OMG! Gmail Just Got Themes

I can’t believe how awesome this is:

UPDATE: THE POST IS BACK

For some reason, Google deleted the post. It read:

Posted by Annie Chen, Gmail engineer

Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven’t been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers — it’s not exactly practical, but it’s great for testing out your geek cred. We’ve also done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look to make it crisper and cleaner — you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here and there.

As you can see from these photos taken around our office in Zurich, Switzerland, themes have made their way into more than our inboxes — that’s a character from the ninja theme made out of pixel blocks, customized laptop decals, and a giant Zoozimps character on a beam next to my desk:

To customize your inbox, go to the Themes tab under Settings. We’ll be rolling out themes to everyone over the next couple of days, so if you don’t see them yet, check back soon. As for which theme to choose, don’t ask us. We’re neutral

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I’ve been taking a closer look at my Google Reader feeds lately, and, as always, I’m trying to stem the tide so the signal can rise above the noise. I’ve done a little spring cleaning, which for me doesn’t mean unsubscribing – I’m always hesitant to do that – but instead, I’ve been re-categorizing.

Is that feed really a “Can’t Miss” read? Shouldn’t that blogger be on my B-List? Doesn’t this feed belong in my “Ideas” folder?

One of the things that made the most difference was the addition of a brand-new folder I’m calling “noisy tech news.” This is now the home to any feed that drives me batty with zillions of posts per day yet doesn’t really provide that much signal. Why keep these feeds you may wonder? Well, for one thing, it’s great to have them in there for searches.

I’ve also put the aggregate feeds in here for sites like CNET and other producers of mass amounts of content. It’s not to say that CNET doesn’t have signal, but when you subscribe to a bunch of their feeds, you’re likely to see duplicate items and a lot of stuff that’s not relevant to you. However, other CNET favs, like Caroline McCarthy’s The Social for example, went elsewhere so I don’t miss them.

Although information devourer  Louis Gray might cringe at the thought, I can now happily mark this folder as read after a quick scan of headlines without feeling like I’ve missed too much.

Over-Sharers, I’m Looking At You

Now that I’ve gotten my subscriptions under control (ahem, for now), I’m turning my eye to the one area that’s still a bit out of control: you guys. You know know who you are. I mean, I thought I was bad (am I?) with my sharing of maybe 20-30 items per day in Google Reader, but some of you are sharing double that, triple even! Seriously, hundreds of shares. Daily! And all at once! What’s the deal? Now, I know I could just hide those over-sharers using the Google Reader “Hide” button, but the thing is, some of that stuff is actually very good. I don’t want to miss it. But then again, some of it…well, I could do without.

I’m torn. 

Of course what’s share-worthy is an entirely subjective notion, which is one thing that makes the Friends feature so great. It lets interesting stories bubble up and catch my attention, even though I may not subscribe to (or want to subscribe to) the originating blogs.

But what can be done about the uber-sharing? Should I just suck it up and hit j, j, j, j (the keyboard shortcut for flying through feeds) all day long? Should I start scanning headlines here too? Should I gasp hide the noisiest folks from sight?

Does anyone else have this problem? Suggestions welcome. 

I got my hands on Windows 7 at last, fresh off one of the PDC hard drives. I haven’t even used it for a whole day yet, so I can’t tell you much more than what you already know just now. I know there are a lot of things to like about this OS, and as I explore them, I’ll go into more detail over on at Channel 10.

I did, however, experience one driver issue that I think is worth noting. Given that this is a pre-beta developer’s copy of an operating system, I’m sure this will be resolved by the time it goes gold. But for the sake of those googling to find the solution, I figured it’s worth putting this out there in case anyone has the same problem.

Problem

I installed the OS on my Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop as an upgrade from Vista Ultimate. The driver that Windows 7 selected for my network adapter was no good. Internet connections were slow and pages loading would time out. Ping tests revealed dropped packets. The problem was easily solved through a driver update, though – and I didn’t even have to go download a new driver from the internet – a good driver was already available on my computer.

Solution

This laptop has an Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN network adapter. By default, Windows 7 had installed the Intel driver, but it was the one was causing problems. Instead, go into Device Manger, go to the Properties of the adapter, then the Driver tab. Choose “update driver.”  When asked, choose “browse my computer for driver software,” then “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.” The driver I ended up using was the Microsoft driver, version 12.1.0.10. Once that was installed, I was back in action.

Many people have made arguments for the productive uses of FriendFeed, noting its liveblogging rooms, potential for blog fodder, community building aspects, etc. Those are all great reasons to love the site, but at the end of the day, I still see FriendFeed as a timesuck. A huge, glorious, fabulous, incredible timesuck.

I’ve been spending more time in FriendFeed lately. Where before I wasn’t even a daily visitor, now I’m in and out throughout the day. I’m not much one for getting involved too deeply in the discussions on site, but I enjoy reading through them. And I’m also completely addicted to Mona’s feed. It is, as she would say, so. much. awesome.

Given my recent addiction enjoyment of the site, you would think I would have known about the FriendFeed toolbar. I mean, really! The toolbar isn’t an official offering from FriendFeed itself, but rather a Firefox add-on provided by the third-party FriendFeed tracker, ffholic. With the toolbar, you can search users and entries or search ffholic itself. There are, of course, quick links to various pages on ffholic (“most liked,” “most commented,” etc.), but it’s the “Latest Buzz” drop-down box that I’m really enjoying.

This button offers up a slew of links to the hottest stuff being shared on FriendFeed and clicking on those links takes you directly to the source. If the source is a FriendFeed post, then you’re taken to FriendFeed, but if it’s a blog post, flickr photo, video, etc., you’re taken to the original content, not the FriendFeed web site.

There’s also a “Share on FriendFeed” button and an optional timer for you to track your time on site. I’ve just installed this toolbar and already I’ve managed to waste over 40 minutes today. Excellent.

I’d love to see even more buttons on this toolbar which would link to “best of” pages, but for now, it works for me.

Seriously, how did I not know about this?

Courtesy of Channel 10, my home away from home (on the web, that is):

The wait is up! Today at PDC, we finally got to see a demo of the next OS from Microsoft: Windows 7. One of the biggest improvements in Windows 7 is the new taskbar, but there have also been other improvements like better networking features and a less noisy UAC. We’ll go into these in more detail later, but first, here’s what you really want, Windows 7 screenshots! Want to see them? Click here or just launch the Flickr slideshow below:

Like most of you, I’d consider myself a technology addict. As Charlie recently noticed, I blog a lot yet somehow find myself immersed in social media a good bit too. Keeping up is a challenge, and I’ll admit that finding balance is a constant challenge. As I wrote today on ReadWriteWeb, technology really is both a blessing and a curse. I love it, but sometimes it steals me away from the other things (and people) I love, too. I’m always having to check and re-check my boundaries and making sure I haven’t become so immersed in the online world that I forget to live in the real one, too.  

In addition to my work in public eye, such as with ReadWriteWeb and Microsoft (a blogger, not an employee for the ongoing record), I always find myself with at least one side project too. Lately, this has involved being a webmaster of sorts for two other websites needing regular updates and reviewing book proposals for a publishing company. I’ve also just been informed…err…asked…by a family member to create yet another site, too. It’s not big deal, but I sometimes wonder how much longer I can keep it all up.

And why do I do all this? I guess I forget I’m just one person.

Unlike social media kings, Louis Gray and Robert Scoble, I don’t have superpowers. I struggle with information overload just as I know many of you do too. Managing multiple commitments and deadlines is hard on me…and I’m not one who likes to be tied down with obligations, either. In fact, I’m usually surrounded by people who plan things for me because I’d rather “wing it.” 

How do those guys do it? Louis Gray mastered something called continuous parallel attention. I never got the hang of that, but he did teach me something important: batching my activities into a workflow of sorts. When I stick to my schedule, it can work. When I goof off in FriendFeed for too long, I’m screwed. In fact, sometimes have so little “free” time that anything expected of me that goes beyond my established routine sort of puts me into a panic. That’s not healthy and it has to stop. Something may have to give soon.

In the meantime, I maintain a semblance of a normal life by setting some personal boundaries.

Here are 5 ways I’m keeping sane:

1) Unplug on weekends – Lately, I’ve been going offline on weekends. I’m generally unavailable all day Saturday and part of Sunday, too. I go do things that don’t involve the net. For example, this weekend I met friends from my old job for drinks, went to the San Antonio Rattlesnake Festival (which is less horrible than it seems – it’s mostly a craft fair and picnic), watched a movie with the husband (Sweeny Todd – oh, the blood!), caught up on the TV I missed, went out to dinner, and generally relaxed.

2) Set Boundaries – Now that I’m going to the gym, I have a definite, finite end to my workday. I have to wrap things up at a decent hour and leave the house. Although the primariy reason I’m doing this is to get healthy, the side affect of disconnecting for a couple of hours is an added benefit.

3) Batch Activities – Instead of being in FriendFeed and Twitter off and on all day long, I pop in a couple of times per day and interact. This may mean that I miss a few things here and there or arrive late to others, but at the end of the day, being the first to participate in the silly hate meme (or whatever) isn’t paying my bills. I love FriendFeed and Twitter, but I can’t put them at the top of my priority list.

4) Work More Early In The Week – For some reason, I’ve found I’m more productive earlier in the week. I decided to take advantage of that productivity and work ahead by cranking out more content then when I’m motivated than trying to do so later on in the week when I’m starting to burn out.

5) Stay Out Of The Inbox – Not entirely, of course – that’s not possible. But when I used to have the Gmail Notifier installed, I constantly checked my email. As new messages arrived, I popped into Gmail to see what they were about. A major time-suck! Now, I go into my email throughout the day as it fits into my schedule…not every 5 minutes.

I hope these tips help you better manage your time online and if you have any to share with me, feel free to comment and let me know.

My knee-jerk reaction to Mike Arrington’s recent post on TechCrunch is that he has lost his mind. His post was about a blogger who accused TechCrunch of spreading the doom and gloom surrounding the financial crisis. The funny thing is that Arrington believes that because this person, some guy named Dare Obasanjo, is employed by Microsoft, this is now somehow a reflection on Microsoft..even though Dare’s site is a personal blog.

As one of the commenters pointed out, the blog even contains a disclaimer that reads:

“Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer’s view in any way.

© Copyright 2008, Dare Obasanjo - Powered by: newtelligence dasBlog 2.1.8102.813″

And another commenter notes that they work for Cisco, but Cisco has zero influence on what they write.

Mike’s angry backlash against this blogger raises a question that goes all the way back to the days of Dooce and the others who got fired for blogging: does what you say on your personal site reflect on your employer?

Mike Arrington apparently thinks that personal blogs should be sanctioned by employers and, if the employee missteps, they should be fired.

What’s even worse is that Robert Scoble now took the time to post in agreement with Arrington.

The only person who has actually made any sense is Steven Hodson of WinExtra.

This silly feud seems like backward progress to me. I’m pretty sure that most of us have moved on from the days of Dooce and getting fired for blogging. In fact, most employers are pretty cool about people having personal blogs for their personal opinions…and most people, too, know the difference between a personal blog and the official opinions of one’s employer.

For the record, I’m so completely and totally over this, you have no idea. Are you guys as annoyed as I am that adults are playing out petty personal attacks in your RSS reader?  Is the tech blogosphere is some sort of high school clique? Can’t we all be grownups here?

And yes, I write stuff for Microsoft but this post isn’t about them – it’s about grown ups having hissy fits on the net. I really, really, really don’t understand this. Feel free to explain it to me.

Opinion: I butted my way into a Twitter exchange today between two respected journalists, Mathew Ingram and Kara Swisher. Apparently Ms. Swisher didn’t think Mathew should have spread the tweet gossip about Steve Jobs’ heart attack considering that he hadn’t fact-checked the story for accuracy.

Mathew, on the other hand, disagreed:

While I have nothing but respect and admiration for the real, j-school trained journalists out there and feel they provide an important service in our society, I think I’m going to have to agree with Mathew on this one.

Let me explain why.

New Media Vs Old Media

This goes back a thought-provoking conversation I had with Mary Fallon at this year’s DEMO conference about the differences between “old school” journalism and “new media.” Although instead of “new media,” she preferred the term “no-school journalism.” Well, I guess that’s true. New media “journalists,” whether citizen journalists or bloggers or whatever you want to call them, often have one thing in common – no formal training. That’s not to say that there aren’t respected bloggers who are also journalists, but they’re still more the exception than the rule.

So when you have a bunch of unschooled, unprincipled writers (yes, that’s how we’re still perceived) sit down at the keyboard to crank out article after article in some semblance of news, the line gets blurry. Are these new-fangled writers journalists? Or are they just bloggers?

I think the answer is slowly shaping up to be yes, they’re journalists…but feel free to categorize them differently if you must. Call them “new media writers,” call them “web journalists,” but they are, in fact, delivering the news and providing context, so that does make them a sort of journalist, does it not?

No Love For Blogging

I think a lot of j-school journalists don’t like this change and I don’t blame them. If I spent my life devoted to career that was suddenly under siege by untrained writers and precocious 20-some year old college students, I wouldn’t like it much either. But that’s the power of the web. The web is changing every business model, every delivery mechanism, and every interaction we have with the world around us. Nothing is safe, not music, not movies, not messaging. Not even the news.

But let’s be honest here, is it really so bad? The new media journalists might post first and retract later, but the immediacy of the medium they’re writing for demands it. Instead of delving deep into a story and dotting all the i’s, crossing all the t’s, it’s just here…here is some news. It’s not confirmed yet, so hang on. The crowd then becomes the fact-checkers, not the reporters. As the perhaps not-entirely-true story sits out there published to the web, the readers begin to take action. The readers can finish the piece if the piece needs finishing.

How many times have you seen an inaccurate blog post begin to fill with comments refuting the story? It’s just part of the process. No, it IS the process. The blogger, err, new media writer, then goes back with strikethrough or BOLDED UPDATES to correct the parts which were wrong. Is this still reporting? You bet it is. I’d argue that in many ways it’s even better than printed newspaper and magazine reporting where corrections appear in the next issue, often overlooked by readers and, as is especially true with magazines, arriving so late that it no longer even matters – the damage has been done.

Why It’s Not Working Yet

The problem is in drawing the line between those who participate in the new media process of corrections and updates and those who don’t care for accuracy at all, only pageviews. That’s the real issue today because some of the web’s most popular “news” sites just don’t care. It’s not about being right, it’s only about being first.

That’s why it’s up to you, as a blog reader, to not honor those sites anymore with your attentions. If you don’t, new media will never be given the chance to evolve. The good bloggers will be lumped in together with the link-baiters and it will all be a big mess. Instead, reward detail, context, and meaning with your attention. It’s fine if they aren’t 100% accurate out of the gate – it’s only an issue if they never own up to their mistakes.

When the world catches up with what it means to be a web journalist, none of this will matter so much anymore. It will be understood that all news should be taken with a grain of salt until the crowd weighs in.

As for the “real” journalists, I don’t think they’ll disappear. Their newspapers might, though. These folks will eventually end up on the web, if they’re not there already. But they will mostly exist on name-brand news sites that are known for their traditional journalistic methods and practices.

So What About The Tweet?

So how does this all relate to the above-referenced Twitter conversation? It’s simple. On the web, Matthew is a blogger, a Twitterer, and a general all-round social media advocate. Here on the web, it should be OK for him to take part in the new process of working in new media. That includes tweet first, ask questions later. That includes Twitter polls.

You may disagree. That’s fine.

The blurry lines between journalism and blogging are something we should talk about some more. So talk. Comments can be left below.

I had an amazing time at Blogorlando this weekend. Having never been to an “unconference” before, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought that it would be more like roundtable discussions, but I was surprised how prepared and professional the presentations were.

The sessions I attended were great. Even when I ventured out of my niche (Mark’s Advanced WordPress, for example, was over my head…I think I’m a “medium”), I learned something I didn’t know before. At the very least, I was exposed to new ideas, like in Chris Thilk’s “Social Media and Entertainment” session where I learned a lot about movie blogging and the issues of that particular industry. However, I especially loved Frank Gruber (@somewhatfrank)’s session on “Shiny New Objects” because, well, I love shiny new objects. I tweeted some of those links. Another favorite was Etan Horowitz’s session on “Twitter in Journalism.” It was really interesting to see how professional journalists think about that medium and its usage. I liveblogged my notes from that on FriendFeed.

I myself gave a presentation called “New, New Media” where I discussed some of my favorite tools. I have to credit Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb.com for the introduction to some of these, especially the awesomeness that is Google CSEs. I now use my own personal CSE instead of bookmarking, a radical idea, I know.

I was a lot more nervous than I expected especially considering the projector crapped out on me and it was much more of a presentation-in-front-of-the-class session than I anticipated. But once I got through my initial anxiety, I think it worked out OK. That being said, having been afraid I bombed, it was really nice to log onto Twitter and see these tweets (below) saying otherwise. Thanks for the nice words, guys.

If anyone wants me to help them learn these tools even better, just drop me a line. I’m happy to give some pointers.

Google Custom Search Engines: www.google.com/cse

snackr: www.snackr.net

feedly: www.feedly.com

And thank you especially for this one!

Just for fun, I emailed T-Mobile several days ago and told them I had heard they will soon be offering a phone called the HTC Dream which ran Google software. I mentioned that I read about it on the internet and that I wanted to check it out before I decided on the iPhone. I asked when I could expect to see it in stores.

Their response? No HTC Dream! Not even a mention of it coming soon. If I wasn’t a tech geek who already knew better, this sort of communication (see below) would have sent me right to the AT&T store.

Note that this email arrived yesterday – at 10 PM the day before the big Android announcement.

Dear Sarah Perez,

Hi Sarah my name is Steve; thank you for contacting T-Mobile and giving me the chance to help. I see you emailed online customer care regarding the HTC Dream Phone. I know how important it can be to get the latest phone at a great price so I would be delighted to research this for you.

First, Sarah I apologize for the delay in our reply. We are getting an usually high volume of emails and are working to answer them in a timely manner. We appreciate your patience and I hope this has not caused any inconvenience.

I do not show that we will be offering the HTC Dream Phone yet Sarah and we do not offer preorders for phones. We are always updating the list of phones and devices to meet the changing your needs so this may be offered in the future. Regrettably, we do not have access to information on new devices until they are made available to you. I suggest checking back with us at www.t-mobile.com since the list of available devices is updated on an ongoing basis.

Sarah, if you would like to take advantage of one of our offers please let us know and we will be happy to process your order for you. You can also upgrade online by:

1) Login to http://www.my.t-mobile.com.
2) Click "Phone & Accessories"
3) Under the "Handset Upgrade" section click "Upgrade your phone".

If you have more questions Sarah, please reply referencing case # (removed) You can call Customer Care toll free at 1-800-937-8997 or 611 then SEND from your phone and we will be happy to help you. Thank you Sarah, for being a valued T-Mobile customer since September of 2002.

Yeah, 2002. I guess they figure I’m not going anywhere. Ha! I’m counting the days until my contract expires.