The Chrome Web Store brings the apps mentality to your browser. The great thing about having an app in your browser (as opposed to loading some software onto your computer) is that you’re not loading software onto your computer. Just select an app and install it straight into your Chrome browser.

There have been similar ideas before but Google has the power to simplify and to bring together so many very useful apps into its browser. Examples are, the every-popular Angry Birds, a handful of CMS and other productivity apps, graphic apps and so on.

If you’ve signed into your account before you loaded the app it will automatically be available on any other computer where you’re signed in on Google Chrome. The apps are portable and platform agnostic. So you could, for instance, load eBuddy Web Messenger and use that for MSN on any PC you use. You could master Angry Birds up to level 19 on one computer and complete levels 20 onwards on another PC later on.

I had a play with a couple apps and have varying success with them. The Facebook app is essentially exactly like visiting facebook.com, so why bother really. One app I did take a fancy to was Pixlr-o-matic, an app for mucking about with your photos. I started off with this rather nice photo of Lottie:

And finished with this rather charming photo a few minutes later:

There are hundreds (or probably thousands) of photos in the Chrome Web Store so go ahead download Google Chrome and go have some fun.

The iPad still dominates the tablet market they created, and for good reason.  The iPad is by far the nicest to use, with its diminutive width, ease of use and access to just about every app you can imagine. Some of the Android based tablets come close, but then they’re let down on price…

Good news is they’re all slashing prices. The Kindle is yet to officially reach Australia but it is selling for a mere $200 in the US. That has perhaps led other manufacturers to realise the only way to compete in the tablet market is to cut prices. Sony has knocked $100 off the price of its tablet.

Sony S

Perhaps some people miss the point of the Kindle Fire. It is a loss leader designed to draw customers to the Amazon website. Sony, HTC, Samsung etc aren’t content providers so they need to make money on the tablet, which prices them uncomfortably close to the superior options from Apple. Until they offer better products I would think they would need to offer better prices. Here’s hoping we can soon buy cheap tablets.

Bugs me and I’m sure it bugs you too. Movies that are out of sync. This can be a common problem when playing movies on your computer, especially ripped movies.

The good news is there is a way to adjust the delay in the audio and it doesn’t involve messing with the space/time continuum. First up, if you don’t already have it, you’ll have to get yourself the wonderful media program called VLC.

• http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Now, watch the little how-to video below and it’ll explain how to adjust your audio to take make your video and audio sync up.

While the video is running in VLC use the keys J and K on your keyboard to adjust the audio delay up or down. It’s that easy.

Need to play a DVD on a loop? Here’s is how:

The floods in Thailand have hit the hard drive manufacturing plants and the drop in supply has lead to a jump in cost. The average costs of a hard drive can be expected to jump by 20-30%.

For products such as external drives I recommend you plunder whatever stocks still lie on retails shelves of the majors, assuming they haven’t increased in line with the incoming prices.

While the recovery process from the floods remains slow you can expect that hard drive production will not get back online and that prices will  remain high at least for a while yet.

An active blog page is an important part of a modern website. In fact, a blog itself can out perform a website, if that blog is maintained regularly. My own blog, Single Speed Gold Coast, is top or near top on many crucial search terms within its field.

Blog or News pages can be very effective on websites if done even half properly. Here are a few simple tips:

• keep an eye on your keywords
• write it in friendly English
• update it regularly

Use and repeat your keywords. This can be very simple. Instead of saying, “Tomorrow we release our new calendar with updated product shots in it,” say, “Queensland Widgets releases its new calendar tomorrow featuring shots of all our widgets”. Almost every post can fit in a keyword or two. Don’t waste an opportunity.

Write in in friendly English

If you want bullet form, then use bullets, but for the rest of the text use full sentences. Don’t write, “Calendar! New products! Coming soon!” Write like you’re speaking to your audience. You don’t speak in staccato bursts of phrases so don’t write like that.

Keep it friendly. None of use are paid writers so it’s more than possible that our writing style isn’t perfect. This is all the more reason to write like you’re talking to a friend. Engage with them. You’re not writing up your lab report. There is hardly a successful blog anywhere on the web, whether on serious matters (like bikes!) or something something more trivial (like IT?) that doesn’t maintain a friendly attitude.

Update it regularly

Okay, so I’ve been guilty of neglecting my Pogo blog…and my search engine results reflect that. Whereas I have been busy on my bike blog and that’s going great guns. Try to put aside time at least one hour a week and update your blog. Google loves to see new content. It knows your website is alive and healthy and worth providing links to. A little discipline is required to set aside an hour a week but the benefits are more hits and more clients.

Like anything you do regularly, it becomes easier and easier to do. The writing become easier and you will begin to see just how many interesting things you have to contribute. So don’t hide those ideas and don’t let your website down. Get blogging.

There’s still work to be done but today Gold Coast company Great Value Holidays have a new website just released by Pogo. Updates will continue on this new website but here it is for you to check out:

http://www.greatvalueholidays.com.au/

This replaces their existing website with a website that is much more SEO focused, is easy to update an integrates with all the most popular forms of social networking (Facebook and Twitter).

We look forward to seeing Great Value Holidays prosper with many new customers coming through their updated website.

So far iPad has seen off its tablet rivals with absurd ease. HP pulled out of the market completely. Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Samsung et al struggle on with only 20% of the market between them.

Where did they go wrong? They had technologies ready to cobble together. (Samsung Galaxy to Samsung Galaxy Tablet anyone?) And they had a free and widely accepted OS (Android). All they had to do was offer a significant  price advantage  over the Apple product and they had a ready made market. And that’s where the problem began.

Finally Amazon have come along with the $199 tablet. Amazon must be losing money by selling these fellas make aim to make it back when you use the Amazon store to by books, movies and songs via the Amazon store (which the Fire comes pre-configured for instance access). That price, $199, is less than half the price of its nearest iPad. That’s a US price. It’s  not available in Australia yet.

Amazon Fire. Image from Amazon.

For me the pros and cons of the tablet form have kept me out of the market. The iPad is demonstrably better than its competitors in almost every way and yet how could I buy a device that didn’t even support Flash? In an iPhone it’s excusable but in a tablet it’s a deal breaker. The iPad clones were usually heavier and somewhat less attractive in intangible ways, but they all had Flash support and were very usuable, if only they were cheaper…

The Amazon Kindle Fire has what will be an irresistible  price for many. I expect they’ll sell a truck load.