Gmail video chat via Vidyo

Google has introduced video chat.

Hallelujah.

Macs and PCs alike, there's an installer for each platform.

Based on Vidyo technology, which is rather nice for that company.

VidyoConferencing solutions just work. Easily. Reliably. Inexpensively. Pleasingly. From anywhere. And that’s because Vidyo provides for high-quality, low-latency, highly resilient, broad-based deployments over general-purpose networks with the introduction of the first multi-point video conferencing ... thanks to Vidyo’s unique intellectual property and the advent of the VidyoRouter™.

Vidyo’s conferencing solutions are the first to take advantage of the most recent enhancement to the H.264 standard for video compression — Scalable Video Coding (SVC). The result is HD/Telepresence quality enhanced by industry-best resilience and low-latency — and all delivered over general-purpose IP networks. VidyoConferencing solutions provide quality experiences for all participants, ranging from Mac and Windows desktops to special video conferencing room solutions. No dedicated networks ever required.

Google is hosting the Vidyo router.

I will be testing this ASAP.

Update 11/13/08: In 2007 Google acquired Marratech's software for internal use, but this seems unrelated.

Update 11/19/08: They don't mention this, but the Mac version is Intel only. So far I've found reasonable reliability on XP machines, but I had very bad results with an XP and Mac Intel video chat. I don't yet know where the problem lies. There's no #$!$ notification solution. (I got better results in retesting later.)

Update 12/11/08: Establishing a trust relationship to enable chat is underdocumented and a bit crazy. I recommend:

1. Ignore the Gmail chat list. It's fatally flawed. Type your contact name in the Gmail chat search box.
2. Select the match you want (you may see multiple emails for one contact, you need to use a gmail address), then mouse over to invite them to chat. This sends them an invite message.
3. If they accept the invite message you now have a trust relationship. You can initiate a chat now, or they can.

I can't find any documentation on the maximal resolution GVC will handle, but I suspect it maxes out at 640x480 and 15-30fps. That's pretty much top of the line now, I think to go above that we need on camera h.264 hardware compression.

The quality of Google Video Chat turns out to be very influenced by firewalls. If the firewall allows point-to-point direct connection for the chat, you get great results. If not GVC will try to tunnel the video via Google, and the quality is much less (iChat in contrast, would just give up, so this is commendable).

Update 12/12/08: In a corporate meeting we lost connection every 10-20 minutes. We have reason to suspect the root cause is a Comcast cable modem service issue at the remote site, but we also believe Google Video connections, like Microsoft LiveMeeting connections, are fragile. Still investigating!

Google and time zones: Calendar oddities on the iPhone

I view my Google Calendar three different ways, and depending on the view I see appointments at different times. It turns out this is not as bad as I first thought when I wrote ...

Gordon's Tech: gSyncit for Outlook 2007 to Google Calendar and Contacts Sync

... Not yet characterized, but there are time zone problems. I think Google Calendar tries to be 'smart' about the time zone one is currently in. Big mistake. Correction -- this isn't a gSyncit/Outlook problem. I think this is a Google Calendar quirk depending on the time zone settings on the web client host machine....

First, some background. Our family Google Calendar repository is being updated from four streams (no over-the-air iPhone sync, damnit): (see also)

1. XP Outlook/exchange to Google Calendar via gSyncit
   
2. OS X iCal to Google Calendar via Spanning Sync (and iPhone to iCal via Apple's damned sync cable. [2])
   
3. Blackberry Pearl to Google Calendar via the BB Google author calendar sync app
4. Direct data entry via Google's various web interfaces including the little appreciated and under-marketed Google Apps iPhone mobile interface.
   

If this sounds risky and complex please see footnote [1].

I am shocked that this setup actually works, but it does. It's held together by duct tape and bailing wire of course, but so was my father's Valiant and it drove us around for years. Blood will tell.

Or does it work? I was seeing events appearing at different times depending on how I viewed the data:

1. Google Calendar via desktop Firefox
2. Google Calendar via iPhone Safari connection Google's semi-secret high powered Google Apps web calendar view.
3. Google Appls iPhone optimized web view
   

It turnes out that, behind the scenes, Google Calendar is doing quite a bit of time zone work, but it behaves differently depending on how you access it. From the iPhone it uses the phone's local time zone information -- so appointments always shift to local time. From a browser it uses the time zone setting associated with your Google Calendar settings. You do remember that option, right?

Google ought to make this more explicit in the UI; Google Calendar should at least display the active time zone with the ability to change it from the calendar. Still, it's impressive that this works at all.

The trick will be remembering to change my Google Calendar settings time zone back to central time when I get home ...

[1] I could write a book on the state and evolution of family/work calendar integration/ synchronization and all the lessons it holds for health care IT, system integration, the semantic web, the future of publicly traded companies, interconnected complex adaptive systems, and the implications for human progress. Andrew accuses me of making the simple complex, but my take is that reality is recursive and all simplicity is an illusion over the supremely complex. I don't have time to write the book, but I'm due to put some hints into Gordon's Notes. Now back to the topic ...

[2] Damned because of the side-effects of Apple's Digital Rights Management lockdown of the cable interface and failure to provide a vendor-useable API / sync framework.

Update 11/10/08: Ok, this is creepy. Now I'm seeing new time zone related options in the Calendar settings. They don't seem to be doing anything to the Calendar I see, but I didn't notice them yesterday ....

Google reader: now with translation services

Google is very keen on Google Reader. It's a testament to their genius.

Now they've added translation services ...

Official Google Reader Blog: Is Your Web Truly World-Wide?

...Next time you find an interesting feed in another language, just subscribe to it as normal in Reader. When you view the feed in Reader, check off 'Translate into my language' in the feed settings, and (voila!) the feed will be immediately translated for you....

I would very much like to see Google sell a commercial appliance-based version of Google Reader for use within corporate firewalls.

Is it too late to go back to Palm 1994?

After my latest iPhone Toodledo / Appigo disaster I've been reconsidering my approach.

Maybe I need to go give up on the Cloud for a while, and let things bake a bit.

Or maybe I'm being premature. Evernote's no longer guilty of data lock, maybe I should try them again.

I mozy over to my Evernote account. There I'm greeted with my first note ...

Evernote Web: Note Search

...Unknown exception (com.google.gwt.core.client.JavaScriptException: (TypeError): c is null fileName: http://www.evernote.com/enweb/ENWeb/26883679FEFF138CBBFB08EA679E2AA0.cache.html lineNumber: 2534 stack: vdd(null,229501)@http://www.evernote.com/enweb/ENWeb/26883679FEFF1 ....bject Object]) ..../enweb/ENWeb/26883679FEFF138CBBFB08EA679E2AA0.cache.html:800 ) during operation (Unknown)...

Pick up towel. Throw. In.

I'm toast.

Time to rethink my approach to Task and Notes.

Frankly, if I'd know it was going to be this bad I'd have stuck with my old Palm handheld for another year!

Appigo and Toodledo – nasty emergent design flaw makes a mess of my iPhone Notes and Tasks

This is about the worst design flaw / bug /emergent interaction I’ve encountered in the past few years.

Here's the story from my rejected post to the Appigo Todo Google Group [1]

When I added Notebook to Todo, and after I'd imported hundreds of notes Toodledo, I ended up with a set of categories (aka folders) for my iPhone Appigo Notes and Tasks that were the sum of the Palm categories I had used for Notes and the Palm categories I had used for Tasks.

Since my Palm Notes and Tasks had different categories, there were empty folders that showed in Notes (but not empty in Tasks) and vice-versa. They cluttered up my folder list.

So I deleted the empty folders on both sides.

Can you guess what happens next?

It took a surprisingly long time after the deletion, perhaps due to Toodledo synchronization issues, but I now have hundreds of Tasks and Notes that no longer belong to any category…

… At least when synchronizing with Toodledo, Tasks and Notes share a common set of categories/folders. If you remove a folder from Notes that is empty, you remove the matching folder from Tasks. All contained Tasks go into the inbox (at least they aren't deleted).

This is the single worst bug or design flaw or bizarre emergent synchronization behavior I've run into in several years. I don't know how I'll sort this out.There’s no way to undo this behavior, and there’s no good UI on either the iPhone or Toodledo for manipulating sets of Tasks or Notes.

Man, do I hate synchronization.

What a bloody mess.

Update 11/9/08: To clarify why the problem is so bad. If the data lived in Outlook, this would be a nuisance problem. It would take some time, but I could select swathes of items and assign them to new categories. Neither Appigo nor Toodledo support multi-select operations.

I did some further testing. I created a folder in Toodledo tasks, and verified it did not, at first, appear in Toodledo Notes. I did the same with Toodledo notes. However after Appigo Notes synchronization, the Toodledo TASKS folder appeared in Appigo Notes. After a cycle of Appigo Tasks and Notes synchronization the new Toodledo Notes and Tasks folders appeared in both Appigo Tasks and Notes and then synchronized back to Toodledo Notes and Tasks.

Which brings me back to two critical points I keep relearning:

1. Synchronization is Hell.
2. Reliable service requires a single vendor to control the client and the server. Differences in folder models between Toodledo and Appigo are at the root of this exquisitely nasty bug.
3. There is a vast and perhaps unbridgeable gap between the capabilities of a robust desktop client like Outlook and what the Cloud can offer.
   

Update 11/12/08: Although Appigo did not publish my email they did respond to another complaint. They say it's not their design, it's a result of how Toodledo manages categories.

I suspect Toodledo stores notes in the same tables they use for tasks, hence the shared categories.

So this is an example of an emergent bug arising from synchronization between different application models.

Everything I need to know about Health Care messaging and synchronization I learned from my PDAs.

Update 11/13/2008: I looked into alternatives to Appigo such as Things.app and OmniFocus. The first is pre-release and has no import/export capabilities and the second, though released, has no useful import/export capabilities.

Neither meets my minimal data freedom requirements.

Since the category-loss bug arises from the combined use of Appigo's Todo.app and Notebook.app synchronizing against Toodledo's single Task/Note store, one workaround is to keep Todo.app and Toodledo Tasks but look for another solution for Notes, such as Evernote.

Alternatively, since Evernote now has a published API, Appigo could use Evernote as their note store instead of Toodledo. Their Notebook app is far more stable and useful than the Evernote iPhone client.

I'd suggest this to Appigo, but the last post I submitted to the Appigo support Group was not published. [1]

I don't have better options for the moment, so I'll stick with Appigo iPhone Todo.app and Notebook.app for the next few months. Things.app may be ready for my use by February 2009, assuming they have a robust set of import/export capabilities on the client.

Of course Google could create a Task companion for Google Calendar at any time. If they do that then the deck will be reshuffled and we'll have more options. I don't expect any solutions from Apple; I think they're in much worse organizational shape than we realize.

[1] Appigo declined to publish my post to their Google Group based support forum. If my most recent note on this thread doesn't appear, I'll have to conclude that Appigo is aggressively censoring their customer posts -- at least on this very sensitive topic.

Update 11/13/08: My posts are not appearing in Appigo's Google Group.

Update 2/24/2010: Appigo did eventually introduce warnings into their apps, so that you're less likely to fall into this trap.

Appigo Todo now has search

As of tonight the Appigo - Todo - Overview doesn't describe all the great new features, but they're listed on the App Store site.

They've added a LOT to one of my favorite apps. The killer addition is search -- now I can search in Appigo Tasks just as I've been able to search in Appigo Notebook. Tags and contexts have been added and they sync to Toodledo.

Terrific update. Highly recommended iPhone application.

Update 11/9/2008: As of today, not so highly recommended! Lord, what a screw-up.

OmniOutliner Pro's impressive outliner to HTML feature

OmniOutliner Pro is an old OS X app -- been around forever. I wouldn't be surprised to learn it started out on the NeXT workstation.

I've owned it for years, but I've never quite fit it into my workflow. The main value for me has been that it does a terrific job of opening my ancient Symantec MORE 3.1 outlines. That's handy, since 10.5 orphaned many of my old papers.

Years ago I thought I'd use it to create web pages, but it did a lousy job -- back then. Happily the OMNI Group keeps improving it, and they've never asked me for more money. A recent update mentioned something about 'dynamic html outlines', so I gave it a try.

Impressive! You can create very nice dynamic HTML outlines. Since OmniOutliner can open RTF documents it's not a bad way to put some documents on a web site -- assuming you have FTP access.

I might get some new use from my old app.

Scribd iPaper: a Flash based alternative to PDF

Today Brad DeLong's web site included one of his lectures -- hosted using Scribd iPaper.

It's supposed to be an alternative to PDF; another way to make Microsoft Office documents accessible to a broad audience. Where as PDF is optimized for print, iPaper is optimized for web display.

There's some support for non-Office documents as well ...

Upload Your Documents | Scribd

.... Microsoft Word Files doc, docx Microsoft Powerpoint Files ppt, pptx, pps
Microsoft Excel Files xls, xlsx
PDF PDF pdf, ps
Open Office Open Office Documents odt, odp, sxw, sxi, etc.
Text Text Documents txt, rtf

There's only a few wee little catches.

1. iPaper documents are pegging my browser (Camino on OS X at this time).
2. iPaper is a descendant of Adobe's FlashPaper. It uses Flash for display. Yes, Flash, the buggiest, most insecure rendering platform known to the 21st century.
3. iPaper appears to be a totally proprietary format, in fact it's not clear if one can download an iPaper file or if they have to be hosted at Scribd.
   

I prefer to avoid Flash whenever possible, so Scribd isn't a good answer for me.

gSyncit for Outlook 2007 to Google Calendar and Contacts Sync

Looking through the archives I see I've written several posts about gSyncit (ex: gSyncit and SyncMyCal: not compatible with Lookout for Outlook). Each experiment ended up with me giving up on the topic.

Most recently I was trying Google Calendar Sync again with Outlook 2007. It worked for a week or so, then stopped with a cryptic error. I've a history of disappointments with Google Calendar Sync, so I decided to try gSyncIt again.

It's grown quite a bit since my earliest experiments. At one time I see I was asking for control over the sync process; they now provide a lot of tweaks and controls. More than most people could tolerate, but I'm a veteran of Sync Hell. I want 'em all.

I've enable unidirectional sync - Outlook Calendar to Google calendar and Outlook Contacts to a specific Google Contacts group. It will be a long time, if ever, before I dare to try true bidirectional sync.

So far, so good.

I registered this time, so they've got my $10.

Update 11/9/08: Not yet characterized, but there are time zone problems. I think Google Calendar tries to be "smart" about the time zone one is currently in. Big mistake. Correction -- this isn't a gSyncit/Outlook problem. I think this is a Google Calendar quirk depending on the time zone settings on the web client host machine.

Update 11/11/08: It's not exactly a quirk, more like a feature that's a bit too obscure. I've a f/u post on this dated 11/11/08.

Update 12/8/2008: gSyncIt has a bug with all-day events that span multiple days. It replicates them. I've seen this before; Outlook has a very nasty internal representation of an "all-day" event. I'm surprised gSyncIt hasn't fixed this bug, it's not subtle.

MobileMe trial ending - cancel now or never

I'd thought my Apple MobileMe trial account was going to expire at the end of the trial period.

I'd looked for that when I signed up; I don't sign up for trials that auto-enroll if not canceled.

Well, either I missed something or Apple has changed the rules. I received a notice today that Apple was going to convert me to a full account in 14 days.

I canceled immediately. MobileMe does not offer what I need. It's not even close. I'd only hung around in case Apple had a huge MobileMe update in the works, but I'm not going to pay for what they have now.

That's Rule #3 of Gordon's Rules of Acquisition. Don't buy on promises.

To cancel your MobileMe account you go to www.me.com and click the headshot icon to edit account settings. In account settings choose Cancel.

At that point all your MobileMe data will be vaporized, so if you've actually been using the service you'll have to decide what to do with your data.

Workaround for Lego Star Wars install bug

I really dislike buying desktop computer games. The software quality is poor, and the vendor support is lousy.

Unfortunately my 9yo prefers Mac games to Wii games, so when he's earned a big incentive for overcoming a real challenge, we end up with another OS X game.

It's just as well there are so few of them.

The latest problem came with Aspyr's Lego Star Wars (DVD) (Mac) (2005). After I'd installed it my son couldn't play. It started up oddly, with a long video loop. A key press produced a gray screen, then the loop resumed. Finally it crashed.

So what was the problem? There's nothing like this on the Aspyr site and the only update patch is a long delayed and apparently troublesome fix supporting native execution on Intel Macs.

I suspected a security/privileges bug. Game vendors, who usually outsource development to very junior engineers in international markets, rarely bother with security models. They build to the usual XP assumption (everyone runs as admin) then port the game to OS X.

Sure enough, from my admin account the game worked. I suspect the game tries to write to the Application folder. That's a no-no. Non-admin users on my system, including my usual account, don't have write privileges in the global Application folder.

I could have reinstalled to the user-specific application folder, but then the other kid accounts on the family machine would need their own installs. Since Leopard gives more control over permissions, I could have installed in a folder that everyone could write to.

In our case though I have an external drive with open space. OS X doesn't enforce permissions on external drives, so after installing there everyone could use it.

Shame on Aspyr for building a crummy application, and double-shame for not documenting the problem and a workaround.

Controlling what iTunes video goes to an iPod or iPhone

This is a bit weird. I think there's an iTunes OS X bug involved.

I wanted to control what TV shows went to my iPhone. My son wants to go to the polls with me early tomorrow, and he will need entertainment if we have a long wait. (Minnesota polls, however, are extremely well run. Waits are unusual.)

There are a lot of controls on what Music goes to the iPhone, but, oddly enough, fewer controls for space hogging TV shows.

The Library "checkbox" selector method breaks down when one has multiple devices -- those are library settings, not user or device settings. There are checkboxes for Movies that are device specific, but not for TV Shows.

One trick is to choose to sync "unwatched" episodes, then use the context menu "set new" option to mark watched episodes as "unwatched". (The new/watched term incongruity is a bug.)

Another is to follow this author's advice: Syncing the Next n Unwatched TV Shows to your iPod, AppleTV or iPhone using iTunes.

What worked for me was to create a simple playlist of the TV Shows I wanted and to use the "Selected playlists" option in TV Show sync.

Obvious in retrospect. Here's the odd part though.

When I first created my Videos folder, it didn't show up as a playlist I could select -- maybe because it also held some home movies. I created a smart playlist of an series of TV shows to see if that would work better; when I next checked BOTH appeared as playlists I could check.

Weird.

Anyway, the Simple playlist approach works fine for my TV Shows. That should get Tim through the voting wait.

We interrupt our programming for this political message

Gordon's Tech, this blog, is where I put my geek experience. It's apolitical, and even my geek business opinions stay out of it.

Those sorts of things go into Gordon's Notes, along with some opinions on other topics.

Topics like American politics, technology opinions, and the Enlightenment. Yeah, I'm a fan of the Enlightenment.

They go into Gordon's Notes, with the exception of this political message.

If you're a rational Republican, who'd have been happy with McCain 2000 but is struggling with McCain 2008 and Palin the Dominionist, please consider the latest endorsement from a rationalist Republican - a former publisher of the National Review, including an endorsement from the daughters of Goldwater's vice-presidential nominee.

Add that to de facto endorsement from David Brooks, explicit endorsements from George Will, the famous Colin Powell endorsement, Christopher Buckley's job-ending plea, endorsements from myrias of conservative newspapers and GOP governors ...

Well, you have a lot of respectable Republican conservative company if you vote for Obama tomorrow.

Consider it a downpayment on the rehabilitation and reform of the GOP.

We post-liberal Democrats need a respectable opposition. We need a reformed GOP. If you vote for Obama, you can join fellow Republicans who want to reform the GOP, and retrieve it from the Paliniacs.

We now return to our regular programming.

Joys of Google Calendar - in Gmail and the toolbar

I've become a Google Calendar fanboy.

Now that Spanning Sync has integrated our glorious family domain Google Calendars with OS X's pathetic and lethargic iCal I can view my work and home calendar, Emily's calendar, and the Google Calendars for Minnesota Special Hockey and more.

I can view and edit them on any browser, and on my iPhone. (Albeit with a once daily sync, please ask Apple to open the iPhone Calender API and invite Google in.)

It's fantastic; the work/home calendar integration is almost worth the pain of my Palm to iPhone conversion by itself.

Now I get the bennies, like attaching my calendar to the Firefox Toolbar or embedding my unified Google Calendar Gadget in the sidebar of my Gmail view. Even iGoogle is getting interesting now that I can create a portal with all my embedded Google Gadgets [1].

Thanks Google.

[1] Which would even more useful if Google's directory would clearly separate Google-authored gadgets from the rest of them!

Update 11/7/08: Had to swap out Google Calendar Sync and swap in gSyncit.

iPhone sync to Google contacts - 3 methods and work/home implications

[Before you do this, ready my update!]

Why, among all the OS X blogs I read, have I not come across much discussion of this July 2008 iTunes 7.7 Apple knowledge base article: iTunes: Syncing address book contacts with your Google contacts?

For that matter, why does iTunes OS X have no relevant Help articles on the topic?

Maybe it's because synchronization in OS X/XP/Address Book/Outlook/iTunes/iPhone/MobileMe/Exchange/Google Apps/Yahoo! is just ... you know ... a wee bit complex? Maybe I'm not the only one lost in the mine field?

Well, it's time to explore this particular quadrant. I hope to update this post over the next few days, but here's the first draft.

I have made progress lately with Work/Home integration. I use Google Sync to one way sync work calendar information to a secure calendar outside my family domain. I found traditional "subscription" (.ics) to this calendar failed due to Google Calendar problems, but that I could acquire the data via either iCal CalDAV support or Spanning Sync. The latter seems faster and more reliable and I'm using that.

So what about Gmail contacts?

There are several options:

1. gContacts for iPhone - pulled from the App store but supposedly to relaunch without trademark issues. I have this, I use it for read-only access to my Google Contacts. No search however.
2. Spanning Sync for OS X: This will pull Google Contacts into the OS X Address Book. The problem here is duplicate resolution -- I don't know how it works. Note that OS X Address book has a Merge facility I've never tested.
3. iTunes 7.7+ will supposedly sync Google Calendar contacts to the iPhone directly (not via the Address Book). On XP this will replace your iPhone Address Book, but on OS X it apparently creates a separate "account" so you can sync the iPhone via iTunes and the USB cable to both the OS X Address Book and Google Calendar. Note the iPhone Contacts has a limited search capability.
   

I'm going to try #3 after I back up my OS X Address Book and my Google Contacts. Be warned, however, that the Google Contacts backup is CSV based and does not include relationships to mailing lists. It is impossible, given the format, to completely restore the data should anything go wrong. At best you will restore an approximation to your original Google Contacts.

The interesting possibility is that one could synchronize Outlook work contacts with Google, then sync that to the iPhone via iTunes, and, on OS X iPhones only, have some integration of work and personal Address Books/Contacts.

Did I mention than Synchronization is Hell?

PS. Despite the lack of documentation, the very existence of this option, and it's implementation as a separate 'account', is encouraging. It suggests Apple may eventually support Google Apps synchronization as a (far better) alternative to MobileMe. Maybe.

Update 11/2/08: Ok, didn't work. I've restored my OS X Address Book from backup.
If you active iTunes sync with multiple sources, it combines them ALL into a SINGLE source, which it then broadcasts back to all sources. So my OS X Address Book, iPhone and Google Contacts all had the sum of all addresses -- without much attempt at reconciliation (though OS X Address has an interesting "detect duplicates" function). I left my Gmail contacts as the sum of all sources, it's never been a very controlled data set so this probably won't cause too much harm. I turned of Gmail synchronization. Someday I'll fix things up, but for today the project is on hold.

Update 12/1/08: See the comments for a bad outcome from one experiment. Synchronization is Hell.