piece of shep » Google

Gmail Gadget Problem

shep — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:46:05 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot of hits on my site because Google picked up a tweet I posted yesterday on Twitter about the Gmail Gadget problem on iGoogle. The error people are getting is:

The Gmail gadget does not support the “Always use https” setting that you chose in full Gmail. If you would like to use https, please open full Gmail. Learn more

Obviously, this is a new problem and I’ve yet to see a solution for it, besides switching to another Gmail gadget. I’ll keep you updated.

What is Happening at Google?

shep — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:08:36 +0000

Google is really starting to lose my loyalty and I don’t think I’m the only one. There are several things that have been bugging me lately, and many of them have to do with the breaking of their products.

I recently migrated my feeds from Feedburner’s servers to Google’s servers. All feeds are being migrated at the end of February, so I thought I’d get a jump on it. Google owns Feedburner so you think there would be no problems. That was wrong. The move broke the API so stats weren’t working for several days. The API is still broken on a lot of third party applications because not everyone has switched over yet so app manufacturers have not updated apps to pull from the right API. You may say that it’s Google’s product and they can do what they want, but the internet is becoming an more and more open and social place where data can be mixed and with other data, and Google has traditionally tried to be a part of that. Now they are breaking thing preventing that from happening.

One of the bigger problems I’ve run into the past couple days is Google has changed the way their search works. They are using Ajax in the search queries now. It appears it’s still in testing phase, as not everyone is getting the new search. The new ajax enabled search is breaking all stats packages search engine referral tracking. When you perform a search for shep in Google you would usually see the query in the url in your browser, something similar to this: search?q=shep. With the new ajax the search string has changed to #q=shep. The problem with this is that browsers stop sending anything after # in the referral string. So all referrals look like they are coming from google.com and not google.com/search?q=shep. That means my stats can’t tell me how people are finding my site. Another thing Google has broken without any official word from the company. Some people think this will be their way to get more people to use Analytics and that Google is abandoning their “Don’t be evil” motto. While this is just speculation, it wouldn’t be surprising if they changed their services to break competitors in order to gain more customers, even if their product is inferior (in my eyes).

The last issue, which is quickly becoming moot as I’ve been moving away from Gmail, is every single day I get some kind of error in Gmail. It either logs me out right after logging in or I get the popular “Error 500, there was an error processing your request. Trying again in 5s…” error.

Seems Google is messing up a lot these days. Maybe, instead of buying up other companies and releasing useless features on products that are out there, they should do something to stabilize their current products, without breaking everything.

What Will Happen to Flickr?

shep — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:24:55 +0000

Ever since Microsoft began its attempt to takeover Yahoo I started thinking about the future of Flickr. That’s really the only Yahoo service I use (and I pay for). Microsoft does not have a good history with web services. Yeah, at the beginning of the web everyone had a Hotmail account, but they quickly fell behind in the times with that. They couldn’t keep up with the features and storage of other competitors, like Yahoo and Google. It seems that every attempt they’ve made has failed. Does anyone actually use Microsoft’s Spaces? Can anyone actually find anything via their Live Search? Personally, I think Microsoft’s Live search has to be the worst search engine out there.

I know thinking that Microsoft going in and breaking a winning formula (winning in the user’s views, not necessarily in the business sense) probably isn’t going to happen, but it is Microsoft. I don’t have much faith in them. No, they won’t rewrite Flickr to use ASP.NET or something crazy like that, but I do worry about what they can do to mess up Flickr. I also think that a lot of the passionate Flickr users, especially the ones that were there pre-Yahoo, will definitely not like the change of hands and move to a new photo service. I really wish Google would spend some time developing their Picasa and Picasa Web services, up the storage allotment, and make it a real competitor in the online photo storage market. It has great potential, and with Microsoft trying to take over Yahoo, now would be the perfect time for them to woo users. Of course, I may just be paranoid about what will happen to Flickr, but it’s a service I pay for and a place where I store my photos, so I do wonder about the future. Do I really want to feed my money and data to Microsoft? Not likely. If Microsoft buys Yahoo, will you stay with Flickr? Will you move somewhere else? If so, where?

Feedburner Broken API

shep — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:48:00 +0000

For a few weeks Feedburner’s API has been broke. If I try to pull the statistics of the title and URL of my posts it comes back “NO TITLE.” The statistics package I use, mint, has a Feedburner pepper and it has been showing NO TITLE for quite a while. Apparently this has been reported but has yet to be fixed. Come on Google, fix your stuff. If you’re going to provide an API, make sure it works. I want to see which posts people are viewing and clicking in my feeds. NO TITLE doesn’t help me very much.

Moving to the Desktop

shep — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:22:24 +0000

There is something I don’t quite understand. Maybe someone can explain it to me. A few months ago Google gave IMAP support to Gmail. Everyone was happy to have this sought-after feature enabled finally. In my opinion, it was a few years too late. I never use desktop mail clients anymore (except when I was working for a technology company and we used Exchange). For something like Gmail, I just don’t see the point. The only thing I use a desktop email client for (and I use Thunderbird for this) is to back up my Gmail accounts. I don’t send mail from Thunderbird and I don’t read mail in Thunderbird. Maybe I would use a desktop email client if I used a different email service. I like Gmail’s interface too much to do that though.

Recently, Newsgator released their popular NetNewsWire and FeedBurner desktop RSS clients for free. You no longer have to pay for them. Again, I don’t understand why people would want to use a desktop RSS client. Sure, it can synchronize all your feeds so even if you aren’t at home it won’t give you the same feed as unread over and over. But you know what else does that? Web-based feed readers, such as Google Reader. Why download something to read when you could just as easily open up your browser to read it? Chances are, you’re already going to be on the net anyway.

Another thing I never understood was using things like Microsoft Live Writer and other such desktop blog publishing software. Why work with desktop software to publish to your blog? I know a few people who do that, but for me, writing in the administration of my blog software is perfectly fine. I don’t need to write my post in a piece of software that wasn’t even specifically designed for the blog engine I use.

Gmail and IMAP

shep — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:55:06 +0000

Ever since I got my first Gmail account a couple years ago, I wished it had IMAP support. As many probably know, Gmail has recently enabled IMAP on accounts. My account still doesn’t have it enabled, but my Gmail for domains does. I was excited at this news, but then I started thinking about it. What do I really need it for? This isn’t a few years ago when desktop email was more popular. With everything going web-based, this is a step in the opposite direction. Sure, I can use it so I have a backup of all my mail, but I could do that with POP access as well, which is what I’ve been doing for backups the past year. I don’t have an iPhone or another phone that does IMAP, so I don’t need it for that. Truthfully, I don’t have any reason for IMAP. So, here is my request Google. Change the interface of Gmail. Make it look more like the redesigned Google Docs and Spreadsheets or something. You’ve had the same interface (for the most part) since you began. A new design would be a welcome change. (Just don’t do reading panes. I hate those and hate how Hotmail and Yahoo both now feature them so they can be more like Outlook.)

The Master Plan of Google

shep — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:24:10 +0000

I came across this video about Google and it’s master plan. When you think about it, Google really does have control of a lot of information. They have my pictures in Picassa, my emails in Gmail and Google Apps for Domains, they have some papers I’ve written in Google Docs and Spreadsheets, they know who visits my websites via Analytics and what sites I visit if other websites use the service. They even know where I am on a given day via Google Calendar and could even track me down to an exact location via Google Earth and/or Google Maps. Recently they can even track my online purchases if I use Google Checkout. They pretty much have my entire life stored somewhere. Do I mind? It depends on what is done with this information. Obviously when I use Google services I know the risks and still continue to put it out there. This video makes you think though. Hat tip Google Inside

Implementing Google Adsense

shep — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:22:07 +0000

I have decided to start putting a small amount of ads on here just to help pay for hosting and whatnot. I know what some of you may think and remind me of my thoughts on ads on personal blogs, but this site generates a fair amount of traffic, more than my others that my ads do okay on, and by okay I mean at least I make a little something every day. And I don’t think they look too terrible here. The theme is nice enough that the ads blend in fairly nice. If I don’t really make anything from them then they shall disappear. We shall see.

New Google Apps for Domains Features

shep — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:04:50 +0000

I’ve been using Gmail for domains for quite a while and have been very happy. I was excited when they added Google Calendar and other features to the Application Suite. It just keeps getting better. If you are using their apps for domains you now have a bunch of new features including:

The start page
If your administrator has activated this service, you now have a central place to find important information, preview and access your inbox and calendar, and search the web. Your administrator sets up the initial layout and content for this page, but you’re able to customize it as you can with the Google Personalized Homepage.

Domain registration
Before you had to buy your own domain, now you can purchase it through Google. The process is easy; just choose your custom domain name, and pay with Google Checkout. Registration costs $10 per year including private domain registration to help you avoid spam. Your new domain will be pre-configured to work with Google Apps for Your Domain.

Custom URLs for your domain’s Google-powered apps
Now you can set up simple URLs for your domain’s Google services. For example, your users can access their email accounts at a URL like mail.your-domain.com. Log in to the control panel to edit the links for your services.

Other new features include support for new languages and support for multiple domains. Go sign up your domain now at Google Apps for Domains

My Feed List

shep — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:45:06 +0000

I was bored so I thought I’d share with you the websites that are in my feed reader (which is Google Reader). They are:

Anna’s Blog
Caleb Was Here
Give Away of the Day (hat tip Mark)
Homeland Stupidity
All in the Cards
Photomatt
Qn5 Blog
Ryan.Connect
Simply Complex
Sporadic Nonsense
What Makes You Happy?
StL Today Cardinals
Yahoo Sports- Cardinals

I also have on my Google Homepage Wired Top Stories, Slashdot, BBC, and New York Times. All good reads. What’s in your feed reader?

Google Cube

shep — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 01:51:06 +0000

There are rumors circulating about a Google computer with Google OS and possibly called Google Cube. The rumors that are flying say it’s going to be a Google linux system and that Google has been talking to Wal-Mart to sell the machines for a low, low price. What would it look like? Here is one possibility (purely for fun):

I’m Feeling Lucky

shep — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:51:18 +0000

So, I was looking at my mint and noticed that I have been getting a lot of hits from a past article I posted about String Theory Proof. Because I am a stats fiend and like to know everything that is going on with my site, I went to Google to see where I ranked with the search term “string theory proof” (without the quotation marks). I found out, to my great astonishment, that I am number 1. So, if you go to google and seach string theory proof and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky” you will be directed directly to my site. Neat, huh? Does anyone else have any search terms that take people directly to your site?

My Review of Google Talk

shep — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 23:02:14 +0000

I have to admit, I was expecting more from Google with the launch of Google Talk. The basic white and primary color of the design does not surprise me at all, and I like how simple the design is. What did surprise me is the lack of options and features. I’m not an annoying smiley type of person, but basics should be included. There is no file transfer option. I do like how easy it is to send email to your contacts or call your contacts. The sound quality on the calls is amazing and is as clear as the phone in your house.

I have been looking for a nice IM program to replace MSN and its overblown advertising interface, and with time and essential features, I think Google Talk will be able to do that. The question is, does Google have time to develop a product for an already established market?