Google's Gmail Video Chat instability - Google is listening, please post

When I recently posted to the Gmail Help group about the extreme instability of Google Video Chat over the past week (connection half-life is now < 10 minutes) I didn't expect any response.

I got one: Video Chat problems - Chats and Contacts.

... We've had a few anecdotal reports of more-frequent disconnects in the
past few days. We're looking into on our side.

When you get the "Click here to upload" prompt, are you uploading your
log? We can investigate your issue specifically if so.

If necessary, you can send more details to my Gmail address...

So it turns out Google engineers are monitoring those discussion groups. That's encouraging.

I think the way to get their attention is to

1. Look for anyone else posting on the topic.
2. Click the five star ranking on what they posted.
3. Add a new message with as much detail as possible and rename the subject to make it as clear as possible.

The key is to find a related post and star it. Unfortunately there's no dedicated forum for the Video Chat help and there are a lot of low content questions and posts. Given the instability we've seen with GVC current users are either very tolerant or rather dispirited.

So if you're a GVC user and experiencing connection or stability issues, please be sure to post in the currently applicable help forum: http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Chats-and-Contacts-en/topics?hl=en.

Use a clear description and include the string "Video Chat" in the subject line. I'll be monitoring for posts with that heading in my feed reader and I'll star any that I find relevant. (This is the feed for the Google Alert I created to track new posts: -- couldn't get that one to work!)

Update 3/14/09: Things are better today. Google is working hard ...

iLife '09 - still no good way to share a Library between users

I updated an old post: iPhoto library sharing - the official Apple method. There's still no good way to share iPhoto Libraries between multiple machine users. The best official workaround is using a disk image, which causes backup problems (grrr, Retrospect!).

The problem is not iPhoto's. I believe it's the result of an ancient design decision in BSD Unix file sharing. It impacts all resource sharing between users, including iTunes, iMovie, etc.

I wonder if it's addressed in Snow Leopard.

I think XP/Vista may have a real advantage here ...

Google Calendar sync and daylight savings time

[Update: Move along folks, nothing to see here ...]

Last May I identified a bug in Google Calendar Sync (Outlook):

Gordon's Tech: I know what's wrong with Google Calendar sync

... Google calendar sync engineers messed up recurring events that extend across a daylight savings time transition. Google keeps the absolute time the same for entire length of the recurring event, so the local time shifts on one or the other side of the DST transition...

Today all of my work appointments are one hour late....

Update: They're fine now. I think I was looking at it cross-eyed.

Drupal reminds me of Google Page Creator

My now moldy vintage 1994 personal web site [1] was created using Microsoft FrontPage, especially FrontPage 98. That was an impressive piece of software for working with document-oriented web sites, unfortunately there's nothing like it around today. The closest thing to FrontPage today, curiously, is Microsoft's Sharepoint 2007 wiki.

FrontPage 98 still runs. In fact, I recently connected it to the XP SP2+ IIS-based personal web server. Unfortunately, it doesn't run on my current platform of OS X (save in emuliation of course).

So I've been looking for replacements, albeit sluggishly. Since even Dreamweaver seems to be a relic of another age I thought I'd look at Drupal, an open source "content management system" -- meaning a web app for authoring web pages.

It was easy to add to one of my DreamHost domains - it's a free one click install there. I had it up and running in (really) less than a minute.

Alas, even though DH claims that they'll keep it current it's already one big security update behind (so no links from here!).

Still, I was able to play with it. It reminds me of the late midly lamented Google Page Creator -- except that there's no rich text editor. In fact, the Firefox editing window I'm typing this into is far more powerful than a Drupal editing window.

I'll keep poking around, but I sure do miss FrontPage ...

[1] In one form or another I've maintained a continuous Internet presence since 1994. Holy cow.

Transferring a Google Apps eNom domain: Awkward!

[Updated from the original, it's not as bad as I first thought.]

I'm in the midst of correspondence with several eNom support people. The upshot is that I recommend against the "easy" default path of registering a domain through the Google Apps process.

Instead I recommend working with DreamHost (my most recent blurb on them, with discount code). They will provide a full service registrar function and any desire mix of Google Apps and standard web and web app services.

It all started when I registered a Google Apps domain for a specific project. I then realized I needed a true web server with the domain, rather than Google's moribund and dysfunctional "Sites" service.

No problem, I've done something this before, though this time I simply chose the DreamHost web+Google Apps option. I then changed the DNS settings at eNom and everything just worked (DNS propagation meant a full switch took about 10 hours, but there was no service discontinuity). I had the standard Google apps and my domain name now pointed to a web server.

[Update: Normally when you change DNS settings at a registrar I think you can enter either the IP address or the readable name (ex: NS1.dreamhost.com). Not so with eNom. The IP address won't work. Sheesh.]

Then it occurred to me that there was no obvious way to unlock the eNom managed domain name and request a domain transfer.

So I asked customer support.

I must say they answered quickly, but the answers were very confusing. I think after parsing them out (updated here, I had this wrong before) they can be moved after 60 days post-registration but the process is pretty manual and documentation is hard to find:

This is the best official documentation I can find ...

Unlock domain (GoDaddy and eNom) - Google Apps Help

...eNom

To unlock your domain with eNom, please contact the eNom support team to request this action. You can reach eNom.com support via email at googleclients@enom.com, or via phone at 425-974-4623. These channels are dedicated to Google Apps administrators who registered a domain with eNom during the signup process...

Messy. I think I'll gradually consolidate my eNom domains with DreamHost. (To be clear, I don't speculate in domains -- I use 'em all!)

Update 3/8/09:

eNom does have a process for transferring domains, but it's not publicly documented.

The following is translated from what I was sent by eNom customer service. They're very responsive but I'm pretty sure they aren't native English speakers. If you email keep things very short and simple. I think the phone number option is preferable.

... in order to transfer the domain, it needs to be 60 days after registration...

... This isn't an eNom-specific rule - this is a rule for all registrars set by ICANN.

If a domain name has been registered for more than 60 days, email with a request. Include the domain access password for verification. (This isn't your Google pw -- NEVER give that out.)

The domain access password business can be tricky.

Remember that in the Google Apps domain admin page there's an "advanced DNS settings" link that will display your eNom domain access password (and a link to the eNom admin page, but that's not relevant here.)

If you haven't changed the eNom domain access password Google generated you just need to include this password in your email.

If you've changed the original pw using the eNom admin page and haven't lost your new password, that's the one you put in the email (frankly I suggest phoning instead).

If you've lost your revised pw here's where you're reminded how critical it is to retain control of your email accounts (read this as a reminder!)

simply put in your domain name at the access login screen and then click on the "forgot password" link and it will be emailed to you at the address on file with Google for your domain name.

Yikes. You really don't want to lose control of your Gmail account.

Once you've submitted the unlock request, in a day or so your domain will be unlocked. At that point you can initiate a domain transfer request from DreamHost (or any other registrar).

I don't know what happens next, but I suspect eNom sends you an email when they get the domain transfer request and you have to validate that. Either that or the domain transfer. Or something. I think I'll do this sometime in the next few weeks, so wait for the next update ...

Why you want XP, not Vista, for use with an OS X VM

Great series of tests by MacTech, excerpted by Apple Insider:

AppleInsider | Shootout: Parallels outperforms VMware Fusion in many tests

... 3D and HD Graphics Tests

XP: Smoothly played both 720p and 1080p videos in both environments.
Vista: Couldn't play 720p at all in Parallels. VMware Fusion stuttered on every machine except the Mac Pro. Given 720p results, MacTech didn't bother trying 1080p...

Yikes! Rules out Vista for me. You really want XP inside these VMs.

Parallels was significantly (20% range) faster than Fusion, but for me speed is less critical than reliability and stability. They didn't seem to test that.

Streaming video over the net - Quicktime, Ustream.tv and Watershed

We've been making extensive use of Google Video Chat for corporate communications (and with my aged mother, but that's a future post), but it's strictly point-to-point.

We need to share a video stream (audio not needed) from site meetings to remote users. This is remarkably hard to do.

You might not think this is a challenge. You might recall a 1990s fad of using a desktop webcam to share daily tedium -- or webcams that broadcast traffic. Or you might think of a large industry that specializes in "recreational" webcam use (an industry that just about killed the quality desktop webcam).

Alas, it would be most unwise, not to mention unsavory, to use those recreational services for corporate video broadcast. Besides, we actually want image clarity.

I haven't been able to find many options other than the high end professional services.

The one thing I've come across is the combination of Apple's recently resurrected QuickTime Broadcaster for OS X (compresses video input) and Apple's somewhat quiescent QuickTime streaming server.

Apple's free QuickTime Broadcaster for OS X (FAQ) will support firewire video capture, such as from a Canon Camcorder as well as iSight input. It can only output to a single destination however, such as a (Windows/Mac) QuickTime Player or (more importantly) OS X Streaming Server. (Yes, the name is misleading. Also the documentation is obsolete, iSight no longer exists but it now works with any 10.5 video source).

In theory it works with both Intel and PPC machines, but my G5 iMac couldn't compress the high quality video output of my Logitech Vision Pro webcam fast enough.

To do real broadcasting you're supposed to stream the output to a QuickTime streaming server (part of OS X Server, $400) or a multicast network. (This discussion is useful).

It turns out that DreamHost, a well regarded web hosting service, provides the open source version of QuickTime streaming server -- the Darwin QuickTime Streaming Server. Live streaming (broadcast a meeting) is not officially supported, but it works. The configuration looks like this ...

• Local OS X laptop provides live feed (OS X Broadcaster) to Darwin Streaming Server
• Darwin Streaming Server provides on demand stream
• Users access stream from a specially configured web page that embeds QuickTime call.

I've played with this configuration briefly, but there's very little material on the web about it. That makes me wonder if there's any way to make it really work (Apple is very quiet, for example). However I found IAMedia really had used DreamHost's streaming video. They've prepared a nice tutorial of how to make it all work, including how to embed the stream in a webpage.

Problem is, they've run into quality of service issues with DreamHost. So they've recently switched to ustream.tv -- a ad-funded startup specializing in personal broadcasting.

Alas, ustream.tv isn't very corporate, though it's not as off-base as the "recreational" services of old.

Happily, ustream.tv sells a private label service called "Watershed".

... Watershed is Ustream's self-serve platform for live, interactive video. Flexible for everyone, Watershed offers plug-and-play as well as robust API integration solutions. Organizations both small and large can customize Watershed to meet their specific needs and build global communities around shared live experiences....

Watershed charges $1 an hour/user for pay-as-you-go pricing.

That's about right for my corporation ...

Update: Watershed isn't super trivial to setup, but by the standards of video streaming it's very simple. I created the two web pages (broadcast and viewer) on one of my servers and stuck the embedded code in. Worked pretty well. Cost for our use would be about $50 to $100 monthly, so it looks like something I can justify.

So I was wondering, where the heck was Watershed all the time I've been looking for an affordable corporate video broadcast solution?! Turns out they launched 2 weeks ago. They're probably not even advertising yet.

Update 3/6/09: A few cautionary notes on Watershed

• I don't see an automated way to discontinue an account. I do like to see that.
• They don't provide any information on which credit card you're billing billed against
• The "Support" link doesn't have any link to contact support (there is a separate contact link)
• When I tried it this morning it was broken.

Update 3/24/09: After my initial testing I was never able to get it to work. Tech support was responsive, but it didn't clear up the trouble I was having. I decided to step back and wait until there are more players in this market. Then I discovered there was no way to remove my account information...

The sorry state of OS X device drivers

I've written before about the lousy quality of OS X scanner drivers. Today Scott Gruby, a vendor of OS X software, provides some details on miserable Epson drivers and makes a limited recommendation:

Scott Gruby’s Blog -- Accepting responsibility for bugs

... The only scanners I recommend are the Fujitsu ScanSnap and the Pentax DSMobile 600. The ScanSnap series don’t use TWAIN drivers so they can’t blow up ReceiptWallet and the Pentax DSMobile has incredibily well put together drivers. My guess is that they didn’t start from legacy code....

Things are so ugly out there I think Apple needs to start certifying device drivers. Vendors would then be incented to invest in drivers that earn certification and the right to advertise compliance.

Googaby: Novel approach to Google Contacts and OS X Address Book integration

From Macintouch, emphases mine:

MacInTouch: timely news and tips about Apple Macintosh, iTunes, iPhone and more...

... Mac-Chi released Googaby 1.0, a Google Contacts and Address Book utility for Mac OS X. The software enables you to drag-and-drop contact information from any application that allows selecting text and then parses the data, presents it for review and editing, and stores the approved version in Google Contacts. It can also push new or changed Address Book contacts, including pictures and group memberships, to Google in the background. Other features include backup and restore of Google Contacts and Groups, drag-and-drop between Google accounts, drag-and-drop into spreadsheets, support for executing custom AppleScripts, a hyperlinked Note field, and more. Googaby is $24.95 for Mac OS X 10.4 and up (Universal Binary)."

I don't know of any other solution that can backup or interact with Google Contact Groups. They have a somewhat limited 10 day trial solution -- a bit short for my tastes.

Note, however, that Googaby doesn't attempt to synchronize Google Contacts with Address Book ...

... In the some of the articles which have been published so far Googaby and “sync” have been mentioned in the same sentence...

So I want to be real clear: Googaby is NOT a sync agent nor sync tool!

Googaby PUSHES changes from the Address Book to Google Contacts. Pushes one way and only one way.

If you’re a Mac user then you should store your contact data in Address Book.
Not only are the data elements in Address Book much richer than those of Google Contacts, but by storing your contacts in the Address Book...

I'd love true sync between Address Book and Google Contacts, but I think the data models are too different to really do that. This seems plausible.

I'll give it a cautious try on a secondary Google account where I can do some testing safely. (It's easy to backup and restore the OS X Address Book, there's NO backup for the Gmail Contact/Group collection.)

Update: I've found my first (minor) bug. If you launch Googaby from the first time and don't have a network connection, it hangs instead of displaying an error message or log-in dialog. It should display an error message. I had to kill the process.

Update: I'm missing something. It can see how it does a backup and restore of Google Contacts, though I've not tested that. I can also see how it might work to better manage one's Google Contacts, and have them available offline -- but since Googleby is the "source of truth" then any Google Contact changes made, say, by Google Sync to the iPhone will get lost. I also don't see how one creates a relationship between an Address Book entry and a Googleby entry. I see a lot of complexity in the Preferences settings. There's nothing much in the Help files. Googleby looks interesting, but it shouldn't have been launched without a manual of some kind.

Aperture keyword hierarchy does not support inheritance queries

I use Aperture in a very odd way. I use it to process my Canon RAW files before I convert them to JPEG and store them in iPhoto.

I then delete the originals.

Weird, eh?

Problem is RAW files cannot be used to archive images, and I really care about longevity. I'd prefer a better file format, but for I've been thinking JPEG is the best we have*.

In addition, when I bought Aperture I thought I'd migrate from iPhoto. Alas, Aperture does not support metadata associated with collections of images (albums) -- and that's important for us. Importing of iPhoto Libraries into Aperture discards important information. So I've stayed, grumpily, with iPhoto. (My Apple love died some years ago - no surprise to readers of this blog.)

Using Aperture as a kind of darkroom means I've never done much with Aperture keywords, but on a recent solo non-work related plane flight I took my Aperture Library along to catch up on image processing. I had a rare couple of hours to look at Aperture's keywords.

The first thing I noticed is that I could organize them in a tree (hieararchical, outline) structure using the (shift-H) Keyword HUD. It's a strict tree-type directed graph -- no mulitple inheritance. Any term (node) can be a keyword (the user interface and documentation are misleading on this).

Wonderful -- I thought. I'd prefer an acyclic directed graph with multiple inheritance, but a tree is nice. I can create an ontology of family relationships and execute inheritance queries -- so a query on "FL" will find all children of "FL" such as Emily, Ben, Brinna, Tim, Kateva, me, etc.

Wrong.

The tree is merely a way to organize terms. As far as Aperture is concerned the tree nodes (terms) are flat keywords assigned to images. All queries are term queries -- no inheritance, no subsumption.

Blech.

Oh well, it does make it easier to continue my disgruntled data locked iPhoto relationship.

* I would love it if Microsoft's HD Photo (superb LOC description) were to be blessed by the Library of Congress. The LOC currently favors JPEG 2000 for lossy compressed archival images (NDNP profile specifically), but their next best choise is JPEG - which is what I use. I've another post due on this topic. After reading the LOC recommenations I need to reconsider whether JPEG is still my only effective archival option. (Update: Aperture doesn't export JPEG 2000! Weird, since iPhoto can manage JPEG 2000 and so can Quicktime. Looks like I'm staying with JPEG for now ...)

Google disarray - worse than recognized

It's not just the remarkably lousy usability of Google's Gmail "integrated" chat, nor just Google's persistent notification chaos, it's everything to do with Google and communication services.

Check out the current state of one fragment of the Google Talk
page:

Except when you click on the link for "Google Talk Gadget" you go to "Google Talk" (I think the Gadget might be gone) which is Windows only.

There is still a page for embedding a Google Talk gadget and you can add it via search to the iGoogle page, but in both cases the "call" button requires Google Talk for Windows.

Sheesh. This reminds me of Microsoft's web site chaos.

It's ugly out there.

PS. I looked at Mailplane as an alternative Gmail front end to see if that would provide notification services and improved usability for Google Video Chat. There is some support, but not enough to be worth the complexity of adding another app into the mix (two apps really, since it works with Growl.)

Google notifier for Mac - abandoned

One would think that Google Notifier for Mac would the perfect way to alert a user to requests to chat, especially requests for Google Video Chat.

One would be wrong.

Google Notifier for Mac was "Last updated August 18, 2006". Yes, roughly 50 net years ago. It's clearly one of those infamous abandoned Google hobby projects.

It provides notifications for incoming email and calendar events only. The download page documentation links display Windows Notifier documentation; you have to install it to find out what it does (once you install there is a Help menu with some content).

Scratch that one.

Gmail: be sure you have a working secondary account

I was unable to access Gmail this evening. My password wasn't working.

I can't explain this. I believe I was entering the password correctly. It was nerve wracking; I'd much rather lose both my wallet and my car key than lose my Google identity.

I ended up having to follow Google's password reset procedure. The first step in their reset is that they send a special link email to your secondary account. (see [1], below).

Rigggghhht. My secondary account forwarded to Gmail, so that didn't help.

Fortunately I have control over the secondary account, so I logged in there and changed the mail redirect to BOTH my Gmail account and one of my dozen or so Google Apps accounts. I then repeated the Google reset behavior and the link showed up at my secondary Google Apps account.

So I'm back, which is why I'm able to post this.

After defibrillating myself I took another look at Google's "My Account" settings. Here's what I learned:

1. The secondary email address is specified under the "security question" area. That's not obvious, you click on the "security question" link to get to it.
2. I generally blow off "security questions" since I have a reliable system for managing passwords. In this case though something didn't work. I went back to Google and carefully setup a unique security question.
3. I changed my "secondary email" to a safe destination.
4. The "secondary email" is optional, I presume if you don't set it Google goes directly to asking the security question.
   

The moral of the story is that everyone with a Gmail account needs a secondary email account with real mail storage. So check now and make sure your secondary account is valid.

Oh, and you do realize that if anyone gets access to the secondary account they are in a very good position to seize your Google identity. So the secondary account is as critical as your primary account. So maybe the secondary account should be top secret -- and all email should be deleted from it ....

Damn, but we need to get rid of #$#@$ passwords. I would love to see Google do right what OpenID flubbed (two factor authentication).

Now, I'd like to know what happened to my Google account access in the first place. I assume the problem wasn't related to this transition, or maybe this weird bug ...

[1] Google's password reset process:

To initiate the password reset process, please follow the instructions sent to your xxxx email address.

If you don't have an alternate email address, or if you no longer have access to that account, please try to reset your password again after 24 hours. At that point, you'll be able to reset your password by answering the security question you provided when you created your account.

We use the security question for account recovery only after an account has been idle for 24 hours. We do this to prevent someone else from taking over your account.

If you're unable to answer your security question or access your secondary email account, please complete this form. If you're concerned about the security of your account, please visit our Security Center.

Update 9/8/09: It's been a week or so since this happened and I'm still finding passwords I need to update. I've probably entered my new Gmail/Google Account pw in 20-25 places, and I think I'm only half-done. I've entered it so far across five computers and two iPhones. This is, of course, insane. Unsurprisingly, only obsessives can tolerate changing passwords very often. We SO need to kill the password. Also, following that link to my old post I rediscovered this "gem":

Always keep the verification number you get when you sign up for Gmail. When you sign up for Gmail, we'll ask you for a secondary email address and then email a verification number to that account. This number is the best way to prove ownership of your account, so be sure to hang on to it.

How many people have that bloody verification number?! I'm pretty sure when I signed up for Gmail Google didn't provide those ...

Fixing an OS X Mail.app "updating cache directory" problem

Yesterday Emily's email stopped working.

She reads email on 10.5.6 OS X Mail (mail.app) which sync via IMAP to our Google Apps family domain Gmail service.

I could see things looked fine on the Google side, so I opened the Mail.app activity window and saw it was stuck on "updating cache directory" (Google search link).

It seems this is a fairly common OS X Mail.app bug, but everyone I read had a different "fix".

Mine was very simple. I assumed it was an OS X problem; Apple is notorious for cache issues. I did a "safe boot" (hold shift on restart). That clears out some caches and is the first thing I do for most OS X problems. I like to do a "safe boot" every few months anyway; it's a bit of superstition perhaps.

After the "safe boot" I restarted. I didn't login, I just restarted normally.

The problem was fixed.

Google ends event and public calendar marketing functions

Two or three years ago there was quite a bit of interest in public calendar marketing. Those were the days of meetup.com and eventful.com. I think Apple might have tried something with their now defunct .Mac service (anyone remember Apple's original pre-AOL service?!), and in June of 2007 I signed up with Google Public Calendars to market inline skating events in the twin cities.

The services never took off, though both eventful and meetup are still around. These days Facebook looks like it will own this space -- albeit with severe data lock and proprietary transactions.

I suspect calendar search and sharing will return in a few years, but it's not surprising that Google has quietly [1] ended their calendar search project. This is from a Help entry (some emphases mine)...

Removing public calendar search and the public calendar gallery - Google Calendar Help

We've decided to discontinue public calendar search and the public calendar gallery. These were specialized U.S. English-only features that weren't used as extensively as we would have liked, and proved difficult to maintain over time. We're looking at ways to make it easier to search and browse public calendars, but for now we've removed the gallery and public calendar search function.

Here's what's not changing:

• Public calendars are sticking around.
  • You can still create public calendars, and there are a number of ways to spread the word about public calendars you create or you subscribe to.
  • You can still add a public calendar to your list of calendars.
  • If you have public calendars in your list of calendars, they'll stay there.
  • We'll still list the most sought-after public calendars on a static page, just as we've been doing in other Calendar languages. You can access these calendars by clicking the Add down-arrow button (at the bottom of the calendar list on the left) and selecting Add a public calendar.
• Calendar search is sticking around.
  • You'll still be able to search the contents of any of the calendars on your list -- including any public calendars you add.

I don't mind Google's ending the marketing of public calendars. It clearly didn't work. I will be really annoyed if they end public calendar support altogether, but I think we're ok there.

Interesting to note the language aspect. They really don't want to be english-centric.

[1] I follow their blogs and I sure don't remember any announcement. I only learned of this via another post, I don't know when they terminated the service. Really, this should get an "It Died" blog post.