Alan's Blog

Google messes about with Gmail top-level links

Google has removed the link to Google Reader from the main list of links at the top of its Gmail page; it's still available, but you have to click the 'More ▼’ link now and choose from the dropdown menu.

A lot of RSS fans (including me) are upset about this, as shown in this TechCrunch article. Although I use an excellent RSS aggregator, FeedDemon, at home, I use GMail and Google Reader via the Web at work, and I was somewhat put out that the link seemed to have disappeared.

As the TechCrunch article says,

You can customize Gmail to a degree, and – particularly for a free product – that’s really awesome, but you can’t yet change the order of the top menu items – and that’s what’s getting users riled up.

Maybe Google will listen to this vocal subset of users, maybe they won’t. But I think it may be better if we don’t wait to see what happens, and instead a TechCrunch-reading developer immediately starts coding a browser extension that puts the damn ‘Reader’ link back.

Since we can't install stuff on our work machines an extension wouldn't be any use to me, though ...

Internet shopping Carts

That great comics site The Oatmeal has a rant post giving most of my complaints about the usability of shopping carts - or as he describes it, How to make your shopping cart suck less.

I agree with pretty much all of what is said, but with a couple of additions. They apply to cases when required fields are not completed and similar error messages are needed.

A lot of sites nowadays will, after you've pressed the submit button, process the form, sometimes taking several seconds, realise that a required field is missing, and finally reload the page with the error message at the top. Often, with fairly long forms, the page has scrolled down from the top so no message is visible and it can easily be missed. A variant of this is that the page isn't even reloaded; some CSS/JavaScript magic means that the error message appears without reloading. This is even worse, as I've several times thought that the submit button failed to work and continued futilely pressing the button. I've even gone back a page amd tried to start again.

There are some simple, easily-available, JavaScript solutions about that can pop up the error message in a box instead. Why on Earth can't they be used? The user can hardly miss the message when presented in such a way.

I suppose the site designers think that their methods are "cooler". <sigh>

Pet peeves 7

This is another personal pet peeve, this time aimed at Microsoft, and in particular their Office applications. I suspect that many people will hold an opposite view.

In my job (and sometimes at home) I often need to copy and paste sections of text or data between different documents or applications. If I use the normal paste command the copied data are inserted using the same formatting as in the original document, which nine time out of ten differs from that in the receiving document. I then have to reformat my document. I know that I can use Edit > Paste > Special... or use a custom shortcut to paste without formatting, but it's a longer route and easy to forget.

There are also several non-Office applications that will take formatted pasted text, and they don't appear to have a Paste > Special... command. In such cases I often have to paste the copied item into a program that doesn't allow formatting (like Notepad) then copy/paste it into the other application. I'd find it easier if the default for the paste command were without formatting. I'd be interested to learn if others have the same issues, although I realise this blog, with its minuscule readership, is not the best place to ask for the opinions of the world at large.

Cutty Sark and Google AdSense update

A few more months on, and I'm still getting some nice little earnings from my Greenwich Guide site, where I'm using Google AdSense. With the exception of one month only, visitors have clicked on enough ads there to generate sufficient revenue (US$100) for Google to pay me regularly each month. In fact, the next month earned a little more than usual, so the shortfall that one month was more than made up for, and I average over $100 a month for the full period.

In May the Cutty Sark was badly damaged by fire. Since my site appears high up in Google searches for the ship, on 21 May I received over 10,000 hits on the site, when the normal average is around 500 hits. The site traffic went back to roughly normal again after a few days, but the larger number of visitors meant more clicks than usual, so I gained to some small degree from the tragedy. In case you are wondering I've already donated the extra to the Cutty Sark fire appeal.

My new iPod

Back in November last year I posted about my iPod. As I said , shortly after I bought it, Apple released a new version for the same money with double the memory. I found the 2Gb limit too small, and have splashed out on a new 8Gb version. First of all, I was impressed by the smooth way it installed on my PC and connected to iTunes. There was a new version of the firmware available, and iTunes automatically downloaded it and installed it on the iPod without any difficulty.

I also liked the much longer-lasting battery; before, using it to go to and from work, a total journey time of about two and a half hours a day, it needed a recharge every other day. The new battery only requires a recharge once a week. It is also faster when recharging. Since the new nano only cost slightly more that the first, but has four times the capacity, I reckon it's a lot better.

Google AdSense a success

I posted back in September that I was trying out Google Ads on my Greenwich Guide site. Three months on I can count the experiment a success. I had no expectations of earning big money from the site, but I am pleasantly pleased with both the amount received and the efficiency of Google.

Google only pay ad revenue if the accumulated amount payable comes to more than US$100. For the past three completed months I have earned more than that each time and have received two payments to date by direct payment by EFT to my bank account. To anyone who has been to my site and clicked on an ad link: thank you! The only fly in the ointment is the Pound Sterling's current strength against the dollar. At the moment the rate is nearly 2 dollars to the pound. I suppose I can't blame Google for that, though.

My iPod

I finally got around to buying an iPod about six months ago. Of course, shortly afterwards, Apple doubled the memory, so if I'd waited a couple of months, I'd have been able to get a 4MB nano for the same price as I paid for my 2MB version.

I found my daily commute to work was made more bearable. I was also struck by the number of fellow commuters I saw using an MP3 player or similar. Before I got the iPod I only noticed the occasional person whose earphones leaked their music to the whole train carriage. Now I saw that roughly half those travelling with me seemed to have earphones as well.

My musical tastes were set some thirty-odd years ago - think Led Zeppelin; Ten Years After; Emerson, Lake and Palmer - and they don't get much airplay these days. I am really enjoying hearing again the music of my youth.

One tip - I suggest you invest in a pair of headphones instread of the "bud" type earphones supplied by Apple. While the sound seemed not too bad, when I tried a decent pair I noticed a tremendous difference. Apart from a much less "tinny" sound, quiet passages were still audible. Before, I found myself checking that the iPod was working properly as I could hear nothing at all.

w.bloggar

I've posted about this useful little free tool a couple of times. I've just discovered I missed a minor update to v.4.00.0193 made in March. According to the release notes, the following additions have been made:

• Support for MSN Spaces;
• New Languages: Spanish, French (Canada) and Russian;
• Button to import the xml file with the saved settings and accounts directly from the "Add Account" wizard.

In addition, the save post option now suggests the post title (when it exists) as the .post file name. There have also been a couple of bugfixes.

You can download it from http://wbloggar.com/.

Google ... again

I am not paid by Google to advertise their services, honest! I know that many people have reservations about the way that the company will put to use information collected from us while using Google, with all sorts of accusations of plans of world domination, etc. I value my privacy as much as the next person, but don't really have much of an issue with them. However, since Google is one of the most blogged-about companies out there, I figured I ought to put in my own two pennyworth.

Please note that the following is written from the point of view of a Web amateur, and is aimed at similar people. Professionals and experts will either not need services like those Google provide, or already know all about them, or both. It might be useful to those running small small businesses and amateur Web publishers, though

Google AdSense

I decided recently to add Google ads to my main site, Greenwich Guide. I don't really have any expectations of retiring early on the proceeds, but they should, I hope, help offset the server fees. I must say that Google make it fairly easy to add their ads, and they are fairly configurable. I had some trouble adding the code to the site as I used 'Find and Replace All' to insert the code on each page. Unluckily, the 'Quiz' page on the site uses JavaScript and the code was accidentally inserted in the middle of the script as well, totally breaking the page. Luckily I was able to find the problem by running Aptana (see previous entry) and it immediately found the offending lines in its 'Problems' view and enabled me to delete the offending lines.