Filling out my FAFSA on FOSS

I want to remind every out there of something:

Never doubt that your voice matters.

Over a year ago I wrote a post complaining that you where unable to complete the "free application for federal student aide" from an FOSS operating system without first tricking the government's website into thinking you are running Windows.

It was time for me to renew my application (it is something you update every year in the US) and I had my user agent changer all ready to go, but before I simply admitted defeat again I first tried with my normal browser settings. Lo and behold was I surprised! While I was still warned that I was using an "unsupported" browser - the FAFSA website no longer prevented me from filling out the application from said browser.

This is fantastic to say the least - it is a step in the right direction: towards a open internet where the platform you are accessing it from doesn't matter. I would like to say thanks to everyone out there who read my post last year and took the time to contact the FAFSA folks to let them know how stupid their policy was - because apparently they listened!

~Jeff Hoogland

No FAFSA for FOSS Users

I'm a student in my last semester of undergraduate school currently. I've written twice now about various pieces of online software that restrict your freedom to use the operating system of your choice to access them. My girlfriend is also a student and as many of you may know - college is expensive. This weekend she went to fill out her FAFSA application online, for those of you unfamiliar "FAFSA" stands for "free application for federal student aide", and was annoyed when she found out she couldn't!

You might share in my shock when I found out that this free application cannot be filled out from a free operating system. When clicking the "start here" button on the FAFSA main page from a Linux based operating system you are kindly redirected to the incompatible browsers page. Just like with blackboard "supported browsers" really means "supported browsers and operating systems". The FAFSA website supports:

• Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8
• Firefox 3.5 and 3.6
  
• Google Chrome 6 and 7
• Opera 10.x

Now even though three of these browsers are cross platform, the only operating systems you are able to use with these browsers are Windows and OSX. The kicker at the end of all this? At the very bottom of the page there is a citing of standards compliance as the reason for certain browsers being redirected:

"For the past few years, every major Web browser released has been built around a set of open standards designated by the World Wide Web Consortium, a non-profit organization charged with overseeing the continuing development of the Web. What this means is that one piece of code now looks the same on every modern browser, whether it be Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, or others. The majority of our users are using these modern browsers, so we can present content which is optimized for them. "

While that is all fine and dandy, last I checked browsers on Linux where not any less standards compliant than those on Windows or OSX. At the end of the day I guess this is just another example of a large organization ignoring the FOSS ecosystem. I wonder how much longer it is going to be that Linux users are going to have to deal with this sort of ignorance.

~Jeff Hoogland

Linux Plays well with Others

Two of my friends transfered out NIU this semester, both of them are running various forms of GNU/Linux on their personal computers. One of them is not so technically inclined and he asked me to help him trouble shoot why his Ubuntu system could not get an internet connection. After doing a bit of searching online I found that NIU had some special settings for connecting to their wired network via Cisco NAC.

What Cisco NAC does is monitor what systems are on the network and what they are running. The reason NIU provides for using Cisco NAC is that:

"In the past, due to the impact of viruses and worms on the NIU network:

• The resources at the ResTech Helpdesk were stretched to the limit by the sheer volume of infected computers that needed disinfecting
• Viruses destroyed information on student computers and compromised other computers on the NIU network
• Hundreds of residents’ computers have been so severely infected that they have been removed from the network for days or even weeks"

Just a friendly reminder of one of the many reason I began using a Linux based operating system. Anywho - after I got past the big and scary I got to the section for getting your computer on the network. This is about the time I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. The four checks Cisco NAC performs are the following:

• Microsoft Critical Updates
• AntiVirus Software Installed
• AntiVirus Definitions
• Enable Windows firewall and Automatic Updates

After I read the first line my brain started going through what kind of hacks I could rig up to get the network to think he was running Windows. We tried a few different things, I even talked to my other more tech savvy friend that was at NIU and he was unsure as well. Alas it was as Saturday night and he wouldn't be able to get help from the tech desk till Monday morning. After about half an hour of trying we ended up calling it a night.

Now I would like to share a lesson with you that I have been taught a few times by this point in my life.

When reading directions always read all the directions before starting.

In case you didn't follow the link I provided earlier the very next line after all that mumbo-jumbo about Windows is:

Linux must authenticate by logging in via a web page.

Thats it. Just a web login. No anti-virus, no update monitoring, no mandatory firewall, no big-brother type behavior of any sort. To quote my friend "I guess they believe that linux machines behave well enough that they don't need big brother".

That there is even a mention of Linux on a page such as this reminds me of the fact that regardless of what people think the OS market shares are - there are obviously enough Linux users out there to provide support to them.

What about you? Ever found support for your operating system from somewhere you weren't expecting to find it?

~Jeff Hoogland

Bodhi Linux Get Software Page Goes Live

What good is an operating system if the end user is unable to use it? Not very useful really. A large of part of being able to use your operating system is having the right application for whatever task you are trying to accomplish. I have had a number of users ask me since I released Bodhi Linux if I plan to make the operating system more "user friendly" for those who do not know their way around Synaptic and/or apt-get.

I was a little bit torn as to what exactly I wanted to do. I like Bodhi being minimalistic, so including everything and the kitchen sink in an attempt to increase user friendliness was not an option. I also kicked around the idea of simply including the Ubuntu Software Center, but I don't care for the way it sorts the software (or lack of sorting). Most users I think get lost in all the software it lists, some of which doesn't exactly exemplify the best FOSS has to offer. I wanted something that was easy to sort through and at the same time would be familiar to most users.

Many people are comfortable navigating the web, so I feel a web interface for installing applications would be something most people would find easy to navigate. The "Get Software" link on the Bodhi Linux home page has been a place holder for the last month and a half now. This evening the Bodhi Team and I launched our Joomla! powered, online software center:


Our software page will allow users to either choose by application function or search for what they are looking for (based on application name or functionality). Once a user has found the application they are looking, they can begin installing the program with a single click or download a pre-packaged installer (handy for taking to systems without an internet connection).

The website uses apturl for the one click install (modeled after how GetDeb works) and the download-able installers are a combination of shell script and a package archive. The Joomla! template is still a little bit rough, but it is functional and that is the most important part. There are currently only a handful of applications listed, but more will be added in the coming weeks until we have the perfect Linux application listed for every task you can think of. See here for a full list of applications we currently plan to list.

Have any questions, want to suggest an application I should add to the page, or if you have any trouble installing things, feel free to drop a comment here or make a post on the Bodhi Forums.

Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland

LiveText - A Cross Platform Online Education System

In the last couple months I have posted my disgust about two different online education systems that are being used at various colleges around the United States. My dislike for these systems stems from the fact that even though they are web based, they do not adhere to Web Standards. This means that they are not fully accessible on FOS operating systems as they should be.

Too often in the world in which we live only the negative things in life get attention drawn to them. That is why today I would like to talk about an online education system that is accessible to all students, not just those running Microsoft Windows. The service is called LiveText. Now while LiveText is not FOSS it does function (as all sites should) with an FOS browser. In fact if you look under their FAQ Firefox is their recommend browser for viewing the website.

LiveText provides all the key functions you need from an online education system:

• Turning in Assignments
• Grading Assignments
• Discussion Boards
• File Downloads/Hosting (for syllabus and the such)

LiveText also has a fairly decent online document creator, that largely resembles Google Docs, so students can create files right in their browser. In addition to all that I listed above LiveText allows you to easily create an "e-portfolio" of all the documents you have assembled on the website.

So if you are an educator looking for a platform to teach your online class through (or an administrator at a school that make the decision for many) I implore you to choose LiveText or another system that supports all operating systems (Not just those paying a Windows Tax).

~Jeff Hoogland

Pearson Education - You will NOT use Linux

Summer is winding down and fall semesters are starting all around the country. My girlfriend started classes this week and one of her online classes required her to purchase access to the Pearson Online Education system. After she paid out the $55.00 it costs to gain access to the website she clicked through to the login screen and was greet by this lovely page


I felt like bending over and saying "Thank you sir! May I have another?" After dealing with a similar issue on Blackboard, I'm starting to get the feeling that education companies dislike FOSS operating systems. I told her to try and login anyways - The website refused. Upon clicking on their "system and browser requirements" link I was presented with the following page

Apparently I was wrong about this issue being similar to the one I had with Blackboard. At least Blackboard supported FOS browsers on Windows and OSX. That's right, not only does this Pearson Education system require Windows or OSX it required you to use Internet Explorer or Safari. In case you missed it, towards the bottom of the above screen shot

The kicker? The "MyLab" courses are rendered using Javascript and Flash. Those are both cross-platform technologies last I checked (that both ran perfectly fine in Firefox).

Now I understand that it can take a lot of time and resources to support another operating system/browser. Even if Pearson isn't willing to "support" Linux/Firefox users on their website they could at least let us login using the operating system/browser of our choice after seeing their warning message.

Finally, here is where you can contact the Pearson Education system:

http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com/app/ask

If you have a moment, please shoot them an email like I am going to, stressing the importance of cross-platform for technology - especially in an educational setting. Also for those all mentioning the user agent switcher, this is just a band-aid to a greater issue. It contributes to the idea these companies have that people only use Internet Explorer (or Safari on OSX). It is as bad as buying a system that has Windows on it and then not returning the Windows license when you intend the system to run Linux.

~Jeff Hoogland

CWTV adds Support for Streaming to Linux

Back in March I had mentioned that one of the only issues I had to deal with when converting my girlfriend's laptop to Linux Mint was that her favourite TV show would not stream to Linux. The reason for this is that CWTV, instead of using Adobe Flash, uses Move Media player to stream to Windows and OSX (Move does not support Linux). Because of this if you are on a Linux system you would simply receive an "operating system not supported" message when browsing the page with the stream.

Shannon VanWagner and myself (and hopefully more than a few others) wrote emails to CWTV, asking that they support all operating systems equally with their live stream. Meaning if Move Media player refuses to support Linux, they should still offer a stream via flash.

Never doubt that your voice matters. CWTV will now stream on your operating system of choice so long as said operating has a flash enabled browser.


Hopefully this is a sign of Linux gaining more support as a desktop operating system from larger companies. Who knows, maybe other companies such as Netflix will follow suite at some point in the next year with Linux desktop variations such as Meego and Chrome OS coming into play very soon.

~Jeff Hoogland

N900 Video Call with Skype

If you have graced my page before then odds are you know I love my N900. This past Wednesday Nokia released the PR 1.2 update for the N900 and one of the features they added was support for the front facing camera to make video calls. Video conferencing via services like Skype, Google Talk and Allstream Business Communications are a fantastic advancement in technology.

I made my first video call this evening on my N900 and it works quite well! The GUI for Skype video calls is fairly simple and looks as such:

The video feed fails to appear when I use the screen shot function built into the N900, but I marked the locations of where the feeds appear. In order to make a video call simply open the Skype contact and select "Video Call":

You can also start a video call from a normal Skype call by selecting it from the call's menu:

I would like to note that in order for the video call options to appear I had to first receive a video call on my N900. After this I had no trouble initiating a video call from my device.

The quality from the front camera isn't the best, but it is more than enough to do basic video calls with. I recorded a short video that displays a video call between my N900 and a laptop:

Video calls such as this are by far the way of the future! Hopefully we will see more devices follow in the N900's footsteps and start adding this functionality.

~Jeff Hoogland

Pandora Radio on the N900 - pyPianobar

You know it is 2010 when you can be riding your bike home from work while listening to music streaming from the internet.

I've been using Pandora Radio for some two years now and I have had a Pandora One subscription for the last year. When I received my N900 one of the first things I attempted to do with it was to load up Pandora via the webrowser as the device has full flash support - much to my dismay I was greeted by a choppy experience and a user interface that was difficult to navigate on such a small touch screen.

Pandora does not currently make an application for the N900 and nor do they plan on making one any time soon (believe me, I emailed them). One of the most wonderful things about FOSS is the community - and once again it steps up to the plate to solve the Pandora radio issue on the N900. The application pyPianobar provides a QT-based touch-friendly interface for accessing your Pandora radio account on your N900
The GUI is easy to use and provides all necessary functionality you need for using Pandora Radio:

• Play
  
• Pause
  
• Skip Song
  
• Thumbs Up
  
• Thumbs Down
• Station Create
• Station Delete

The only feature pyPianobar currently lacks that I would like to see added is the ability to set the audio quality (often times I am streaming over 2/3G and would like to toggle it from "high" to "normal" quality). Over all pyPianobar is a fantastic application and just one more example of the power of the community that is behind Maemo!

~Jeff Hoogland

Firefox Mobile - Review

The N900 is my handheld of choice and as I've stated before it is by far the web browsing phone currently on the market. The most wonderful thing about FOSS is choice, just like a desktop computer the N900 provides you with a variety of web browsers to choose from and the Mozilla cooperation choose Maemo as the first platform to release their mobile browser for. I've been using firefox as the primary browser on my N900 since just prior to it's 1.0 release, the following are my summations of what I think of Mozilla's mobile browser.

Firefox Mobile navigates the web wonderfully, what few pages MicroB (the default N900 browser) Firefox handles like a dream. I have yet to find a website it fails to render properly.

Zooming in and out in firefox mobile works well. Double tapping on a section of the screen zooms to that portion for you. If this zoom scopes in too far or not enough for you holding control and pressing your plus/minus keys will allow you to have a more controlled zoom in the browser. In general I find the double tap zoom more than gets the job done and I rarely manually scope in/out.

Another nifty feature is that when you select an entry box on a website firefox auto zooms so the entry box fills the screen (width wise). It also provides you with next/previous buttons to jump between entry fields (for instance from a username box to a password box):

Speaking of password fields - firefox mobile displays the character you have entered for a moment when typing in a password instead of just displaying a star by default. This way you can be sure you have entered the proper character (always nice when you are dealing with function and shift keys on a tiny keyboard). Also present in firefox mobile is the non-intrusive offer to "remember", "not now", or "never" store a username/password combination when it is entered:

Then there is one of the things firefox was famous for first bringing to the masses on desktop browsers: tabs. The setup of firefox mobile is designed to keep the navigation features out of the user's way except for when they want to use them. By default when you are viewing a page it is full screen on the device:

To access the various navigation features swipe right, to see your open tabs:

Swipe left, to access back and forward buttons, plus your options:

or do either of the before mentioned motions to access your URL bar, application switcher, and exit button. I like the placement of the back and forward buttons, they are quickly accessible but as I stated out of the way when you do not need them.

Another firefox staple is of course addons. Firefox mobile is packed full of addons you can choose from, customization is the spice of life:

Right below plugins in firefox mobile is your download manager, nicely laid out the download manager lists all files you have downloaded in chronological order:

It also gives you a small notification in your browsing window when a download completes.

We all know you cannot have the good without the bad, there are a few things I would like to see added to firefox mobile. Firstly, there is no option of choosing where downloaded files are saved to - something that greatly irks me. Secondly, there is no way (at least that I have found) to select text on a page you are viewing (for instance for copy and pasting). Finally, the greatest trouble with firefox mobile I must say (and this may be a deal break for some) is the startup time. My N900 is over clocked to 800mhz and with no other applications running it takes firefox on average elven seconds to fully load.

All in all I think firefox mobile is the best browser currently available for the Maemo platform and thanks to the browser-switchboard it is the default browser on my device.

Did I miss any key points about firefox mobile? Is there another reason you use it or perhaps do not use it that I don't list here? Let me know by dropping a comment below.

~Jeff Hoogland

Make Firefox use as much Screen as Chrome

I've been using Google's Chrome browser off and on for some time now and I must say one of the things I like most about it is the fact that, by default, it utilizes screen space better than any other browser out there. This is something that makes it a wonderful default browser for netbooks. The only issue with Chrome is that it is still beta - meaning it crashes now and again and still has issues rendering certain aspects of some webpages. So naturally I fall back to using good old Firefox. Which got me to thinking:

If I really just like the layout if chrome, can I just make Firefox look/use screen space in the same manner Chrome does? Of course I can.

The following are the steps you can take to do the same, this guide assumes you are starting off with a clean install of Firefox.

Step 1:
Right click near the URL bar on Firefox and select "Customize...". While the customize window is open you can click and drag different things in the tool bar to where ever you would like to. Drag the navigation buttons (forward, backward, stop, home, ect.) and the URL bar and search bar to the top of the screen so they are on the same bar as your File/Edit/Tools/ect menu. (Don't worry if it is a little crammed for now). Lastly check the "Use small icons" box and then close out of the customize window.

Step 2:
Right click near the URL bar again, this time instead of selecting "Customize..." un-check the "Navigation" and "Bookmarks" tool bars. (Removing these two alone gives you a whole lot more space)

Step 3:
Here is where we start to utilize the power of Firefox: Addons. Install the following addons in any order:

Auto-Hide Status Bar - this plugin hides the bar at the bottom of the screen except when information is being loaded/used. The bottom bar also appears when you hover your cursor over a hyper link.

Hide Caption Title Bar - this addon removes the bar at the top of the screen. Do we really care about seeing the full title of the current page anyways? That is what tabs are for.

Tabs on Top - this one really makes it feel like you are using Chrome. It moves the placement of the browser tabs to above your URL bar.

Tiny Menu - This one takes care of shrinking down all those File/Edit/Tools/ect drop downs into a single menu like Chrome has (to save space, if you have a high-res screen this one is optional really).

Poof! All done, enjoy your new Chrome-a-fyied Firefox. Oh and don't forget to give your Firefox some personality while you are at it ;)
~Jeff Hoogland

Operating Systems and Market Share Statistics

Did you know that 55% of statistics are made up on the spot? (or maybe it was 68% I don't recall) If you have ever taken a statistics class you know that data is everything, but it's not just about the data itself. Whenever you see numbers you have to ask yourself:

• Where did these numbers come from?
• Is it a credible source?

When it comes to market share and operating systems I've heard lots of numbers thrown around over the years and it is difficult to figure out which numbers you should put your faith in on this subject. For instance if your take a peek at the Wikipedia page on the subject it shows the following figures:

• Windows: 87.67%
• OSX: 5.9%
• Linux: 1.1%
• Other: 2.08%

Those seem like fair figures right? Odds are many will stop there and take them as fact, however take a peak at some numbers from Marketshare.Hitslink.com:

• Windows: 92.12%
• OSX: 5.02%
• Linux: .98%
• Other: 1.88%

They don't quite match... Windows is ahead by any rate (which we should expect) but still, take a look at numbers from a couple other websites. Statowl.com:

• Windows: 88.49%
• OSX: 10.87%
• Linux: .41%
• Other: .12%

Wait, what? OSX has over a ten percent market share? That almost twice what our first two sources cite... How about a forth source? W3counter.com:

• Windows: 84.33%
• OSX: 8.12%
• Linux: 1.55%
• Other: 6%

These numbers from W3Counter seem to be the middle ground of the four sources for OSX, however note the fact that their count for the Windows Operating system is much lower and their count for Linux operating systems in much higher. One thing to note about these numbers is the much larger "other" category. Even further curious I find is that Google's Android operating system, is thrown in with "other" on W3Counter even though it is a derivative of Linux.

What are other things to consider? For starters how do these places collect their statistics? What websites do they pull their data from? The content of a webpage very much determines the type of operating system that a person is likely to view it on. For instance these are the operating system statistics from the last month for my own (primarily Linux-focused) blog :

• Windows: 44.4%
• OSX: 8.03%
• Linux: 44.03%
• Other: 3.54%

Care to guess which operating system that data set is skewed towards because of the page content?



Beyond just looking at the source of web statistics of operating systems, when it comes to the global market as a whole, you have to consider the countless systems that are offline or are rarely connected to the internet. Unlike OSX where you can count the systems by the amount of Apple hardware sold or Mircosoft's Windows where they can count the number of activations, a single Linux ISO download can account for multiple (sometimes even hundreds) of offline (or online) installations.



Truth be told, will we ever truly know the precise market share of each operating system? No, we will not. From my four sources here (and others you can find around the internet) I'm inclined to believe that currently Windows floats somewhere around 88%, OSX around 8%, Linux somewhere close to 2%, and the rest can get lumped into that wonderful "other" category.



What do you think? Know of another credible source for market share statistics regarding operating systems that I didn't mention? Let me know!



~Jeff Hoogland

Always the Wrong Windows Version...

My younger brother was reformatting his laptop to Windows 7 at my house this past weekend and I lent him my netbook to download drivers with while it formatted. When he visited Gateway's site he was greeted by this message:

In case it is difficult to read the message says "We are unable to detect if this file supports the version of Windows on the computer in front of you right now, be sure to double-check that this file matches the computers version of Windows before continuing." Needless to say I was highly amused. It is not difficult for a website to detect a client's operating system/browser in this day and age. You'd think a large company like Gateway would account for all of them when writing messages like this one...

~Jeff Hoogland

Linux in Real Life - Uses Around the World

My little niche here on the internet is largely devoted to talking about various forms of the Linux Operating System. Truth be told, however, I can blog about Linux until my fingers fall off from typing and the vast majority of what I wrote would be meaningless to the average person. Even with its slowly growing popularity, Linux is still a largely unknown thing to many people. Why should Average Joe care about Linux? This alternative operating system doesn't affect his life at all - or does it? The truth of the matter is this: Almost every adult who uses technology in today's world uses or has used something that is Linux powered.

Don't believe me? Lets take a look at some of the places Linux is used around the world today. In the world of retail, Linux is used as the sole operating system of two major clothing retailers:

• Burlington Coat Factory
• The GAP

These companies use Linux both as a server back-end and as a desktop solution.

Now maybe you are like myself and you have never shopped at either of the above listed stores - don't worry there are plenty of other places Linux is hiding in the world around us. If you live in the United States then you should be pleased to know that our government uses Linux is several areas including:

• The Postal Service
• The Federal Courts

The postal service uses Linux clusters to sort bulk mail and the federal court system uses Linux systems for case management, case tracking, accounting, and probation services.

Alrighty - maybe you live outside the United States, meaning you have never used either of the two services listed above. How about this: Do you ever go to the movies? Many companies that produce movies use Linux, including:

• Disney
• Dreamworks

They use Linux based production machines for rendering 2D art work, 3D graphics, and special effects.

Still a few of you out there who think you haven't used Linux yet? Don't worry, I'm not even close to being done yet. Anyone have either of the following two items hiding in their entertainment center:

• TiVo
• Playstation 3

Yep - you guessed it, both are Linux powered devices.

How about mobile devices? The company LG has been powering their cell phones with Linux based technology for several years now. Perhaps you have heard of (or possibly even own) one of these handheld devices:

• Sprint's Palm Pre
• Verizon's "bare knuckled bucket of does" - the Droid
• T-Mobile's G1
• Google's Nexus One
• Nokia's N900
• Amazon's Kindle

Are all high-end devices running various forms of mobile Linux.

Whew! Did you find where you fit into the world of Linux yet? Wait - did I just hear a "no" still? Alright - do you use the internet? (rhetorical question, you are reading a web-blog) Since the answer to my previous question is most obviously yes - I'd be willing to bet you have used one of the following two web pages at some point in time:

• Amazon
• Google

Both companies are largely (or in the case of Amazon - almost entirely) powered by Linux. In addition to these, it relatively safe to say around half the internet runs on Linux powered Apache servers.

I think I've covered just about everyone who uses technology at this point in some form or another. Does anyone still think you haven't used something Linux powered at least once in your life? No? Good. :)

Does anyone else know of some other common places Linux is used by the masses or another large retailer/company that is Linux powered that I missed? If so, please drop a comment to let me know.

Update: Check out this article for a whole pile of places that are running Linux!

~Jeff Hoogland

Sending Mixed Messages

Today was my first day back at University and one of my professors is using a piece of web technology called "Wimba Classroom" to relay information to all of the computers in our lab. Its really a neat piece of software and as with any piece of software I find interesting I looked up it's homepage to find more information about the product. During my visit there is when I found the following information that really sends a mixed message regarding what operating systems the web-based software will run on:

Ignore for a moment the fact that they refer to "PC" as an operating system and just check the two parts I've high-lighted. Anyone else confused slightly? At any rate the software loads right up for me on Ubuntu 9.10 using Firefox and the latest Java - but still.

At any rate it made me face-palm and gave me a good chuckle for the evening. Anyone else get annoyed when you see things like this?

~Jeff Hoogland

Riding the Google Wave

Google is pretty much a house hold name at this point in the 21st century. Starting with a search engine they have slowly been expanding themselves into almost every technological market you can think of. Email, blogs, web browsers, mobile phones, and of course web searches are all things Google has a foot in these days. Today I am going to take a moment to talk about one of Google's up coming projects: Google Wave.

Wave is Google's latest attempt to revolutionize the web. At a glance Wave looks very much like any of our common email clients. It allows you to organize contacts and messages (referred to from here on out as "waves") in one central place. The thing that makes Wave revolutionary in today's world full of different web applications is the way in which the waves function. A wave is essentially a real time thread that you can add and subtract information from at your leisure. You can have both public and private waves, share a message with just your friend(s) or the entire world.

Another feature that sets Wave apart from standard Email is the ability to "embed" different objects into a wave. What can be embedded in a wave? Just about everything you can think of, maps, pictures, videos, flash content, or documents just to name a few. Waves are also created dynamically in real time, ever wish you could get a message quicker? Why wait for the person on the other end to press send? With Wave as soon as someone adds you to a wave you can see in real time what they are typing, embedding, or adding to the wave. From this stems the most powerful use for Wave - the ability for multiple people to be editing a Wave at the same time. Creating a presentation with friends? You no longer have to wait for everyone to do their share and then send it to you so you can add your part. With wave you can all be working in a document at the same time and see who is adding what to the wave and when. Now with all of this collaborative editing occurring it is only a matter of time before someone removes or edits something you might have wanted to keep - don't worry your information isn't gone. Each wave contains a replay button that allows you to watch the time-line of a given wave, basically it lets you replay from start to finish what has been added and subtracted to a wave and in what order.

Still not impressed? Wave has one more trick up it's sleeve to impress you with - waves can be embedded into web pages. The truly phenomenal thing about this is if you post in say tens (or hundreds or even thousands) of different waves around the net all of these different waves will also be collected within your Google Wave inbox. This means in order to check on conversations you have going on all over the internet you can just check one place instead of jumping all over the web. As with private waves you can also embedded different files to your heart's content within wave on a webpage.

Last but not least I feel I should mention that Google Wave runs fully within your web browser. No extra application installation necessary. Wave is currently in an "alpha preview" state and I received my invitation to begin using it some weeks back now. It is a project worth keeping your eye on and once it comes into maturity I have no doubt it will become a major tool in the web-based world in which we live today.

~Jeff Hoogland