Google Music

After Google Music was announced last week, actually before it was announced and just a few hours after the site went live, I requested an invite. It is Google's new music service. Basically you can upload all your music and stream it from the cloud anywhere with any browser. There is an Android app for my phone and I can listen to my music library basically anywhere. Of course I can also listen to whatever is stored on my phone when I'm not connected to the internet. It's an interesting service. They give you some free music to start. It basically forces you to upload your whole library because when you specify your music folder it uploads it all. Thankfully I signed up on my laptop which has a fraction of my whole library. It still took days to upload in the background. Looking forward to trying the service out more. It will be nice to listen to any song I want whenever I want even if I don't want to stream my music from the cloud on a regular basis. It is currently available only via invite. Click the link above to request an invite.

missed karting & got the Droid

I was excited for my first kart race since I broke my collar bone. It was a NASA enduro kart race at Summit Point. Unfortunately the cops and DMV had other ideas. I got pulled over on the way by a cop on the side of the road with a license plate scanner. She proceeded to inform me that according to the DMV my license has been suspended since February of 2008. This was interesting information being that the DMV issued me a license in February of 2009. The cop had to take my license anyway. She told me to go straight to the gas station at the next exit and park my car. I got off at the next exit, which happened to be Falls Church, and drove straight home. I’ll be calling the DMV on Monday.

Since I wasn’t racing karts I decided to look in to my next phone. I got the HTC Imagio when I came out on October 6th. It is a nice phone. As mentioned I have always liked my XV6800 I got almost 2 years ago. It was a slick piece of hardware for its time. My biggest complaint was it being thick and heavy with a full keyboard. The HTC Imagio is thin and light with a huge screen. It was even the first phone with Windows Mobile 6.5. The problem was that it had Windows Mobile 6.5. Microsoft hasn’t updated their phone operating system in many many years and in this technology world that means it is obsolete. I knew a Verizon Android phone was coming and I decided to get the HTC Imagio anyway with the ability to return it within 30 days. Sure enough the day after I get the Imagio it is leaked that Verizon will soon have a sweet new phone with Google’s Android operating system. So I sent my phone back on day 28. Their warehouse had received it but not processed it by Friday when the Verizon Droid went on sale.

I went to the crappy private Verizon store in my neighborhood to see if they could do anything for me. My info had not yet been updated which meant I couldn’t get the 2 yr contract upgrade deal. As luck would have it on the second call the Verizon people were able to find the warehouse supervisor and confirm everything was there. I was able to walk out with my Droid.

It’s a slick phone. It has a full keyboard but it is super slim. The best thing may be the email. Being a gmail user Google’s Android email interface is ideal. I don’t drive much but the free new Google Navigation capability is cool. The contacts and calendar apps are 100x better than Windows Mobile. And I can access Google’s chat client GTalk. The home screens can be customized with shortcuts and widgets. I still need to figure out how to import my bookmarks from Opera. It appears you get a lot of the missing functionality from their app store being that it is an open source operating system. So far I’m enjoying the phone with the largest resolution, fastest processor, thinnest keyboard, and most advanced version of Android. I assume things will only get better.

An afternoon in Oregon

On Friday our only commitment was a business development lunch with a guy from Northrop Grumman in Portland. He suggested a place called Henry’s 12th Street Tavern in the Pearl District. With over 100 fine beers on tap I was quite pleased with the choice. They had a ring of ice going around the bar to keep your beer cold. I had a Russian River Blind Pig IPA. I had this last Friday at the Lupulin Reunulin tasting for the first time and this one didn’t have that fresh hop taste I remembered. I could tried a few but being a business lunch we kept it at one. After lunch Robie and I headed west to the coast. I sorta wanted to head east, see Multnomah Falls, the Columbia River Gorge, drive past Mt Hood again, and stop by Full Sail Brewery in Hood River.

It was a nice drive out to Seaside, OR. We did see a lot of clear cuts although none on Forest Service land. I navigated with GPS and Google Maps on my phone. We stopped by Fort Clatsop National Memorial and learned more about Lewis and Clark. This is the point where they found the Pacific Ocean. Robie and I have seen some L&C history while driving around Montana. We walk a very short loop in the park and saw huge trees and a bunch blown over. We saw a ton of trees blown over on the drive and we forgot to ask the Rangers at the visitor center how that happened. Huge root systems were standing straight up all over the place. 

We drove in to Astoria on the huge Columbia River. A friend from work told me that it is difficult to sail in to the river from the ocean at times because of the strong current. Robie remembered that the Goonies was set in Astoria and the house was in some neighborhood here. The town isn’t all that big and the neighborhoods on the hill looked like they fit what I remembered from the movie. I did a quick Google search on my phone and the address came right up. It was only a block or two out of our way. In the five minutes we were there to snap pics two other cars stopped. They must have people coming by constantly because of a movie from 1985. 

Goonies pics

We drove along the river back to Portland. It was a long drive from McKenzie Bridge to Portland to the coast and back to Portland. We got some drizzle but it turned out to be a decent day. Back in Portland we passed all kinds of seedy strip joints on our way to the hotel by the airport. The Embassy Suites there is quite nice. I was happy to check in to first class on both of my connections back to DC that night. And the two beautiful 6’ tall African American flight attendants didn’t hurt.

my Uncle on Google

So after x-mass dinner we were sitting around plugging addresses in Google Maps for fun. Isn’t that what every family does x-mass evening? It so happens Google captured my Uncle out working on my Grandfather’s old house.  

Google Earth graffiti

I work with a guy out in Montana who does R&D for the Forest Service putting together technology for wildland firefighters in the mountains. This is the same guy who lived next to the National X-mas Tree. He does things such as put cameras and wireless networks on UAVs. He has been a long time proponent of using Google Earth for work and has ties back to the Keyhole guys. When high resolution satellite imagery of Missoula became available he made a phone call and an update appeared in the public version of Google Earth. 

So he decided to leave his own mark. He owns some land in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana and mowed "AFF" in his backyard. AFF is an application that provides real-time geospatial information to dispatchers, aviation managers, and incident commanders. It uses Google Earth to display the geospatial information. 

The picture below is from a private satellite. Once the image is publicly available he'll have Google update the quad in Google Earth. Then when you zoom to Bob's backyard while using AFF you can see his AFF lawn sculpture.

You could paint your roof but without connections it might take a few years to appear in Google Earth. Google recently released the Google Maps street view for DC. I checked my walking routes and they didn't capture me. It appears the Google spy car drove around DC two winters ago.

beer stock list!

I was thinking about doing this after I created a list of books and CDs in Google Docs that I wanted. It allows me to view the list on my phone while I'm in the store which sometimes happens unplanned. So I created my beer stock list (see link below). Not only will it show me what I already have, but it keeps track of purchase date and location as well. Important things to know when you get around to tasting it. Hopefully the spreadsheet will stay updated.

Once I've enjoyed the beverage and it's no longer in my fridge I'll move it to the second tab. The second tab isn't so complete being that I've just started keeping track.

I'm thinking I'll get a second fridge with a special thermostat for higher temperatures to store my precious beverages.

beer stock list

new company goes live with Google Apps

I started using Google Apps for email, calendar, and online documents back in January. My last company, JPR Wood Consulting, migrated over in March. That was quite painless with a 5 person company. And it made a lot of sense for a small company that is working from various places. The online collaboration is great. Well right after I got pulled in to my new company they had email issues. I suggested we use Google Apps. Shockingly about 2 weeks later I migrated the whole company over. Its a 21 person organization and they are pretty much all non-technical. I ran in to a few limitations; there are some basic enterprise functions that are lacking and would be nice. Its great having the whole company using it and it was a fun little project that allowed me to do something different.

Hi

It was suggested to me that I start a blog with all the crap I email out about trips and whatnot. So as I sit here waiting on Verizon support to help me reauthenticate my phone after I updated it with all kinds of sweet hacks (future blog post idea) I decided to create the blog account and test it out. Bummer that Google still hasn't allowed people to merge their gmail and google apps accounts. I have google apps set up for my slowinfastout domain but Google doesn't have Blogger as part of the google apps suit. For that reason this blog is created with my gmail account, but I was able to use a slowinfastout Blogger URL if that makes any sense.