Google I/O Keynotes: Day 1
Posted By Jeff On May 20, 2010 @ 2:27 pm
The following is my review/keypoints from the Google Keynotes this year. Some will be brief, some more expanded.
Day 1
Most of Day 1 spoke about HTML 5, the advancements that it is making and what can be done with it. A few nice examples were given, such as a clickable TV.
The WEBM Project was also discussed in length. The idea behind this is to have an open source video codec (vp8) so that there is an industry standard, instead of every program and OS having it’s own. Goodle invested $125 million towards this project.
Sports illustrated is on board with this open source idea, and had a presentation of how it plans to use HTML 5 and vp8 to make their magazines interactive online. However, the CEO made a comment about it being good, so can be marketed. In my opinion, I feel he fails to see th real reason behind Open source, and just that it’s new, shiny and trendy. However, he’s also old so he’s not important.
Google Wave has also granduated out of Beta, is available to everybody without a beta invite and was also made available to Google Apps, which is fantastic.
The biggest annoucement of the day was the Google Chrome Web App Store. In short: It’s the Android Market Place for Web Apps. This is sensational, and I saw it coming once they introduced the product store for Google Apps a few months ago.
This is big news, because it will allow the millions upon millions of web apps and web games to be categorized, marketed and more importantly found by users. I can’t wait until this is released to the public, or I can find my way into a beta.
With all the web apps being developed, VM Ware discussed management tools for them. Unfortunately, yours truely had to run for work during the later half of this presentation.
Tools: Live Labs Thumbtack
Posted By Jeff On January 18, 2009 @ 9:01 am
At first glance, Thumbtack from Live Labs looks pretty interesting (see video below). It’s supposed to allow you to highlight anything on webpage, copy it, then paste it on to (essentially) a virtual cork board. My first thought was “great, I can use it when collecting ideas for content to blog about”. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.
Video: Thumbtack Introduction
For the purpose of testing Thumbtack, I decided to imagine that I was planning a trip to Egypt. I was able to copy text, so I could get an idea of the terrain and what the weather would be like. I even managed to copy the lyrics to the national anthem. However, when I tried copying a picture, I was told “Your browser security settings have prevented us from accessing your clipboard. Please paste again by pressing ctrl + V”. Doing this doesn’t allow pictures.
Examining further into the issue, it seems you can only copy and paste text using Mozilla Firefox. To be able to do anything further, you must be using Internet Explorer (IE). On top of not being able to copy images, when pasting it doesn’t even keep format of the text copied, it is often unformatted.
Thumbtack does allow users to publish and share their notes, however given that it is simply just text at this time if fails to be of service. If I have to email them a link to text, I might as well just email them the text itself.
A simple conclusion is that this service falls short of being useful, just as Google Notebook was before support was canceled. If you truly need to keep notes, just use notepad.
Ticked Tuesday: Google
Posted By Jeff On October 18, 2008 @ 9:05 pm
Yes, it’s on Saturday, it’s a special edition
I’m mad. Like Really mad here, enough to actually put down Google itself and write a Ticked Tuesday on a Saturday, so here’s the story.
I use Google Apps with my domains, it manages all of my emails and makes calendars and docs a little be easier to share when needed. Normally, this is awesome. I also access my personal email through my phone (though apps, so still gives a general gMail interface when access on my computer). Up until yesterday, this worked great I just used pop to get everything. Then they added in a little damn button of fucking-retarded.
Now, under Settings->Forwarding and POP/IMAP You have to select to enable POP. Well would have been nice if they let us know. When my email just stops working on my phone, I assume by default it’s my service provider. So they say they’re fine, Google should always be fine. An hour later I find the button.
Short form: Let us know when you decide to be asshats or at least leave the stuff that we previously had enabled as they are when you decide to give us the option to turn it off, thanks.
Google Chrome
Posted By Jeff On September 8, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Finally, Google has released a browser!
“I don’t really need a new browser, I finally have Firefox working exactly as I want it to” is going to be the first thought through many people’s minds and to be truthfully honest, I’m still kind of feeling that way now even after checking out the eye pleasing Google Chrome.
At first glance, this thing is simply beautiful, because it’s so beautifully simple. They removed all the clutter and open space that seems to built up around the buttons, helping to trim it down a lot. They also removed the menu bar up top and replaced it with two buttons beside the address/unified bar. This gives it a clean look.
The address bar has been turned into the unified bar, which allows you to type an address, search and also has suggestions. This is useful I guess, But Firefox does nearly the same thing and to be honest I don’t think I’ll be searching for “www.irbl” anytime soon. This feature may need a bit of tweaking.
One of the nicest parts about Chrome is that they’ve decided to move the tabs to the top of the page (giving it the old ‘At Ease’ look from former macs), which makes it really spiffy looking. You’re able to drag these around to order them how you like, and even drag them out to be open in a new window (though other than being able to see the web page tiny and being dragged around looking like a cool folder, I can’t see myself finding a real use for this). This simple rearranging of the tabs is the largest improvement I can see for most users.
Also, it seems they decided to rework how the browser functions. In simple terms: Each tab is it’s own program, within a program. For example: In the past when 1 tab would screw up and crash in Firefox or IE, the whole browser would crash. What Google claims is that if 1 tabs screws up in Chrome, you’ll be able to continue using the other tabs without any interruption and just the problematic tab will be closed. They’ve developed a task manager (nearly identical to that in Windows) for each tab. In fact, while writing this I got the oppertunity to put this to the test.
While having 3 tabs open (WordPress Dashboard, Google Chrome Website and Worlds in Motion) I started to play one of the demonstration videos on the Chrome site. To my surprise, it decided to lag and freeze while trying to load the video. Thinking this would be of no concern, I tabbed back to the Dashboard and was shocked to see Chrome stop responding to my clicks completely. On top of having no control over my browser at all anymore (something Google claims does not happen) I was unable to pull up the Chrome Task Manager and was left here waiting to see if I was going to have to retype this review. After about 2 minutes of huffing, a pop-up showed saying the Google Chrome tab wasn’t responding, but went away again before I was able to select an option to fix the issue and Chrome fixed itself. Isn’t this what all other browsers do already? Chances are high that if a program stops working, eventually it usually rights itself. I was severely let down by the hopes Chrome would be different and actually hold true to the ‘invincible’ idea it let off.
A nice thing, though minor to say the least, is Chrome’s default start page when you open new tabs. It creates a map of your most visited sites based on your history, recent bookmarks, closed tabs and a search box. It’s simple and I know it’s been done a million times but it might be interesting to keep around for awhile before setting back to about:blank again.
A final note, I do notice that for spell check it seems to underline the words, but right clicking doesn’t give me a dictionary of suggested spellings. I hope this gets fixed because my spelling is atrocious. What will really show the power (or just hype) of chrome will be when developers start releasing plug-ins and perhaps themes. With the lead that Firefox seems to have however on Chrome in this aspect, it’s going to take some time for Google to actually become a competitor to those who already have things set up to meet standards. That said, I think I’ll give this a run at work (simple is good when you’re doing very little but doing it a lot) but until I see some progress made I’m going to stick with my loyal FF.
Lively? Hardly
Posted By Jeff On July 31, 2008 @ 1:01 am
The other day I decided to play around with Google’s new play thing Lively and to be brutally honest with you it was pathetic. This comes as something really hard for me to say, given that I have a history of spouting off at every given opportunity about how great google is but Lively is just unbearably bad. For those of you just tuning into what Lively is (or at least trying to be) it’s an avatar based 3D char room. Players are able to ‘create’ and ‘customize’ a series of avatars and chat it locations similar to the real world. This is hardly a new concept, but given that it’s being backed by one of the most powerful forces online the expectations are fairly high.
The first issue I have with this is the idea of it being browser based but requiring a download. A download for something is normal these days, especially for virtual worlds/mmo; Having browser based with no download are no problem either. However, the expected quality between the two is going to variry a great deal. If a user is required to download something it should be far superior to something thrown together in java or shockwave. This isn’t the case with Lively which is a big turn off right from the get-go.
Next lets tackle what is actually in this world and how it’s presented. Avatar selection is very slim. Users have a choice of 8 (I belive it was 8, might be 6 come to think of it) different avatars ranging from an anime styled character to a cat-like creature. For each of these avatars, you have a very limited appearal options which includes mostly different colored hats. There is no skin tone option or clothing layering option which most other servies offer making uniqueness very limited among users.
As we’ve now established that all the avatars will be clones, lets look at the functionality of this system. In an attempt to ‘create a room’ (which is common in many virtual world to allow to to customize a small space to call their own) I managed to put down a sofa, a table and a poster to float in the middle of my room. This would have been easier if the viewing screen is not cropped so small and the camera angles were not horrid.
The last things I can possibly think of at this time which irritate me about this poorly designed website is that the characters use chat bubbles (which is ok if the whole environment is viewable, but quite obviously is not due to poor camera controls) but does not support a chat log feature that I was aware of in my time using it. On top of the chat bubbles, character movement is completely done with the mouse by clicking and dragging a character to place which becomes very annoying, very fast when the cameras try to keep up with the mouse location.
Final summation: If Google wants to make it completely browser based they have to remove the inital download and install of the modules and make control a bit easier. They did a fantastic job with Google Docs and not having to require any downloads so there is no reason why they can’t do it with this. If they choose to go with the download route make it a true virtual world download and up the quality of the product (which honesly has to be done even if you stick with a browser based envirtonment) to allow more customizable feature and some sort of user interface would be a huge help. Until then, I’d stick with Second Life.
Link Vomit
Posted By Jeff On October 26, 2007 @ 5:46 am
I’ve been gathering a fair amount of bookmarks in my ‘things to blog about’ folder that have never gotten done. To clear that, I’m just going to vomit out a bunch of them at you now. Have fun 
- Sit and fart in the duck while watching this translated children’s song (nsfw).
- Canadian advertising at its best
- Nebraska senator sues God
- Japanese women are transformers!
- Blackle, the energy saving Google, Huzzah!
- IMO.im, web-based client that allows you to log on to multiple IM services without the need to download them. Whoo hoo!
Cya Monday folks.
Google Greatness: iGoogle
Posted By Jeff On September 28, 2007 @ 11:52 am
We’ve come to the end of the Google Greatness week and we’ve covered a variety of webapps and tips. First we had Google Reader, our trusty and reliable RSS feed reader. We met all of your email needs next with Gmail, followed by the oh-so-colorful Google Calendar, then Google Docs and lastly (but not least) Google Maps. But wouldn’t it be great if you had a central hub for all of this? Well your prayers have been answered, we’re going to look at iGoogle
This is a hub, simple as that. There is no need to jump around for everything, it’s all there on one page (Bing bang boom), You can add ‘stuff’ aka gadgets that you want displayed such as a preview of your gmail inbox, active doc files, your recent rss feeds in your reader, the top videos on youtube, picture of the day, news articles and even the weather! You can add more by clicking on the ‘Add stuff’ in the right of the screen. You can even add a new tab (left) so it’s like running a complete secondary igoogle window (great for those of us that are too organized)You can also add a ‘theme’ to the site, though it’s very limited. You can use some of the tweaks (see helpful links) to make it a little better.
We haven’t covered all of Google’s Greatness this past week, just the tip of the iceburg. Here are some honorable mentions that almost reached Greatness:
- GOOG-411: A free 411 (information) service from Google. A good alternative for those who still pay for this info.
- Google Talk: Google’s instant messenger service. A good product, but still behind in users compared to others.
- Google Earth: It’s the earth. All of it. Google has mapped it out and is now even starting on outer space, a great look.
- Google pack: A Wonderful package of free software. The products are not google-made, but are free and recommended. A great collection.
Some Helpful Links
15 iGoogle Gadgets for Web Word Productivity
Pimp your iGoogle with Greasemonkey @ Mashable
Google Greatness: Smart Searching
Posted By Jeff On September 27, 2007 @ 11:09 am
Do you ever find yourself searching something and coming back with a ton of ads and having to go through page after page of search results for what you want? Chances are you can use some searching tips.
Google Blog Search: This is always a great place to start. Blogs aren’t always personal journals, simply weblogs. Most sites today are done using a ‘blog’ format, the smarter ones make sure to get indexed in the blog search. There is much more content and nowhere near as many ads in this engine. This works especially well for finding answers to questions.
Google News: A search engine for news. There are many news sources listed, all compiled into one big blob or site for your viewing pleasure. The only issue I have with this is smaller sites aren’t often considered as reliable sources (which can be a good thing) so are not listed. Blog Search (listed above) can help if you’re not finding what you want.
Google Book Search: An interesting feature, this actually lets you see what’s inside of books. A great tool for checking to make sure you get quotes right. However, there is a limitation of what books are in this engine because of copyright laws.
Google Images: I have to point this out because I talk to SO many people who don’t know about this. On the main page simply click the image text (as seen in the image) or go to images.google.com. From here you can search and it will come up with images, so you don’t have to search through a ton of sites looking for an image you want, Google has already found them for you.
Google Directory: Categories, categories who has the categories? This is a FANTASTIC way to search, cut down your results by category. This tool makes it easy to cut down exactly what you want, where you want it. The only problem is that this doesn’t seem to be as up-to-date as the normal engine (they need to get on updating that better).
Here’s some more neat tricks you can do with Google, simply type:
- “Define: word” and you’ll get a definition of that word from multiple sources.
- A mathematical equation (such as 4+4) and Google will solve it and show you the answer.
- A conversion statement (such as 100 lbs to KG or $10 USD to CDN) and it will figure it out for you.
- “Weather City-name” This will give you a 4 day forecast (available in most places, you may need to include province/state)
- “Spell: word” to have Google check to make sure the word is real.
More Helpful Links
Google search features @ Google
7 Clever Tricks Worth Knowing @ Marc and Angel
Google Greatness: Maps
Posted By Jeff On September 26, 2007 @ 6:24 pm
Everybody uses maps, but not everybody uses them right. Google Maps is a great alternative. No need to get a GPS or yell at your wife “I know where we are”, just use Google.
GMaps are great for 3 reasons: 1) You can have fun finding your house using the ‘satellite’ mode. 2) Directions tells you where to turn and where, as well as how long each step in getting there to take. 3) You can plan your bank heist without having to leave the house!
First lets play with Searching: Just type in an address. This can be In the form of ‘City, Province/state’ or you can go all out and find a specific place such as ‘Road City, Province Postal Code’ (in most places just putting in the postal/zip code works, but the more information you put in the faster it will find the place you’re looking for. Remember, it’s searching the whole world). You can also try writing names of stores and the city/province that you’re looking for and Google is usually pretty good at finding them. Once you find your location try clicking the ‘Hybrid’ button located on the top right of the map. This will display both roads and a satellite image of the map, you can then zoom in (using a scroll wheel or the bar on the left of the map) and try to pick out your location’s image. The search feature is more a free-for-all locating tool, directions work better, so lets head over there.
To get into directions mode, click Get Directions just under the search bar. You’ll now have 2 search bars, a start and end address. Once you find the two places you’ll see a green marker (start) and red marker (end) connected by a blue line, this is your path. You’ll also notice some new information show up on the left of your screen: How to get there. There will be total KM, time it takes to get there, any additional info (toll bridge, crossing a nation’s border, etc) and what signs to look for. It’s as if somebody was sitting beside you reading a map (correctly!).
By default, Google will choose the quickest route from A-B, but you can change this. There is an option you can check on the left that says ‘avoid highways’ which is good for you older people who drive slow. You can also change your route yourself by dragging the line. For example, if you were going from Kingston, Ontario to Saint John, New Brunswick you’d be going through Montreal, Quebec by default. If you don’t want to do that, drag the path down to where you do want to go through, in this case Vermont. You can drag down parts of your path to avoid the French province completely (it just adds about 5 hours to the trip, minor details). This can be useful also if you want to stop by somewhere that isn’t on your route, you can go there without getting completely lost.
Another nice feature is ‘My Maps‘. This allows users to add content to Google Maps, just as businesses, real estate for sale and many other features that could prove helpful for people in the area. Google is available on many mobile phones now as well. It has implemented a street view feature in some cities where you can ‘virtually walk’ along the street, but it’s still very limited. You can also embed or send your maps to friends by clicking on the buttons located on the right just above your map.
More Helpful Links:
Google Maps Nighttime: A nice view of lights from space at night.
Cool Google Maps
Google Greatness: Google Docs
Posted By Jeff On September 24, 2007 @ 11:00 am
Google Docs, Google’s version of the popular Microsoft Office suite. The difference between the two though is that with Google there is no need for a download, you can access it from anywhere with a net connection and it’s free. So you can spend the $400 on something that’s actually worth the cost.
Spreadsheet (Excel)
This is a very basic spreadsheet application but from my experience seems to cover all of the basics. Some features include color coating cells, quick sorting (A-Z, Z-A), charts (Columns, line, pie, bar, scatter), and easy use of popular formulas (Sum, count, average, etc). The formulas are very intuitive of what you want done which makes use a lot easier.
Document (Word)
It’s a word processing application. It has all the normal word formatting, comments (footnotes), tables, separators, bookmark (anchor) features. As well, it also includes the ability to quickly upload and insert pictures and links.
Presentation (PowerPoint)
Google’s newest addition to the Doc package, and in my opinion the most impressive (or at least showing the most potential). This application proves its simplicity in form of slide creation and organization, as well as modification. It does this most prominently by supplying a variety of default themes and formatting for the user. As with the other Document applications, the ability to upload and add text/pictures is found here as well. Aside from the creation features there is also a ‘Presentation mode’. This allows you to invite users to view the presentation with you as you move through it. Beside the slides there is a chat window allowing easy conversation. This would be good tool for virtual meetings (voice would make it amazing!)
What makes all of these stand out though is the way they’re used by groups. Each document can be shared or published to allow groups to view or even edit them. This saves from having a million copies on everybody’s computers, as there is only one copy that is being edited. Google also makes backups of the file, so you can easily review the changes that were made and who made them. The only issue I find with this is that both collaborators as well as viewers must have a registered Google account. This is understandable for those editing, but the service would prove better if this was not needed for visitors.
All office files you already have are easily uploaded to Google without any need to play around with converting or reformatting, so the switch is completely painless. Give it a go, you’ll be glad you did or your money back (Oh wait, it’s free!)
More Helpful Links:
Fun explanation video by Google
5 things you probably didn’t know you could do in Google Docs & Spreadsheets by Josh Lowensohn
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