First Impressions

So I’ve been using GoogleWave for a couple days now. Enough to get a bit of a first impression of it and see how it functions basically.

• The whole “see while you type” bit is cool and can be useful. What would be more useful? An option to turn it off. Some people just aren’t comfortable with that and I can understand. Seen more than a few people commenting on this, odds are we’ll see this option soon-ish. Although it really does bring me back to my ICQ days!
• Contacts are still buggy, sometimes have to log in and out to see new contacts listed. Tad annoying, but please let’s remember it’s still seriously under development.
• Wave is not really suited to IMing, except perhaps one on one in a private wave. Tried this out a few times and it’s alright.
  • It can be fun to muck about chatting in a thread with several ppl, but each time you add someone, with the inline threading, it can get really weird to follow. Good for abstract thinkers, a bit fail for the logical types. Personally I have fun with it
• People who try and say “Wave is for business project collab” are just seriously not thinking. I feel like I’ve been given this huge play ground where I can create whatever I want to try.

Aside from all the private Waves I have going, including a proper collab that is the discussion for the D&D game I plan on running via a Wave (see it’s called outside the box, it’s a brilliant place to be.) I’ve joined a few public waves. So far just TV show related ones, Dollhouse and SGU but they’re cool. Meet ppl from all over and chat with them.

Cool fact about Google Wave which really should just solidify it as awesome in everyone’s mind:

The name was inspired by the Firefly television series in which a Wave is an electronic communication (often consisting of a video call or video message)

The crash message of Wave being a popular quotation from the series: “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”.

So yeah, epic win. If that’s not enough…

Today I taught a bot some important truths of the universe:

Wave of Awesomeness

So someone out there in the Google world likes me I think. Or thinks that geek girls corset tanking is win… either way, I don’t care about the reason because…

wait for it…

I got a Google Wave invite!!!!!!!!! Yes that’s right, an official invite from the staff over there, not a nomination. Yes this is epic win and happiness for me. Especially as this includes the ability to nominate 8 other people to get invites.

Oh what’s that? You don’t believe me? How about some screen shot goodness?

That’s a convo I had this morning with @lostprocess who got a nomination a few days ago. And yes, I’m an epic multi-tasker in the morning over my coffee lol.

So first impressions? Love it… although I’m really needing more of my friends on here to get the feel. Seeing people type live is pretty awesome though. I’m hoping to get a D&D game started kinda forum style on there once we get more people waving. Could be a fun way to integrate some media in there as well… if that does happen I’ll be blogging more about that.

I’m trying to think outside the box of business collaborations with it so any suggestions are totally appreciated. Be neat to start some kind of story idea collab or perhaps a Nanowrimo wave? How about a photo challenge wave? Yes… I’m just throwing random ideas out into the universe.

Please do chime in with your thoughts, invite beggars will be shunned. If I really like you, your invite is otw already. I have 4 left, they will go to friends not random people. Atm I’m just giving everyone a chance to express interest in getting an invite and then I’ll start sending those ones out.

Invite others to Google Wave
Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.

Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

So if I’ve sent you an invite, don’t fret it will show up!

If you’re already riding the wave of awesome, add me as a contact! tehg33kgir1 AT gmail DOT com

New Google Phone Apps!

An update of my Useful Google Phone Apps Page!

Ok, I’ve had the HTC Dream for a while now. And guess what? I still love it! Really, it only gets better the more things you find out it can do. For those who follow the world of open source probably heard about the release of Google Latitude. (More on what I think about this later!)

Between my grandpa and I we have come across some neat little programs. So what am I using right now?

NEW!

Google Maps +Latitude
The ultimate in any stalker’s arsenal! hehe. Don’t worry, your location isn’t given out at random, you invite your friends to join your network. Even there you have many privacy options. From letting certain friends see your exact GPS location to only showing others which city you’re currently in. You can turn it off whenever you like to prevent anyone from seeing where you are.

There’s also two methods for determining your location. Wifi/3G which is not as accurate, and GPS which is dead on.

3G Watchdog
I don’t have unlimited data plan, but 500MB is actually a lot when it comes to mobile phone data. However, with using programs such as Latitude I do want to keep an eye on how much bandwidth I’m using. This program tracks the uploaded and downloaded data (you can define what your quota is and when it refreshes). It also tells you useful information like how much bandwidth you will have used given your current rate when your quota ends.

NewsRob
Because a girl can never have too many RSS feeds to follow hehe. Seriously though it’s a nice light application that syncs with Google Reader so you don’t have to set up all your subscriptions again. You can star and share posts right from your phone!

SMS Text Fail on HTC Dream

• From my: What’s Messed Up Now Page

June 9, 2009 – SMS Time Stamps
Status: Unresolved – Reported

So we’ve got our first glitch on the phone. All my received messages are showing as being sent 3 hours after I receive them. Text messages I’ve sent are showing the correct time so a conversation that went like this:

Becca: How’s the wrist?
Me: Bit painful still 
Becca: Awww

Actually winds up looking like this:

Me: Bit painful still  ~Sent 8:15AM
Becca: How’s the wrist? ~Sent 11:14AM
Becca: Awww ~Sent 11:17AM

Needless to say this is highly annoying. I’ve tried the typical fixes, IE: setting my time zone manually and letting the Rogers network set it automatically. Becca is in the same city as me, however this problem also occurs with people in different cities and on different networks.

Called technical support, after telling me to do what I already did (I really just need to start making them put me through to Advanced Tech Support right away) he’s got me on hold while he talks to Advanced Technical Support.

I’ve searche the blogs, forums, etc. There’s not a ton of info, this being a new phone to both the Rogers Network and to Canada. The only info I can find involves editing the registry, and while I will play with that on my computer… I won’t risk messing up my phone.

Service Call with Rogers (REF# – WR05969735) : He’s contacted Advanced Tech… it’s a known issue. He’s added my contact info to the already open ticket so I’ll be getting a fix as soon as they figure one out. Let’s hope it’s soon… I txt way too much for this crap.

Google Chrome for Linux!

That’s right.. you read it right… Google Chrome is here for Linux! Well… sort of. lol.

The Developers at Chromium are allowing us to download the super unstable developers release of Google Chrome for Linux.

Quote:

Google Chrome releases updates to different release channels. Subscribing to the Beta or Dev channel means you’ll get more frequent (but less stable) updates and you’ll get to try new features first. There are three release channels:

• Stable channel. Everyone is on the Stable channel when they first install Google Chrome. The Stable channel is updated with features and fixes once they have been thoroughly tested in the Beta channel. If you want a rock solid browser but don’t need the latest features, the Stable channel is for you.
• Beta channel. People who like to use and help refine the latest features subscribe to the Beta channel. Every month or so, we promote stable and complete features from the Dev channel to the Beta channel. The Beta channel is more stable than Dev, but may lack the polish one expects from a finished product.
• Developer preview channel. The Dev channel is where ideas get tested (and sometimes fail). The Dev channel can be very unstable at times, and new features usually require some manual configuration to be enabled. Still, simply using Dev channel releases is an easy (practically zero-effort) way for anyone to help improve Google Chrome.

My First Impressions

It’s FAST… like FAST FAST FAST FAST! Although as @bytey pointed out at the moment it’s go no plugins so we’re talking about just the raw rendering. To quote: “… if this had boobs and support for flash it would be perfect”

Personally I’m a huge fan of Chrome, it’s really just everything I want in a browser. I was so used to it that switching to Firefox was really blech and was making me less excited about linux. The hardest part was the URL addy bar not just being a google search. Oh man that was ANNOYING!

Time will tell how buggy this version is, I’m sure it’s got it’s share. I noticed some issues trying to cut and paste that bit from the Chromium site and also @bytey’s quote.