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Google’s Gmail chat interface was recently made public. Justin and I tried it out Friday while he was at work. It is certainly fun to use and convenient if you cant use an instant messenger on the network you are on, however it is no replacement for a robust IM client.

There are two options for the interface, you can either have a little widget sitting in the corner of your screen where you can chat back and forth, or you can pop-out the widget in to a separate window. There are no bells and whistles with the functionality of the application but it does have some nice features. If you type several messages in quick succession it appends it to your original NAME label instead of adding new messages on top of each other (so it looks like one big message instead of a bunch of little messages). It shows the other user’s typing status and when they go idle.

Obviously you have to be constantly logged in to GMail to be available for chat (this might not matter if you always have an email window open) and it is difficult to notice when you have notifications (of friend status or incoming message). It would be interesting to see how network admins would block this kind of client (AFAIK its some sort of AJAX application) where instant messaging is prohibited (some for good and some for not so reasonable reasons). Its not a IM client replacement but something you can use when youre in a bind (and you have friends who are constantly monitoring GMail).

This weekend was pretty uneventful and relaxing. The beautiful weather we had last week turned to bitter cold (with no precipitation luckily). The on-and-off cold is more than annoying, I noticed Thursday one of my tires were getting low, and it became significantly lower once the temperature dropped. I’m hoping I dont have a flat and the weather just did a number on the pressure in my tire, but it may be time to get two new tires and a rotate anyway.

I played more World of Warcraft this weeken than I have in a few weeks. Playing a horde character opens up a lot of quests and areas I never quested in before (it also helps to be playing a matured game than when it first was released). I also managed to hit level 40 and Justin helped me out with buying a mount (re: giv me teh gold)

We also are in the process of watching all the Harry Potter movies (Justin has never seen them). The first episode of the second season of 24 also arrived from Netflix, but we opted to go see Munich instead. Very good movie by the way, however I do agree with critics about its over objectiveness. The characters are presented so objectivly it is difficult to find a ’side’ to sympathise and relate to (thus involving the audience member and making the movie meaningful to them). It was full of Jewish culture and phrases so tiny details might go unnoticed if you dont understand what a kabutz is or what the Jewish idea of the afterlife is.

Luckily I never think of Monday as the stepping stone for the rest of the week, or else I’d be in trouble. There was some miscommunication with a client I am working with. I didnt realise I had a meeting until she called me to ask if I was stuck in the cluster-fuck of traffic due to a major accident on the outer-loop of the beltway (it took a friend of mine who lives nearby 3.5 hours to go to work which is about 20 miles away). That’s D.C. for you. Traffic at any time, any place, often for no reason at all.

But hey, after figuring out that I had both the Sun SDK and GCJ installed, not knowing GCJ was installed and that is why the Sun binaries wern’t globally linked and that is why none of my homework was running, I think I’m finally ready to start the week.

Is it Friday yet?

seele :: Feb.20.2006 :: General, Movies, Technology, Work :: 2 Comments »

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