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Hey. My name is Russell Holliman. I'm a professional project manager by day, and one of the founders of Podcast Ready by night. This is my blog about life on the web, life in general, and random things I find here and there.



Google Launches Gmail Autopilot
Wednesday, April 01, 2009

logo1 Just in time for Spring, Google launches their new Autopilot feature for Gmail. Autopilot uses a set of variables from you, plus some predictive AI to automatically respond to messages as they arrive in your inbox.

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posted by Russell @ 8:05 AM, , links to this post




Google Mobile Sync for iPhone Beta
Monday, February 09, 2009

sync-48x48 Google sync now keeps your iPhone calendar and contacts in sync with your Google account over then air. I was expecting some download and installation, but it seems they've just enabled accounts to use the Microsoft Exchange settings that are already on the iPhone. So far it seems to work flawlessly.

Two things to note:

1) If you are already syncing your iPhone with an Exchange server, you can't use this; the iPhone only allows one Exchange server to be configured at a time.

2) Doing this will erase all of the contacts and calendar entries you currently have on your iPhone, so make sure that you back them up and upload them to your Google account before doing this.

 

Check out Google's Mobile Blog post and their Sync page for more information and complete instructions.

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posted by Russell @ 9:26 PM, , links to this post




Search YouTube Audio for Keywords
Saturday, September 27, 2008

I missed this one: Google Labs has launched their audio search system for YouTube. Now you can type in a keyword and it will search an index for the spoken words and provide you a list of videos in which your search was mentioned, and how many times. Not new technology, but new to YouTube (as far as I know).

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posted by Russell @ 10:57 AM, , links to this post




Google Labs Adds New Features to Gmail
Friday, June 06, 2008

Google Labs has added some new features to Gmail (via Lifehack). Two that I've found useful are the Quicklinks (shortcuts to specific messages) and Superstars (additional markers for messages).

To check them out and activate your favorites: open your Gmail, go to the settings, and click on the 'Labs' tab.

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posted by Russell @ 7:37 AM, , links to this post




Send Email to the Past
Tuesday, April 01, 2008

how

Google has just introduced a new feature to gMail: custom time. Simply select a time in the past when composing your email and the message will appear in the appropriate slot chronologically in the recipients inbox.

 

Useful? Maybe...

Dangerous.. sure.

An April Fool's gag? most certainly! :)

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posted by Russell @ 8:09 AM, , links to this post




Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Presentations
Tuesday, September 18, 2007



Google is getting a little closer to completing their office suite with the addition of presentations to their Google Docs on-line application. All they have to do now is support off-line operation with Gears (and make the spreadsheet work better) and this could end up being a viable office solution.

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posted by Russell @ 2:26 AM, , links to this post




Google to arbitarily erase calendar data?
Monday, July 23, 2007

This has to be a hoax. If not, it seems that Google Calendar plans to arbitrarily erase then data of Plaxo users on Wednesday unless they opt out. The message supposedly from Google's Calendar Team reads:
From: "Google Calendar Team"
Date: July 23, 2007 5:50:45 PM CDT
To: podcastready@gmail.com
Subject: Important Message from Google Calendar
Reply-To: calendar-support+help@google.com

Hi user,
It's come to our attention that the some of your Google Calendar information may have been mistakenly deleted through your Plaxo account. Because many users were unaware that deleting the data on Plaxo would cause the data to be deleted from their Google Calendar accounts, we are going to restore all of the calendar information that was deleted through Plaxo.
If you do not want Google to restore calendars affected by this issue, please reply to this email by Wednesday, July 23, 9AM PDT. For questions relating to the Plaxo service or this issue, please contact support@plaxo.com.
Thanks,
The Google Calendar Team
I only keep my Google calendar synchronized in case I get caught somewhere without access to my Outlook, which is rarely. And I don't mind it if they maintain the capability to restore my calendar to a previous point.

As an "opt out" feature though this makes Google Calendar totally useless to me. I can't rely on a service that would arbitrarily delete data that I've entered because they are not sure if I meant to add it or not.

July 25; 17:04 - I guess it was a hoax. Nothing has changed in my calendar (I didn't reply to the message) and when I went to check the date I noticed that it said "Wednesday July 23" - today is Wednesday but its the 25th...

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posted by Russell @ 10:48 PM, , links to this post




m dot
Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Lately I've been trying to use my Treo 700p less and work with the Samsung Upstage that I received through Sprint's Ambassador program. I started doing this in anticipation of writing a series of reviews on the phone. I quickly figured out though that the phone isn't that great. At first I thought that you would want to know this, but it soon became apparent that nobody needs me to tell you. I know it, Sprint knows it, and anyone that checks Best Buy and sees that this $379.00 phone comes with a $300.00 instant rebate knows it.

I've kept with it though, mainly as an experiment to see how the other half lives. By "other half" I mean people that aren't using "smart" phones like my Treo or my P6700 - phones on which you cannot install applications. Surprisingly, I found that some of the new mobile sites out there work really well. I'm not ready to give up my Treo just yet, but in a pinch I could certainly continue uninterrupted by using these services.

Here's a round up of my favorite mobile sites, some of which I use on my Treo as well.

gmail (gmail.com/m) Google does have a great application that can be installed right on these phones, but their mobile web site is actually pretty functional and easy to use. Its not something that I could live with for an extended solution (like a weekend out of town) but for the occasional email checking throughout the day its good.

google calendar (google.com/calendar/m) A good implementation of Google's calendar for the small screen. Its not full featured (I was looking tonight and didn't see where I could delete or edit an entry) but their "quick add" feature works very well. I just entered "haircut wed 8pm" and it added it. Then thanks to Plaxo (which I have listed a below as well) that one entry was synced to my Outlook at home and will eventually end up on my MacBook Pro and my Treo 700p.

google reader (google.com/reader/m/subscriptions) Another good implementation of one of Google services (in this case their RSS reader) to the small screen. When I first looked at this "m" site, I was impressed at all. I browsed over to http://google.com/reader/m and found all the articles from all my feeds simply listed. It was very hard to read and I really didn't like it at all. Then I found that if I add "subscriptions" to the end of that address it worked pretty much as I thought it should. Nice reader when I'm on the go...

grand central (m.grandcentral.com) I've written before about what a fan I am of Grand Central. I've even started giving out my GC number as my direct number and am having printed it on my business cards. At first I thought this would be the first non-Google mention on my list, but it seems that changed today as its now rumored that Google is buying them. Their mobile site if very handy though. The first thing I noticed was that in a pinch, I could look up a number from my phone book on their site, and their systems would call the person and my cell and connect us. Since I have no way of syncing my large phonebook with this Upstage, it was a good fall-back. Again though, Plaxo one-ups this in my opinion but its still great for retrieving the voice mails left on their system. You can very easily pay back the voice mails or (in the case of my Treo) download as a file and save/share/listen to them later.

twitter (m.twitter.com) I quit having Twitter send every message to me via SMS about an hour after I returned home from SXSW this year. I do though like to browse through them when I am out and about sometimes and their mobile site is very well designed for this. Minimal graphics make it quick and on small screens. You can post Twitter messages here (which I sometimes do from my N800) but on the phone SMS is still the easiest way to go.

facebook (m.facebook.com) I'm not a 'power user' of Facebook, and honestly (like Twitter) I find that for most things I want to do SMS is the way to go, but on occasion I do like to check it from my phone and their mobile site lays it out very nicely on the small screen and provides a consistent 'Facebook' experience - well done.

weather underground (m.wund.com) This is my favorite weather site for mobile devices. It formats perfectly for my Treo and the Upstage. Simply enter your zip code, then bookmark the resulting site; for some reason it doesn't seem to cache so the information is current ever time I access it. It even provides an animated GIF of the radar (in case you don't know which way the wind is blowing).

plaxo (m.plaxo.com) Plaxo's new service works very well on mobile devices. It gives me access to all of my sync'd data quickly and cleanly. The calendar access doesn't let you add an event as easily as Google's but it does let you edit and delete existing events. Contacts are easy to look up, and when selected it makes the phone (either my Treo or the Upstage) dial it directly. Very handy at times.

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posted by Russell @ 12:13 AM, , links to this post




iGoogle?
Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Okay... what did I miss?

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posted by Russell @ 2:42 AM, , links to this post




Google AdWords in gmail
Thursday, March 01, 2007


I just thought it was interesting to see an ad for Yahoo's mail service at the bottom of an email I was reading in gmail. Is Yahoo being clever here, or is it Google? I mean, I'm already a gmail customer and I've seen very little if any complaints about the service. So isn't it almost safe for them to give Yahoo advertising impressions within their own mail system?

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posted by Russell @ 5:24 PM, , links to this post