I never really got April Fool's Day. Sorry, but ever since I was a kid, I can only stare blankly (and then roll my eyes) at pranksters. Maybe it was me, or maybe it was the lack of creativity of the pranks... Who knows?

But, recently, Google made me look forward to April Fool's. And that is because of Google pranks. Haha! It gives the statement "Google guys are geniuses" a whole new definition.

So I opened my browser this morning, anticipating a fun Google April Fool's, but because of work, my attention was steered away from Google... It wasn't until Aileen posted about Google AU's prank future search—and, almost at the same time, Joiz asked about it on Twitter—that I remembered about it. And, almost instantly, my eyes were opened. Read full post...

At that moment, I was fixing my GCalendar, and then my eyes strayed to the upper right hand corner, and what do I see? This:

...Ga-huh? So I clicked on the Wake Up Kit link, and here's what the feature is about:

The "wake up" notification uses several progressively more annoying alerts to wake you up. First it will send an SMS message to your phone. If that fails, more coercive means will be used. The kit includes an industrial-sized bucket and is designed to be connected to your water main for automatic filling. In addition, a bed-flipping device is included for forceful removal from your sleeping quarters.

BWAHAHAHA! Nice one.

As if on cue, a friend asks me to look a book up on the net. So I hop on over to Google Books to search for it. But the page loaded, the word Chocolate greeted me, and since I love choklit oh so much, I clicked on the book.

Yummy, yeah? That's not the point. Look closer.


...Wooooooooow! Haha!

I heard there's another one in GMail, but since I haven't seen it myself, I won't post it here until I do.

Though I think this year's Google pranks still won't top last year's GMail Paper, I think they still did good this year. Haha! You go, Google guys!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Sarah's Top 5 Addictions

Mi posted her top 5 addictions and decided to tag me. So, as if this was a follow-up to a similar previous post, I write.

These are my top 5 addictions at the moment. Some of them may have been addictions for a long time now (and will still be for a very long time), but some of them aren't. So...yeah.

Blogging
As if this isn't obvious.

Even when no one was reading my blog, I wrote almost everyday unless school kept me from it. And at times that schoool did keep me from it, I practically had withdrawal symptoms. Haha! So I snatch my old journal (the old school paper one) and write on there instead.

Hm. But then again, I think I wrote in my old school journal even at times that I do get to blog. Ahehehe. Yeah. Addicted to writing, I am.

Pinoyblogero wrote the other day that, before, there was this mentality that blogging was for people in high society. From the comments on the post, it seemed like a lot of people agreed, saying that rich people were the ones who had the luxury (in terms of time, money, and internet access) to blog. Well, I started blogging right around that time (I think). But I wasn't rich. Ahehe. Either (a) the observations were wrong [which I doubt they were], (b) I'm weird [hm... that's likely], or (c) that just shows how addicted to writing and the Internet—and, therefore, blogging—I was, and still am. ^_^

I think I'll go with (c).

Google
I'm a Google-phile, I think most people know that by now, especially if you read my post on the iGoogle teahouse ghost. Hehe.

When I log on the Internet (which I do everyday), the first thing I do is log in to iGoogle and GTalk. From there, I go and use all the other Google services I've got. GMail (mine and the Google App for PinoyBlogosphere), Analytics, and Blogger. I use Reader and Calendar from iGoogle so I don't go on over to their homes unless I really have to. I use Google Docs and Spreadsheets often, and I occasionally check my AdSense and crawl stats in Webmaster Central. I haven't been uploading photos into my albums recently, but if I did, I'd use Picasa. What else? Oh yeah, I've installed the Notebook on my Firefox, too. Heeheehee.

C2
This began back in 2005, when I was practically melting in the sweltering heat (not to mention classic Los Baños humidity) while waiting for my Speech Communication class to begin. I had wanted to get a Coke, but since the nearest store didn't have cold Cokes—"INJUSTICE!!! They have no honor!!!"—I decided to try whatever cold drink they had, which turned out to be C2. Apparently, not many people were buying it because nobody knew it existed.

And so I tried it. And I got hooked. I turned into an endorser in a matter of seconds.

Thus began the tradition of me always having a C2 in my hand, and/or in the fridge.

Tazo® Green Tea Frappuccino® Blended Crème
I'm not much of a coffee person, even though I LOVE the aroma of coffee. Before Green Tea Frapp, I always went for the mocha Frapp on those rare times I could afford to go to Starbucks. But when Green Tea Frapp came to be, that became my usual. And now that I can afford to go to Starbucks every week... Hehehe. Green Tea Frapp luuuuuuuuv.

It's sad to say that a lot of my friends look at me weirdly whenever I order this. Not many of the people I know enjoy my Frapp. They say it tastes weird. Yeah, well, to each his own, I guess. ^^

Blue + Star
Blue = love.
Stars = love.

Put them together and you get a giddy Sarah.

I won't even attempt to explain.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

check 'em out :: 07-04-07

Kaploink! Speedlinking on the fourth of July. Lalalala~

Oh, lookie! GMail now has its official blog. Like, finally.

We all knew this was to happen sooner or later. And now, merely five months after starting his blog, 13— oops! 14-year-old Carl Ocab invades the newspaper! Congrats, Carl!

Copyblogger asks us, "Do you make these mistakes when you write?" I'm pretty sure I don't do those mistakes... But it made me decide to be even more conscious about my spelling and grammar in future posts. It never hurt to be reminded!

Ross Hill writes in Blogtrepreneur.com to reveal the secret to never having to say sorry for not posting ever again.

And how do you get away with a superduperultramega-looooooooong headline like that? Easy. Make sure you've got great content! J. Angelo Racoma makes good points about how blogging is best with great writing

Culture Shiok writes about the Singapore Botanic Gardens. It made me want to write about the such gardens here in the Philippines, specifically the Makiling Botanical Gardens right inside my university, but I don't have pictures yet. Haha! Someday, someday. The only garden I've got pictures of is Sonya's in Tagaytay.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

glammed up Google Docs

I was browsing around the official Google blogs today, and I saw a new post at the Official Google Docs & Spreadsheets Blog: An entirely new way to stay organized. As readers of this blog know, I already said in my google-luuuuuuuuuv post that I wished Google Docs existed when I was still a student. Well, it didn't, and I suppose there's nothing I can do about it, but the cool thing now is that it's getting more improvements.

Eye candy~
It says in the post:

"The entire document list has been given a complete visual overhaul..."

So I strode on over to Google Docs and ooh-lala! Complete visual overhaul it is. I'm lovin' it. ♡

Okay, okay, so maybe it's not so revolutionary. It actually has a classic layout, but a modern look, much like Explorer programs we're used to. It's not just eye candy, really, but the interface is much nicer and easier to use now.

Folderssssssss
Ah, yes. The super-organizer's best friend. Although I already thought that the labels were fine, dontcha just love it when you can file your stuff where they're supposed to be?

Even cooler, our new folders continue to work like the tags they've replaced - your old tags are automatically converted to folders and documents can live in more than one folder at a time.

Oh, thank you, G! Mehehehe. Now we don't have to reorganize everything just because something new is added to the system.



There are other new features, like right to left directionality for spreadsheets, and Google Suggest kind of thing going on in the search.

For more info, you can also check the What's New page for Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

I suppose the only thing that raised my eyebrow is the fact that they entitled their blog entry to be "an entirely new way to stay organized". Er... Folders aren't actually a new thing, and, as I said, the look of the site isn't phenomenally amazing. But, hey, can you blame Google for making an attractive headline? ^^ Yey for the continuous improvement of Goofle products, indeed.

So now, I'm wondering: might this mean that GMail will also get a makeover? Hehehe...

Friday, June 22, 2007

wanting but not wanting

I'm talking to myself about Google. Again.

It's just that Aileen's twitter keeps bugging me. (It isn't meant to bug anyone, of course.) It keeps saying "Wanted still: localisation editor". Not all the time, but it pops up every now and then.

I bet you don't see what's so wrong about that Twitter status. You know why? That's because there IS nothing wrong with that Twitter status. So why is it bugging me?

Easy.

'Coz I want the job.

But then I don't.

Harhar. Talk about indecision. I heard about that job opening when Aileen posted it in GPhilippines on... April... I think. And I've been mulling it over every once in a while since then.

Ever since I fell in love with Google —umm...yeah. I'm a Googlephile, if you haven't noticed yet from my recent posts— I've been wondering what it'd be like to work there. It sounds super awesome, and...

Well, come on. It's Google!!!

Plus, given the fact that I'm pretty obsessed with translation (as most of you have seen from my previous rant, lost in translation), I guess you could say it'd be a good job for me if I get hired.

That is, IF I apply at all.

I probably won't because
(1) I don't meet the requirements [namely the first],
(2) my passport is expired,
(3) I like my present job [Okay, so it's not as cool as working Google, but I like it, anyway], and
(4) there is no number 4.

Oh, wait, there is! Number 4: I'm making way too many excuses, it makes me wonder if I actually do want the job or not.

Riiiiiiiight.

I guess I just have this occasional tendency to box my "dreams" or über-cool things to be... well... to be precisely that: dreams and über-cool things that I can't reach. Most times I actually muster my guts and dive into the unknown (like I did when I applied for my current job), but sometimes the nervousness bug bites me. And so I limit myself. Because of that, I end up not getting that über-cool thing, like I chalked it up.

Sucks.

Ah, well.

In case you would like the job, and have more guts than I do, then, by all means, click the link at the top of this post, and try your luck. ^^

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

lost in translation

When I logged into Blogger today, my first thought was "They can NOT be serious about this."

About what, you ask? Well, about the word-for-word translation of everything, that's what.

For quite a while now, there's been buzz around that Blogger will be made available in different languages. I didn't think much about it. Ah, but I guess I should've braced myself for it. That was my fault, I suppose.

Whenever I use Google and it goes to Google.ph, I always wince when I see the Tagalog version. Don't get me wrong: I actually like — no, LOVE — my national tongue. But there are just some things that you don't translate. Being a freelance translator, I know how awkward (and sometimes simply WRONG) it is to take translation literally.

(I realize now that this post will appeal most to bilinguals. This might not have any effect at all on people who only speak English. Sorry.)

Translation is not just getting an English-"whatever language" dictionary and typing in what the almighty book says. A word can be translated in so many ways depending on context. There are some instances where literal translations of things are out of whack, and there are some cases where you just shouldn't translate at all.

For example— May I cite an example? Thank you. For example, take the "Collapse comments" link.
As shown in my cropped screenshot, it says "Gibain ang mga comment". So, yeah, "gibain" DOES mean "collapse". It also means "destroy". And, you know what? They should NOT have used it here because a Tagalog-only speaker would think that this link will DELETE the comments. You know what they should've used? A simple "itago" (meaning "hide") would've sufficed. But, noooooo~ they decided to stick with the dictionary definition of collapse. Rargh.

I won't go into great lengths of pointing out the many...errr...inappropriate translations... Like it should be "4 na komentaryo". Also, "komentaryo" (with one m! ONE!) actually means "commentary", which is different from a simple comment. A better word would be "puna", which was used in the Posts List. Um. Yeah. I'll stop there. I'll spare you from "Mobile Mga Kasangkapan" for "Mobile Devices".

Things are lost in translation, and that's why it should be used with care. Sorry for being so rant-y about this, but I'm just a bit of a Nazi when it comes to English-Filipino translation (and the other way around). The current setting makes me shrudder. I'm serious.

One might say, "Ah, but Sarah, what about those Filipinos who don't understand English?" You know what? With the current translation of Blogger, I doubt they'll undersand that, either.

This post is not written to discredit Google. This is not a hate post. As most of you know, I actually LOVE Google. And I honestly think that it's very thoughtful of Google to want to make their services available to non-English speakers. But still, I implore the translators: "ARGH get some help, man!" And if my guess is right, and Blogger had been translated by a computer program (or some other such thing), then I hope they fix it.

As for me, I'll just go and switch my language setting back to English. I'm sure other people will, too.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

iGoogle Teahouse Ghost Captured!

I visited Google Analytics the other day, and I decided to check what keywords my readers used to stumble upon my site. I made a pretty interesting discovery.

Ever since Google released the Personalized Google Homepage -- now iGoogle -- it had been a topic of interest, both for Google enthusiasts and casual visitors alike. And, really, what's not to be interested about? The header changes every two hours, and you see the sun (or moon, or whatever else is in the header) change color or location. Details change, usually in an amusing way. My theme is the Teahouse Theme, and I see my kitsune (fox) sleeping, fishing, rowing a boat, feeding ducks, playing the guitar, picking oranges, having breakfast, lunch, and dinner, stargazing, and a few others in between.

But there's one particular scene that evades most people's eyes. Observe.

Exhibit A: Teahouse Theme at 3:32 am


Exhibit B: Teahouse Theme at 3:33 am


Upon closer inspection...


Okay, so the incense burned out. But what happened to the dumplings? Read more...

Here's what happened:


Yuurei ate them! Haha! I found out that a number of users have been looking for this screenshot, the iGoogle Teahouse Ghost, and they surf on in to my google-luuuuuuuuuv post.

This screen was captured in March 22, and I never see the ghosts now, because catching it is so freakin' hard. They don't necessarily appear between 3:32 and 3:33, but they DO appear between 2am and 4am.Many people wish to see a screenie, so here it is, by popular demand! Heeheehee.

(Oh, and I'm sorry about the hideous watermark. Disclaimer: The graphic is Google's, not mine. The screenshot is mine, though, and I claim credits for capturing the Teahouse Ghosts. Hehe.)



EDIT: (October 23, 2007) I caught the iGoogle Teahouse Ghosts again! YES!!! I practically jumped up in my chair and immediately looked at the source. Now I know what the URL of the ghost banner is! But just to make things more fun, I'm not going to say what it is. I WILL say, though, that the secret screen appears at 3:14 AM. (Yes, that's in the URL, too.)

But if you REALLY want to know and have no patience to wait for it, then Google search it. There's a website that lists all the 3:14 screens. Do me favor, though: please do NOT post the URL in my blog. I maintain that it's more fun to catch the 3:14 screen yourself.

Have fun hunting!

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

iGoogle me

iGoogle the new name of Google's personalized homepage. I've been using it for a few months now because... Well, because I love it! Hehe. Read more here.

Anyway, I've been using themes in iGoogle. I said in my other post that the theme on iG dynamically changes, depending on the time in your location. BUT it's accurate only for people in the States. Now that there's iG for countries outside the States, it's accurate to my time. Yeyyyyyy!!! Now I get to see my kitsune doing other stuff aside from stargazing and sleeping (and sleeping while ghost kitsune visit the tea house)!

Other new stuff in iG:
Gadgetmaker - Word is that there are seven new gadget wizards to play with.

1. A Photo gadget (share a series of photos with others)
2. GoogleGram gadget (allowing you to display a new greeting message to someone for every day for 7 days)
3. Daily Me gadget (which will show what you’re currently doing, as well as quotes, what’s on your mind etc.)
4. Personalized Countdown gadget
5. A Personalized List (you can e.g. publish your own top ten list with this, Google says)
6. YouTube video favorites gadget (pictured above, this gadget will let you create a YouTube channel to share)
7. A “Free Form” gadget (an “all-purpose gadget that lets you meld text and image in any way,” Google says)

My community - Here's how it works:

When you publish gadgets to the directory, they’ll ask for your location and name, and the location data will now be used for the “My Community” section to be more localized for your area. These gadgets will be able to be posted anywhere on the web, Google says, just like the gadgets which are currently available (and Google Desktop
should be able to use these as well).

I have yet to try these gadgets... I'll might post something else (or update this post) when I've tried it. Hehe. Happy experimenting, everyone!

--sources: Google Blogoscoped and the Google Blog

Thursday, March 22, 2007

google-luuuuuuuuuv

Many people have told me that I should be getting paid to do this.

But I don't really care.

I just wanna spread the love.

Yes, siree, I'm a Google enthusiast. Addict. Fan. Whatever you want to call me. Google rocks, no matter what other people say. And here's why:

GMail
This is how I first got into the G. Of course, a lot of people have been using Google as a search engine, but when I tried Gmail, I fell in love with it. I love it because it loads so friggin' fast, and organizing mail is so friggin' easy because of them labels, and my inbox keeps clean because of conversations (emails in one thread are kept as one entry in your inbox) and archiving (you can store your emails into the archive and just search for them later when you need 'em).

And and and -- here's one of the best parts -- I get to use Google to send my work mail, yahoo mail, and whatever else mail server there is out there! Yep. If you've got Gmail and you don't know about this yet, go and check it out. Click Settings -> Accounts and you'll see something like this:


Except it'll be your email address there. Ahahaha. Of course. Just click Add another email address. Type in your address in the pop-up, and you're all set! You don't have to log into your other email accounts to send one little email. Of course this is super handy when coupled with email forwarding. Set up your other email addresses so that all your emails get forwarded to your gmail. And then set up Gmail (click Settings -> Filters) to put
labels on them.

For example, I've got my work mail to forward stuff to Gmail, and when Gmail gets it, it puts a "work" label on it. And then I can reply to the email using my work address while still in Gmail. Ain't it ever so cool?!

GTalk
Google's chat thingy. It's lightweight and it's super handy. You know what's the best part about GTalk? You don't have to download it. Seriously. Just log in to your Gmail account, and you see Quick Contacts on the left side of the screen. Pick the contact you want to talk to (granted, of course, that their green light is on, meaning they're online), click Chat, and voila! Instant Messenger in an instant!

You can, of course, download GTalk so you can close your Gmail window and still receive IMs and mail notifications.

Whether or not you download GTalk, all your chat sessions are saved in your GMail for future reference. ^_________^

Blogger
OK. Now I know a lot of people are loyal to LiveJournal and/or moving over to Wordpress. To tell you the truth, I've got an LJ/Vox blog, and I've got one in Wordpress, too. But my fave still remains to be Blogger. First of all, I still think that posting is easiest in Blogger. Sure, sure, other people might try to protest about that. But, hey. To each his own.

Also, with Blogger, I get to fully customize the look and feel of my blog. For free! I was a bit disappointed-- oh, wait, scratch that. I was TOTALLY disappointed when I learned that to modify CSS in Wordpress, I had to pay up. Argh. (If I'm wrong, send me an email and help me fix my WP blog.) Here at Blogger, you can do whatever you want with your HTML, and Blogger would have no complaints. Unless, of course, if your HTML isn't structured properly. Hehe.

Another thing is that Blogger helps you choose colors. In Templates -> Fonts and Colors, Blogger generates the colors from your blog, colors that match your blog, and other colors that'll look good, AND you can shuffle the colors within page elements. All you gotta do is click and experiment. And if you do something wrong, you can always revert back to the original settings.


Sometimes, I reshuffle the colors in this tool just to watch 'em move. Just for fun. And then I revert back to the saved settings. Hehe. It really looks so cool, watching them move!

And you get to insert widgets from third parties, too. In some blogsites, you can't modify the HTML, and you can't put foreign widgets and scripts in. Too bad.

Ah, yes. I love Blogger. Ain't it obvious?

Google Reader
I believe I've already blogged about this. But I shall say something again.

Reader is, like, an answer to my prayers because with it, I don't have to regularly check my friends' blogs for updates. Sometimes I spend time checking up on their blogs only to discover that they haven't updated at all. Bummer. Also, sometimes, I check up on their blogs only to discover that I've missed so many entries! That's a bummer, too.

With Reader, I get updated whenever a friend updates his blog (or site) whether or not they're on Google. I put WP, LJ, Multiply and other wites on my reader, actually. Also, Reader isn't limited to blogs. From what I understand, it started out as a feed tracker. If you want, you can get news and stuff in there.

You can label, favorite and share your feeds, too. Aaaaaaand you can post 'em on your Blogger as a widget! Yey! That's what I love about Google. Everything works together so friggin' well.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets
Oh, joy! I SO wish this existed when I was still a student. It would've made my life SO much easier.

With GDocs, you can upload documents and web pages, as well as spreadsheets, so you can access and modify them anywhere, without needing to download them. This is very convenient because with this, you save your flash drive from getting (or spreading) viruses. Each revision is logged, and you can revert back to any version of your document at any time. You can also collaborate with friends, work colleagues and groupmates. And you can also choose to just share the documents, and let other people view it without changing the content. And then, later, you can save them, or publish them online as web pages, or as blog entries!

Google Personalized Homepage
This is the turnpike. This is where everything comes together. If you're going to get ANYTHING from Google, get the personalized homepage.

It has the classic Google search bar, of course. Like Yahoo! Homepage, you get to choose what to put on your Home. You can put your calendar, news, and whatever else. But what's so cool about this is: you get to put non-Google stuff on there, too. Holy crap. Nothing beats that, I tells ya.

For my Home, I put in Gmail (like, duh), Yahoo Mail, Google Reader, my links (which I can also organize using labels), date and time (the clock looks so nice and sleek!), quote for the day (they're either hilarious or inspiring. Luv it!), time converter (a must for someone whose clients and bosses are out of the country), and my Docs. I can collapse my widgets, and I even get to use tabs and rename them! Aside from my Home, I get the "tips, for the days" tab, and my "converters, translators" tab.

One thing I love about the Homepage is that I don't have to log in to Yahoo! (or anything else Google, for that matter) to see my stuff. Gmail is there, so I see new mail. Reader is there, so I don't have to log into Reader to see new stuff in feeds. If you click on the link, the contents "pop up" and you get to read the entry right there in Homepage. (see the lower left quarter of my screenshot below) And, if I click on other Google services, I don't have to log into them again because one Google log in logs you into everything else Google!


One new and very fun thing about the Google Homepage is the themes. For the meantime there are only a few themes available. They're all very amusing, but even if you don't want a cutsie look, there's a theme for that, too. Personally, I was choosing between the beach theme and the tea house theme. I chose the latter. A fun thing about the themes is that it changes dynamically depending on the time in your area. On my screenie above, you can see the nighttime, early morning, afternoon and early evening versions. The dawn version's cute, too. It's just the nighttime one, except the colors are slightly changed, and the snail's replaced with another animal. The "wee hours" version has ghoul kitsunes in them. It's hilarious! The evening version is nice, with fireflies and stuff around the kitsune. The designers' attention to details is so cool!



So...yeah. That's it so far. I'm sure I missed some awesome thing about Google services. When I do remember what those are, be sure I'll blog about it later.

Friday, February 09, 2007

readings for readers

Waheeheehee. Ain't it fun? Now I don't have to email all a' yus an' stuff. Just check out the readings section on the right side from time to time. ^_____^

By Bloggers For Bloggers

Thursday, February 01, 2007
posted by Mihai Parparita

Reader has always been about sharing your favorite items. One of the more fun things you can do with them is put them on your blog. That way your readers can see what you've been finding interesting, even if you don't have the time to do full posts.

Until now, putting your shared items in your blog required some technical chops, since you needed to copy and paste some code into your template. We'd always wanted to make this easier, so we worked with our friends on the Blogger team. As a result, the entire process now only takes a few clicks for Blogger users*.

All you have to do is click the "Add to Blogger" button on the put a clip on your site page in Reader (found in Settings). Now anytime you share something, your blog's readers will know about it too. It's more fun than a blogroll and always up to date.

* Just to be clear, this only works if you've upgraded to the new version of Blogger. We switched the Reader blog to it a few weeks ago, and it's been working out great (no more waiting for publishing to finish).