Author: J

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Google Bank?

Google won’t launch a traditional bank because of the associated costs and regulation, but these hurdles won’t stop the firm from redefining the future of financial services, according to a new Forrester report.

The report, written by Forrester analyst Oliwia Berdak, postulates that Google will likely become a financial services hub that facilitates the relationship between the consumers and providers of financial services, causing disruption in four areas: payments, money management, product comparisons, and financial advice.
“Google’s reputation as one of the most disruptive firms in the market, have left many digital financial services executives worried about a potential new rival: Google Bank,” writes Berdak, in a blog post. “Unfortunately, they’re asking the wrong questions.”

Source: Finextra

No so much it would seem.

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Is this thing on?

Vacation is rapidly approaching, and for the last couple of weeks I have been rocking my new Lenovo IdeaPad. This is without a doubt the best laptop I have ever owned, but to be honest, I have not really been putting it through the ropes. Work has taken up a lot of time and energy lately, as well as the real world, which has reared its ugly head from time to time.

Be that as it may, as I am putting the finishing touches on my current project, I think it is time to reflect a little bit about the things I have learned since leaving Evenex two years ago. Hopefully my upcoming vacation will result in some more posts and some work on a side project. 

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Want some privacy?

I found this little link where it is possible to opt out of the Google surveillance and get a little bit of privacy back. So, if you don’t care bout ads, this is the place to get rid of the personalized ones.

Have fun.

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RIP old PC

My trustry PC kicked the bucket last night, and unless I can perform some kind of miracle, it will stay dead. This means that I am currently without a personal computer, a thing that has not happened since 1994.

I have been looking at Windows PCs and there’s not really anything that interests me, which surprises. Even the Macs don’t seem to hold any real appeal at this point, so I might just go ahead and not buy a new any time soon. Might actually be a pretty interesting experiment to be without a computer and only rely on my phone.

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Remember Netscape?

netscape_256I used to use Netscape and was a huge fan. To this day Netscape 7.2 is still the best browser I have used. At least my foggy brain tells me it was excellent. Many people believe that Netscape lost the browser war to Microsoft, and although that might be somewhat truthful, I still think selling out to AOL was the first nail in the coffin. I mean, AOL, seriously?

Anyway, Engadget has a pretty cool article that makes for a nice trip down memory lane.

Turns out you can still download Netscape Navigator from Cnet.

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Surface Mini coming on May 20th?

There have been plenty of rumors concerning the alleged Surface Mini, which Microsoft has been working on for the past two years. However, there might some more substantial news surfacing on the interwebs today. The Verge reports that there will be an event on the 20th this month, which is most likely the announcement of this smaller Surface.

I have been thinking about switching to Mac/iOS for the better part of my hardware collection since I am not a huge fan of the offerings from the various PC makers, however, if the Surface Mini is a really good device that might even be affordable, I might change my mind.

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Fixing Onedrive Sync Engine Host

logo_onedrive2014_heroLike many others I have had a ton of problems with OneDrive after I updated to Windows 8.1. Right before I was going to reinstall the entire OS, I did one last deep dive and actually found a fix from Microsoft.

It’s basically a little application that resets your OneDrive configuration, and since I have messed around with mine to no end, it was pretty messed. Anyway, running this little utility seemed to do the trick, even though it took a few tries.

Check out this link from Microsoft and download the utility to get your OneDrive up and running again.