Fueling Fires

With their recent update, it appears they have replaced the links that used to be at the top of your inbox (all, none, read, unread, etc) that you could click to check that subset of emails. The new convention is pretty neat. Now, the “check all” box for your inbox has been replaced with a sort of hybrid checkbox/select. You can check it and as you would expect it, would check all emails below it. Otherwise you can click the select arrow to see a list of those same commonly used subsets that used to appear at the top of your inbox. Clicking one of these options will select the corresponding subset of emails, just like the links used to.

I personally think this is a really neat idea for any criteria based list UI that has a subset of criteria that is more commonly used than most. I always liked what they were trying to accomplish by providing a shortcut to commonly used criteria, but I like this implementation better than the last. Looks cleaner.

Another new addition (at least I believe it is new) that I find noteworthy is also somewhat related to the check all functionality. In the past, check all was limited to only the records visible on your page. Any emails beyond that you, would have to click to that page and hit check all for those as well. I think this is a frustrating scenario that many developers have encountered at some point. When someone truly needs to check all, not just what is visible on the page, often times the solution I have went with is to offer a “View All” option in the pagination. Problem here is you are sacrificing the performance benefit of loading up only a single page of records. With some larger result sets, this might literally not even be an option for you.

Google has implemented a UI here that allows the user both options at the same time. Checking the check all box will check the visible results on the page for starters, but you are then also greeted with a linked message asking if you would like to check ALL results, even beyond that of what is on the page. This offers each solution, but with neither do they sacrifice the performance of paginating results.

I’d like to see them do one thing to take it a bit further. Right now, the link appears to only be presented when you check all options. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t have a link with the same option for the options available in the select for unread, read, etc. I want to be able to select all unread messages, and have it present me with a link that tells me the count of unread messages throughout the inbox and asks me whether I’d like to select those too.

Overall though, I give a thumbs up to the new enhancements.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Pandora and use it literally 6-8 hours a day while at work. However, today it decided that while listening to Bullet for my Valentine radio, that it would throw out a Sarah Mclachlan track. Makes perfect sense. This is not the first, or the weirdest one it has come up and I am sure it won’t be the last!

Very informative alert when running the spell checker in the editor for posting in WordPress.

One can only assume this means no spelling errors? Honestly, I have no idea.

I went to click send on an email today and received a funny warning. See the image below.

Apparently Google scans your email and if it finds the phrase “attached file” in the body and the email has no attachment, it gives you this reminder that you may have forgotten to attach the file.  I know we have all sent out the dreaded email telling people to look at the attachment only we never attached it.  With that in mind, this is a pretty handy little feature.  At the same time, when the warning came up, it caught me off guard and I was fairly confused as to why it did not send my email immediately.  Once I actually processed what it said, it makes perfect sense.  I would assume that Google did not implement this sort of thing for a single scenario, so it makes you wonder what other phrases it is scanning for.  Anyone else encountered this or any others?

Disclaimer:  If everyone else in the world knew about this and I am just out of touch, I apologize!

Anyone else find the feature in Google Talk where it tells people you have left the conversation uncomfortable.  Due to this feature, I feel the need to leave a chat window open at least 10-15 minutes after the end of a conversation to avoid offending the other person.  Maybe I am just nuts, but that’s how I feel!

Parlez-Vous E.U.?

This guy really hit it on the head with his mention of personal accountability.  It’s about time people start owning up to the mistakes they have made and dig themselves out of the hole.  Children who’s parents bail them out constantly through life end up weak and unable to make it on their own in many cases.  I see a distinct comparison between that and the scenario today where the government is hell bent on cleaning up after all the irresponsible people in this country.  That said, I am not accusing everyone that has foreclosed or gone bankrupt as being irresponsible.  Obviously layoffs, deaths in the family, and other situations represent truly unforeseen scenarios that could lead to financial troubles, but if it’s just because someone racked up the credit cards or bought a home they couldn’t afford then I really have no sympathy, nor do I want to be taxed to bail them out!

So last year, I literally never got into the waiting room to buy Cubs tickets, but this year I am in for two games!  I am pretty pumped about it, this is going to be a good summer I can feel it.  I am going to the June 14th  game against the Twins (bleachers) and the August 28th game against the Mets (upper deck infield box).  Should be a great time as always!

Funny story.  I forgot my login to this site I use frequently.  After a few unsuccessful attempts, I completed the password retrieval form and checked my email for the response.  I received no response after a decent amount of time had passed, so I started up their live chat feature to ask for assistance.  They tried to send it again manually with no luck, so I figured it might be an issue with Hotmail.  I asked if I could have the information sent to my work email.  Here is the funny part.  The response I get is that I need to provide my password and last four digits of my credit card.  I had to laugh at the fact that guy is asking me to provide my password as authentication so he can email me my password that I do not know.

Seriously…arguably the worst customer service on the face of the earth.  First off, after six months my “12 month rate” suddenly disappeared.  They told me I was mistaken and it was only a six month rate.  I thought I would bluff a little so I said I would consider canceling my service for satellite if they did not keep it going for the remainder of the year.  Their response was simply, “Would like me to transfer you over to cancellations now?”  I felt like an idiot since I really had no intention of canceling so I just said no and got off the call.  Looked dumb, felt dumb.

So the other day we were having more problems with the service.  Constantly it we were having pixelation and just these pauses that would happen here and there and had been going on since I could remember.  I thought about calling them, but then remembered the above experience, so instead I just called and signed up for satellite.  This will not be connected for another two weeks and I have not informed Comcast of this yet.

In the meantime, I had some issues with the internet the other day, so I gave tech support a call and waited on hold for over twenty minutes and finally just hung up.  I thought I would try again, but this time select the option for purchasing new services.  Shocker, someone picked up immediately.  Good to see that they do not keep enough staff on hand to help existing customers, but keep plenty on hand to sell you more garbage.  I told the guy that I needed tech support and asked if he could connect me without the massive hold times.  He of course replies that he cannot and pretty much acted like an ass to me for having bothered him with this.

Something is seriously wrong because when a business is allowed to be the only provider for their designated areas they basically couldn’t care less about earning their business.  Why would they when its handed to them?

So I donated blood for the first time today.  All went pretty well except for the fact that I moved my arm after they lined things up and caused them to misfire on the first arm.  The second arm went off without a hitch, but I was pretty disappointed by the fact that I lost in my race with a coworker next to me.  I like to win at things.  So I thought about posting pics of my arms, but upon further review, it’s pretty gross so I won’t.