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.