Every now and then I drift into the Google Labs to have a look at the current projects underway. This latest round I was intrigued by several cool projects baking in the Google oven.

Google Notebook

http://www.google.com/notebook

Pros: This is my favorite item coming out of the labs. Especially if you install the "My Notebook" toolbar for your browser. This way you can highlight and right click items on a Web page and save them to your notebook. It is sort of a glorified scribble pad of idea, text and links which you can search on later.

Cons: I haven’t found one yet, but let me keep working with it and I’ll be sure to find something it can do better.

Google Music Trends

Visit http://www.google.com/trends/music

Pros: The default listing isn’t that interesting but once you select a Genres or Country, then the list becomes a bit more interesting.

Cons: It’s just Google Talk participants so the data feeding into this is a bit suspect to say the least.

Google Trends

Visit http://www.google.com/trends

Pros: Presents a visual trend line on various search terms. The regions and cities is a useful subset of data which sometimes shows very distinct differences how users search.

Example: I used "web site, website" to see which term most people search on. Interestingly enough both terms have dropped in search volume from 2004 to 2008 however the news references for the terms has increased in the same time period. Plus, India much prefers the grammatically incorrect "website" whereas the French and Italians lean towards "Web site".

Cons: The news on the right seems a bit odd and out of place. I actually stumbled on two broken links during my short tests.

Google Code Search

Visit http://www.google.com/codesearch

Pros: If you are looking for code examples to steal learn and integrate into your project, this is certainly a good point to start from.

Cons: Just stay away unless your a coder.

Google Mars

Visit http://www.google.com/mars/

Pros: I think I found a real nice piece of real-estate once we find a way to get there.

Cons: For real? Why do we need this? And why does it wrap 4 times when you zoom all the way out? I’m still waiting for Google to drop a Martian into the map as an Easter egg.

Google Information / 411

Dial 1-800-GOOG-411

Pros: Uses voice recognition to locate businesses and then patches you right thru, and yes it’s free. They located "Imulus" in Boulder, Colorado just fine and on the first try. Not bad for a word which is hard to decipher with voice recognition.

Cons: Where is the residential side of this

Transit

Visit http://www.google.com/transit

Pro: Once you find a location which has public transportation the familiar Google Map interface is overlaid by transit locations which highlight when you select a schedule which is close to the time you wish to leave.

Cons: The city availability is pretty limiting, especially in the US where the coverage is scattered and seems to defy logic. For instance why would they have coverage for Grand Junction, Colorado rather then Denver, Boulder or even Colorado Springs? Sorry, no New York or Chicago either.

Let me get this out of the way right now: I haven’t balanced my checkbook … ever.

However, recently after entering the stage of “real life” I thought it might be beneficial to start: budgeting my finances, tracking my credit cards, and generally trying to not get myself into horrendous debt. After coming to this conclusion I started looking for realistic ways to track my finances. Particularly ways that would take as little effort as possible.

Now, there is good news for someone in my shoes. First, there are about 10,000 programs available to do finances on the computer. Some are web based and some require a software installation. However, I have yet to find an online based finance tracking system (such as Mint) that doesn’t scare the hell out of me. This is because they require you to enter in all of your online banking information, including: usernames, passwords, account numbers, and bank security questions (i.e. an identity theft’s wet dream). Okay, so online money budgeting (as of now) is out of the question.

That leaves me to the software side of things, here’s my ideal goal for such a piece of software:

• Fast transaction entering. Preferalbly the ability to pull it from the web, but otherwise accept transaction importing via QIF or CSV files.
• Tagging. A must for working with purchases that belong in multiple categories (i.e. a dinner might be classified as: entertainment, drinking, a gift, and food).
• Fast searching. I don’t want to scroll through thousands of transactions to find what I did on January 10th, let me see that instantly.
• Bill tracking. I need to know what bills I have coming up and how much they are. Preferably I would like to have reminders that take me directly to an online payment site.
• Quick budgets. It’s nice to see a three month graph of my spending, but what if I want to see individual transactions and how I am stacking up for the current month’s budget? I should have this option.
• Security. I want to make sure only I can work with my finances.
• Usability! If the app is slow, the keyboard short cuts suck, or things are hard to find, I won’t ever use it. This app has to be easier to use than my iPod.

After doing a bit of research I came to the conclusion that there are no apps that do everything I want (particularly the online transaction gathering). However, there is one that comes damn close: Cha Ching. Cha Ching is a $40 app that is exactly what you would expect from a group of indie OS X developers. It is simple and intuitive. The application itself is just what I need, something that I can import transactions into and spend less than 5 minutes using per week. It does tagging that is inexplicably easy, not to mention it allows organization via smart folders. Meaning I can create dynamic (self-updated) groups of transactions based on price, tag, date, name, etc. What this means is that within seconds I can know exactly how much I have spent on gas for the month, or just how many transactions have taken place with the word “liquor” (hey! it’s just an example) in the title.

There is room for improvement with Cha Ching. For instance, it’d be awesome to be able to put a web address for online bill payment into each reoccurring bill reminder. Further, global search could work a bit better. Not to mention a find and replace function for transactions (imagine doing a find for the title “diamond shamrock” and globally applying the “gas” tag to it). Still, that said I am extremely impressed with Cha Ching and I hope it will be the answer to my finance tracking. I’ll check back in a few months and let you know how things are going.

I would say there was a three year period after I bought my first Apple product (17 inch Powerbook) in 2003 where Apple simply could do no wrong. Every decision they made, every course of action they took, and every product they released was the best option on the market. DRM? Simply a consequence of the music industry. Faulty laptop screens? Damn those Asian manufacturing plants. Unstable OS updates? It must be the 3rd party hardware, buy some new RAM.

Then sometime during my senior year of college it occurred to me that Apple, like all companies, makes mistakes from time to time. And sometimes, they flat out make bad decisions. Decisions that are bad for the customer, and consequently bad for their reputation. I learned that Apple may be: an innovator, a leader in design, and a class act at marketing, but they are not infallible.

To be honest, my feeling is that Apple gets it right about 70% of the time. This in-and-of-itself is not that great of a percentage. But the fact is that when Apple does get something right it’s usually pretty spot on (iPhone). And despite their smug cocky attitude, they do take user feedback into consideration.

For instance, the upcoming update for OS X (10.5.2) will fix two huge usability complaints from users. First, the ability to view docked folders in hierarchical view. And second, the ability to turn off menu bar transparency. While Apple would never tell you they screwed the pooch on both of these “enhancements” with Leopard, they have still given users the ability to choose if they want them or not.

This is why I can still love and appreciate Apple. Because the fact is, for the most part, Apple cares about their customers and their experience. I genuinely believe that.

So Apple, now that I’ve taken your back, buck up and give the $20 iPod Touch software update away for free. There’s no need to punish people for buying your products. It’s a sneaky and unjust thing to do.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had a plethora of different reactions regarding Amazon’s new reading device, Kindle. Initially I felt that the Kindle was doomed. I figured there is no way that people would be willing to adhere to the strict DRM policy that’s been set in place by Amazon and the content publishers. However, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think the Kindle might have a shot at being a great device. No, not because the device itself is a joy to use, but rather because it offers something we have never seen on the tech landscape before. Free high speed web access without a subscription cost.

Here’s the deal. The Kindle is incredibly important to the future of content distribution and discovery because it offers free 3g wireless internet (mobile EVDO) with the device. Free free — as in the online content isn’t restricted to just content from Amazon but rather it’s full fledge internet. Do you see what I’m saying? The Kindle is the first device in the history of tech devices that gives us the ability to browse the web practically anywhere in the country without having to pay.

Now picture this. An iPod Touch with free high speed internet anywhere in the nation. Check your mail, browse your blogs, download photos and music, all without having to pay a monthly cost. This is unthinkable, and something that we never saw coming from the big telco’s, yet all of a sudden the Kindle has broken the mold.

Yes the Kindle’s ugly, yes the user interface looks slow and frustrating, yes the screen is not paper-white, and yes the battery doesn’t last as long with internet on. But what I am saying is not that the Kindle is a great device, but that it is a great gateway device. The type of device that we need to be successful so we can use other better designed devices in the future.

A while ago I posted a blog about image retargeting, a new form of image resizing that uses algorithms to determine what part of the image is most important and what can be stripped away during resizing.

And while the video helped illustrate the concept of image retargeting, it didn’t allow for first hand usage of the technique. Therefore I would like to direct your attention to riszr.com. An online flash application that allows you to upload images and resize them using retargeting (along with the normal methods). Then you can save your retargeted image out.

Rsizr.com is really well done, and greatly helps to demonstrate just how beneficial and powerful image retargeting is. It even offers advanced features such as area selection for retargeting protection. A technique that allows you to select parts of the image and protect them from being retargeted. Head on over to www.rsizr.com and give it a whirl.