20 why not

9/11/2007 8:49:22 PM

looks like last year's announcement of collaboration with NASA is starting to pay off, with Sky in Google Earth, and now some Moon announcement.s
updated Google Moon site with more features and navigation options
http://www.google.com/moon/
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-13-n71.html

and a Google Lunar XPrize. A new XPrize contest with $30M in prizes for a private company to get a robot to the moon
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/
http://www.google.com/space/
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/09/google_lunar_x_prize_race_to_the_moon.html

9/13/2007 5:09:46 PM

^it no longer turns to cheese when you zoom all the way in

9/13/2007 7:29:51 PM

Presentations added to Google Docs. Doesn't seem to have its own name, just Google Docs, now with Presentations. Looks like the whole suite (Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations) might just be going by Google Docs now.
it's available immediately - i just created one.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/our-feature-presentation.html
comes with 12 exciting Presentation Themes, that don't appear to be editable, so look for them to be worn out even faster than PowerPoint's default set of themes.

get ready for the onslaught of "MS Office Killer" articles

9/18/2007 12:23:34 AM

with "Google Shared Stuff" you can, uhhh, share stuff
http://www.google.com/s2/sharing/stuff
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-20-n40.html

kind of a mish-mash of other services. it's driven by a bookmarklet that when clicked when you're on a webpage, you can 1) post that link to your own Shared Stuff Page, 2) email it, 3) post it to Facebook, digg, etc.
you can see other peoples shared stuff, and subscribe to them with RSS

looks like a fine idea and service, but it feels a bit half-baked to me....

9/20/2007 1:25:05 PM

aha! i just had my first "google search history saved my ass" moment.
I seem to have lost a FedEx tracking number & receipt for a returned $320 phone to Verizon. Verizon, of course, says they have no record of me returning the phone, and they can't verify anything without a tracking number, and for whatever reason, i can't find the receipt anywhere. Then while I was on hold, I realized that I must have Googled the tracking number sometime last month after I made the shipment, so I went to my search history, browsed my daily searches from mid-August until I found a search that looked like a tracking number, and that was it! Now verizon can't play the "we can't confirm the shipment card" on me!

9/20/2007 10:48:52 PM

hmmm...

9/22/2007 10:33:11 AM

ha, too many people searching for "scranton the electric city" perhaps?

9/22/2007 12:15:17 PM

gmail 2.0 in the works? that would be pretty huge

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/09/gmail-20.html

9/24/2007 11:51:44 AM

hmm, that would be cool.
If the reason Gmail (1.0) has been basically stagnant for 1-2 years now, and is still in beta, is because they've been working on a whole new Gmail 2.0, then i think this is acceptable.

Otherwise, I find it hard to imagine WTF the Gmail team has been doing for the last 3 years....

9/24/2007 1:40:38 PM

just noticed the patent search they've added:
http://www.google.com/ptshp

it's pretty cool to search back through some of the really old patents. the weird toys are interesting too, for instance: http://www.google.com/patents?id=cLsGAAAAEBAJ

[Edited on October 5, 2007 at 3:17 PM. Reason : .]

or just the strange ones:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=KhoQAAAAEBAJ

[Edited on October 5, 2007 at 3:31 PM. Reason : .]

10/5/2007 3:13:22 PM

that's not really new - cool, but been out there since late last year, IIRC.
you can also look for famous patents or people
http://www.google.com/patents?spell=1&q=%22Thomas+A.+Edison


this, though, is a new feature to Google Maps that had previously only been a Labs project - Google Transit has been integrated into Maps, so many searches will also show a link to "Take Public Transit" when showing directions
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/10/google-transit-graduates-from-labs.html

[Edited on October 5, 2007 at 3:59 PM. Reason : .]

10/5/2007 3:56:39 PM

my apartment is on streetview

and that is awesome

10/9/2007 8:07:18 PM

do you have any cats in your window?

10/9/2007 9:18:56 PM

Sure everyone is aware but Google Bought Jaiku:
http://jaiku.com/

10/9/2007 10:10:56 PM

you can create and view public profiles on Google Maps now. Looks to be tied to your gmail account
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/10/put-yourself-on-map.html

10/17/2007 3:14:58 PM

check it - Gmail + IMAP = the wins
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/10/23/gmail-gets-imap/

10/23/2007 10:49:01 PM

^ now THAT is some cool news! settings are there for me, i'm about to try it out with Outlook 2007

10/23/2007 10:52:08 PM

imap hasn't shown up for me yet

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 9:05 AM. Reason : been trying since last night]

10/24/2007 9:05:22 AM

it's not showing up for me, either...i would love some IMAP

it'll be nice to get rid of those tbird rules sorting my sent/received emails...and having my desktop, laptop, and work computers all in sync

also, when did we get over 4gb of mail space? i could have SWORN we just topped 3gb, but mine's showing 4353mb of space

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 9:23 AM. Reason : .]

10/24/2007 9:19:42 AM

sweet, IMAP showed up for me, but i haven't tried it out. I probably won't make much use of it b/c I use the web interface anyways.

i'll try it out for my wife because she uses Apple Mail to read her Gmail, but occasionally uses Gmail on her phone or on other computers.

^ they announced they were increasing the rate the storage grows a couple weeks ago
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-gmail-storage-coming-for-all.html
It doesn't say it in that link, but i'm pretty sure I read somewhere they committed to 6GB by January.
I think they should just go ahead and make it unlimited, like Yahoo....

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 9:24 AM. Reason : .]

10/24/2007 9:21:43 AM

must have IMAP for GAfyD

10/24/2007 11:01:21 AM

Wow. IMAP support. And it's only 2007. At this rate google will be selling flying cars in no time.

10/24/2007 11:13:12 AM

^ how many free online email services offer IMAP? this is a serious question, as i haven't used anything but gmail in over a year...that said, even if they DO offer IMAP, name one other free email provider of gmail's quality

10/24/2007 11:15:29 AM

before Gmail, basically no major webmail services offered POP or IMAP, notably Yahoo and Hotmail, because it completely goes against the business model. The business model for webmail is to get people to actually use the webmail interface so you can serve them ads.

out of the gate, Gmail offered (encrypted) POP, which was a big deal then. By offering POP access to Gmail, Google is really gaining nothing from users who use POP exclusively.

It looks like most providers provide POP access now, and AOL has IMAP. This list is as of August 2006
http://www.emailaddressmanager.com/tips/mail-settings.html
Hotmail doesn't offer any support for POP or IMAP
Also notice that Gmail is the only one that offers SSL for POP


as ^ said, the key here is that Gmail is a free, web-based email. It's not offered through an ISP or a paid service, so they have no economic incentive to open up their service to POP or IMAP access. They want to get eyeballs on gmail.com so you can see their ads. I think this is also a calculated risk, as they're banking on many/most people continuing to use gmail.com. Prior to gmail, I used Outlook and Thunderbird and a private email address, and I thought I would never go back to using webmail, because Yahoo and Hotmail were just not viable alternatives back then. But when Gmail came out, they really changed the game and showed that it is possible to use webmail as your primary email interface, and that's what I've been using since.

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 11:27 AM. Reason : .]

10/24/2007 11:23:28 AM

Quote :

"Wow. IMAP support. And it's only 2007. At this rate google will be selling flying cars in no time. "

Aren't you cute. What innovative work have you done recently?

10/25/2007 12:35:29 AM

my imap still isn't showing up, though i did check out their FAQ/how-to section and saw the IMAP instructions

10/25/2007 9:50:39 AM

mine still isn't there too

10/25/2007 10:59:52 AM

mine was there last night - i'm already in love

10/25/2007 1:49:52 PM

i added it to my wife's MacBook last night. She had been using POP on Mail.app.
She had almost 2GB of mail, so it took all night to sync up, but this morning it worked well. She has always used Mail as her primary reader, and only occasionally logs into gmail, so she had 4000+ unread messages. It was very nice selecting all messages inside Mail, doing Mark As Read, then watching them all get marked as read inside Gmail too.

10/25/2007 1:53:54 PM

this might be old, but i just got around to seeing this

http://www.google.com/trends

10/25/2007 1:55:54 PM

it is old, but they have made updates in the past couple weeks. Previously, Google would only occasionally (weeks or months) update the trend-database, so you could not get up to date trends. But a couple weeks ago they announced they would update it much more frequently, like hourly or daily.
i'm not sure if that's in effect, though, because a Trend search for "california wildfire" doesn't even return any Trend results since last year, meaning it definitely hasn't been updated in the past week....

10/25/2007 3:14:14 PM

FINALLY just got IMAP

10/25/2007 4:27:10 PM

Nice, I have IMAP on my gmail ... but not my Apps domain account yet I hope they're planning on implementing those soon.

10/25/2007 4:52:07 PM

only 1/3 of my gmail accounts has IMAP

10/25/2007 5:14:01 PM

no IMAP on mine yet, but is on my girlfriend's. We tried putting it on last night and configuring her Apple Mail, but the order of the folders were all messed up on the account tree on the left. I can't post a screenshot since I'm at work, but it was something like this:

blah@emory.edu
- psychology
- criminal law
- whatever
blah@gmail.com
blah@something.it
- family email
- friends
- old emails
[Gmail]
- All Mail
- Starred Mail
- etc

I don't like that.

10/26/2007 10:16:19 AM

yeah, that's the same for my wife's Apple Mail. If you want to use IMAP exclusively, you have to go into your Account Preferences and disable the POP account. That will simplify the folder structure somewhat.
Then, under the Gmail folder, you'll have Drafts and Sent and Junk and stuff. highlight those one at a time, and go to Mailbox > 'Use This Mailbox for _____'
That Gmail folder will then be remapped to the main Mail folder counterpart

see this site for some more explanation
http://5thirtyone.com/archives/862

10/26/2007 10:27:54 AM

there's an article about goog411 in 2600 this quarter


about using it to call your friends for $free.



interesting read.

10/26/2007 10:32:19 AM

2/3 so far

10/26/2007 3:11:09 PM

useful: http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/turn-thunderbird-into-the-ultimate-gmail-imap-client-314574.php

10/26/2007 4:28:12 PM

^^ 0/2

10/26/2007 4:38:06 PM

looks like all the talk of "Gmail 2.0" are true, but don't expect an overhaul of the interface..... just a new JS backend, performance improvements, and feature updates like a new contact manager and more integration with other google products.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/code-changes-to-prepare-gmail-for.html
http://google.blognewschannel.com/archives/2007/10/29/google-analyst-day-features-new-gmail/

10/30/2007 9:35:07 AM

^Those new features are enabled in one of my gmail accounts, looks nice ... wonder how long until Domain accounts see them.

10/30/2007 10:23:55 AM

still no imap. 0/2

10/30/2007 3:47:35 PM

my Google Gmail Calendar Documents Photos Groups Reader my services » links at the top left in gmail all reverted to the old blue background theme. weird

10/30/2007 9:50:02 PM

finally got the IMAP up. it's very slow to work with, even after it finished synchronizing my massive amounts of emails (all 52 of them, 12MB )

10/31/2007 9:09:16 AM

That's pretty much typical IMAP performance.

10/31/2007 12:17:49 PM

http://www.techconsumer.com/2007/10/29/google-unveiling-gphone-plans-in-two-weeks-wants-to-change-the-cellphone-industry/

Google releasing Gphone in a couple of weeks?

10/31/2007 12:56:03 PM

^^^ I had that problem yesterday but it's going much much faster today

10/31/2007 12:58:15 PM

what's a gphone?

10/31/2007 1:02:02 PM