Month: December 2007

Google Apps email flags Google alerts (sent to gmail) as Spam

I’m playing around with google apps, and one great feature is the ability to import in existing gmail accounts – all email messages and even labels.

One thing I assumed was that no messages from my gmail spam folder would be imported – and that turned out to be true. But after the gmail import I noticed a bunch of message in the new google apps account’s spam folder. On closer inspection they were all legit messages including google alerts sent to my gmail account. A bit convoluted, but if this is still making sense to you, it looks like google apps email hasn’t white-listed google messages.

Odd, no ? See screenshot below showing google alerts for a stock I follow, MVIS:

google apps flags alerts as spam

WordPress and our Toni Schneider nominated for Crunchies

What are the Crunchies you ask ?

The 2007 Crunchies is our first annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year. The Crunchies is a collaboration project between GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb, VentureBeat and TechCrunch. Best of all, the internet community is invited to choose who wins.

As they say in Hollywood “it’s an honor to be nominated” – and it’s great to see Toni and WordPress in the mix.

Vote for Toni Schneider as the Best Startup CEO.

And for WordPress in the Most likely to succeed category.

BlackBerry update: battery died, google maps update and google calendar sync

* I was in DC wrapping up a trip last week when I couldn’t get my blackberry curve 8300 to boot-up. I figured the battery just drained to zero, but after plugging it in I quickly realized the battery was dead. Luckily I had access to another blackberry curve and was able to borrow that battery for a day. I called around to a few at&t stores in DC, and to my surprise they did not sell batteries. Anyway, long story short, after calling at&t customer care, they fedexed me a new battery and I’m back in action !

* The new google maps update came out a week or so ago ( from your mobile browser: http://google.com/gmm ) and it now has “My Location” which is pretty sweet. If you don’t have GPS, it can now use cell tower triangulation to approximate your location. When I was in NYC, it was accurate within a block. In DC it was within 500 meters or so, and in SF it seems to be within 1000 meters on average. So it’s by no means a replacement for GPS, but when doing a search for a cafe for example, it’s great that you can search within your area without putting in the street or zip code.

* Google Calendar Sync was just released. It syncs your google calendar to your blackberry’s native calendar – which for me has been a wish-list item for a long time. After running the initial sync, you may want to hop into the the options menu on the mobile app and make sure it’s grabbing all the calendars you wish to have. In my setup I have a few different calendars being imported into gCal, and the mobile app appears to default to only one calendar. So far it seems to work really well.

Time Out New York: Bloggers vs critics

time out new york cover imageA good read in the December 6, 2007 issue of Time Out New York about the roll of bloggers and the intersection with traditional critics. The article starts with “Opinions are like…Now that cranking out a blog is easier than getting a library card, what does this new panoply of voices means for the institution of criticism?”

Q: We’re at this crossroads, where print and online content are intertwined, and no one’s sure how it will all shake out. So, deep breath: What’s the essential question facing the future of criticism?

A: Alex Ross, music critic, The New Yorker; blogger and author, The Rest Is Noise
The growth of online criticism means that the conversation about various art forms is widening. With huge gaps opening in arts coverage in the mainstream media—in classical we’ve seen the almost total disappearance of criticism from national publications—blogs and websites have allowed the conversation to go on. The essential question is whether critics are doing their utmost to make the art come alive for readers.

Link to Time Out article

Video roundup: Crysis Physics demo, Homeboy Chanukah, and “Here comes another bubble”

Three great videos to share today.

The first, is demo footage from upcoming game called Crysis. It shows off a pretty amazing physics engine. This game and a few others may get me back into PC gaming one of these days:



The next video is called Homeboy Chanukah, and is simply hysterical. My buddy Tom who runs the film company New York Street Films created this video:

And lastly, Kara Swisher just blogged about a new video called “Here comes another bubble” sung to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. Pretty funny and well produced: