Alan Buckingham

Back in February Adobe announced plans to kill the storage portion of its seemingly popular Photoshop.com web service and migrating users' content to Adobe Revel. The move seems painless on the surface -- all of your images will be exported to Revel automatically. Except, that is not entirely the case.

In fact, all of the JPEG images will be moved. Only. Other formats, including video, PSD, RAW, ACR, PNG, TIFF, must be archived by the customer or they will be lost. Those file formats are not yet supported.

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With last week's installment, this little series largely came to an end for now, but it doesn't mean that I am not actively planning for future improvements to the digital lifestyle in our home. In fact, my list of ideas for improvements is a rather lengthy one, though the expenses are enough for now and I have no desire to incur the wrath of my wife with more deliveries showing up on our doorstep.

But, where exactly do I want to go from here? The ideas are endless, but for the sake of brevity I will list only a few here. These are the ones I have prioritized at the top of that future list. The ones I consider most important to make everything work quicker and more smoothly.

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If you are on a Mac and using either the Apple-supplied Safari browser, or one of the popular alternatives like Firefox or Chrome, then you may have begun noticing some unexpected ads in the browser lately. Hopefully not, because it spells bad news for you, and that news is Trojan.yontoo.1.

Security firm Doctor Web is credited with the discovery of this latest attack on the Apple ecosystem. Like many Trojans though, it requires the user to make mistakes in order to get a foothold on the system. In fact, the cardinal mistake, clicking on a pop-up plugin message, is the culprit.

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Last month Google released a transparency report revealing how often law enforcement inquires about users' private data. Hint: it's more often than you want to believe. Not to be outdone, today Microsoft posts its own data, which the company refers to as the "2012 Law Enforcement Requests Report".

While the number of requests may seem staggering, there is some perspective to be had in all of this. First the raw data reported -- "Microsoft and Skype received a total of 75,378 law enforcement requests. Those requests potentially impacted 137,424 accounts". Sounds rather high doesn't it?

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Despite our recent disdain for Google, there's no denying the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is a juggernaut when it comes to web traffic. It totally dominates search and its YouTube subsidiary, which has just announced a brand new milestone, is equally unstoppable in the online video market.

The YouTube team claims the service "now has more than a billion unique users every single month", which is a phenomenal figure. The service, which was started back in 2005, has been growing steadily since inception and was purchased by Google in 2006, perhaps saving the video company from being litigated out of existence.

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While we all wait on the edge of our seats for the Xbox 720, or whatever the next-generation console will be called -- and I doubt it will be 720 -- there is a lot more going on in the Microsoft gaming world than there perhaps should be, given that E3 is getting closer. Some is, of course, pure speculation, which seems to drive the tech industry these days. Some is purported leaks of console information. And then, low and behold, some is actually real information.

I have no desire to discuss rumors -- just tell me when you actually know something. I also do not plan on touching a leaked document because who knows if it's real? What I can tell you is what actually is real.

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I don't really like to play the part of the curmudgeon. But, I am getting a bit tired of the Google "me too" way of doing business, despite the fact that I have to admit I have followed it to a large degree in the past. The company was not the first (obviously) with a web browser, but got me to switch from Firefox -- a move I have begun to regret, given recent problems. Google was not the first with cloud storage and, though I signed up for the free version, I pay for real storage on Amazon Cloud and use Crashplan for backup services.

I have used Google Docs, but I prefer Office. In fact, beyond Android, there is really not much being offered that I cannot live without. Don't get me wrong -- I am not being as bold as my colleague Wayne Williams and his total switch, but I have become a bit ambivalent to all of Google. I could switch to Bing. I could go back to Firefox. Neither would really cause me stress.

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Microsoft announced the coming of Windows Embedded 8, including Industry and Handheld versions, earlier in 2013. The release is today, as both OEM and businesses can begin downloading and implementing various flavors of the newest version of the operating system.

"Edge devices connected and working in unison with an enterprise’s broader IT infrastructure unleash the potential of the Internet of Things by yielding the actionable data and operational intelligence that drive businesses forward", Kevin Dallas, general manager of Windows Embedded at Microsoft, says.

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Way back in the deep, dark early days of Rebox Instant by Verizon, I got the opportunity to take the streaming service for a test drive. We later learned that the service would be exclusive to the Xbox 360 -- at least as far as gaming consoles are concerned. That exclusivity begins today.

Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson to Xbox fans everywhere, announces that "the Redbox Instant by Verizon app is available on Xbox 360 now", though he asterisks this statement with some fine print to let consumers know that they will need that Xbox Live Gold subscription in order to take advantage of the new video-on-demand goodies.

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It is officially that time of the year -- when grown men call in sick to sit home and watch younger men and women play basketball. In other words, it's March Madness time. While you are watching those games, and possibly cursing your bracket choices, Microsoft would like to have a bit of your attention.

While the company's first big Microsoft mobile viral campaign, known as Smoked by Windows Phone, seemed to pop up everywhere and get all sorts of attention, the latest campaign has kept a much lower profile.

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Many people use Really Simple Syndication without actually realizing it. Like SMTP in the background of email, RSS is the backbone of a number of things, including the podcasts you get from the iTunes store. Last week Google set off on an apparent challenge to kill RSS, or at least it seems that way to many of us.

Overshadowed in all of our talk, gripes really, about the loss of Google Reader is removal its RSS extension from the Chrome store. The extension placed the, now familiar, orange square in the URL bar and allowed users to easily subscribe to feeds by clicking and sending them to Google Reader.

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The tiniest of details can sometimes lead to the thorniest of problems, which Google may discover with its brand new Nexus 10 ad which debuted today. The video seems innocent enough -- it follows a young couple through nine months of pregnancy as they plan for their new bundle of joy and discuss what to name the baby boy.

However, if you scroll through the comments of the just-posted one minute ad, you will find something interesting. Commentor Ram Gadde points out that "sex determination of fetus is prohibited in India". He then later opines that he thinks, for that reason, "this ad will be banned in India".

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Microsoft is making another attempt to get into the Chinese market by way of something other than piracy. China is the world's largest market for computers, but many of the customers run pirated versions of software, including Windows and other Microsoft products. Now the company is attempting to provide users with a legitimate way to get their hands on its wares, and not just software.

In October 2012 Microsoft opened a version of its online store in the Chinese language, and now Tmall, one of largest online shopping malls in the People's Republic of China, has just added an official Microsoft retail point.

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I will spare you all of the crying and griping about the whole Google Reader thing -- you have heard it all by now. Suffice it to say that I no longer plan to trust Google with much of what I do. Other companies axe products, as I learned when Microsoft killed my beloved Live Mesh last year, but Google is more regular and ruthless executioner, but I digress -- I promised no rant here.

My colleagues and I are discussing where we will all go after being chucked from Google lands into the jungle. There are a number of options, and Feedly is among the popular destinations. But I was not impressed in my, admittedly very short, look at the service. I also fired up Opera and imported my OPML file into its built-in RSS reader, but it's not cloud-based, and I was left with more than 10,000 "unread" stories. Granted it can be fixed, but do I want to?

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You have no doubt heard the term "Monday Morning Quarterback", which refers to the person who always has the plan that would have won the game the day before. Now you can be an armchair mountaineer thanks to Google's latest update to its Maps program, that brings some of the biggest and baddest climbs to your computer screen.

The Maps teams has gone to a number of extremes and this time they are scaling the heights of some of the most feared peaks on the planet. The team visited Nepal, commonly thought of as the gateway to the Himalaya's, and captured images that must be seen to truly be appreciated.

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