Google Chrome and Blogger Issues - Solved!

For those that don't know, I'm a 100% Google Chrome user. It's fast, easy to use, and did I mention it's fast. However, for the last few months I've been frustrated with the fact that I couldn't enter new posts to my blog from Chrome. If I wanted to blog about something, I had to either open Firefox or use a 3rd party tool (like Blogo) to post something to my blog.

Today on my run I thought that it was ridiculous that Google owns Blogger and Chrome, but the two don't work together. Clearly I'm not the only person who's experiencing this problem and I had to figure out what the problem was. I'd done searches in the past to try and figure it out, but the results I got back weren't correct. I wasn't using the proper terms or something, so I played with it and finally did a search for: "google chrome +blogger" and found the problem.

The problem was due to a Chrome Plugin called "MeasureIt" (great plugin by the way). Once I disabled it, I was able to enter all of this text inside my Blogger editor using Chrome. Just another emotional baggage issue that I've solved to allow myself easy blogging again. Maybe I'll start blogging regularly again??

Google Desktop (in your favorite browser)

Google is on top of it when it comes to using the browser as your work station. Google Gears is a big piece to their puzzle too. Here is a cool video that shows how using your Gmail account works when your internet is disconnected (Google Gears required of course).

iGoogle Now

Wow, I've not looked at my personalized Google page in a long time. Today I was directed there when I tried to find out how to translate french to english. In my search results I saw a link to add a translating tool to my Google home page, and this lead me down a series of clicks that brought me to my updated Google home page. Wow! Totally different from what I remember.

Stop: Go there now: http://www.google.com/ig

I really like how they've added the expandable tabs on the left of page. This helps them layout the information very elegantly on the main content area, while keeping the left side as the navigational area. I can hide or show the subcategories as I wish, and showing them let's me scan them very easily and painless.

For example, I have 3 groups:

• Home
• Quantum
• Fun

Note: The fact that Quantum is in this list tells me how long it's been since I've used my personalized Google home page.

Below each group is a list of sub categories. For example, under 'Home' there are all of my various Google services: Blog Reader, Gmail, Calendar, News, Maps, Weather, Notebook, and so on.

Under Quantum, the subcategories are nothing more than daily RSS feeds from various Scientific news sources.

Under Fun, I have local movie times, various bookmarks, TV program schedule, Word of the day, etc...

I could see me adding a lot more categories to this when I find some time. One idea is to add various groups like

• .NET Programming
• Application Design
• Trail Running
• Hiking
• Product Searches

Anyway, if you haven't checked out the latest user interface on the Your Personalized Google Page, you should definitely check it out and try to use it.

Scott Hanselman the Realtor

Wow! I was listening to episode 105 of Hanselminutes and Scott got me excited about planning my upcoming house projects. He discusses using Paint.net along with Sketchup and Google Earth along with VirtualEarth to model a house that he and his wife are building. The best part is that he walks you through exactly what he did to make it work.

This could keep me up all night in the near future. :) Jennifer and I want to make a walk out basement, finish our basement, and build a deck on the front of our house that would connect the front of our house to the back of our house. After listening to Scott's podcast, I can see great value in modeling my house projects and landscape first in SketchUp... then getting the hammer and nails.

If any of this sounds cool to you too, then listen to Scott talk about it: Planning, Placing and Building a House Google Earth and Sketchup. He makes it sound much cooler! If he does decide to get into real-estate, I definitely want him as my Realtor!

Gphone... really!

James sent me a link to a Scoble post about a rather boring (but exciting) new platform called Android from Google... Can you say Gphone?



Of course you should definitely read Scoble's post too since he adds a lot of extra talking points and sparks some pretty amazing comments on his blog.

Moving Hardbarger.com - Phase 2

I finally moved my site over to Google Apps last night. I was unpleasantly surprised when I found out I had to pay $50 for every member in my family. This includes Jennifer, my Mom, my Dad, my Sister, and myself. Heaven forbid I want to add my cousins and other relatives. I thought I was going to be able to add as many users as I wanted, but this is not the case. :(

I'm in the process of getting my email's transferred over, but it looks like I might have to dish out a bit more money for this to be a complete port. I would have thought that as a Premier member, I could add "Standard" users with just email permissions... I spent some time in Google Groups and it appears that many other users are reporting the same problem.

Online Training Log for Runners

Just recently (ok, 3 days ago) I wrote a post about my "new online running tool". Well, I've flip-flopped to another tool since then. Yes, 3 days ago... :)

As I outlined in that post, there is a lot of competition out there and this is my final stop; I finally found the one that fits me. I'm a subscriber to RunnersWorld magazine and I read articles from my blog reader (none other than Google Reader of course). They've recently announced a new online training portal to their site for tracking your data. Needless-to-say, they offer the built-in Google maps tool to create, find, and share running routes as well.

The RunnersWorld.com mapping utility appeared a bit flawed at first, but it was much better than the mapping utility that CoolRunning.com had (which was nothing). MapMyRun.com offered a full-fledge community feel to their site and had some pretty compelling features for us "tech nuts" including an add-on for finding runs directly from Google maps, various blogging links, and other cool things that had me convinced they were "the ones". What ended up selling me on RunnersWorld.com was the fact that they had charts, in depth mileage tracking, very large online community, amazing articles, and they're improving their map sharing.

My only complaint with these training sites is that nobody has an "import" utility to import old data files. They all offer an "export" utility, which makes it easy to leave... but no "import". This seems like a "must have" if you ask me. Especially for RunnersWorld.com, because they are the "new kids" in town with their training log. I've only been running for 8 months... I couldn't imagine the heaps of data that other runners must have.

I posted the discussion on both sites requesting this feature, so I guess you can say that I did my part in getting the ball rolling..? We'll see...

An Extensive Examination of Data Structures

While I coding away and decided to try to implement my own binary tree last night (I know, but whatever...). So, of course, I did some Googling and found "the link of all links". I quickly got lost in all-goodness: An Extensive Examination of Data Structures

This post is more or less just a reference for me... for later.

MapMyRun.com

I've been spending a lot of time with some new (to me) tools for tracking my runs and so on. There are many tools out there that now offer mapping technology with their services. For the longest time, I've been using CoolRunning.com to track my progress, but the other sites offer a lot more features...

If you've ever read any of my posts, you know that I am a big fan of mapping technologies (who isn't?). Well all these other running sites allow me to create maps of all of my runs using customized Google maps embedded right in their site. Needless to say, it appealed to me immediately; integrating the Google Maps API into a running log just makes sense as far as I'm concerned. Just recently I've found quite a few that offer this feature: RunningAhead.com, MapMyRun.com, RunnersWorld.com, etc...

What really sparked my interest about MapMyRun.com was that I actually found them while searching Google maps for something (don't remember what it was now). I was checking out some of the new add-ons and got stumbled upon their "Run Finder". I added it to my toolbox and started searching for runs.

I was surprised to see that there were no routs in my area (Newark, Ohio). There weren't any!! I then did a search for runs in Columbus, Ohio and found oodles... This led me to their site and I setup an account. Their site is easy to use, quick to update and very "tech savvy" for avid bloggers and online nuts (like myself). Needless to say, I've been hooked on it ever since.

If you like to run and would like to find runs when you travel (ie. 5 miler in Vegas or 10 miler in Denver), or wish to add your own runs for others to see, I highly recommend you check out MapMyRun.com. Oh, and don't forget that the next time you are in Newark or Columbus, be sure to check out some of my maps: Lucas28

Update: 8/17/2007
I've changed this post to a testimonial of MapMyRun.com; however I removed all of the content describing how it is my new training tool. When I found their site, I focused on the enhanced mapping utility and the community based mapping service. I clearly overlooked the functionality that was most important to me which was the charts and analysis.

Ouch! YouTube Just Crushed Me

I was setting up my YouTube account, and since it's my first time in here, all of my sections said:

• You have no Channels
• You have no Favorites
• You have no Subscribers
• You have no Videos
• You have no Friends...

Ouch...

Game On!

A while back I said I switched map applications. Well since then, all the map sites have been fighting for my business... I know, you're welcome. :)

Two days ago, Microsoft Virtual Earth came out of no where and included some next level graphics and interaction into their maps web page. Check it out for yourself: http://maps.live.com. Once you install the plug in you can pan, tilt, zoom, create paths, store locations, share locations, etc... anywhere in the world directly from your browser. The only downfall so far is that it takes a while to load, but once it's up and running it's pretty cool. I was able to zoom into my house and see the hill behind my house. I can't do that with Google Earth or Google Maps.

Soon after Microsoft released it's Virtual Earth plug in, Google introduces Google Street View. This is a cool new feature that let's you see pictures at various predefined locations in a 360 degree view. Again, directly inside your browser window. Here is a cool little video to show you what it's all about:

Needless to say, these are pretty fun times for the web! I can't wait to see what they come up with next...