Memory Hierarchy

First that IPO, followed by an earthquake all while I am sick at home.

Added Saturday: and I missed a party at the office too. Well at least I was there when we turned Gmail on a month ago. Still I can't believe Kevin gave Al Gore a Randompixel camera!

I am still recovering from nasty cold/allergy/whatever and trying to look bright sides: I could easily afford $40 on a visit to doctor's office and a few pills of antibiotics. I took naps for the first time since, well quite some time ago. Friday I even shut down the computers (another rarity).

Not so bright sides: well just about everything on TV news. Then what else is new?

Read the whole thing or read the shorter version.

should've written it yesterday: Bless America & California, whose April sun dazed me so many years ago.

This weekend was super fun thanks to my aunt and cousin, who flew in from Michigan in secret to surprise my Mother for her birthday. Weather was beautiful and we didn't need jackets in San Francisco. Mother liked our gifts and stunts and was happy.

Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics -- pile up Xserve boxes as you need more CPU. Neat! [via Steve Neiderhauser]

Some lucky Blogger users received invitation to Gmail.

Gmail Gems or Secrets of the Gmail Wizards

Another review from San Jose Mercury.

A New York Times article describes how millions of Americans are sticking to good old dialup for many reasons (money, time, inertia, etc). I personally know of a few software engineers who still use dialups. ObGmail content: try using Gmail with dialup. It is still fast.

- apartment ratings -- mostly depressing reading
- yard work for my folks -- so much for digital revolutions and whatnots
- hours of family fun talking this and that -- wish we did it more often.

Volume 3 please!

As people say it's a must read.

Sometimes I wonder if Google's ads are, you know, too un-intrusive and un-attention grabbing, beining ultra-short text set in pale colors. Then I see something like Eric's contrast of Gmail ads vs other graphic ads and come to appreciate Google's ads. Take a look!

Gmail Hacks -- a blog for tips and tricks for Gmail users. Coming real soon.

Thanks to loonyone I read about categorization of dystopias and began to add a few more categories but stopped in time. Why bother? Better play the last scene of Life of Brian? All dystopias are about present condition anyway and I wonder how much of dystopia literature is actually escapism in disguise.

See Kevin's explanation on Gmail accessibility issues.

[Update: yay for Kevin. Mark Pilgrim, who had thrashed us about accessibility, now says: "Kevin Fox, a user interface designer at Google, says Google is aware of these problems, and that accessibility is very important to them. He also points out that data export is a planned feature. Once that feature is available (even for a fee), I can imagine using Gmail every day."]

Jason has a collection of links to more Gmail posts.

This week is the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death as radios keep reminding me. How I felt very bad when Live 105 broke the news. It was a year after Waco massacre, an event that made me tune out Clinton, who went on to disappoint me even more with his spineless inaction in Rwanda. Oklahoma came a year later and well, everything seemed pointless afterwards.

Kevin is absolutely right that Gmail asks for far, far less information from users: just your name. Others ask for far more intrusive questions and then sell your answers to third-party! Gmail does not do that. "We will never rent, sell or share information that personally identifies you for marketing purposes without your express permission."

[Update: I deleted poorly worded paragraph. Get my gist, not my words.]

[Upadte 2: webpronews.com picks up Kevin's post.]

First of many to come.
Update: A follow up review.

Thanks Sean.

As the most of the world knows by now, Gmail will display Google text ads and/or related pages next to some emails. As you can see in the screenshots these ads and/or related pages appear in the right edge of browser window and do not distract from the email content. Just like ads that appear on Google pages.

I've been using Gmail for awhile at work. And guess what? I love these related pages and ads. I'll protest if Google turns it off. Sometimes ads and related pages are more interesting then the mail conversations. Sometimes they provide important clues about the conversations by surfacing up sites, names, tools, events, records and insights that nobody has brought up in the conversation. In other words, these ads and related pages add values to the original mail content. They help me get more out of the mails.

It's very difficult to talk to people who may have good intension but who lack knowledge on the subject of conversation. Yes, I am thinking about the people crying foul over Gmail. I can see why they'd be worried (unnecessarily in my opinion) but please, please hold your judgments until you see the real thing.

I just saw a TV commercial that promised a "name brand" computer for $35 a week for 12 month for people with bad credit. It's always true that poor people pay higher interest rate but isn't $35.99x52 = $1871.48 for a "Intel CPU", little memory and a CRT monitor too expensive? The company that sells this thing asks for 3 months payments as a downpayment and that's about $467, even more expensive than similar Dell box!

Here are few substansive blog posts about Gmail: Kevin (who designed the most pleasant and comfortable web UI I've ever seen), Jason and Michael Sippey, whose spot-on commentary is spooky and heartwarming at once! At last we found somebody who groks it even before using it.

And big thank you to Philipp Lenssen for explaining why Gmail's notorious ads are NOT bad for your privacy in real terms.

today has been the best April Fool's Day ever.

my brother and I exchanged some good news.