Andrew Maxwell » General

Getting Married

Andrew — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:17:35 +0000

Today is the big day!

I will be getting married to my wonderful fiancée Whitney Phu.

I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you Whitney. I love you and here is to our big day!

Website Update: Updated Books Layout

Andrew — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 19:00:25 +0000

Have you ever had a personal project that you wanted to do but never got around to it?

I’m finally settling into my new job and getting back into working on my personal projects, and the one that I have been wanting to tackle for a while was the layout for the books that I read on my site.

Goals with the New Layout:

Easier to scan books that I have read
Use modern CSS3 for added visuals
Hide content until the user wants to see it
Tablet and phone friendly

Books Layout Before:

Books Layout After:

Check out the new section yourself: http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/books

Let me know what you think about the updated layout and if you have any suggestions on how I could make it better.

Also, if you are curious on how I did this, feel free to ask, I am more than happy to share the code and help out if you get stuck.

Android Bug: Large Text Box Jumping

Andrew — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:00:07 +0000

Help me track down a Android or Evernote bug!

I first thought this was a Evernote issue, but now I am not sure. I thought that this was an Evernote bug since I have some long notes that I edit and when I went to edit the end of the note, the note would jump around. Well recently I wrote a long post in the WordPress app for Android and I started to get the same jumping around. Has anyone else seen this? I would like to get a confirmation of the exact issue before I submit it to Android or to Evernote.

Original photo by: Pandiyan

My First HTML5 Labs Test

Andrew — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:24:39 +0000

A few months ago I wanted to teach myself HTML5 so recently I decided to take a poster and recreate it online using only HTML5 elements.

HTML 5 Elements that I Used:

Images using SVG items rather than a .jpg or .png

The Poster that I Replicated:

You can see the this test at http://labs.andrewcmaxwell.com/wall-e/

Be sure to Zoom in to the image to really see the SVG graphics at work.

This labs test is best when viewed using Google Chrome.

My Wishlist for Google Buzz in 2011

Andrew — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 01:35:50 +0000

Google Buzz has come a long way since it was introduced last February and even though it has come a long way there are still some additional features that I would like to see.

Features That I Want:

Google Buzz replacing comments in Google Reader
Google Buzz replacing comments in Picasa Web
Google Buzz API replacing entire current system of Google Groups
Images, video and audio being able to be posted in comments
Google Docs able to be shared into Google Buzz
Upload a video to Google Buzz like we can with images
Having a functional load more button that continues to load for how ever long I press the button (maybe it can load a new page for each day?)
A better search system (Advance search features)
Google Buzz running on a standalone site
All of the features of Google Buzz available on Google Profiles and Google Buzz static URL’s (Reshare, edit, auto complete @replying)
Mark post as read, sometimes I want to temporarily mute a post out of my stream so that I can focus on the newer posts and there is no way at the moment
When I follow someone, their information is actually saved into my contacts into a group labeled “Buzz”
Buzz will release a dedicated HELP section outside of Gmail so that users can actually find information
Google Buzz adds lists
Google Buzz adds saved searches with live feeds
Google Buzz fixes the issue where I can’t reply to email posts on my Android using Gmail and multiple email address
Google Adds analytics to Buzz posts and comments
Google adds translation so that we can actually communicate with other languages
Google builds a full Android app for Google Buzz

There are a few other features that I would like to see, but I am going to see if I can build my own Google Buzz client with those features.

What features do you want to see?

Website Update: Updated Categories

Andrew — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 23:28:34 +0000

This is one of a regular series of posts on website updates and maintenance. This week I worked on the web site layout.

This past weekend I did a complete overhaul on the sites content navigation. Before this weekend I had 16 categories, as of today I now have 6.

Narrowing down the categories will allow me to focus this blog more appropriately and provide better content.

Now Using Tags:

Before this weekend I didn’t use tags on my posts, not because they didn’t make sense but because I didn’t see the reason to have them, since I had so many categories. Now that I have narrowed down my categories, using tags makes sense. Adding tags to my posts will make it easier for users to find blog posts on related topics that they might find interesting.

Let me know what you think about these changes, I hope that it focuses the content and that you like the changes.

20 Predictions for 2011

Andrew — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:31:14 +0000

Google Buzz will be updated and will be will integrated into more services (Google Reader, Doc’s, YouTube)
Apple will release iPad 2 and it will have a camera, a faster processor and nothing else
Microsoft will update Kinect to have higher resolution and will make it available for Windows computers
Google releases online music store to compete with iTunes and Amazon
Netflix and YouTube go head to head for online streaming of movies and TV shows
Apple will finally release a White iPhone (iPhone 5)
Microsoft releases a updated Windows 7 OS for tablet devices putting them up against iPad but with more feature, control and power
Google profiles will get an overhaul and will show more information such as latitude lo,cations, videos, bookmarks etc.
Windows Phone 7 will start becoming more popular in the business world with the release of a full office suite on the phone
Android will get an update making it possible to put Android on more random devices such as fridges, cars, and other household items
Microsoft pulls out all stops and recreates the powerful office suite online, becoming more powerful than Google Docs (Probably releasing Microsoft word first).
Online books become standard, Colleges embrace ebooks instead of printed books in some major colleges
Microsofts tablets will be drawing and writing friendly, showing that having a stylus is useful on a tablet.
Digg flops, either closes their doors completely or comes very close
Ping integrates with Twitter and Facebook and slowly gains ground, but is still a failure
Net Neutrality will still not happen, but rules are going to start being placed on telcos
Battery technology will advance and scientists come out with bio degradable batteries
Browsers will add more mobile features by default such as geo-location, notifications, more zoom options, app stores, etc.
Google TV will get more hardware vendors
Apple comes out with a flat screen TV with Apple TV built in and uses iOS for the operating system with full app capability

My First Guest Post

Andrew — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:36:17 +0000

One of my goals for my first year of blogging was to be a guest post on another website or blog. Well my goal has now been complete. Please check out my first guest post Information Overload and How to Keep from Exploding on http://blogs.relativeprogress.com.

Let me know what you think by either leaving comments here on on relativeprogress.com

My Response To Jeff Jarvis Regarding Google Buzz

Andrew — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:18:56 +0000

I spent some quality time yesterday doing research and providing real facts for Jeff Jarvis about Google Buzz and I wanted to share that information with others in case you missed it on Google Buzz.

My Response:

First off I will say that Jeff Jarvis you shouldn’t really be included with Leo and Gina since you actually do research on the topics that you speak about and I do commend you for that. However..

Here is some important information to consider about Google Buzz. Instead of me telling you that Buzz is awesome or you suck for not using it, I will give you some facts and I will let you make up your own mind.

PRIVACY
Yes, Google Buzz had a big privacy issue at the beginning and Google acknowledged that, and has since fixed Buzz to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

Has Facebook not had many, many, MANY privacy issues? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook

I know they have, and I also know that you know that they have since you are so passionate about the open web and you use Facebook often as a closed web eco-system with Privacy issues.

USER BASE
Buzz may not be a huge smash hit right now like Twitter or Facebook, but it took years before either one of them too off, Twitter more so than Facebook. But you say Buzz is a failure, a flop, so wouldn’t Twitter and Facebook have been failures if you are using the same statistical information that you’re using right now on them back then? Here is a stat of Twitters user base over the years http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/02/22/twitter-statistics-full-picture/ As you can see, Twitter really didn’t start taking off until 2009/2010 which is 3-4 years after Twitter started, Buzz is only 9 months old. You can also see here in this post that Google Buzz is starting to take off as a real sharing option - http://blog.louisgray.com/2010/11/addthis-stats-show-spike-in-google-buzz.html

FUNCTIONALITY
Right now Buzz is pretty feature packed compared to Twitter and Facebook. I can do everything that Twitter can do such as 140+ characters, Geo-location, @ replies etc, PLUS a lot of stuff that Twitter requires 3rd party apps to accomplish such as; Pictures, Videos, and Music to name just a few - http://goo.gl/fJpPu. Buzz can also do things that neither Twitter nor Facebook can do because of Google’s server farms and the tools they own such as; Maps, youtube, Docs, Picasa, PicNik etc. Hell, even self driving cars. Just think, What WOULD Google Do?

UP TIME
I don’t really have much to say here except for the fact that Twitter has a fail whale all of the time and people still use it (remember the Soccer world cup?http://goo.gl/6e6oH). Buzz has yet to go down for me, and I know you are aware of the superior up-time that Gmail has over other clients, since you mention it in your book. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Outages

I hope you really look at Buzz as a service that is 9 months old and see that Buzz is progressing into a great service.

Here is the link to the Google Buzz conversation

Product Idea: QR Codes Instead of Wasted Packaging Sizes

Andrew — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:00:59 +0000

Every morning I make myself some hot apple cider and each morning I notice that the packet size for each Apple Cider packet is about 40 times too large for the actual powder inside. The package is that large because of the ingredients and health information on each packet. Also the box is a big waste because of the over sized packets and the design.

Change the world, one package at a time:

My idea is to replace the health information and ingredients on each product with a QR code. This will do a few things:

Use less materials for packaging
People with disabilities can read the information
More information about each product can be listed
Share recipes, instructions, gift ideas, coupons and even ads
Make it easier to share the product online with social networks
Make it possible to know if their are allergens in a product
Make it possible to share a review about a product
Saves on design and printing costs
Less materials end up in landfills
New packaging options since less or no designs are needed (ie. corn plastics or bio-degradable materials)

I know that not everyone has a smart phone that can read QR codes, but there are so many strengths to this idea that will out weigh the downsides, especially if we can have web cams that can read QR codes.