I love Gmail. I really do. But there are some things about Gmail I just don't understand.  I'll limit myself to just two things for today since I am really not supposed to be blogging right now. :)

Advanced Search

Using the search box at the top of Gmail, you can search quickly through gigabytes of email.

• To search a label, you say, label:label_name.
 
• To search for email that you sent previously, you say, is:sent. Same is true for read and stared.
 
• To search for something in the trash, you say, in:trash. The same is true for chat, drafts, spam, and “anywhere” which searches all the Mail including Trash & Spam

Now I realize that syntactically there is something attractive about saying that something is "In" the trash. By the way, labels are not exactly the same as the trash. Labels are Google’s equivalent to a sort of a folder, except an email can be “in” several labels at the same time. This is a very useful concept although it may be a hard one to get used to if you are a long time Outlook user where email can only be in one place at a time. Nonetheless, having three different options to search different kinds of message storage categories (in, is, label) is troublesome and Google’s Advanced Search is not forgiving if you use the wrong modifier. One more possible point of confusion. One might consider another Gmail  syntax has:  as in has:attachment. Now has:  could have been applied to labels as well as attachments because a message has a label. This potentially throws a forth syntax into the confusion.

The only saving grace is that there is a UI which will write the query correctly for you. But it is much faster to use the keyboard shortcut / (slash) and just type the query.

Lastly, I'll throw in that I dislike that you want to search by date, You search using YYYY/MM/DD format. Yikes. Maybe it is me, but I don't typically write my dates that way. I suppose it gets around deciding weather to use US or European style dates, anyway. Good references to Google's help and a good blog entry.

Signatures

The second thing I find frustrating about gmail is signatures. Gmail does not have: HTML signatures or separate signatures for each address associated with the account. Nor can you choose whether you bottom or top post. These seem to be pretty high on the list when I read some of the Gmail newsgroups but Google hasn’t gotten around to adding them. They did add a nifty little addition in Google Laps that allows you to add a random quote to your signature, but I haven't had occasion to try it yet.

Two interesting things happened at the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis.

The first, which I will only touch on briefly, is Bill Moyers’ two performances; first as keynote speaker and the second taking on one of Bill O’Reilly’s cub reporters who was sent to ambush Mr. Moyers. Mr. Moyers’ keynote is a little long, but as beautiful in its writing and delivery as the stature of the ideas. If you care about democracy, freedom of expression, and the future of the media and media ownership, read the rest of this blog entry, and then go watch the speech.

For those who don’t know who Bill Moyers is…among other things, he has been one of the preeminent journalists of the last 50 years. He is the unusual Journalist who can explore difficult, complex topics, ask fair, but tough questions, and make his audience think without condescension, or pandering of any kind and he does it all with grace and eloquence. Mr. Moyers is simply amazing.

The second interesting happening came to my attention when I read Nate Anderson’s blog about Tim Wu’s talk at the same conference. Tim put forward the proposition that “Apple’s iPhone the device is at the center of the battle for the future of the Internet.” This is a surprisingly interesting discussion, even if you don’t have an iPhone or even want an iPhone. Full disclosure, I reluctantly succumbed to getting an iPhone about four months ago and admit I love it. But that’s a story for another blog entry.

At issue is Apple’s sole control over the iPhone. The basis of the proposition is that “generative” technologies like the personal computer and the Internet are at risk of being pushed to the margins by closed technologies like the iPhone.

For a while, I have actually been thinking that the iPhone is currently one of the best things that has happened to the web in a while and certainly the most exciting. Not just because it is helping fulfill the holy grail of a great web experience that you can take with you. It is that, but it is also a possibly an unintended consequence of the lack of Flash and Silverlight for the iPhone that makes it so exciting to me. Here is a case of “less is truly more”. Why?

The lack of Flash on the iPhone this has ensured that there are cutting edge developers thinking twice about porting too much of their content and UI into the Adobe’s proprietary SWF format which has made major strides in adoption over the last couple of years thanks to Flash Video, Flex, and other innovations. To be equally fair, I should mention that Apple has also not permitted Microsoft’s Silverlight on the iPhone either and I don’t expect they will. Apple has, in many ways been rather committed to open standards on the iPhone. Safari is making great strides with support for web standards. That’s to be applauded.

I suppose it is equally fair to say that this commitment to open standards is consistent with Nate etal’s complaint that Apple wants to retain total control over the iPhone. Ironically, by blocking Adobe’s interest in porting Flash to the iPhone, Apple bolsters the argument that open standards like XML, HTML, JavaScript, SVG are the best way to separate content from presentation, and provide accessible content to anyone on any device. In fact, there is little more than a unique style sheet separating superb desktop and iPhone user experience.

Moreover, these technologies are fundamental to Web2.0 and Web3.0. only through open standards can users consume content the way they like it: think: GreaseMonkey, UserScripts, Yahoo! Pipes, mashups, and the like. This is why the iPhone is important even if you don’t own an iPhone. Because for the most part, Flash is the antithesis of the notion that the content consumer has the ability to consume content as they like; it puts the Flash designer/developer in the driver’s seat and forces them to decide in advance, how their content can be consumed. Imagine a snooty chef opening your mouth and force feeding you food the way he sees fit, with no opportunity for you to add some salt or god forbid, Heinz 57 Ketchup. Sadly, I’m starting to see some sites that don’t even provide non-SWF alternatives. They are about the only thing I can’t see on my iPhone.

So from rom that standpoint, Apple standing up to Adobe has been good for the web. The trade off, if there is one, is that Apple sets itself up as sole controller of the iPhone. As Nate, etal. point out, “…closed devices can offer a more controlled environment, better security, and fewer crashes, they can only be altered in ways supported by the companies that produced them” Open Source fans might argue with the better security and fewer crashes due to the “many eyeballs" that look at code in an open source product like Firefox, but I won’t quibble over that here. In my experience, my iPhone is at least as stable as my Windows Mobile devices, if not more so. (I haven't had a chance to use Google’s Android OS yet.)

But until a few months ago, when Apple released an SDK for the iPhone, the initial development potential for the iPhone was extremely limited. Think Web 1.0. The new SDK is impressive and I can't wait to see the apps that will fill Apple’s App store, but I understand Nate, etal's point that in some ways, innovation is stifled by Apple’s control over the iPhone platform. For example, I read today that Apple is talking about designing their own chips for future iPhones and iPods. Building chips will no doubt put Apple's destiny completely in their own hands and allow even greater secrecy during product development, but designing and producing chips is expensive. Cost aside, the more Apple controls, the more control they have over the content on the device as well. This opens en entirely new discussion that people have had relating to content ownership. What does it mean when you bought an MP3 or CD? Can you take that content with you the way you always did with cassette tapes?

One thing for sure, Apple has once again succeeded not just in making a pretty fantastic product that has an impact well beyond the people who buy it and that is impressive.

Update: Here's another interesting article where Jonathan Zittrain makes his case for the dangers of the iPhone. I would love to hear what he thinks of Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies.

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Back in July of 07, I blogged about Safari’s excellent web rendering. Although I’m a fairly ’committed’ (in both senses of the word) Firefox user, I thought Apple did a pretty good job of rendering in Safari. At the time, I also had some complaints about Safari, such as it wasn’t a well behaved “Windows” application. For example, for your convenience, you had to move your cursor to the lower right corner to resize Safari. Gosh, thanks for that, Apple, that’s an awful lot of extra mouse movement. But I’m glad to say that has been fixed; even iTunes behaves properly. At least on this particular issue. Don’t get me started on my other iTunes complaints.

Recently I was helping do some development on a Firefox userstyle for Gmail and had some pretty hairy CSS to dig through. In case you are wondering by the way, Google Apps email and GMAIL are only about 99% the same code. They actually are different from each other. But I digress; for those who don’t use Firefox or don’t know about userstyles, you can use an extension called, Stylish to fix…I mean augment or curtail the look and even featuresof any website. In fact, most popular websites already have a library of changes made by other users that you can add quite easily if you aren’t a CSS guru. Definately worth checking out.

Anyhoo, what I found really interesting is the Web inspector that comes with Safari. Though introduced in 2006, I had never noticed Safari’s Web Inspector. Usually I only use Safari to test content that I’m working on like my website, an eBay listing, etc. I don’t generally use Safari for Webdevelopment much. But I have to say, I found it quite nice. Though not as advanced as Firefox’s DOM insprector, there is an elligance to Safari’s Web Inspector. As usual, even the name Apple choose is nice.

I don’t think Safari will replace Firefox on my desktop anytime soon, but proves to be a bit more than just a pretty face. Now if Apple could just make it a bit more robust; at least on Windows. I know, poor Apple will tell you that is because it is just so confusing to write software for Windows. At lest that’s what their latest commercial, "Breakthrough" would lead you to believe. Sounds more like this is a confession of Apple developers than anything else to me, but I admire their frankness. Even so, the first step is accepting responsibility, and not projecting blame on others. :)

Update: I completely forgot about a very useful extension called, Firebug.If you haven’t used Firebug, you owe it to yourself to try it. It does a lot of what Safari's Web Inspector does and a lot more. True, it doesn't have quite as much panache in some cosmetic ways, but it is a must-have tool for anyone working on web development. Shame on me for forgetting about Firebug.

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There has been a great deal of fuss about the comments of Reverent Wright and his assocation with Senator Obama. With great hesitation,  I'll add something to the discussion. I stand in great admiration of Senator Obama's response to this so called, “crisis” in his campaign. Even Gov Governor Huckabee, certainly no friend of Democrats or Senator Obama, has come out to say that it was “historic”. No one can really say that the clips that have been played of Rev Wright are comforting. However, I would go further than Obama and say look at Rev. Wright's comments in full context. While I still can't agree with everything he says, it is harder for me to right-off the Rev as simply a complete crackpot, or crazed racist.  If you have only watched the 30 second clips, you owe it to yourself to watch at least the 10 minute clip above if you haven't already.

Now there are those who still can't forgive Rev Wright, but we must be careful about the guilt by association campaign that has been waged here against Obama because the Rev was a guest of the Clintons in the White House during the Clinton Presidency. Even the Clinton's Paster, Dean J. Snyder has said,

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader whom I have heard speak a number of times. He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. He has been a vocal critic of the racism, sexism and homophobia which still tarnish the American dream. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize. This is a critical time in America's history as we seek to repent of our racism. No matter which candidates prevail, let us use this time to listen again to one another and not to distort one another's truth.

I am sure that however ridiculous, McCain will use this against either candidate in the General. Particularly the more fuss that we make of it now. Now I am not saying we should white-wash the issue because it may be harmful to Democrats in the General. I agree with Sen. Obama's approach that this is an opportunity to look at some ugly issues that most Democrats and most Americans agree with: issues of Race relations, religions tolerance, and even the war in Iraq and our conduct in future wars. No rational observer can say that America hasn't made mistakes. This is not the time to brush those discussions under any carpet, no matter how ugly they are; no matter how incendiary the messenger.

One last thing. The girl pictured in Clinton's 3AM ad is now an articulate, bright woman and an Obama supporter has some interesting points to make.

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Another interesting article entitled, “What's in Store for EBay? Outlook Hazy”about the state of eBay.

From where we're sitting, it looks pretty chaotic. eBay's CEO is out playing politics; one of the highest-ranking executives is publicly trashing the business; and customers are apparently planning a revolt. There are roughly 248 million registered users  on eBay -- and while not all of them are going to be happy, the company's listings fell 3 percent during the first nine months of 2007, which indicates that a huge chunk of its customer base is taking its business elsewhere.

What do you think—are eBay sellers ready to revolt? Be sure and check out the comments on the article. Some of them are quite interesting.

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I just read an interesting interview with John Donahoe, head of Ebay's marketplace division where he said the following:

To adjust, Ebay is looking at moving away from its traditional initial listing fees and instead taking a bigger commission on a sale.

Well this would put them more in align with Amazon's most common pricing model. If this was executed well, I think it would be a huge step forward. I'm glad to see John reads my blog. I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks of eBay's proposed changes to the marketplace! 

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Two interesting things have happened lately. First, the Mitchell report rocked the world with the unsurprising revelation that Barry Bonds wasn't the only baseball player taking illegal drugs to enhance performance. In response to that report, the Commissioner of Baseball said that attendance has never been greater. In fact, with a few significant dips, attendance generally increases every year. This surprised me given the trend towards building smaller statdiums like AT&T park in San Francisco and the so called, “decline of baseball” that is often discussed.

Second, Google recently released a way to make charts and graphs over the web via Goggle Chart API. I wanted to learn how the API worked so I gave it a try in order to answer a burring question I had on my mind. What is the historic attendance of Major League Baseball?

I found some data at Ballparks of Baseball which is a great site that gives you the nitty gritty about your favorite ball park.I have saved the data in a more useful format in a Google spreadsheet.

Clearly, attendance has grown substantially!  So how did I make this image? I simply created a URL as follows and included it in my blog with a common img tag. Here's the URL

Do fans care about their heros taking drugs? I would like to think so, but the jury is still out. Will all of the players found to have taken the drugs suffer in some way? Perhaps be left out of the baseball hall of fame? Who knows. One thing is clear though, the Google Chart API is a winner.

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A while back I was feeling guilty about running my network printer all of the time but it is just so darn handy not to have to go walk over and turn it on when I need it. But Al Gore had just won the Nobel prize and there was all that fuss about Global Warming, so what was a guy to do?  I went to the local OSH and got a digital timer that let me turn off the printer all night and even have a different schedule for weekdays and weekends. That's about 12 hours day x 7 days a week that I'm no longer running the printer and yet is is always there when I need it. I felt a little better.

But sometimes when I'm up late I try to print. The printer isn't on so Windows will complain that there's no printer! Usually I don't want the document right then; I want it ready to take with me in the morning when I go out or go to work and I don't want to forget to print it or, forget the URL, etc. Now some of you may know that Windows has a way to schedule your printer availability. Usually, go to Start ⇒ Printers and Faxes Right click on the printer you want to schedule and go to Advanced. You should see something that says, “Always available” or “Available from”. That's fine if you want to limit the schedule the same way 7 days a week. I wanted more more.

Using the following command line operation you can pause a printer:

cscript prnqctl.vbs -z -p “your_printer_name”

Using the following command line operation you can resume a printer:

cscript prnqctl.vbs -m -p “your_printer_name”

Using those commands with the Windows Schedule feature (Start ⇒ Control Panel ⇒ Schedule Tasks) you can create a task that will automatically pause and resume the printer appropriately. Now that is lazy like I like it!

This should work on Windows XP Pro and home I believe. Not sure about Vista or 98. For more information, see the Microsoft Knowledge base.

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As you'll see below, Amazon's response to my complaint about a recent sale was disappointing to say the least.

Greetings from Amazon.com.

My name is Laura, and I am an Escalation Specialist with the Amazon.com Seller Support team. Your message to Jeff Bezos was forwarded to me for my review and reply. I will include Jeff's office with this correspondence.

I am sorry to hear of your concerns with our selling fees. Since the fees taken for order #XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXX were correct, we will not be crediting you any additional shipping credit.

As Cassandra stated, the cost of shipping may be greater than the shipping credit you received. The shipping credit for a category will cover the cost of shipping most items in that category.

Also, Amazon.com collects a commission of 6-15% of the item cost, a variable closing fee (which is determined by what shipping option a buyer has selected) and a per transaction fee for non-Pro Merchant sellers (this is currently $0.99). These are the fees we assess for each transaction for all of our sellers.

You may wish to take these seller fees as well as the shipping credit you will receive into consideration when pricing your items.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Best regards,

Laura H.
Amazon.com Seller Support

So Amazon guesses at the shipping cost and prevents sellers from covering the true shipping cost to the buyer without hiding that cost in the selling price which will make that seller look more expensive than the competition.

• eBay Guide, “Making the Most of Media Mail”
• eBay wiki on Post Shipping
• eBay wiki on Media mail

Every reliable source seems to confirm that magazines that have ads are not elligable for Media Mail. Hopefully Amazon will do the right thing...we'll see!