Is Google Docs and Mail safe to use? Yes, but backup!

We use Google Docs and GMail at DVFilm. Should we be concerned?  I  don't think so.  If I'm going to trust someone,  I feel Google is as trustworthy as anyone.  Here is one review of Google's term of service and another. We do not post proprietary information, passwords, or customer information.  The docs are internal docs that we use to document processes, take notes, and to help us stay organized.  The nice thing  about Google Docs is that it can  import AND export to various formats.  Export formats for documents include Word, HTML, RTF,  and even  PDF!  Spreadsheets can be exported as HTML, CSV, XLS and PDF.  Even if you kept your data locally behind a firewall, you shouldn't have just one location for important files.  So if you use Google Docs, backup!  That goes for email as well. 

I just setup Outlook 2007 to download all the mail from two Gmail accounts we use for support.  I created multiple mail profiles.  You can't do this within Outlook 2007, in Vista you go to the Control  Panel. In Control Panel mode, not classic, you select user Accounts, then Mail.  From here you can create  multiple profiles, not to be  confused with email  accounts which are where your mail  is stored.  I created two profiles and selected "Prompt for a profile to be used" which causes Outlook to prompt for a profile on startup.   I also created  separate data files.  Selecting Show Profiles, you select  a profile then select properties where you can create a new data file and make it the default for the profile.  You can  also manage the data files in Outlook by selecting File…Data File Management.

What music do I listen to?

Well, I won’t tell you whether I actually own the ABBA Gold CD or that I might have ripped an old Ed Bruce LP (I know, that’s a double-whammy I-just-aged-myself statement, I mean how many people would write Ed Bruce and LP in one sentence?).  My taste is actually pretty diverse and I like a LOT of what plays on the radio today.  Here is what’s on my “What I’m Listening To” playlist:

<<playlist removed>>

If you’ve never heard of IMEEM, it’s a social media service that let’s you create playlists of music, videos, and photos.  You can listen to and upload full-length tracks!  I actually use it to discover new music, they are always recommending songs and I get recommendations based on the songs on my playlists.

Update: January 8, 2009

Well, IMEEM is no more.  They were bought out by MySpace.  They are suppose to be migrating IMEEM accounts over but so far it’s not quite the same experience.  I’ll check back periodically to see if it’s worth using.  In the meantime, I’ve started using Last.fm.  They don’t let you upload your own music but you create your own radio stations by specifying songs or artists and the station plays songs similar to them.  They limit play on the computer but the experience is pretty nice on the XBOX 360 which has support for Last.FM.

I also have discovered Pandora.  Like Last.FM you create ratio stations.  They have pretty amazing technology that matches songs and artists similar to the ones you select.  What’s cool is they tell you exactly why a song matches your selected criteria.  You can also read a lot about the song, artist or other stuff.  Pandora has a terrific Flash interface.  Last.FM does not allow you to pause.  You can only stop.  Pandora allows you to pause.  Pandora limits you to skipping 6 songs per hour per station it also has a limit of 40 hours per month.   The free service is ad supported or you can pay 99 cents for the rest of the month once you’ve reached the 40 hr limit. You can pay $36 for unlimited play for a year without ads.  Pandora FAQs are here.

I use to think  I preferred having an exact playlist of my favorite songs but I also loved discovering or re-discovering songs.  With the ability to tell  Pandora which songs I like (and get more replay) and tell  Pandora which songs I DON”T like (and thus remove them from playing again in that radio station), Pandora may have the best of all worlds.  It’s my #1 place for listening to music on the Internet for now.

Sample  Radio Station created by Pandora:

I selected Hall &  Oates and the next six songs that played in the station:

Journey – Who’s Crying Now
The  Police – Every Breath You Take
Dan Hartman – I Can Dream About You
The Doobie Brothers – What A Fool Believes
Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
Spandau Ballet – True

Not bad huh?

Why I blog

There are really three reasons why I blog.

1. I like writing down various events or thoughts in my life.   I get a feeling of closure once I have documented something that I wish to remember, would like to refer back to, or be able to share with others and link to. Basically, I do the blog for myself.
2. I like to give back to the development community.  When I've researched extensively a  problem I'm having coding, and I find the solution,  I publish it here in hopes that I might save someone with a similar problem some time.  For example, THIS post is #1 today, in Google search for the phrase "xcode breakpoint" which probably means that Google has decided it is very relevant and people are benefiting from it.
3. I like to give back to others.  Same as #2 but more on a personal than a professional level. THIS post is #1 in google as well for the phrase "Why music is important in our culture".  It is the post with the most comments.  People don't generally leave me a comment unless they REALLY got something out of a post.

I spend a lot of time searching the net as I'm sure many of you do.  Most of the content I read are not news site or commercial sites, no, most of them are personal sites and blogs.   I try to give back to that community since I'm an avid consumer of it.

Kristen’s Soccer Highlights

Some highlights of Kristen’s 2007-2008 seasons.

The Seventh Sense

Andy entered the Unnecessaray Sequel contest with his entry "The Seventh Sense".  Cassidy plays a ghost that died in an easy-bake oven accident.  The trailer is 2 minutes and it came out great.

Limitations of Netflix’s Watch Instantly service

I came across this interesting post titled Netflix's DRM Turned Me Into a Pirate.

I have to admit, I have empathy for those that TRY to do the right thing but due to company policy or poor implementation, turn to "other" means to get what they want.

I've been there.   My latest example was losing Jane's Mac Mini hard drive.  All her iTunes library went with it.  I googled and found out that Apple WILL allow you to download your library as a one time exception.  Of course I didn't learn this from Apple, they wouldn't dare advertise this, but they will  honor it if you ask.  Thing is, we weren't able to get our entire 100+ song  collection.  Due to reorganization of their "database" or whatever, they were unable to provide about 10 songs.  Think I'm going to re-purchase those song?  Of course not. 

Base64 and the Two-Bit Tramp

Now, if that’s not a confusing enough title, I don’t know what is, hee hee.

A friend forwarded me an attachment recently.  He uses AOL service.  AOL is the only service that I’ve ever received garbled attachments from in email.  It is usually when a forwarded email is forward several times.  After clicking through three attachments, I get the final attachment; a file named ATT00036.txt.  Opening it up shows this (i’ve only excerpted a portion):

Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: attachment
From: XXXXXX3@aol.com
To: phermaii@optonline.net,
.
.
Subject: “The Wedding Invitation”
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/related;
boundary=”—-=_NextPart_000_0117_01C8F629.76D260D0″
X-Mailer: Unknown sub 34
X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198
Thread-Index: Acjs+2GxzdWXL8VWRHi3FBx68hfLTQ==
X-Spam-Flag: NO
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
——=_NextPart_000_0117_01C8F629.76D260D0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=”—-=_NextPart_001_0118_01C8F629.76D260D0″
——=_NextPart_001_0118_01C8F629.76D260D0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=”us-ascii”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Here’s the wedding invitation
Now a picture of
Mr. & Mrs. ‘The Doctor’
——=_NextPart_000_0117_01C8F629.76D260D0
Content-Type: image/jpeg;
name=”image001.jpg”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: X.MA1.1216841782@aol.com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.
.
jVec/tM/Gr4X+M/g5r3h/wAN+Kft+pXRtzBAbG5i3bLiN2+aSNR91WPJ7UUUrsD/2Q==
——=_NextPart_000_0117_01C8F629.76D260D0–

 

Having worked on a mail program before (Netpliance Inc.) I recognized that the mail was being sent in the “Internet” format (MIME) rather than being interpreted in a friendly way by mail programs along the way.  You see “binary” data such as images cannot be sent across the Internet unless they have been converted to a “text” (ascii) format. This format is usually Base64.  That’s the aSNR91WPJ7UUUrsD/2Q== gobbly-gook that you see above. Anyway, all I did was cut and paste that Base64 data, I used this online Base64 decoding site, and voila, I got this wedding invitation:

Parental Controls in Console Games

Ed emailed me a link to this article because he knew I had complained about the violence and language in games that I loved but wished I could turn off the mature content, at certain times. I don’t mind if David plays war or shooting games as long as the violence is not too graphic and the language not too harsh. Gears of War is still, today, my favorite co-op game and one of my favorite console games in general. I had the most fun playing coop with David. GOW had an option to turn down the violence. The chainsaw kills didn’t squirt all that blood, for example. Most other parents are not as liberal as I am in what they allow their kids to watch and play.

I am very pleased to hear that GOW 2 may offer parental controls to their M-rated game. First of all, it can’t be that hard to add this feature. Second, it doesn’t effect those that prefer the more mature content. I’m glad that Epic and Microsoft are not underestimating the number of potential customers that would give a gritty game like GOW a chance if it had a more family friendly rating, or the number of kids that play games that are targeted for older kids.