Google my life

Google is taking over the world, slowly but surely, and they are also taking over my tech life. It happens sweetly and gently, like falling in love. First it's the excitement of discovering a great new internet email service like GMail and falling so hard for it that you sign yourself up for 5 new email accounts in one week. Then comes Blogger, which you Dear Reader are currently enjoying vicariously through reading this blog. That's when the hook catches in your mouth and you start being reeled in, albeit smiling all the way.

I didn't even know I was being Google-ized when I posted short films on YouTube, but we all know what happened there.

Then it was Blogger Beta, and Google Analytics so I can see how many bored interesting and intelligent people are reading my blog.

And now today I've succumbed to Google News Reader.

I blame most of this Google-izing on TUAW who routinely post positive reviews about Google services and new things Google is up to. Such posts always make me curious, so I search around for more info, find even more positive input, et voila, I'm subscribed/signed up/Google-ized. It seems to me that Google has almost (almost) as much cool factor as Apple. If Apple had put half as much cool into .Mac from the beginning, they would not be struggling so hard to retain subscribers (like me, an ex-.Mac PAYING subscriber). Apple dropped the ball, and Google picked it up. Ah well, it's a big playing field.

So what's the next really cool thing Google will offer that would suck you in?
Integrate GoogleEarth with TomTom route planning?
Post your YouTube video on your Blogger blog just like you can post photos from Flickr today?
OS G?
Or, ten years from now people will wonder how Microsoft could have become such a big company. After all, if everything is free from Google now, why did we ever pay so much for so little before?

Grey skies above

It's been a while since I posted anything here and I'm starting to feel a: guilty (which is pretty stupid) and b: like I'd better continue this or I can just chalk it up to another thing started and not continued! Blogging is a committment!

It's been a very busy time at work (excuse #1) and I've had no energy at the end of the day to be creative or interesting. There have been family issues that needed attending to (a pretty damn good excuse) which took time on the weekends. And the last few days a migraine has attacked me (final excuse #3) which made me incapable of doing anything other than sit and wait it out.

Finally when I do start feeling better, and feel like looking at the computer screen for more than a few minutes, I get addicted to playing Sudoku Slam. I was pretty much over my sudoku addiction and the 5 various sudoko books sitting on the coffee table have been untouched for a while. But them TUAW posted a link to this sudoko website and I'm sucked in all over again. This site is great because it takes all the tedium out of the game. So far my best time at solving their hardest puzzles is 3:33. Not bad I'd say. But then I'm an addict and this only feeds me.

Also, since I'm feeling better and have a little time this weekend, I'm looking again into hobby type projects. One of those is ripping vinyl records into mp3's. Another one is making a cool ringtone for my Treo 650. Having looked around a bit it looks like Rogue Amoeba has the answers for both. And their company has a cool name.

When I was in California last (August) my mom had me help her set up some software and hardware to rip her records. We managed to make it work, but man what horrible software it was! This was the worst UI I've seen in years. Imagine Windows 95 type stuff. It works, but it ain't pretty. Thank goodness I work on Macs and can use software as cool as the hardware. Sorry Mom!

So, dear reader, now that I've given you some links to keep you busy, I'm off to do my Dutch homework and take home test, then to try my hand at Rogue Amoeba's toys.......

News from Home

I've made it back to Amsterdam from sunny California, jetlagging and culture shocked. I haven't called California home for over 14 years now, and sometimes I'm not sure which place seems more foreign to me, CA or NL. (more about that in upcoming posts...)

I won't be writing here for a few days because I'm going to LowLands this morning and won't be back til Monday. Unfortunately, as I'm writing this it is raining outside so this might be one of those epic mudbath festivals that I've only seen photos of. Ugh. I'll have photos of my own on flickr on Monday. Last year's photos are already up there.

By the way, after posting my last entry about the Blogger Beta, I was included in the upgrade program. HA! I have indeed upgraded this blog, but haven't had time yet to play with the new options. I was also included in the Blog of the Day, which is pretty cool for a new blog I'd say.

Blogging Blogger Beta

So, Blogger's new version is now in beta but I can't upgrade yet. Darn. I bet it's because I don't have adsense enabled on my blog. Probably all those people get to upgrade first. But the new functionality looks very cool and very welcome indeed. I've been looking for java scripts to do some of the things that the upgrade will do automatically, thank goodness cuz I'm no scripting guru and can barely find my way through my html template.

Details are here. Hopefully it will be rolled out to all us existing customers before too long. And like the Buzz says, if you just can't wait you can create a new account to try it out. Hey! That means all the new people have better blogs than ME!

By the way, I was going to change my template from the one provided here by Blogger, but after playing with one of those free templates (see my list of them in a previous entry) I've decided to just modify the official Blogger template. The html code in a couple of these I tried was soooo messy that I would have spent half my time just cleaning up their templates before being able to use them at all. I guess that's why they are free on the web.

I did manage to make a cool header image though (see above). What do you think?

Technorati

Technorati Profile

Blogger templates

I've been searching the web looking for cool Blogger templates to use. There are quite a few out there, but nothing that fits EXACTLY what I'm looking for. No surprise really. I mean, how can a complete stranger create just the perfect blog template for ME?

Here are some sites with nice looking templates, for free:
www.isnaini.com
www.ehsany.com
www.geckoandfly.com
www.blogskins.com
www.pointoffocus.com
www.bloggertemplates.org
blogger-templates.blogspot.com

If you know of more, please tell!
My next job is to pick one and try it on......

Blog about Blog

This is the 4th time I've started a blog. It has become clear to me that what I like most about blogging is the technical aspect of setting it up. At least that's true so far. So, I might as well blog about blogging. It might even be helpful to others.

First, I have to say there are some nice reviews out there about different blog tools that are available. Here's a really good overview. There are other tools out there (like iWeb for example) but they are either new or very niche and not included in this person's review. If I find other comprehensive reviews I'll list them here too.

For me the criteria for chosing a blogging tool are:

1. Free - I used to have a .mac account (see previous post about changing email address - I dumped my $99 a year .mac account) but I want to take advantage of all the free tool out there.
2. Editable - I want to be able to use templates from 3rd parties. Or edit my own.
3. Flexible - I want to be able to easily change setups as my blog evolves.
4. Simple to use and setup - I don't want to have to code everything by hand.

I'm now trying Blogger because it seemed to fit best into my criteria. It's not a perfect fit (I still have to understand html and css to REALLY make the blog my own design) but it's pretty close.

My next move is to personalize the blog with a 3rd party template. Then to modify that template with my own header image. And then some additions for categories.

Editing your tech life

I'm in the process of changing email addresses. I've had my old one for so many years that I really didn't realize what a pain it is to change! It's worse than moving. When you move you know who you need to notify - everyone who sends you something in the mail needs to know where to send something the next time. And the post office will help by forwarding your mail for a period of time so you don't miss anything.

When you change your email address sometimes you don't know what you don't know. Does my bank have my email address or not? I don't remember. They don't email me, but you never know if some day they might want to. And my frequent flier company. Oh damn, what about my credit card company? Maybe I don't want them to know. I'm sure someone somewhere will fall off my list and will never contact me again. Which can be a good thing too. How to lose an old boyfriend - oops! forgot to let him know that my email address has changed.

The good thing about this is that I should stop getting really annoying spam, at least in the short term. I did a stupid thing and gave out my one and only email address to shopping websites and that's when the spam started. I should have made aliases that I could easily kill, just for shopping. Now I know better.

My new email is with gmail. I'm giving Google a go. Gmail and Blogger. Let's see what Google can do for me for free what I was paying $99 a year for on .mac. I'll write soon with a gmail review once I've been using it for a little while. So far, so good.

What? Not another blog attempt?

Let's try a free blog service and see if this works out!
I'll have to get some links up here right away, otherwise you only have ME to entertain you.
More shortly.....