1.5 billion active Gmail users

In May of 2004 I received an invitation to beta test Google’s new email service, Gmail. Google had acquired Blogger in early 2003 and sent invites to users. We were allowed to invite two friends. As I recall, people were selling such invitations. It was early enough that I was able to get “stevemays@gmail.com”

For reasons unimportant, yesterday I created a second Gmail account, my first ever. I decided to use the name of a character from one of my favorite novels. I searched for more than half an hour, picking the most minor and obscure characters I could think of, and never found one that wasn’t taken. I finally gave up and went for nonsense: poontangmeringue@gmail.com. And decided I didn’t really need a second account after all.

Google says they have 1.5 billion active Gmail users. I’m a little surprised poontangmeringue was still available.

Google Docs scroll feature

Google Docs launched in June, 2006 and Google Drive didn’t come along until April of 2012. (I’ve always been a little fuzzy about the Docs and Drive) I’ve found docs going back to 2010 and I put everything in Google Drive. Today stumbled on a feature I hadn’t seen before.

If you put sub-heads in a Google Doc, you can scroll to those headings with the little scroll button in the iOS app. Just pull the little button to the left. Very handy on a long document.

In praise of Google Calendar

It is fashionable of late to bash Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon et al. There’s plenty to complain about I suppose (and I’ve done my share) but after the fire has been peed on and the dogs have been summoned, I really like Apple, Google and Amazon (I’ve never used Facebook). I like them a lot. Do I like everything they do? Of course not.

But this post is about Google Calendar. I’ve been using it for years. Anything of importance, anything I want to find later… goes into Google Calendar. Case in point: I’m in the process of switching health insurance companies and today I got a call from a representative of the new company, checking on one of the drugs I take. He also asked about a drug I didn’t recognize and said it was a one-time script on February 4, 2014. I had Google Calendar open so I hit the “G” key and typed in that date.

That was the day I hit some black ice and slid off the highway, getting just banged up enough that Barb insisted I get checked out at the ER. They gave me a muscle relaxant as I recall. Here’s a screenshot of that entry.

Note the link to my blog post on the event as well as links to PDF scans of the towing receipt; a summary from the ER visit; and a couple of insurance documents. Four years ago and I had it all from a 5 second search.

Is Google doing something with all of my data? I assume so. But I never see ads an they don’t charge me a dime. I call that a good deal.

Rolling School Buses

“Google today announced an expansion of its Rolling Study Halls initiative to over 16 additional school districts, giving “thousands” of students access to Wi-Fi and Chromebooks on their buses. […] Google contributes mobile Wi-Fi routers, data plans, and Chromebook devices. Each Rolling Study Hall also has an “onboard educator” who’s able to provide direct assistance.”