$ cat /dev/brain > /dev/blog

Mama, ich hab das Internet gelöscht.

… und dabei wollte ich nur Google Chrome (auf Deutsch) deinstallieren, um ihn anschließend auf Englisch wieder auf meine Arbeits-Windose zu packen…

Google Latitude has been broken for days…

For a few days, I have been unable to connect to Google Latitude on my mobile phone. Dr. Schäuble will not be amused.

Other services such as Web, E-Mail, IRC, SSH — “everything else requiring a data connection” — do work on my phone, as does the “regular” map service of the Google Maps Mobile app. Latitude shows up correctly on iGoogle, too.

Update: At least, I am not alone with this problem. No solution in sight, though.

Update 2: And it’s working again. Nice.

Improving your GMail IMAP experience

GMail (or “Google Mail” for the rest of us outside the U.S.) has introduced IMAP access to their users’ mailboxes quite a while ago. Fred has written about using your GMail IMAP account with popular mail clients such as Apple’s Mail.app or Mozilla Thunderbird, I was giving my two cents on the GMail Trash folder.

Today, I learned about a new feature from Google Labs (it’s beta, just in case…): you are now able to fine-tune how deleted mails are handled. So far, all deleted mail stayed in the “All mails” folder. Forever. If you really wanted to delete that crappy newsletter from your favourite airline, you had to log in to the Google Mail website, find that particular mail (you still remembered that you planned to delete that mail when you actually accessed GMail over the web, didn’t you?) and trash it there.

With Advanced IMAP Controls in GMail, you will now be able to either delete your a mail if it is not visible in any view or (that’s the feature I was really looking for) you can even delete an e-mail right away. Click and gone. Nice. That’s how it’s meant to be.

Google Chrome

I’m sure you didn’t miss the hype about Google Chrome. I just installed it within a Windows VM (using Parallels on my Mac) and it feels… incredibly fast! I’m impressed.

I really like the website thumbnail tiles used as home screen (but I’ve been told that feature has been “borrowed” from Opera). And then… the browser is reduced to what you really need. Very nice indeed.

Nevertheless. I’ll keep using Firefox.

Come on, Google.

Who’s in charge of your SSL stuff? First the certificate for your SMTP servers, now google.de? WTH?

Oh, and before I forget it: you’re also extending the two-class society [technical and non-technical staff] on campus.

Google: Did you forget something?

Where do I get an updated certificate to connect to smtp.gmail.com?

Google Street View in Eschborn

Mal schauen, wie lange Google braucht, bis sie die aufgezeichneten Daten in Google Maps Street View integriert haben…

Ich habe allerdings nicht mal besonders freundlich geschaut, als der Datenkraken-Astra heute früh in Eschborn an mir vorbei gefahren ist…

No more GMail.com in Germany

Due to legal skirmish, Google’s mail service (called “GMail”in the U.S. and “Google Mail”, e.g., in Germany and the U.K.) cannot be accessed [from German ISPs] by gmail.com anymore. Instead of the GMail UI, you see that error screen shown above. Pointing your browser to mail.google.com works fine, though.

Unfortunately I’m so used to type “gmail.com” — luckily, in Firefox 3 you just need to type “gmail” into the URL input field and then choose the correct entry from the drop-down menu (if you ever have visited mail.google.com before).

iPhone city Mountain View, CA

You just got yourself a nice iPhone and are upset because of the lame speed of your AT&T EDGE connection? Move to Mountain View, CA where Google provides its free WiFi network almost everywhere in the city!

No, I’m just kidding. You don’t have to move unless you really want to, I’m sure you’ll find a lot of open WiFi hotspots in your neighborhood, too — but consider living in Mountain View if you get a job offer from Google, Mozilla, Sun, Yahoo, … etc.

This city is just a great place to live. And surfing the web over Google’s WiFi (the unencrypted SSID is broadcasted, but I also managed to use their WPA2 encrypted network) on your brand-new iPhone is a lot of fun! (No, this still is not my own iPhone. Chain-yourself-to-AT&T issue. Will consider getting one when they introduce a 3G/UMTS version in Europe)

Google-Bombing einfach erklärt

Bei der Schweizer Nachrichtensendung “10 vor 10″ gab es einen Beitrag, der das “Google Bombing” auch für Nicht-Informatiker verständlich erklärt (hier als Real-Video zum Anschauen [teilweise auf schwyzerdütsch]).

(gefunden bei: Persönlich publizieren.)