NathanHJones.comJust thinking outloud

The Gmail team has been rolling out feature after feature lately (well, if you’re using IE7 or Firefox 2) and they finally added something I’ll use on a daily basis.

You now have the ability to remain ‘invisible’ while chatting through the Gmail interface. This allows you to initiate all conversations with the people you want since nobody else can see that you’re online. No more pesky work related IMs!

If you’re one of those people that occasionally uses both Gmail (where I’m always logged in to chat) and the Google Talk desktop application be careful. Since the Google Talk application doesn’t support ‘invisible’ mode yet, if you’re logged into both your status will show up as online even if you’re set as ‘invisible’ in Gmail Chat.

Here’s a quick shot of ‘invisible’ mode in action…

Last Thursday (January 24th) Google released a pretty useful tool that allows you to easily upload documents from your computer to your Google Docs account. The application is simple but it allows you to drag-and-drop files to upload or gives you the option of adding a ‘Send to Google Docs’ option on your right-click (a.k.a. the context menu) . My experiment with the drag-and-drop worked really well but I didn’t have the same luck with the right-click. I’m sure I’ll give it another go.

You’ve always been able to mass-upload documents via email but the size limits it imposed on uploads was really annoying.

One thing I didn’t care for was the fact that I had to be running the upload application in order for the right-click functionality to be present. I understand they wouldn’t be able to actually upload the file but allowing me the option and then sending them to Google Docs the next time I started the app would be more useful for me.  I’m running a lot of software everyday for work so I like to trim the fat wherever possible.  Here’s a screenshot for all you visual people.

All-in-all I think it’s a pretty good tool and if you read the API documentation (link below) I think you’ll find that there are a lot of opportunities for further applications.  Besides the point I mentioned above, I’d like to see folder support.  I use Google Docs for collaboration and if I’m working on one specific topic I’d like the ability to upload an entire folder to the group.

You can get the application from Google here but it does require the .NET Framework 2.0. For you technical people out there you can also review the Google Documents API documentation for a little more information on what the protocol offers.

According to several news sources that I frequent - Time Warner is considering a usage based charge for internet services. What a ridiculous notion - that’s never going to fly!

Here is a few reasons this model is absolutely absurd:

1. Photos: Tons of people from all ages share photos online. One bummer about photos…they tend to do be kind of big files, unless you limit that on your camera or edit them, which is really going to eat up your bandwidth. More bandwidth = more money.
2. Music: Downloading music from iTunes does it’s damage to your bandwidth as well. With an average size (at least of my songs) averaging between 2.8 and 3.2 megabytes a piece you’re you could be looking at a pretty expensive internet bill if you’re an avid downloader of music.
3. TV/Movies: With the rise of the internet it’s inevitable that videos and TV will eventually be delivered via the internet. In fact, it’s already in the works. Apple (iTunes) and Netflix are already offering TV and movie offerings streamed directly to you over the internet.

I’m sure that part of the reason they’re looking into this is because of the rise in popularity of online video (YouTube et al) and photo sharing (pick any random website/social network and they probably offer photo hosting/sharing…) which taxes the service providers network. While I’d like to feel sorry for Time Warner (and other internet providers for that matter) and the fact that they feel their network is being used too much (what did they think would happen)…I find it rather difficult given the fact they (Time Warner Cable: TWC) made almost $2 billion in profit for fiscal year 2006. I hope everyone caught that hint of sarcasm.

I already have a problem with what cable companies are charging for ‘unlimited’ (even though it was discovered that Comcast wasn’t exactly net neutral) access to the internet and now they want to put limits or charge you more?!? What is going through the minds of these companies these days?!? Is that what a CEO that makes nearly $9.5 million dollars a year thinks up?

My addiction to Gmail continues today (official post was last Thursday) as they roll out a ‘new’ feature - group mailing lists. The group feature isn’t exactly new, I’ve had group assignments in my Gmail contact list for about a year now but now I can send an email to everyone in a group without having to remember everyones name…let alone making sure I got email addresses right.

Getting set up is extremely easy, I had a new group with members set up and ready to email (test group for my screenshot) in roughly two minutes. I’ve got a couple different groups but they’re useful for family and friends.  Makes sending out the family news a whole lot easier.

When sending an email all you have to do is start typing the group name and Gmail will populate the email addresses for everyone in the group.

Sorry everyone, this is only available for IE7 and Firefox 2 or newer.

What exactly is AOL/AIM thinking? They had a great instant messaging client that was used by everyone. I used it non-stop in college and for the first couple years of my professional career. It’s a great communication tool and if the project I’m on now didn’t have a policy against AIM I’d still be using it.

While it’s a great client I feel like the folks at AIM are getting a little distracted from their main mission and spending time on features that would be better left out. According to the Beta website for AIM they have included a new feature in AIM that allows you to display your typing in real-time. Meaning when person A and person B are talking with real-time enabled, person B would see each letter that person A is typing show up on the screen individually.

Not only is that just absurd. Who has the time to sit and read each letter as it’s typed trying to figure out the word or phrase their friend is typing out. I don’t know about everyone else, but I prefer to read complete sentences rather than individual letters.

Here’s a shot of this non-sense in action thanks to the AIM Beta page:

AOL - what a waste. I feel like you should be spending your time on more productive features.

Jenn and I were watching the New Hampshire Presidential debates this evening and I noticed that one of the major sponsors of the debate was Facebook. Yes, the same social networking site that claims more of a college students time than studying.

As I said in a post a couple weeks ago about Facebooks recent valuation, I’m a Facebook user and think it has some great things to offer. I remember Facebook having some political groups and pages as far back as the 2006 elections where people could choose candidates and issues to support. I think that’s great. It’s important that politics start to play a larger role in college students lives since they’ll eventually be our nations leaders.

One thing I didn’t notice, maybe it’s because I don’t access Facebook as much lately, is that Facebook has become such a force. I mean really…when did Facebook start sponsoring Presidential debates?!? Are they taking one out of the YouTube book and hoping Google notices? What kind of disgruntled family would that be…Google buys a company Microsoft just invested $500,000 in.

Here is a small shot of the Facebook politics page!

Back to switching between debates and football!