Today Google announced their new Chrome OS, which is an operating system optimized for always-connected netbooks.  The OS focuses on users who already leverage web-based applications, and forgoes any native software for leveraging HTML5 and the Cloud.  While certainly an interesting concept, the OS seems more geared towards casual users who already use Google apps and don’t need to perform serious tasks offline (although Google Gears could help with this).  The OS boasts syncing with the cloud and robust security, and also boots incredibly quickly.

I spent the time to build the Chromium OS, which is the developer build.  While it was a time-consuming process, it was fairly straightforward, and instructions can be found here.  This initial build doesn’t give you much to play with, but considering that the OS isn’t planned for launch until a year from now, they have plenty of time to build this promising project into something more exciting.  Once you play around, you immediately see that Google really is cutting out the application layer to connect the browser to the kernel, and anyone who has played with Chrome will feel right at home.  Additionally, the fact that the entire OS leverages web standards, it will be interesting to see how this could help evolve various open standards initiatives.

For some  videos that explain the OS, check out the official YouTube page for the project here.

My favorite instant messaging client on the Mac is Adium. It is a robust open-source project that supports a variety of IM protocols (Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, etc.) all from one client. I have been a loyal user for years, but the depth of the product features continues to present me with surprises.

The most recent discovery I stumbled across by accident one day when I was trying to do a “Spotlight” search. It turns out that all you need to do to search your contacts is start typing a query. For people like me, this is a great way to avoid scrolling through a lengthy list for the right person. Enjoy!

Today at Apple’s WWDC developer event they announced “MobileMe”, a replacement for the “.Mac” suite of services. “MobileMe” will enable a user to keep their contacts, calendars, e-mail, synchronized across all devices via push. It also offers enhanced photo sharing capabilities that will be integrated into the iPhone and new website, as well as better data synchronization courtesy of iDisk. All of these new web applications and services can leverage “MobileMe’s” new 20GB of storage space.

So, the question inevitably becomes, “is it worth $99?”. For me, the answer is a resounding, “no”. There are a couple of major snags in the offering. First of all, my e-mail is associated with this domain, and so I have no interest in getting a “me.com” e-mail address. I have scoured the new documentation, but it doesn’t mention allowing you to do an MX forward so that you could associate a personal domain with these services. Major bummer.

Second, the services don’t match the price. $99 is a hefty sum for synchronization services. I use a Zimbra mail host for my personal data management, and it provides roughly the same functionality (disclosure: I work for Yahoo, which owns Zimbra, but this has nothing to do with why I use it).  The Zimbra hosting allows me to keep my personal domain, and offers an iSync conduit that keeps my address book and calendar in sync across all of my devices and has a web interface for accessing my e-mail, calendar, and contact list.  iTunes also supports syncing iPhone contacts with Gmail and Yahoo!, and I imagine that both of these companies will offer native apps for the iPhone to help keep everything up-to-date.

If you combine one of these PIM solutions with a free file storage solution like the most excellent Dropbox you can replicate these services for a much cheaper cost.  I pay around $6 a month for Zimbra hosting from 01.com and Dropbox is currently free.  Sure, you may not get everything managed in a single place with the extreme elegance and simplicity of an Apple product, but you do get a more flexible solution.  Is “MobileMe” for me?  Certainly not.  Is it a great service that would be perfect for my mom?  Definitely.

My favorite alliterative-loving Linux company, Ubuntu, is gearing up to release version 8.04, aka “Hardy Heron” tomorrow. I have been using Ubuntu intermittently for years now. Usually, I end up playing with the latest version, reveling in the nerdy self-satisfaction of getting to embrace and tweak an open-source OS, getting frustrated by the random quirks, and fleeing back to OS X a week later.

I’ve been testing the release candidate build, and have been quite impressed with a number of tweaks that really add up to a vastly improved OS. The general software includes seem better, and I have had a much more pleasant networking experience. I’ve been eying buying an ultraportable notebook for a long time now, and am hoping to combine this release with one of the new lightweights debuting this summer. So gear up your bandwidth and get prepared to grab the latest Ubuntu build when it goes live. Maybe this creature will be the one that keeps me in the Ubuntu stable.

- feeling anxious? click here to download the release candidate.

Songbird is an open-source media jukebox from the Mozilla Foundation (the people who brought you Firefox). The Songbird team recently released version 0.5 of their player, and I got a chance last night to test it out.

On first glance, you may think that you have just launched a reskinned iTunes that favors a darker color palate. However, there is a great deal more going on under the surface. Songbird does an excellent job of easily importing your existing iTunes library file to make the transition seamless. Once this is completed and you start digging deeper into the application, you begin to discover what truly sets Songbird apart.

First off, the developers have implemented a plugin system similar to Firefox. You can search for and install a variety of plugins to enable a host of functionality like album art, iPod compatibility, and more. This really opens the floodgates to innovation by providing a flexible music player platform.

Additionally, Songbird interacts with music on the web through a tightly integrated browser. I was able to create a playlist, search for a song on The Hype Machine, see not only the page in the browser but also all of the media present on the page in a search results pane, add the song to a playlist, and play it back as if it was locally stored. This notion of having a distributed music library is a phenomenal twist on music management. Now I can scour the web through Songbird for free tunes, add them to a playlist, and now have my music collection stored in the data cloud of the internet. However, this is all contingent on the user having a network connection to work, but Songbird provides an easy method to purchase discovered tracks from Amazon, Amie St., or iTunes.

Songbird has grown a tremendous amount since I first started playing with it back in the 0.1 days. It still has growing up to do, but this build shows the direction the team is taking the product, and it is great to see how well it is maturing. While I am not ready to ditch my iTunes marriage yet, I am starting to be seriously tempted.

- click here to download Songbird 0.5