Trouble in Googleland...
Now Playing: moe. - In a Big Country
Pretty good cover of a classic tune from my high school days.
Well, it seems as though Google's having some technical difficulties today...I couldn't get my post uploaded and the blog "republished" properly last night/this morning, had to do it when I got up, around 2pm ish...through the process of figuring out where the problem was, I learned of this page, which shows the status of Blogger's servers and such...helpful for those of you running blogger pages. Also potentially helpful might be this related page, a listing of known issues with blogger and it's interface.
Have also been having intermittent problems with Gmail not working quite right. In related news, they announced on their one-year anniversary Friday, that everyone's e-mail storage on that sytem has been bumped up to a fluid and increasing 2GB/2000MB. Good news, and it should keep the other e-mail servies scrambling to keep up, which is, of course, beneficial to almost everyone. If you go to GMail's main page, the second bullet point shows a neat little rolling counter indicating the rate of increase. I think it works out just over 10MB a day or thereabouts.
GMail, is of course still technically in "beta" status, so it's still invitation-only. This is just a technicality, though, as invites have become as ubiquitous as discarded cigarette butts. However, that being said, if anyone reading wants or needs (or knows of anyone who wants or needs) a Gmail account, I have literally hundreds extra, just drop me an email where you'd like the invite sent.
It's funny though, just a few short months ago (just before I got onboard), these same invites were going for exorbitant prices ($50-100) on ebay. I don't know what it's like now, but when I got on, things were just on the cusp of the ground floor, many "good"/desirable usernames were still available. Moral of the story is that you should get one while your preferred vanity address might still be available.
Web discovery of the week is the newish Google mapping system (maps.google.com). I've used Mapquest for years, but they will now (at least where I'm concerned) unceremoniously be unseated by Google. The biggest convenience features for me are draggable maps and faster zooming, but little things like bigger map views, the ability to get directions directly from the map screens, to being able to type in basically anythng you're looking for directly into the search bar at the top, from specific addresses to general terms like "pizza" or "gas" and have potential targets flagged on the map appropriately.
Now, as if all that weren't enough, how's this for "cool" factor? You can just click on the little "satellite" button and the map converts to a similarly draggable/scalable satellite view. Granted, these maps don't seem to be zoomable to the detail/resolution of the old Mapquest maps (wonder why they discontinued them), but the integration and ease-of-use makes it all worthwhile. I could literally play with this for hours. I looked up maps of my former residences (odd that Hartford's high-resolution maps are unavilable), those of friends and family (whose homes I've been to and could reasonably navigate the sat route to their home), and former places of employ (Best Buy Corporate HQ, the theater in Skokie, etc.) Satellite photos are nothing new, I've seen them on and about the web for several years...but Google's really taken a tremendous step toward making them useful and accessible.
Speaking of navigational aids and traffic tools, one of my most oft-consulted internet tools while living in Chicago was the real-time GCM map. They've improved and tweak it to a truly useful level, probably even more so over the years. This is the most current iteration. Every town needs one of these, Charlotte especially. This and this seem to be the closest things I can find here. Good information, to be sure, but nowhere near as useful as the GCM maps.
I want a Jimmy John's (or here for the non-flash site) sub, an Illinois (Champaign, to be exact) original. I miss them. Wah. Hrm, apparently, they're in Columbia (2), Greensboro, and Chapel Hill/Durham (one each)...I'll have to remember that if I ever find myself in one of those locales. Hrm, maybe I should open one here in Charlotte...
Parting shot: an amusing video that's a sobering reminder of what I need to do, and how little time I've got to do it in. [sigh.]
Ah well, off to bed, tomorrow's shaping up to be a busy day.
Pretty good cover of a classic tune from my high school days.
Well, it seems as though Google's having some technical difficulties today...I couldn't get my post uploaded and the blog "republished" properly last night/this morning, had to do it when I got up, around 2pm ish...through the process of figuring out where the problem was, I learned of this page, which shows the status of Blogger's servers and such...helpful for those of you running blogger pages. Also potentially helpful might be this related page, a listing of known issues with blogger and it's interface.
Have also been having intermittent problems with Gmail not working quite right. In related news, they announced on their one-year anniversary Friday, that everyone's e-mail storage on that sytem has been bumped up to a fluid and increasing 2GB/2000MB. Good news, and it should keep the other e-mail servies scrambling to keep up, which is, of course, beneficial to almost everyone. If you go to GMail's main page, the second bullet point shows a neat little rolling counter indicating the rate of increase. I think it works out just over 10MB a day or thereabouts.
GMail, is of course still technically in "beta" status, so it's still invitation-only. This is just a technicality, though, as invites have become as ubiquitous as discarded cigarette butts. However, that being said, if anyone reading wants or needs (or knows of anyone who wants or needs) a Gmail account, I have literally hundreds extra, just drop me an email where you'd like the invite sent.
It's funny though, just a few short months ago (just before I got onboard), these same invites were going for exorbitant prices ($50-100) on ebay. I don't know what it's like now, but when I got on, things were just on the cusp of the ground floor, many "good"/desirable usernames were still available. Moral of the story is that you should get one while your preferred vanity address might still be available.
Web discovery of the week is the newish Google mapping system (maps.google.com). I've used Mapquest for years, but they will now (at least where I'm concerned) unceremoniously be unseated by Google. The biggest convenience features for me are draggable maps and faster zooming, but little things like bigger map views, the ability to get directions directly from the map screens, to being able to type in basically anythng you're looking for directly into the search bar at the top, from specific addresses to general terms like "pizza" or "gas" and have potential targets flagged on the map appropriately.
Now, as if all that weren't enough, how's this for "cool" factor? You can just click on the little "satellite" button and the map converts to a similarly draggable/scalable satellite view. Granted, these maps don't seem to be zoomable to the detail/resolution of the old Mapquest maps (wonder why they discontinued them), but the integration and ease-of-use makes it all worthwhile. I could literally play with this for hours. I looked up maps of my former residences (odd that Hartford's high-resolution maps are unavilable), those of friends and family (whose homes I've been to and could reasonably navigate the sat route to their home), and former places of employ (Best Buy Corporate HQ, the theater in Skokie, etc.) Satellite photos are nothing new, I've seen them on and about the web for several years...but Google's really taken a tremendous step toward making them useful and accessible.
Speaking of navigational aids and traffic tools, one of my most oft-consulted internet tools while living in Chicago was the real-time GCM map. They've improved and tweak it to a truly useful level, probably even more so over the years. This is the most current iteration. Every town needs one of these, Charlotte especially. This and this seem to be the closest things I can find here. Good information, to be sure, but nowhere near as useful as the GCM maps.
I want a Jimmy John's (or here for the non-flash site) sub, an Illinois (Champaign, to be exact) original. I miss them. Wah. Hrm, apparently, they're in Columbia (2), Greensboro, and Chapel Hill/Durham (one each)...I'll have to remember that if I ever find myself in one of those locales. Hrm, maybe I should open one here in Charlotte...
Parting shot: an amusing video that's a sobering reminder of what I need to do, and how little time I've got to do it in. [sigh.]
Ah well, off to bed, tomorrow's shaping up to be a busy day.
posted by Gene at 3:50 AM
2 Comments:
Wow, my first spam comment...how bizarre...bye, "lori".
rosie: Hahah i can't believe you deleted her!
anyways....yeah gmail isn't what it used to be *sigh*
i kinda miss yvonna :D
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