Tag Archives: Gmail

Phone calls from Gmail

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The new service puts Google in competition with Skype (and all the other telcom providers). Gmail has offered voice and video chat for two years, but both parties must be at their computers.

I made a couple of calls tonight and the quality was pretty damned good. Will I call someone from my laptop instead of just picking up the mobile? Probably not when away from my desk, but I can imagine using my MacBook as a speed-dialing speaker phone. And my brother and I have been calling (laptop-to-laptop) back and forth from Indonesia for a couple of years. Sounds like he’s in the next room.

Calls to numbers in the United States and Canada will be free at least through the end of the year. International calls range from 2 cents a minute to many countries.

And if you need to reach me, my Google phone number is 573.200.6776

Put it in the vault with 1Password

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I keep up with a lot of passwords. Between WordPress, Twitter, flickr, Gmail, FTP accounts, etc for company and client websites (and my own)… 200+ logins. You have to have a secure way to manage all of this.

I’ve been use an app called Wallet for the last couple of years but recently purchased 1Password (on the solid recommendation of my Mac mentor, George).

I won’t attempt to list the features. There are too many and I’m still new to the program. But it’s as beautiful as it is functional. All my stuff is sync’d via the cloud so I can access from all of my computers and devices (iPhone, iPad, etc). Everything in one place, behind some really good encryption. They make it easy to be smart about my data.

1Password costs about $40 but it’s worth every penny. Mac and PC.

Green Zone

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If you liked the Bourne series, you’ll enjoy Green Zone. [If you did not like the Bourne movies… why are you even reading this blog. There is nothing for you here. Hit the back button now.]

IMDB: “Discovering covert and faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer to go rogue as he hunts for Weapons of Mass Destruction in an unstable region.”

I think we can scratch Green Zone from W’s Netflix queue. And if you lost a loved one in that war, you might want to skip this movie, too.

History might vindicate the Bush years but you’ll be damned hard pressed to find any movies that remember them kindly.

The movie is based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City.

UPDATE: Got some push-back for closing comments on this post. Do I care about the opinions of the people that read this blog. I do. But this is my blog. This is where I express myself.

If you have something to say about one of my posts and the comments are closed, just say your piece on your blog (you know, take ownership for your views, with your name and everything) and send me a link (stevemays at gmail dot com) and I’ll add it to the post.

“Digital-age monks illuminating manuscripts”

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From an op-ed piece on NYTimes.com, by Sheelah Kolhatkar:

“You can tell when a print journalist has lost his full-time job because of the digital markings that suddenly appear, like the tail of a fading comet. First, he joins Facebook. A Gmail address is promptly obtained. The Twitter account comes next, followed by the inevitable blog. Throw in a LinkedIn profile for good measure. This online coming-out is the first step in a daunting, and economically discouraging, transformation: from a member of a large institution to a would-be Internet “brand.”

“While most people are worried about getting paid for their work, I’m more concerned that journalists might be the digital-age equivalent of monks illuminating manuscripts, a group whose skills will soon disappear.”

I feel bad for anyone that has lost a job, but can’t help wondering why the reporter in this piece didn’t already have the online presence. It’s like going camping without a flashlight.

Gmail Task applet

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I attended my first “time management” workshop back in the early 70s. I got the bug pretty bad. Read and listened to countless books and cassette tapes (before CDs) on productivity. I think there was a recent resurgence under the GTD (Getting Things Done) banner. Somewhere along the way, my passion waned but in those 35+ years, I’ve tried lots of tools and systems.

To-do lists have always been a challenge for me. I tend to put too load them up with too many items and they stay there too long. I recently came across the notion of identifying three things you really want to accomplish during the day and writing those on a 3×5 card. Portable, focused… might work.

tasklist

My current favorite is the Tasks applet in Gmail. Small, simple and available everywhere. Supports multiple lists. About as close to that 3×5 card as I can get.

Shutting the in-box

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Leo Babauta says he’s done with email. Sort of. It’s really an interesting idea and I can imagine giving it a try if self-employed:

“After more than 15 years of dealing with email, of checking email multiple times a day, of responding over and over throughout the day, of deleting spam and unsubscribing from newsletters and unwanted notices, of filtering out messages and notifications, of deleting those dumb forwarded jokes and chain mails …I’m done. I’m done, because email takes up too much of my time. I’m done, because I don’t like being at the mercy of every incoming request, because I would rather spend my free time creating than replying to emails.”

Leo plans to set up an auto-responder so his correspondents won’t think he’s dead and use Twitter as his main form of communication. For longer conversations he’ll go with IM or Skype. If he needs to collaborate, there’s Google Docs. Friends and family can just pick up the phone and call.

I hope it works for him. Someday I hope to give it a try, too. And for the record, your best bet for reaching me is commenting here or the Gmail address in the sidebar. The work email address is the last thing I check. [via @steverubel]

Gmail users can view PDF files w/o downloading

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I hate clicking a link and discover it’s to a PDF file and Acrobat Reader begins its torturous load. Or a PDF comes as an attachment to an email and I just want to quickly peek at the document. That hasn’t been a problem since moving to Mac.

And now Gmail users can view a PDF file without downloading it, thanks to a new “View” link. Clicking “View” quickly opens the PDF inside your browser, complete with the graphics and formatting you expect to see in a PDF.

When I’m asked, “Why do you like Gmail better than Outlook?” I struggle to give them a useful answer. It’s really a hundred little things like the feature above.

Video chatting from Gmail

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I love Gmail (Google’s free mail service). I use lots of Google tools: Calendar, Google (RSS) Reader; and Google Chat, to which they’ve recently added video. Just tried it out with David and it works great.

While waiting for David to install the little app, Scott pinged me from his hotel room in Cancun. He was doing the same thing, looking for someone online with the new app installed. A little latency on his video, probably due to hotel wifi.

But this is a nice addition to Google chat. If you don’t have a webcam on/with your computer, get one. And the next time you buy a computer, please consider a Mac.

Death by manure spreader

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I came across a story submitted to one of our networks yesterday, about an 81-year-old man was killed when he became caught in the manure spreader he was operating. This just struck me as a bad way to go.

Which started me thinking about “good” ways and “bad” ways. When was the last time you heard or read a story about someone dying in their sleep? Okay, that probably isn’t much of story.

Or about some old guy dying in flagrante delicto, which I think means “in the saddle.” I assume those stories are hard to report. And the deceased is usually found alone in a hotel room with his shoes on the wrong feet.

While there are few “good” ways to go, some are just a damn site worse than others. So I’ve set up a little blog where we can post these stores and be glad they weren’t about us.

If you spot one of these, please send them my way (Steve Mays at Gmail.com) with “Bad Way” in the subject line. Let me know if I can use your name.

I’ve registered BadWaytoGo.com but it isn’t hot yet.

SOLD: Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder

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Pmd660
I’m selling I have sold my beloved Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder. It’s in mint condition, I just want something smaller. You can see all the specs on the 660 here and if you happen to be in the Jefferson City area, I’ll let you take it for a test drive.

The PMD660 sells for between $450-500, and I’m starting at $225. If there are any budding podcasters out there, this would be a good recorder. You can reach me at stevemays@gmail.com.

UPDATE: That didn’t take long. And we have found it a good home with a podcaster who wants to crank out more programs. More on that later.