I've been using Google Wave for a while now and they were kind enough to send some invitations for me to distribute around. So, I have 3 left. If you want one, just leave a comment here or send a reply/DM on Twitter with your e-mail address.
Geek alert: I'll be using FIFO as the sorting protocol in case there are more candidates the number of invitations. Good luck :-)
My brother has recently had an experience that perfectly describes how technology can be so helpful and natural to use for most of us. It's quite amazing. Read it here.
Do you like GMail so much that you just wanna shout it to the world? Then, this tip is for you.
Google created a set of GMail stickers that can be very handy and the good news is that you can get them almost for free. To get your own set of Gmail m-velope stickers, bookplate style stickers, and keyboard shortcut stickers, just send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
Send me some Gmail stickers already
P.O. Box 391420
Mountain View, CA 94039-1420
United States
Google will then send your envelope back filled with stickers inside. Great!
It's been 10 years since Google was founded as a company and it's now far away from the simple idea from a couple of PhD students from Stanford. The Google Operating System blog posted a nice set of 10 videos about Google's history to honor this celebration. It's worth a watch.
I'll leave here just two that I think are quite remarkable:
Inside the Google machine (TED conference):
The Google work environment:
If you have a more scientific interest on the origins of Google, check out the original paper by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page when they were still PhD students at Stanford University.
What the hell??? Do the following in Google:
399 999 999 999 999 - 399 999 999 999 998
Check out the result...
As if the use of extensions to turn Firefox into Google Chrome wasn't enough, now you can use Chromifox, a theme that will give your Firefox that bright and soft blue look as in Google Chrome.
Source: Lifehacker
At first I was somewhat sad that Google didn't release a Mac OS X version of their new open ultra-mega-super-sweet browser, Chrome. Well, why shouldn't I? They even published a nice comic book that explains how they came up with it.
But then everything went back to normal when this Lifehacker's post reminded me why it's so great to have extensions in Firefox. :-)
Anyway, this won't stop me from trying the Mac OS X version of Google Chrome as soon as it's released. I'm actually looking forward to it. Well, let's wait and see...
In the past few years, the trendy term "cloud computing" has been used to denote a certain level of abstraction in the development of a large-scale system. Whenever you don't want to specify a certain part of that system, you call it "could computing". Google has been one of the main "users" of this term and one of its great examples is the recently launched Google App Engine. Basically, you can run your applications on this engine and everything (from scalability to robustness issues) will be managed by it. You don't know the details (hence, "cloud computing") but that's exactly the point of the thing: not to know.
You've probably wondered how many search results will Google get with the term "oh shit"... right? But have you ever wondered how many search results will Google get if you continually add "i"s in the middle of the word?
If the idea of creating great web applications on top of the Google infrastructure (through the newly-announced Google App Engine) excites you but you'd rather see support for PHP instead of (or in addition to) Python, then you may want to sign this petition.
Remember when I posted about having infinite GMail addresses? Well, now you can have even more :-)
Apparently, if you have a GMail e-mail address such as example@gmail.com, then the e-mail example@googlemail.com will also be sent to you.
This can be used to have separate e-mail addresses: for example, one for business, which you only provide to colleagues and business clients; and another one for personal use and/or registration in suspicious websites (but for this last one, maybe you should use the '+' tip I gave before).
Source: Digital Inspiration
Ever wonder what you get if you search for directions from Here to There on Google Maps?
Google Trends is a tool from Google that allows you to check the history of a specific term's search on Google in recent years. Such a tool allows us to perceive the tendencies of Google users throughout the years and in specific times of each year.
Interesting conclusions can be reached. For instance, if you search for the terms "stop smoking", this is what you'll get:
You can see that this search has more hits in the beginning of each year. Funny how people always try to quit smoking as a new year resolution :-)
A similar behavior can be seen through the term "diet":
People don't change: every new year's resolution are the same, either quit smoking or go on a diet :-)
What about if we search for other terms or people? For example, if you search for the "crazy socialite" Paris Hilton, this is what you get:
The highest point on this information search was in the beginning of 2005. That was due to the rumor that a certain "intimate" video of Paris Hilton and her boyfriend at the time was traveling around the Internet.
The other highest point was in the middle of 2007, when she went to jail because of being caught driving under the influence of alcohol.
If you search for the term "pope", this is what you'll get:
Funny how this term is relatively ignored by most Google users throughout the years and then suddenly it reaches a high point when the Pope John Paul II died (C) and then another high point when Benedict XVI was named the new Pope (D). After that, the term "pope" vanishes again from Google searches, only to rise once again when the new Pope decides to offend the Muslims (E).
But there are also things in Google Trends that don't really make sense. For instance, searching for "yogurt" will give you this result:
Can anyone explain why the term "yogurt" becomes uninteresting while close to the end of each year, only to rise again in the beginning of the following year????
And to end this already long post, why not search for something like "love":
No, it's not a coincidence that this term is most searched for by valentine's day :-)
Quick question: what if GMail had been designed by Microsoft? It probably would look something like this:
Previously on the "Tech in Me":
I still don't have access to the IMAP extra feature on GMail's settings. But on the words of GMail's "What's new" section: "Don't fret if you don't see IMAP Access yet under the Settings menu. We're rolling it out to everyone over the next few days."
I'm one of those people that need my e-mail to be available in different computers, so I ended up being a huge fan of IMAP. I use it for my work e-mail addresses but not for GMail, since it's not supported.
When it came to my attention that GMail was now offering IMAP support to some users, I "ran" to the GMail website to check it out. Sadly, I was not one of the few chosen ones to have the experimental IMAP support.
Anyone out there was lucky enough to have it? Care to comment on it? Does it work as expected?
