Periodic Ramblings

Earlier this week, Google announced that through the use of their Gears technology, Gmail would be added to the list of applications that could be used offline.   You can opt-in to use this feature by clicking on the “Labs” icon at the top of Gmail, scroll down to “Offline” and click enable.

As soon as it is enabled, there will be an “offline” link at the top of your Gmail page.  Clicking on offline will take the user through a quick installation, allowing you to create icons on your system and creates the Gears database necessary to store your mailbox information.  According to the documentation I could find  on the Google site, by default it will download up to 10,000 messages, using some sort of algorithm to determine what 10,000 should be downloaded.  I would imagine this is based on thread counts and frequency of receiving a message from that contact.

To facilitate the creation of email, Google has now enabled and outbox in Gmail.  The email will be  stored here until it is back online, at which time it will send the mail out.  There is even a “flaky connection” mode for times when you are on a less than reliable network connection.  This will force Gmail to operate in offline mode, performing the synchronization in the background for sending and receiving mail. 

Gears is allowing Google to blend the line between web browser/Internet and the desktop.  I currently use the offline mode for Google Reader, Google Documents and Remember the Milk.  This allows me to use the power of cloud technology but still have access to my data when I am offline, without having to worry about creating a synchronization technology.  Gears holds a lot of possibilities.

Microsoft has recently released a beta for their new Live Mesh technology.  Billed as a sync, sharing and access technology, it looks to bring remote access of documents/computers and syncing of documents to one central location.

Upon signing up for a Windows Passport account, or utilizing one you already have, you log into the Live Mesh website.  You are presented with a graphic listing each computer that is part of your “mesh”.  When you add a new computer, a small program is installed that sits in the background and provides the interface to the Live Mesh site from the Internet.  Currently only Windows machines are supported, but they allude to Macintosh and mobile devices coming soon.  I installed it on my laptop, and found the installation relatively straightforward.  I then was able to upload a file to sync on a regular basis within my “mesh” so that I can access that from any computer.

While neither the sync or remote access is ground breaking by itself, it is interesting what other possibilities this could lead to.  Sharing of resources across the web from a secure location, ease of support for a remote IT help desk, as all the computers in an office would be part of the “mesh”. ability for access of data from mobile devices, reducing the need for a computer when on the road.  The technology is there, we just need companies like Microsoft to take a lead and produce something that is simple, but allows for revolutionary uses.

While growing up, I was an avid fan of the Atari home computers, I have always had a place in my heart for the Macintosh computer, having had a number of them over the years. So today we celebrate the arrival of the first Macintosh in 1984.

Happy Birthday Macintosh!!

Since sometime in grade school, I have always been fascinated with weather, storm chasing and forecasting of weather.  While my formal education is in computers, I still find time to research and read about weather.

I was surfing the web the other day and found a podcast to satisfy my need to follow weather.  It is WeatherBrains, a 30 minute weekly show.  Along with a podcast, they have a nicely written blog that follows the podcast, providing the show notes and links to the sites that were talked about on the show..  I have just started to listen to them, but I am definitely excited about their future offerings.

I have been a fan of NPR for a long time listening to the local NPR station (WUWM – Milwaukee, Wisconsin), online/podcasts and on XM radio.

Well, NPR Music offering streams of new albums and live concerts on its website.  I spent last night working on some websites and listening to the new Bruce Springsteen album ‘Working on a Dream’.

Just another example of how musicians are using the web to market their work.  I wish more artists would offer some sort of preview, such as this, where you can listen to the whole album prior to buying.  The preview on iTunes is nice but too short, not all artists are on Last.FM and Pandora usually only has the songs that were released as singles.

Now I just wonder if the Boss is coming through Milwaukee this year to promote the album.  Hmmmm….

YouTube has a specially formatted site for watching videos on the Wii (http://www.youtube.com/tv). Viewing this site from your computer will just redirect to the main YouTube page.  However on a device such as the Wii, it shows a specially formatted screen and interface, easily used with an input device such as the wiimote.  While it is still beta and at times the interface can be clumsy, I found no issues with playback or the controls focusing on playback.  Some items were not viewable on the Wii, and the Channel section would only allow you to access the latest show that was published by that channel.  However, event with these couple of nuances I am excited about the prospect of more entertainment options with traditional one purpose devices.

I think devices such as the Wii, Xbox and Playstation are the future of entertainment on televisions. I for one, would love to be able to watch streaming movies on my Wii and play games and surf the web for more than just text. One device that allows me to present a multitude of multimedia experiences on an output device such as a television.

Some would argue that buying a computer is more practical and just hook that up to the computer.  And while Microsoft Media Center and MythTV along with others have come a long way, most people want something more simple.  The Wii and other game systems is this ease of use.  A single device with a simple input allowing you to access video games, movies, music, photos and other forms of entertainment.

Happy 303rd birthday to Benjamin Franklin!!!

So you ask, why do I think it is a big deal, because in today’s world he would have been a Steve Jobs type proponent of technology.  He would have probably have had his own Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Tumblr and personal webpage/blog and possibly a podcast.  He would have been excited about the multitudes of communication means and would have utilized them all.

So, once again, Happy Birthday to Benjamin Franklin who should be thought of more than just a founding father but also a proponent of technology and its impact on society.

Despite what your political attraction may be, it is still an exciting event every four years when the Inauguration of a new president occurs.  On January 20 at 12:00PM ET, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

To coincide with this event, CNN.com has what they are calling “The Moment” on their website.  I first heard about this, as I was having my hair cut at the barber this morning.  In essence what CNN.com wants people to do, is send photos that they take at the Inauguration and send them to CNN.com, where they will use Microsoft Photosynth to link these 2D photos together to create and interactive 3D experience of “The Moment.”  

It is amazing how far we have come, even in the last decade as far as technology is concerned.  This Presidential election and the race leading up to it, have been covered and presented in a way by technology that we have never seen before.  It is a historic time, for a lot of reasons, some obvious and some not so obvious.  We are showing the world for the 44th time that a new person can take the helms of this nation to lead us.

I spent a couple of hours today searching through multiple folders on the server at work, looking for documents that I needed for a status update that I owed my boss.  These documents were from 2006 until today, so needless to say, there were quite a few.

What may you say is that a big deal?  It is because the only metadata that I had on each document was the document name.  So I ended up having to open and search through documents to see if it had the data that I was looking for.  There has got to be a better way.   Why does my company not provide a system for document storage that allows me to store metadata with the document.  The only tool available is the filename, which in a lot of cases is Project Status with maybe a date of when it was submitted.

With all of the technology that is out there, we definitely should be able to implement something to help the average user with document control.  At least something that lets me add tags to the document and search on those tags.

Just my two cents.

The Internet is a great place to find information on items that you probably have no real practical need for.  I have always been fascinated with tall buildings and the information behind them.  Well, once again the Internet has come through.  The site Skyscraper Page does just that.  It is a database of all tall buildings in the world with pertinent stats behind them.

Nothing practical for what I do on a daily basis, but nonetheless interesting.  Well, at least interesting to me.