My Afflation

Driven to finish  (and the photo used for the prompt "Alone") All of my photos for January 2018 were taken using my current phone (and the camera that is always with me) - a Google Pixel 2XL and edited using Snapseed. I was going to compile this post using Storify, but with their impending demise, it was suggested that I use Wakelet . So far, I like it. There are 31 photos being pulled from Instagram, so give it a minute.

Courtesy of Google I've been using the Pixel Buds for the last few months, and I have to say I'm largely impressed. But let's get the negatives out of the way first.

Ok, so I had a real weird problem while I was away from home. hey @onedrive -- I have some tutorial videos in OneDrive that I need to turn into a playlist on my tablet. Is this possible or a pipe dream? — Annette (@daNanner) November 30, 2017 Of course, as of this writing, they still haven't answered me. Nothing I could find related to Microsoft, OneDrive, or any of the other MS apps worked either. This means I had to figure out a solution myself using the tools at hand. Problem Solving Methodology On my Pixel C, VLC wasn't working the way I needed it to, but the other option to view the videos was Plex . Plex???? For playback of videos in OneDrive ? Ok ... Hit Plex, voila! Video lesson played flawlessly. No buffering, no other issues I was experiencing with VLC. But I still really wanted a playlist, ya know. So I remoted into my home computer (because who doesn't, and I couldn't create the playlist in the Plex app, that would have been lucky), via GIP...

I just came across this today. Unfortunately, I have a deadline to meet. When you have some down time, check it out. There are three videos.   And don't forget to play the game in video 3.

I couldn't join, but it was fun to watch. Really hoping that this is available after the hangout. UPDATE They edited the video and made it available for public consumption! Disney's The Muppets hits theaters this Thanksgiving! To celebrate, several of the stars took part in a Google+ Hangout on their brand new profile -- mostly because Miss Piggy insists on being in all of the important Circles.

If you are still wanting a invitation to  Google+ , you have come to the right place.   I have plenty . Before you jump on the latest social network bandwagon, make sure it's the right place for you. Yes, I love all things Google, but I wouldn't want you to leave that other network if G+ is not right for you. Use the right tool for the job. Know what I mean? Check out the demo . See if you want to hangout . Make sure that Skype is not in use. I had issues with my first hangout because Skype had control of my mic and speakers, though oddly enough not my webcam. Pants are optional. Sparks Still need work, but I find blog posts and articles that I wouldn't otherwise come across on the topics that I am interested in. Especially Android and recipes. Bonus, I don't have to clutter up my already overloaded Google Reader with more blogs. Huddles Are the new Group.Me or Beluga -- if you have the app (also available for i-devices). Texting is great, but not when ...

Who doesn’t love free? Google keeps making things easier and free for us … and like a lemming, I keep using it. Because, you know, who doesn’t love free. Ok, to be truthful I haven’t tried out the free phone call service yet. No one to call! I need a guinea pig a friend adventurous or tech-curious enough to try this out with. So, now, not only can you use your GMail account to email with, you can:   SMS make a phone call video chat have your voicemail transcribed and … am I missing anything? Google is well on its way to becoming your all-in-one communications center. Oh, and that background email … join whrrl if you are to Vegas anytime soon. They have all sorts of goodies for checking in.

New features in Gmail Well looky here. I opened Gmail this morning and this is what greeted me. I am sure that all of the tech blogs have written about it already, but I haven't had a chance to read them this morning. I am so pleased that Google finally listened to users about something so basic as sorting contacts by last name. I am such a Googlephile though that I have re-trained myself to do it there way and I use search almost constantly, either on the web or on my phone. But I do love the new navigation. I have so many filters (folders) that scrolling down to see Contacts was a pain. Now the link is right up top! Compose Mail is now a button instead of a text link, making it stand out more. The custom labels for phone numbers I have been using for a while in Android and it seemed to sync fine, I guess now I can do it from the web, too. So, I clicked on the link to see what else is new:

Now I remember why I hate Apple. Ok, hate is a strong word. Seriously dislike. It's supposed to be a really smart (translation no-brainer) OS that is truly plug-n-play. However, my mp3 player, a Haier ibiza Rhapsody (30GB) , is not even detected as a mountable drive, after hours and hours and hours of trying to get it to work, I finally went over to my netbook. It sees it as an PMP as it should, but (whoops) there appears to be an error and it won't stay connected for more than a few minutes. That being said, the mac didn't detect it all, not even for a few moments. Lots of people pointed me to iSync   ... whatever happened to drag-and-drop? I don't even have an iTunes account! Mainly because I would only get free podcasts and Apple does not need my credit card info for free content (which is why I use Google Reader for most of my podcasts, no worries about content getting deleted either). I get my music from the Amazon mp3 downloads (you know, since it's already p...

Last year I made it a goal that I would attend the San Diego Comic Con this year. It is only the biggest and best Con * EVAH *. So guess what? Today I am at work. Tomorrow I will be at work. This Saturday I have chores and errands to run. AND – despite being on twitter 24/7 (so it seems), I missed all the eBay auctions of Comic*Con passes.     Even Google taunts me today. Logo created by Jim Lee at DC Comics. So I will be watching the official stream, the stream and Facebook updates of all my friends … and wondering yet again why I couldn’t meet a simple goal. Related articles by Zemanta 2009 Comic-Con Preview: Shane Acker's '9′ (screenrant.com) Alice In Wonderland Teaser Trailer Online! (Plus New Posters) (screenrant.com)

Image via Wikipedia FOXNews.com - Where Are Your Friends and Family? Check Google Maps - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News : "The feature, dubbed 'Latitude,' expands upon a tool introduced in 2007 to allow mobile phone users to check their own location on a Google map with the press of a button. 'This adds a social flavor to Google maps and makes it more fun,' said Steve Lee, a Google product manager. It could also raise privacy concerns, but Google is doing its best to avoid a backlash by requiring each user to manually turn on the tracking software and making it easy to turn off or limit access to the service." I'm signed up, but haven't used it. Go figure.

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret Too funny. And it's not even an April Fool's thing.

I've been catching up on my technology RSS feed. Below are a few of the more interesting items that I have come across. A few of them are down right KEWL! 13 Free and Cheap Website Monitoring Services (from Mashable) Everyone seems to have their own website or blog nowadays. But do you want someone else to tell you your site is down? So what do you do? Corporate IT shops can install some fancy monitoring software suite that can track hundreds of types of software, servers, ports and hardware devices. That monitoring software also normally costs hundreds of thousands for dollars. Most likely, you want to monitor your website for free, or at least cheaply. Not surprisingly there are a wealth of free and cheap website monitoring services available. Just do a Google search for “free website monitor” and you will get plenty of services to look at. For most of the services, you only need an email address and the URL that you want to monitor. Of course, when it comes to free a...

An invitation . Earth has issues, and it's time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars. The question is, do you want to join us? Ever yearned to journey to the stars? You can learn how to become a Virgle Pioneer, test your Pioneering potential, or join the Mission Control community that will help develop the 100 Year Plan we've outlined here. Take the test and see if you have what it takes

I love the bit about the e-flux capacitor Introducing Gmail Custom TimeTM Be on time. Every time.* How do I use it? Just click 'Set custom time' from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient's inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option. Is there a limit to how far back I can send email? Yes. You'll only be able to send email back until April 1, 2004, the day we launched Gmail. If we were to let you send an email from Gmail before Gmail existed, well, that would be like hanging out with your parents before you were born -- crazy talk. How does it work? Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality (see Grandfather Paradox ). How come I only get ten? Our researchers have concluded that allowing each person more than ten pre-dated emails per year would cause people to lose faith in the accuracy of time, thus rendering the feature useless. T...

What's new with Google Calendar Just launched! Sync your Google Calendar with your Microsoft Outlook™ calendar Access your calendar however and whenever you want. Check your Microsoft Outlook events on the go with Google Calendar. View your Google Calendar information offline through Microsoft Outlook calendar. Learn More

This so totally rocks!!! Especially since I am using Google Maps A LOT since we moved here. I had to use it to find one of the nearest Starbuck's , the nearest library , and directions to various dog parks . As many people as there are in L.A., there is a definite lack of dog parks and dog friendly areas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am actually surprised. Text message your search query to 466453 ('GOOGLE' on most devices) and we'll text message back results. New! Personalized SMS saves you time by saving your location. We'll automatically save your most frequently used location for future queries. You can also text 'set location' followed by a city & state or zip to save a new location. Try it out on our demo! Try our interactive demo to the right and view results on the phone image as you would on your own mobile device. Enter a search term (Hint: Click on the links under "Search Feature" in the table below to find specific information) I'll ...

On Monday, May 28, 2007, Google once again failed to create a special logo to mark Memorial Day -- exactly as they fail to do every year, despite the fact that they mark dozens of lesser or contrived "holidays" with special logos. Google's so-called excuse for this behavior is laughable: If we were to commemorate this holiday, we'd want to express reverence; however, as Google's special logos tend to be lighthearted in nature, this would be a particularly challenging design. We wouldn't want to create a graphic that could be interpreted as disrespectful in any way. Considering that Google has a large staff of professional graphic designers -- just how difficult could it be to come up with a respectful design? They've even featured many logos submitted by Google users. The goal is to create a logo that is respectful, tactful, and reflecting the spirit of Memorial Day. For inspiration, go to this page and click on "More Holiday Logos" at the up...

Let the competition begin! March 27th, 2007 at 5:01 pm by John Kremer, Yahoo! Mail In Trends & News, Cool Stuff All you can eat LiamAs Yahoo! Mail approaches its 10-year anniversary, I’m the lucky one who gets to announce that we will begin offering everyone unlimited email storage starting in May 2007. To mark the occasion, I checked in with David Nakayama, our group vice president of engineering, for some perspective on this milestone. In case that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the developer of RocketMail, one of the world’s first webmail products, which Yahoo! acquired and relaunched as Yahoo! Mail in 1997." I've had a Yahoo account since before they were Yahoo, they were Geocities. 12 years. I remember being stoked that I had 6MB of storage for email. And didn't really need to delete it. And then came SPAM ....