I am too old to remember him as a player and even as a manager the first time round, but I know he was successful. A quick glance at the history books will tell you that.

For me, it's not the wrong decision, but possibly not the right time. For those in favour of him going, it had to be now rather than later so that anyone new has as much time as possible to get in before the start of the 2012-13 season. Maybe though, he should have stepped aside when there was someone more suitable available.

Replacements

Right now, there are only 3 names that come to mind of managers that are available and I believe could do the job.

Rafa Benitez

He may be Spanish, but he's Liverpool through and through. Some of the current players may not be happy to see him back, but he got results for all but one season. He got Djimi Traore a Champions League winners medal and took the club to another final despite all the turmoil going on behind the scenes. 2009-10 may be a season worth forgetting, but not as much as 2010-11.

The biggest problem with Benitez is the media's insistence on talking about how much money he spent. He really didn't spend that much considering the amount of profit he was able to make by selling players he had either bought or inherited.

Imagine Rafa being able to go out and buy a Torres, rather than having to trade a Cisse for a Crouch and then a Crouch and a Bellamy for a Torres. It was tough and the one bad season Rafa had, we lost Xabi Alonso who was far more influential in the middle of the park than Gerrard in our one amazing season. Gerrard bagged goal after goal, but it was Alonso pulling the strings.

The most notable difference in Rafa's absence is our vulnerability at set pieces. So much stick was given over zonal marking, but the man marking we've been doing since may have reduced the number of efforts at our goal, but when chances appear you could argue they are easier to put away.

Andre Villas-Boas

OK, so not a success at Chelsea. Or was he? For me, the unbelievable amount of player power at Chelsea was the cause of his demise. It was clear he was building for the future. With UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules coming into effect very soon, every club needs to be ready for the future now, not in a few seasons time. That's one thing that Camolli and Dalglish have actually done well in my eyes. Signing Henderson assures we have an accomplished midfielder for the future and they continued Rafa's good, and undid Roy Hodgson's bad, work by blooding young players. Jonjo Shelvey, Martin Kelly, Raheem Sterling and to some extent, Jay Spearing have all been given the chance to show what they're made off.

Of the managers listed here, only Rafa and AVB would do the same. In fact, they probably fit in best with FSG's philosophy and as far as the owners are concerned, that alone could buy them the time they need to put together a side that would challenge consistently for a top 4 place, if not a top 2.

One other factor that sits in AVB's favour is that after his stint at Chelsea, which has unfairly been labelled as a failure, he has a real point to prove.

Fabio Capello

His list of managerial honours is pretty impressive, according to Wikipedia:

1. AC Milan
2. AC Milan
   • Serie A 1991/2
   • Serie A 1992/3
   • Serie A 1993/4
   • Champions League 1991/2
   • Serie A 1995/6
3. Real Madrid
   • La Liga 1996/7
4. AC Milan
5. Roma
   • Serie A 2000/1
6. Juventus
   • Serie A 2004/5
   • Serie A 2005/6
   • Both revoked
   • Real Madrid
     • La Liga 2006/7
   • England

An amazing record I'm sure you'll agree but one thing you can't really put down as an achievement is Capello's win percentage as England manager: 66.7%. That means that two thirds of all matches played were won.

His ability to take a Roma side that had lived in the shadow of Lazio for too long to the top of Italian football with a domestic double was not an easy feat. He had money to spend, especially on the influential Batistuta, but with Andy Carroll, Luis Suarez (modern day Batigol & Totti?) he may have the foundations of a team that could really punch above their weight or at least cement their place as a top 4, or 6, team for the first time in too long.

What about Roberto Martinez

Too early? Paul Tomkins has talked about his suitability to working with a Director of Football role, and that could work well. That's FSG's preferred approach and as fans we'd have to back their first real choice but AVB's success elsewhere is more appealing to me than the promise of Martinez.

I wouldn't be against him at all, I just think there are three better candidates all of which are available.

Summary

If King Kenny had stayed at Anfield, I would have been happy IF Liverpool found and kept the form they found throughout 2011. But now that he's gone, I would be happy to see any of these candidates step into his shoes.

AVB is a bit of a weird one, with Roma apparently having made moves bring him in as a replacement for Luis Enrique. If Roma want him, I think he could be a wonderful signing for them and would be happy for them, as my second team. The problem is that he would be someone who instantly fitted what FSG's phillosphy is and that makes him more valuable to Liverpool... although it's easy to forget that FSG now have a hand in Roma too!

Liverpool have a good group of players, they just need direction. A team with Reina, Agger, Johnson, Gerrard, Lucas, Henderson, Downing, Bellamy, Carroll and Suarez can't be a bad side. In fact, that's 10 first team players who can't all make it into the starting 11 week in week out.

Before I settled on the SportBand, I was very intrigued by the FuelBand. Currently speculation suggest it might cost £150, in comparison to the £30 I spent on a SportBand, that's a lot of cash!

I was actually willing to wait for the FuelBand and even stump up the cash for it, thinking it would give me an incentive to climb more stairs and get a little more active during the day. The big draw back really came down to cycling. If it measures you're activity during the day, but can't measure how much effort you've put into cycling, what's the point?

That was the single biggest problem I had with the device. Fine, on a cycling machine, there's practicly no movement, but out on the road, people cycle for hours at a time but if it counted for nothing, how accurate would it actually be.

So I opted to go the for the SportBand. Now,

I'm not unhappy with that decision. There's so much more I can do with the £120 I saved, but I really thought about the issue and found it odd that Nike featured a segway as a way to get 'fuel' in their first promo video for the FuelBand and both a BMX-er and a skateboarder in subsequent introduction video.

Accelerometer

Rather than relying on a sensor in your shoe, limiting you to activities, it now relies on an accelerator, which most people have commented will only measure movement covered by your arm. That would make cycling pretty damn hard to track when your arms are near enough stationary for long periods of time. Nike have actually thought about that and included a 3D accelerometer. This, like the iPhone and iPod touch (and iPad?) lets you measure what I assume are g-forces, not just on a X or Y plane, but on the X, Y AND Z planes. BMW have already taken advantage of this with their iOS app and finally another manufacturer is putting the technology to good use!

To be fair, Nike have actually commented on the FuelBand's suitability for cycling and while they're conservative, I'd guess it does a better job at measuring the force you generate while cycling than they'd lead you to believe.

For Suarez to have been 'probably' guilty just isn't good enough for me. That's the equivelent of saying that Evra 'probably' didn't lie about it. Calling Evra a credible witness, and it seems that he and Suarez were the only witnesses to an event that happened between the two of them, is also ridiculous. And to just let it slide that Evra also used derogatory words towards Suarez (which he says he never heard) and threatening to assault him is also baffling.

I really wish things had been handled better by my beloved LFC and their statement announcing that they would not be challenging the decision was welcome if only to draw a line under the matter. As Oliver Kay suggested yesterday on Twitter, a more dignified, Liverpool, approach would have helped the situation so much more.

One thing I don't undestand is how the 8 match ban was justified for Suarez, but the FA were happy to appeal against a 3 game ban for Rooney which was the result of him physically assaulting a fellow professional, while playing for England. It's a disgrace and stinks of double standards, but then what's new?

All I'm looking forward to now is seeing Suarez back in action and the > 8 game ban for the obviously guilty, John Terry.

it's revealing that in the eyes of many fans the biggest movie event of this holiday season is the seven-minute preamble to a film that won't reach theaters for another six months. 

Says it all really. Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman and Michael Cane have done an exceptional job with the caped crusador. I cannot wait until next summer and sadly, I want to go and see Mission Impossible:Ghost Protocol just so that I can watch the prologue!

Once my camera had been written off by the company taking care of repairs, I decided to start the search for a new camera and one that really caught my eye, was the Sony Bloggie 3D.

At the time, I was planning on purchasing a 3D TV and the combination of HD and 3D video recording really made the Bloggie stand out. At less than £200 as well, the camera just became more and more attractive with each passing comparison.

The camera's HD offering is OK, certainly not the best, but considering the price tag and it's other features, it's not worth complaining about either.

The 3D capability is pretty good, you don't need glasses to view the video on the device and you have the ability to adjust the effect, bringing the two frames closer together or further apart where necassary.

I've been using the camera a lot more than my Toshiba already and have uploaded a few short clips to YouTube.

Samsung, as well as HTC, Motorola and almost every other tablet manufacturer has tried to release a variety of tablet sizes to help match Apples incredible output and sales. Hoping that demand catches up with devices on offer, rather than trying to fullfill demand. A dangerous game to play in what I would class as a, admittedly large, niche market.

Habit

Unfortunately, it seems that, especially in Samsung's case, releasing a number of different sizes has become a habit of what might be seen as their core business. The humble TV.

For decades now, television manufacturers have released any number of sets with almost identical features (if not identical), just in different sizes. Walk into any electrical or department store and you now see walls of the things. Gone are the CRT offerings, but now you have plasma, LCD and LED. 22, 32, 36, 42, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 58, 59, 60 inch and beyond in terms of diagonal screen size. This is one crowded market space.

Just take a look at Samsung's current D range sets which come in 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 series configurations, each a slight step above each other, then the different types of technology powering within each series. The range is further widened with the multitude of screen sizes available. On their website, you have the choice of 148 televisions. 148. An insane number of devices to have on offer.

If this is your common approach to selling your devices, it is probably a natural step to take into new spaces. Their mobile and tablet offerings don't offer as many choices, but compared to Apple's solitary device, it looks like a lot.

Apple were not always the experts at just giving users one choice, take the iBook (5 different colour options) as an example. Or the iPod Mini (5 colour options) or iPod Nano (4th and 5th generations had 9 colour options). Admittedly, colour options are less serious than different screen resolutions, but then their iMac and MacBook ranges also give a multitude of options... the difference? Configurability. Whether that's space, screen size, RAM or the type of input devices, Apple makes their devices either personal or configurable. One thing their iPad competitiors do is give too much choice.

It's a bit of a hack, or probably better described as playing the game, but not something I would do with my personal account. Spreading news of my brand/projects is important though, so I am willing to just follow larger numbers of people. If any real followers want to really interact with those accounts, they're likely (guaranteed?) to @ the releavant account in their message.

There is another case, where you might want to follow all, or most, of the accounts that a friend follows. Whichever case you're interested in, below is a script you can run in your browser and it will click follow for every account it finds.

javascript:$('.follow-button').each(function() { $(this).click(); });

This could be adapted to work on Facebook or any other social network. Google+'s use of circles, rather than lists, makes this harder to implement, but maybe that could be turned into an extension?

To make the process even easier, just drag this link to the bookmark bar in a modern browser, then all you have to do is click on the bookmark to follow everyone you can see.

While quite a few people have commented on this, if you have a Google profile URL - mine is http://profiles.google.com/cchana - you can use that to send people directly to your Google+ profile.

Another option, and one I've adopted, is the use of your own domain to redirect users to wherever they need to go. By adding a '+' to the end of your domain - http://domain.com/+ - with the power of an apache redirect, you can take users straight to their Google+ page. I've found it far easier to find a few friends of mine who have that exact redirect in place than to go to Google+ and find them. Hopefully this is a temporary situation and Google open up vanity URLs for everyone.

If you'd like to do the same for yourself, feel free to use the code below:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
# Social Network redirects
Redirect 301 /+ http://profiles.google.com/cchana

Simply, the above just redirects you from http://domain.com/+ to my Google profile. This in turn, redirects to my Google+ profile. Not ideal, and not something new users seem to be able to do, but a good stop gap. If you don't have a friendly Google profile URL, you can always replace the URL with your Google+ profile.

I went to the extreme and replace the '+' with a '-', '*' or '^' takes you to Facebook, Flickr or Twitter respectively.

Much of the credit for this method of a friendly Google+ URL, must go to Boback Shahsafdari and Adrian Parr.

When Wave launched last year, I was excited at the prospect of finding a new way to communicate effectively with friends and colleagues, but a mix of factors made that impossible. Google stated that Wave is email, if email was invented today. A bold thing to say and it didn't pay off and Google Wave is probably Google's biggest failure. Google+ has a lot more promise, and I for one, would love to see it succeed.

One of the problems that plagued Wave was the invite process. They were far and few between, and while invites had served GMail so well, the concept is a little outdated now. If you're a company like Google, or Apple for that matter, it's probably too much to expect people to wait for an invitation to a service. Your reach is already vast and when you announce something like Wave and Google+, a lot of people want in instantly, if only to find out more about the product by actually using it.

Google+

Google launched Google+ a few days ago and to be honest, I completely lost it's launch in the +1 project, not really getting what the fuss was about. Once a few 'acquantences' started talking about Google+, I realised it was more than an extension of the +1 project.

Put simply, it can be viewed in one of two ways:

1. A social network that learns from all the mistakes of Buzz and Wave (maybe even replacing the former, if not both)
2. A real rival to Facebook

Either way, I couldn't be more excited about yet another social network. While LinkedIn serves a purpose and Twitter makes it easy to follow the information you want, Facebook has always been a bit of an odd one for me. I liked it's simplicity early on, but it's grown into a monster and I find a lot of friends rellying on it for way too much.

The difference between Google+ and Facebook is that Google+ has Google behind it. Facebook is Facebook and unless they branch out in to advertising, search, email and whatever else in a big way, it will be a site with a range of features. Google is now like an entire suite of software. A free suite, I might add.

Trust in Google?

For the most part, my email is handled by GMail, I use Picasa (and Flickr), YouTube and Google Docs. I look at website stats through Google Analytics and monetize through AdSense. I've even advertised through AdWords! I have an Android phone and there's a level of trust I have in Google to deliver me quality search results and an excellent user experience in all of it's products. This isn't always the case, but in 90% of my interactions with Google, I am a happy customer. If my interaction with Google means that they are able to serve me better ads, I don't have much of a problem with that. I've been using the internet long enough to be able to distinguish between ads and content 99.9% of the time and have enough self control not to be sucked in and buy things I don't need.

Google+ Android App

The Google+ Android app has already had one update since I downloaded it, but these incremental changes are fine by me if I'm getting features on to my device quicker. There are a few things I'd tweak in the app and the desktop version, like making the feed more relevant, rather than using as many options as possible to bring old posts to the top, but it's pretty good as is. Muting, being able to +1, comment and share are all easy and familiar and the Instant Upload feature is brilliant. Data intensive, for sure, but a great feature to have. How this effects Picasa storage remains to be seen, but maybe Google will be giving more away for free?

UI

Lastly, I'd like to talk about the small UI improvements. You've probably noticed them if you use Google at all. The new, dark, global navigation bar makes discovery of other parts of Google much easier. Switching between it's accounts is straightforward, and although it was a little crazy for a few days, it's working as expected, if not better.

The Google+ and +1 projects are tying in together nicely and I am enjoying making use of both, although going back to results to +1 something is a little counter intuitive and not something I'll be doing often. Tweeting results is more likely, but hey, Google know who I follow and improve my own search results with that information too!

I noticed yesterday, on my iPod touch, that there's a slightly different mobile UI too.

Previously you had a cluttered interface that showed Google services. Not very useful for a lot of users I felt. I certainly made use of this feature maybe 3 times in the last 3 years. Now, we have the above, a small list of links that are much harder to click on... however, if you swipe down on your device, you get the following:

Yes, I noticed this change while performing a vanity search, but it's a great application of gestures on a mobile device. The user gets more of what it is they really want but all the options are still there within easy reach.

More of the same from Google is more than welcome.

Circles

If you'd like to add me to one of your circles, or just follow me, check out my profile!