Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Google Breaks its own Gadget
I've had an iGoogle page for a long time, but am just about ready to give up on it and return to the wide-open spaces of the "Classic Home." The main reason is that it takes a long time to load (not always Google's fault, I realize). And today I got this message.
Check me if I'm wrong here, but is this saying I can't display secure content in an iGoogle gadget? That's not good.
Check me if I'm wrong here, but is this saying I can't display secure content in an iGoogle gadget? That's not good.
Labels: email, Internet, technology
Friday, July 24, 2009
Source From 2001 Resurfaces
Some days the Internet delivers wonderful treasure. Today's one of those days, when I got an email from a guy I'd interviewed eight years ago. With his permission, I've posted the email here. The article in which he's quoted - published in 2001 - is below his note. (Remember, this was before WiFi or iPhones or Facebook.)
World Wide Wandering
Online travelogues are informative and easy to create, even while you’re traveling
By Fred Sandsmark
Most of us create a packing list - at least a mental one - when we prepare for a trip. It has basics like changes of clothes, credit cards, prescriptions, and maps, as well as other helpful things like guidebooks, beach towels, and binoculars. But these days, many travelers are also packing digital cameras and laptop computers to document their trips - and they're posting their adventures on the Web, sometimes right from the road.
Take Brice Wong of Vancouver, British Columbia. Last fall, before embarking on a 10-day road trip with two friends to go mountain biking in Moab, Utah, Wong packed a "mobile office" - computer, digital camera, PDA, several mobile phones, and an inverter (to run 120-volt devices from the cigarette lighter) - in his Mazda B4000 4X4 pickup, along with the bikes. Wong and friends produced a travelogue, hilarious and occasionally profane (this was a pickup-full of twentysomethmg males, after all), and posted it at www.futurelooks.com. The journal's not just for laughs, though; the descriptions of Moab's mountain-bike trails are frequently as vivid as the famous red rocks themselves.
Why did Wong create the travelogue? "People are nosy," he says with a laugh, "so I figured, why not share our fun and adventures with the world? Plus, it gives people who have never been to Moab a true sense of what it's really like. Sometimes travel agents and magazines and promotional materials really don't give you the whole truth, but if you read someone's journal or diary you're going to get the real deal."
What’s my motivation?
Another good reason to keep an online travelogue: It's easier than ever. A handful of Web sites make travelogue creation a simple click-and-type operation that any technophobe can handle. But the motivation for individual traveloguers varies. For Graeme Renfrew - who quit a "subterranean desk job" in Glasgow, Scotland, cashed in his pension, and set out on a 14-monih trip around the world - a travelogue is an easy, inexpensive way to check in with the family (his travelogue can be found at www.travelpod.com). "It's cheaper than phoning home," says Renfrew. "The Web travelogue lets me tell them everything is OK from a distance. And if they aren't interested, it doesn't bother me."
Vanity drives a lot of traveloguing, too. "We refer to it as ego gratification," says J. R. Johnson, chief executive officer of VirtualTourist.com. "It's the same reason that your grandparents sat you down in front of the screen to see their slide show of Europe. There's some bragging involved in showing all the places you've been."
But Johnson thinks most traveloguers who use his service just want to share their knowledge. "For the most part, our members just really like helping other people," he says. "They had a good time, and they want other travelers to do the same." That often means posting specific restaurant and hotel recommendations, sightseeing suggestions, and hard-won "insider" advice.
Some people use a travelogue for capturing impressions, telling personal stories, and flexing creative wings. (Adjective alert: Amateur travelogues frequently contain prose as purple as the final fleeting flares of a simmering sunset over the tranquil waters of a steamy tropical South Pacific atoll.) Other travelers just post a skeleton of their travelogue as they go, recording events in real time, and then flesh out their account with photos, movies, sounds, and Web links when they get hack home.
Bring it on home
You don't need to carry a lot of equipment to create an online travelogue. Even Wong (of the mobile office) tries to be sensible: "I know there are lots of different sorts of gadgets and stuff on the market," he says, "but sometimes you have to really sit and think, 'How practical and reliable is this thing I'm going to be lugging around with me?' Because, man, I tell you, I hate carrying useless stuff."
People who choose to travel light can use public computers in libraries, copy shops, and hotels. There are also cyber-cafes - coffeehouses that sell Internet access by the minute. They're not hard to find in North America, or even abroad. "Last year while in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I saw five Internet cafes side by side," recalls Luc Levesque, who runs the TravelPod Web site. "Just about everyone, from restaurants to coffee shops to public libraries to laundromats, has a PC with a modem waiting for your five dollars."
Renfrew agrees - and says that these spots can often provide a window into the local culture. "There are Internet connections anywhere there are tourists with money to spend and friends to contact," he says. "One of the places I went into to check my E-mail [in India] was just some bloke's two-room house, with blue-washed walls and ceilings so low I had to crouch to get in. There was a shrine to Shiva in the same room as the clunky PC, and his mum and sister were doing each other’s hair and singing behind me. It wasn’t exactly high-tech - but it worked.”
How to create your own travelogue
Many Web sites can help you produce a travelogue. Here are a few of our favorites; all are free and none require technical expertise.
Blogger (www.blogger.com) creates Web logs or "blogs," which are just simple Web sites whose contents are organized chronologically. A blog can produce a serviceable travelogue, but you must provide the Web space to host it.
By Travelers (www.bytravelers.com) lets you link a map from its library with your travelogue. Otherwise, the site is bare-bones, so the focus is on storytelling rather than flashy features.
TravelPod (www.travelpod.com) can send E-mail to a preset group of people every time your travelogue is updated. It also gives the option of assigning a password to a travelogue, so only friends and family can see it. Photos and movies can be added, too.
VirtualTourist (www.virtualtourist.com) is an extensive travel community site that hosts travelogues. It asks specific questions about hotels, restaurants, nightlife, tourist traps, and such to elicit users’ opinions. One clever feature: You can use photos posted by other members (the site boasts more than 140,000 members) as electronic postcards.
AfterWords:
This article appeared in the short-lived Mazda Zoom-Zoom magazine in winter of 2001. It remains one of my favorites, mostly because I had the good fortune of locating wonderful interview subjects. Unfortunately, I've lost contact with them. Brice and Graeme, if you find this, please drop a line!
Copyright © 2001, 2006, 2009 / Fred Sandsmark / Marble Publishing
Hi Fred,
I stumbled over this article on your website while I was searching google for myself haha. It's Friday and I was bored at work...
Emailing just to say hi, as requested in the Afterword of the piece. I remember answering your questions (I must have droned on and on), but wasn't sure of which magazine it was for. In the end I figured it never got published, which I thought was a shame as I never got to read it. Anyway, glad it did get published and I enjoyed your article (even the stuff not about me!), I'd forgotten about using the internet in the Indian chap's little house.
Anyway, thanks for putting it online. I was happy to read it.
Best wishes for your future publishing undertakings.
Graeme
Glasgow, Scotland
(currently in London, England)
World Wide Wandering
Online travelogues are informative and easy to create, even while you’re traveling
By Fred Sandsmark
Most of us create a packing list - at least a mental one - when we prepare for a trip. It has basics like changes of clothes, credit cards, prescriptions, and maps, as well as other helpful things like guidebooks, beach towels, and binoculars. But these days, many travelers are also packing digital cameras and laptop computers to document their trips - and they're posting their adventures on the Web, sometimes right from the road.
Take Brice Wong of Vancouver, British Columbia. Last fall, before embarking on a 10-day road trip with two friends to go mountain biking in Moab, Utah, Wong packed a "mobile office" - computer, digital camera, PDA, several mobile phones, and an inverter (to run 120-volt devices from the cigarette lighter) - in his Mazda B4000 4X4 pickup, along with the bikes. Wong and friends produced a travelogue, hilarious and occasionally profane (this was a pickup-full of twentysomethmg males, after all), and posted it at www.futurelooks.com. The journal's not just for laughs, though; the descriptions of Moab's mountain-bike trails are frequently as vivid as the famous red rocks themselves.
Why did Wong create the travelogue? "People are nosy," he says with a laugh, "so I figured, why not share our fun and adventures with the world? Plus, it gives people who have never been to Moab a true sense of what it's really like. Sometimes travel agents and magazines and promotional materials really don't give you the whole truth, but if you read someone's journal or diary you're going to get the real deal."
What’s my motivation?
Another good reason to keep an online travelogue: It's easier than ever. A handful of Web sites make travelogue creation a simple click-and-type operation that any technophobe can handle. But the motivation for individual traveloguers varies. For Graeme Renfrew - who quit a "subterranean desk job" in Glasgow, Scotland, cashed in his pension, and set out on a 14-monih trip around the world - a travelogue is an easy, inexpensive way to check in with the family (his travelogue can be found at www.travelpod.com). "It's cheaper than phoning home," says Renfrew. "The Web travelogue lets me tell them everything is OK from a distance. And if they aren't interested, it doesn't bother me."
Vanity drives a lot of traveloguing, too. "We refer to it as ego gratification," says J. R. Johnson, chief executive officer of VirtualTourist.com. "It's the same reason that your grandparents sat you down in front of the screen to see their slide show of Europe. There's some bragging involved in showing all the places you've been."
But Johnson thinks most traveloguers who use his service just want to share their knowledge. "For the most part, our members just really like helping other people," he says. "They had a good time, and they want other travelers to do the same." That often means posting specific restaurant and hotel recommendations, sightseeing suggestions, and hard-won "insider" advice.
Some people use a travelogue for capturing impressions, telling personal stories, and flexing creative wings. (Adjective alert: Amateur travelogues frequently contain prose as purple as the final fleeting flares of a simmering sunset over the tranquil waters of a steamy tropical South Pacific atoll.) Other travelers just post a skeleton of their travelogue as they go, recording events in real time, and then flesh out their account with photos, movies, sounds, and Web links when they get hack home.
Bring it on home
You don't need to carry a lot of equipment to create an online travelogue. Even Wong (of the mobile office) tries to be sensible: "I know there are lots of different sorts of gadgets and stuff on the market," he says, "but sometimes you have to really sit and think, 'How practical and reliable is this thing I'm going to be lugging around with me?' Because, man, I tell you, I hate carrying useless stuff."
People who choose to travel light can use public computers in libraries, copy shops, and hotels. There are also cyber-cafes - coffeehouses that sell Internet access by the minute. They're not hard to find in North America, or even abroad. "Last year while in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I saw five Internet cafes side by side," recalls Luc Levesque, who runs the TravelPod Web site. "Just about everyone, from restaurants to coffee shops to public libraries to laundromats, has a PC with a modem waiting for your five dollars."
Renfrew agrees - and says that these spots can often provide a window into the local culture. "There are Internet connections anywhere there are tourists with money to spend and friends to contact," he says. "One of the places I went into to check my E-mail [in India] was just some bloke's two-room house, with blue-washed walls and ceilings so low I had to crouch to get in. There was a shrine to Shiva in the same room as the clunky PC, and his mum and sister were doing each other’s hair and singing behind me. It wasn’t exactly high-tech - but it worked.”
How to create your own travelogue
Many Web sites can help you produce a travelogue. Here are a few of our favorites; all are free and none require technical expertise.
Blogger (www.blogger.com) creates Web logs or "blogs," which are just simple Web sites whose contents are organized chronologically. A blog can produce a serviceable travelogue, but you must provide the Web space to host it.
By Travelers (www.bytravelers.com) lets you link a map from its library with your travelogue. Otherwise, the site is bare-bones, so the focus is on storytelling rather than flashy features.
TravelPod (www.travelpod.com) can send E-mail to a preset group of people every time your travelogue is updated. It also gives the option of assigning a password to a travelogue, so only friends and family can see it. Photos and movies can be added, too.
VirtualTourist (www.virtualtourist.com) is an extensive travel community site that hosts travelogues. It asks specific questions about hotels, restaurants, nightlife, tourist traps, and such to elicit users’ opinions. One clever feature: You can use photos posted by other members (the site boasts more than 140,000 members) as electronic postcards.
AfterWords:
This article appeared in the short-lived Mazda Zoom-Zoom magazine in winter of 2001. It remains one of my favorites, mostly because I had the good fortune of locating wonderful interview subjects. Unfortunately, I've lost contact with them. Brice and Graeme, if you find this, please drop a line!
Copyright © 2001, 2006, 2009 / Fred Sandsmark / Marble Publishing
Labels: clips, email, fun, gadgets, Internet, personal history, travel, writing
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Update on Mail Forwarding Problems
I went through all of my domains at Go Daddy and updated the registration information. Some of it was wrong or out of date. This seems to have fixed the problem.
It's a good news / bad news thing. The good news, obviously, is that the problem is fixed. The bad news is that the Go Daddy tech support people I spoke with couldn't identify the problem, and worse said there was no problem.
Anyway, it's fixed and I'm happy. I hope my posting this fix helps somebody else in the future.
It's a good news / bad news thing. The good news, obviously, is that the problem is fixed. The bad news is that the Go Daddy tech support people I spoke with couldn't identify the problem, and worse said there was no problem.
Anyway, it's fixed and I'm happy. I hope my posting this fix helps somebody else in the future.
Labels: email, Go Daddy, Internet, ISP, technology
Monday, April 14, 2008
Go Daddy Email Forwarding Problems?
I use email forwarding through Go Daddy for one of my domains, and in the last week it has stopped working. I called GD and asked if they were having problems; they said no. I tried loosening up the spam filters on the receiving side, but it didn't do any good. So we're foregoing the service, which makes me unhappy.
Can anybody corroborate my experience? Got a workaround? And can anyone suggest a low-cost domain purchase and/or parking service that includes reliable email forwarding? (I don't want to have my domain registrar hosting my email, no matter who it is. Once bitten twice shy ...)
Can anybody corroborate my experience? Got a workaround? And can anyone suggest a low-cost domain purchase and/or parking service that includes reliable email forwarding? (I don't want to have my domain registrar hosting my email, no matter who it is. Once bitten twice shy ...)
Labels: email, Go Daddy, Internet, ISP, technology
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Castro Valley Comcast Woes
Anybody else in the Castro Valley / Hayward area having problems with Comcast high-speed Internet service? My connection has been awful today, and has been spotty for weeks and weeks. The symptoms are always the same: the service cuts in and out. Calls to service result in them pinging the modem from the network end and telling me it's fine -- which it is, for a little while. Then it cuts out again. One technician who came out let on that Comcast is doing "network upgrades" in the area. (That explains those shabby no-name contractor trucks I've seen around the telephone poles.) If this is an upgrade, I'd hate to see a downgrade.
I'm truly weighing whether the extra speed of Cable over DSL is worth it for my needs. By contrast with this ongoing mess with Comcast, I had a landline phone problem last week and AT&T was out within a day; the service technician was smart, professional, and communicative -- a far cry from the "service" I'm getting from Comcast right now. Plus, I could bundle DSL with my landline and mobile phone bill and maybe save some money. (I'm sure not going to choose Comcast for landline phone service with a lousy connection like I've got.) An AT&T bundle is looking mighty tempting.
BTW, in the course of typing this post, Blogger has tried to autosave four times and failed. Each time the connection has returned and autosave has worked. Cross your fingers; I'm about to click "Publish Post."
I'm truly weighing whether the extra speed of Cable over DSL is worth it for my needs. By contrast with this ongoing mess with Comcast, I had a landline phone problem last week and AT&T was out within a day; the service technician was smart, professional, and communicative -- a far cry from the "service" I'm getting from Comcast right now. Plus, I could bundle DSL with my landline and mobile phone bill and maybe save some money. (I'm sure not going to choose Comcast for landline phone service with a lousy connection like I've got.) An AT&T bundle is looking mighty tempting.
BTW, in the course of typing this post, Blogger has tried to autosave four times and failed. Each time the connection has returned and autosave has worked. Cross your fingers; I'm about to click "Publish Post."
Labels: email, technology
Monday, December 24, 2007
Email Marketing Done Wrong
I got this lovely personalized greeting in my email in-box this morning:
Oh, my. And the thing is, I know this company has my first name.
I don't hate email marketing. In fact, I wrote an article a couple of years ago on effective email marketing strategies for Cisco's IQ magazine. Maybe the Greenhouse Catalog should read it.
Oh, my. And the thing is, I know this company has my first name.
I don't hate email marketing. In fact, I wrote an article a couple of years ago on effective email marketing strategies for Cisco's IQ magazine. Maybe the Greenhouse Catalog should read it.
Labels: clips, email, marketing, technology
