Handy Google Maps Article

A short article from my local newspaper about some oft unknown Google Maps features. Worth the read.

Android Pay is here!

Android Pay has hit Australia's shores. You need to head into the Google Play store and "Enable" it (as oppossed to the usual "Install" button. My personal frustration is that it works with my buniness related bank, but not the bank I use personally, which is the Bendigo Bank.

A frustrating conversation with the Bendigo Bank helpdesk resulted in my finding out that it is "coming" but they could not give me any kind of source I could keep my eye on when it went live.

As soon as that happens, goodbye wallet!

BubbleUPnP, my multimedia glue app.

These days I have all of my media needs sorted by two apps. Netflix and Google Play Movies & TV. However, occasionally there is a media need that falls between those two cracks.

I have a bunch of media that sits on a Synology drive at home and to access that media, I use BubbleUPnP. I have used this app since its very beginnings. It wasn't pretty early on, however over the years, it has matured to be an incredibly stable and "automagic" app that picks up the available drives on your network, and seamlessly presents them to you with the simplicity and efficiency of a Netflix and/or Google Movies & TV app.

Just want to make sure that you are aware that you need a media player in addition to the app, as its role is to locate and serve media, which it does brilliantly.

Google Now

When I think about what I will blog about here, I grab my phone or tablet and spend a few seconds thinking about the apps that I use on a regular basis that help me be productive.

Today, not only did I think about Google Now, but I also thought about how it is such a seemless part of my daily prooductivity routine that I almost did not realise that this was the case.

There is something about using an app like that, one that becomes so seamless, so much a part of the way in which you work and play that you don't realise that it has become part of your subconcious routines.

Weather, package tracking and delivery, travel, timetabling, right down to suggesting stories it grabs from the web based upon my search and reading habits, Google Now is very much a part of the way I work.

I was most delighted with a recent update to the app. I recently had an organisation book travel for me as part of my work, and Google Now took the flight information from the confirmation emails, added it to my Google calendar, and gave me timely reminders without my having to lift a digital finger.

If you are not using Google Now, give it a shot. It can feel a little intrusive, and sometimes I still get a pang along those lines, however dip into it and turn it on (you need to opt in to Google Now) and give it a whirl for a few months. See what you reckon.

Google Photo's is amazing!

I am not sure when it happened, but suddenly Google Photo's became amazing. If you are not aware, you can choose between two modes of file storage. You can choose to store your photo's at the same quality that you took them, OR if you choose the standard photo storage size, you get unlimited (yep you read that right) storage of your photo's in Google Drive. Forever. That's it. No catch. That is the hook that first got me started.

However, the app on Android and then the web site just seemed to make a rapid number of incremental changes until it is now one of the apps that I use frequently, and it is a joy.

I think that unless you are in the media industry and have a need for particularly large files sizes for your photo's, the standard setting (which is called "high quality") is really all the average photographer needs.

What is great about Google Photo's is, like most of Google's apps these days, it is available on iOS. I have helped two of my Apple totting friends with stuttering iPhone's take advantage of the feature that removes photo's from your iPhone once they have safely been backed up to Google Drive. The free space, improved performance, ease of use and the way that we can now collaborate on projects together seamlessley across the ecosystem divide have made them rubberneck by Nexus 5 at least one time a peice.

Get on it. Google Photo's is great.

Journalling

I used to be a prolific journaller. Then I became a haphazard journaller. I vacillated between spurts of doing well and then feeling guilty about not being able to sustain the habit.

I then thought about what would happen if I journalled like I tweeted? I would tweet several times a day and seemed to be able to sustain that habit over a number of years. What if I "tweeted" some personal stuff to a journal? One line (or a couple) a day were better than nothing I thought? And suddenly I am a regular journaller again.

There are days where it will just be one line, and others where I make a substantial entry. It is an approach that works for me.

So I tried a number of apps and mechanisms. I was using Google Doc's for a while but I have eventually settled on is Journey. Despite the fact that I am not a big fan of the word "journey" to describe the experience of life (read: it is such an abused word it has almost become meaningless) it is still a handy little app that you might want to check out for your journalling purposes.

Time for an upgrade!

So it was time to upgrade. I traded in my old Nexus 10 and 9 and then scrounged another couple of hundred bucks and here I am writing this blog post from my new Pixel C, complete with keyboard.

This is what Google should have done years ago, taken control of the design and construction of their own hardware.

It is solid, beautiful to look at and of course having total control over the hardware and software means that this thing actually sings.

I can see me leaving the laptop at home more often now.