So everyone knows Google released their IM System today based on Jabber. The client is a bit low on features and the audio isn’t great.
More on this when they start talking with more jabber servers, till then it’s Just Another Jabber Server. I want to run a corporate Jabber server with my own security policy and encrypted links, but people should have the option to speak to Google Talk users etc if they wish.
What’s more interesting is that they’ve recently allowed you to set your own From address on gmail, this is great news and something I would have thought would get more press.
Just click Settings -> Accounts and there should be an option to add more From addresses.
If you then compose a mail you get to choose the From address. It is pretty nifty but does not change the envelope address, just the From header so its not 100% ideal but I can understand why they did it that way.
One step closer to being able to use gmail as a primary mail interface.
Google, IM and GMail
Google Maps and PHP
I’ve kept a map of my travels since around 1999, I used to use the now defunct PARC Xerox Map Viewer, when that went away I started just projecting dots onto XPlanet maps to produce a static map.
Ever since Google introduced their Google Maps system a number of mapping tools became available, dedicated blogs have been written like the very good Google Maps Mania and I’ve been thinking of trying to do my map using that instead.
Gary got hold of some code which got me going but it was a bit of a PITA so some searching brought me to Google Maps EZ which is basically a javascript library that takes standard HTML HREF’s and turns them into points etc, very easy to use.
My problem was still that maintaining data in a html file of HREF’s isn’t exactly what I had in mind, I was more partial to a XML file like the sample below:
<points> <point> <lat>-33.9333</lat> <long>18.4667</long> <type>lived</type> <title>Cape Town</title> <country>South Africa</country> <href>http://flickr.com/photos/ripienaar/tags/capetown/</href> <linkimg>images/19591136_35a14f6d58_s.jpg</linkimg> </point> </points>
This contains a lot of information, the type of visit I made to the location, links to my images taken there, a thumbnail to show for the links etc it wouldn’t be great to automate the parsing of that to output the HTML for GMapsEZ?
So that is exactly what I wrote. My script takes a simple configuration file like the one below:
[map] data = visited.xml type = map extend = "http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.964577,-1.241455&spn=\ 3.460112,7.639893&hl=en" width = 350 height = 200 showcountry = 1 showtype = 0 [controls] mapctrl = 1 typectrl = 1 scalectrl = 0 size = small [types] visit = orange transit = blue lived = green [misc] gmapez=http://www.devco.net/visited/gmapez.js apikey="mykey"
By calling the script I wrote and passing the config file as argument it will produce all the HTML GMapsEZ needs to do its magic.
<?
require_once("gmap.inc.php");
print(getGMapEZ("smalldemo.cfg"));
?>
And this is the map it will produce, this is just a screenshot of the final result, see below the image for a link to the full working page.
My full working version of the map can be seen here, it’s the same data as above just a much bigger map, bigger controls and a different extend. The only actual difference are some changes to the config file, same data and same PHP code was used.
I’ve set up a Wiki to maintain documentation for this as it matures over time, I will make announcements of new features on this blog, but the Wiki will be the resource that contains a always up to date reference to features and installation. You can read about obtaining, configuring and using this script there.
Google search tips
For those who don’t have a copy of Google Hacks there is a nifty page that lists plenty of nifty things you can do with google searches.
You can specify most of the Advanced Search page options in a regular search box query by using advanced operators, i.e., query words that have special meaning to Google. Since the advanced operators are convenient for searching, Google Guide calls them “search operators.” Most users find that making use of the Advanced Search page, instead of using search operators directly, fulfills their specialized search needs. Search operators tend to be used by people who prefer to type commands rather than filling in forms.
Found on Boing Boing.
GMail User Interface
I have now used GMail quite a bit and must say the interface is really fantastic.
The keyboard orientated interface is for me the most appealing, combined with the searching and ease of filtering mails this is going to be my favorite means of reading mailing lists in the future.
Read the full article for some screenshots and description of some of the features I like most.
GMail
Thanks to Francois for sending me a GMail invite.
I have been using it for a short while today and must say this is by far the best mail client and web app I have ever come across. If they have any plans to sell this thing as a stand alone APP I would be right there buying it.
A few of my favorite things so far:
- Hotkeys, Hotkeys, Hotkeys. This is fantastic it has hotkeys for just about anything and its very Pine like which means I am comfortable with it immediately since I am a old Pine user and made my mutt also use Pine keys
- It is really fast, the web interface responds like a normal app does, this is mostly due to piles and piles of javascript but surprisingly the experience is exactly the same in IE and Mozilla.
- The labeling of emails while initially striking you as being the same thing as folders has one major advantage, you can put multiple labels on a single message. I often have mails that I am struggling to decide where to put them since they cover 2 catergories of folder.
- Searching is very good and fast – I hope it works as well when they reach hotmails user counts.
- Filtering is good while not as flexible as mail filters found in other mail clients it is adequate, you cannot forward mail in a filter to another account for example
- Something that I think is unique in the free mail world is unique email addresses, you can have username+randombit@gmail.com and the filters support checking for this and lets you classify mail based on that.
So far the Spam filters has been disappointing I think they will hopefully improve on that soon. The ads have not been intrusive at all, in fact much google use has made me not even notice them. There are of course privacy issues around all this but I think no more than with any provider of email that you do not control. The provider can read your email, authorities can demand access to your email, and gmail does give you the option to permanently delete email so I think its a small step forward from hotmail or yahoo to gmail in that sense.
There are a number of tips and tricks type sites out there, here are a few I found useful:
Gmail Gems
Gmail Tips
Personalised Google
Someone on IRC mentioned that Google Labs has released a new service that personalised Google results based on your own preference. It is called Google Personalized and it roqs.
You start by telling it your preferences, basic categories that interests you, this gets saved as a cookie on your machine. Thereafter searches that you do default to no personalization but it has a nifty sliding bar for level of personalization which changes the results accordingly.
I did a simple test by choosing only an interest in Open Source and then did a search on Windows, you can see the results pre and post filtering in the following screenshots.
click on the images for bigger versions.
Kudos to Google for this, if this is a sign of things to come I am very impressed. I can only hope that Google will eventually allow us to filter our searches using something like regular expressions, there are a few domains that I never want to see in a search result.
Google “Florida” update causes wide spread havoc
If you are a Google watcher in even the slightest sense of the word you will have seen the absolute up-roar going on at present over the changes in its search result policy. This change affects many sites and is one of the things Google is trying to do to cope with various poison tactics that is being employed by dodgy webmasters.
Lots of theories have seen the light, a good write up can be found here
On Friday, 21st November, Google decided to tighten the “filter”. All hell broke loose as tens of thousands of sites disappeared from positions they had held (in some cases) for years. We noticed some of our client sites plummeting for their major key phrase from being #1 to total invisibility. Yet this was only in highly competitive areas, not for their secondary phrases. These sites were, in most cases, not highly optimized, had not sought reciprocal links but had achieved their rankings through being on the web for 4 or 5 years. The bad news was that their company name and domain included the key phrase, sites (including directories) linking to those sites included the key phrase in their links and Google interpreted this as over-optimization and down they plunged. In many areas all the top 20 ranking sites disappeared, including industry leaders, to be replaced by educational sites, news review sites, government sites, major shopping portals or directories. Something major had happened – but what?
Filtering Google using the API
Have you ever tried to search for reviews on the internet for any kind of gadget? I typically search for ‘whatever review’ and usually my search results are a mess of fake review sites, or the ones that rely solely on rantings by users.
While trying various ways to filter these from my searches I turned to PHP, read on for some information about using the Google API to filter your searches.
Licence
