Nitpicking Google

Gmail - new annoying bar hides my mailboxes

2012-02-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

Again, this obsession with minimalism almost bordering on secrecy. I still need to use the program, Google. I still have things in my other mailboxes that I filter there. Hiding them only makes it impossible for me to see them and makes Gmail harder to use. You can't just hide all the settings because your graphic designer is into minimalism.

The real question is, now that I've dragged down the annoying hide your mailboxes bar (using it's invisible controls that only appeared because I hovered over it), will it come back? So far it's sticking on this computer across multiple tabs. We'll see what happens on my other computers. Maybe I have to set it once per machine or perhaps it remembers across the board. Either way, another annoying attempt to hide useful settings and program controls. Not sure what you're doing Google. The more features you hide from your audience, the less features they will use and the less impressed they will be with your already excellent software.

iGoogle settings has a Contacts tab and I don't know why

2012-02-16T09:36:00.000-08:00

real puzzler. Don't even know why this tab is here or why Contacts is connected in anyway to iGoogle (a my yahoo like homepage that I enjoy, but could use more configuration options and a way to hide all the stuff. Super iGoogle for Greasemonkey is a nice solution, but I'd like to see Google themsevles give up this one size fits all approach and allow for more customization options (to everything)). Just confused. Don't even know why this option is there. This is a rare first for the Google.

Youtube - lacks the google bar. Everything should be the same.

2012-02-13T06:44:00.001-08:00

Google Chrome - removing the + makes adding new tabs confusing

2012-02-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

Without the "+" it's harder for new users to understand how to add new tabs. It's design over function.

This is not really easier. I can see how it's "cleaner" from a design perspective, but if I was going to explain how to use Chrome now, I would say, to create a "new tab" press that small grey parallelogram next to the tab to create a new tab. Whereas before I would say press the "plus" button next to the new tab to create a new tab. But I guess this really comes down to Google's semantic attempt to own the word plus and +1 etcetera. So choices are now being made that make Google harder to use. This reminds me of when they tried to get rid of the top bar that I have been using to select "images/maps/news" to refine my search and tried to rap it all in an drop down menu called "The Google Button". It made Search, the thing I use Google for, harder to use. Surprisingly they recently reversed their decision. No word on getting the second search box back at the bottom of search results, causing people who need to refine their results to forever page back up to the top of the page...

Update: Looking at it now, a few days later, it still looks wrong. It looks like a program where the bitmap hasn't properly loaded. Like part of the program is missing. Bring back the + button for adding new tabs, Google. It's okay to make mistakes and overly embrass minimalism, as long as you come back when you know you've gone too far. (and remove the blog reader from Blogger! Blogger is a publishing tool. Google Reader is a blog reader. Seperate them!)

Google Chrome - never remembers that I don't print Headers and Footers

2012-02-08T09:18:00.001-08:00

have turned off headers and footers five thousand times now. Why won't it remember? They're ugly and uglify everything I print. Why must I always say NO?!?!?

Youtube Uploader

2012-02-04T07:04:00.001-08:00

Has anybody -- even once -- wanted ".mov" on the end of their Movie title?

I mean seriously. That's insightful and well worth a dollar. May I have a job?

Google Social Search - This is annoying

2012-01-13T12:12:00.000-08:00

I don't know how to tell this to you, Google. I don't want to know what my friends think. I want to know what you, Google, the source of all knowledge and information thinks. When I search for
"fish", I'm seeking information about "Fish", not information about my friend's fishing trip. Your failure to see the difference between the time and place for these two searches (one I would do on Google, the source of information, one I would do on Google+ or Facebook or Twitter.) Maybe Google the source of information should just stay out of these other spheres and let me have my search results unmolested by the annoyance that is "social search".

Update: I found the "Hide social search results" button. From now on hopefully I won't have to see these "social search results" and we can both forget this every happened. Google can go back to being a source of information.

Blogger - Disable "share on google+" (option not found)

2012-01-13T12:08:00.000-08:00

Attention Google! You've gone too far again. Everytime I update a post or create a new post on Blogger, it offers me an annoying pop up box to share on G+. I don't want to spam my people (who are so few anyway) everytime I fix a typo. And I'm sick of this box. It has no "auto share" leave me alone option and no "I don't want to share" leave me alone option. I'm stuck searching for it on Google, where I didn't find anything (despite the new annoying social search.), but at least now I'll find this post.

Google Tasks - Why so Lame?

2011-12-07T10:15:00.001-08:00

(first of all, in blogger, I had to tab forever to get down here from the title box. maybe you could make it tab once from Title box to typing box? Some of us still use the keyboard, eh? you know, that thing I'm typing on?)

It seems like task taking is the core of any programming problem or GTD system. So why wouldn't Google, the home of task taking and programming solutions have a better task program than Google Tasks?

The main feature missing is the ability to create a daily checklist of repeating tasks (or any repeating tasks), but what I'm really looking for is an easy way to database and checklist the daily activities that I do anyway, but would like to keep track of, see on a calendar, see a chart and a graph of and do monthly, weekly and yearly totals on. (Sure, google, you could put this data in a google spreadsheet and impress me by showing me the charts in a web display version of google apps)

Yes. I'm talking about tracking my flossing and teeth brushing. Shopping, toenail clipping, haircuts, other tasks that people have to schedule and do every couple of weeks or daily (goddamn you must have a lot of toenails, or they must grow really fast, sheesh) that would be better remembered if placed on a repeating calendared checklist that could remind you as a group, not one at a time and keep track of all your minor tasks.

Google could be my personal assistant if it really wanted to be. (and I think deep down it secretly does...)

TL;DR: Google Tasks should have repeating tasks and a daily, weekly, monthly task scheduling and track system linked to a database, charts and graphs in Google Docs.

Update: It now seems like you can create a subtask by pressing TAB. At least it's something in the right direction. (of course it could have been there all the time, and I'm only now discovering it by accident. A better help system, more like a video game that gives you tips and tricks based upon your skill level could eliminate this information gap. Knowing the difference whether to explain tasks to the user or to provide keyboard shortcuts is the difference between providing useful information and being annoying.)

New Google Menu makes Google Search harder to use

2011-12-06T09:53:00.001-08:00

The new google menu makes it easier to find google services, but harder to use google. It's fascinating.

The main problem is changing your search category. Changing from Web to Maps or News now takes two clicks and a slide down a menu. It's much more difficult than just clicking on the links at the top. (Docs also has this drop down problem, where it takes two clicks to create a document, instead of just having buttons)

This reminds me of when they removed the second search box from the bottom of the page. Makes it harder to refine your search. Assumes they always get it right the first time, and often forces me to page back to the top of the page to search again.

Google is getting worse at Search, but better at other things. Good idea?

Additionally you can't edit the google menu, so it's really annoying. It also doesn't seem like it's dynamic, that is to say it's not loading my most used apps, just the ones they think I should have.

There's also a trap when you go to Youtube. Because the Youtube logo doesn't have a drop down google menu in it (at least not yet).

I'm testing the google bar thanks to a lifehacker, which I found via google search.

Chrome - now with awesome printer window

2011-10-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

No longer just a pop-up window, the Printer window now has a full preview automatically and tells you the most important piece of information upfront and in bold: 2 sheets of paper. Now if it could just fix that problem where you print a webpage and one line of text prints on the next page automatically.... then it'd be perfect. Really though. more great and amazing work from the google people. (new chrome start page is also nice. apple launchpadesque (expect a lawsuit).

adding a Post Title in Blogger doesn't tilt screen, which is nice

2011-10-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

For some reason in Blogger I can now type in the post title box and it doesn't bring up a full screen distraction window. It's quite nice and easy to click on a box and then type in it.... unlike a certain Google Docs application I might mention.....

Tasks in iGoogle edits like a document - Brilliant!

2011-10-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

Just using tasks and was surprised to learn that the app treats the tasks like a continuous text document, rather than disconnected tasks. There's no easy way to explain this in human language, but the idea is absolutely brilliant. It's so much easier to manage. Make a big block of text, paste it in. Separate it into tasks, push enter, recombine tasks, push delete. So easy and so very very clever. Well played once again, Google. Sneaky though.

Google, I love you but you never send me any free stuff

2011-10-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

Products you have that I'd love to try and then blog about:

- Google Book Reader

- Nexus-S (or any Android smartphone that's contract free)

- Chromebook

- Auto-drive car (I hate driving and would be glad to get in on the ground floor of this one)

- Street view bicycle (okay, so I don't really need to try this one, but it would be fun)

- Street view car (I think this falls into the same category as the previous)

- Google Artificial Human Body (pretty sure this is what they have planned for Sergei's brain) (worth it) (also an obvious extension of the "android" project, duhrrr)

PS: I think the new amazing video view that comes up at the end of youtube videos now is long called for and absolutely FANTASTIC!

New Google Calendar Disaster

2011-06-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

I used to have White Text on Colored backgrounds which was easy to read. Now I have Black Text on Colored backgrounds which is difficult to read. It's really incredible that Google would do something like this to Calendar. I guess I have to go through and change all my colors and font colors now. Because they changed something!?!?!?!?! WTF! Come on Google, don't make Calendar worse. Black Text on Dark Colored backgrounds, this is embarrassing.

Google Music Beta Crushes Amazon Cloud Player (but still doesn't have a way for me to clean up my library)

2011-06-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Google Music Beta really has it going on (if I only I could mass delete the duplicate songs and see the music I've uploaded separately) when compared to Amazon. Features that Google has, that Amazon doesn't (and desperately needs):

- Add to Playlist is nicely done with a series of dropdown menus.

- Thumbs Up and down buttons allow me to quickly rate songs (and a Thumbs up playlist, so I can listen to good songs)

- Play count column

- Columns that sort

- Controls are a nice frame, always visible.

I really like this product and wish I could use it more (he said with Amazon Cloud playing in the background). Right now the major problem is the dupes that were created during upload and the lack of tools to fix this problem (even a delete all would do it for me. Then I could just re-upload without the dupes. Really there's no multi select for anything. Guess that's the real problem. Seriously Beta.). Nobody wants to listen to a dupey library.

Blogger - "About Me" or "Profile" - choose one or the other!

2011-06-29T10:28:00.001-07:00

It's very confusing. I was trying to copy the design settings of one blog to the other and on the Design page the gadget was labeled "About Me". When I searched the Gadget library, I found nothing. I later realized that "About Me" and "Profile" are the same widget. You'd think they'd both have the same name. That would only make sense.

Gmail Contacts - not very impressive

2011-06-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

Messing with contacts today. Imported some from Apple Address book. It was easy for me, but a newb would have had to click through to instructions, it didn't just pop up and offer to connect to the address book and import the contacts.

Then I was working on Sorting. By First Name or by Last Name, but no Show by First Name, Sort by Last Name option. I moved into the Business tab and found all my Businesses sorted by Last Name, so Papa Murphy's was now Murphy's, Papa and Pizza Guys was transformed into Guys, Pizza. Obviously this was confusing, so I tried to switch the sorting back, only to be greeted by this error:

the error was confusing and didn't add much to my user experience.

Also I'm pretty sure I don't have individual sort options based upon group, which means my businesses will always be this way (or maybe I'll have to edit them by hand to change their field to business from First Last. I also had to manually fix the phone number formats, which was annoying. 555-555-5555 should always convert to (555) 555-5555 even if it's in the format I was using for Skype +1555-555-5555)

Also my contacts have no photos. How about an option to import them from Facebook? (or even Google Profile, which I know you'd rather push instead) (could also import Phone Numbers, Birthdays, anything else that facebook has. We have all these social networks and all these APIs, but is there a way for the truly common man to leverage them? For example, I love RunKeeper, but I really want the Distance and Date recorded on my Google Calendar and right now I'm doing it by hand. Do I have to wait until Google buys Runkeeper or Facebook buys Runkeeper to get this kind of simple sharing functionality? Seems like a nobrainer.)

The contacts list is too small, doesn't seem to have any good sorting options and seems much more like an old fashion email contacts manager rather than a full fledged contacts manager/social network type page that I think you need it to be.

(now back to manually transferring Birthday information from my Birthday Calendar (imported to Gcal from Ical) into Contacts so that it will show up on Calendar and I'll only have one calendar. Who says I don't do important things?)

PS: I am really impressed by the persistant hilighting. You need to find a way to tell people about it, because it does cause a bit of a use change when the computer stops forgetting what you were doing and makes list making easy instead of tedious and stressful.

Goo.gl - The Name of Google's URL Shortener shouldn't start with a G

2011-06-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

Sure, I want to stop using bit.ly. The domain name is from Libya and I'm no more attached to the name bitly than I am to any other cutely named short url service. I'd like to use Google's "Goo.gl", but it's hard to get it to come up in the address bar, because it's named the same as Google, which always comes up when I push G, or Go, or Goo (I have to type "goo."). Whereas bit.ly comes up when I type bi. Maybe if Goo.gl had a name that didn't start to G it would be more popular and easier to use.

Blogger - Difficult to create Image with a link

2011-06-05T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's easy to upload an image.

It's easy to make a link.

Richard Scarry Google Logo Honors 'Busytown' Creator's 92nd Birthday

It's not easy to make an image with a link.

Why is that?

(I can add a caption that's a link, but it's not the same. This goes to the general theme that Blogger needs to be more like Tumblr where you can quickly blog an image with a link or a video and move on. The publishing side of Blogger is near perfect, but the "quick publishing" side, needs a lot of work.

Google develops Time Machine, casually announces it in Google Calendar

2011-06-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Good news! Google has developed a time machine! And what an odd, casual way of announcing it. Just saw this small message across the bottom of my Google Calendar today. I am of course, excited to Learn More.

Blogger - blog this widget is pathetic

2011-06-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

It has a nice button and it looks good in my chrome button bar, but the Blog This extension is worthless and badly needs to be upgraded to crush tumblr.

Situation: I'm on a blog, I want to publish an image from that blog on my blog with a link and some text.

Blog this Widget: loads a link to the blog. No easy way to add a picture, or anything else really.

Tumblr Widget: can load the image with text, can load an embedded version of a youtube, quote from an article with a link to an article, etc, etc.

There's no reason that Blogger shouldn't have this functionality.

Google Docs - makes me happy

2011-05-31T20:22:00.001-07:00

My spreadsheet just auto resized to fit the data instead of me having to go to settings and change it. Thank you Google for finally updating the default settings of an "excel" document into something more modern and reasonable. Keep it up!

Though I disagree with you on your currency setting. $1000 is nice, but isn't $1000.00 better?

Google Buzz - read items don't change color when read

2011-05-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

In Google Reader, it's easy to tell when an item is read because the color dims. Though I seem to have the same "scrolling counts as reading" rules in Google Buzz, the new message remains yellow causing me to scroll by it several times wondering if this is marking it read, having to rely only on the unread item number on the sidebar....

Chrome - autofill preferences a huge mess

2011-05-31T08:58:00.000-07:00

Been using Chrome for a while now. Finally found it's achilles heel. An area where the Amazing Googlers who do so much good work, slacked off and left me mass clicking. I almost couldn't believe I was at a Google App.

Missing from Autofill preferences:

1. Delete all - the only way to clear all the bullshit data that Google has been gathering and simplify my auto fill to one address so it works properly is to individually delete all of the auto fill data one at a time. I'm well trained in video games, so the clicking is no problem for me, but it's really annoying.

2. Sync - just did this on one of my other computers and now I have to do it again. Not good. Not Google. Maybe it does sync but it hasn't yet, I don't now cause there's no sync button on the autofill preferences page.

3. Bizarre Floating Window Design - Strange X in the upper right corner to return to the preferences pane, strange floating window breaks the design yet again. Should just be part of preferences with a menu entry on the left hand column, fully integrated. Again, I don't know who's putting all these show stopping pop up windows in all your products, but it's a waste of time because you're just going to have to remove them all when you realize how lame and flow breaking they are.

Blogger - edit profile page missing options

2011-05-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

Wanted to add some break lines, bolds and links to my profile. Had to type them in HTML myself, which worked fine, but didn't seem very elegant. Also it ignored the break lines I put in, converted my beautiful paragraphs into a huge blob of text. Very ugly.

Google Docs - needs Dropbox-like sync! BADLY! killer ap making feature missing!

2011-05-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Great minds think alike: (COME ON GOOGLE! Get on this. Add dropbox folder sync to Google Docs and TAKE OVER! )

Synch to a folder on the PC as dropbox does - Google Docs Help: "Add the ability to synch a folder on your pc to add to google docs..just like dropbox. And please remove the 250mb file size limit. We are beyond that at this point in time. Dropbox does not have any limitations. Personally, until Google Docs can provide the same services as dropbox, there is no real need to stop using dropbox. Google Docs just seems to be too little too late at this point. Once the same ability is there for Google Docs as there is for dropbox I will switch immediately."

Google Docs - sharing is hard, spell checker missing

2011-05-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

It's too hard to add multiple people to multiple documents. I tried to grant access to my entire collection, but I think it only gave access to the first document, then I had to manually select each document and it didn't remember the people, so I had to re cut and paste their information in. (looks like I might have been able to just share the collection. Will try it next time. Still seems like sharing could be more like setting up my friends as editors, seeing them on a sidebar and dragging and dropping groups of documents to them. Or creating a group for them, like Book Editors, and then being able to drag and drop multiple items to a group representing multiple people.)

Spell Checker - Standard search and replace spell checker seems to be missing. I'd like to go through the document word style, not just clicking on annoying red lines.

2011-05-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

maybe the greatest thing that google has ever done... when I pushed send, it asked me if I wanted to attach a file, since I mentioned it in the email and forgot to attach it... brilliant!

Google Tasks - Missing Iphone application, going back to Toodledo

2011-03-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Toodledo is simply better. Game, set, match. Response, google? Purchase? Leverage buyout?

Google Reader - Too Many Buttons

2011-03-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

I liked it, wanted to share it and I starred it, but there's really too many buttons here.

Edit tags I suppose refers to the folder that I have the feed in, but I don't want to edit the feed based upon this single post, nor am I trying to tag posts with multiple tags individually. I could do without it.

Like/Unlike is the same as Star. I don't see the difference. One or the other please.

Share and Share with note could be combined by creating a pop up window for "share" that gives you the options to create your post. This will help personalize Google Buzz and make it more like Twitter and Tumblr.

Gmail - Shva or Shiva?

2011-03-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and the Destroyer or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine.

Why is Gmail calling her? I know this is nitpicky, but it looks pretty weird. I'm sure it stands for Simple Helper Very Applicable, but it makes no sense to me. Maybe it could say "load" or "page" instead.

Google Reader - Managing Feeds

2011-03-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

very minor complaints today for a product I'm using more and more (and the product who's addiction I could not quit and who's incredibly high quality lead to my current Googlediction).

Importing Multiple Feeds into the same category - sometimes I import several feeds in a row from the same category. For example, today I converted my Comics over to RSS feeds. It'd be nice to put them all in the same folder and then let me rename the folder later or have a way of selecting what group to add them into when I add them. Like a category/folder drop down.

Along the same lines, after I've imported my Comics, I'd like to select multiple feeds and move them all into the comics folder. I had to do this one at a time from the main Google Reader page. Maybe there's a better way to do this already, but if not, alert the Googlers. :>

Google Docs - missing tag, folder, label field

2011-03-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

too many clicks

Ok great. I've navigated the annoying pop down menu to create a new document (which could be a simple one click "Create New Document" button).

I've renamed my document using the easy to type in (but tilt screen box popping) name field.

Then I want to add a tag, folder, label to my document. I want to do it in a field right next to Document Name (which shouldn't freak out and bring up a tilt screen, it should just let me type, like when I typed the title of this blog post) and I don't care if it's a tag, folder or label, I just want to type "blog post" or "thunt.net blog post" and let you deal with categorizing and saving it. Let's leave this "filesystem paradigm" behind. Let's easily tag documents!

These are my suggestions. They seem very simple, but they will make the user experience smooth like butter. Don't you want a user experience that's smooth like butter? Oh I hear you out there, moaning in the audience, I'm lactose intolerant too, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a good butter simile while demanding simple changes to complex applications that have no doubt been debated and discussed in meeting after meeting that they all keep private as they work towards the ultimate googlization of computers.

(learn more about the fate of this "Google Docs Blog Post" entitled Skype is Awesome, but not tagged with anything at Thunt.net.)

Blogger - import blog?

2011-03-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

Import blog function is kindof a joke. I'm coming from Tumblr. I can download a copy of my blog from them (how gracious), but I can't upload it to you? Come on Google, I expect better! I even expect you to just slurp the blog off the net, comments and all. Import Blog, but for real this time. Come on google. I know you can do it. (then we'll get you started on combing my Moveable Type data with my tumblr data with my personally written blog software (multiple versions) and get all my archives online at one time. ha ha.)

PS: Facebook let me download my data too. Without a doubt you should be working on a way to import that.

Google Docs - Ruler Delenda Est!

2011-03-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

I think that it's hilarious that in Google Docs, clearly one of the most advanced awesome document editing platforms ever built, I still have to turn off that annoying Ruler at the top of the screen.

Ruler Delenda Est!

Google Docs - Discussions - Comments need to send on enter

2011-03-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

take away the "post" button. Facebook has led the charge and now we must all follow. I can't comment fast enough on Google Docs Discussions because it still has the mousey post button. It's time for the post buttons to die. First they came for Print Screen, then they came for Caps Lock, then they'll come for the Windows and Apple keys. It's time. Up with CapsLock to Google search, gotta figure out how to remap that on my machines. (on windows this morning I set the key to ctrl, but couldn't manage a ctrl-ctrl without MacroExpress and that's really too much overhead. (this new Mac clickpad keeps coming up while I'm typing and f-ing my shit up. arrgh!)

Anyway, TL;DR comments should send on enter. I'm sure Google already thought of this though.

google confusion - Reader, iGoogle, BloggerFollow

2011-03-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Reader, iGoogle, and BloggerFollow all seem to have the same function of "following". Blogger keeps warning me that I'm not following any blogs, but all my blogs are in Reader. When I try to follow something from Feedreader it offers to put it in iGoogle or Reader when sometimes I want both because I want to read it casually (iGoogle) and try to make sure I read every article (Reader). I agree that Blogger must copy or buy Tumblr, but my BloggerFollow queue remains empty and annoying, as I use Blogger to publish, not to browse.

Integrate Reader into Blogger and iGoogle. Have a folder in Reader where you can manage the news that will be displayed on iGoogle and a folder that displays the Blogger blogs you follow.

Google vs. The problem of too many computers

2011-03-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

or talking about GoingGoogle while linking to Daniel Tosh who I've heard is an effeminate male with a scat fetish.

laptop, desktop, netbook, iphone, work computer, work laptop. I have too many computers. I have too many bookmarks. I have too many passwords. I'm geeky and I like to memorize things, but even for me, I've had enough. Where did I put that file? What calendar did I add that to? It's too much.

That's why I've sold out to Google. The headlines will read "Google acquires Thomas Hunt for more than 7 cents in AdCents revenue!" But in reality, though I'm not being paid for my transition and I've put my personal data and personal privacy at great risk (especially to forces that are larger than Google), if I can use Google to stop messing around with multiple computers and the complexity that they bring, if I can focus on my own tasks and accomplish my goals, I will be the one gaining in the end. That seems like a worthwhile trade off and besides, though I don't like to admit this publicly, but I guess the truth of the matter is, I'm not that important (yet?). Just another fish in the ocean that waves at Libya and other serious problems, like Japan. Ginsberg, Kerouac, Hunt, maybe not yet, but with the power of Google? Who knows. What it really comes down to is that, I the tech support guy, needed better tech support. I needed to be coddled and taken care of by people smarter than myself, and I think Google will provide that. Look at how Blogger keeps flashing and saving what I'm writing! (even now as I do revisions, this is some pretty impressive auto saving, and I've lost dozens of blog posts in the past on other platforms, by pushing the back button or following a link from IM) That's something I'm not paying for, but I'm receiving great value. Sure I guess they could develop relevant ads for the drafts of my work, creating a sort of shadow bidding network as advertisers vie to be the first one to sponsor what will become a popular post (of course they'd need an algorithm to determine how viral the post would become, factoring in things like how many links to Rick Astley videos with the coefficient of whether or not a geek beats the shit out of a bully and whether the poster is a good personal friend of Xeni Jardin or Whil Wheaton. A feverish market of red blooded advertisers furiously outbidding each other for the next BoingBoing, SearchBlog, Kottke post, while a smaller section of the auction is dedicated to finding that one in a million shot, the little blogger that could, the voice in the darkness that gets his own 15 seconds and 25 cents worth of advertising traffic and struggles mightily. Insiders wonder if the whole market is fixed and if some insider genius at google is manipulating the whole thing, having secretly developed the formula for cool and is slowly draining a fortune from the futures market, but the real serious advertisers don't care about the kooky conspiracy theories. They just want to bid bid bid till the end as the auction timer is always running and there's a new post to be speculated on every millisecond. Pre-cog for pre-blog. Sign up now.

Anyway. Google Sidebar is revolutionizing my home pc. It makes Google Calendar and Gmail seem like a part of the desktop and the start bar is just a distant memory waiting on the left side of the screen to be quietly euthanized. I've got Google Notifier on my macs and it's a nice quiet integration that gives me instant access to mail and calendar when I need them. Google Authenticator and the two step authentication process is making me feel more encrypted than ever before and Google Voice is preparing me to save hundreds of dollars this year as I live the dream with my prepaid out-of-contract iPhoneWIFI that I mainly use as a pager to then call people back on skype. What I'd really like is an android phone that focuses more on Skype than the SIM card. Sure, you could substitute the recent GoogleAquisition Gizmo in for skype and tie it in better with Google Voice and then the gPhone would really be rolling. They just have to decide they want to save us from the phone companies. Then they could save us from the broadband caps that are slowly creeping our way, acquire Netflix and Nintendo, merge with Amazon and then take over UPS to conquer the world. pre-cogAmazonaGoogleGamesnFlixUPS -- all the world shipped to you, on your phone, right now, before you're even thinking of it.

Q: If Google could own the world, what would Google do with the world?

Questions! Answers! Googles! Stay tuned to this blog, as Thunt and his trusty sidekick Google take on the problem of too many computers! This post was written on a mac laptop, using Blogger and Google Chrome. Why not a full screen view for blogger with just a black background and text? Find out! SOon! Same bat time. Same bat channel. Same unpopular blogger who just had his name ruined by Daniel Tosh of the insipid Tosh 2.0 America's Funniest Home Youtubes, but I guess things are pretty even, given that Tosh is defined as "an effeminate male with a scat fetish". I might close all my blog entries with that, kinda make it my Carthago Delenda Est.

PS: I've also sold out to writing more off the cuff blog entries and trying to be fun and informative, throwing off the last of my history degree english degree writing shackles and reserving the right to go on completely insane off topic tangents and then refuse to edit them out, only fixing punctuation (kerouac standard) and spelling (thanks to annoying red squiggly lines).

PS to BLOGGER: Your link button is nice, but when I push link, my cursor needs to default to the link field, because I'm gonna paste the link in there. Better would be if you just checked the clipboard for a link, and if it was there, linked it to the highlighted text instantly and not waste my time. I'm sure you probably already thought of this and put it in the new version, or perhaps you have developers already working on it from reading the draft of this post. pre-cog blog.

PPS to BLOGGER: Also needed is some kind of AutoLink mode, where it could scan the text and when I say Whil Wheaton, automatically link to him, as well as things like Google Voice, maybe I could select which auto links I like the same way I use a spell checker, of course I don't use a spell checker anymore, so you'd probably want to do the auto links the same way you do the auto spell checking, hilighting and giving options. I expect for Tosh 2.0, one of the options would be "an effeminate male with a scat fetish".

the more google I try, the more google I love

2011-03-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

just now trying out the new sidebar. I think it's really neat now that it's plugged into Docs, Mail and Calendar. I really do have a whole little google ecosystem going on my windows box. Magical. Also impressed with the ctrl-ctrl search box pop up. I still don't want google to search all the files on my computer, so I wish sidebar wasn't coupled with Desktop, but I turned off the indexing, so it should be fine. Fantastic product as always.

Google Maps - now with photo overlay!

2011-03-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just reading about the possible discovery of the Lost City of Atlantis, and I was browsing the map for Cadiz, Spain:

I switched to street view, of course surprised and expressed to see that they've charted even España. I looked at what I believe to be a capitol type building:

I noticed the appearance of small photos on the building, I then hovered over one of the photos, to be surprised an amazed as the photo overlaid itself on the building, even matching the angle of the shot:

I then clicked the photo and was greeted by an entire gallery of similar photos taken by tourists at this very spot!

Thanks again Google for making my day more magical and educational!

Update: I don't know if I can do it justice in screen shots, but it seems like they also linked together the tourist shots so you can navigate by view, so you can see the building from different angles using the tourist shots. Incredible!

Blogger - automatic Picasa album of all images uploaded

2011-03-11T23:06:00.000-08:00

More great work from The Google. Turned on picasa and it offered me really neat albums of all the images I've uploaded to this blog. So you could browse the blog like a directory of images instantly.

Whoa, I spoke too soon. Broken link on the "learn more about privacy":

I was going to link to the album here, but I guess we'll have to save that for next time. Looks like it's still under construction, but I'd like to say, that as usual, I'm impressed.

Chrome - Stats for nerds, cool!

2011-03-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

Yet another cool feature from the Chrome. Saw an interesting (1) (not sure if they were trying to attract my interest, but they did) and clicked on it:

Stats for Nerds?! Cool! :>

Pretty cool work Chrome!

Chrome - Google quietly fixes PDF Viewer

2011-03-11T10:39:00.001-08:00

Though I still don't see the helpful Print and Save buttons, pushing CTRL-P/CTRL-S (apple-P/apple-S) finally allows you to Save and Print PDF files, transforming Google Chrome into a useful browser again for using PDF files. It's about time.

Now if we could just get some easy to use Print and Save buttons, we'd be all set.

Blogger - new editor/picture upload

2011-03-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

It's getting harder and harder to use Tumblr. Blogger's new editor and image uploader is sooo nice. Tried to do a post on Tumblr today with inline images and gave up, because it just wasn't as easy and pretty as Blogger's interface.

Chrome - new preference screen blows my mind

2011-03-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

The more you give in to the greatness of Google, the better it gets. Just look at this preferences screen:

See the search? Brilliant!

Everything else, so clearly labeled and explained. Firefox, though I've forgotten you and you're no more than a cool looking patch on my gym bag now, if you're still out there somewhere, and looking for new ideas to steal, this is where you should start. But you'll never catch up, because google is too fast and too smart and growing exponentially. All hail our future googler rulers. As long as they keep doing great shit like this.

Blogger - missing Iphone application

2011-03-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

I know I'm not using Android (and sure, I'd like try it, if someone wanted to send me one) and Iphone is the enemy (despite Google's former cuddliness), but you still have to compete with Tumblr right? And if I can use Tumblr on the Iphone (yes, I know I'm capping that wrong, and I intend to continue doing so) then I should be able to use a similarly useful Blogger app that would allow me to Add Posts, Upload Photos and more from the road (instead of trying to use this webpage with mobile Safari).

Blogger - new photo uploader

2011-03-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

is elegant, easy to use, handles multiple photos well and makes me think Google hasn't just forgotten and abandoned Blogger. (though I still think they should buy tumblr so their servers will stop going down and Blogger can finally receive facebook and twitter integration.)

Google Reader - Missing New Folder button

2011-03-10T10:19:00.000-08:00

The "New Folder" button in Google Reader is hard to find. If you click the small down arrow next to a post it's there:

Sure, if you go to the bottom of the list, you could create a folder.

or if you go into manage subscriptions-> "add to folder" dropdown menu, it's there:

In subscriptions, you can create a folder, but it's buried in a dropdown.

but let's talk about where it's not. It's not in Manage Subscriptions -> Folders and Tags, which is really confusing:

You can manage your folders, but you can't create one.

and it's not on the main Google Reader left hand task bar, where it really needs to be. A small, "new folder" button, perhaps next to the "add a subscription" button:

This is the way it oughta be

So that was my complaint, but now I have to complain how Google failed to accept my feedback. I started by joining the forums to comment on GoogleReader needing a new folder button, but it didn't seem like the right place. I wasn't describing a bug, I was describing a new feature (or a missing feature), so I ended up in Google's Product Ideas, where I was sadly informed that my attempts to improve Google Reader were all for naught:

(which is just sad)

Google Chrome: icon-only bookmarks

2010-12-29T10:18:00.001-08:00

Google Chrome does it again with awesome icon-only bookmarks for the bookmarks bar:

When I saw them on my friend's computer, I couldn't delete the text labels from my bookmarks fast enough. Yet another unheralded, minor but valuable improvement from the Google Chrome team. Now if they could just fix the pdf viewer (by adding print and save buttons).

Update: This appears not to work with Xmarks. Every time I synch it restores the text to my shortcuts (acting like I'm a fool for wanting it the other way). For now I'm just going with short names like "fb", "tw", "reddit".

Google Chrome PDF Viewer - this is beta software we don't want

2010-12-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine downloads PDFs for work. Of course I suggested he use Google Chrome because not only does it load fast, it loads pages fast and the interface is more refined than the console of a BMW.

However they recently removed the old Acrobat PDF reader and replaced it with an in house Google PDF reader. The only problem is, it's missing buttons BADLY. Buttons that define the functionality of a PDF reader and sent my friend running back to Firefox.

The missing buttons: SAVE and PRINT

What could be more vital to a PDF than save and print. Normally I'd at least expect to find them in a righ click context menu, but as it is now, it really is just a PDF "viewer", a horribly deformed one that lacks the ability to save or print.

(also attempted the usual shortcuts, thinking that Google mighta been clever and just included it without including it, but CTRL-S saves it as a webpage, not a PDF and CTRL-P prints, but it prints like a webpage, showing only part of the PDF and only the first page of a three page PDF)

Blogger - missing twitter and facebook integration

2010-12-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

Allright. I've set up my new blogs. They look awesome, the content is awesome, everything is awesome. Now how do I share my blog posts with my twitter followers and my facebook friends? I don't want to follow complicated instructions, I want real Twitter and Facebook integration right here at home in blogger. I already have it in Tumblr, but they had downtime and don't have the brilliant staff of Google Engineers behind them. So why not blogger? Why not grow a pair of twitter and facebook integration, rise up and crush Tumblr once and for all? As one of the first major blogging platforms, wouldn't you like to be the last? Get with it google. Get with twitter/facebook integration or fade away.

Google Notifier - black button mode for Mac

2010-12-09T21:37:00.001-08:00

one of these things doesn't belong. can you guess which one?

Dropbox has an option to turn their bright teal notification icon into a gorgeous black button. I'd like to see Gmail and Gcalendar notifiers have the same option.

Chrome Notebook - The Google Button

2010-12-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

Google is missing a serious opportunity here. We've had the apple key, the windows key, will we now have the google key? I know the CR-48 design is all about beautiful black and grey sleekness, but in future versions of the Chrome netbooks, why not just use the Google logo for the key, creating a "Google Button". Just Push Google. You don't see Kleenex calling themselves facial tissue, do you?

Chrome Notebook - and it comes in a cool box

2010-12-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

As you can see, you put the helmet on the mouse. Not the mouse on the helmet. Good tip.

Chrome Notebook - Replacing Caps Lock with Search

2010-12-09T21:16:00.001-08:00

In a word brilliant. Take a worthless waste of space key and put a useful brand new key there. Incredible.

Full disclosure - I desire a chrome netbook

2010-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

It's one of the reasons I started this blog. I signed up for the pilot program the other day and was hoping to use this blog to write about Chrome OS. We'll have to see. A friend of mine just got one and I'm mad jealous. Especially because it doesn't have any goofy logos or stickers, just an awesomely monolithic black rectangle.

Blogger is much improved

2010-12-09T21:06:00.001-08:00

Been a while since I used blogger. I quite like it. Was able to reconfigure this blog in no time at all. Still gotta say, the preview button in the upper right corner seems like it would be more at home at the bottom near the "Publish Post" button.

Gmail - Chats - the case of the multiple reply buttons

2010-12-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine uses talkatone on the ipod touch almost exclusively to communicate, the rest of the time he uses hand signals similar to those of the bonobo monkey. When I receive a message from him, it pops up on my google notifier. I then am sent to Gmail, where I click on Chats. The next step gets me every time:

I want to reply to him, so I click reply. The app then starts a reply in Gmail. This is not the behavior I expect, so I then try to click on the user name. Still no option to chat. Then I finally retrace my steps. notice the two reply buttons, shrug my shoulders and reply to the chat.

If I'm already in Chats, shouldn't I be defaulting to replying in chats?

And who's idea was it to have two reply buttons anyway? I can only hope he's working on his follow up, the dual send button.