Another category of Google I/O Sessions that interest me will be the Social Web, below are the available sessions:

• The open & social web (recommended by tysoh)
• What’s the hubbub about Google Buzz APIs?
• Bridging the islands: Building fluid social experiences across websites (recommended by tysoh)
• Make your application real-time with PubSubHubbub
• iGoogle developer portal and tools
• Surf the stream: Google Buzz, location, and social gaming
• Best practices for implementing OpenSocial in the Enterprise
• Where is the social web going next? (recommended by tysoh)

Out of all these, I would probably want to go for the ‘open & social web’, ‘Bridging the islands: Building fluid social experiences across websites’ and ‘Where is the social web going next’.

We all know that currently social web dominate the Internet, and many people already using some of them, therefore we’ll like to see what will be the next trend like, for example what can be expected after combining the open and social web together as one. Will it enhance the users experience or benefit other people. Therefore, I like to hear more form the experts.

For more details on the Social Web Sessions, please visit here.

OK, I know that the iPad is currently out of stock, and it will be shipped Worldwide in late May. But I just can’t wait anymore, really hope that the stocks will be in when I reached San Francisco in one month’s time.

So here is the plan, once we have touched down at the airport, we’ll drive straight to the nearest Apple Store @ One Stockton Street San Francisco, CA 94108. It’s located on the corner of Ellis Street and Stockton Street near Union Square.

Below is the direction path from San Francisco Airport to Apple Store @ Stockton Street (highlighted in blue):

View Larger Map

When it comes to conference sessions, Tech Talks are usually the sessions that will interest me wanting to hear more. This is because they are known as the general topics and can apply to a wider scope of projects, therefore it will in a way benefit more in the long run.

Following are the Tech Talks sessions that Google will be touching on this year, out of so many, I will probably go for “Beyond design: Creating positive user experience” and “SEO site advice from the experts”.

• How Maps API v3 came to be: Tips, tricks, and lessons learned in developing a cross platform desktop and mobile API
• Opening up Closure Library
• Go programming
• Beyond design: Creating positive user experiences (recommended by tysoh)
• Optimize every bit of your site serving and web pages with Page Speed
• How to lose friends and alienate people: The joys of engineering leadership
• Technology, innovation, computer science, & more: VC panel
• SEO site advice from the experts (recommended by tysoh)
• Ignite Google I/O

You know, I can never have enough of studying user experience, which I believe will be one of the crucial factors for any present or future projects. According to the session description, you will learn how to create a positive user experience by being fast, open, engaged, surprising, polite, and, well… being yourself. Chock full of examples from the web and beyond, the talk is also a practical introduction for developers who are passionate about user experience but may not have a background in design.

As for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), its a very specialized area, and there is no really any standard definitions for it (depending which Search Engines you are optimizing for), different people will have different opinions, and since Google is the current dominant Search Engine in the market, whether you like it or not, I think its a must listen to their experts. Furthermore, if you a web developer, SEO is a must know.

Attendees can get concrete search engine optimization (SEO) feedback on their own sites. Experts will also answer real-life questions that affect developers when it comes to optimizing their websites for search.

For more details on the Tech Talks Sessions, please visit here.

Apple’s new iPad tablet hit stores over the weekend, selling 300,000 devices on its first day. Jeffrey Brown gets two points of view about the iPad and what it could mean for the future of mobile computing devices.

I was informed that Google is giving away free Nexus One phone (powered by Android), to all paid attendees who will be visiting Google I/O this year. You will need to reply to their form by April 18, 2010, before they will start shipping to your location. The form link can be found in their latest email with this subject title – “A surprise from the Google I/O Team: Receive your Android device”. Requests made after this date or attendees whose countries are not in the list will have to wait until the event to receive their phones during I/O check-in in San Francisco.

I think it’s a great and generous move of Google to get developers to involve in Android development, another way of seeing this is that, they are trying to hard sell or rather “hard give” their products to developers, I mean its free anyway, I shall play around with it first, before commenting it further.

More information about the Google I/O gift can be found here. And if you’re attending Google I/O 2010 in San Francisco, I’ll see you there!

I have been reading on San Francisco for the past few weeks, by browsing the web, hoping to get an overview about what I can see there in May. The average mean temperature in May will be around 14 degree C. So, it should be quite a good temperature for sight-seeing, I’m not sure, hopefully its not too hot or cold. Below are some of the projected places for sight-seeing that we would be visiting:

One of the must-see destinations is of course the Golden Gate Bridge, which was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed during the year 1937, and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Hopefully to get some nice photos from there too.

Another place not to be missed will be its Chinatown, which is the largest Chinatown outside of Asia as well as the oldest Chinatown in North America. Since its establishment in the 1840s, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants to the United Stated and North America. Over there, can find many shops, restaurants and etc. Will probably buy some Amercian Ginseng (Chinese: Hua Qi Sheng), which is cheap when compared to Singapore, and the quality is much better.

Union Square, one of the city’s three original parks, is now a public space atop a multi-level underground parking garage and ringed with elegant shops and hotels. The Powell cable car line begins about a block away, and the theatre district is nearby.

Yosemite National Park, one of the first wilderness parks in the United States, is best known for its waterfalls, but within its nearly 1,200 square miles, you can find deep valleys, grand meadows, ancient giant sequoias, a vast wilderness area, and much more.

Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the United States. At a surface elevation of 6,225 ft (1,897 m), it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevada. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is 1,645 feet (501 metres) making it America’s second-deepest (the deepest is Crater Lake in Oregon, being 300 ft deeper, at 1,945 feet (594 m) deep).

Napa Valley is considered one of the top wine regions in the United States, with a history dating back to the nineteenth century. The combination of Mediterranean climate, geography and geology of the valley are conducive to growing quality wine grapes.

The San Mateo is a bridge crossing California’s San Francisco Bay in the United States, linking the San Francisco Peninsula with the East Bay. It is the longest bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area and the 25th longest in the world by length. The bridge is owned by the state of California, and is maintained by Caltrans, the state highway agency.

Facts Reference: Wikipedia