13 April 2006 Thursday

Google Calendar

yay! Google calendar is available now.

of all days to leave my spiral calendar at home…
i’ll play this eve… or after taxes are done.

... added: 11:27am~ first day = popular and busy = slow
calendar program’s moving really slow. must be serious server load from everyone jumping on it for the first time.. and probably increasingly throughout the day. google’s usually good about beating this by staggering access to their new programs. usually they overcompensate for everything. seemingly not on this one..

...really slow. changes are seemingly not taking effect, and then some (not all) are suddenly showing up several minutes later.

not really surprising or corrigible, considering the circumstances: certain unbelievable server load due to overwhleming interest in the new application. but i am still a lil surprised that Google, so good at overcomping for most everything, did not have checks in place or crazy server capacity already installed.

... added: 2:21pm~ Google apps
the new Google Calendar applciation is pretty thorough.. what I’d expect from a google app.. normally fast (I trust), colorful (i’d prefer more color options though. I could so run out of the existing ones. and maybe icons would make good markers. surely that’s in the works), and pretty easily editable. can’t get a thorough feel for it until the server/system is working optimally. but I’m confident that Gcalendar and I will be good friends.

Unrelated to the calendar, the ONE thing I can think of in which Google has ever failed me and thoroughly disappointed me is that they built a lovely instant messaging client (Google Talk) to integrate into their lovely existing web-based email (Gmail), and they even finally added conversation logging that tied the two apps together seamlessly, BUT it still remains that when I use the Gtalk app to send a message to a friend who is offline, it sends me a lousy “User is offline; didn’t receive your message” response, rather than simply offering up the quick option to automatically send messages to their gmail/email (without opening up a browser window or email client). ICQ figured out offline instant messaging logging YEARS ago when all of this was pretty new. how come everyone else, including Google, is so slow to get with it?