The new GMail for Android UX sucks. I mean... it's really awful.
They've replaced the checkboxes next to each message (useful) with sender images (gimmick), or, if there is no sender message (i.e., everything that's not a G+ contact - so, every newsletter, receipt, order confirmation, etc. you'll ever get), a big colorful first initial (completely useless waste of space). This image then acts as if it were the checkbox that used to be there (confusing) for selecting messages. You can turn off the images, but you don't get the checkboxes back; you can only tap-hold to select multiple messages, though this isn't mentioned anywhere, you just have to guess.
They've gotten rid of the delete button (why?), and moved it to the menu.
If you have no messages selected, pressing the device's menu key gives you the menu. However, if you do have messages selected, the menu key does nothing, instead you must tap the menu button that appears at the top-right of the display. It's not there if you don't have messages selected.
Once you're viewing a message, there are two menus: one when you tap the menu button, with 90% of the options in it, and another at the top-right gives you just two options, forward and reply-all; this almost makes sense, except that it uses the same, standard "here's the menu" button that's used on (some) other screens as the *only* available menu.
In the message view they've also gotten rid of the delete button (to match the annoyance of the message list, I supposed).
There is also a new "label settings" screen that's fairly mysterious; I assume it applies to the current label, though this includes "Inbox", which - while I understand it's treated internally as a label - I think most users don't think of as being a label in the typical sense.
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
2013-06-06
2008-09-09
Google Chrome
I downloaded and installed Google's Chrome browser today, and I have to say, I'm impressed. It handles tabs better than FireFox 3 does. The UI is clean and intuitive, though no moreso than FireFox's. It performs well, but not noticeably better or worse than FireFox 3. It has a desktop web app mode - exactly what Prism was supposed to be, only it actually works.
What I find particularly striking about Chrome's interface is a kind of minimalism that one usually expects to see in mobile software. It makes me wonder if, like Apple bringing Safari to the iPhone, Google might be using the desktop as a proving ground for a browser destined for the Android mobile platform. Use it for a few minutes and tell me if you can't picture using the same interface on a palm-top touch-screen.
It's not all roses, however. Chrome is currently Windows-only, a big downside in my book, as I use my MacBook more often than the PC when it comes to web browsing. It doesn't have all the options that FireFox does. It's got some quirks - the "smart" address bar can be irritatingly overzealous, and the scroll wheel seems to scroll half a page at a time, with no way to change it. And, of course, all those lovely FireFox extensions I've gotten so used to having around aren't going to work with Chrome. Still, it's a solid alternative to IE, especially for the more casual web user. Web developers, however, are better off sticking with FireFox and it's treasure trove of extensions.
2007-04-01
Google Traffic Maps
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but some time in the last couple of days, Google finally added traffic information to Google Local/Google Maps. It's not available everywhere, but it is available for the major freeways here in Atlanta, and many other US cities. Look for the stop-light icon on Google Maps.
2007-03-21
Blogger vs Google
Does it make sense to anybody out there that Blogger, a Google property, doesn't automatically generate, or even have an option to generate, sitemaps, which are a Google initiative?
2007-01-29
The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines
The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines
Not a bad article, despite him being an SEO guy.
Ask anyone which search engine they use to find information on the Internet and they will almost certainly reply: "Google." Look a little further, and market research shows that people actually use four main search engines for 99.99% of their searches: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com (in that order). But in my travels as a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO), I have discovered that in that .01% lies a vast multitude of the most innovative and creative search engines you have never seen. So many, in fact, that I have had to limit my list of the very best ones to a mere 100.
Not a bad article, despite him being an SEO guy.
2007-01-20
I, Cringely -- When Being a Verb is Not Enough: Google wants to be YOUR Internet.
From TFA:
I spoke recently with an old friend who is a bandwidth broker. He buysI knew they'd been snapping up fiber en masse for years, but I didn't know they'd managed to control more fiber than anybody else. That's a hugely impressive feat... I dunno if Cringely is right here, but I'm just as curious as he to see exactly what they're up to.
and sells bandwidth on fiber-optic networks around the world. And he
told me something that I found not completely surprising, but I
certainly hadn't known: Google controls more network fiber than any
other organization. This is not to say that Google OWNS all that fiber,
just that they control it through agreements with network operators.
2006-12-06
More Googley Thoughts
I'm sitting here, right now, sending myself 7M of files on my Gmail account. Why? I left my thumbdrive at the office, I need to quickly port some files around, and I've got plenty of space available to do it. And it's got me thinking.
Sure, there are hacks out there to let you use your Gmail as a mounted disk in Windows, but they still have to save the files as email messages with attachments, and that's still a pain. Google needs to go ahead and start up some kind of Gdisk, letting you stash files online. Web interface, integration into Google Desktop and maybe a context menu option for Windows, and Samba/DAV support so you can mount it under Windows or Linux as a drive and use it that way. Give users direct access to their Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Picasa Web Albums, and Gmail attachments in subfolders. And, last but certainly not least, give each Google account a certain amount of space, and share that space between Gmail, D&S, and Picasa Web. It seems like that should be a relatively simple undertaking to me, but maybe I'm missing something.
Sure, there are hacks out there to let you use your Gmail as a mounted disk in Windows, but they still have to save the files as email messages with attachments, and that's still a pain. Google needs to go ahead and start up some kind of Gdisk, letting you stash files online. Web interface, integration into Google Desktop and maybe a context menu option for Windows, and Samba/DAV support so you can mount it under Windows or Linux as a drive and use it that way. Give users direct access to their Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Picasa Web Albums, and Gmail attachments in subfolders. And, last but certainly not least, give each Google account a certain amount of space, and share that space between Gmail, D&S, and Picasa Web. It seems like that should be a relatively simple undertaking to me, but maybe I'm missing something.
2006-10-31
Google - Make up your minds!
So, Google is on two separate and opposing rampages. On one hand, they're talking about halting new releases to improve quality and integration, and (as mentioned in a previous post), even cutting their product count by a full 20%. On the other hand, they're making acquisition after acquisition. It just doesn't add up - do they want more products, or less? Are they bulking up or slimming down? I'm a rabid technophile, I read more tech news than most people read "real" news. So, which is it, Big G?
Anyone who's read my blog knows I'm all for speculation, but this one has me stumped. I'd hate to see good in-house projects get dumped in favor of bringing in products from the outside - not so much because of the products themselves, but because of Google's merger habits. You see, when they bring out a new in-house product, it's, well, Googley. It's got the familiar Google UI, and it typically has some level of integration with existing Google products - at the very least, it shares Google's accounts system. But when they buy something up, well... how long have they had Blogger, and they're just now integrating accounts into it? And that's pretty much it. The UI is still the same dismal Blogger UI they've always had (and yes, I am using the "new" Blogger Beta), the Google logo is nowhere to be found, and integration is nearly non-existent. When they bought YouTube they stated they were keeping Google Video around, which indicates to me that they are planning on keeping the YouTube brand separate from Google for the foreseeable future.
With all their talk of wanting to scale down product count and focus on integration, they seem to be doing a lot of acquisition which works against both goals. It just doesn't add up.
Anyone who's read my blog knows I'm all for speculation, but this one has me stumped. I'd hate to see good in-house projects get dumped in favor of bringing in products from the outside - not so much because of the products themselves, but because of Google's merger habits. You see, when they bring out a new in-house product, it's, well, Googley. It's got the familiar Google UI, and it typically has some level of integration with existing Google products - at the very least, it shares Google's accounts system. But when they buy something up, well... how long have they had Blogger, and they're just now integrating accounts into it? And that's pretty much it. The UI is still the same dismal Blogger UI they've always had (and yes, I am using the "new" Blogger Beta), the Google logo is nowhere to be found, and integration is nearly non-existent. When they bought YouTube they stated they were keeping Google Video around, which indicates to me that they are planning on keeping the YouTube brand separate from Google for the foreseeable future.
With all their talk of wanting to scale down product count and focus on integration, they seem to be doing a lot of acquisition which works against both goals. It just doesn't add up.
2006-10-27
Google’s Internal Company Goals
As mentioned on Slashdot, Google Blogoscoped posted an article about Google's internal goals, and it's actually really interesting. It mentions some upcoming projects like a revamped Google News, Gmail 2.0, Google Archive Search, and "Another interesting feature foreshadowed in the Google papers was to grab relevant locations & dates from web pages allowing users to 'view results on a timeline of map.'" I'm not entirely sure what the last one might look like, but it certainly sounds interesting.
What interested me the most about this post, however, was the note that Google intends to "Count total number of Google products and reduce by 20%." When I first read this, I found it somewhat worrisome - I use a lot of Google products, and I'd hate to see a much-loved product hit the chopping block.
But I don't think that's going to happen - not that I don't think they'll reduce the product count by 20%, but that I don't think that means many products will disappear. There are basically 3 ways they could remove a product from their product count:
At least, I hope they pick #3 if they're looking at slimming down one of the many Google products I use on a daily basis.
What interested me the most about this post, however, was the note that Google intends to "Count total number of Google products and reduce by 20%." When I first read this, I found it somewhat worrisome - I use a lot of Google products, and I'd hate to see a much-loved product hit the chopping block.
But I don't think that's going to happen - not that I don't think they'll reduce the product count by 20%, but that I don't think that means many products will disappear. There are basically 3 ways they could remove a product from their product count:
- The obvious: dump the product entirely. I'm sure this will happen to some products.
- The unlikely: sell off products. I doubt if this will happen to any Google products; if they see fit to keep it online, they'll keep it in-house as well.
- The sneaky: combine disparate products into a cohesive whole. E.g., Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools might become a single, combined entity.
At least, I hope they pick #3 if they're looking at slimming down one of the many Google products I use on a daily basis.
2006-10-22
Hey Larry and Sergei!
I hope somebody's listening, because Google has some glaring gaps in their coverage.
First and foremost in my mind, they need a download service, something like C|Net's Download.com. I'm shocked that this has yet to happen. It's got to happen sooner or later. I just hope it's sooner.
They need to add Google Docs & Spreadsheets to Google Apps for Your Domain. I've got Apps FYD, and while it works well, it's, well, it's not much - it's Gmail, Gtalk and a WYSIWYG page editor. That's it. I expect more from them out of an offering like this. I also thoroughly expect this to come out in an appliance like the GSA. I think such a product would do really well.
For some reason Hello is still a seperate program from Gtalk. They've got to fix that. Scrap it and integrate Picassa into Gtalk to send images that way.
They've got to have a truly wicked project and source management system - any chance we might see this opened up for use by open-source projects? They could probably knock the wind out of Sourceforge. Sourceforge is a good site, but it's not the best user experience in the world.
They're now vaguely tracking music listening habits via Gtalk to Google Trends. This is silly. Especially since they have a video property and no music property. They need to get off their asses and snap up Last.fm, or just fork the project (it's open-source, after all). Build the Scrobbler into Gtalk and/or GDS, merge the Last.fm database into Trends, and combine your Last.fm profile with your Google profile. I know they don't typically take on competitors head-on, but this gives them a handy way to take the scenic route to a fight with iTunes, and in a good way - in a way that would let Google truly ambush Apple, particularly if Google is able to swing a deal offering DRM-free content that could be put on any player, not just specific players. I'm not naive enough to expect Google to go into commodity hardware sales.
If they're going to push the whole Sitemaps thing, they should have Blogger and Google Page Creator automatically generate Sitemaps and automatically submit them to Google. Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics should both be tied directly into the admin panel for Apps FYD. AdSense and AdWords can be tied into it too for those using AdSense and/or AdWords with their GAFYD site.
I'm amazed we haven't seen an official virtual disk service from Big G yet. Many people are using what's now nearing 3G of space on a Gmail account as disk space, and various tools have been created to facilitate such use. But wouldn't it be better if they just made something for that purpose? Tie the client into GDS? Use it for storage, file sharing, backups, transfering files between work and home... Oh, the possibilities.
And, last but not least, I have to gripe about the quality of Google Page Creator. It's lousy. It's buggy, and it doesn't give you nearly enough flexibility to make a decent site. And on top of it all, it's deathly slow during pretty much all operations. I'm hoping they improve it fast, otherwise I'm going to have to ditch it.
First and foremost in my mind, they need a download service, something like C|Net's Download.com. I'm shocked that this has yet to happen. It's got to happen sooner or later. I just hope it's sooner.
They need to add Google Docs & Spreadsheets to Google Apps for Your Domain. I've got Apps FYD, and while it works well, it's, well, it's not much - it's Gmail, Gtalk and a WYSIWYG page editor. That's it. I expect more from them out of an offering like this. I also thoroughly expect this to come out in an appliance like the GSA. I think such a product would do really well.
For some reason Hello is still a seperate program from Gtalk. They've got to fix that. Scrap it and integrate Picassa into Gtalk to send images that way.
They've got to have a truly wicked project and source management system - any chance we might see this opened up for use by open-source projects? They could probably knock the wind out of Sourceforge. Sourceforge is a good site, but it's not the best user experience in the world.
They're now vaguely tracking music listening habits via Gtalk to Google Trends. This is silly. Especially since they have a video property and no music property. They need to get off their asses and snap up Last.fm, or just fork the project (it's open-source, after all). Build the Scrobbler into Gtalk and/or GDS, merge the Last.fm database into Trends, and combine your Last.fm profile with your Google profile. I know they don't typically take on competitors head-on, but this gives them a handy way to take the scenic route to a fight with iTunes, and in a good way - in a way that would let Google truly ambush Apple, particularly if Google is able to swing a deal offering DRM-free content that could be put on any player, not just specific players. I'm not naive enough to expect Google to go into commodity hardware sales.
If they're going to push the whole Sitemaps thing, they should have Blogger and Google Page Creator automatically generate Sitemaps and automatically submit them to Google. Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics should both be tied directly into the admin panel for Apps FYD. AdSense and AdWords can be tied into it too for those using AdSense and/or AdWords with their GAFYD site.
I'm amazed we haven't seen an official virtual disk service from Big G yet. Many people are using what's now nearing 3G of space on a Gmail account as disk space, and various tools have been created to facilitate such use. But wouldn't it be better if they just made something for that purpose? Tie the client into GDS? Use it for storage, file sharing, backups, transfering files between work and home... Oh, the possibilities.
And, last but not least, I have to gripe about the quality of Google Page Creator. It's lousy. It's buggy, and it doesn't give you nearly enough flexibility to make a decent site. And on top of it all, it's deathly slow during pretty much all operations. I'm hoping they improve it fast, otherwise I'm going to have to ditch it.
2006-10-19
Getting Google-Eyed
Okay, I'm a regular reader of Ars Technica, which is a regular poster of Google news. Every time Google makes some nifty new toy, Ars posts about it.
So, when I look at the tiny toolbar in the top-left corner of my Gmail and Google Calendar pages and notice two new links, I'm intrigued. So, what do I do? I sign up for both Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and Picasa Web Albums.
I started with Docs & Spreadsheets, and I'd have to describe it as "not bad". It's still in beta (isn't everything?), and it shows. There are serious inconsistencies with the interface, and I experienced one point when the application said my connection had been lost, and along with it, my changes - oddly, I didn't actually lose any changes, but regardless, that's not a good sign. I wouldn't use it for anything work-related honestly, but I will say it makes a decent home word processor and spreadsheet suite. I like the collaboration and sharing tools; they're simple but effective. Revision control is a very nice feature as well; being a developer and used to using revision control when programming, I'm glad to see it catching on in other areas.
I uploaded some files by email, both in the body of the email (which works very smoothly, but takes a while to process), and as attachments (takes an extremely long time to process, and I ran into some problems, which I was able to resolve by searching the Google Group dedicated to the application.) I also tried editing and creating new documents through the web interface. I uploaded spreadsheets and text documents by email and by upload form, and created a new one of each via the web interface. Everything worked well, but there are some inconsistencies between the two applications (such as the way documents are renamed), and the interface for Spreadsheets can be irritating, as you have to switch between tabs to switch between formatting and data entry/formula editing. I don't know how many spreadsheet functions it supports, but probably not many - this might present some difficulties when importing more complex spreadsheets, so I wouldn't recommend it.
On the whole, however, it is an application I will continue to use for my personal use going forward, and for some documents I need to collaborate on for work purposes, that aren't mission-critical or highly confidential.
On to Picasa Web Albums. This works extremely well. There are a couple of minor bugs with the (again, beta) Picassa 2 software with the Web Albums upgrade. I already had and have used Picassa 2, but I had to download and install the new version seperately (no auto-update as Gtalk has.) There are some minor glitches with the upgrade that are unrelated to the web album feature - UI glitches with scrolling, for example - but the web album works quite well. You select your photos, click a button, give the album a title and description, and it resizes and uploads the photos to your free 250M of storage. For $25 per year you can upgrade to 6G of storage, plus the ability to post video.
You can re-caption, re-name, and reorganize photos via the web interface, and you can add to existing albums from within Picasa. The web page also gives convenient links to email your friends from your Gmail account, and the links are fairly easy to remember (it's basically your Gmail address). It also accepts uploads from Apple's iPhoto.
This is something I will definitely be using going forward, because I share a lot of photos to keep in touch with friends and family across the country. I would recommend it as a photo-sharing service, but it is not a social networking site; you are only intended to find someone's web album if they tell you about it. They do, however, offer methods of embedding your photo feed into your blog or (shudder) MySpace page.
Now, this got me thinking on everybody's favorite debate: What's next for Google? Well, they just announced they want to slow down on new product development, and spend more time refining their existing offerings and integrating them together. This is what Google Docs & Spreadsheets is about, and we're going to see more of that. Web albums was a simple matter of leveraging their existing technologies; we're going to see more of that, too.
I also see a few holes in their big push areas. They've got many-to-many text (Google Groups), one-to-one text (Gmail), live one-to-one text (Gtalk), one-to-many text (Blogger), and live one-to-one audio (Gtalk Voice Chat). I see live many-to-many text (chatrooms built onto Gtalk), live many-to-many audio (Gtalk conference calls), and possibly live one-to-one video (Gtalk video chat) on the horizon, easily. The reason I say possibly on one-to-one video as it's still not hugely popular, and it still doesn't work very well. However, Google is known for changing those traits in everything they touch, so they may be able to pull something out of their PhD-lined hat.
That's everybody's communications. They're also taking care of everybody's media, with Google Video and a recent YouTube acquisition, and of course Picasa and the new Web albums. What's missing is, of course, audio. I see an appeal to independent artists, and possibly another grab of public domain material (like their recent indexing of all books whose copyright had expired). I can definitely see an acquisition in this space, and I particularly like the idea of Last.fm coming under Google's wing. I think it'd be a really good matchup, and I think it'd do great things for both companies. But, of course, this is all conjecture - only time will tell what Big G has planned.
So, when I look at the tiny toolbar in the top-left corner of my Gmail and Google Calendar pages and notice two new links, I'm intrigued. So, what do I do? I sign up for both Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and Picasa Web Albums.
I started with Docs & Spreadsheets, and I'd have to describe it as "not bad". It's still in beta (isn't everything?), and it shows. There are serious inconsistencies with the interface, and I experienced one point when the application said my connection had been lost, and along with it, my changes - oddly, I didn't actually lose any changes, but regardless, that's not a good sign. I wouldn't use it for anything work-related honestly, but I will say it makes a decent home word processor and spreadsheet suite. I like the collaboration and sharing tools; they're simple but effective. Revision control is a very nice feature as well; being a developer and used to using revision control when programming, I'm glad to see it catching on in other areas.
I uploaded some files by email, both in the body of the email (which works very smoothly, but takes a while to process), and as attachments (takes an extremely long time to process, and I ran into some problems, which I was able to resolve by searching the Google Group dedicated to the application.) I also tried editing and creating new documents through the web interface. I uploaded spreadsheets and text documents by email and by upload form, and created a new one of each via the web interface. Everything worked well, but there are some inconsistencies between the two applications (such as the way documents are renamed), and the interface for Spreadsheets can be irritating, as you have to switch between tabs to switch between formatting and data entry/formula editing. I don't know how many spreadsheet functions it supports, but probably not many - this might present some difficulties when importing more complex spreadsheets, so I wouldn't recommend it.
On the whole, however, it is an application I will continue to use for my personal use going forward, and for some documents I need to collaborate on for work purposes, that aren't mission-critical or highly confidential.
On to Picasa Web Albums. This works extremely well. There are a couple of minor bugs with the (again, beta) Picassa 2 software with the Web Albums upgrade. I already had and have used Picassa 2, but I had to download and install the new version seperately (no auto-update as Gtalk has.) There are some minor glitches with the upgrade that are unrelated to the web album feature - UI glitches with scrolling, for example - but the web album works quite well. You select your photos, click a button, give the album a title and description, and it resizes and uploads the photos to your free 250M of storage. For $25 per year you can upgrade to 6G of storage, plus the ability to post video.
You can re-caption, re-name, and reorganize photos via the web interface, and you can add to existing albums from within Picasa. The web page also gives convenient links to email your friends from your Gmail account, and the links are fairly easy to remember (it's basically your Gmail address). It also accepts uploads from Apple's iPhoto.
This is something I will definitely be using going forward, because I share a lot of photos to keep in touch with friends and family across the country. I would recommend it as a photo-sharing service, but it is not a social networking site; you are only intended to find someone's web album if they tell you about it. They do, however, offer methods of embedding your photo feed into your blog or (shudder) MySpace page.
Now, this got me thinking on everybody's favorite debate: What's next for Google? Well, they just announced they want to slow down on new product development, and spend more time refining their existing offerings and integrating them together. This is what Google Docs & Spreadsheets is about, and we're going to see more of that. Web albums was a simple matter of leveraging their existing technologies; we're going to see more of that, too.
I also see a few holes in their big push areas. They've got many-to-many text (Google Groups), one-to-one text (Gmail), live one-to-one text (Gtalk), one-to-many text (Blogger), and live one-to-one audio (Gtalk Voice Chat). I see live many-to-many text (chatrooms built onto Gtalk), live many-to-many audio (Gtalk conference calls), and possibly live one-to-one video (Gtalk video chat) on the horizon, easily. The reason I say possibly on one-to-one video as it's still not hugely popular, and it still doesn't work very well. However, Google is known for changing those traits in everything they touch, so they may be able to pull something out of their PhD-lined hat.
That's everybody's communications. They're also taking care of everybody's media, with Google Video and a recent YouTube acquisition, and of course Picasa and the new Web albums. What's missing is, of course, audio. I see an appeal to independent artists, and possibly another grab of public domain material (like their recent indexing of all books whose copyright had expired). I can definitely see an acquisition in this space, and I particularly like the idea of Last.fm coming under Google's wing. I think it'd be a really good matchup, and I think it'd do great things for both companies. But, of course, this is all conjecture - only time will tell what Big G has planned.
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