Proud Geek

My favorite on-line wordprocessor — Zoho Writer — has now made it possible to work on documents even when disconnected from the Internet. Makes it mightly useful when flying, or taking the (non-WiFi-equipped) bus or train, or otherwise when you’re (horrors!) not hooked up to the Internet.

A couple months ago, I wrote that Zoho Writer had incorporated Google Gears, a handy browser add-on that makes it possible for users to still use certain webpage features even when not connected to the Internet. But at that time, that incorporation was actually pretty basic — users could only view documents off-line and could not actually create or edit documents.

With the new update, announced earlier this week, Zoho Writer can now be used to view, create, and edit documents whether on-line or off-line. Just be sure to turn this feature on and allow it to download your Zoho Writer files before you actually go off-line!

Like I mentioned the last time, I find it so ironic that Zoho has been using Google Gears to its fullest capabilities, while Google has not yet used Google Gears to bring off-line capabilities to its own on-line word processing suite (Google Docs). But in Zoho’s recent blog post announcing that Zoho Writer is now fully available off-line, Zoho graciously commended Google for its product and its support.

A word of advice to Zoho, though: can you please, pretty please caption or subtitle (in English) your videos? I’d love to watch them, especially the YouTube interview of two Zoho engineers talking about Google Gears. You see, I’m deaf (and so are many of my readers), and even though I’m a faithful Zoho user, I can’t understand your videos - sigh!

Ever since Chatter Email on the Treo now works well with Google’s Gmail, I’ve been using Gmail heavily over the past week. Even though I struggled at first with it, I must admit I have fallen completely in love with Gmail.

Gmail is quite different from most email programs and email websites. We’re so used to the Outlook / Yahoo / Hotmail format, with folders on the left and all emails listed separately in your inbox. Rather, Gmail uses “Tags” instead of folders, and groups together all emails in the same thread rather than listing them separately in the inbox. And if you want to file away an email, you “Archive” it (even after you’ve already tagged it).

At first, I didn’t like having to tag an email and THEN archiving it (a 2- to 3-click process) if I wanted to file away an email on Gmail. And it felt a bit cumbersome to constantly hunt for the right button with my mouse.

And then I discovered “Better Gmail.”

Better Gmail is a Firefox-only extension that adds a good number (I think 25!) of Gmail-specific extensions and features — most of which were developed by other people and then collected under one application. I didn’t like keyboard shortcuts before (I prefer the mouse!), but now with Better Gmail, I love how a few keyboard clicks takes care of just about everything on Gmail. And I really like Better Gmail’s “Filter Assistant” that’s at the top of each email and which makes it easy for you to create filters. Now whenever I get an email to my mom, it’s automatically tagged as “Family” — and every time I send an email to her, my email is automatically tagged as “Family” and then archived. (Yes, I admit it, I’m a mommy’s boy.) Better Gmail also comes with several “skins” — or new looks for Gmail. And Better Gmail adds numerous other features to Gmail — I ain’t gonna list them all here.

But yes, Better Gmail only works with the increasingly popular Firefox browser. I use Firefox on my PCs at home, but at work I grit my teeth and use either Internet Explorer or Netscape — neither of which works with Better Gmail.

The best thing yet about Gmail (and Better Gmail)? It’s free. Even its IMAP functionality is free. Yahoo Mail charges you a yearly fee if you want to use its now-primitive POP functionality — and Yahoo Mail doesn’t even offer IMAP.

Gmail — it’s gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship …

Long-suffering Proud Geek readers may (will!) remember that I’m a huge fan of Chatter Email on the Palm Treo because Chatter gives the Palm Treo true-biz Push Email. Only, for a true Push Email experience, you had to be using an email service that has IMAP (rather than POP) access. Yahoo Mail doesn’t have this, and neither does Hotmail / Live mail. For a long time, Google’s Gmail didn’t either, until a few weeks ago. I enthusatically blogged about Gmail’s IMAP addition, and then a few days later I blogged with dismay that Chatter’s problems with Gmail’s IMAP has forced me to go back to my old email system (Fastmail.fm).

A few days ago, Marc, the creator of Chatter has released a new version (3.0.10) that now plays nicely with Gmail’s IMAP access. Hooray! I’m now using Gmail instead of Fastmail.fm, and push email works flawlessly except for two things: photos sent from Tmobile Sidekicks don’t seem to come attached to emails when pushed to my Treo (while photos from other sources and other smartphones come across just fine, strangely enough), and I occasionally get a “Delete Failed” error when deleting an email on my Treo. Those two issues were with a beta version of the now-stable 3.0.10 release, so I’m curious if I still see these issues with this release.

Although my recent blog post with instructions on how to configure your Chatter to work with Gmail via IMAP is still good, I noticed that Marc added a “Gmail (IMAP)” option to the drop-down list of account types when creating a new account. So, modified instructions below.

1. You need to configure Gmail to allow IMAP. Within Gmail on the computer screen, click on “Settings” then the “Forwarding and POP / IMAP” tab. Then click on “Enable IMAP”. (NOTE: if you don’t see this yet, then try logging out and then into your Gmail account. Sometimes this will do the trick. If you still don’t see this, then wait a bit longer …)
2. Within Chatter on your Treo, pull down the top menu and select “New Account”
3. In the “Quick Setup” window, under “Choose the account type …” drop-down menu, select “Gmail (IMAP)”
4. Under “Your Name,” type a name that you want to show up when sending emails
5. Under “Login Name,” type your full Gmail email address (including the “@gmail.com” or your Google Apps extension)
6. Under “PW,” type your Gmail password.
7. Make sure “Always Online” is checked.
8. Click on “OK”

And there you have it. Super-duper-easy — well, sorta. Don’t forget to go to “Edit Account” and configure your options if you want to load emails older than 14 days, customize your delete options, increase the “load” (the initial size of emails that Chatter pulls before asking if you want “More”), notification, etc.

Thanks, Marc, for continuing to update what is inarguably (at least by me and legions of loyal Chatter users) the best email program for the Palm Treos!

The guy who developed the Sidekick in the early 2000’s is apparently leading the team that’s developing a new Google phone. Makes me cautiously optimistic that this gPhone will have a built-in keyboard, instant messaging, and a whole slew of Google mobile applications pre-installed. Plus, judging from how Google has been, and much like the Sidekick, the gPhone will be open to third-party applications that users can browse and then download onto the gPhone.

I can’t wait.

(Update 11/26/07: A new version of Chatter fixes all of these problems!  See related blog post for more details and instructions on how to configure Chatter.)

When Gmail began allowing IMAP access, I thought it’d be the start of a terrific relationship. Like the beginning of every relationship, I thought it’d be all champagne and roses.Unfortunately, like every relationship (including Brad and Angelina’s), there were problems between Gmail and me. And in this one, pretty serious problems that has already led to a trial separation between Gmail and myself just one day after the relationship began. And I’ve returned to my ex, Fastmail.

Ok, let me explain …

Firstly, IMAP is a way for my emails on my Palm Treo (via Chatter) to stay current with my emails on Gmail (or whereever else - like my ex-ex Fastmail.fm). If I get new email on Gmail or Fastmail, IMAP access makes it show up immediately on Chatter on my Treo — that is, emails are pushed to my Treo. If I delete an email on Gmail, it’d be deleted on my Treo (and vice versa). If I reply to a message, a small icon shows up on both the Treo and Gmail showing that it has been replied to (well, it’s supposed to - see below). If I file the email into a folder on the Treo, it’s tagged and archived in Gmail (and, again, vice versa).

After just a day of using Gmail’s IMAP access via Chatter on the Palm Treo, I’ve come across some serious problems. And according to this forum thread (and also this forum thread), I’m not the only one. These problems have driven me away from Gmail and back to Fastmail.

• Most seriously, some emails being sent to me are apparently in Base64 format (one of many email formats - the most common being uuencode, I believe) and come across as pure gibberish in Chatter. Seems to happen mostly to emails being sent from Blackberries and Sidekicks. Here’s what an email sometimes ends up looking like on my Treo:

SXRzIG9rIG5vdy4gWm9yYSBzIHJvbGxpbmcga
GVyIGJvZHkgb24gdGhlIGhpbGwNCi0tLS0tT3Jp
Z2luYWwgTWVzc2FnZS0tLS0tDQpGcm9tOiAiSm
9zaCBNZW5kZWxzb2huIiA8am9zaEBlbGxpbWVu
ZC5jb20+DQoNCkRhdGU6IDI3IE9jdCAyMDA3ID
E5OjAyOjAwIA0KVG86PGJhcnJ5ZUB0bW8uYmxh
Y2tiZXJyeS5uZXQ+DQpTdWJqZWN0OiBSZTogYW
xzbyAuLi4NCg0KDQpvaWMuICBKYWNrZXRzIGFy
ZSBpbiB2YW4gZ3JyLg0KLS0tLS1PcmlnaW5hbC
BNZXNzYWdlLS0tLS0NCkZyb206ICI9P3V0Zi04
P0I/UW1GeWNua2dSV3hzYVc5MGRBPT0/PSIgPG
JhcnJ5ZUB0bW8uYmxhY2tiZXJyeS5uZXQ+DQpE
YXRlOiBTYXR1cmRheSwgT2N0IDI3LCAyMDA3ID
Y6NTIgcG0NClN1YmplY3Q6IFJlOiBhbHNvIC4u
Lg0KVG86IFJlcGx5LSAgICBiYXJyeWVAdG1vLmJ
sYWNrYmVycnkubmV0VG86ICJKb3NoIE1lbmRl
bHNvaG4iIDxqb3NoQGVsbGltZW5kLmNvbT4NCg
0KWWVhaCBwbHVzIHNoZSdzIG92ZXJleGNpdGVk
IGdvaW5nIHRvIGdhbWUuICBJdHMgYml0IGNoaW
xseSBoZXJlLiBHcnJyDQotLS0tLU9yaWdpbmFs

This seems to happen most often when I’ve already responded to an email and am getting a reply on Chatter from someone using a Blackberry and Sidekick (so far). When this happens, I have to log onto the mobile version of my Gmail account via Blazer on my Treo to be able to read my email. Quickly becomes annoying. Very annoying. And this is the primary reason I am breaking up from Gmail so quickly and returning to my old flame, Fastmail.

• When I get emails with attachments, Gmail doesn’t seem to be passing these attachments on. A friend says to me, check out this photo of his daughter. What photo? There is nothing attached, at least on the Treo. But then when I check the same email on Gmail, the photo’s there.

• Flags (showing that an email has been replied to or forwarded) are supposed to show up on both the Treo (in Chatter) and on Gmail for the same email. But unfortunately, these flags aren’t being synced. I reply to an email on Chatter, and I see a small icon next to the email saying that I’ve replied to it. But a short while later, when it syncs with Gmail, the flag / reply icon disappears.

• Emails with HTML in it aren’t coming across very well in Chatter. When I get email with HTML formatting in Fastmail and then onto Chatter via IMAP, these emails are pretty well-rendered and well-formatted. But when I get the same email via Gmail, all of the HTML formatting codes show up in the email on Chatter - lots of “<page>” and “<img>” codes burying whatever important text there is.

I don’t know if these are problems caused by Gmail, or by Chatter’s inability to recognize some new (?!) stuff used by Gmail. Whatever the cause is, I truly, truly hope that these problems get ironed out. In the meanwhile, I’m going back to forwarding all my Gmail emails to Fastmail, and then sycing between Fastmail and Chatter via IMAP …

(Update 11/26/07: Chatter has been updated, and this has been fixed! See related blog post and updated instructions on how to configure Chatter.)

(Update 11/20/07: A new beta version of Chatter Email fixes problems with Gmail’s IMAP. I’ve begun using Gmail once again, and I love it!)

(UPDATE 10/30/07: Problems with how emails look after going through Gmail’s IMAP has forced me to go back to Fastmail. See related blog post.)

Gmail now allows people to connect via IMAP — effectively giving people the “power” to instaneously push Gmail emails to their mobile devices, computer programs, and favorite webmail services. And if you’ve been a regular reader of my blog, you know how much an advocate I am of using Chatter on Palm Treos, using Gmail AND Fastmail.fm. Now that Gmail offers IMAP, you can just drop Fastmail and use Gmail by itself.

Wonderful! I’ve been so looking forward to moving from Fastmail to Gmail.

Here’s how you can set Chatter to do IMAP with Gmail (at least until Chatter is updated to automatically configure Gmail with IMAP):

1. You need to configure Gmail to allow IMAP. Within Gmail on the computer screen, click on “Settings” then the “Forwarding and POP / IMAP” tab. Then click on “Enable IMAP”. (NOTE: if you don’t see this yet, then try logging out and then into your Gmail account. Sometimes this will do the trick. If you still don’t see this, then wait a bit longer …)
2. Within Chatter on your Treo, pull down the top menu and select “New Account”
3. In the “Quick Setup” window, under “Choose the account type …” drop-down menu, select “Generic IMAP Account”
4. You’ll be taken to “Account Definition.” Under the “Define” tab, fill in the following. Name: (type in a nickname for this account); IMAP Server: (type “imap.gmail.com”); Login Name: (type your email address including the “@” — i.e., “johndoe@gmail.com”. If you have a Google App account, use the account domain name and email — i.e., “john@johndoe.com”); Password: (type your Gmail password)
5. Under the “Deliver” tab, make sure the following boxes are checked: “Sync Messages”, “Keep Flags Synced”, and “Use SSL”. Everything else is up to you.
6. Under the “Other” tab, the settings are up to you.
7. Under the “SMTP” tab, and after saying yes to “Do you want to create a SMTP profile?”, set the following: Server: (type “smtp.google.com”); Login Name (make sure your gmail email address is spelled correctly here); Password (type your gmail password); Return Address (same as your gmail email address); Full Name (type whatever full name you want here). MAKE SURE there is a check next to “SSL”.
8. Click on OK.
9. Chatter should now connect to Gmail — and you will now be able to receive and send emails via your Gmail account.

Update: here’s the official announcement from Google about Gmail getting IMAP.

Update #2: here’s my original blog post explaining how to set up Chatter on your Treo with Fastmail and Gmail. I’ll do a new blog post soon with this info, but leaving Fastmail out. Bye bye Fastmail, you were good to me, yet it’s time to say bye.

Update #3: here’s an official blog post from Palm saying that while Versamail won’t work nicely with Gmail’s new IMAP access, Chatter will indeed work well.

Heads up: a new subtitled bonus video at the end of this blog post — this time, of my younger daughter walking for the first time!

Four months ago, I told you about Overstream, a website where you can easily add subtitles / captions to your videos. Several of you (including myself) mentioned that while this website was wonderful, there wasn’t a way to move your captioned videos from one site to another.

I’m happy to tell you that Overstream now has made it easy to export your captions / subtitles to other video-hosting websites.

Max, the creator of Overstream, recently added a feature where you can save your subtitles as a “.srt” file. An SRT file pretty much just contains your subtitles and the times in hundreds of seconds that they are to appear (and then disappear) in your video. I believe SRT files are similar to what is being used by major television and movie producers, but I could be wrong. And I also believe this is similar to what rather complex subtitling computer programs create — like Subtitle Workshop and MAGpie.

Anyhow, on Overstream, after you’re finished creating your subtitles, you can then click on “Tools” to see an option for exporting current subtitles as SRT. Click on that option, and then you’ll get an option to save the subtitles as a file on your computer or copy all the subtitles (and time codes) to your clipboard.  (Hey Max, yet another suggestion: can you add buttons to allow the user to move the current video frame back or fro a half second, a second, and five seconds?  I found myself constantly re-positioning the arrow showing the current video frame.)

Last July, I told you how Google had added a feature where you can upload “.srt” files which is used to add captions / subtitles to videos. This is where you can import the SRT file you created with Overstream, or even paste the subtitles into a special text box.

And thus, I was able to easily subtitle my 21-second Google video of my younger daughter walking for the first time! Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how I did this:

1. Upload my video to Google Video
2. Go to Overstream.net and create a new Overstream (series of subtitles) using my new Google Video as the base video
3. Export the subtitles (via the Tools button on the Overstream Subtitles editing screen) to a SRT file on my computer
4. Go back to Google Video, and view my “Uploaded Videos“
5. Click on the “Add” button next to “Captions / Subtitles” for that video
6. Upload my SRT file to Google Video
7. … and hey presto, the video is now subtitled!

A huge benefit of using Google Video and an uploaded SRT file is that the subtitles can be turned on or off (!!!) using the “CC” button at the bottom of the video screen. The subtitles appear just below the video itself. Doubling the size of the video or making it full-screen still makes the subtitles look sharp — the subtitles aren’t stretched and distorted, but rather the font size is increased by Google Video. Very nice.  When the video is embedded on another website, like what I’m doing below, the captions seem a bit small — but that seems to be a Google Video issue and not Overstream’s.

The SRT export functionality brings the Overstream - Google Video duo to the top of my list of recommended sites to use to caption your video. Thanks, Max, for listening to us and adding this super-duper-terrific functionality!  Makes me think — it’s not easy for a sitemaster like Max to allow users who create media on his site to take this media elsewhere, so I really appreciate the new Export SRT file feature that Max added.

What’s that? You want me to shut up now and show you the video? Ok, ok! Without further ado, here’s the video of my younger daughter walking for the first time!

I use Google several times every day.  Its standard home page is quite plain, and that’s actually the way it ought to be.  It loads easily and quickly, and is easy on the eyes.  (If you’re using iGoogle, sometimes it can take a few seconds to load — that’s why I still use the original, plain Google website.)

But there are times when I want this Google page to be somewhat jazzed up, yet load as quickly.  And by jazzed up, I don’t mean dressed up with widgets and useful information.  I meant, dressed up with someone I’d like to, ahem, drool over.

And then I tried Groovle.

Ah, now there’s a great idea that actually pretty much signifies nothing!  Groovle presents a search field and page much like Google’s, and in fact it brings you to Google for its search results.  But where Groovle truly glows is the fact that it uses a large photo of someone or something of your choice on its homepage.  It could be your favorite celebrity, animal, nature scene, or even a photo you upload.  I quickly found a page featuring a large photo of Nick Lachey, one of my favorite celebrities next to the search box.  I’m going to use this page as my search page from now on!

I wonder what my partner will pick as his favorite search page.  I hope it’s not something corny like a chihuahua next to the search box …

What would YOU pick as your favorite search picture / page on Groovle?

(Thanks, TechCrunch!)

Two months ago, I blogged about Google Gears, a new Google feature that enables web services to work off-line — that is, you’d be able to use these web services without being connected to the Internet. And I exhorted my favorite on-line office suite website, Zoho, to “gear up” and make some of its services available off-line as well as on-line.

I’d love to say, “Know what? Zoho listened to me!” (And in fact, a Zoho staffer evangelist left a comment on that blog post saying “We are certainly looking into this. Thank you for your suggestion.”) But I’m more than certain that Zoho folks had already begun work on gearing up. And today, Zoho made it possible to view Zoho Writer (its on-line word-processor) documents off-line as well as on-line. In another several weeks, users will be able to use Zoho Writer off-line as well — right now, we can only view documents off-line.

To use this new feature, users would need to use Internet Explorer or Firefox with Google Gears installed.

As TechCrunch points out, it’s very ironic that Zoho Writer has incorporated off-line features before its competitor, Google Docs, did. And by using Google Gears software developed by Google itself!

Update:  Zoho just blogged about this new functionality, and baldly hinted at a new Writer feature coming up next week …

(Thanks, TechCrunch!)

Hello all! I’m back in town after nearly two weeks in the far Northwest — Seattle and the suburbs of Vancouver, B.C. It was strange not blogging the entire time. There were times when I was just itchin’ to get down and start blogging.

And it was strange too not being near the Internet for long stretches of time. But I had some geek things (mostly on my Palm Treo) to make up for it and alleviate some of my itchin’:

• eReader and several ebooks (thank you, Nora Roberts!) on my Treo
• The seventh Harry Potter book! (ok, nothing electronic here, but it does rate high on the geek-o-meter)
• Genius! from Hobbyist Software. See my previous review of it. It’s a nifty Treo program that finds information fast for you. I used it for checking my flight information and finding other information quickly — see the next several bullet points.
• The Wikipedia (used via Genius!) to look up nifty tidbits on Seattle and any other trivia stuff I could think of.
• IMDB (again, used via Genius!) to delve into obscure information like what was the name of the guy who played Superman on TV back in the mid-1900’s (George Reeves).
• Google (yet again, used via Genius!) to find yet even more obscure information like what the highest points in Seattle are (as well as the steepest streets).
• Google Reader (used via both my Treo and on the laptop) to keep up with news headlines, blogs, weather forecasts, my favorite comic strips, etc etc.

No matter how much I loved Seattle, it’s good to be home in suburban Maryland.