I’m currently using the Nexus S 4G and running the latest version of Gingerbread but from what I’ve read the issue may not be limited to Gingerread or the Nexus S.

The first work around I found was completely rebooting your phone sometimes, but not always, seemed to work and allow you to replace the icons that disappeared or move them to wherever you had originally planned on moving them.

The second work around is a bit quicker and actually seems to work better. Before you start moving or rearranging your apps kill all your running apps using the Advanced Task Killer app. The native app killing app may work just as well but ATK is the app I use.

I’ve found that killing everything with ATK and then rearranging seems to make everything go pretty smooth. No more disappearing apps so far. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

The problem with someone like MG making this kind of sweeping statement is that it means next to nothing for 95%, if not more, of everyone else out there grinding it out with email and whatever other form of communication or platform you can use to connect with people.

MG’s auto-response for anyone who does email is, “No longer responding to email, if you need me, you’ll figure out a way.”

Hmm, is there some way to qualify a “first-world problem” even more? “Elite first-world problem” maybe?

He goes on to say:

Yes, this sounds sort of like a pampered problem and perhaps somewhat of a dick move — I should be so lucky to get so many emails, right? But the reality remains: email is an absolute nightmare in my life. I dread it in the morning, I dread it more right before I go to bed. It’s always in the back of my mind, lingering.

You know who doesn’t have this problem? Construction workers, janitors, Wal-Mart employees. Maybe he should try that out one of those jobs for a month or so and see how that works out as part of his little “experiment”.

Maybe it’s the current economic client and knowing how many people are trying desperately to eek out a living by any means necessary but it really rubs me the wrong way to see someone who’s job it is to write about tech and to be in touch with people on a certain level to just up and declare something like this. It reeks of pretentiousness.

You know, I plan on cutting back on yachting for a month. It’s such a bore to constantly have to put the sails up and down.

Come on MG, you have dream job man, suck it up and deal with the email until the tech company you work for decides that they’re phasing out emails for the entire company you just come off as sounding pompous and out of touch.

Google already made the announcement earlier this week that they’ll be phasing out the Picasa and Blogger brands to more fully integrate them with Google+, it’s no real surprised that they’re doing the same thing for Gmail.

They may not be phasing out the Gmail brand but they did just release two new themes that are supposed to let you “preview” the eventual new look of Gmail. Both themes are basically the same although one is “dense”. The only difference is between this and the non-dense version is the other version seems to be double-spaced, a little too much space for my liking. I prefer the dense theme.

If you have right-side chat enabled in your Gmail Labs you’ll want to disable that otherwise it tends to make the theme look pretty funky.

I’ve been hoping for a new Gmail UI for quite a while and although I do think this is a step in the right direction I think there’s a lot more room for tightening up the UI and making it a just a little cleaner.

To activate the themes simply go into your Gmail settings > Themes and choose one of the two new options listed, they should be the last two themes listed.

What do you guys think of the new look?

Unfortunately I’m not as good as writing from heart to hand as other excellent bloggers out there. Some people seem to be able to easily transition fairly seamlessly from random subjects to some fairly personal aspects of their lives. I definitely wish I was better able to make that transition myself.

I’ve thought about starting a random anonymous blog to write about this stuff but far too often in the past I’ve completely diluted my writing and whatever following I’ve had built up by going off on tangents thinking that the grass would be greener.

Part of the issue is that with all that’s going on I feel a bit as if I’ve lost who I am. I sort of feel like nothing really inspires me or makes me feel like writing. The kind of tech and brand strategy stuff I usually write about just feels forced and trite with everything else that’s going on in my life. I feel like a phony of sorts writing about that stuff when my mind is in a million different places, none of which have to do with that right now.

I know that eventually these things will all begin to work themselves out and thoughts, ideals and passions will return but until then I have to decide whether or not my personal life is of any interest to anyone or, more importantly, whether or not it would be beneficial for me to just be as honest as possible and share what’s going. Often just being able to write about it and even occasionally get some feedback and or support can be extremely cathartic.

Paige Haley and Kimberly Rogers of Pepperell, who grew up in military families, created 50 Back American Lager for that very purpose. Every time they sell a beer, they give half of the profits to groups supporting veterans, active service members, and their families.

So far the women say they have donated more than $6,000 in cash to charity, plus $4,000 in beer donations for fund-raising events. The nonprofits they’ve supported include the USO, Homes for Our Troops, the Ahern Family Charitable Foundation, the Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund, and America’s VetDogs.

“Our priority is really just to say ‘thank you’ to our troops and veterans for their service,” Rogers said. “When my father passed away, I wanted to do something in his honor to say ‘thank you’ for his life of service. [Haley] said, ‘Well, why don’t we do a beer.’ I said, ‘Hmm, beer, all right. That’s an interesting thought.’”

Currently it’s only available in parts of Massachusetts and certain grocery store chains in North Carolina but you can check out their site at 50Back.com and buy a shirt or check out one of the links they have up to donate to organizations dedicated to helping veterans as well.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Friday pledged relief from the often-criticized rules, saying it was “official policy” in a doomsday situation. “Alternate-side parking will take on a whole different meaning, actually,” he joked in an interview with John Gambling on WOR-AM (710).

If the end of the world comes to pass, Mr. Bloomberg said, city residents will also not have to worry about returning library books or paying parking tickets. He noted that it would help ease the city’s traffic problems.

This is New York City though, I’m not sure how much the rapture will actually effect traffic congestion.

Sharp-eyed doctoral candidate Christopher Soghoian caught Dropbox in a bit of, uh, let’s call it an inconsistency. Here’s what he found.

Even though Dropbox claimed, “All files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES-256) and are inaccessible without your account password.” Yet the company also claimed, “If we detect that a file you’re trying to upload has already been uploaded to Dropbox, we don’t make you upload it again. Similarly, if you make a change to a file that’s already on Dropbox, you’ll only have to upload the pieces of the file that changed.”

How, Soghoian asked, could Dropbox find duplicate files — or detect which pieces of a file had changed — if it didn’t have access to the contents of those files? Dropbox responded with a resounding thud.

I’ve been praising Dropbox to anyone who would listen since I signed up over a year ago. I even paid for a year’s worth of service not too long ago. I’m starting to have some serious second thoughts about that.

So Dropbox’s site went from claiming:

Dropbox employees aren’t able to access user files, and when troubleshooting an account, they only have access to file metadata (filenames, file sizes, etc. not the file contents)… All files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES-256) and are inaccessible without your account password.

to:

Dropbox employees are prohibited from viewing the content of files you store in your Dropbox account, and are only permitted to view file metadata… we have a small number of employees who must be able to access user data for the reasons stated in our privacy policy (e.g., when legally required to do so). But that’s the rare exception, not the rule. We have strict policy and technical access controls that prohibit employee access except in these rare circumstances… All files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES-256)

Wait, it gets worse. They also added a new “provision” to their TOS:

We may disclose to parties outside Dropbox files stored in your Dropbox and information about you that we collect when we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with a law, regulation or compulsory legal request; (b) protect the safety of any person from death or serious bodily injury; (c) prevent fraud or abuse of Dropbox or its users; or (d) to protect Dropbox’s property rights.

It went from they absolutely can’t access users files to ok, they can to well we’d only access them if the nice authorities at the DHS or the County Sheriff’s office asked them to.

Honestly my mind is still reeling about this. The guy who discovered this monumental gaffe filed a 16-page complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

As a result, Soghoian has filed a 16-page complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which asks the FTC to have Dropbox admit that it can get at Dropbox data, making your data vulnerable to an attack on Dropbox’s servers; require Dropbox to email its 25 million customers to warn them of the potential problem and suggest that customers encrypt their data independently; force Dropbox to refund money to people who paid for “Pro” service, if they felt they were deceived; and enjoin Dropbox from making future deceptive statements.

So, anyone have any SECURE alternatives to Dropbox?

Either earlier today or late yesterday Serena posted a new profile pic of a gorgeous, well done and elegant photo taken of her as her profile pic on Twitter. (It’s that ->>>> picture if you haven’t guessed.)

If I took a picture that hot not only would it be my Twitter profile pic, it would be on the cover of my family Christmas card. Still, you’re always going to have the stalker/rapist apologists out there who are going to blame the victim for what they see.

Last week, a man was arrested for allegedly stalking Williams, having gotten too close to her, too many times all over the country, even in her dressing room at Home Shopping Network. On Thursday, she has posted a new avatar on her Twitter page, a photo suggestive of us peeping at her through a lace curtain while she unknowingly looks the other way in white bra and panties.

It’s a sexy photo, she looks great and it’s not pornographic. To be honest, I would actually find it to be somewhat artistic if it weren’t for the serious business of stalking women. What was her message anyway? What was she trying to say? Just this: Look at me.

Instead, what she was saying was this: Peep at me, but don’t stalk me.

Seriously? A woman can’t share completely non-explicit, beautiful photos of herself online without inviting stalkers? Thanks for proving all the asshole-isms about guys right.

The fact that Serena has gone through what she has gone through, through no fault of her own, and still has the courage to be herself and not hide and be afraid is a testament of courage and should be applauded not questioned in a half-ass attempt to create derision of some sort.

Whether through the idiotic comments of the above mentioned blogger or not, Serena has since changed her profile pic back to an equally sexy pic of her in a tennis outfit. I blame the blogger. Regardless, to even pose this question as something that might have any substance whatsoever is irresponsible and egregious.

At best I would say it was a lapse in judgement on the writer’s behalf, at worst I would say it was an obvious cry for attention. Either way, it’s disturbing and uncalled for and I would hope you would consider publishing an apology to Ms. Williams.