Hung Truong: The Blog!

Michigan Trip!

I’m flyin’ to Michigan tomorrow morning to check out apartments. And, of course, these apartments were found using MapsKrieg. Hopefully I can find one that doesn’t have too slummy a slumlord. Or better yet, not a slumlord!

I might check out other random attractions too, like Pinball Pete’s, which is apparently a huge ass arcade!

Luckily I’ll have something to do on the plane, since I just bought Pokemon Pearl yesterday. And if my batteries run out, I can practice showing people where Ann Arbor is in Michigan by pointing to my hand! I gotta get that down ASAP.

Orb + EVDO = Awesome!

I had heard about this Orb thing a while ago. It’s this program you install that acts as a sort of proxy where you can get your computer to convert and stream on demand any media that’s sitting on it. I originally had no interest in it, since when I’m away from home, I have my laptop which can provide me with videos and audio and whatnot.

Just recently, I got a Motorola Q and I’ve been trying to figure out what new cool things I can do with it since it’s a smartphone. Revisiting Orb, the possibilities look promising.

I just installed Orb on my computer. Basically, Orb connects with a central server. From a website, you can log in and “request” the media that’s sitting on your home computer. When you “request” something, the local program will start encoding the media at a decent bitrate and stream it to you over the web. It’s pretty cool, actually.

When I used my phone to try and grab stuff, videos were a bit low (my phone only gets like 78kbs in Albuquerque), but audio was ok. When I move to Ann Arbor, the bitrate should improve by a lot, since there’s EVDO coverage there. When I plugged my phone into the computer and used the local connection, the videos were surprisingly high quality. It was really cool watching a video on my phone like that.

I probably won’t use it much while I’m here, but once I get to Ann Arbor I’d like to test the feasibility of watching tv shows on my phone from anywhere.

There is an issue of privacy since you allow the Orb software to index all of the files on your computer and list them online (it’s password protected). The privacy terms seem okay though. I’d prefer a totally direct method of connection though, instead of relying on Orb to keep my privacy. Not that I’m doing anything illegal. It’s the principal of the thing.

Google Opens Their Offices In Ann Arbor! Plus Google Vs Meetup!

I saw on Valleywag that Google finally opened up their new office in Ann Arbor. This is kinda cool, since I’m going to school in Ann Arbor in the Fall and it’ll be interesting having a Google office so nearby. Not that I’m going to stalk it or anything. I’ll be too busy with school and work! Not that I would stalk it anyway… Moving on…

This office is only an Adwords office, which means that it’ll probably just be a bunch of sales people and not a lot of engineers, if any. Too bad. I’m sure they need engineers to run Adwords too, but who knows if they’ll put them in that office.

I also read this funny comparison about why you should work at Meetup instead of at Google. The document (made on Google Docs!) mainly tries to convince readers that working at Meetup is much cooler since it’s a startup. It seems like they push the “you’re a cog in the machine at Google” a bit too hard, though. There’s also the “Google infantilizes you” thing goin’ on too. Perhaps that’s true, but I for one welcome our Google parenting overlords!

I’m sure that document is all in good fun, anyway. At the end of the day, people are reminded of how awesome Google’s toilets are, and Meetup gets some free publicity.

Facebook Marketplace – With Connections!

So the Facebook Marketplace is like this mini craigslist for the various networks in Facebook. This is pretty neat. Not because you can sell stuff on Facebook, necessarily, but because it incorporates the existing data of Facebook as well.

When you look at an item, you get information on the item and seller, and also information regarding your “relationship” with the seller. So if the seller is your friend, Facebook tells you. Well, you should already know who your friends are… But if this person is a friend of a friend, Facebook tells you that as well!

This is really cool (and something craigslist lacks) because you automatically have a way to determine if the seller is legit, without using lame feedback methods like Ebay does. At least, hypothetically, your friends should know legit people…

It’ll be interesting to see how successful the marketplace will be. While it may be fun getting random stuff from strangers with craigslist, it’d seem like a better idea to actually know who that couch belonged to before using it…

Also, I think it’s hilarious that Facebook decided to release this like a day after Oodle launched a sponsored group featuring its own classified ads. PWNED!

Alexa T-Shirts: WHY!?

So I was checking out the Alexa ranking of MapsKrieg, and I saw this link that was selling personalized shirts based on the Alexa ranking of a site. Ummm, what!? The shirts display stats like your Alexa ranking and quotes like, “0.00005% say my site rocks!” (which doesn’t sound like something I’d boast about), and “Will dance for better Alexa rank.”

I find it scary that someone actually took the time to prepare the templates for these shirts (they’re printed by Zazzle). Has anyone in the history of the universe bought one of these? Perhaps an overzealous SEO fanatic? But really, is anyone so obsessed with their Alexa ranking that they’d buy a shirt (that would probably end up being inaccurate by the time the shirt was printed and delievered anyway)!?

If you know anyone who has bought one of these shirts, please inform me. And punch them in the face for me, too.