Currently browsing: Anti-Google

Mobile GMaps now available on Helio Ocean

I heard via Heliocity this morning that MGMaps is now available for my Helio Ocean. YAY! Another toy. Coolness. (Good, I needed something to cheer me up today.)

Mobile GMaps is a free app that displays maps from various sources, such as: Yahoo! Maps, Windows Live Local (MSN Virtual Earth), Ask.com, Open Street Map, etc. for use on Java J2ME-enabled mobile phones, PDAs and similar devices. It can connect to a GPS receiver over bluetooth or use internal GPS to display the map for your current position. You also have the ability to pre-download maps and store them on your memory card (assuming you have one) to use them on the go without having to get online and wait for them to download.

There’s a bold notation on the MGMaps page that Google Maps support was removed per Google’s request. Anyone surprised? Me neither.

To install Mobile GMaps on your Helio Ocean, browse over to this location: http://wap.mgmaps.com/helio.html

NOTE: Be sure to read over the notes posted on Heliocity to properly configure your install!

Remember: this is an unofficial application for Helio devices. Any problems you have with it cannot be dealt with through Helio, so don’t bug ‘em. If it messes up your device in any way, it’s no fault but your own.

I’ve already installed and configured it and spent the better part of my lunchtime playing with it. Pretty neat and MUCH faster than the Google mobile app!

Thanks Heliocity guys! :mrgreen:

Are you a FOGger?

FOG - Fear Of Google. One who fears Google, you could say, is a FOGger.

With me, I think it’s a love/hate thing - I love Google for the toys and pretty goodies they have available for my Personalized Homepage (I *refuse* to call it iGoogle, dammit!) and for their very handy Calendar, but at the same time hate them for their many “indiscretions.”

*cough* Can you say profiling? I thought you could … *cough*

Robert Scoble had a really good article posted yesterday about Google — especially covering their recent acquisition of FeedBurner for $100m. I dunno ’bout you lot, but that one really bothers me. I use and depend on FeedBurner for several of my hobby sites, and am not happy about the fact that I may soon need to find a suitable replacement. (if such a thing even exists!)

Geek News Central posted a very heated objection, and while I whole-heartedly agree, what really stuck me was this: “My RSS feed is SACRED and I will NEVER share the SUBSCRIBER data with ANYONE, those that are using FeedBurner will never be able to claim that!”

He’s right, and to be perfectly honest, once Google starts making changes I cannot honestly tell anyone that their subscriptions are safe — whether my site or any other using the FeedBurner service. What’s more, what will happen with the FeedVertising? I imagine that Google will quickly swap that out first and foremost with AdSense ads. I have an AdSense account, but I’ve found that I’ve had much better luck using — well, pretty much anything else!

However, something I thought Mr. Scoble had posted put forth a decent perspective on this whole Google thing: “I saw lots of reactions to Feedburner’s purchase by Google decrying that Google will know what feeds they are subscribed to. I think Google has to be very transparent, very warm, and very open when it comes to privacy and the data it’s collecting on all of us and to many of us it’s coming across as closed, cold, and opaque. That leads to bad PR. Bad PR — if continued unabated — leads to government action. Just ask my friends at Microsoft.”

Indeed.

Google’s got a brand new bag

(I posted this to BYKYC already, but thought I’d expand a little on it here.)

I read on one of the Google blogs this morning that there are now “themes” available for personalized Google homepages … cool! Though you can’t edit the themes, and the written content is still very bright, it’s a stark contrast to the old “blah” or plain interface.

I don’t know if it’s available on everyone’s yet. I read several replies to the blog post about UK readers who could not yet access the new feature. When you visit your Google personalized homepage, you should see a link saying “New! Select theme” … from there you choose your desired theme and set your location. (setting the location allows for day/night images to swap out)

Here are screenshots of my page with each theme applied:

Email cleanup

I also spent the better part of this morning cleaning out my Inbox for Nitallica.Org, GMail and all of my other email accounts. I’m happy to say that spam isn’t new as much of a problem it was a year or so ago. (but then again, turning off my catch-all’s helped out with that tremendously!) I’m pretty happy to say that really the only spam I get is on my GMail account, but it catches 99% of that, so I don’t have to fool with it much. It still catches a few legitimate emails, so I do have to check it once in a while … for instance, I had an email forwarded to me from a friend about a free diet product. Hey, those things aren’t really my deal, but I *did* promise her I would at least look at it. So stuff like that will get caught, but otherwise I gotta say that so far GMail has impressed me. :mrgreen:

The Seduction of the Dark Side

I’ve been lured over to the Dark Side — now that I’m here, where are my damned cookies!?

I did it … I finally made the move over to Google Reader. I’d been resisting for some time; a long time fan of the Sage Firefox extension, I had really wanted to keep my feeds “inbrowser.” However, the amount that I had were straining Sage at the time, so I exported my feeds and imported into Thunderbird. But I still wasn’t happy … it just wasn’t the same if I wasn’t reading them in “Tha Fox.” I was browsing around a friend of mine’s site and saw his “Add to Google Reader” button. I started playing with it and spent about 2 hours importing and arranging all of my feeds to my liking and I must say I’m impressed. Google has really stepped it up since the last time I peeked (early EARLY in its beta stages).

I think I’ll keep it for now. And considering how much time I spend on my personalized Google page, the little Google Reader widget lets me know whenever I have new posts to read on my feeds and shows me which ones.

Sweeeeeet.

I’ll keep my Thunderbird as a backup and Google has a nice OPML export feature should I change my mind … nice!

Oh, and Jay — enjoy your honeymoon! I hear those New York Bed and Breakfast type places (which ever one you guys picked, lol) up there are nice. Have fun, you lucky smurf. ;P

Getting to know you …

I totally blame Teresa for this. *grins*

1. What is your occupation? Web Developer.

2. What color are your socks right now? White.

3. What are you listening to right now? talk radio (via internet).

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Popeye’s creamed potatoes & gravy.

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Nope.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Chartreuse.

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? A client.

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes, she’s cool.

9. How old are you today? Didn’t your mamma ever teach you that it’s rude to ask a lady’s age?

10. Favorite drink? Sour Apple Martini.

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? College football (Roll Tide!!!)

12. Have you ever dyed your hair? Every chance I get. :mrgreen:

13. Pets? cat (Psycho Kitty!)

14. Favorite food? biscuits and gravy, macaroni and cheese, tom kha (thai coconut soup), potatoes (cooked in ANY way!)

15. What was the last movie you watched? Aeon Flux.

16. Favorite holiday? Halloween.

17. What do you do to vent anger? I crank up a mix of some Lordi, Obliviaxe, Pantera, and Killswitch Engage, and play UT.

18. What were your favorite toys as a kid? Barbie, Playdough.

19. What is your favorite season? Spring/Summer.

20. Hugs or kisses? Depends on who’s giving. (Actually, I’m not trying to be funny, I’m just really ‘weird’ about being touched, so it’s usually only by who I trust and/or what I can tolerate at that moment.)

21. Cherry or Blueberry? Blueberry.

22. Do you want your friends to email you back? No, I’d prefer telepathic communications.

23. Who is most likely to respond? Mara, Jeff, or Ben.

24. Who is least likely to respond? You.

25. Where do you live? Birmingham, AL

*pokes Google Earth in the eye — Get out of my backyard, you fruitcake!*

26. When was the last time you cried? Last night … wedding and personal bullshit (don’t ask).

27. What is on the floor of your closet? Probably my cat — she likes to hide/sleep in there.

28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this? My wonderful website visitors.

29. What did you do last night? Bitched and moaned to a friend. Then fell asleep watching the movie.

30. What’s your favorite smell? Lavender.

Grrrrrrrr Google Calendar

I fired off an email to their Support team earlier today, per Carl’s suggestion. I poured through my settings and made sure that I had everything marked as it should be (to my best understanding).

I was reading through some of the material in the generic auto-reply I received from Google and a byline on one of the pages hit me:

“Currently, notifications only include events on your primary calendar. You won’t be notified about events scheduled on your secondary calendars or on calendars listed under “Other calendars.” If you’d like notifications for certain events, make sure to schedule those events on your primary calendar.”

Great … so in order to be notified of events on my other calendars, I need to combine them all. Now what about ones from other sources to which I am subscribed?

*beats head on desk*

I remember now why I hate Google Calendar.

Googling down the drain…

I was trolling DocJeff’s LJ and an entry caught my eye: it was about Google. Ahhhh, yes, the ever glorious golden monkey on my back.

But it’s being a bad monkey … especially lately. Google has been Top Monkey of choice for a while because of the reliability of relevant returns, or so it used to be. It seems Google’s results are getting worse with every day that passes. An interesting article I saw on COTSE exemplifies this, giving account of recent problematic Googlean dealings:

“Besides being bombarded with gateway search engine pages no matter what term you type in, you are not getting relevant results. In other words, you are not seeing legitimate pages that other search engines like Yahoo will return.”

Despite launching their anticipated “Big Daddy” infrastructure, Google seems to be caught in a proverbial downward spiral. Hopefully Google can clean up the clutter before the SE-watching buzzards begin circling overhead.

Yahoo Mail Beta

I smurfed this from Jark who smurfed it from Cybernet: how to access Yahoo’s new Mail Beta system from your own account.

1. Login to Yahoo Mail.
2. Select Mail Options.
3. Select Account information from the left panel.
4. Go to Member Information > General Preferences > Preferred Content.
5. Select Yahoo UK.
6. Select Finished.
7. Go to Yahoo Mail.
8. A page will be displayed that says “It’s the New Yahoo! Mail Beta… and you’re invited.”
9. Click on “Try Beta Now”.
10. You can then change your Preferred Content setting back to normal by repeating the steps above.

Looks like Yahoo’s giving Google a run for their money … sweet. :twisted: