this is the regularly scheduled time slot for T.W.I.S.T. , there won’t be a T.W.I.S.T. today. I started writing it up, and it was all football related news, so I figured it made more sense to just wait until tomorrow to post it, and then I have all the football that transpired over the weekend that I can also talk about… so you’ll get your T.W.I.S.T. tomorrow.

    In related news, I’ve briefly mentioned the football team that I coach (we won our first game of the season yesterday by the way!), well I’ve found it increasingly difficult each week to continue my post-a-day pace. I’ve made it 2 straight months (which is more than I could have ever dreamed previous to this stretch) and I have a number of posts queued up for the rest of the month, so you’ll still get a dose of entertainment news mixed in with the tech stuff our other fine writers have brought you… it just might not be a daily occurrence until football season is over. I’ll do my best, but finding time to sit down and put my thoughts together (on something other than my family or my football team) has been pretty tough lately and I don’t want to stress out about it. I don’t like doing things half-way, and I’m starting to stretch myself too thin attempting to keep too many plates spinning (does that analogy work here?).

    What I need to do is head over to Fred’s house and forcefully pull him away from his Starcraft 2 and take a night to just sit together and blog… that would probably do us both a world of good! Either way, I felt like it would be easier for me to just make this cut and dry and not worry about it anymore instead of looking like I accidentally slacked off *cough*like Fred*cough* and missed a day, or two… or 3 weeks. So, with all that said, I’m going to go sit down, relax, and enjoy me some NFL football week 1 action. Enjoy your Sunday!

  • What Do You Get When You Combine Netflix & Blockbuster?

    Hello there boys and girls! I’ve recently given you a sneak peak at the upcoming fall TV season, another edition of Entry Level Geek, and even a Top 10 list. Well, I’m in the midst of a game/movie pass from Blockbuster and I’ve still been churning through my Netflix queue, so I’ve been accumulating a backlog of movies and finally had some time to sit down and watch a bunch of them. Watching all these movies leads to more movie reviews, and I’ve been wanting to expand our library of movie reviews, so that’s what you’ll be getting from me this month. September is movie month!

    For the rest of the month, you’ll get about 3 movie reviews a week, on average. Most of them are new movies that have come out in the last month or so, so they’ll all be fairly recent. If you are getting ready to rent a movie and would like to see if it’s one I’ve seen, feel free to hit me up on twitter, and as always, if there are any movies you’d like me to review, sound off in the comments below.