Chicago at Night! + Photo Upload Update

It's a terrible excuse, but I've been so tapped out with so many things to do for work lately (plus back injury) that I have not been blogging.

Anyhow, time to catch up! :)

I spent a couple of last week in Chicago, a city I truly love. I sometimes can see myself transplanted in Chicago and go about my merry way. It's a city that reminds me of Toronto but in an American way. I don't know if that makes sense, lol. Anyhow, one of the things that Chicago has certainly done WAYY BETTTERRRR than Toronto has is preserving all their old buildings and putting some emphasis on restoration. Wish Toronto did the same!

I remember taking these pictures the night before Chicago was about to get hit by a blizzard. Well, as someone from Toronto, how one defines a blizzard is fairly relative :). I braved the cold (it was really really really cold) with a local friend who was kind enough to bring me around the city.

Here are some pictures!

On another note, I can't stand how Blogger minimizes my photos to a certain size and it's frikkin fugly. Weirdly enough, I was able to manipulate my photo size before at the Dynamic theme that Blogger offered. I tried to go back to a Dynamic theme for that sheer reason, but now I am unable to resize my photos anymore.

Wanting to keep this blog and its tools in the Google family, I also tried to download and use Picasa and c'mon, it's seriously the most confusing photo upload platform ever!! I have Picasa on my Mac and I still have no idea how to link my photos to my Picasa web account despite being logged in.

I was so peeved with the whole Blogger/ Picasa fiasco, I actually created a WordPress AND Posterous account just to find an alternative to this photo issue. I do like both platforms but I also like Blogger. I'll eventually make a decision, but for now, my photos are uploaded on Flickr.

That's it for now!

Toodles noodles.

XO,

Care

Google in 2012

Hola everyone. No posts yesterday, it was too cold and my fingers were numb. Just kidding, hehe. Yesterday was just the first day back at work and I was bent on being focused :).

Anyhow, as the new year starts, there are articles now published about what Google should be doing in the new year. Here are some examples and I've summarized all the main points for you because who has time to read all of them right?! (me.. lol):

4 Big Moves Google Should Make in 2012

1) Google+ comes into its own

2) Android puts its house in order

3) Ceding tablet territory while building content

4) GDrive cements cloud domination

What Google Should do in 2012

1) Release a killer tablet (a.k.a. iPad killer)

2) Stop talking about GoogleTV and just start shipping it (gawddarnit!)

3) Raise the bar for what's ready to ship

4) Aggressively design for users, not nerds

5) Stop playing catchup.

6) Compromise less, play hardball more.

What will Google do in 2012

1) Launch an iPad competitor

2) End Google+

3) Google Wallet

There are a gabillion other posts out there but these 3 were my favourites. My POV is a mixture of the 3.. but I am quite confuzzled as to why no one is talking about the Google Wallet more. Um.. hello? NFC? I totally believe that Google can up its game in this space and subsequently endear itself to end users, especially as merchants and customers alike are looking to alternatives to cash/processor-merchant relationship. This is certainly obvious with the success of such payment-disrupting organizations such as Square.

Double this up with Google and its recent acquisition of Zagat. Google should perhaps look into rolling this whole NFC bit to a portion of its Zagat-rated merchants as a pilot, provide them with a minor incentive (and their regular customers) and see how it goes. I can see this building momentum (at first, locally) and a widespread adoption of NFC technology will follow. They can even focus on large local events (such as the London Olympics as post 3, point 3 states) as a start!

Note that NFC is not only for payment processing. Here's something I just thought up:

I'm in a new city and there's a tag for a cupcake shop just posted at a traffic light post on a popular street corner.

I can then scan it and find its location. Google Maps will bring me to the location.

I arrive at the location and I see an amazing cupcake display with all these yummy goodies.

All of them are tagged of course with what flavor it is, maybe even the ingredients and price.

I can then start scanning what cupcakes I want and voila, my list goes to the cash where I can then use a (hopefully) encrypted payload. :) While I eat my cupcake at a local park, someone asks me where I got them. I can then NFC the info to them which will then start up the process again.

Nom, nom, nom, nom.

Oops, here I am blabbing on about NFC but if you don't know what it is, this video talks about it:

Fully explained by folks from Google to boot (note that the first 17 minutes are what appeals to the business users and the remainder of the video is more technical. Skip to 39 minutes for Privacy and Security).

One of the points in the list above is also to design for users, not nerds. I get that. I'm not a technical person and I love Apple's intuitive designs and feel that Google can certainly make things a lot more 'user-friendly'. Perhaps to the point where its technology does not and will not necessitate a manual. That's the gold standard. I think NFC will certainly be more talked about if it reached more of a greater mass of end users, specifically those that are not too technical.

Okay, all for now!

XO,

Care

Cost: Free

Tools Used: Zagat, Chrome, Blogger, Youtube, Google, NFC

Google user (a.k.a. me hehe) update!

As you folks know, one of my goals for this site is to use Google-related products as much as possible.

So far, I have been kinda successful! Here's why:

1) I've signed up for Adsense. I also signed up for Affiliate Networks, but I'm still learning that (I'm pretty fuzzy as to what it is.). I have a day job and so I've been trying to understand the whole network of solutions Google has to offer to a new website owner like myself on my spare time in addition to creating new things of course :)).

2) This is a nice quick summary of what Google has come up with for Website owners: http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/website-owner/

So far, I have submitted my URL. I've browsed through Rich Snippets and Webmaster Tools, but have yet to commit as I still need to familiarize myself to what they are as well.

3) I have started working on my Google+ account. Stay tuned! :) Just from working on it on a high-level, I certainly have some feedback I'd like to share.

Here is how I have not been successful (I used other platforms, eek!!):

1) I signed up for a Twitter account. I realize the power of Twitter and how it will allow me to reach these other folks around the globe! In addition to running this blog, I am also a tech geek at heart and follow the updates (or so-called updates as some are based on rumors) that Google will be implementing something that is somewhat Twitter-esque (I made this term up, lol). As of now, Twitter is the most 'lightweight' way of connecting with micro-Twittermunities (I also made this term up, hehe) with just the aid of a hashtag (#) and Google+ is a little heavy.

2) I connected Twitter to my personal Facebook account which then connects to this blog. I currently do not have a Facebook page created specifically for the Frugal Hobbyist but perhaps in time. Any updates I have on Twitter will be posted on Facebook with a direct link to the blog. Yes, I know that Google+ serves to compete against Facebook but I have close to 700 personal friends on that platform and I certainly want to share with them my blog and its updates rather than focus solely on my personal Google+ profile which I don't have quite as many 'friends' on. A mass migration needs to occur.. so with that, I say "Vamos!".

Some feedback:

1) Does Google have a main 'information integrator'? Can I just set up ONE main Google account and then they can have a checklist of some sort of the products I want to participate in. The information I then provide in that ONE main Google account is then passed on to the subsequent platforms? Kinda like the SSO (single sign-on) concept in Enterprise solutions but on Google.

I just feel that Google can definitely be more 'intuitive' and take this whole experience to the next level without having bloggers do redundant but admittedly, necessary tasks. Automation is the key on this one.

2) Maybe this is just my style but Google can certainly benefit from some sort of a visual map out of their solutions. I find the website to be very page-based. Can Google not have one giant main page with the main logo in the middle and have little arms labelled as Blogger, GMail, Youtube, etc. on each arm? Sort of like an interactive Mind Map of the Google solutions! I would LOVEEEE that.

3) This does not make sense from a business case perspective for Google, but since I am currently using Twitter and Facebook, it would be PHENOMENAL if Google can come up with a little plug-in that will allow me to automatically post an update on Twitter which then updates my Facebook which then directs my readers back to this site whenever I post up an entry. An infinite loop of social media giving, I love it. Alas, I know that this is just a pipe dream (for now). :)

All for now! Will update as I go!

XO,

Care

Cost: Free

Tools Used: Blogger, Google, Chrome