Tag: Google (Page 3 of 5)

September 1, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Google released a +1 extension for Chrome last night. Big news? I guess, but maybe not that big.

I’m surprised at a couple of things. First of all, I can’t believe it took Google this long to push this extension out. It’s nice, but nothing that Facebook can’t do for “Like”. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an official “Like” extension out in the next 24 hours. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook acts like this isn’t even happening.

*UPDATE*

Here’s Facebook’s extension, less than 24 hours after….I should do this for a living.

*END UPDATE*

What I really can’t believe is that the +1 button hasn’t made its way to the Chrome base install yet. That’s something Facebook can’t do unless they build a browser and capture market share like Google has. Extensions are great, but they still require people to install extensions, and I’m not convinced that’s something the average user is going to go out of their way to do.

Now…when is the API going to be exposed so that my blog posts can show up in Plus automatically? Twitter has it, Facebook has it.

Well Google?

A Short “How To” Link Dump

July 18, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Lot’s of “How Tos” were read around here in the last week or so, and I’ve linked to some of the best ones. I was pretty excited to get Spotify too. This one may be worth paying for!

I’m also playing around with Post Formats in WordPress, which explains the drastic change in the way the blog looks. I switched to the Twenty Eleven theme and I’m going to be building off of that. The obvious change I’d like to make is to have a “Link Dump” format and change the way that appears here. I only post about 1/10 of what I read, and if I had a better format, I think these posts could be way better. Anyway…here are the links.

Got Spotify? Here’s How To Use It – Great guide to getting started.

How to Swim Straight in Open Water – One mistake I’ve made in ocean swims is not accounting for the current enough. Even though I started out beyond the break I found myself eventually getting tumbled by surf.

Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake? – You can begin throwing rocks and insults at me in 3, 2, 1…

How to Stock a Home Bar – Another part of the 5 year plan.

Learn jQuery & JAVASCRIPT for free – Can’t wait to finish my current project and dive into this.

“Download map area” added to Labs in Google Maps for Android – Very nice. Very fast. Thanks Google!

Use It How You Want To–Another Plus of Google+

July 11, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

I’ve been noticing lots of the people I follow on Twitter have been connecting up with me on Google+ over the last few days. Some of these folks are using Google+ in the same way they use Twitter and putting out a steady stream of status updates. Of course, it’s kind of Twitter in reverse. Instead of “following” the way you do on Twitter, Google+ lets you choose who you want to “Share” with.

It seems like over-share in the beginning, but when you think about it, it’s kind of nice. Because Google+ lets you decide who you want to share with, it also lets you decide whose updates are going to make it to your main stream and which people who are sharing with you are going to get chucked into the “Incoming” bin.

Not that I don’t care about these people and what they are up to. I do. That’s why I follow them on Twitter. But I may not care so much that I need to be notified if they’ve said something new. Twitter is nice in that way. If I choose to go back and read their full stream I can. But for me, Twitter is more about what’s going on in real time, and I seldom have the urge to go back and read any stream history.

And for the Twitter folks I follow who I’m not sharing with on Google+, there’s no reason to feel rejected. The stuff those folks would care about is still flying out publicly on Twitter (and maybe even on Buzz). I promise, I’m not sharing anything on G+ that’s earth shattering or ground breaking. It’s mostly stuff I don’t like putting on Facebook. You know–stuff that people who have known me personally for years may care about.

My favorite thing about Google + so far is that I have yet to receive a notification that someone got a high score on Farmville, a flood of happy birthday wishes from people who would have no idea when my birthday was if they weren’t forced to know, or an invitation to find out what my cat’s stripper name is.

Link Dump Obsession With Ditching Facebook

July 6, 2011 / Scott / 2 Comments

How To Move Your Facebook Photos To Picasa – Get them over to Picasa/GooglePhotos/Plus. One step closer to ditching Facebook forever.

Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends – It’s ON! HT @slashdot.

Fast-food chains selling alcohol – HT @FrankStrovel. I will not rest until I can get a Cherry-Vodka-Limeade straight from the drive-up window.

RunKeeper Building ‘The Facebook Of Fitness’ – I started using RunKeeper when it became free, and at the time it was just the mobile app that drew me to it. I was using DailyMile as my “Fitness Facebook”, but was pretty frustrated at having to keep transferring from one system to the other. Looks like DailyMile may have missed the boat. I’ll know more when I’m able to work out more regularly.

The 5 Switches of Manliness: Nature – The last post in this series. Every one of them was a great and worth reading.

Google Plus Could Make Buzz a Real Product

July 5, 2011 / Scott / 1 Comment

I’ve been playing with Google Plus for a few days now, and I really like it a lot. One of my favorite features is the Buzz tab on the user profiles. This makes Buzz an almost usable product. I think Google could not only make Buzz more viable but also improve Plus a lot by making a simple change.

Plus needs a Buzz gutter.

I’m seeing lots of people making public updates to Google Plus as if they are using Twitter, and the problem with that is that it’s filling up my Stream with information that…I already get from those people on Twitter. This is a problem with Facebook as well–too much minutia showing up in the main stream. It would be nice if Google would bring Buzz up to the forefront, allowing users to enter those type posts with Buzz. They could also put a Buzz section in the sidebar for “short updates” and have that sorted by Circles just like what you see in the regular Stream.

It’s a pretty simple change, but it could breathe life into an almost dead product while also cleaning up the main Stream, solving one of the other big problems Facebook has.

What Will Make or Break Google Plus

June 29, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

I was thinking about Google Plus a little last night as I continually refreshed my screen hoping it would magically appear. I think there are a few things that can really make or break Google’s latest attempt at social.

1. Nobody has groups right yet

Twitter’s lists are great, but are basically read only. You can’t broadcast to them. This is in keeping with the way Twitter fundamentally works, so that’s cool. But as far as the people on your lists go, it is more of a mark of reputation to be on someone’s list than it is an indication of engagement from that person to you. Facebook has done a better job with Groups, but they aren’t even close to the three dimensional overlapping of sets of groups we are able to so easily process in our brains. Maybe Google is actually smart enough to tackle this abstraction.

2. Group Texting

Yeah, everybody has a group texting gadget, but Google has more reach. They bought Disco, and have seemingly re-branded it as Huddle. I hate texting, but this may make it a little better.

3. Ubiquitity (I just made up that word I think)

With Chrome, Google has the ability to offer a nice extension to make Google Plus always on. No need to visit a site or run a separate app to see what is going on…it can always be there, yet still unobtrusive. I don’t see why Facebook couldn’t do something like that with Chrome, but they don’t own the browser. Google could actually ship their extension as a part of the browser (and I bet they will), while Facebook will have to settle for being an extension. I don’t know the numbers on how many people running Chrome don’t ever install extensions, but I’m betting that number will rise as Chrome gets closer to the meaty part of the user adoption curve.

4. Android

Google already has a big market share for mobile, and they’ll be able to tightly integrate all the features of Plus into Android. iOS users are stuck with an HTML 5 webapp for now. Again, I don’t know what this has done for Gmail, and it was already a hit before, but this may be a huge factor. Bonus points if they offer up an online locker with plenty of space the way they did with Gmail at the beginning. That would be a big feature for storing photos and video.

Just some thoughts. I’m sure I’m way off base here. Tell me why.

***UPDATE***

Instant Upload from Android devices is a money maker! Coolest thing yet for any social platform I’ve used!

I’m reading– May 24th through June 9th

June 13, 2011 / Scott / 2 Comments

Make your secondary Google Voice number permanent – Perfect solution for a a reasonable price. I don’t want to give up my old number for old contacts, but only give out my Google Voice number for new contacts.

The 5 Switches of Manliness: Challenge – Part II of this series. Dead on so far.

Texas movie theater makes an example (and a PSA) of a texter – Awsum. This should be rinsed and repeated for pretty much every venue except for phone booths.

Millionaires versus The Aspirationals – I’ll see your $10 wine and raise you a light beer in a can.

TN columnist: No athletics for home-schooled kids – Public school services (classes, athletics, etc.) should be a la carte.

Desmos Interactive Education – Saw this from TechCruch Disrupt. Coupled with Kahn Academy…strong!

The 5 Switches of Manliness: Physicality – Hells yeah.

Self Directed Effort, Google Music vs. iTunes, and…Bowling!

May 23, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Is bowling becoming too easy? – Yep. I just read an entire six page article on bowling. I didn’t know about 90% of the information here. Now I know.

Self directed effort is the best kind

Are you addicted to a taskmaster, to someone else’s to do list, to short term external rewards that sell your long-term plans short? If no one is watching, are you helpless, just a web surfing, time wasting couch potato? Who owns the extra work you do now that you’re being directed?

Apple Has Keys To The Cloud Music Kingdom – Agreed. The beauty of Lala was that it worked without uploading. Long term though, the labels are still doomed. They will only matter for older tracks; you know…the good stuff. Oh…wait…

How good is Google’s Instant Mix? – Just the fact that it has a “WTF Score” makes this worth skimming.

Libertarianism and Selfishness – It’s important to note that libertarianism != objectivism.

Reading of Excerpts at Tucson School Board Meeting – Please refrain from reading the profanity in the public school text books in school board meetings. KThanksBye.

Greatest Spits From The Last Few Days

May 10, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Google’s cloud music service. Request an invite to the beta. 20k tracks stored for free isn’t a bad place to start!

Shit My Students Write – Best new (to me) website I’ve run across in a while

Apple Trumps Google as Most Valuable Brand – Shocked Coca-Cola doesn’t trump both. The carbonate sugar water industry is much more stable than technology. Do you think it’s even within the realm of possibility that someone could knock KO from its perch? Can you say the same for Google and Apple?

Here’s my most successful tweet recently:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/sadcox/statuses/67615378800513024″]

Celebration standout wins 100, 400 at 3A state track meet – My buddy Ryan’s little brother.

Online Poker Caused Osama Bin Laden’s Destruction? – A little out there, but you never know.

What’s high school for? – This is the best post on education I’ve ever read. Seriously.

Password Manager Last Pass Possibly Hacked – Let thy password algorithm reside only in thy head.

Google’s Moats, “The Wire” Reviewed, and Hagar Abduction Link Dump

March 27, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Android as Google’s Moat – I like this take on Android as a defensive product for Google. I also like what that implies for us as consumers–costs keep decreasing while functionality keeps increasing. Can you believe someone wanted to charge for a web browser at one time? Now there are several free browsers, and they are still trying to out-do each other in features and speed!

The Quintessentially Victorian Vision of Ogden’s “The Wire” – Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Are We Better Off Today? – Definitely. I think the problem is that we have a skewed idea of "comfortable". If I have food in my belly and shoes (hopefully some $1 Old Navy flip-flops) on my feet and I'm not bleeding, chances are I'd say I'm comfortable.

6 Common E-Mail Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses Make – Read the bold points as a checklist before you hit send.

Integration Of Google Voice and Sprint – A daddy of an announcement. Now…do I have to pick one number or the other to have seamless integration? I like having both.

"Red" rocker Sammy Hagar says abducted by aliens – Still trying to "Out-Dave" DRL. You sir, are no David Lee Roth

NYT’s DIgital Pricing Plan Discriminates By Device – Alternate Headline: Requiem to an Ass Biter.

Chrome 11 Speech to Text

March 23, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

I was just checking out the speech to text feature in Chrome’s v11 beta, and I have to say, it’s pretty good. Even if you sound like you have a mouth full of marbles like I do, it does a decent job…at least a good enough job that you could speak long documents and go back to edit by hand later. I bought some software not too long ago to do this, and it was a lot more expensive than the “free” Google is charging.

Added bonus, this is part of HTML5…Google doesn’t own it, they are just taking advantage of it.

If you like this kind of stuff, it’s worth checking out. I am a little curious why Google hasn’t thrown a little microphone up onto their main search page so we can use it there. Seems like an obvious way to get people to use it immediately.

Stuff You Should See– September 3rd through October 13th

October 13, 2010 / Scott / 1 Comment

Top 5 things to HATE about Marathon Runners -Ha! Best list since “Stuff White People Like”. I made every annoying thing on this list!

Amusing Ourselves to Death – Awsum.

Higher education bubble poised to burst – "The people running America's colleges and universities have long thought they were exempt from the laws of supply and demand and unaffected by the business cycle. Turns out that's wrong."

Market: Over 12 Year Period You Made More on 1st Day of Month.. – That is a pretty amazing fact.

What if the Postal Service runs out of money? – Cheese and crackers! Just let it die already!

Testing Teachers On Math and Reading – I can just hear their excuse now…"I may not be able to lay an egg, but I can tell a good one from a bad one" or "Do you think Tiger Woods' golf coach is better than Tiger at golf?"

Google SEO Starter Guide updated

The Most Influential Consumers Online are on Twitter – The easiest way to get a lot of retweets is to write an article praising Twitter users.

Can Exercise Make Kids Smarter? – "Stupid jock" isn't always true.

Stop Repeating Yourself: Set Up a Workplace Wiki – I tried this at a former job a few years ago. The result–I used it. Then we had the middle management who would copy the contents of a help file somewhere and paste it into the wiki. That gets you bonus points for authorship when you show it in your PowerPoint!

IEEE Spectrum: Get on the Optical Bus – Good news for 3rd party software vendors. Now they can blame software issues on the fact that you don't have hardware with optical bus!

A few fabulous homeschool rants – heh.

Gmail Launches Non-Threaded “Feature”

September 29, 2010 / Scott / 0 Comments

Gmail’s threaded, conversation based approach to email is one of the things that sold me on it early on. But I know there are people who don’t like it and prefer the traditional “one message, one line in my inbox” way of viewing their email.

Fair enough–diff’rent strokes and all. But I always thought it was a little unfortunate that people didn’t take advantage of all the other great gmail features because they didn’t like the threaded messages, especially small businesses that could use Google’s awesome services so easily.

Today, Google announced the ability to turn the threaded feature off. That means people who are used to the Microsoft Outlook type email will be able to use gmail more comfortably while still taking advantage of all the other great features like search and filtering.

Good move on Google’s part to try to include these folks. I approve.

Stuff You Should See– August 19th through August 26th

August 26, 2010 / Scott / 0 Comments

Grilled Cheese Academy – A real education

Financial Illiteracy Is Killing Us – Seriously, are there any non-profits focused on teaching financial literacy to kids? I will volunteer to help.

Tooth Regeneration Gel Could Replace Painful Fillings – Just ordered up some jelly beans to celebrate this news.

Facebook Places vs. Foursquare – Foursquare has a game/awards (kinda). The question with FB places is “why?”. Then again, you could probably ask that question about 90% of the content there.

Furman’s FIRST Running Program – No. Junk. Miles.

Lifehacker: Our List of the Best Android Apps – Already using most, so I’m linking to this mostly to validate my choices.

“I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb” –John Mellencamp – Sounds like Johnny Cougar doesn’t like having his cheese moved.

What Should I Do About My Virtual Life After Death? – Adding this to my list. It’s pretty far down, but on there nonetheless.

Real Estate’s Gold Rush Seems Gone for Good – hmph

Moving on – An early shot fired against book publishing. There will be more.

Fake Drink Spills save seats – Genius!

Lottery Ticket Art – Don’t throw away those scratch off tickets…you could still be a big winner!

Internet Kill Switch — What A Joke

July 13, 2010 / Scott / 0 Comments

If this passes, hopefully someone with some sense will just install a “switch” in the Oval Office and put a label under it that says “Internet”. It won’t do anything, but that’s ok. The people involved clearly have little understanding of what they’re talking about anyway. We could give Al Gore a lifetime position that requires him to flip the switch when he turns in for the night to cut back on the global warming or whatever other crisis the interwebs contribute to.

Even if the president ordered all U.S. Internet companies to block, say, all packets coming from China, or restrict non-military communications, or just shut down access in the greater New York area, it wouldn’t work. You can’t figure out what packets do just by looking at them; if you could, defending against worms and viruses would be much easier.

“Shutting down” the internet isn’t anything like closing the freeway. It’s like shutting down radio, television, and newspapers all at once. We don’t even have a radio, cable, or a TV antenna at our house, so how would we know the webs had been shut down (for our protection)? You know what that means…get ready for the phone systems to get wrecked as part of the collateral damage with people calling up their internet providers because they can’t do the Googles or log on to the Facebooks.

HT Les Jones at NoSilenceHere

Gettin’ After It!