Facebook introduced its new location based service Wednesday, officially entering the social networking giant into the location service game.

Facebook Places will allow you to check into the businesses and other locations that you go to on a daily basis. The only problem, they have a lot of competition.

Facebook has introduced Places, a location based service. Places will be available to the Facebook mobile apps and touch.facebook.com.

Location based service Foursquare has taken off in recent months and has a dedicated user base that might be hesitant to make the switch to Places, even though Foursquare is integrated with Places.

So will users want to switch to a different service? It’s a tough question to answer.

While Foursquare has a dedicated user base, Facebook has over 500 million active monthly users to tap into.

This leads to the question, why do people use location based services in the first place?

A big reason for using Foursquare are the little bonuses that come with checking in, badges, mayorships and specials.

Foursquare has done a great job virtually rewarding using their badges and mayorships as incentive for users to continue using the service.

Also, businesses, including Starbucks, Whole Foods, Gap and several others, have caught onto the Foursquare specials for users that checkin regularly with their service.

Facebook Places, at least from the start, will offer none of that. That means no badges, no mayorships and no specials.

If not for these rewards, would people even be checking in to the venues they go to? I don’t think so.

In addition to that, will users that have not bothered to use Foursquare or other location based services want to start using Places simply because it’s there? I doubt it.

The early adopters and mainstream have already adopted Foursquare and while I feel some of them will start using Places as well, I can’t see a large amount of people using Places that haven’t already been using location services in the past.

This skepticism aside, I do think Places is a good service.

Integrated with Foursquare, as well as Gowalla, the other location based service that has been a distant second to Foursquare, Places will have a nice base of venues and users right off the bat. However, I don’t think it will be enough to over take a service such as Foursquare, as the incentives are just not there.

Facebook Places reminds me of Google Latitude, a service that had potential but just never really caught on.

While I could be wrong, I see Foursquare continuing to rein supreme in the location service game.

Google announced on Wednesday that it would no longer actively support Google Wave, the collaboration tool that debuted to much hype in 2009.

That hype quickly wore off, however, as Wave became better known for it general uselessness than its groundbreaking online collaboration.

I was able to get my hands on an invitation code to Wave fairly soon after it was launched and after the initial fun of using a new piece of web software wore off, it was clear that Wave was generally useless.

Although there were a few fun drawing tools and the occasional game of checkers, the productivity promised with Wave never really amounted to anything.

A few of my friends and I once used Wave to submit answers to an in-class discussion, including our professor in the Wave and everything, but that wave really never went further than our group and was more of a laugh than anything.

In fact, later in the semester the same group used Google Docs in a much more efficient manner to prepare a presentation, which was seemingly one of the main uses of Wave, group collaborations on projects just like that.

So while Wave has been another example of Google failing to enter the social web, following Orkut and Google Latitude just to name two, lessons from Wave will be taken in products in the future and there were some cool aspects of Wave, although nothing revolutionary as we were promised.

Goodbye Google Wave, you’d be missed if anyone ever logged into you in the first place.

Along with the release of Safari 5.0.1, Apple introduced the Safari Extensions Gallery, a one stop shop for the best extensions available for use in Safari.

I used Safari from version 1.0 up until Safari 4 without giving much thought to any other browser that was out there. That was until Google Chrome was released for the Mac. (I’m a sucker for WebKit browsers, what can I say.)

While the speed difference between Safari and Chrome was small, Safari edged out Chrome in the beginning only to be passed by later releases of Chrome, the big advantage to Chrome was the ability to add extensions and use them right in the browser.

These extensions became part of my browsing routine and pushed Safari to the role of my backup browser in the event I needed two different browsers open at once.

The latest release of Safari changes this, however.

While I have grown quite attached to Chrome, this blog post is even being wrote up in Chrome, Safari 5.0.1 really gives Chrome a run for its money as now the feature set of Safari and Chrome becomes similar.

Comic Sans Be Gone, a new extension featured in Apple's Extensions Gallery.

In fact, an extension that I could never find in the Chrome gallery was a nifty little thing called “Comic Sans Be Gone”.

Comic Sans Be Gone takes any website that uses Comic Sans and replaces it with the lovely font known as Helvetica and, really, what more could anyone want than that?

One more update that Safari got with 5.0.1 was a fix for an issue with the Auto-Fill feature that was allowing hackers to grab name and city information from users. The oddity with this bug was that the only information accessible was information that started with a letter and not a number, however, this bug has been fixed so Auto-Fill away.

So if you haven’t already, update to Safari 5.0.1 and then head over to extensions.apple.com and take a look around then come back here and post your favorite extensions in the comments.

This image is from TiPb and is not intended to be represented as my own work. If you are from TiPb and you would like the image removed, please contact me and I will remove it asap.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on Monday made the process of jailbreaking, as well as unlocking, your cell phone a legal practice.

It seems like there is some confusion regarding this decision and I feel that I should shine some light onto the matter and why it is a completely meaningless decision.

While jailbreaking has been technically illegal in the United States, no one has ever been prosecuted for jailbreaking their phones or for providing software to allow others to jailbreak their phones.

So even while jailbreaking was illegal, it was never once challenged legally.

The highlighted phone in the middle of this ruling is Apple’s iPhone.

There is good reason for this as the iPhone is the most popular phone on the market right now and jailbreakers have been hacking away at iPhone software since the first iPhone was released in 2007.

However, this ruling does not just involve jailbreaking iPhones, it involves the jailbreaking of any phone on the market.

Another key point of today’s ruling was making the process of unlocking your phone to be used on any network a legal practice as well.

So what do these ruling really mean for the end users?

Nothing.

Simply because jailbreaking and unlocking are now legal does not mean there will be a flurry of hackers firing up their jailbreaking tools and releasing application after application to allow users to unlock their phones.

In addition, today’s ruling does not make it illegal for phone manufacturers to simply release a software update that breaks and jailbreak software that is available for download.

This means that, just as always, a simple bug fix released for you phone will probably unjailbreak your phone and all the end user can do is either not upgrade or upgrade and then wait for the jailbreakers to come out with a new jailbreaking tool.

Also, jailbreaking your phone still voids your phone’s warranty, so don’t jailbreak your phone and expect the manufacturer to fix any problems it may have.

Let it be known that I am in favor of today’s ruling making jailbreaking legal.

I have had my iPhone jailbroken several times for various reasons including the ability to download jailbreak-only apps, customize different aspects of my phone and simply to just play around and explorer the file structure of the iPhone.

I commend the efforts of the jailbreak teams out there, most notably the iPhone Dev Team, as they bust their asses to provide easy to use jailbreak software for end users.

So while this ruling will technically not do much at all, it is a positive step for end users who are interested in jailbreaking their phones.

So what sets Buzz apart from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook?

First of all, Buzz is incorporated directly into every users Gmail account.

That gives Buzz an instant user base of around 150 million people right from the start.

Similar to Twitter, Buzz asks users to share what they are thinking, so the short bursts of thought found in Twitter updates are found in Buzz updates as well.

Like Facebook, Buzz allows you to link a picture, video or web link directly to your buzz for other users to view instantly.

There are a wealth of features that really set Buzz apart though.

For starters, a user can switch from publicly chatting in a conversation thread to privately chatting via Google Talk in Gmail.

In another privacy matter, Buzz allows users to set up lists of their friends and choose which buzzes are broadcasted to certain users, creating the ability to block certain users from seeing the current buzz.

A user can also choose to make the buzz totally public, link it to their Google Profile and allow any user, friend or not, to join in on the conversation.

Google has also set up Buzz as a potential one-stop-shop for social media, as users have the ability to have multiple social streams sent to their Buzz stream.

Users can choose to have their Twitter updates, Flickr photo stream, YouTube video stream and Google Reader Feed, just to name a few, sent to their Buzz account as well.

This constant stream of information keeps Buzz just as up-to-date as Twitter or Facebook even if you have a noticeably smaller friend base on Buzz.

Buzz is not without its critics though.

Many users have voiced their displeasure with the friend adding system.

When you first launch Buzz, it searches through your Gmail contacts to search for potential Buzzers.

Some users have complained that through this system they have become friends on Buzz with undesirable people, such as ex-relationships.

Another criticism of Buzz is that it is too little too late.

It has been said that, while Buzz is a good idea, it has no features that set it apart from other social sites.

To these criticisms I say this, Buzz is something we have need all along but never realized it.

While it will by no means replace or even challenge Facebook or Twitter, Buzz is a great spot to get a quick overview of what is going on in your friend’s worlds.

As far as privacy is concerned, it is quite simple for even the most basic users to change their privacy settings, delete unwanted friends and customize Buzz to their liking.

Another great feature of Buzz is the fact that not a lot of people have fully embraced it yet.

This means that while Twitter and Facebook have become saturated with users that you would rather have not follow you but you have little choice, there is a real world outside of social media after all, Buzz is a prime ground to express opinions you do not want certain users to see.

The feature inside Buzz that allows certain buzzes to be sent only to certain users help further this even more.

So while I, and everyone, will keep tweeting and facebooking, Buzz is the new kid in town and has a lot of potential to grow.

This article originally appeared in the February 12th issue of The Slippery Rock Rocket. It can be found at TheOnlineRocket.com.

This Sunday, the alternate rock band Angels and Airwaves will release its third album entitled “LOVE.”

Although releasing an album is not out of the norm, “LOVE” stands out because it’s being released for free on the Web site Modlife.

Modlife, which launched in November 2007, is a Web site founded by blink-182 and Angels and Airwaves member Tom DeLonge.

It’s intended to provide artists-not only including musicians but designers, filmmakers, athletes and charitable causes as well-an outlet to broadcast their work.

In addition, Modlife allows artists to interact with their fans in many different ways.

For starters, artists have the ability to broadcast live either during a concert or when they’re doing anything else and the artists feel like having a conversation with their fans.

In fact, it’s more than a conversation-Modlife is an online community of sorts.

Artists who frequently log in to chat or broadcast to their fans often find that fans will be conversing on their own before they ever enter.

So while Modlife simply seems like a site for browsing musical content, it’s really more of a social networking site than one would think, complete with unique user pages for anyone who wants to participate.

But it’s not the same type of social network like Facebook or Twitter.

Artists have several different options on how to utilize Modlife, from running their pages no different than they would any other Web page to releasing all of their content on it and bypassing other means altogether.

In addition to Angels and Airwaves, other bands currently taking part in the site are Forever the Sickest Kids, The White Stripes and The Raconteurs.

The While Stripes and The Raconteurs are unique examples, as both bands-in addition to The Dead Weather-are bands Jack White is involved with.

White’s record label, Third Man Records, has its own site with Modlife, The Vault.

The Vault runs exactly the same as all the other pages, except that the three bands are connected within and a user can subscribe to all three pages with one account.

Although not every artist on Modlife uses the site to its fullest potential, DeLonge and Angels and Airwaves have, going as far as dropping their record labels and running the bands exclusively from Modlife.

Angels and Airwaves has taken the stand that music should be free, and in turn, users should pay for other exclusive content such as concerts and video.

Although I didn’t have a subscription to its page, I signed up for one in time to be able to download its new album.

Certain music-related companies have also started using Modlife to their advantage.

Alt Press Magazine uses its page to provide free content to its readers, such as chats with musicians featured in its print magazine.

It also sponsors a tour, the Alt Press tour, and uses its page to provide backstage access.

Macbeth Footwear is another company utilizing Modlife, dropping its own page in favor of only using the Modlife page.

Macbeth uses its page to run free contests for users as well as advertising new products.

Although Modlife is currently only open to select artists and companies, soon the opportunity will arise for any artist or company to use the site.

This will enable smaller designers, musicians or anyone else to join and take advantage of advertising revenues or subscription fees.

Although Modlife is currently a site that only interests certain users, soon it will be open to a great array of creative content.

This article originally appeared in the February 19th issue of The Slippery Rock Rocket. It can be found at TheOnlineRocket.com.

In this day and age, web browsers are an essential aspect of a majority of peoples day.

There are many different web browsers to choose from and sometimes it can be difficult deciding on which browser to use.

Currently there are four main browsers to choose from, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

Each browser has features unique to it and knowing which features are important to you is a key factor in choosing your web browser.

The most used browser is currently Internet Explorer (IE), which comes preinstalled on every computer that runs Windows.

While Internet Explorer is the most used, it is widely considered one of the poorer browsers in terms of performance.

Only in its most recent rendition, version 8, has IE started to support the most recent open web standards and is limited in its extensions.

The second most used web browser is Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox has become popular in the past few years partly due to IE’s poor performance and due to the fact that Firefox supports all of the latest open web standards.

In addition, Firefox supports a great number of third-party extensions and themes which lets user customize their web browsing experience.

Firefox users are able to change the look and feel of the browser with ease through Firefox’s own website.

The third party add-ons allow users to add different kinds of applications for things such as Twitter, picture viewing and other web development tools.

The next two browsers in terms of usage, Google Chrome and Apple Safari, are somewhat similar.

They are both run on the WebKit layout engine, which was originally developed by Apple for use in Safari.

Chrome, the number three browser in terms of usage, is a relatively new browser, developed by Google partially to break their dependance on other browsers, such as IE.

Thanks to WebKit, as well as other programming, Chrome is the second fastest browser currently available and has become increasingly popular in the past year.

For Windows users, Chrome is possibly the best web browser available, and even though it is still in beta for Mac, Chrome is one of the best choices for Mac users as well.

Chrome supports custom extensions, similar to Firefox, as well as custom themes, created by both Google and individual artists.

Chrome has fully embraced all of the open web standards and will only continue to get better and better.

Fourth in terms of usage but first in terms of speed is Safari.

Safari is the default browser for new Apple computers, and Mobile Safari is the only browser available for iPhones and iPod Touches.

Running on WebKit as well, Safari just barely beats Chrome in browser speed tests.

Safari is one of the best browsers available for Mac users, while it is a small step below Chrome on Windows.

I have personally used all four of these browsers and have found Safari and Chrome to be the best browsers to use depending on your operating system.

Firefox is, in my opinion, right behind those two on both Mac and PC.

Coming in last in every test for my tastes is Internet Explorer.

IE has poor loading times for web pages and has been built on a poor layout engine and slowed internet progress in the days before Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

Sadly, there are still some programs that will only run in IE, so it will be around for years to come.

While there are other web browsers to choose from aside from these four, Safari, Chrome and Firefox are the top three in my book, in that order, and will provide any user with a great browsing experience.

The big news in Pittsburgh today was the report that Penguins co-owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle had met with Pirates majority owner Robert Nutting and made an offer to buy the Pirates.

Sadly, Nutting seemingly turned down the offer immediately, stating once more the Pirates are not for sale.

A purchase like this, if it were to be reconsidered, would have major implications on the city of Pittsburgh.

For starters, it could be assumed that Lemieux and Burkle would put at least a little more money towards the Pirates payroll to try and make them contenders again. Now Major League Baseball is set up a little different than the National Hockey League in terms of payrolls, so it wouldn’t be guaranteed Lemieux and Burkle would make a difference, but it couldn’t be any worse than Nutting, who seems content with fielding a mediocre team and yielding a profit every year.

What made me really take notice of this offer was technology related, unsurprisingly.

If Lemieux and Burkle owned both the Penguins and the Pirates, they would own the two teams that have local television contracts in the city. Remember, the Steelers are apart of the National Football League’s very lucrative broadcasting contracts. So, with the Penguins and the Pirates being owned by the same people, that would open the door for Lemieux and Burkle to make additional revenue by creating their own television station.

Currently, FSN Pittsburgh pays for the rights to broadcast Penguins and Pirates games to the Pittsburgh area. However, the advertising revenue is split between the Penguins, Pirates and FSN.

A Lemieux/Burkle owned network would see all the of ad revenue going straight to the owners, which would produce a lot more than what they are currently receiving now from FSN.

This model only works to its fullest potential if the same group owns both teams.

A joint venture could be set up, where Lemieux, Burkle and Nutting all had a share in the new network, but then its uncertain whether or not there would be a substantial enough gain in revenue to warrant kicking FSN to the curb in place of a new network.

In my opinion, something needs to be done.

Ever since Liberty Sports Group took over FSN Pittsburgh, I feel that the quality has gone down. While the event coverage has been on par of where it was before, it is still much better than Versus or NBC, the national broadcast parters of the NHL, the other programing has taken a fall.

Liberty Sports Group has taken the route of airing syndicated national programming that airs on all FSN networks across the country, as opposed to airing local programming that features the local teams, as was the case before.

In addition, I think we can all agree that the new FSN graphics package is bad enough to call for FSN to be thrown out of town without even considering anything else.

So let’s all sit back and hope Bob Nutting reconsiders the offer from Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle, it would benefit the city greatly.

This article originally appeared in the January 29th issue of The Slippery Rock Rocket. It can be found at TheOnlineRocket.com.

In 1984, they revolutionized the computer industry with the Macintosh.

In 2001, they introduced the iPod and coupled with iTunes, changed the music industry forever.

In January 2007, the iPhone was introduced and revolutionized the cell phone industry.

On Wednesday, Apple used their magic once again and introduced their newest product, the iPad.

The iPad is the latest in the line of Apple products that change the way people use technology in their everyday life.

For starters, it is incredibly easy to use and anyone who has used an iPhone or an iPod Touch already knows how to use it as the user interface is similar.

In addition, the iPad will be able to use any of the 140,000 apps that are currently in the iPhone App Store right out of the box.

Not only does the iPad run every single app from the beginning, Apple is providing their developers with the programming to make their apps run even better on the iPad, instead of running a sized up version of the original iPhone app.

Apple’s native apps, such as the Calendar and iTunes, have been beefed as well to provide a unique desktop-like experience on the iPad.

iTunes on the iPad will run almost exactly like iTunes on your Mac or PC. In addition, the Calendar app has an even better feel than the desktop version.

Aside from the applications, the iPad has several other impressive features, including its display.

It features a 9.7 inch LED display that utilizes in-plane switching (IPS) technology which allows the screen to be viewed at an angle as high at 178 degrees.

The display features the same multitouch technology found in the iPhone and iPod Touch, so all the same gestures that have been found in the iPhone are in use on the iPad.

Another feature that really stood out to me was the battery life of the iPad. An owner of the iPad will be able to use the device for up to 10 hours without having to charge.

That 10 hours includes watching videos, surfing the web, listening to music and everything else iPad does.

All of these features will run using an Apple produced processor that packs 1 gigahertz of speed into a small form, which is much faster than the 600 megahertz found in the iPhone 3GS.

For storage space, there are three options to choose from, 16 gigabites (GB), 32 GB or 64 GB. As a baseline, the iPhone 3GS has the option of 16 GB or 32 GB and the iPod Touch offers a 64 GB model.

All of this hardware is packed into a beautifully small 9.5 inch by 7.4 inch body that is half an inch thick and weighs in at a mere 1.5 pounds.

So the question you might be asking, why should I buy the iPad?

Well, it’s quite simple really, the iPad is going to make everything you do easier than it was.

Just like the iPhone changed the way people used their phones, the iPad will change the way people do day to day tasks.

There will be some people that will say the iPad is nothing more than an oversized iPod Touch. That statement could not be further from the truth.

The iPad isn’t designed to be a replacement for a MacBook, not just yet anyway.

What it is designed to do, however, is find its niche with users who have a use for something small and portable that can travel anywhere, take up less space than a MacBook but do much more than an iPhone or iPod.

Picture this, you have a presentation to do, you can download the Keynote App from the App Store and put your presentation together, plug your iPad into a projector and do your presentation at 720p resolution using the video out feature.

While too big to be used solely as an iPod, the 9.7 inch display makes for an excellent video player when on the go.

iPad will also find its way into the gaming world very quickly.

While the iPhone and iPod are already established as a gaming devices, iPad will take it one step further.

With the built in accelerometer that is even more sensitive than the iPhone’s, iPad will have even better controls than we are used to.

The 802.11n Wi-Fi connection will provide a fast connection for online multiplayer gaming that will rival that of any home computer.

A great feature of the iPhone that will surely translate over to the iPad is the constant updating its software will receive.

A user using a first generation iPhone from 2007 can enjoy all but a few of the new features introduced since then that come included with the iPhone 3GS.

The iPad is sure to enjoy the same benefits.

One feature that iPad users will enjoy over users of other devices are all the add-ons that are made possible through the 30 pin dock connector that is also found on all iPod and iPhone models.

Using the dock connector, the iPad will be able to add accessories such as a dock with a hardware keyboard attached to complement the on-screen software keyboard.

The dock connector is also utilized with adapters that allow it to become a standard USB port or an SD card reader for digital cameras.

As with any product, there will be people that say, “But the iPad doesn’t have this feature or that feature.”

To those people I say this, the iPad is a killer device that is jam packed with great features and 140,000 apps in the App Store with more being added everyday.

It is going to kill other devices such as the Amazon Kindle E-Reader and the Sony Reader Digital Book.

iPad will make netbooks as useful as a HD-DVD player and will push other companies to try and catch up.

Is the iPad a replacement for a MacBook? Not yet, but it is the starting point for something truly revolutionary.

In a few years when we have all ditched our laptops for tablet computers of one type or another, we can look back at the original iPad as the starting point for all of this.

Apple’s Media Event was today, and the verdict is in, iPad.

Over here on the @zacktanner blog, we predicted a few things right, the name, for starters.

We also predicted that iPad would run a modified iPhone OS, but it looks like it will be called just that, not iPad OS. That could still change, however.

In addition, we predicted that AT&T would provide wireless service for the iPad. However, we also predicted that T-Mobile at the very least would also provide service, but at this time, it’s AT&T only, even though all iPads will come unlocked.

We were close with the processor speed, as we predicted that it would get the same 1.86 GHz processor found in the MacBook Air, when in reality, iPad has a 1 GHz Apple processor.

It does have a 802.11n Wi-Fi chip, which we also predicted here, although that wasn’t a very tough call.

We’ll have a full review of the iPad tomorrow and the column will run in the Slippery Rock Rocket as well.