Got Wills

I’ve been using Google Buzz since it was activated on my account yesterday and I really like it… but, I usually do like cool new stuff from Google. The real question is going to be, “Can I get my friends and family to start buzzing, or even follow my buzz?” So far, that answer is a resounding, “No.”

I have 1 family member and 1 friend that has joined buzz and followed me. I also have 1 family member and 1 friend that have followed me, but don’t seem to have buzz’s themselfves (not sure how that works). Anyway, I’ll ride the buzz and see what happens. At least there’s a lot of good technical talk on there right now (Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, and Kevin Rose, just to name a few).

New Server Setup

First of all, this blog is now running on it’s own machine, powered by Debian 5.0 aka Lenny. The installation had a few problems, of course, which will be discussed in a later post.

Google Wave

Well, I finally got my invite to Wave, and I’m loving it, although, it would be a lot better if more people I know used it. I got my wife to use it (somewhat reluctantly) but almost nobody else I know has or even wants to wave.

I’ve got 6 invites left, so if anybody wants one, let me know in the comments before any of my facebook friends or coworkers do and they’re yours. Make sure you use your correct email address. Also, the invites don’t go out right away and I’ve heard that gmail accounts generally receive them faster than other email accounts.

I’m also working on a Google Wave client for Windows Mobile. It’s still very early in the development stages, more about this later.

Navajo County Web Site Redesign

Once again, the powers that be are asking for a Web site redesign. I like a lot of their ideas and am looking forward to it. I’ve started by making the width 960 pixels, but haven’t had time to do much else. We’re going to try moving the menu to the top of the page (above the header).

The county has signed up for a facebook and twitter account, so now I need to find a way to incorporate badges or something for those into the redesigned site. I’m also creating some javascript tools to make the text bigger or smaller, show a printable or emailable version of the page (it already prints without the background, header, or sidebar).

New Site for NAYFL

I’m creating a new site for the Northeastern Arizona Youth Football League (NAYFL). I’m building a database to store scores and schedules, which I’ll use to automatically update the standings on the site. I think I’ll be writing the site in PHP, I was thinking about going with Ruby on Rails, but I don’t think there’s enough database integration to the site to warrant that. I’ll post more details about the database setup later.

I just came across Psi today while trying to find a way to sign out a session of Google Talk running on my home computer (I was at work). My wife was sending me messages and I was only getting some of them, it was really getting annoying. Anyway, it turns out the feature is not yet available in the Google Talk client, but I saw Psi in the available clients on the Google Talk page… and I hadn’t seen it before.

Psi is a free instant messaging application designed for the Jabber IM network including Google Talk. Fast and lightweight, Psi is fully open-source and compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

I was browsing the site and noticed a lot of features that looked great to me (I’m sort of a feature hound… even for features I’ll never use). Encryption, multi-user chats, and remote client control… could it really be, the exact feature I’m looking for?

Always-on security

Using the same SSL technology that makes it possible for you to safely shop on the web, Psi automatically encrypts its communication with compatible IM servers to provide a secure connection over untrusted networks like public WiFi access points. For advanced security needs, Psi can also encrypt messages end-to-end with OpenPGP.

Leading the way

Psi’s developers are actively involved in the Jabber community, working hard to ensure that Psi fully supports the standards for features like avatars, multi-user chats (with full admin control), remote client control, and more. It’s standards like these that allow people to communicate smoothly with each other on the Jabber network, and Psi ensures that you’ll never miss a beat.

There’s a couple of things I miss from Google Talk, I like the chat display more, being able to search contacts, and having the email button right in the chat window. However, the remote client control makes it worth the switch by itself, not to mention all of the other features built into Psi (adjustable auto away, auto offline, and connect through proxy). To enable remote client control, you’ll need to check the little box in the advanced page of the options.

You can also make it portable (not a huge deal, since all you need to do is log into your inbox in GTalk to do the same thing, but it will give you remote client control).

When searching for the remote sign out for the Google Talk client, I saw quite a few forum posts from people who wanted this feature and were switching to other messaging platforms because of the missed messages and such. I wanted to let everybody know about this great product.

Way to go Psi Team.

After reading Om Malik’s and Michael Arrington’s posts about GOOG411, I decided to give it a try. The voice was a little hard to understand at times, but it worked rather well, listing the pizza joints around my place ordered by distance, however, it still had a listing for a pizza place that hasn’t been around for a year or two… funny thing is, it listed the restaurant that took it over right after the old listing.

Anyway, the service is very easy to use and will even connect your call for free. You can also have google send you a text message with the listings if you prefer. Pretty nice, especially when Verizon Wireless charges $1.50 for the call.

They have a nice cheat sheet with all the neat stuff you can do, including saying or keying your zip code instead of city, state. Now if they get residential listings on the service… I’ll be changing my phone book listing from 800-FREE-411 to 800-GOOG-411.