Shaine Mata Blog

If you recall, when Google launched Wave, it was by invitation only and was completely separate from Gmail. The result is that the interest fizzled out because a majority of users could not use it. Personally, I love Wave; but, there's nobody on the other end to make it useful. By integrating Buzz into their most popular product, Google introduced everybody to its awesomeness to get them hooked. Secondly, other services launch a finished product, get complaints from users, and then re-engineer the product. Google purposely launched an incomplete service to allow us to help them improve it, thus avoiding the re-engineering part. Things will only get better from here on because they are engineering-as-you-go. Another reason why Google Buzz will win is because they are doing everything with open source. Whatever mojo FriendFeed did, they didn't share it before being acquired by Facebook. Now FriendFeed has not evolved, nor will it. Facebook is not about to open source, allowin...

The suggestion to have universal comments is already in the works; it always has been. http://code.google.com/apis/ buzz/ in reference to: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/02/what_google_buzz_needs_univers.html ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Image via Wikipedia Lately, I have been really into one of the games on the Wii Sports Resort , Sword Play. Through the game, I have reinforced a life lesson that I mentioned in another blog post about being deliberate to be effective . Well, it came up again. First, a little about the game. You wield a lightsaber -looking sword against opponents. One game has you matched against an opponent where you have to knock each other off a platform, much like pugil sticks on a game show. In another one, you compete on chopping things with your sword. The game I enjoy is one where you fight through a gauntlet. I just started playing this past weekend, so I'm still learning. I've made my way to level 15 already. It was tough getting out of level 6 with my beginner tactics. Naturally, when you are getting your butt kicked, you panic and start flailing with your sword. Not only is this ineffective, it probably helps your opponent defeat you faster. At the very least, it makes ...

I don't own a wok or have a 400 degree flame. But, I make fried rice for my family at home. Here is how I do it. First, steam the rice. The easiest method is to buy a $20 rice cooker from Wal-Mart. Rice cookers come with a measuring cup. Typically, four cups of uncooked rice is enough to fill a pot. You should be sure to rinse the rice at least a couple times to remove the starch. I don't know if it makes a difference; but I use hot water. You'll need to chop up some kind meat for flavor. You can mix meats if you like. In this case, I'm using beef and sausage. You can also use any combination including shrimp or chicken. Whatever flavor you like. I'm seasoning the meat with some diced onions and minced garlic . Fry it all together until browned. While the rice is cooking and the meat is browning, chop up some green onions . You'll need those later. Set the browned meat aside while the rice is still cooking. I can't tell you the reason why egg is ...

When Google surprised the world with the release of Buzz, they only released a product with a fraction of its potential. Much more is in the works. in reference to: How Google Buzz is Disruptive: Open Data Standards ( view on Google Sidewiki )

It is difficult for me to explain the difference in how writing notes with digital ink is different while looking at the original ink, versus a representation of the ink notes. It occurred to me that I could take a screenshot of the original digital ink note for comparison. This is what you would see on my public Evernote notebook . Here is a screenshot of my original digital ink note written on the Evernote application. You will notice that there are some differences between what you see and what I see. This does not make digital ink a bad idea; simply, your writing has to be that much neater to compensate for the differences. This return to handwriting for me is a short experiment. I often wondered if blog scrapers would go so far as to take posts entirely written in an image and try to represent them as their own. Also, do blog readers really care if my blog post is typed or written? Presumably, it's the content that matters rather than the style, right? Related art...

Read more digital ink notes on my public Evernote notebook .

View more of my public Evernote entries.