Some snow in the Netherlands ..

and the country comes to a complete stop ......

This morning 800+ Km of traffic jams (126) .... and the Netherlands are only 200 x 300 Km :-(.

Mozilla CEO says Apple's Safari auto-update 'wrong'

A lot of people appear to be bent out of shape about Apple using its auto-update service to distribute the Safari Web browser on Windows. The CEO of Mozilla, which makes the rival Firefox browser, calls it bad business.

In a blog on Friday, Mozilla CEO John Lilly criticized Apple's practice, uncovered this week, of offering iTunes and QuickTime users Safari 3.1 on Windows through the Apple Software Update pop-up.

Lilly says that automatic updates are a good way to ensure people have the most recent and secure versions of software. It's a practice that Mozilla uses with the Firefox browser.

What's different in what Apple is doing is that it is adding a product to the auto-update list that users never requested. That means they could very easily install software unintentionally, he argued:

Apple has made it incredibly easy--the default, even--for users to install ride along software that they didn't ask for, and maybe didn't want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.

It's wrong because it undermines the trust that we're all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn't just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the Web by eroding that relationship. It's a bad practice and should stop.

Easy for users or a breach of trust?

(Credit: CNET Networks)

An Apple representative issued an e-mailed statement on the matter to Information Week: "We are using Software Update to make it easy and convenient for both Mac and Windows users to get the latest Safari update from Apple."

Meanwhile, my colleague, Tom Krazit, in a post on Friday argues that people should become more aware of the software on their systems and think before they install.

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Tip: Syncing Google Calendar with mobile devices

Google Calendar

(Credit: Google)

Google Calendar is probably one of the most successful web-based calendar tools to hit the Web 2.0 scene, and no wonder. It has a very clean and easy-to-understand user interface, GMail integration, the ability to share calendars with others, SMS notification reminders, and like other web-based calendars, immediate accessibility regardless of what computer you're using (Well, as long as you have net access). But perhaps the most useful aspect of Google Calendar is that you can carry it with you on your mobile device, as long as you know how.

Google Calendar Sync lets you sync your Google Calendar with your Microsoft Outlook calendar.

(Credit: Google)

There are basically two ways to access or sync Google Calendar with your phone. The first is to sync Google Calendar with the calendar software on your computer, and then sync the calendar information to your phone, essentially utilizing the computer as an intermediary. If you use Outlook to sync up calendar information, Google has conveniently offered a Google Calendar Sync tool for use with Outlook that allows 2-way syncing. Aside from Google's own syncing tool, there are other third-party Google Calendar syncing applications like OggSync, Jotlet, and Calgoo, though many of them aren't free. From there, you can sync Outlook with your phone, and you're ready to go. For the Mac, I personally have had great luck with Spanning Sync, a third-party application that will sync up Google Calendar with iCal. Similarly, you'll then have to sync the calendar information to your phone via the computer.

Then there's the second method of accessing Google Calendar with your phone, and that's over-the-air. The most obvious way to do this is to just head to http://mobile.google.com/calendar using the phone's built-in browser. From there, you can add and remove events just as you normally would, but with a scaled down user interface. If you have an iPhone, you'll be treated to a specially formatted mobile Google Calendar page with a user interface optimized for the iPhone's touch screen display. However, this doesn't always work if you don't have a reliable Internet connection, plus it can be painfully slow. Thankfully, there's a way around this as well, and that is to sync Google Calendar with the built-in calendar on your phone.

Google Sync for BlackBerry

(Credit: Google)

If you have a BlackBerry, Google has developed an application called Google Sync for BlackBerry, which will sync Google Calendar with the BlackBerry's own built-in calendar. And if you have a Windows Mobile phone, third-party applications like OggSync for Windows Mobile/Pocket PC will work as well. However, if you're one of many thousands of people with just a regular phone, GooSync is probably your best bet when it comes to over-the-air synchronization of your Google Calendar and your phone's built-in calendar. GooSync offers a free as well as a premium service (The premium service is $39.50 a year and offers multi calendar support, a contacts manager, and more), and supports a wide variety of phones. You should still check out their Supported Devices page to see if your phone is on the list though.

As with any of these applications, your mileage may vary as to how well they work, depending on the kind of phone you have, your net connection, and so forth. If you have any more ideas on how to sync Google Calendar with your mobile device, let us know in the comments!

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