Decade of searching

Google turned 10 today! Their homepage has an interactive timeline to chronicle the past 10 years. Pretty interesting...if you're a Google fan like me. =)

First day of school

Today was my first day of school! I was pretty nervous ahead of time, but once school started, it got a lot better. I think most teachers get nervous before the first day. There are just so many variables! Even if you have taught for 20 years, the group of students coming in is different from all of them. But that's why I think teaching is so great!


I felt much more competent this time around. After being in three different schools in three years, it was wonderful to know the system and expectations for once. I left school with more energy than when I got there, which to me signals an excellent day.

In other news Google made two big announcements today: a new version of their software program Picasa and a web browser called Google Chrome! I downloaded both of them this evenin and love the new features. Picasa is more integrated with the web and tagging, while Google Chrome was built on simplicity. It's very streamlined and quite similar to Firefox (actually, it imports all your passwords and bookmarks from Firefox automatically for you!). The two companies are teaming up (their financial agreement is through 2011) to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Looks like a good step towards that!

The G-phone

The latest rumor buzzing around the Internet was Google's so-called "Gphone"--that Google was developing its own phone to compete with Apple's iPhone. Well, today Google announced that they aren't designing their own phone: they're designing an operating system, applications, and a platform for many other companies to use to design their phones. Here's the announcement from Google. This has the potential to change to mobile phone industry, making it cheaper for companies and ultimately, consumers, as well as providing an opportunity for any high school tech wiz to write software for a phone!

Now that anyone will be able to write software for phones in this alliance, people are free to dream bigger dreams! Here's a cute video Google made asking kids what their magic phone would do:

Google Street View comes to Philly!

Perhaps the best news of last week was when I discovered that streets in Philadelphia were added to Google's Map website. Street View is the newest addition to Google Maps. They drive around with a car taking hundereds of pictures a minute. Using photo-splicing software, they connect all the pictures together to create a seamless image of the actual street people can drive on. This is unbelievable. Try it out! Go to my house on Google Maps. Then click on the street view button. What you'll see is a view from my front porch! Turn 180 degrees and you'll see my front door--complete with a beware of dog sign. Seth and I guessed that the picture was taken this summer, as you can see his new air conditioner in the 2nd floor window.

The possibilities of this are quite fantastic! Imagine getting directions to a location, then pulling it up on the map to see exactly what the landmarks are near your turn!?! Pretty amazing.

Earn $10 from Google

According to their website, Google is now asking for volunteers (or "independent contractors) to go to local businesses and get their information: business hours, phone number, and take a few digital pictures of it. Google will pay you $2 for the info, then another $8 when the business confirms it! Google will use the information and use it to improve their local search.

Google Earth wonders

PC World has a fascinating article on weird and really cool things found on Google Earth's free software. You don't have to download the software to view the images...just visit this page.

YouTube debates

According to Google's company blog, there will be a forthcoming debate among democratic presidential candidates on July 23 that will features questions exclusively from people uploading their questions from YouTube! Last election season was the first one when blogging truly took off; I think the user-generated content era is simply oozing into the political environment even farther.

In other news, I've been extremely busy this week with school finishing up and assuming leadership roles in several areas (students run and church family ministries, mostly). I'll try to catch up here soon...and I have pictures of events to prove them, too!

Crazy times

I hope to post later today or tomorrow with an update regarding my week thus far. Alas, there are final projects to collect, power point presentations to grade, and e-mails to send!

But take heart! I do have some fun reading (well, for me...maybe not necessarily for you):

Google humor.
A rare inside look at how Google works.
More info on how Google searches.

Pyramid

Last night our home meeting met in a park for dinner. We had a great time just hanging out, enjoying the weather and delicious food, and entertaining conversations. Before everyone left, we made a human pyramid! I would have volunteered for the bottom, but I thought my knee would be better standing.
Then we got to talking about making a pyramid scheme, so a few of us posed for that too. =)


The latest news for Google includes new features to their Maps software. It's only available for a few cities now, but they have data for a bunch more and will be adding them soon. Google also changed their Korean homepage to add more animation. Is this a test run to eventually change the simple Google.com to a more cutesy page?? Who knows.

Microsoft just announced a new product called Surface that I believe will change the face of waiting rooms (and eventually the average end table!). Touch screens with even more functionality! I'm excited.

I also had my tire fixed yesterday, so I won't have any more tire babies popping up. Just kidding, bad pun...but I did fix my tire; the spare is safely back in the trunk where it belongs.

Some Google humor

Sarah got an e-mail with this on it, and it's pretty funny. Go to Google Maps and get directions from New York to London. (or just click here for a shortcut).

Notice instruction 21!

Bedside thoughts

As I've been surfing the web recently, I noticed a few things that interested me. Hopefully you'll find them to be interesting too!

A recent study says that simply by asking people a question about their behavior, they will alter it to what you ask. For example, the study asked people how often they skip class, and the people who were asked the question skipped class an average of more than one more than the control group. This has pretty big ramifications in the advertising world! Maybe those surveys aren't as passive as they once seemed...

Google just took the wrapping paper off a new service called Google Trends. I think this has the potential to best pulse of our culture yet. Trends uses a complicated formula (or as they like to say, algorithm) to sift through all the search results to highlight the ones that have become more popular recently. You can discuss or read discussions on specific terms you don't understand to see if why that term has become so popular recently (unfortunately, most of them have to do with pop culture items such as the bachelor, american idol, dancing with the stars, etc.). Still, I think it's a neat tool.

Another neat tool that has great potential if combined with the right social networks is Who Is Sick. Visit the site, type in your zip code, and it will show you a listing of the people in your area who have annonmyously posted with their recent illnesses. You can even look back to past weeks to see what germs are going around! If enough of the general population did this, doctors could watch diseases spread and/or prepare people appropriately for the latest disease. One of two things need to happen for this to actually be effective:
1. Allow Google or somebody else to somehow strike a deal with doctors to allow them to catalogue their diagnosis of patients' symptoms.
2. Link up with MySpace or Facebook or another popular form of social networking that people use often and would update with their sickness.

Finally, a closing thought. Recent reports have Bloomberg, mayor of New York, considering an independent bid for president. That would make three strong candidates from New York in EACH PARTY! Guliani=former NY mayor, running republican. Bloomberg=current NY mayor, running independent. Clinton=current NY congresswoman, running democrat.

Thinking about running for president in the future? Better head East.

A visit to the ER

How did you spend your Sunday morning? I had expected to visit my home church at First Reformed in Zeeland, but instead, I decided I need another type of healing and visited Holland Hospital's Emergency Room. It all started Saturday night when Peter Van Wylen invited me to play ultimate frisbee with him, Brian Mulder, and some other friends. Of course, I jumped at the chance. The game was going well until I dove to knock a frisbee from the outstretched hand of Peter. I landed directly on my knee cap and found myself limping for a good amount of time afterwards. Later that night, I was in considerable pain whenever I moved. I woke up about every hour because of the discomfort.

When I woke up Sunday morning, I couldn't move my knee at all. So, my mom and I paid a visit to the ER. The doctor x-rayed my knee and found it to be negative--no broken bones. He thought I probably tore a ligament or tendon, but those would heal on their own if given enough time. He gave me a black Velcro leg brace and told me to keep the knee elevated and iced, and prescribed some vicatin for the pain. The official diagnosis was a knee sprain. Sarah called her dad (who is an orthepetic surgeon), and he confirmed that it was probably a bruise or something to the elements under my patella.

Sunday was a rough day. I did not feel good at all (I think my allergies for the past weeks may have combined with a small infection to knock me out). Plus, I was sad that I was staying in Holland for the week instead of teaching one of the last weeks of computer class this year or running with me kids. Sarah helped me make the decision to stay by asking guiding questions such as "do you need to be there for anything this week? can you be an effective teacher with your leg up on your desk the whole day? do you have any sick days left?" So, I decided to forgo my flight to Philadelphia and hunker down at home for the week.

The time has passed quickly already! I've had a bunch of papers to do for my masters program, which worked out well that I'm here just hanging out. Tony came to visit last night, and it was great to talk with him about how he's doing...he's so excited to marry his girlfriend for almost four years, Christen Conner. Their wedding is going to be beautiful; I can't wait!

I'll have to get some pictures of my nifty brace. Until then!

Another convert

Hope College is converting to Google's cross-platform of services...including webmail. Why did I graduate when I did??

Back in business

It feels good to be back. After a wonderful five days in Florida, Seth drove me home from the airport last night. My flights went well, except for a little scare in Cincinnati where I had 20 minutes to get off the plane--I was in the last row--catch a shuttle, and run across a terminal to get on my flight. I arrived at my gate at 7:52 when my flight left at 7:55...AND THEY LET ME ON IT! I was thrilled. My expectations were low for my baggage to arrive in Philly with that short layover, but low and behold, my bag was the third one off the rack! I'm going to have to write Delta and thank them for their stupendous service.

This morning I picked Sarah up at the airport. It was SO GOOD to see her again! There were times when it felt like the 11 days we were apart were short, and even more when it seemed like the days were long. Either way, she seemed like a new friend again. Unfortunately, she was less fortunate with her baggage, which should be arriving sometime this afternoon.

Google just announced a free 1-800 411 service. You can call Google at 1-800-GOOG411 from any phone and it'll connect you to a voice activated service for local search results. They'll connect you to the business for no additional charge.

I don't have school today, which is a tremendous luxury. This week is going to be a CrAZy one with my birthday on Wednesday, flight to Holland Thursday, and wedding celebrations on Fri/Sat for Walter and Lydia. I'm going to do my best to stay ahead on my masters class assignments to avoid falling behind whilst in Michigan.

April Fools...Google style

One thing I enjoy about Google is that every April Fools Day, they "create" a new service for people. Here's what they did this year as a joke:

Google TiSP
Google Paper

Okay, so it's an April Fools Day joke for the computer geeks out there, but I think it's pretty funny.

Google tip

Google has a text messaging feature that can be a lifesaver. Just text GOOGLE (466453) on your cell phone with the message as your search. They'll sent you a message back with your search results. If you want to try this out without any text charges, visit Google Mobile to test it. I haven't used it on my phone yet, but I plan to if I suddenly need to find a pizza in the 19131 area code! (just type in pizza 19131 and it does the rest!)