The latest, greatest thing to come from Google was announced this week and has been rolling out to Gmail users as well. I finally got mine turned on yesterday and have a few thoughts.

If you want more information about what Google Buzz is, checkthis news search.

It most closely resembles FriendFeed, but it works like a cross between Twitter and Facebook. Being built into Gmail is a bonus, so you get one stop shopping. It seems to be pretty cool, but there are a few things I’m noticing.

• When sharing items from other sites, they double post
• It would appear that I’m limited to following only my friends or friends of friends
• It’s slow. Maybe not so much slow as it is laggy, especially when opening images.
• Sharing a video is slightly cumbersome and, as far as I know, it only works with YouTube. More testing is still needed
• Unlike FriendFeed, I’m not able to add any site to my feed that I like via XML. I thought that it was tied to the sites listed in my Google Profile, but that is not the case

I think it’s cool, but I have the distinct impression that it is not quite done. Yet.

Found on Twitter

First up in my find isn’t so much an app as it is a browser bookmarklet called Readability. I didn’t find this one as an add, but from following a link in a tweet in someone I follow (apologies if this was you, it’s been a while so I do not remember). Readability is by far the handiest thing I’ve used in quite some time.

Imagine if you will, going to a website like, oh, I don’t know, this one.

That is the Droid review at PCWorld.com as viewed in Google Chrome on my Mac. What a mess, until you click on the Readability bookmarklet. Instead of that mess up there, you instead get this wonderful page to read.

Wonderful. No ads, no cruft, just the story I want to read in large type with wide margins. You can customize the experience in many ways and it only takes a few minutes to setup. Oh yea, and it’s free. You really need to try this out.

The app that I found via an advertisement in Tweetie is a brilliant interface to Gmail called MailPlane. Yes, it is a desktop app to access a web based app. But it makes using Gmail so much better! I’m not sure if any of you have tried Fluid with Gmail, but it is very similiar to that experience.

With MailPlane you get drag and drop support, multiple account support that makes switching between accounts a snap, Growl support for messages and the ability to easily make it your default mail client. I’ve been using this for almost a month on the free trial and can tell you that I will be handing over my $24.95 happily next week. I’ve been looking for something exactly like this for quite a while now and am very pleased with how it works, especially when comparing to only using Gmail in a browser.

Sadly, MailPlane is Mac only. If you are a Gmail user and a Mac user, you should take the time to download this and check it out. The first 30 days are free, so why not.

If I were to go back and modified my top 5 mac applications, these 2 would definitely make the cut. If you try them out, I’m sure the rest of the class would be interested in what you thought about them. Comment below with your thoughts or opinions.

That’s right, I said it. I hate Safari.

Gasp! Boo! Hiss! Go on, get it out of your system.

There are many things that this brilliant iMac sitting on my desk does that I absolutely adore. There are many apps that I run on a daily or almost daily basis that I also think are quite keen. Keen enough to remember their name so I can fire them up in QuickSilver or that they have earned a place in the all mighty dock.

Safari is not one of them.

It’s not the way Safari looks, because it is a good looking app. And, it’s not because of how it displays websites. It is the way Safari works with a few websites, sometimes, stability and how tabs work.

In Firefox (all versions, all operating systems) and Internet Explorer v7 & v8 and Google Chrome (and, quite possibly Opera, although I never use that) you can close a tab 2 different ways using the mouse. You can either click on the ‘X’ (which, on all of these browsers is on the right, Safari is on the left) or you can press the middle/scroll wheel of your mouse anywhere on the tab. That might sound niggling, but it really slows me down. Having the use the CMD key with a mouse click has never worked for me. I’m either using a keyboard shortcut or the mouse, not both.

Then there is stability. I have recently discovered that by not keeping my cache and history tidy and neat, Safari does nothing more than crash while trying to start. Not only does it crash repeatedly when trying to start, it will sometimes crash altogether with the only fix being a complete system restart. And, since there isn’t an internet options in System Preferences (like Windows), there is no way that I’m aware of to correct it. In all of the other browsers, having a messy cache or lots of history just slows things down a bit.

Another minor thing is the lack of a status bar by default. I always check where links go in the status bar, and not having it seriously annoys me. I shouldn’t have to do a google search to find how to turn this on. Sure, it’s a hold over from my Windows days, but better safe than sorry, right?

And, finally, there is Gmail. And also, there isn’t Gmail. But, it is. Gmail is my email application. While I don’t live in there all the time, it is what I use to send and receive email (since replaced by Mailplane, more on that later). And with Safari (or Webkit, but not Chrome oddly enough) it just acts weird. And, only sometimes.

For example, on occasion when replying to an email, I click reply and start typing. Normally, the text just shows up in the email box like it is supposed to. Sometimes, and again, only with Safari, the reply window fails to grab focus, so when I start typing, the Gmail keyboard shortcuts kick in and do everything from deleting the message entirely to opening my task window. The annoying part is that it is hit or miss. If it did this consistently, I could work around it. But that’s the problem. It only seems to happen when Safari is having a bad day.

For the record, I have been using Google Chrome since it was released for the Mac and, at least for me, it’s been fantastic. It’s been my default browser for more than a month and so far so good. On occasion I do have to duck into Firefox for something specific or to use an extension, but for daily browsing, Chrome is it for me. Bonus it’s fast. Fastest on my Mac by a long shot.

Comments are open. Go ahead, do your best!

This was a post over at dbmini.us earlier this week about work not being right on the first visit. I wanted to make a few more remarks about this, but since they aren’t MINI related, here we are.

Have any of you used Windows Vista? Specifically, Windows Vista on any computer with only 2GB of RAM? I have and every time I do I keep asking myself the same question.

How could anyone think this was acceptable?

Windows Vista on underpowered machines is completely not useable. The system is unbelievably unstable and so slow it’s painful. For example, when trying to start Internet Explorer, it goes through a series of crashes until, about 5 minutes later, it settles down and then 3 minutes after that you see your home page.

When opening the Control Panel, it will also go through a series of crashes while drawing the icons. Trying to go into any of the CP applets is equally harrowing, with screens not drawing and the applet sometimes crashing.

Same goes when trying to close any program, especially Internet Explorer or any of the Control Panel applets. Most of the time they do crash and the only recovery is restarting the machine, which is another 10 minute ordeal.

Somewhere in the halls of Redmond (Or Austin – Dell is the biggest culprit here), there is a fellow in a room whose job it is to Q/A these kinds of things. I would imagine this fellow makes a good dollar or two in wages, benefits and other perks that come with working for such companies. My question for this guy is how do these machines pass Q/A? How can anyone look at this and say “yep, she’s good to go”?.

Unacceptable.

Knowing this, how can computer companies spec out a PC that would be better suited running Win2K and then install Vista? Seriously, a Celeron Processor? 1GB of RAM (shared with the video card too). I know it’s all about the all mighty dollar, but what about user experience?

It’s no wonder why Apple costs more, or why we pay more. That Q/A fellow in Cupertino actually does his job, and cares about user experience. If you buy a bone stock Mac, it’s a configuration that is completely acceptable to use for most tasks that the average user will need to use it for.

The average bone stock PC, not so much. That machine, usually available from any big box retailer for around $300, will barely run Windows. Why even bother to sell such a machine? In selling a $300 computer, you create expectations by your users that the computer experience, while completely painful and almost impossible, is an inexpensive experience.

Time to retrain. Time to stop buying $300 PCs. Time for manufacturers to stop selling $300 PCs. Honestly.

If you, or any of your users, are in the market for a PC, I implore you to encourage them to skip the bargain basement machines. Tell them to save for a little bit longer to get a PC that they can use and use well. It should have at least 4GB of RAM, at least a 2Ghz Core2 processor (Intel or AMD) and it should cost at least $600, more if they opt for better video with at least 128MB of RAM.

Or, they should buy a Mac.

It’s time we, as the consumer, start demanding better out of companies that continually churn out crap that doesn’t work, doesn’t work as expected or is just garbage for the sake of a buck. Really, it’s time.

We discussed this back in ‘06 and I am here to say that BitTorrent is still not useful. Back then I said,

For bittorrent to be useful, there has to more than a few users with fast connections. If you try to download something that is only shared by a few users, the download will take forever. Same goes if any of the users sharing are doing so over a dial up connection.

As you can see from the graphic above, I’ve almost got the complete download. .01GB is all that’s left and it’s gone caput. It’s been running like this for almost 24 hours and nobody out there has that last bit I need to complete the download.

We can only hope for the day when bandwidth and storage is so cheap that this kind of thing won’t even be necessary. I’m not saying BitTorrent is bad, but if it’s something that might be a little older or not very popular, it’s just not the way to go.

Yet another anniversary of my time on the internet has passed. And by quite a bit.

Turns out, I have now, officially, been putting words to screen (and it’s verifiable) for just a bit over 7 years! If you were to go back through the archives here, you will find my first post, at what was windthefrog.net, happened on November 5th, 2003. Of course, I’ve been doing for a bit longer, but those were posts that were eaten by Blogger or vaporized by Greymatter when I switched over.

7 years and change. Anyone curious what that means? According to the handy dandy Wordpress Dashboard it means

• 1,428 posts contained within 41 categories
• There have been 1,927 comments made, 1,911 approved
• I’ve used 642 tags

I’m not really sure what the word count is, but figure that each of the posts that I make here is usually around 300, than means that I’ve typed out over 400,000 words. Staggering. And that’s just here.

To get the full look back, I need to include the posts from dbmini.us, which started September, 2002, those stats would look something like this.

• 2,491 posts contained within 68 categories
• There have been 3,760 comments made
• I’ve used 721 tags

Using the same math as above, but assuming an average word count of 200 per post, that gives me a grand total over the past 7 years of almost 500,000 words that I have put to screen.

And that doesn’t even count the 6,657 posts on Twitter or the 2,591 posts on Tumblr. It also doesn’t count the hundreds of posts at Motoringfile that I have my name of them, or the 658 posts at White Roof Radio. If I had to guess, that’s got to be close to 750,000 words that I have put to screen in the last 7 years (and change).

Amazing.

Good morning internet. How was your weekend? Mine was great, thanks for asking!

Last week Facebook updated their privacy settings again. I would bet that most of you just clicked through and ignored them like you usually do.

You shouldn’t have done that.

If you’ve never modified your privacy settings before, congratulations! All of your profile information is now 100% open to the public, completely searchable by sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Exciting stuff, right?

Wait? What? You don’t want your information to be public? Now would be a great time to click the settings link in the top right hand corner of your screen and choose the option called Privacy Settings. It’s going to take a few minutes and you can even preview your public profile to tune it just right. And you can change the privacy settings on your photo galleries while you are there too. Good times! Finally, when you are doing this, you can even preview your public profile so you can really fine tune the settings.

Now, before anyone gets all crazy over this, just relax. Facebook isn’t automatically indexing your information on Google or the other search sites, they are just making your information publicly available so that the search sites (among others. Google your name to see more) will be able to see your profile. It’s really not that big of a deal and definitely isn’t something that requires ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND MAKE SURE YOU REPOST THIS ON YOUR PROFILE FACEBOOK IS A BIG EVIL MONSTER GAAAAHHHHHH! Back in the shop we call that F.U.D. And nobody likes that.

Have a great week! It was nice to see you again. We should get together to do this again soon.

Don’t be a stranger.

Don

• Is this Social Media? Re-tooting content that someone else made?
• Is Social Media making lists of tips, tricks, rules and recipes about Social Media?
• Is Social Media collecting followers?

I don’t think so.

I’m no social media powerhouse. At least not yet anyway. But I am doing the social media thing, and pretty well I like to think. And I’m doing it by not making lists, not collecting followers or even talking about it.

I’m doing it.

Instead of taking time to regurgitate what other people are saying, I’m putting my own thoughts out there. Instead of collecting followers by using bots or other means, I’m providing my followers with a reason to follow me. And, if I don’t gain followers, it is for no other reason than they don’t want to, and I’m ok with that.

Social media isn’t about the list above. It’s about being Social. It’s about being part of the ‘community’. It’s about interacting with your fans, keeping them engaged and giving them reason to continue to be your fan.

Stop making lists. Stop re-tooting unless it’s something made with 100lbs. of awesome. Start thinking for yourself and trying to be part of what you are building.

If you can’t, then stop calling yourself a social media expert because you aren’t. Just because you can use Facebook or Twitter means nothing more than you can use Facebook or Twitter. Show me something original that you did on your own and I’ll leave you alone.

After hanging out with the mouth breathers and other “car people” at SEMA last week, I think I caught a less virulent strain of Ebola. I got home on Friday and after the adrenalline and booze wore off, it hit me with a fever that lasted from Monday until sometime Wednesday. Aches? Yea, had those too. Plus a terribly annoying cough that felt like every rib in my rib cage was cracked when I coughed. This was a something that would have put Col. Potter’s horse to the ground!

During this, I made an attempt at installing PHP and mySql on a Windows server. My fever addled brain thought it sounded like a good idea. It took 2 days, but I did achieve success on our dev server. More sleep and advil later, I attempted the exact same thing on our production server, only to have it blow up on me. Wordpress, on this day, was not my friend.

Finally, after more sleep, even more Advil and some well placed cuss words, I achieved success!. Even managed to get the layout up and running in the same day. I rule.

Remarkably I made it to today. Also during this week I experienced some of the worst Southern California driving ever. It was epically bad. Add to that the fact that I don’t remember the drive to and from work on Monday and Tuesday, and it’s a wonder I survived. No kidding.

Finally, I woke up this morning too early thanks to teh lad’s alarm clock going off at least an hour before I wanted to wake up. Took advantage of that time and put the finishing touches on a website that I hope to take live within the next week.

So, in 1 week I finished 3 sites, wrassled with a Windows Server, battled traffic (and won!) and survived Ebola.

What’s next?

You could play along with the home game you know, right? Easiest way is to follow me on Facebook, but that’s not the only way. There is also Twitter and w(t)f, both of which I’ve been using quite a bit lately. Follow along. It’s fun!

So, a fever plus 90 degree temps in SoCal plus a cough so bad I think I might have cracked a rib or two. Add in a few idiot drivers and suddenly I’m Mr. Crankypants. Sheesh.

This is the other reason I don’t get sick very often. I don’t handle it well. Nope. No sir. Not even a little bit. Not.

Worry if you see me walking around with a baseball bat. If you see said bat, running might be a good choice of actions. At me or away, your pick. I’m really not that accurate with a bat.