this is pretty cool too
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071128-google-maps-for-mobile-gains-location-seeking-abilities-sans-gps.html

11/28/2007 1:43:17 PM

I use the app, it's great ... just wish it could use my phone's GPS ... grr.

11/28/2007 2:01:22 PM

group chat (.... and more emoticons) in Gmail Chat now
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/group-chat-and-rich-emoticons-now.html

11/28/2007 11:02:57 PM

new feature in gmail: slow as balls.

maybe its just today, but i have to use standard chat to view any messages. i get the "oh man, we are taking forever, don't you want to use this stripped down version with no ajax instead?" message.

at least i haven't noticed so many firefox crashes since upgrading to 2.0.0.10.

11/29/2007 1:30:05 PM

cool, i've got a recommended feeds section in my google reader now

http://www.google.com/support/reader/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80468

11/29/2007 8:43:42 PM

omg AND drag-and-drop
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2007/11/attack-of-interns-recommendations-and.html

11/29/2007 10:24:54 PM

your gmail labels should have arrows next to them now to assign colors to them
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/next-evolution-of-labels.html

maybe instead of introducing these dinky features one at a time and letting the blogosphere talk each of them up, Google should release a real Gmail 2.0, complete with a large new feature set, an interface refresh, a better QA'd backend that doesn't sometimes feel like a regression, and take the damned Beta sign off of it.

12/3/2007 10:20:25 PM

don't act like google beta code isn't better than any other alternatives else running "production" code

12/3/2007 10:21:22 PM

im kind of sick of clicking the Download link on an attachment and loading a blank page. then i have to reload gmail all over again...weak

12/3/2007 10:25:23 PM

^^ yeah, that's fine. I thing Gmail is great, although their latest 2.0 update has shown some pretty major regressions (my editor regularly completely locks up now, while the stats bar goes crazy, presumably while sending every keystroke I make back to the server)
But Google maintaining the label "beta" on a nearly 4-year old product that millions of people rely on daily is doing a disservice to themselves, to their customers, and to other software companies by making a mockery of what a software beta is supposed to be.

12/3/2007 10:30:08 PM

goddammit. fucking "Gmail 2.0". it's back to the "Older Version" for me - https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1
I can't get through typing a simple email without the entire browser locking up for an entire minute every 30 seconds while gmail works in the background. fuck that. you would think that would be, oh i don't know, one of the first things they would test

12/3/2007 10:48:31 PM

^ same here. it doesnt lock up, but it does randomly decide to access the server when i am starting to type in addresses, and often it will interpret them as shortcut keys so i go back to the inbox or something

12/3/2007 11:36:29 PM

AIM in Gmail chat:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/gmail-chat-aim-crazy-delicious.html

12/4/2007 8:25:30 PM

nice. that's good, but now they need to work on the Buddy List management. Make the box manually resizable, create groups, collapse groups, etc.

12/4/2007 10:02:14 PM

anyone tried out the new google pages on your iphone?
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/12/05/google_launches_new_web_app_for_iphone_users.html

12/5/2007 2:36:31 PM

yeah, I need a tabbed window if I'm going to use aim in gmail.

12/5/2007 8:48:44 PM

yeah, that too.
The biggest overall interface change they need, i think, is gmail tabs, so you can have various messages and views open in different tabs.
and if they keep adding features (like AIM) to Gmail Chat, they need to make the actual chat window better, like adding tabs


also today they announced a "Google Mac Developer Playground". It includes various utilities and tools that would mostly be useful, at the moment, to Mac Developers
http://code.google.com/mac/

12/5/2007 11:00:25 PM

wow, this is nice.
You can use the Google Charts API now to dynamically build charts and graphs, all based on URL parameters
http://code.google.com/apis/chart/

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-12-06-n80.html
http://ajaxian.com/archives/use-the-google-chart-api-to-create-charts-for-your-web-applications

12/6/2007 4:38:31 PM

^ That is neat as hell. I think I may want to play around with that after finals are over.

12/6/2007 5:01:23 PM

I've been playing with this at work this morning. Pretty neat indeed!

12/7/2007 11:31:27 AM

[Edited on December 7, 2007 at 12:35 PM. Reason : .]

12/7/2007 12:31:01 PM

How do you add an AIM account to GMAIL chat, it's not showing up where their instructions say it should.

It appears in one of my gmail accounts but not another of them.

Ah some asshat at work changed the setting of our gmail account to UK english...

[Edited on December 8, 2007 at 8:55 AM. Reason : ]

12/8/2007 8:38:33 AM

^ You also have to be using IE7 or Firefox 2

They got no love for us Opera folks

12/8/2007 10:35:56 AM

google seems to be totally FUBAR right now. like all their services not just gmail or something.

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 12:58 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2007 12:58:30 PM

yes, I'm very sad I need gmail and gtalk and igoogle and gcaladar!!!

12/12/2007 12:59:52 PM

I was waiting for a thread like this to pop up. I'm glad it's not just me who can't access google. You know, at first I thought my computer was hijacked. I never imagined that google would actually be down. This is bad, I really need to check my email for some exam information...

12/12/2007 1:03:24 PM

man youtube is down as well. this is a big deal. i wonder if it was some malicious attack.

12/12/2007 1:07:22 PM

i havent had any problems with google or any of its services today

12/12/2007 1:12:25 PM

I used both a Windows box /w IE and a Sun box with Firefox and I couldn't access google. Both of these machines were located in DH Hill.

Other people aren't having problems though. This might be an isolated DH Hill or NC State issue.

12/12/2007 1:14:31 PM

youtube is working now. still can't get google up

yeah i'm on campus, so maybe that's the issue. but it's strange because it only seemed that google services were affected. and the youtube problem was a server side problem, not a local problem.

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 1:15 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2007 1:14:55 PM

I moved from DH Hill to Daniels hall, and google works now.

Maybe it came back up in the last few minutes..

..or perhaps there's some weird issue with DH Hill

12/12/2007 1:25:37 PM

all you have to do is a tracert to see where the hang up is, chances are it's not Google, but rather somewhere between you and Google

12/12/2007 1:37:09 PM

well it's too late now.

12/12/2007 1:44:38 PM

here at wake forest, i also had a google outage at the same time this afternoon. finally spontaneously resolved.

12/12/2007 4:38:15 PM

new product/service coming, Google Knol....
looks kind of like Google's answer to Wikipedia, but it's supposed to be more expert-driven, i guess.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-12-14-n19.html

12/14/2007 11:18:23 AM

^ really cool

12/14/2007 11:21:00 AM

i got this message when i logged in to greader tonight. neato

12/14/2007 11:22:30 PM

Quote :

"new product/service coming, Google Knol.... looks kind of like Google's answer to Wikipedia, but it's supposed to be more expert-driven, i guess. "

From what I've read, multiple persons each write their own article on the same topic (authorship), but the users will select & rate the articles and whichever has the highest rating will get the most views. Google will try to incentize people by offering authors $$$ in adsense revenue.

So, it is not expert driven, it's entrepenurialism (euphemism for greed).

Wikipedia is a very good model, popular articles are restored within minutes of vandalism, there are now watchdog groups that monitors the changes (tracking IPs) that has caught the CIA, US military, politicians' staffers vandalizing and making changes to wikis.

Wikipedia functions as an organic model (stating the obvious here), it's really amazing how successful it has become without the need to incentize people with money. Chris Anderson (editor in chief, Wired Magazine) covers wikipedia in a chapter of his book, "The Long Tail".

12/18/2007 12:33:54 PM

not really google's accomplishment here, but i'm looking forward to using this
http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2007/12/rtm-gmail-task-management-goodness.html

12/19/2007 4:48:26 PM

This is actually more of a Microsoft Innovation post, but my "perpetual microsoft innovation thread" is dead, and it is kind of related to google.

For anyone that uses MS Virtual Earth (like Google Earth, but it runs as an IE plugin, unfortunately), they just released 3-D "birds eye" imaging of 60 more cities, including:

Quote :

"NORTH CAROLINA Cary (83.93 sq. mi.) Charlotte (75.73 sq. mi.) Durham (113 sq. mi.) Fayetteville (99.34 sq. mi.) Greensboro (91.59 sq. mi.) Raleigh (104 sq. mi.)"

http://virtualearth.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!2BBC66E99FDCDB98!10205.entry


The guy who runs the "Google Earth Blog" lives in Cary, and he has created a fly-through video of Raleigh using MS Virtual Earth. Very, very cool
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/12/why_google_and_microsoft_should_mer.html
here's the (blurry, low-res) video alone
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8442743548349236203

12/21/2007 2:39:51 PM

http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=82691&hl=en

Finally! We can manually activate the new Google/Gmail features for our Domains!

Supposedly it takes a few days to change over.

12/21/2007 6:30:23 PM

anyone realize that Google's trig features are incorrect?
or am i using them incorrectly?

tan(45) = 1

when i google it they tell me it's 1.61977519

wtf, i didn't type degrees, nm, it's supposed to be tan(45 degrees)

Quote :

"trigonometric functions (numbers are assumed to be radians)"

[Edited on January 3, 2008 at 7:14 PM. Reason : disregard]

1/3/2008 7:11:40 PM

Update: my domain changed over about a week after my post ... it is tres nice to have the new features enabled.

Edit reply to Prospero \/ : I don't get the slowness thing, it seems faster to me *shrug* ... and I'm a fan of the new features.

[Edited on January 3, 2008 at 10:03 PM. Reason : .]

1/3/2008 9:57:08 PM

yeah, mine updated 2 days ago or so, it's nice, a little bit cleaner, but seems a tad bit slower

[Edited on January 3, 2008 at 9:58 PM. Reason : .]

1/3/2008 9:58:17 PM

You can now embed your Google Presentations.

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-features-for-2008.html

1/5/2008 11:04:07 PM

Google and the weather channel hooked up so now if you click "my maps" and click on the weather channel feature you can see current temps, radar, and the forecast.

1/15/2008 12:09:14 AM

Speaking of which, if you have any input to give Google about their Maps site, they are currently conducting a quick survey that accepts written opinions. If you have a few minutes, it's always nice to give feedback. The survey link is next to the Print link on top of the map.

1/15/2008 12:21:27 AM

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&type=themes

There are now more themes and you can create your own.

1/16/2008 9:17:57 AM

looks like Google Health is on the way
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-01-23-n83.html
https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=health

now all that's left is bitching and whining about privacy, although like all of Google's other services, it will be purely opt-in.
This does have the potential to be game-changing. I think the goals of this are to be able to help in diagnostics and connect you with doctors and stuff. For example, you will insert all your symptoms if you're sick and Google will mine all kinds of medical information to help you get answers

1/23/2008 7:51:07 PM

^ that's interesting stuff for patients, but i doubt many people will trust their medical information with Google. This crosses the line in terms of what kind of information people are willing to put on the internet, no matter how secure it may seem.

Still, they might be on to something if they develop this as a private/closed circuit/offline model, geared towards healthcare workers, for structuring patient records and writeups...I'd love to see the electronic health records industry Googlized (right now it's a bunch of overrated, overpaid shitty hackjobs like Misys and the like, completely dominating any true innovation that might be coming out of the small developers).

1/23/2008 8:11:01 PM