From Mac360’s review of Evernote, and from my It Pays To Read The Fine Print department comes the Terms of Service agreement at Evernote:

Accordingly, by using the Service and posting Content, you grant Evernote a license to display, perform and distribute your Content, and to modify and reproduce such Content to enable Evernote to operate and promote the Service. (You also agree that Evernote has the right to elect not to accept, post, store, display, publish or transmit any Content in our sole discretion.) You agree that these licenses are royalty free, irrevocable and worldwide, and include a right for Evernote to make such Content available to others with whom Evernote has contractual relationships related to the provision of the Evernote Service, solely for the purpose of providing such services, and to otherwise permit access to your Content to third parties if Evernote determines such access is necessary to comply with its legal obligations.

In other words, when you store your data online using Evernote, they can re-distribute or modify your data any which way and wherever they choose. They wouldn’t, would they?

Without question this is Microsoft’s response to Google’s new and free operating system, Google Chrome OS, which will work with Google’s free online applications. Jon Fortt in Fortune:

One could argue that the software giant is late to the giveaway party. Folks like Google, Zoho and SlideShare have been offering free equivalents to Word, Excel and PowerPoint for years. Unlike those companies however, Microsoft already has a very profitable $20 billion business selling desktop versions of its Office software. It would have been foolish to jump into the free game too hastily and watch that business evaporate overnight.

What will such a bold move do to online applications that are basically free? After all, Microsoft makes lots of money selling Office, and zero money giving it a way.

And that’s what makes this bold move to the web either the dumbest thing the company has ever done, or a stroke of genius. If Microsoft gets this wrong, it will cannibalize its own Office business, and investors will howl. If it gets this right, Microsoft will crush Google, Zoho, and all the other rivals who are nibbling away at Office’s dominance.

This seems to be a response driven by fear more than opportunity.

The latest exoplanet to be discovered is the M-dwarf GJ 1214b, a watery planet barely 40 light years from earth. John Trimmer in Ars:

...the latest discovery comes from some pretty mundane hardware—a collection of 40cm telescopes—and has some very compelling properties: a super earth that’s likely to harbor liquid water, and orbits a star that’s close enough to allow current observatories to image its atmosphere.

How special is earth compared to a super earth far away?

Depending on how reflective the planet’s atmosphere is, it may have temperatures as high as 555K, or as low as 393K—the latter figure is only 20°C above the boiling point of water. That’s far and away the coolest planet we’ve yet spotted, and a far cry from the only other super earth we know much about, which is hot enough that its atmosphere probably contains vaporized titanium oxides.

Ouch.

Out of the hundreds of millions of iPods sold, how many have burst into flames? Apple has worked feverishly to suppress an 800-page document by the Consumer Product Safety Commission which detailed iPod overheating problems. ArsTechnica:

It’s unclear whether the 800 pages are comprehensive or whether there’s more. Regardless, they apparently reveal enough to anger a number of victims even more, because the incidents continued long after they reported their own issues to Apple.

In other words, more questions than answers: is it thousands of instances, or excessive detail on a handful of highly public problems? Were the problems sufficient in number for Apple to issue a recall, or for the government to demand a recall? Probably not.

The best thing I’ve ever read regarding Search Engine Optimization, from Derek Powazek. First, the con men:

And so, like the goat sacrificers and snake oil salesmen before them, a new breed of con man was born, the Search Engine Optimizer. These scammers claim that they can dance the magic dance that will please the Google Gods and make eyeballs rain down upon you.

Do. Not. Trust. Them.

The One True Way to build web site traffic?

Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.

That’s it. Make something you believe in. Make it beautiful, confident, and real. Sweat every detail. If it’s not getting traffic, maybe it wasn’t good enough. Try again.

Then tell people about it. Start with your friends. Send them a personal note – not an automated blast from a spam cannon. Post it to your Twitter feed, email list, personal blog. (Don’t have those things? Start them.) Tell people who give a [censored] – not strangers. Tell them why it matters to you. Find the places where your community congregates online and participate. Connect with them like a person, not a corporation. Engage. Be real.

Then do it again. And again. You’ll build a reputation for doing good work, meaning what you say, and building trust.

It’ll take time. A lot of time. But it works. And it’s the only thing that does.

Amen.

AP report on Obama’s China trip and the resulting power shift.

The Chinese government is America’s biggest foreign creditor, with $800 billion of federal U.S. debt that gives it extraordinary power in the relationship.

How does it give China extraordinary power? There’s an old saying that is worth repeating: “If you owe the bank $100,000, you have a problem. If you owe the bank $1,000,000, the bank has a problem.”

Who has the problem?

Apple launched a couple of new television commercials to coincide with the launch of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. One commercial features Elaine Benes’ old boyfriend on Seinfeld, David Puddy, as the top of the line Windows PC. With an attitude. Video on Fortune:

“Top of the Line” and “Surprise” zero in on one of the main differences between the two systems — the profusion of viruses and other malware in Windows and the lack thereof in Mac OS X.

The former features Patrick Warburton, Puddy, on Seinfeld. Both feature Justin Long as the Mac, and John Hodgman as the PC.

Both Apple spots feature women vaguely reminiscent of Lauren, the red-headed star of Microsoft’s Laptop Hunters advertising campaign. That series was notable for never actually mentioning Windows, focusing instead on low-prices and hardware specs.

After the shopper decides on a Mac instead of a PC, the faux-suave Warburton hands her his business card and says, “When you’re ready to compromise, you call me.”

Priceless.