Google

Yelp for Rochester

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Yelp LogoA true Web service is only as good as it’s users make it. I just recently discovered Yelp and luckily they have a Rochester page. I have recently been trying to find a website that lists local restaurants along with ratings. Yahoo and Google business results return too many chains that aren’t of interest to me since they’re available anywhere. I’ve been looking for results that are more locally oriented such as the listings found within a Frommer’s guide.

Fortunately Yelp provides everything I’m looking for in restaurants and even has lots of extra categories such as Night Life, Beauty and Spas and Shopping. I was interested to find they also have a list of romantic restaurants which is always difficult to find in Rochester. In order of highest ratings these are the following Rochester romantic restaurants on Yelp:

  1. Rooney’s
  2. Oasis Mediterranean Bistro
  3. Tapas 177
  4. Lucano Ristorante
  5. 2 Vine
  6. Max of Eastman Place

The only one of these that Rachel and I have been to is Tapas (which was excellent and I’ll be sure to rate it thus). We haven’t even heard of any of the others. There are a few missing from this list, like the Triphammer Grill, that we have been to but it’s always great to find new ones.

If you’re looking for new restaurants or shops to check out, look no further than Yelp.

Gmail Windows Live ID

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Microsoft Windows Live IDIf you’re like me you use One E-mail address. I used to be a fan of two. One for junk forms, another for real use. Since spam filtering is so good now, and custom filters are so easy to customize, it became much easier to just get it down to one.

A very long time ago I created a Windows Live ID using an E-mail address from Time Warner. Actually, I created an MSN Messenger account. Later it was turned into a Live ID once Microsoft came up with the idea.

I have long since abandoned the Time Warner E-mail address but I have been stuck with the Windows Live ID that uses it. A short time ago I decided I’d switch. It was about time to combine accounts and utilize my one E-mail address as my Live ID account as well.

I never realized it would be so difficult to create a Gmail Windows Live ID. The first thing I did of course was to attempt to register using the normal windows live registration methods. Of course it instructed me that my account already existed. I thought this was strange but who knows, maybe I did create one already. I started the forgot my password procedure but was quickly told the account didn’t exist. Strange. After a bit of research, I learned that after a year of inactivity windows live accounts are disabled. No matter so I set out on the task of reactivating it. After several weeks of E-mails and live chats with microsoft I finally arrived upon the following E-mail:

Hello Randy,

Thank you for writing back to Windows Live ID Technical Support. I have read your messages with us and understand how inconvenient it can be when you are unable to access your account. This is Don and I look forward to providing you with the necessary assistance.

You can register your own e-mail account (Non-Hotmail or Non-MSN account) as your Windows Live ID if the e-mail address you are using is not part of a reserved domain. I would like to inform you that a company that controls the registration of all e-mail addresses within that domain manages a reserved domain. Recently, Gmail has reserved the creation of Gmail.com Windows Live IDs.

As of this time, users cannot register Gmail.com as their Windows Live ID using our registration Web site. I suggest that you contact Gmail support team for further assistance.

For the meantime, you can sign up for a Windows Live Hotmail which is automatically a Windows Live ID.

To create a new Windows Live Hotmail account, please visit:

some very long link

Please note that you will be directed to Windows Live ID Help Pane. If you encounter any issues, kindly verify which of the steps did not work for you as we want to make sure the instructions are easy to follow.

We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using Windows Live ID.

Sincerely,

Don

Windows Live ID Technical Support

I had no desire to create a new hotmail account since I was on a mission to reduce my accounts down to using a single E-mail address. I’m quite positive that my Microsoft Live ID is the very last account remaining not using my gmail address.

So I was trapped. Or so I thought, until I stumbled upon this little gem. I’m not sure how or where I found this, but at some point I happened across a link that was supposed to work for Gmail address registration. I’m not sure whats different with the link, I haven’t examined it closely. I will, however, tell you that the following link does work to register a Gmail Windows Live ID.

Register Your Gmail Account as a Windows Live ID

Iterative Development

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Items Shared By I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I’m a fan of Google’s web applications. I make use of Google Notebook, Google Reader, Gmail and Google Docs daily. Every time I see they added some new features it makes me very happy. It also reminds me of just how useful Iterative Development practices are, especially in the Web world. It’s great to get a solid product out there and then update it routinely with enhancements.

Along with all the talk about Gmail 2.0 up and coming, along with their new push for Open Social, Orkut and now Android I’ve found a few other updates.

  • Items Shared By… Google Reader’s shared items now displays who shared the item within the first few lines of the item itself. This is great if you (like me) subscribe to many friend’s shared item feeds and group them all together.
  • Tagging Notebook Entries… You can now tag entries in your Google Notebook. This is great for categorizing and quick lookups. I think I’ll be permanently switching over to Google Notebook over my own wiki now just because of this one feature.

Web applications are the future. There is no comparison. The immediate feedback you get from releasing an update over the web is simply an undeniable advantage over client-side installed applications. Applications like Microsoft Office will become a thing of the past. Bandwidth will cease to become an issue and we’ll have all the same features but with immediate updates at our fingertips. As mentioned on JoelonSoftware a few weeks ago, spending money and time engineering todays software to utilize today’s hardware is a waste. Instead just realize that the hardware will handle it and performance will cease to be a problem

Ask the winner

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Ask.comA few days ago I was watching Webb Alert when she mentioned the search result differences between Google and Ask. It was clear that Ask is the winner. I couldn’t believe the difference. Take a Google search for the San Fransisco 49ers for example. The top Google search results are mostly sponsored links and ticket sales. Do the same search for the San Fransisco 49ers on Ask.com and you get much more meaningful results. In fact as you’re typing ask even suggests searches for you. Google has had Google Suggest for a long time but for some reason they’ve never pushed it into their main search.

Now that Ask has turned around, will Google see them as a threat and make some changes?

I'm NOT Partial

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

What is with all these partial article feeds? I know the discussion has been beat to death and nobody really has a definitive answer of whats better. Honestly though, isn’t that definitive in itself? The fact that it doesn’t really matter either way and people (LIKE ME) get irritated at having to leave their reader of choice (see Google Reader) would make any sane person just use full article feeds. Don’t you want to make your readers happy after all?

I’m sick and tired of having to navigate to the article in order to get the full benefit. I already subscribe, I comment when I deem appropriate, I contribute where I can, Is it really necessary to force me to your site? The thing that bugs me the most about it is the reason you’re doing it is most likely ad driven. Do you get that many more clicks? I doubt it. I bet the same people that are savvy enough to be subscribed to your feed are savvy enough to utilize the Adblock Plus extension.

I would just like to proclaim that

No blog I maintain will EVER have a partial article feed.

I have noticed this more and more as of late and it MUST STOP!

It's your content

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

If you’re on the web you’re creating something whether you like it or not. If you’re watching a youtube video, enjoying a post by Matthew Mullenweg, letting your friends know what you’re up to on facebook or just doing a search for some needed info your actions are likely recorded somewhere and this becomes part of the giant repository of information that is the Internet.

There are basically 3 types of information about you available on the Internet.

  1. Your Content. This includes things like comments on a video, Blog posts, uploaded photos and forum topics that you replied to.
  2. Your Status. Things like your away message, your facebook status and Twitter let people know what you’re up to and where you’re at.
  3. What You’re Reading. You can intentionally share what you find interesting via tools like Digg, Del.icio.us or Google Reader shared items or you can let general web trends speak for you.

Different people are probably interested in different information about you. Luckily we live in a world that includes syndication feeds. This means that if you’re interested in a person’s contributions to the Internet, and they’re savvy enough to help you, you can subscribe to ‘groups’ if Information about them.

So, If you’re interested in what I have to contribute to the Internet I’ve created the following feeds to help you.

My Content

My Status

My Shared Items

Rushing your Blog

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Blogrush logo
BlogRush caught my eye today. Essentially it’s a way to increase traffic to your website. However, something else it does for you gave me a thought. For a while now I’ve been using my Google Reader Shared Items to let people know what I think is interesting and relevant. BlogRush has the unique ability to let my readers know what IS interesting and relevant. What’s even cooler is the more people that use my link the more interesting and relevant my content will be!

Unique vs Shared keywords

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Hide verses Archive

Ed Kohler recently posted an article entitled Archive vs Hide on Gmail and Google Docs. In this article he talks about the different keywords Google uses to describe essentially the same functionality. This is an issue that is not unique to Google. I’ve seen the same problem across teams where I work as well as within my own work. Another similar problem I see all the time is when the same keyword is used by two different products to refer to different things. This is something that runs rampant where I work and so I’d like to provide a few tips to help avoid these problems.

  1. Publicized Usage – Whether kept internal to the company or not, nothing can help reduce multiple keywords and multiple keyword definitions than letting other teams know what keywords you’ve used and for what.
  2. Regular Collaboration – Preventing the problem is better than dealing with the aftermath, but the only way to find out if the problem exists and to come up with strategies for resolving the problem is collaborating with the other teams.
  3. Publicized Standards – if standards exist the chance for collision of keywords is greatly reduced.
  4. Namespaces – Prefixing a word keyword used on a particular project especially in the case of ID’s helps people identify exactly what that keyword is when seen outside of the project.

If you have any other thoughts or suggestions please let me know!

Keep it Simple Stupid

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Keep it Simple Stupid (or what’s commonly know as the KISS principle) is something I picked up in my Software Engineering classes during my tour of duty at RIT. It is something I try to carry over into my every day life. That being said I’d like to share a few simple ideas I try to utilize to simplify my digital life.

Your Blog

For those of you reading this directly from the website you should have already noticed a complete redesign. This is only part of my new Zen overhaul. I have taken several points from Skellie‘s post 50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog. If you’re interested in exactly what I did please check out the article. You may find some additional tips which I haven’t yet implemented as well.

Your Wallpaper
My Simple Wallpaper
A recent simplification I have made is my wallpaper. I was a fan of scenery wallpaper, most often shots that I took were my favorites, but I recently decided that this just adds to clutter. Photographic backgrounds can hide icons and can be a distraction. I created this simple background which provides a central focal point for any icons you wish to display on the desktop. I’ve provided several sizes so feel free to download it if you’d like to try it out.

Your Feeds

Chances are, if you’re like me, you subscribe to a lot of feeds. You probably also generate a lot of content on the Internet and therefor a lot of feeds (whether you realize it or not). If that’s the case why not manage both in the same place? I use Google Reader extensively and this is one of the biggest reasons why. Essentially I maintain two feeds: My Shared Items and My Content. Both are exactly what they sound like. My Shared Items is a feed in which articles, Videos, pictures and anything else i want to share will appear. I do this by utilizing Google Reader’s Shared Items feature. My Content is another feed in which any content that I produce will appear. For example, Any post on this blog, My posts on Randy and Rachel, My Comic Strips and my Youtube videos.

Your Archives

Lets face it, in this digital age chances are you have a lot of digital stuff. Stuff you want to keep. For most people this might just mean photos. For some it means photos, videos, music, software and more. To store all this and keep it organized you need a system. I have dual 250Gb SATA drives in a Raid 1 array which i use strictly for storage. On the root of this array I have the following directories:

  • Files
  • Music
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Software

Everything I need to store fits somewhere in these 5 categories. Music and Videos are broken down by genre. Files and Software are broken down by category. Photos is broken down by date. This is probably where I’m the most organized. My Photos directory contains photos dating back to the 1950s all the way up to the present. To do this I created decade directories (1950s, 1960s etc) and within that year directories(1951, 1952 etc). Finally within the years directory I list the actual albums which also have a naming convention (MM – DD – name). Because of the shear amount of photographs I store I needed a system and this has greatly simplified things for me.

KISS

Regardless of what you’re doing, when something seems like its too complicated it is. Simplify it. Do whatever it takes to reduce the clutter and the complexity in your Digital Life. I will be making this a recurring theme for this blog so let me know if you have any specific topics you’d like to know how to simplify.