My Google Voice experience: mobile interface a bit raw

I've just made the transition to Google Voice. It's now bound to my personal gmail account.

Interestingly, on signup I was warned this cannot be changed. So my Google Voice number and my Gmail account are apparently inextricably linked to my Google ID [1].

A few observations

1. I had to deposit $10 via Google checkout to enable international calling.
2. All of my Google Contacts are now available in Google Voice
3. GrandDialer doesn't work any more. (Sob. I expected that, but still. Alas, it's been discontinued.)
4. Any groups you've defined in Google Contacts are now Groups in Voice and they can get custom greetings. (So what does the person who belongs to two Groups get?!)
5. Calls to Canada are 1 cent/minute (they were free in beta testing!)
6. There's a mobile web UI: www.google.com/voice/m
7. You need to spend time with the somewhat hidden Settings menu.
8. It's a very Gmail like interface and you get the usual Gmail-like app links at top.
   

The mobile web app is pretty darned crude, definitely not a custom iPhone app. You can use the mobile app to send an SMS message. When I tried the quick call feature from a secondary screen (not the primary screen) I got 404 not found!

No, I'm not kidding.

It worked from the main screen. The buttons were all very small, it's not iPhone optimized at all.

It worked however. So while I'm waiting for a Google iPhone app or a better web app I can live with this interface.

Or I could just do this "For free calls within the US and great rates on international calls, just call your own Google number and press 2 to connect. Once you get the dial tone, enter the number you would like to call. And remember to add 011 for international calls.". Really, that's probably faster.

Now I've another reason for me to reconcile my Google and iPhone/OS X contacts, something I've been mildly dreading.

[1] 113810027503326386174

Update: At least one iPhone app is on the way.

Update 3/20/09: The Google web app is really crummy -- and very slow to respond. Since I currently use Google Voice to call one number very often (parents in Montreal) I just press one button to connect to my GV number, then 2, then my parents number. I am looking forward to a better iPhone app.

Vocito - Google's GrandCentral client for OS X

Update: Never mind. It doesn't work with Google Voice.

Now that Google Voice has been announced I think I'll play with Google Vocito ...

Official Google Mac Blog: Vocito (Voe-kee-toe)*:

... For those of you who are lucky enough to be be part of the GrandCentral Beta Program, there's a new toy on the Google Mac Playground. Vocito* is a quick dialer that lets you dial your phone directly from your desktop.,,,

When Google doesn't respond - Google Reader broke the blogroll feature

Google Reader's Blogroll feature broke on March 11th. Our family newspaper shows the characteristic empty box.

Well, those things happen. That's not the problem. The problem is that there are 23 posts so far in the Google Help group, but no response of any sort from Google.

I wonder how often the Help groups get read. Even a post saying "Yeah, we know, we're working on it" would go a long way.

I'm disappointed. I thought of the Google Reader group as among Google's best.

Update 3/18/09: Turns out that the people who are supposed to monitor the help group were away at a conference -- could have been everyone really. I'm not sure if they just got back or (hah, hah) if someone read this post. Anyway, help is on the way.

Update 3/19/09: The fix only took a few hours once Google's engineers returned.

CBC Radio jazz on iTunes with Remote.app control

I recently rediscovered something I wrote about five months ago: Digital radio - Apple style. I haven't see anyone mention this since, and I even forgot about it myself, so here's a reminder.

Briefly, CBC Canada broadcasts near-CD quality digital music streams over the Internet - for free. The Jazz and Classical selections are superb.

Most people have forgotten that iTunes will subscribe to these digital radio streams. It's kind of hidden away, but it works.

Problem is, iPhone Remote.app doesn't show digital radio streams in the UI. So it seems you can't control iTunes digital radio from your iTouch/iPhone. Unless you put the stations you want in a playlist -- then they work perfectly.

Read my older post for the details.

As I write CBC Jazz is streaming from iTunes, running in the background on my old G5 iMac (fast user switching enabled) to my old AirPort Express. It's sending analog output to a compact amplifier that connects two modest living room and kitchen speakers.

It's quite lovely, I'm sorry I forgot about it.

Give it a try!

PS. Radio Heartland with Dale Connelly is now available under the Public Radio list. Well worth a listen.

Apple makes the Shuffle even lousier

The 1st generation Shuffle was brilliant. The second, not so much ...

Gordon's Tech: USB adapters for the evil 2 Gen Apple iPod Shuffle

The 2nd generation iPod shuffle uses yet another proprietary apple connector (YAPAC). Yes, another dongle on the desktop, another usb port taken, another thing to lose, another device to carry when traveling.

Sure Apple could have used a mini-B USB interface instead (the original shuffle used a full-sized USB connector, the original iPod used a standard firewire connector), but that would have been insufficiently greedy (aka unfair to Apple shareholders and stakeholders). Apple makes a zillion dollars off their ownership of the full sized iPod interface. They needed another proprietary connector for devices that are too small for the current iPod connector.

Grrrrrrr. This alone is reason enough to buy a Shuffle alternative -- if anyone would make one that played AAC encoded music...

So what does Apple do for the 3rd generation?

They keep the crummy 2nd gen cradle, but now they move the device controls to the earphones. So now the Shuffle has a de facto proprietary earphone connector.

Avoid this.

Annals of abandoned Windows desktop feed readers: Onfolio, Omea ...

Microsoft bought the superb Onfolio product a few years back, but they gave up on it in favor of the feed reader built into Outlook 2007 (miserable piece of ****) and the feed reader built into IE 7 (weak, but workable, heaven forfend don't sync it to Outlook's feed pool).

Alas, Onfolio has a .NET DLL-like conflict with Windows Live Writer (and you thought DLL-Hell was gone?). Since Onfolio is dead, and since I live by WLW (same team did Onfolio!), I again looked for a Windows feed reader I could use with our corporate sharepoint feeds.

I thought I'd give the once well regarded Omea Reader a try. It sure sounded a lot like Onfolio, and it didn't carry the baggage of Omeo Pro (which is far more than I want).

Omea Reader did a great job importing my Onfolio OPML file, including retaining the folder structure. I did run into a number of bugs and UI glitches though, so I figured I'd check on the development status.

Cough.

This is what shows up in the Feeds view (the originating web site is now gone) from March 2008:

Dear JetBrains Omea Users,

We are pleased to finally come to you with these news.

We know that many of you were waiting for this to happen for so long, and we would like to thank you for your patience.

So, after several months of thorough work on polishing the software itself and its API, we are happily ready to announce the full availability of our "Omea" line of products in their open-source incarnation.

We hope that this step will allow us to rise the development of this great product to a new level and to attract energy and talents of everybody who likes to participate in this "adventure"...

By "adventure" they probably mean "hell-ride that nearly destroyed our company". Things were happier in 2005 ...

... In the February, 2005 issue of Home Computer Magazine (www.homecomputermagazine.com/), Omea Reader was announced as their Five Star Pick for free RSS Readers. But you knew that already... isn't it nice to be proven right?...

I'll keep trying Omea, it seems more stable than Onfolio for the moment. I can't recommend a dead product to anyone else though.

I fear I'm the only one looking for a Windows feed reader, which makes me wonder if a very excellent technology isn't really going to make it this go-round ...

Update: When I do a Google search on "windows feed reader" I get exactly NO Adword advertisements. The moving finger of history has moved on.

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 ...