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November 3, 2011
Yesterday I was greeted by an icon in Gmail to try their new look. I clicked, played with the new look for a while and ran right back to the old look. Alas, Google seems determined to push the new Gmail look on users, whether they like it or not, so the classic look may not last much longer.
I had two immediate negative reactions to the new design. The style is plain ugly and it also stinks of social networking. There are no clear cut delineations between the email area, the navigation, the ads, and the buttons. Elements seem to have been randomly placed on the page with very little contrast to differentiate the various areas.
Google will probably deny this but the new design is like Google+ crammed into Gmail. Everything has profile pictures in it and email threads look like wall posting timelines now. You can try the compact mode to squeeze everything together but that doesn’t help much. The elements never quite collapse like the classic version.
When will companies learn? You can't force people to like a product. This is the case of Gmail trying to push Google+ on the users and it doesn't work. The Gmail help forums are already rife with critical messages from disgruntled users. If Gmail wants to give its users new look and feel options, that's fine, but not allowing users to have the classic look is just heavy-handed.
Users can revolt and threaten to leave Gmail and hope Google pulls a BoA in the end. But if Google decides to push forward with the new look, it may be time to ditch Gmail for other services. This may be a golden opportunity for Facebook to beef up its pitiful email platform and steal users away.
October 14, 2011
The tech geeks have been abuzz over a critical article written by a Google developer and leaked on Google+ by mistake. In that article, the author criticizes Google for its lack of a coherent platform and its SOA shortcomings as compared to companies such as facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
The author has since recanted his claims, calling them an opinionated rant. Surely a desire to remain employed by Google must have been a strong incentive. Never mind the Google critique, what really interested me was his depiction of Amazon. As an ex-employee of Amazon, he would have been in a position to know.
This is one of the passages describing Amazon:
And their operations are a mess; they don't really have SREs and they make engineers pretty much do everything, which leaves almost no time for coding - though again this varies by group, so it's luck of the draw. They don't give a single shit about charity or helping the needy or community contributions or anything like that. Never comes up there, except maybe to laugh about it. Their facilities are dirt-smeared cube farms without a dime spent on decor or common meeting areas.
A comment post from an Amazon ex-employee reads:
Amazon was a purely political environment where, if you weren't watching your back you'd get stabbed and become a rung in someone else's ladder. In our group, the manager had zero engineering experience (literally had gone to college to be a prison guard, somehow ended up "managing" programmers, though barely computer literate.
One might suspect the author has an unjustified grudge against Amazon, but I don't see why the author would trash Amazon when the goal of the article was to pick on Google. Software people generally tell it like it is, so perhaps he just happened to be in bad teams over at Amazon. I give it that at best.
My opinion of Amazon was already low, brought down by their arrogant and unethical behavior, but reading this article gave me more validation for my dislike of this company. I have continued to bypass Amazon and shop elsewhere since my initial disturbing experience with them. It's been most satisfying to deprive Amazon of even a cent of my money.
October 12, 2011
Ok, it's not goggle.com or one of the more well-known google sites but the site survey.googleratings.com is powered by Microsoft's IIS running ASP.NET. I only noticed this after I received an Adsense survey invitation with a link ending in .aspx. I wouldn't be surprised if the survey results are stored in an SQL Server database.
Google is the actual owner of googleratings.com, so one must assume the site is managed by a third party company, keeping the survey operations away from googleplex. I'm pretty certain any google developer who'd even consider using Microsoft products will be severely humiliated by his peers 
August 5, 2011
I'm not naive to the point of believing that Google is all good and no evil, but in this case I side with Google.
What the big patent trolls like Oracle and Apple and Microsoft are doing by burying Android in lawsuits and threats is stifling innovation and taking away choice from consumers.
I'm all for protecting new ideas, but patents are no longer used in the way they were envisioned. They no longer protect ideas and innovation, but are used as weapons against anyone who can be leeched for money. And the leeches are typically not the original patent holders either, but sleazy patent trolls and patent mills.
Official Google Blog: When patents attack Android
August 1, 2011
Tying browser usage to intelligence makes as much sense as linking hair color to sleeping habits. No doubt someone will come up with that study at some point too.
So going by this study, a few years back 90% of the world was stupid and suddenly most people smartened up by switching away from IE.
And no, I'm not switching to Opera just because its users were shown to have higher IQ. I'll continue using Chrome and remain stupid.
Are Internet Explorer users dumb?
July 19, 2011
I like Google, but sometimes the boys over there are so over the top, like they're so special. Now they have the g.co url to shorten only their own links. Wonder how many drug kings, er, I mean coffee moguls they paid off for that domain?
But no worries. For us losers, goo.gl is still available to slice and dice the unwieldy links.
g.co, the official URL shortcut for Google websites
June 26, 2011
A great idea that was way overdue. I always liked the simplicity of copy/pasting images into outlook. Now Gmail lets users do the same. Granted that for now it's only supported in Chrome, but that's my default browser anyways.
No more the old cumbersome copying, saving, naming, inserting, selecting, and finally deleting images.
Pasting images into messages just got easier - Official Gmail Blog.
June 6, 2011
My admiration to Google for standing up for what's right. Even in the face of Chinese retaliation, Google has gone public with the revelation that the hacking activity of Gmail accounts had a Chinese connection.
The allegations are as of yet uncorroborated, but Google deserves much credit for standing up to China when there's evidence of wrong-doing.
We'll see how far Google is willing to go on this issue before it permanently damages its prospects in China. But for me, Google's stance has elevated its stature and image.
China paper warns Google may pay price for hacking claims - Technology & science - Security - msnbc.com.
May 9, 2011
youtube, google's video site, is beginning to beef up its roster of movies, adding some big productions too, like inception.
netflix shouldn't worry quite yet. youtube's list isn't as extensive and its pricing not as competitive. but when google starts to muscle in on a market, it won't be wise to ignore it either.
Google’s YouTube Adding 3,000 Rentals, Challenging Netflix - Bloomberg.
August 30, 2010
 Still shot from 'You are the Girl' - The Cars Apparently The Cars knew about Droid back in 1987 and seems like their version was more fun that Google's smartphone version of today
Yep, that's Ric Ocasek getting ready to unleash the "Pleasure Droid". If only the product and the song were released at the same time. Google and Motorola could have used this clip to promote their Droid platform.
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