Tag Archives: WebTech

Google Labs Adds Gmail Tasks, Requires Chat Enabled

I only need tasks in one of my GoogleApp domains, and that just happened to be the one where I was receiving the error "tasks could not be open" after enabling the feature.  What?  Why?  This is stupid.  Thankfully it didn’t take long to realize the one difference between that domain and the others I manage was the disabled chat feature.  Apparently Tasks uses the same API as Chat for making the in-window window and the pop-out window.  (Who knows what else.)

Of course now I have chat enabled somewhere a client doesn’t want or need it.  Not sure if this issue will resolve itself in the future or if we’re stuck with both features having to be enabled.  In the meanwhile, if you or someone you know are having trouble getting tasks to work in Gmail, hope this helps.

Update: Seems this issue was added to the Google Labs Help Tasks group discussion earlier today, and a fix is in the works.  You really have to enjoy the process.

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Google Friend Connect or Facebook Connect?

I thought it would be a difficult decision, but when it came time to push the publish button, it was no contest.  Google’s Friend Connect was the social connect tool that best suited my preferences.  Whether or not it suits my needs is a different argument, since I’m still not sure I actually need a social network component.  Generally, I intend for my posts to be read in your feed reader, which is the most efficient way to deal with blagger entries.  Still, on the off chance that anyone does want to congregate around my content, I’ve now made available the option to share within a specific social circle, Friend Connect.

I’m still learning about all the available features and gadgets, but if you look in the second sidebar you’ll see the members gadget.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  All you need to join or sign in is your Google account information.  For most people, it’s probably the same name and password you use with Gmail.  But if you’re one of those paranoids like myself, your Google account name and password is not exactly the same as your Gmail.

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Tweeting With The Stars

It isn’t as exciting as it sounds, but @britneyspears and @THE_REAL_SHAQ have made their respective ways to the twitter stream.  Shaq seems to be doing his own tweeting, while Britney occasionally chimes-in between those tweets entered by her PR team.  Which is to say that Shaq seems to be enjoying the Twitterverse , while Team Britney is working a piece of her marketing campaign .  Shaq is more entertaining.

My bigger interest with their twitter presence is who they choose to follow.  Is it just fans?  Is there any interest in the tech world?  Are there other folks from their industries jumping on the twitter wagon?  (Managers, Agents, PR Firms, etc.) Are they following and reading my tweets?  Should I let Shaq know I’m a Kings fan and still upset about the 2002 Western Conference Finals?

Currently @britneyspears has a follow/following of 1,555/9,010 and @THE_REAL_SHAQ is showing 270/10,108.  (Should note that Britney appeared about a month and a half earlier, yet she trails in followers.)  And while these are relatively impressive numbers, they are nowhere near the likes of @ijustine 1,562/27,066, @Scobleizer 20,978/39,808, or @JasonCalacanis 48,114/40,983. (I was surprised to see his numbers.  Where did he find an additional 7,000+ people to follow?)  All their numbers are ridiculous when I consider my own 171/182 ratio.  I can barely keep up with reading them, let alone find time to reply.

Perhaps more Hollywood celebrities will pop into the world of Tweeting.  It’ll be interesting to see the potential number of followers they’ll bring with them.  Can TwitterLand survive another growth spurt or are we looking at a bunch more fail whales in 2009 as the service tries to go mainstream?

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Web 2.0 Ridiculousness And A Dopey Spat

I’m sure, on some level, that’s in deemed inappropriate for me to be seen laughing at the situation.  I don’t know whether to throw my hands up or hang my head.  Sure, they’re the same thing, but one requires more energy, and I’m in too much pain to do either.  So let’s to a quick low down on what’s been going down.

Calacanis sends out one of his emails saying it’s over for start ups everywhere.  Leaves me jumping for joy.  Ever since that Yammer debacle from TC50(2), the start up world has been a disappointment.  Not having money to throw at every new idea that pops into someone’s head, is probably an okay thing.  Which leads (by correlation, not causation) the VCs to start crying “the sky is falling, don’t throw money at every lamebrain idea.”  Can it be, our wishes are granted.  No more online banking sites for people under the age of double-digits.

So there’s no start up VC money for the new guys, but a bunch of the old guys (late twenties, tops) still have a bunch of money and they decide to take a lavish vacation to Cyprus where they stay at Wall Street power broker Bob Lessin’s get away home to do a very low quality lip dub set poolside to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” which is later released online (surprise) and stirs up a flurry of emotion from the have-nots.  Sorry new start-up kids, you’ll have to wait for the next bubble and, maybe, create a _useful_ service.

Rounding out the senselessness from people who have nothing to complain about is TechCrunch’s very own Michael Arrington throwing a tantrum over rival blogger Dare Obasanjo’s post calling Arrington a horrible name.  Not sure what the name was, but it must have been really bad because Arrington was pissing all over the Twitter stream late Sunday night, shouting at Scoble and Barnes.

I’m left to think this is all a joke of a farce, or something similar, that doesn’t mean much to anyone who isn’t living the Web 2.0 Internet.  But be not afraid, regular people, there is some good to come from all of this, and that’s the Mr. Feldman’s video spoofs to make us laugh.  Head on over to his site and check out some of the humor that’s being passed around via his videos.  Or completley ignore all of this.  The Silicon bubble is of very little consequence to most of us.

Link Juice And Other Stuff

Last week, before I disappeared into the real world to deal with things that have nothing to do with my online persona, I changed the site’s commenting policy.  Previously, all comments here were labeled "nofollow", but now after you meet the minimum number of on-topic comments you’ll get the link love you deserve.  Which is also to say, if your comments are completely off topic I will have to remove them.  And while I understand the reasons for leaving the "nofollow" tag, I can’t stand when bloggers don’t share the love for thoughtful and worthwhile comments.  Total bummer.  (Don’t worry, the minimum number here is very low, and the criteria is not terribly strict.)  The policy is retroactive, so some of you may already have the new status.

In other news, while migrating my employer’s web site to a new hosting company as well as switching registrars, I accidentally, and somewhat embarrassingly, created a DNS redirect loop that ultimately resulted in this blog appearing on the presentation screen in our board room while trying to demonstrate the company’s new site layout to a group of colleagues.  Which is to say, my very large face was up on the wall when it shouldn’t have been in front of people who have no idea I keep a blag.  I was shocked, to say the least, but quickly put this site into maintenance mode until I could correct the DNS issue for their company site.  Thankfully propagation times are much faster than they used to be.  Still, hearing a co-worker unexpectedly shout, "Hey, Justin, it’s you!" during the middle of a presentation, is kind of a strange way to start the day.    I chuckled.

Continuing on, I noticed that my writing here is directly related to the amount of journal writing I do with pen and paper in the real world.  (I’m a fan of ink on paper.)  Which isn’t to imply that I outline my ideas before I bring them here, just that if I’m not actively keeping my writing mind working, then all my outlets suffer.  Just ask any of the people I email on a regular routine — last week was quiet across the written board.  But we’re back.  I spent a good portion of the morning putting pen to pad and, not surprisingly, here we are.

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Feedly Says What?

I don’t understand the service Feedly is providing.  As best I can figure, it’s taken my feedreader links and rearranged them into some kind of magazine-like layout on a web page, but I’m not sure why I need that.  The other thing it did was mess with the categories in my Google Reader which, admittedly, I approved, but still — it bothers me.  I don’t like it, and now I either have to leave it as it is or take the time to go back and put things back the way there were.  (I should have planned ahead and backed up my settings.)

Feedly is a slower, less efficient way for me to get my daily feeds.  Not a good thing when I’m trying to consume as much as possible over breakfast before I have to make way to the office an hour away.  If I wanted slow, inefficent delivey of my news and whatnots, I’d pick up a newspaper.

I’ll give Feedly a few more days, but if I can’t find some value in it then I’ll be forced to remove its addon from my Firefox.  We’ll see.

Last.FM Has Best Listening Prediction

last.fm

It is by no means a new service, but I’ve only just started using it.  Which is odd because, while I’ve heard of it many times, it took a certain Tweet to send me testing the service.  And before I get all into praising the greatness that is last.FM, I want to first say that I have tried Pandora Radio.  It was the summer of 2007 and I had just been introduced to Pandora by a close friend, so I loaded it up and tried it only to find disappointment.  I had, and still have, a subscription to Sirius Radio which Pandora couldn’t compete with, especially since Sirius comes with an online service.  I let Pandora ride a full week before writing it off, and that was only out of respect for the person suggesting the service.

Before we get carried away comparing things that aren’t at issue, like personal preferences, let me say that if you enjoy Pandora or some other web 2.0 music service, then by all means, please, continue with it.  It’s not going to hurt my feelings if you think last.FM isn’t the awesomeness I’m about to rave forth with.  So be it.  Go.  Listen and enjoy the noise that is your happiness.  (Music.)

It took me three hours and some two hundred plus favorited artists with last.FM before reaching into my wallet to support the service.  That’s right, I’m paid member — because I want it to stick around — and if they come up with a way for me to stream the music to my car then I will probably ditch my satellite subscription.  (At the very least, my land subscription is gone at the next renewal.)

Why is last.FM so great? It doesn’t base it’s computation on what you say, it works off what you do.  Very smart.  I can say all day that I like listening to Herbie Hancock, but if I spend all my listening minutes tuned into the latest HipHop vibe, it’s more likely that I want to hear more HipHop.  Right?  Exactly.

This service takes into account that I lack the necessary cognizance to know what music I actually enjoy.  Sounds strange to admit, but they’ve done a better job with the psychology side of it than any other service I’ve encountered. I may add a certain artist to my favorites but if I continually skip those tracks while listening, last.FM takes note and updates its recommendations accordingly.  Very very smart.

It’s more than that, though.  They also make an effort to connect me with others of similar listening taste, not exact listening taste.  I’ve yet to find anyone with a compatability rating higher than “low,” but I like that.  I can’t imagine a scenario where, if when listing all music honestly enjoyed, two people are perfect matches.  We’re too humanly different for that sort of nonsense.  I’m not interested in finding someone who is exactly like me becuase I do just fine talking to myself.  I want the people who will introduce me to sounds with which I am unfamiliar.  Last.FM is just the service to find me those people.  Best of all, there’s a stand alone player for my linux ride.

Listen online and stream yourself.

Stop Whining About Google Chrome

I’m going to keep this one short because I don’t have a lot of time and I’m short on energy for this here topic.  But it goes something like this, “Dear, All-You-Chromy-Whiners: Stop it.  You’re embarrassing yourselves.”

I said it once and I’ll say it again — Google is not terribly interested in entering the web browser business.  They do, however, want to ensure that their applications/services run quickly and smoothly in whatever browser their visitors elect to surf with.  Surprise!  So, along came Chrome, and just in time for the release of their _Android_ mobile phone package.  Imagine that.

So all these so-called tech bloggers shouldn’t be totally flabbergasted that the Chrome Engineers didn’t implement a bunch of tiny tweaks to enhance every single product produced by Google.  That wasn’t the point of the release.  Google is not a an overnight venture start-up dedicated to one product.  They’re a multi-billion dollar Brand committed to making money, which they do by selling adverts through online services. Correct me if I’m right.

AND, umm…do you get why there was no Mac release?  Or at least why it wasn’t a release one priority.

If Chrome catches on, demanding reasonable market share, and there is a need for further development, then Google will implement damn near everything that everyone is crying about.  But until that happens, let’s all be happy with the current EULA update and be about our merry ways.  If we really want to make a difference, let’s bang on the doors of our current browsers to implement all the cool features of crhome.  (You can get most of the Chrome features in Firefox already through Addons.)

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