Forca Blog

Those of us who use the internet now-a-days have grown accustomed to the fact that when we go to google.com we may not see the standard ‘Google’ logo above the search field. Google from time to time–whether for advertising purposes or to pay recognize recent events, anniversaries, holidays, etc–has changed up their logo with a Jack-o-lantern, snowman, etc. When the Google logo is non-standard like this they call them “doodles”.

These Google doodles have all been pretty static–until now. Today those of you who pulled up Google to type in a quick search probably said “Oh, a new Google logo I wonder what this one is for.” It wasn’t until I went to mouse over the logo to see exactly what the occasion was when I was surprised to see the logo begin to move like the classic Pac Man that we all know and love.

Initially I sat and watched assuming it was some kind of flash image. It wasn’t until Pac Man got eaten by one of the ghosts that I realized that I might actually be in control. For the next life I realized that it was in fact a playable game! Using the arrow keys on the keyboard I was actually able to play the game just like any other Pac Man game.

The interactive doodle is in fact a full 255 level game with the 256 level kill screen(I got close – level 3)–just like the original. Today’s doodle the first interactive doodle for Google. Marcin Wichary, a senior user experience designer for Google, worked with a member of the “Google Doodler Team”(this is what I want to be when I grow up) to create this unique doodle. [Google]

Despite my feeble attempts to summarize what Google Wave is and what it is capable of I have still been asked by several people, “so what IS google wave exactly?”

Instead of attempting to explain it again I will let this guy–who does an excellent job!

That is probably what this fellow in The-Middle-Of-No-Where, Chad, Africa thought as he looked up to the sky just as the Google Satellites took a snap shot of him. And with good reason apparently. This is one of the areas of the world that allow you to super zoom in with Google Maps. To see this location for yourself visit Google Maps here.

Why this location is candidate for being super zoom-in-able I have no idea. Not very interesting if you ask me.

This reminds me of a video I saw of a picture taken by satellite. It started as a picture of the whole globe and slowly zoomed in to the US, then to a State, then to a City, then to a street, then to a bus and then into the bus so close that you could read the heading of the newspaper a man was reading.

Does anyone know where I can find this video? If I ever find it then it will be up here.

The Google Voice iPhone app gave users the ability to use some advanced features of Google Voice right from their phone as well as call out using their Google Voice number. Earlier this week Apple/ATT disabled the App claiming that it imitated some of the functions of the iPhone.

Now the FCC is trying to find out why things happened the way they did. The FCC has sent letters to Apple, ATT and Google asking for details.

You can see those letters here at TechCruch.

ATT has been the first to respond saying that they have nothing to do with the App store and will “of course” respond to the FCC letter anyway.

This morning we got our invites to the Google Wave Developer Preview so that we could begin to work on some apps for Joomla and WP. Nearly boiling over with excitement I got to my computer where I could get to my email and login. I pulled up firefox and boom. There I was in the Google Wave Developer Preview. After staring at it for a minute I moved my mouse and clicked on one of the open developer waves(threads). BAM. Error, Error, Error.

What can you expect right? It is the developer preview and this early in developement. This is more than acceptable right now. I spoke with some of the other developers and was told I would have better luck in Chrome. After pulling up Wave in Chrome the experience was much more enjoyable.

Currently Wave only supports the following browsers:

You have the option of using IE if you want but our experience with Wave and IE was terrible. Personally I wouldn’t mind if it stayed that way. I have never been a fan of IE and now that Microsoft is openly trying to make advances over google with Bing and now partnering with Yahoo to “create the future of search” I think it would be just fine if Google decided to say “hey, Wave works great in our browser! If you want our users to be able to use your browser then make it work with our program.”

Now on to Wave itself. The default layout when you open Wave has your Navigation menu on the left with Inbox, Trash, By Me, Spam, etc. Below that are your contacts. In the middle area you have a list of any Google waves that you have started or have been invited to by order of most recently commented on in real time. From here you can see which ones have been commented on since you left, how many responses there have been that you haven’t looked at yet, other people that are part of the wave and even see what text people are typing in as they type.

When you clikc on a wave it will open to the right and you can scroll through all of the text that has been entered. You can even see text from everyone else that is commenting at the moment in real time.

One cool part of the interface that makes it very intuitive is the ability to minimize any and all of the windows or move them around. You can even click on the minimize button on the navigation and contact menus. Everything that you minimize will appear at the top of the window. While they are there you can click on one to see a mini view of the wave to check on the updates or you can move it back down to the main window.

Here is something else that caught our attention when we first began using our Wave mail:

With standard gMail accounts you are currently given 7352 MB–and counting! With our Google Wave email account we had 25,600 MB. This could just be a perk to being in the developer preview so don’t get too excited just yet however there probably will be a need for more space when using Wave and so I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if all Wave accounts started with 25 GB of space.

We will update when we begin to develop apps.

This morning just a few minutes ago I just received an email confirming that I was still interesetd in participating in the Google Wave sandbox. The email said that if I was to fill out a form and I would receive my account details within the next few days.

Whoo hoo! For those of you behind and not familiar with Google Wave watch this hour and 20 minute long video.

Go ahead that to do list can wait.

The Google Wave beta–which is sure to be in beta for 15+ years since gmail took 5–will be released to 100,000 individuals on September 30th. If you are interested in getting access to the beta you need to “let Google know where to contact you”–as if they don’t already know!

Google has hopped on the bandwagon celebrating the Moon landing anniversary by adding the Moon to its list of planets.

You can now visit the Earth, Mars, Moon and view the sky using the now inaccurately titled Google Earth desktop application or browser plugin. With most of the Moon you can zoom in uneccessarily close allowing you to see a bunch of grey. You can, however, zoom in to places of importance and see information about the landmark, see a 360 degree view or see replicas of the equipment that was/is there.

Below is a screenshot of the Apollo 16 site that I took zoomed at 6 different levels. Google adding the Moon to Google Earth is–I am sure–them preparing for us to begin populating it in the next year or two. But are location based services up and running for the Moon?

Back in 2005 GrandCentral was started as a solution for people who have several numbers by giving you one main phone number. When someone called your GrandCentral number all of the other phones that you had would ring.

Now, Google has bought them out and added lots of new features. Here are some of the great features of having Google Voice.

When you sign up(get an invite) for Google Voice you get to choose one free number to use as your main number.

You can sync your google contacts(from your gmail, etc) and change ringing and voicemail rules for each individual contact. For example if you were tired of Ted calling you every morning at 6am to go to the gym then you can set it up so that when he calls you it goes straight to your voicemail instead of ringing your phone first. Or you can record him a special message pretending to be Pizza Hut or telling him to never call you again or else he will come back from the gym and find a pile of ash where his house used to be. I don’t think I will ever have the time to go in and record custom voicemail messages for every–or even several–of the contacts in my contact directory but having the ability to do so is cool!

Another feature that is potentially annoying cool is call screening. You can require people who call you to leave their name first so you can decide if you want to listen or not. If you don’t remember who Hammond is then you can wait for him to begin leaving a voicemail and listen in as he leaves the message and cut in and begin talking to him if you would like.

If not wait for him to leave the voicemail which you can later access and listen to online.

A big feature that Google has introduced is the voicemail to text. You can receive your voicemails in text format now via email or text message so you don’t even have to listen to the message to see what your arch nemesis friend said.

You can also set your text messages up to be recorded and sent online. That way in case you accidentally deleted an important text you can go online and find it. Or if you accidentally drop your phone in the toilet sink again you will still be able to send out that important text message.

When someone calls any of your phone numbers you have complete control over which phones they ring, how they ring, if it goes straight to voicemail, if it goes to voicemail but they hear it ringing on their phone as well as which voicemail it goes to.

If you have one main phone number that you give to everyone you can have it ring your cell if it is your friend, ring someone elses cell if it isn’t, ring your home phone only between 4pm and 7pm, etc.

The best part is this is all free. The only thing you will have to pay for is additional phone numbers and international calls(a few cents per minute to most places).

One problem is your outgoing caller ID is still going to show your cell phone number. Google is putting together a work around but for the time being if you have a Android phone or Blackberry(iPhone app is in the works) you are in luck. You can download a Google Voice app that allows you to dial through your Google Voice number.

I have also heard of a rumor that IF YOU ARE USING THE PHONE APPLICATION(currently only available on Blackberry and Android phones) you can get unlimited free phone calls with those phone carriers that allow you to choose your “inner circle” of friends or family that are always free. T-mobile and Verizon are two companies like this. Add Google’s phone number to your “in” group and then always use your Google Voice number to receive and make phone calls.

Now there are several reasons why I see this not working. One, even if Google Voice is just a simple forward more than likely Google Voice won’t just use one phone number to use to access your phone. Two, T-mobile and Verizon have blacklists of phone numbers that can’t be in your inner circle for this very reason. If they haven’t already I am sure it is only a matter of time before they will add Googles block of numbers to that blacklist. Finally, even when you are talking to the people in your “in” group your minutes still add up. If you are on a 700 minute plan and make 700 minutes worth of  “in” phone calls you are now out of free minutes to use to call other people. If you make 700 minutes of calls to non-free numbers then start calling your in group you will be fine.

On the other hand if some how the Google service is on the trunk level then it may not even be viewed as a call by your provider and you have yourself a big win of free minutes.

Once again I have to say it. This is just one step closer to Google’s total world domination.

Gmail now has quick and easy to use tasks integrated into the Gmail interface much like your chat client. Usable? Yes. Functional? Mostly yes.

This obviously being inspired by another large company who has been accused of taking over the world market seems like it would have come sooner. Still, better late than never and it comes with features we would want like in email ‘add to tasks’ options, print options, etc. Give them a try if you are a gmail user and let us know what you think.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post about the features of Firefox 3.5 some browsers–Chrome 2.0+ and Firefox 3.5+ to be exact–now have location based services available using the W3C Geolocation API.  If you are using one of these browsers and go to Google Maps you will notice a new little box with a circle inside.

This–theoretically–allows Google Maps to locate your position. Location based services like this have been more or less a fad in the past and none have really caught on save location based cell phone applications.  Only time will tell for this one.

My experience with location based Google Maps has been less than ok. When I clicked the button, told Firefox  to allow Google Maps to access my location–and remember my settings–I was told I was about 60 miles off of where I really was.

Come on location based services! You can do better than that. Its not like I am in the sticks on a poor connection either. I am in a decent sized city on a fiber internet connection and that was the best they could do.

I’m not complaining really. The less “they” can find out about us the longer we can postpone the apocalypse–which is fine by me…

Over 5 years now Google Apps has been a great solution for businesses. Up until now you have had the option of choosing from the $50/month or the free plainly laid in front of you. Now the free version of Google Apps is no where to be seen on the homepage.

Now a few years ago the homepage changed to be a huge ad for the paid version with one little link for the free version. But now…

As soon as you go to the homepage you are asked a new question…. Are you a Business IT Manager or School IT?  Hrm… lets go with business that will take us to the free vs paid options right?

Nope! You get to try Google Apps for free for 30 days after which you will begin to get billed the $50/user or you can try a 14-day demo.

So where do you go? With some searching through the Google interwebs you will eventually be able to find it but, we have done that for you!

Here you go — http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new