ctrl.altered.mind

If there is space, it needs to be mapped. Everyone needs direction at some point and in some form, and needless to say, a good variety of tools exists as far as geographical mapping needs need to be satisfied. As an orientationally challenged individual, I find myself resorting to online mapping services much more than the average person, although I’m sure no one would complain as these services (online and otherwise) are constantly improved upon and expanded. While Mapquest has existed for a long time, the online maps sector was just evolving linearly until Google stepped in with a revolutionary interface and provided the thrust that has boosted efforts tremendously in this area. Everyone, be it Microsoft, Yahoo, and a slew of others, are investing heavily in the field.

While Google added most desirable features like fluid drag and zoom abilities to their map interface, they also went a step further and enhanced maps with ideas like satellite and hybrid views. The innovation does not stop here, of course. Microsoft’s Live Search has added 3D capability to their online map feature, which gets lets you view regions at a fly-by angle, eerily close enough to be able to accurately identify the make and model of each car on any road in the US (if not the license plate, not yet). Live Search has definitely seen a great deal of innovation in its interface since its launch around September this year, and the current interface is slick and functional without compromising on ease of use.

The most important benefit that has yet to be tapped, however, is the ability to map just about any spatial expanse and region, not just sections of the Earth’s surface. For example, real-estate businesses might be interested in online solutions to create highly interactive maps of their houses and locales for sale. Neurologists would like an easy way to create a map of a section of the brain. K-12 School teachers and educationists most definitely would like to create maps too, such as one for a tree or the human body. I was pleased to hear about a free, community-based service called MapLib.net (thanks, rs6) that lets anyone create an online, interactive custom map based on Google’s mapping API.

According to MapLib.net’s introduction:

” [the service] turns any image you uploaded as large as 6000*6000 into a custom Google Map and makes it zoomable & draggable with fantastic viewing experience, in really simple two steps. You can make annotations for it by adding markers, as well as embed it in your own web pages or blog.”

MapLib.net is a bilingual website currently operating in English and Chinese. It is currently in beta, but I definitely would like to see it being polished and upgraded soon. This would be a very good candidate for Google to incorporate under their flag.

I discovered Google’s new Click-to-Call feature quite by accident, while looking for coffee shops on Grand Ave in St. Paul. The feature silently appeared as a ‘Call’ link next to the phone number of the business, and clicking this brought up an option to have Google connect me to the business instantly.

A really good feature is the fact that Google blocks your number so that the business cannot see it. Of course, there is the minimal convenience of not having to manually dial the business’ number (and Google temporarily remembers your number over a certain window of time).

To prevent abuse and prank calls, there is a system in place to reject suspect calls from the same user within a reasonable period of time.

The best feature of all? Google pays for all costs of the service, both local and long-distance (excluding airtime charges for a cellphone of course). This means that calling a business anywhere in the US is now virtually free over the internet to any user. I can very easily see this feature being incorporated into Google Talk, an instant messaging program, to compete with equivalent options provided by VoIP companies like Skype today.
Google Click-to-Call FAQ

When I last wrote about Google’s new Notifier application for the Mac, I didn’t mention a shortcoming of the calendar notifier, which failed to notify me of upcoming events in shared calendars that I have subscribed to. This seems to have been fixed in the latest update for the notifier.

For those who may not know, the Google Notifier is an application that shows you alerts in your menu bar (on the Mac), so you can see when you have new Gmail messages or upcoming Google Calendar events without having to open a web browser. I believe the Windows version of this program is still called Gmail Notifier, and is yet to see the integration of calendar events notification.

Event notification of subscribed calendars is a big plus for me, since my primary use of Google Calendar is to keep track of public-interest events (and not so much to record my own personal transactions), the Indian Public Holidays calendar (maintained by G R Prakash) being on top of my list.
Download Google Notifier for Mac

Indian Public Holidays Calendar links

I had taken a break from analyzing my website visitor statistics some time back, so it was naturally surprising to discover last week, that the number of visitors to my website had increased (and remained at) a couple orders of magnitude higher than before! To date, none of my posts have been so insightful enough for a digg or del.icio.us entry (hopefully, that will change with time!). Therefore, intrigued by this sudden traffic, I looked at the top referring websites that have been pointing people in my direction - and I discovered that my projects page has been receiving a lot of attention.

Turns out, that a search for the phrase “cardiac waveform” on Google returns my projects page in the very first page of results, thanks to my FPGA-based automatic external defibrillator project  description. While an FPGA system might not be exactly what people searching for “cardiac waveforms” are looking for, the reason my page is in the top search results is because people are clicking to read more.

This is sufficient motivation for me to go ahead and complete descriptions for my other projects! In the meanwhile, you can try searching for ‘cardiac waveform’ on Google.

Here’s a link to my Projects page.

There has been much talk about how Google Calendar has made a lot of people toss out Apple’s iCal (atleast from their docks). However, with Google’s latest Mac-only upgrade for the Gmail Notifier, now called the Google Notifier for Mac, I can see many more people quit their iCal applications for the last time, myself included. The new notifier adds a Google Calendar icon along with the standard Gmail notifier icon in the menu bar, letting you access your Google Calendar, create a new event, and get reminders of upcoming events with a single click. The mail notifier has also been vastly improved. It now indicates the last time it checked your mailbox, and sports a Growl-like dark glass message preview for new messages (not to mention some new icons and custom notification sounds).

Google has already made much needed performance improvements for Safari users, so this new notifier should bring back some staunch Mac users back to their door. Personally however, I’m content with the new Firefox 2.0 beta for Mac, which is quite responsive and seems to have been rid of the memory leak issues plaguing Firefox 1.5 on the Mac.

Get Google Notifier for Mac.

Purchasing online is now as fast as searching for the items themselves, with Google’s brand new payment service that rolled out today. Essentially, this means buyers no longer need to keep typing billing, shipping, and credit card information each time they purchase online. Google Checkout can be a Paypal killer, since Ebay’s popular internet payment system is not one of the options you can use with your Google Checkout account. This service is also more global than Paypal for sure in terms of the countries it supports might support online shopping in more countries than even Paypal eventually, but is restricted to US stores at present - that internet purchasing has yet to catch on in most of those countries is a different story.

The biggest advantage for Google (and sellers) though, is the seamless integration of Checkout with Adwords, Google’s search advertising program, allowing online stores to attract new customers more easily, increase sales and process them for free. Some of the bigger stores that have already integrated Google Checkout are Jockey, Starbucks Store, Levi’s, Dockers, Buy.com, Timberland, Zales, amongst others.

Basically, Google has made it easier for me to part with my money.

Link to Google Blog entry

Screenshots of Google Notebook, a new personalized search tool/service that is being launched next week, are available on Flickr now (thanks, EricaJoy). While Google may claim that they’re still all about search, Notebook looks like it is Google’s answer to del.icio.us. Another face-off after this week’s challenge to Yahoo! Widgets.
(via TechCrunch)

This could spell disaster for Yahoo! Widgets. In an attempt to differentiate itself from Google, Yahoo! bought Konfabulator in an attempt to work its way into the realm of desktop-based (read browser-devoid) content distribution and of course, searches. However, Google’s come out to play on that front as well. Say hello to Google Gadgets. Technically, this is a marriage of the existing Google Desktop Search and the new Personalized Google Homepage concept (which already has a variety of plugins contributed by individual developers). However, the eye-candy factor with Google Gadgets helps tip the scales in its favor, over Yahoo! Widgets. In fact, this Wired.com article even talks about an online notebook that is being launched by Google sometime next week - a tool that resides on your desktop, and allows you to save or annotate personalized searches, for sharing with family and friends. Its just a matter of time before these new tools integrate homogenously with other Google services, like the community-centric Google Co-op for example, and there’s going to be a really large repository of gadgets to make computing just a little bit simpler.

Google has released ctemplate, or a template form of the code that formats the pages returned in a Google web search. “The ctemplate package contains a library implementing a simple but powerful template language for C++. It emphasizes separating logic from presentation: it is impossible to embed application logic in this template language.” Skins for programs? Amazing concept, only Google could do this.

I need some candy for my wrappers.

Note: If gcc 4 does not compile happily, try gcc 3.3.

SourceForge link for source and RPMs

(From the Google Code Blog, Digg)

I was watching an old (June 2005, I think) interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, on the Charlie Rose Show. Amongst the other points of discussion that are quite interesting, I especially liked the part where Schmidt asks Rose:

“Have you ever searched for your name on Google?”

Rose: “Yes”

Schmidt: “Did you get more than one result?”

Rose: “Yes”

Schmidt (smiling): “Well that’s a bug.”

Google Video Link