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My favorite Google Maps API tutorial

Mike Williams has written what I consider to be the best Google Maps API Tutorial.  It's very simple and to the point.  I'm sure with a few months of time I'd be an expert on the Google Maps API per Google's documentation, if I quite my job and did nothing but work with that API.

But luckily Mike's tutorial makes the Google Maps API accessible in about 30 minutes.

Google Reader's Automated Recommendations

Fresh from Google Reader (I think) is some documentation.  Wow!  It's nice to see some documentation.  In particular, the kind folks are Google Reader talk to us about their automated feed recommendations ("How do feed recommendations work?"):

Your recommendations list is automatically generated. It takes into account the feeds you're already subscribed to, as well as information from your Web History, including your location. Aggregated across many users, this information can indicate which feeds are popular among people with similar interests. For instance, if a lot of people subscribe to feeds about both peanut butter and jelly, and you only subscribe to feeds about peanut butter, Reader will recommend that you try some jelly. This process is completely automated and anonymous; your personal information will be protected in accordance with our privacy policy.

Two things to note:

1. Automated feed recommendations are based on current feed subscriptions, web history and geographic location
2. Optimizes based in part on things you don't know but should know

One day later... New Google Reader recommendations

I just updated my Google Reader recommendations yesterday, but now I have new recommendations from the kind folks at Google Reader.  Wow!  Obviously, I'm a big from of Google Reader.  The recommendations so far have been quite good.

Typically, the recommendations have come out either once per week or once per two weeks.  Since I just wrote yesterday and have to wrap things up here at Panera, I don't have time to look into this right now - so I'll just take care of looking at the Google Reader recommendations later.   However, upon a quick peek, they look quite good again.  Good means the automated recommendations from Google Reader are relevant and are things I probably wouldn't discover on my own.

Google Reader recommendations
January 4, 2008 - 13 new subscriptions, 7 no thanks
December 13, 2007 - 3 new subscriptions, 7 no thanks

So that's an improvement.  I thought I'd blogged at least one other time about Google Reader recommendations, but perhaps not.  I'll update this if I come across any prior posts.

Google Reader crashes/freezes a lot, but I still love it

Google Reader crashes a lot on me, perhaps because I have 480 feeds.  Perhaps this makes the Javascript crunch and hang.  This problem mainly happens when I click a button while Google Reader is obviously trying to do something.

My Google Reader recommendations for January 4, 2008

The folks (or autobot) at Google Reader really did a good job this time around.  Out of 20 recommendations, I subscribed to 13.  That's 65%.

Newly subscribed Feeds (13)
LibrarianInBlack (http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/atom.xml)
Tame The Web - Libraries, Technology and People (http://tametheweb.com/atom.xml)
elearning-reviews.org (http://www.elearning-reviews.org/news/rss/)
timlauer.org (http://tim.lauer.name/index.xml)
an englishman in osaka (http://anenglishmaninosaka.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default)
Tokyo Times - Notes from a small group of Japanese islands (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Wwwtokyotimesorg)
Mari - diary (http://smt.blogs.com/mari_diary/atom.xml)
2719 HYPERION (http://booksearch.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
Mickey News (http://www.mickeynews.com/XML/Feed.asp)
Passport to Dreams Old & New (http://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default)
Marshall Kirkpatrick (http://feeds.feedburner.com/MarshallsWebToolBlog)
Ben Metcalfe Blog (http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/index.php/feed/)
Napsterization (http://napsterization.org/stories/index.rdf )

No Thanks (7)
Inside Google Book Search (http://booksearch.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
Google Gears API Blog (http://gearsblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
Official Google SketchUp Blog (http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default)
Forbes.com: Travel News (http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/travel/index.xml)
PR 2.0 (http://briansolis.com/atom.xml)
Librarians' Internet Index: New This Week (http://lii.org/ntw.rss)
Clagnut - A blog by Richard Rutter (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Clagnut)

Google helping with Iowa Caucus results: My Predictions

Here are Iowa Caucus updates on Google Maps.  Caucusing to begin any minute now (Thursday evening, January 3, 2008).  For other results see:  Democrat  Republican

My prediction for the Democrats is Obama over Clinton by 1 point with Edwards 7 points behind Obama.

My prediction for the Republicans is Huckabee over Romney by 1ppt with Ron Paul coming in with 9% of the vote.  Update:  AP declares Huckabee the Republican winner

Expect some outages as servers get flooded.  Also, this is the first time such polls will go online so quickly.   For other sources, you may want to try Iowa newspaper and TV stations (try a search like "des moines newspaper").

URL for "Older Version" of Gmail - fixes Gmail freezing problem

After Google upgraded Gmail last month, my Gmail began to frequently freeze.  This mainly occurred after sending a message, but it happened at other times, too.

I read a few posts back the (sorry, I forget which ones) that said the workaround is to go into Gmail then click on "Older Version".  It was said that there was no way to set the "Older Version" as a default.

Well, there is, and it's really easy.  Instead of going to http://www.gmail.com, just set your links to go to the URL of the "Older Version" which is http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1   

Embedding Google Maps - Wish Center Worked Better

When I try to embed a Google Map (such as this map of South Georgia Island), I often have to reset the center of the map.  Same happens when I try to save a map.  I might be missing something, but Google Maps doesn't seem to make this easy.

New Google Reader Recommendations Are Here - It's Been 17 Days!

It's been 17 days since my last Google Reader Recommendations.  Last time I subscribed to 3 out of 10, not bad.  This time around I'm subscribing to 7 out of 16, or 44%, which is really good.  Note that I had 17 Google Reader feed recommendations, compared to 10 last time.  I've subscribed to 457 feeds in total, so Google's finding 7 new relevant feeds for me is really good.  What's the scoop this time:

New feeds I Subscribed to

世論 What Japan Thinks
Looks good.  My wife is Japanese and blogs help me learn more about Japanese culture (and technology).

Japundit
Ditto.

LibraryCrunch
Yes, sign me up.  I like librarian things.

LITA Blog
Ditto.

ResourceShelf
Although it has 82 posts/day, this will fit nicely into my educational/resource category.

Marketing Profs Daily Fix
I'm not typically interested in marketing blogs, since they are mostly fluff.  This one is more technical than fluff, so I dropped it into my Technology category on Google Reader.

Andy Budd::Blogography  Articles
I was leaning to no thanks but saw an article about the Net Promoter Score.  Not sure that I agree with NPS in all cases, but I want to see what else Andy Budd talks about.

Feeds I said No Thanks to

Google Desktop APIs

No need since I'm already subscribed to an aggregation of all Google Blogs

 

Adactio

Somewhat redundant with other feeds I have

The Pownce Blog
No thanks.  I'm sure I'll see anything newsworthy from Pownce elsewhere.

MedicineNet Senior Health General
Tempting but scary.  Has lots of info on diseases, but I'm more into proactive health.

CNN.com - Travel
No thanks.  I'd prefer to get travel tips from people I can trust - or Googling instead.

Stuntdubl Business Search Marketing Consulting
I don't like blogs where every other post has "SEM" in the title.  I'm not really one for SEM and believe that a high-quality blog plus targeted networking will help.  Is that SEM?  Not sure.  Anyway, I don't have a use for this blog.

Greg Boser - Search Marketing Consultant
To me, SEO is similar to SEM.  Checkout out the blog and it's not for me.  But it's nice to know that Paris Hilton thinks this guy is hot.

Web Pages That Suck -- Examples of Bad Web Design
No thanks.  I'd love to but don't have enough time to dwell here.

Jaffe Juice
Marketing stuff.

 

Danny Sullivan on Google Feeds

Good post from Danny Sullivan:  10 Google Feeds You Should Subscribe To

I knew about most of these, but didn't know I could read my Gmail via RSS.  When I tried, though, it didn't quite work.  Perhaps I need to get new email before anything shows up.