I never used Google Talk much. I played around for while when it was first released, but there was little to distinguish it from other instant messaging programs. Everybody I knew was using MSN (a fair few having migrated from ICQ), and I didn’t need the voice calls feature, so after a few weeks of sitting idle in my system tray it was ditched.

Roll on six months and there’ve been improvements. And I’m now finding it pretty good. Firstly there’s the integration with Gmail, which allows quick chats from the browser interface, as well as very easy configuration of ‘friends’ - anybody with a gmail account can be added in one click - that stays in sync with the desktop client. Chat histories are now saved automatically into Gmail (unless you hit the ‘off the record’ button) and are fully searchable, which comes in surprisingly handy when you’re looking for a URL somebody told you, for example. A big thing for me is that GT will also now integrate nicely with my Google Desktop sidebar, meaning I can see who is online at a glance and start a chat with one click.

My favourite feature is quite a small thing, however (and, to be fair, was there at the start). Whenever you don’t have the chat window in focus, the most recent message will pop up at the bottom of the screen for a second or two. It’s amazing how useful this is. If somebody is only saying “back in 2 mins”, it saves the break in activity that would normally result from switching to the chat window. It’s a little feature, but really helps.

There’s a new version (which doesn’t seem to be official as yet, so you may want to wait edit: now officially released) available which adds small avatars, as well as very simple themes for chat windows. The avatars somehow manage not to get in the way, although can be disabled, and add a splash of colour to the otherwise clean-yet-slightly-dull interface. Rolling the mouse over a contact now displays their information in the same way as Gmail, too.

I don’t think it would replace MSN, as I transfer files regularly and make the odd video call, but for everyday chatting I think it works very well. Fast, neat, useful and ad-free. This makes me happy.

More info here. If you’ve never used it, Writely is an online word processor. You create and store all documents online, and can save them locally in a variety of formats. The purchase obviously makes sense to Google, and I’m happy about it. I use Writely often, mainly when I’m trying to write some fiction, due to its nicely pared down interface. It has all the features I need, and Just Works. I used it for National Novel Writing Month and had very few problems. My wireless connection died at one point, but the web-based nature meant I could easily pick it up again once I’d borrowed a computer. The equivalent problem for a local word processor would likely involve Windows going down, and then retrieving the file would be tiresome at best. It was also great to save a local copy each night and know that I had two backups, so there was very little chance of losing everything. Google’s purchase means I needn’t worry about them running out of money, or slapping annoying adverts into the content window Great!

Can’t imagine Google are too happy about these leaked screenshots of the long-awaited Google Calendar, but they’re very interesting. It’s very similar to Gmail in style, and the two are apparently closely integrated. From the sound of things GC is still a long way off, and I’m actually still very happy with 30 Boxes anyway. It certainly beats the hell out of Outlook for my purposes

I love Gmail, but it irritates me that new features take months to arrive at Gmail UK. Auto-saving of drafts was the last major feature added, and that was in December. In the US they have integration with Google Talk, RSS Feeds, Auto-responders, ‘Accounts’ so you can send from different addresses…Lots of cool stuff. Still, I was happy enough, until last Friday when it abruptly stopped loading in Opera. Firefox and IE still worked, but Opera just stalled. This was annoying. I looked on the Opera forums and it seemed to be a UK-only issue. Then somebody replied with the following:

If your language is set to English (UK) (in the gmail prefs), you are using an old version of gmail. Try setting your language to English (US). That should fix it and give you a whole bunch of new features (grouping of contacts!).

Not only did that fix the Opera problem, but I now have all the cool stuff! Six month’s worth of new features added in about a second - nice

I hadn’t checked out Google Earth for a while, so I don’t know when they upgraded the UK photo data, but it’s quite impressive! If I’d been standing in the garden in Dorridge you’d be able to see me. It’s easy to recognise local cars, too. It doesn’t extend to Stratford, sadly.

I don’t know whether the Google keynote has started at CES as yet, but pack.google.com is up and running. It seems to be a software bundle, which includes by default:

• Google Earth
• Google Desktop
• Picasa
• Google Toolbar

Plus:

• Firefox
• Ad-aware
• Adobe Reader 7
• Norton Antivirus special edition

NAV comes with six months free antivirus protection, which is weird. There are various companies who offer free anti-virus tools, why choose Symantec?

Most interesting, though, is one of the optional features:

• Google Talk
• Trillian (the free version, presumably)
• RealPlayer¹
• GalleryPlayer - ?
• Google Video Player - used to play videos purchased from Google

Videos purchased from Google? Interesting…

The google pack seems like a great idea to me. Sure, most geeks will have all of it already, but your average consumer is probably still using IE and acrobat 5, with no spyware protection or decent antivirus software. Even though I have my doubts about Symantec, as well as it being tradition to despise realplayer, they could definitely have chosen worse products. Giving these more publicity can’t be a bad thing.

News is trickling in…Why’s the $100 laptop on stage?

Update: Something to do with a Divx deal (bet Real love that). Wouldn’t it be great if Google pushed divx as the standard for video, as mp3 is for audio?

1. mustn’t make snarky comment. Mustn’t [↩]

If you’re in charge of the military, it’s clear that you would want to know about anything in the skies. For this reason, NORAD track Santa every year and make the data available online. You can also follow his progress using Google Earth.

If I search google for “freeview forums”, I get a “403 Forbidden” page, with a message from google saying:

we can’t process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected.

Only on that one search, though - everything else works fine. Maybe they’re being spammed by this particular search string. Annoying…

Is Google Calendar to be released today? Hope so!

If it weren’t for my brain insisting I want to write for a living, I’d love to go work at Google Not that my programming skills are up to much, sadly.

Serenity is #1 in the UK charts, and #2 in the US. Fantastic. My enthusiasm hasn’t waned since last Friday. The DVD is rumoured to be coming out on December 20th in the US, too. I don’t buy many DVDs these days, but that’s a certain purchase!

The Argos purchases arrived today, and they’re all boring. Well, not boring boring, just only as interesting as non-stick oven trays, ironing boards and pillows can be. I ordered two sets of plates by mistake, and rather than have crockery for 8 people who wouldn’t fit into the room all at once returned one via Argos’ 16-day no-quibble promise. Hell, this is riveting stuff.

I still haven’t heard anything about said flat. If the current owner pulls out now then, well, I’m screwed.

Daylight inspection of the damage from yesterday’s car prang has resulted in news both good and bad. The good is that my car is pretty much ok. There are a couple of patches where the paint’s gone, but nothing that can’t be filled in with touch-up paint, or a blue felt-tip pen. The Focus, however, is scratched more deeply. I’ll ask the local ford garage to take a look tomorrow, since they owe me a favour or two
Waxy points out today that the Cary Grant / Audrey Hepburn film Charade is now in the public domain due to a clerical error, and can be legally downloaded here. I haven’t seen it, but Miss Hepburn is always engaging imho.

Google Reader is now (almost) fully Opera compatible, although saying that it’s not actually loading for me atm.

I caught The Daily Show on more4 for the first time this evening. It’s a ballsy show to schedule, as it doesn’t really fit into the UK advert-break system. At one point there was an obvious jump-cut, and another time the title graphics appeared briefly. The NTSC av quality is noticably poorer, too. Thankfully, the content more than makes up for it. I don’t know how accessible it is to anybody without a rough knowledge of the US political system, but, frankly, I don’t much care Extra digital channels are perfect for this kind of show.

Yesterday’s Daily Source Code had a particularly creepy moment when Adam played a listener’s audio comment about how to chat up women in the gym. Noting their exercise bike inputs of age, weight and stamina is apparently great because you can “see how long they’ll last in the sack”, as well as the best chat-up line to use - “you look slim” if they’re particularly overweight, for example. Ugh, sometimes it’s embarrassing to be male. Adam was also rather unimpressed. Then, though, one of the podcast promotional clips was from two young women clearly trying to attract a certain kind of audience - ‘we don’t know RSS feeds from our tight little asses!’ - and was similarly degrading. It was an interesting contrast.

Finally, my friend Lil is moving to Devon to live with her boyfriend, which makes them the first couple I know to move in together. Congratulations, Lil and Tom!

You know how I just said I’d be avoiding the internet? Well, Google Reader came out this afternoon, which I’d heard nothing about at all. Like Bloglines and Newsgator, it’s an online RSS reader, but with the interface goodness we’ve come to expect from Google. The guys at Feedlounge must be cross - Google’s reader has much of the same functionality, particularly in terms of ajaxy-no-page-refresh-needed operations. Unlike Feedlounge it works in Opera, which is nice I’m off to play…

Update: I’d hold off for a while - the whole thing’s currently very slow and various error messages are popping up. Opera’s not working as well as IE, either. I imagine their servers are getting hit pretty damn hard currently. Hopefully they’ll get it patched up soon, it looks very interesting. The Unofficial Google Weblog is the place to go for reactions.

There’s a very interesting post over at the official Google blog:

Net neutrality. As voice, video, and data rapidly converge, Congress is rewriting U.S. telecommunications laws and deregulating broadband connectivity, which is largely a good thing. But in a country where most citizens have only one or two viable broadband options, there are real dangers for the Internet: Should network operators be able to block their customers from reaching competing websites and services (such as Internet voice calls and video-on-demand)? Should they be able to speed up their own sites and services, while degrading those offered by competitors? Should an innovator with a new online service or application be forced to get permission from each broadband cable and DSL provider before rolling it out? Or, if that’s not blunt enough for you, what’s better: [a] Centralized control by network operators, or [b] free user choice on the decentralized, open, and astoundingly successful end-to-end Internet? (Hint: It’s not [a].)

See the post for more. Have you ever seen a company of Google’s size say anything so sensible? I like their approach to copyright, too. Their library indexing initiative has drawn massive amounts of fire, but all the arguments boil down to is “change scares me!” Which is funny.

Rumours abound as to the nature of the Google / Sun press conference this afternoon. The prevailing theory is that Google will be distributing the free OpenOffice.org office package, and people seem to think it’ll be web-based. Fascinating - this could be very interesting indeed.

Later: Well, that was an anti-climax. Move on folks, nothing to see here.

The solicitors are still arguing over the lease agreement for my flat. It seems that the wording currently suggests I have to pay all of the buildings maintenance fees, rather than 1/6th. This isn’t actually the case - the current resident only pays 1/6th - but the possible interpretation means my solicitors have asked for a deed of variation, which is taking a while. I’ve no idea when everything will be sorted, in fact nothing has changed for a couple of weeks, now. I do have saucepans, however.

I’m hoping this week will see the launch of Google Calendar, the server for which is apparently live but inaccessible. Google may wait until their conference at the end of the month, but Google Talk’s servers went live only a couple of days before launch. I’ve been using Outlook + Plaxo for the past few months, and s’alright. Changing anything from the web feels like a chore, though, and Outlook’s a hulking blight on my system resources A swish ajaxy google app integrated into Gmail would be great and, as Jeremy points out, there’s certainly room for innovation.

Lynsey and I are off to a dancing competition at the tower ballroom in Edgbaston this evening. We’re watching rather than taking part, and it’ll be interesting to see professional routines up close. I discovered yesterday that I don’t have access to a black dinner jacket, so am wearing a brown one. That should be ok, shouldn’t it? I’m having to wear a tie - an item of clothing I have yet to be convinced isn’t simply a big arrow pointing to the crotch - so shall pick out something suitably individual.