my sometimes-skeptical social commentary

Archive for the ‘google’ Category

I love that there are so many tech gadgets available now. When I was a kid, I was the 2nd person in my Area Code to buy his own Commodore VIC-20. (No, I have no way of proving I was the 2nd…. But I do know that I wasn’t the first, because my friend Craig bought his first.) I never would have dreamed that things like the iPad would ever be created, much less at a price that we commoners could afford.

I am not shopping for cool tech gadgets myself, but I like to know about them. So, I look at their specs, their features, prices, and I even read background articles about how the designs were developed, how they affect (or are affected by) other tech gadgets that are available, etc. With all that info, it is easy to form an opinion, and it is easy to picture how I might use the gadget. But it is not any easier to choose one gadget out of the available set of gadgets.

If I had to actually make a decision and pick one of the new gadgets that has come out in the past month, I don’t know which I would choose. First of all, I don’t think I actually need anything. It’s all a matter of want, which I think most commoners would agree is also the case with them. What can’t we do without gadgets? I probably have more gadgets than I can fully utilize as it is, but please don’t ask me to be circumspect about my consumerism, I don’t know if I have enough headache pills to handle that.

One of my best friends bought a Kindle, and when he showed it to me, I was amazed. It is very good at what it does. And it does some things that aren’t necessarily advertised, which my friend was quick to show me. Cool. If I were a person who does a lot of reading (oh, I miss grad school), I would need a Kindle.

And then along came the iPad, which also lets you do a lot of reading, but it does a lot more than the Kindle, too. And a lot of the things that the iPad does are things that I like to do: look at photos, read web sites, listen to music, find stuff on a map, etc. Cool. If I were a person who didn’t already have a laptop computer, I would need an iPad.

But then I read in the tech news web sites that Google is going to try to get in on this game too. Google published some pictures of what a portable flat computer thingy might look like if it were running the Chrome web browser (which Google gives away for free). Google is also putting out operating systems for mobile phones and computers now, so the only cost involved in using their product is the hardware, which is mainly produced by other people.

You may know that I prefer Apple computers over Windows computers, but I do use Windows (I’m writing this blog entry on an old Windows XP desktop), and I use Linux a lot, too (specifically, ubuntu). My newest computer, a netbook I use for meeting with clients on-site, runs both Windows 7 and the netbook remix of Ubuntu, and I like both of those systems about the same. So, at least in terms of operating systems, I don’t have to choose one–I use whatever is handy at the moment, and whatever best suits the activity or project that I’m working on.

And that’s what guides my decision-making process for the mobile gadgets I started this post with. I have a mobile phone that is not a smart phone. Would I like a phone running Android? Sure, you bet. Would I like an iPhone? No doubt. But neither of those mobile gadgets is better suited to accomplish what my current phone does for me. And while they are cool, I won’t be buying a Kindle, an iPad, or a Chrome-something, because, as far as the developers have brought them so far, they don’t suit me any better than the gadgets I already have.

I use Google’s applications with my domain name WoodsWebDesign.com quite a bit, and I use Gmail separately, so I have noticed that there are some differences in what features are available through those separate services. What I want from Google is for every feature/service that’s available in the low-end version of their free services (i.e., everything that’s offered in Gmail) to be available to users of their mid-range free services (i.e., Applications).

When Gmail came out with themes this week, I was glad to see they had done something to update the Gmail service. And other innovations, such as video chat built-in to the Inbox, are cool, too. But why can’t all of those services be made available to those of us who have made the leap and are using Google Applications?

I’ve been trying to plan a lunch meeting at a restaurant near work, and I want to show the other two guys at the meeting how to log in and do stuff with the web site I made for our community group, so the restaurant needs wi-fi. I haven’t found (yet) a comprehensive list of wi-fi spots for Buffalo, NY.

I may start compiling my own, but the problem is that it takes a lot of work to keep a site like that updated. I think the way to do it is to set something up with Google’s mapping API so that people can add hotspots via a map interface. If only I had paid better attention in the Java class I took, because that’s the language Google uses.

I’m sure I’ll find that someone else is already doing this… it’s the internet, is there anything new out there? Is there any topic not already covered?

This is not a challenge to Google, like when I challenged them the other day to give me a “local search only” option when looking for stuff. This is a challenge to you to use Google to find some interesting, quirky results.

Here are the rules:
1-search phrase is limited to 3 words, e.g. “pancakes for peace” -put all three words inside a set of quotation marks
2-search must be for something that actually exists, e.g., no searches for “wooden ice bike” or “flying cat suit“.
3-only search for something that you would personally like to find

Winner will be determined by lowest number of search results. For example, the search for “pancakes for peace” yields about 1,630 results. Submit your search terms and results in a comment on this entry.

I’m writing a letter to Google to ask for a favor. Please include a way to limit searches to a specific geographical area. There are other ways to limit search results, as shown on this page: google.com/preferences, so I am sure you can figure something out to help me limit my search results to my own local area.

Here’s what I’m thinking would work best. Tie your search-limit to the USPS ZIP code database, so that people can use either a specific ZIP code, or a range of ZIP codes, or choose a ZIP code and limit search results to adjacent ZIP codes within an X-mile radius.

I am confident you can do it, Google, because you have done so much already. Your programmers are great, and your idea-people are clearly thinking up stuff as fast as humanly possible.

Why do I want a local search result? Because I want to spend my money where I live. I think that the only way we’re going to keep our local stores open is to shop in town instead of online. I know Google has found me plenty of bargains in the past, but now I regret some of those purchases, because I don’t know whether I was one of the customers who could have kept New World Records open.

Sometimes the best price for a product or service is the worst purchase. Google, I’m asking you to do more than “don’t be evil” –I’m asking you to “don’t be Wal-Mart” too.