Disclaimer
I started blogging with Blogger in 2005 and slowed down as I reached my blogging end in 2010. I have attempted to save all the blog entries in monthly archive pages. It's quite interesting to go back and see my novice, naive enthusiasm for music making and playing, as well as for travelling. I also notice that I used a lot of exclamation marks! I must have been excited. For a while, anyway... I note that I slowed down quite a bit from 2008 onward; the momentum of my first batch of songs—written, released, and toured—had worn off. Also, I was amidst my first real bout of homesickness—I was living in New Zealand at the time.
A couple things to note. Some of my spelling is American rather than British/Canadian (I'm Canadian). Regrettably, I note that I used the word "tits" a lot—for a while—without being conscious of how senseless, unnecessary, and thoughtless doing so was. Please take what you read with these grains of salt.
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December 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
I am fully Googlified
I remember years ago, when it was becoming hugely popular, how I was attracted to Google's clean/uncluttered and simple interface for a search engine. It was fast, too. I haven't bothered with any of the old competitor search engines for years. It was November 11, 2004 when I received my invite to try GMail - I bet it was Chris at work who invited me over the separation wall between our workstations. Since then, things have really snowballed.
I quit my job about 6 months later to travel to Australia with my music - that was when I fully jumped into GMail and out of ISP hosted POP mail. I've never looked back; I've been using Gmail since. At the beginning of 2005, I signed up for AdSense, made about $5 and then left it alone until this year. I've made more money since, and who knows? I might even use AdWords sometime.
At the beginning of 2005 I also started using Blogger, which I've been reasonably active with since. In 2006 I discovered Feedburner and have been using its cool stats and widgets for all of my feeds. The funny thing is that Google bought both of these companies soon after I joined - it was inevitable that I would get sucked down Google's drain! I went willingly.
Oddly, I didn't start using Google Calendar until 2007... odd because it's so useful! Now I've got 9 different calendars, I think, including one for my performances which I feed through Feedburner - very cool and useful. If we back up a year to 2006, we'll see that I started using Google Notebook, which I've relied on quite heavily and consistently. Google no longer supports or develops this tool, but fortunately they keep it active for existing users - with it I organize all my notes on my music business and doings... sort of like a log. I hope that if they nuke it they let us know first so we can export our data!
Let's see, what else am I using (yes, there is a moral to this story, read on)... Picasa Web Albums - why try and create a web photo gallery for my site when I can use Google's? It's pretty quick and easy, and it frees me up to focus on other things. Google Webmaster Tools - great for (at least) getting your website properly indexed. And if we go way back, there's Google Groups - I haven't used a proper newsgroup reader since early 2000! Having said that, I used Google Groups for a short span and honestly haven't been on a newsgroup since 2005.
Two really cool tools are Google Alerts and Google Reader. I use the former to tell Google to "keep an eye open" for specific search terms, and to notify me of new results when found. I used to receive the alerts as emails but I've smartened up and chosen the feed route... which brings us to Google Reader. I LOVE Google Reader, I've got all my blog/news/website subscriptions consolidated in one place that I can access from any computer - great! It's fabulous for staying up-to-date with friends and family (well, the geeky ones), as well as with most of your favourite websites. If you're reading this far, have you considered putting some of my feeds into YOUR Google Reader?
Yes, it's true... I even use Google's Orkut. I have two friends that are connected to Brazil... somehow I got sucked in. For a while I was social networking with Brazilians, ha ha - oh, how I'd love to visit!
I was a bit late jumping onto YouTube; I reckon Google already owned this one by the time I signed up. Very cool, it's just a shame that video quality is lost after you upload. You get this great looking video all ready, you upload it, and poof! It's shit-ified. Fortunately Google adds an option for high quality when you're viewing... but it's never the same!
I even have a Google Wave account now. It looks cool - I wonder if it will catch on? I bet that if they can integrate it into GMail seamlessly, then it'll be almost a no-brainer.
Every day that I use an Internet-enabled computer, I use a Google product. The moral of this story is: I am a geek. And so are you, I reckon. A bit of one, at least - don't deny it.
I quit my job about 6 months later to travel to Australia with my music - that was when I fully jumped into GMail and out of ISP hosted POP mail. I've never looked back; I've been using Gmail since. At the beginning of 2005, I signed up for AdSense, made about $5 and then left it alone until this year. I've made more money since, and who knows? I might even use AdWords sometime.
At the beginning of 2005 I also started using Blogger, which I've been reasonably active with since. In 2006 I discovered Feedburner and have been using its cool stats and widgets for all of my feeds. The funny thing is that Google bought both of these companies soon after I joined - it was inevitable that I would get sucked down Google's drain! I went willingly.
Oddly, I didn't start using Google Calendar until 2007... odd because it's so useful! Now I've got 9 different calendars, I think, including one for my performances which I feed through Feedburner - very cool and useful. If we back up a year to 2006, we'll see that I started using Google Notebook, which I've relied on quite heavily and consistently. Google no longer supports or develops this tool, but fortunately they keep it active for existing users - with it I organize all my notes on my music business and doings... sort of like a log. I hope that if they nuke it they let us know first so we can export our data!
Let's see, what else am I using (yes, there is a moral to this story, read on)... Picasa Web Albums - why try and create a web photo gallery for my site when I can use Google's? It's pretty quick and easy, and it frees me up to focus on other things. Google Webmaster Tools - great for (at least) getting your website properly indexed. And if we go way back, there's Google Groups - I haven't used a proper newsgroup reader since early 2000! Having said that, I used Google Groups for a short span and honestly haven't been on a newsgroup since 2005.
Two really cool tools are Google Alerts and Google Reader. I use the former to tell Google to "keep an eye open" for specific search terms, and to notify me of new results when found. I used to receive the alerts as emails but I've smartened up and chosen the feed route... which brings us to Google Reader. I LOVE Google Reader, I've got all my blog/news/website subscriptions consolidated in one place that I can access from any computer - great! It's fabulous for staying up-to-date with friends and family (well, the geeky ones), as well as with most of your favourite websites. If you're reading this far, have you considered putting some of my feeds into YOUR Google Reader?
Yes, it's true... I even use Google's Orkut. I have two friends that are connected to Brazil... somehow I got sucked in. For a while I was social networking with Brazilians, ha ha - oh, how I'd love to visit!
I was a bit late jumping onto YouTube; I reckon Google already owned this one by the time I signed up. Very cool, it's just a shame that video quality is lost after you upload. You get this great looking video all ready, you upload it, and poof! It's shit-ified. Fortunately Google adds an option for high quality when you're viewing... but it's never the same!
I even have a Google Wave account now. It looks cool - I wonder if it will catch on? I bet that if they can integrate it into GMail seamlessly, then it'll be almost a no-brainer.
Every day that I use an Internet-enabled computer, I use a Google product. The moral of this story is: I am a geek. And so are you, I reckon. A bit of one, at least - don't deny it.