I add the despised comment captcha

Gordon's Notes: I add the despised comment captcha.

This blog too. I hope I can turn it off soon.
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Calling from Montreal to St. Paul using Google Voice

I've been using Google Voice for over a year to save about $1,000 on my mobile phone long distance calls from St. Paul to Montreal. I use Google's web tool on iPhone Safari.app to call a number; Google first calls my cell then it calls the remote number.

It's been working very well, especially lately, even though Apple is a greedy coward for purging all GV apps from the iPhone and forcing me to use the inferior Google Web app.

It's good stuff, but of course there are limitations. The first connection in the two connection Google Voice call must be within the US. So if I'm in Montreal, for example, I can't useGoogle Voice to call from Montreal to St. Paul.

Except ... I slowly realized ... I can, from anywhere with a web browser, setup a call from one of my GV registered numbers to any other number on earth.

It's not calling from Montreal to St Paul, it's telling Google to call St. Paul, then, when someone picks up, Google connects to Montreal.

Got that? This Google Voice screen shot might help (imagine 111-1111 were a real number in Montreal, 1660 Stanford how I label our home phone number):

I can only create these connections to numbers that I've registered with Google (and that registration is all but exclusive, no more than two GV users can share a number), so practically speaking it's only useful for me setting up a phone call from my home to wherever I happen to be.

Still, it's an example of the kind of creativity the GV platform allows. (Apple, can we trade 99,000 iPhone apps for the Google Mobile suite?)

iWeb doesn't do tables - and OS X HTML Editor alternatives

I really do need to find a web page authoring solution other than FrontPage 98.

That's not easy. Yeah, FP 98 wasn't perfect. On the other hand, there's almost nothing to compare to it today. I'd stay with it, except it's a bit silly to fire up a Win VM just to run ten year old software.

I tried seeing if I could live with one of Google's many (many) HTML editors -- such as Sites, Google Docs, or Blogger. Briefly - yech. Google's templates are terrifically ugly. I'm no artist, but Google makes Microsoft look inspired. Sites layout seems to require tables -- but you can't make borders vanish. I've been waiting years for Google to stop sucking at this, and it's past time I give up.

So on OS X that leaves only a few options. I tried an early version of Karelia Sandvox, but it didn't impress and it's $60. I'm sure it's better now, but I do own iWeb '09. So that's a logical choice, but iWeb uses a proprietary database format - hard data lock.

As is common in modern software, there are no good choices. For now I'll do throwaway stuff in iWeb while I look for alternatives.

Which brings me to the title of my post. I know iWeb can't be really serious -- because iWeb doesn't do tables. Not at all.

Wow.

Update: RapidWeaver has grown up a lot since I looked at it years ago. I was really impressed by this ...

...The RapidWeaver Sandwich file format (.rwsw) is a completely open file format. We call them "RapidWeaver Sandwiches" because it's easy to open them up and see the filling. In the Finder, they’re viewed as normal ‘bundles’ however inside it’s all developer-friendly XML...

Of course that doesn't mean I could do anything with this format, but I'm impressed they talk about it. I couldn't find out much about how Sandvox stores its data. I did get the impression that it can be tricky to move RapidWeaver work from one machine to another -- that's a serious problem.

I wish I wasn't the only person in the universe who worried about data freedom and exit strategies!

Update b: While it doesn't have tables, I have to admit that the iWeb page I did looks quite nice and it was very easy to put together.

Update 11/9/09: In my very first iWeb page I ran into a weird bug. This doesn't mean iWeb is necessarily unusually buggy -- bugs love me. I had a text field that had one URL in iWeb and another on the web. I tried lots of tricks to fix the bug, but nothing worked. Finally I deleted the text field -- and another object vanished with it! Somehow it was entangled with an image that had a link to. I had to carefully remove the text object only letter at a time, then recreate it to clear the bug.

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Google Account storage allotment bug

Google has some paid storage issues.

When I look at My Google Account Personal Settings, I see I'm using 83% of my Storage Space (8.27 GB).

However, in Gmail it says I'm using 9.9 GB of 17.2 GB (57%).

In the manage storage view It says I'm using

• Gmail: 1.6 of 8.33 GB (19%)
• Picasa: 1 GB (100%)
• Paid Storage: Picasa 8.27 GB (83%), Available 1.73 GB (17%)

So from some views I'm seeing the sum of my standard Gmail allotment plus 1 GB from Picasa, in other views I'm seeing a percentage of the sum of all my allotments, and lastly I see a view where all the storage allotments are segregated.

These are unlikely to all be correct.

Update 11/10/09: Google is redoing their storage plans, so maybe things will clear up. I don't see the new options yet.

Update 11/11/09: My primary storage now shows 80GB for $20. Here's how it's recorded across Google:

• Gmail's view: 9.9 GB (11%) of 87.2 GB
• Account Personal Settings view: 8.27GB (10%) of 80 GB

manage storage view:

Free (total is about 8.27 but Gmail grows continuously)

• Gmail: 1.6 (22%) of 7.27
• Picasa: 1.0 (100%) of 1.0

Paid (80 GB)

• Picasa: 8.27 GB (10%)
• Gmail: 0GB (0%)
• Available: 71.73 GB (90%)

Purchase storage view

• 8.27GB (10%) in use

So it's still somewhat scrambled but the Manage Storage Screen now gets things straight. I seem to have 80GB in my general storage pool, 1 GB in free Picasa storage, and 7+ GB (it increments continuously) of free Gmail storage. So I have over 88GB total. It's still not clear if I can use any of my Gmail allotment for Picasa work, but I suspect not. It looks like future Gmail overflow would go into my 80GB pool, but these days Gmail is back to growing faster than my use.

Now that my storage is north of 80GB however Google can take their time sorting out the varying reports. I have enough for now and I can go back to using Picasa Web albums freely. I'll stay with the $20 a year plan, this gives me headroom for the next few years.

So do this mean gDrive is finally coming?
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Google Dashboard - authorized access (revoke)

The most interesting bit of my Google Dashboard is the Account - "websites authorized to access" link.

That link showed all the sites that exchange data via my Google ID, including 4-5 I no longer use. I revoked their access.

Since Google owns my soul my Dashboard goes on and on -- but this was the one new thing I recognized. There are about 18 other Google Services I use that aren't on the Dashboard.

Google is my master.

My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

When Google and Google Apps Collide

Most of our family Google Services are tied to our family domain and Google Apps. That doesn't work for Google Voice though, so I had to create "true" Google accounts for each family member with a GV number. I used our Google Apps emails as the user name.

Turns out, this has an interesting side-effect. Google binds calendars to a user name, so there's a calendar for emily@our_family_domain in Google Apps. So, you might wonder, what happens if you go to calendar.google.com when logged in to the standard Google Account with the Google Apps email?

Then you find your Null calendar ...

Get thee to the null calendar!

Google struggles with their Google Apps/Google Account dichotomies.

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My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Google Reader: Feed Bundles and Shared Items

There's a lot of experimentation going on in Google Reader. It feels like it's getting more energy than, say, Buggy Blogger (much less the Stuffed Sites).

Two to look at are Shared Items and Feed Bundles.

Shared Items aren't new, but they're getting more love. I don't know if this is new, but if you go to a Reader-generated post-share page (like mine) and you don't own the page or currently "follow" it, I think you'll see a button to "follow it".

I say think because I've only seen it once, and I clicked the button and now I "follow" that person's shared items. Following, as near as I can tell, is pretty much the same as subscribing to a feed though things you "follow" get are added to a special "follow" folder in. So this is a convenient way to add someone to your Reader "People you follow" section.

Feed bundles are a subset of the feeds that someone likes that are packaged and distributed separately from their primary feed. In Reader's "Browse for stuff" section you can find over 240 bundles from Google alone!