Tivo Series 3

I'm not usually a super-early adopter of home electronics. After spending all day thinking about code, I don't want to come home and have to debug my TV setup. But when I heard about the Tivo Series 3, I was instantly interested.

I've had a Tivo Series 2 for years. Before I got it, people would tell me, "it will change the way you watch TV". I found this hard to believe at the time, but after using Tivo for a few weeks, it quickly became hard to remember the pre-Tivo days. Watching TV on my own schedule + Tivo suggestions + instant replay + 30 second skip = a truly better TV experience.

Until the local cable company started offering HD programming. I then found myself having to choose between HD content the old-fashioned way, or the now-inferior SD picture on Tivo. Additionally, I now had both the Tivo and the cable box sucking power 24/7. In an attempt to resolve this, I tried the cable company HD DVR, which seemed like a reasonable solution, but it just couldn't match Tivo. Awful UI + no 30 second skip + massive power consumption + lockups = a very unsatisfactory product.

So the notion of a Tivo, with all its goodness, that could display/record HD seemed like the perfect solution. And when I found out that I could transfer my lifetime membership from my Series 2, I was sold. Having now spent about two months with the Tivo Series 3, I can say it has lived up to my (high) expectations. The high points:

• Same great Tivo UI
  
• HD recording/playback
• THX certified
  
• Dual tuners (works for HD, too)
• Internal format conversion (essential when your TV only does 1080i)
  
• Lifetime membership transfer
  
• Great remote (even better than the Series 2)
  
• 30 second skip still works!

Power consumption is quite reasonable too - even while recording HD, the Series 3 only draws 34 watts, compared to 28 watts for the Series 2. (Both of which are way better than the cable company DVR, which could be used to heat a small room). Of course, not everything is perfect. Some (minor) lowlights:

• Tivo to Go is currently disabled
  
• No HD display for Music/Photos
  
• Music/Photos does not support DLNA media servers
  

Hopefully these can be rectified in a future firmware upgrade, but they're really just minor complaints. Overall, I've been very satisfied with the Series 3. It just works, and works great.

Gmail Theater: Why Use Gmail?

Why you should use Gmail... in four acts.

And now that you're convinced you should use Gmail, you can sign up for an account at http://mail.google.com/mail/signup. As of yesterday, we've dropped the invitation requirement for new accounts, so anyone can use Gmail.

Google Talk URLs

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but was holding off until all the pieces were in place. But now that CustomizeTalk has scooped me on this topic, I figure I ought to publish it ASAP...

Did you know that Google Talk has its own URL scheme? These "gtalk" URLs can be embedded in web pages or desktop shortcuts to make it easy to message or call someone from Talk. Right now, the two supported URLs are:

gtalk:chat?jid=foo@gmail.com (starts a chat)

and

gtalk:call?jid=foo@gmail.com (starts a call)

Simply replace "foo@gmail.com" with the XMPP ID of the person you want to chat with/call and you're all set.

If you use multiple accounts, you can also add the "from_jid" parameter to the URL to control which account the message is sent from. Here's an example of a URL using from_jid:

gtalk:chat?jid=foo@gmail.com&from_jid=bar@gmail.com

As mentioned above, "call" and "chat" are the only URL commands currently supported. If you specify any other string, invoking it will simply cause the Talk client to come to the foreground.

Update: previously I had mentioned that you could use these links to put a "contact me with Gtalk" button on a web page. I goofed; the currently released version of Google Talk won't bring up the invitation UI when these URLs are invoked, so you can't do this quite yet.

Usage Stats From the Major IM Networks

Yesterday I saw a post from the Windows Live Messenger team where they said that they recently went over 30 million simultaneous users. Now, lots of statistics are offered up by the major IM networks when referring to their respective audiences, but the two that I like to focus on are simultaneous online users and IMs/day. Claims about "active users" or "total users" can be hard to compare, since it all depends on how you count. Simultaneous users and IMs are clear indications of how many users are stressing the system on a daily basis.

The WLM post got me interested on whether I could determine these numbers for all the major messaging services. A little Googling, and I was able to come up with numbers or reasonable estimates for most of the major services; I've included links to the sources I used. (Google does not release user numbers, so Gtalk is absent from this chart.) Here's the breakdown:

Service	Active Users	Max Simultaneous Users	Total IMs/day	Dominant Regions
Windows Live	204M (1/2007)	30M (1/2007)	5.7B (8/2006)	Europe, Latin America, East Asia
QQ	221M (9/2006)	20M (9/2006)	4B (estimate)	China, South Africa
AIM/AOL/ICQ/iChat	63M (3/2006)	10M (estimate)	2B (estimate)	US, Israel
Yahoo	60M (6/2006)	10M (estimate)	2B (estimate)	India, ?
Skype	50M (estimate)	9M (1/2007)	0.5B (estimate)	East Asia, Europe

I couldn't find exact data for some of these numbers, so extrapolated from what I did have. Readers, if you have recent public data for the estimated values (especially Yahoo), I'd be interested to see it.

Nevertheless, from these numbers, it looks like WLM is about as big as Yahoo+AOL+Skype combined. That's a formidable lead in a space that is fairly mature.

Secure Access to Gmail and Gtalk

Did you know that Gmail and Google Talk both support TLS encryption (aka SSL), rendering the data you send to and from Google secure and inaccessible to would-be eavesdroppers? Google Talk uses TLS by default, and Gmail will use it if you point your browser at https://mail.google.com (note the "https" instead of "http").

The use of TLS/HTTPS creates a secure channel between your computer and Google's data centers. This is especially important when your computer is connected to a public network, such as a Wi-Fi hotspot; I have been to conferences where people were known to use packet capture software to spy on competitors who were careless enough to communicate over cleartext channels.

I'm glad to see that Google has made security a priority. Moore's Law has made support for TLS fairly cheap from a operational standpoint, so there's really no good reason to not feature it. Let's hope TLS becomes more common in the web world.

Update: I didn't have time to check extensively, but I noticed Google Calendar and Google Docs & Spreadsheets both support TLS access as well.

I've been tagged

I've been tagged by Greg, from his AIM Info blog. The rules of blog tag are simple - tell 5 things that people might not know about you, and then tag 5 other bloggers to continue the chain.

So, here are 5 things you might not know about me:

1. My first computer was a TI 99/4A, circa 1981. I saved my BASIC programs on a tape recorder.
   
2. At college I studied Mathematics and Physics. I learned C++ after a friend gave me the book "Learn C++ in 21 days".
   
3. I used the same keyboard, a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, for over 10 years, including my entire tenure at AOL. The Natural Keyboards are the only keyboards I have been able to use for an extended period of time without discomfort.
   
4. I am a Philadelphia sports fan, whose teams, combined, have gone 92 consecutive seasons (since 1983) without a championship. That is longer than the drought suffered by the Boston Red Sox.
5. I am a b-boying (breakdancing) fan. Doing the worm at a company party is always a crowd-pleaser.

And my 5 tagees? I've picked 5 other bloggers from the Kirkland office:

• Steve Yegge
  
• Random Thoughts
• moblog
  
• Gayle Laakman
• Joe Beda's Eighty Percent.net

The snow returns!

The latest episode in a Seattle winter already replete with ice, snow, rain, floods, and wind added the new wrinkle of pea-sized hail, pouring down from the heavens and skittering across the ground as if from an overturned semi full of Tic Tacs. In just fifteen minutes on Thursday night over an inch of these crunchy bits coated our yard. The hail then turned to snow and continued to accumulate for the next several hours.

Once again, this happened right at the evening rush hour, with typical results. Fortunately, I had elected to work from home, but the Google Talk status messages of my coworkers told of their multi-hour commuting pain. Apparently, in Seattle, if snow starts to fall while you are driving, you must immediately abandon your car on the side of the road.

Google Talk + AIM = When?

I've seen a number of comments on the web regarding the previously announced interoperability plans between AIM and Google Talk, especially as the one-year anniversary of the announcement came up at the end of December. Nothing yet has made it into the hands of users, leading some to wonder whether it is actually going to happen. Having followed this effort closely both at AOL and now at Google, it's very interesting to read the various opinions from the outside.

On the Google side, I can simply refer to our official statement, and our stock answer, "We are working actively on integrating AIM access in Google Talk."

And as for a version of AIM that talks to Google users? There has been no comment whatsoever from AOL regarding such a client, so I guess we'll have to wait and see how important this is to AOL's new management team.

However, AOL also appears to be working on an XMPP gateway for AIM, which would allow XMPP/Jabber clients to access the AIM network using AIM screen names. Based on the public information, it seems that this should be available in the near future.

One way or another, looks like many believe 2007 is shaping up to be an exciting year.

Google Kirkland in the News

A couple nice mentions of the Google Kirkland office in the news in the past few weeks:

Google Blog, 1/3/07, "Kirkland Calling"

When we set up an R&D shop in downtown Kirkland, Washington two years ago, we hoped to attract the best talent in the Pacific Northwest -- folks who are serious about their coffee and don't especially want to move to Silicon Valley. Since then we've attracted many engineers who were tickled silly about working on large clusters of several thousands of machines, not to mention shipping web and client-based consumer apps used by millions of people.

Seattle Times, 12/22/06, "Google exec heaps praise on local office"

It's such a great office we have here. Google's unusual in a couple of ways. We open engineering offices where the talent is, rather than bringing talent to a location. ... [In Kirkland] we have north of 250 employees, and we're approaching 200 engineers. It's just an incredible growth rate in two years.
[...]
One of the things we're increasingly trying to do is to export Mountain View work to the really incredibly successful non-Mountain View offices. It's clear the Kirkland office is hugely successful. We've got great engineers, great growth rate and incredible delivery. It's clear this is amongst our most successful offices worldwide.

Seattle Times, 12/15/06, "Google retreats from deal in Bellevue, may shop for office space in Seattle"

Oscar Oliveira, a broker at Colliers International in Bellevue, said he believes Google has turned its attention to parts of Seattle, such as Belltown and South Lake Union, which tend to be popular with young technology workers.
[...]
Google has been advertising for workers to fill a range of engineering-related jobs in the Seattle area. About two years ago, Google opened an engineering center in Kirkland, where it has about 250 employees, up 100 from June. Also, Google in May moved its Seattle sales staff of about 30 from South Lake Union to Fremont, saying the staff could expand to 75.
[...]
Google is expanding in Kirkland, where it occupies two floors at Central Way Plaza, and recently took an additional floor at a nearby building, said engineering director Peter Wilson.

New York Times, 12/9/06, "Looking for a Gambit to Win at Google's Game"

“[Microsoft] had a lot of new initiatives, and people ran fast out of the gate,” said Niall Kennedy, an expert on Internet publishing who joined Microsoft last spring but quickly became disillusioned and quit in August. After the stock fell, he said, “I wasn’t able to hire anybody for my group.”

Mr. Kennedy says this culture is inhospitable for talented engineers.

“Microsoft is no longer the primary place for technical talent,” he said. “If there is a superstar, Google will be on their minds.” (Indeed, Google has set up shop in Kirkland, Wash., six miles from Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, specifically to welcome Microsoft refugees.)

Hoping for better weather in 2007...

Been fairly preoccupied the last couple weeks, for a number of reasons. Among them, the simple fact that when your neighborhood looks like a tornado came through it, blogging tends to get bumped down a notch or two on the priority list.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I posted about the record rainfall and a real snow storm here in Seattle, after which people told me that "the weather isn't usually this bad". Nevertheless, since then, we've had:

• Flash flooding that filled the Google parking garage with 3 feet of water
  
• "Once-in-a-hundred-year" wind storm, which flattened trees, deshingled roofs, and caused a state of emergency for all of Washington
• A million homes without power (48 hours for us, over a week for some people we know)
• Warnings about landslides
• Oh, and lots more rain

I think that counts as enough for one year. Can winter be over now?

Google Holiday Party

Friday's Google Kirkland Holiday Party featured what one might expect at a Google company party - great food, classic video games, casino tables, and the Google logo as an ice sculpture.

I spent a fair amount of time at the blackjack tables. I like blackjack because it is a game that, if played carefully, can result in a player advantage over the house. Typically, in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, the house holds a 0.35% edge (with a 4 deck shoe) over the player, assuming the player plays the optimal blackjack strategy effectively. This edge can be erased and turned into a player advantage if the player keeps a hi/lo count, i.e. whether the chance of a ten being dealt is likely or not. However, doing so requires a lot of concentration, and playing even a few hands incorrectly can be very damaging. Recalling recent experiences in both AC and Vegas, it is extremely hard to keep the necessary concentration with all the flashing lights, buzzers, and general "this is real money we're playing with here" pressure.

So, Google's casino was a nice chance to play for fun in a low pressure enviroment. I got an initial stake of $30K (play money), and playing the basic strategy, built that into $100K in a relatively short time. The house rules here weren't posted, but I quickly found that they were VERY favorable to the player, including support for 5 card charlies, 2-1 payout on blackjacks, and something I hadn't seen before, pushes count as a win for the player.

Looking at the odds, support for 5 card charlies is a net gainer of 1.46%, and 2-1 on blackjacks is worth an extra 2.27%. Taking into account just those two rule changes, I was looking at a 3.38% advantage, and assuming about a 6% value for payout on pushes, the net player advantage was probably about 10%. With a number like that, you expect to double your money about every 7-8 hands, and I was able to do that several times over the evening.

When the dealer informed us that the casino part was about to shut down, I had chips totaling about $1M. There were prizes for the top 3 winners, and looking around, I saw at least two people who had what appeared to be bigger piles. Not wanting to lose out on account of being too careful with play money, I went all in on the last hand...

The dealer had a blackjack. Ouch.

If you find blackjack strategy or odds interesting, there is a lot to read at The Wizard of Odds.

Update: I found out from this site that about 9% of blackjack hands result in a push. So the player edge was actually over 12%. Will have to keep in mind for next time...

IM Client Detection from the Web

Many of today's IM clients add things during installation so that they can be detected by web pages. Most of them use a fairly standard technique to do so; they install an ActiveX object, which can be detected by IE, and register a MIME type than can be detected by Firefox/Mozilla. I took a few minutes and put together a page that checks for all of these various object and types, and it's able to detect most of today's major IM clients fairly reliably. (Google Talk's detection mechanism doesn't allow detection from arbitrary web pages, and I couldn't find any info on ICQ). The result is displayed in a table like the one above (just an image, not live detection).

Try it out on your system, and please leave a comment if it didn't work or returned incorrect results for you (there are some known issues in Firefox). If you're curious about how it does its thing, please check out the source for the page - it's really quite simple once you know the CLSIDs and MIME types to look for.

Yes, it snows in Seattle.

When I was planning our move to Seattle, I did some research on the actual amount of rainfall in Seattle. According to the historical data, Seattle averages 36 inches of rainfall per year, less than Washington DC (39 inches) and New York (40 inches). So, I was perplexed: where did this reputation for "Rain City" come from? Well, it didn't take long to find out: this November has brought rain just about every day, resulting in over 15 inches of rain in this month alone.

It all gets more interesting when a really cold front moves in; that rain quickly becomes snow. Which, in a city that is somewhat hilly and not used to snow, does seem like it could create some serious complications.

Nevertheless, as I prepared to drive my brother to the airport last night, I thought: how bad could it be? The temperature was barely below freezing, and I figured the road crews had had all day to salt and sand the interstates. So we left from Kirkland just after 7:30, which seemed like plenty of time to make a 10:30 PM flight.

As we moved quickly down 405 South past Factoria, it looked like we would be way early. It was only 8:00 and we had just a dozen miles to go. Sure, traffic on 405 North was heavy - but we had been hearing on the radio that locations north of the city were very icy, so this was unsurprising. We passed Exit 9 for Newcastle - and everything stopped.

Not to worry, I thought - there must be a lane closed up ahead, and once we get past the bottleneck, it'll be smooth sailing. After all, we had plenty of time.

But 9:00 came around, and we had barely moved 3 miles. My brother called the airport and found out the flight had been delayed until 11:00 PM. Get there before 10:00, they said, and you'll be fine. But as the snow fell harder and started to accumulate, I began to feel not so fine. Where was the salt and the sand? We started to see cars abandoned on the side of the road.

It was just before 10:00 when we came to a small incline on 405 South between exits 4 and 2. Cars were scattered all over the roadway, pointing in all directions, flashers on, not moving. Curiously, nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. Traffic split into 3 streams, as it was possible for a car to get by on the left shoulder, the right shoulder, or through the center of the stuck vehicles. I chose the left shoulder. Bad choice! The shoulder was completely ice, and as we tried to squeeze by a stuck SUV, the lateral grade of the road sent us sliding toward it. After stopping just inches from the SUV, we were too close to attempt any further forward maneuvers. It was now 10:10 and we were still at least 5 miles from the airport; things were looking quite grim. I threw it in reverse and created some space. A kind person then let us into the center stream of traffic, and we threaded between the SUV and another car oriented in an odd direction.

That mess allowed just a few cars to eke their way through every minute, so the road ahead was mostly empty. Snow was still falling and there was a fair amount of built-up ice on the road, but it was possible to stay in the tracks of the car we were following and maintain a reasonable speed (20 mph). Another call to the airport revealed that we had been given another 10 minutes, with the flight now leaving at 11:10. There was still hope...

We pressed on and exited toward the airport just after 10:30. The road here was less clear, with the pavement visible in only one lane. We slowed slightly as we followed the sign for Departures.

At last, we arrived at the Delta terminal at 10:38. I dropped my brother at the checkin desk and headed for the parking garage in case our efforts had been in vain. I climbed the stairs to the top of the garage to take a look at the roads back home (picture above). Unfortunately, there were brake lights as far as I could see - and hundreds of people waiting for taxis at the empty taxi stand. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be sleeping at the airport.

Fortunately, my brother made his flight (barely). And I learned a valuable tip - if you need to sleep at Sea-Tac, head for the children's play area, located near the security checkpoint for B/C gates. There are soft, detachable mats around the playset that double nicely as a mattress, along with electrical outlets to charge your phone/computer. The nearby walls also protect you from chilly drafts from the outside (still, you'll want to wear a coat and hat). Far better than trying to get comfortable in one of those airport chairs...

Tour of Google's Kirkland office

Robert Scoble (professional blogger, formerly at Microsoft) stopped by the Google office here in Kirkland, and we were nice enough to show him around. Watch the video at ScobleShow.

Interesting statistic...

I took my Jetta in to the dealer the other day for a warranty issue, and while I was waiting in the showroom I noticed one of the Jettas on the floor was covered with various stickers. The stickers were all of the form "VW owners are XX% more/less likely to ___________", with the "more likely"s being generally positive things (e.g. work out, read a book) and the "less likely"s being negative things. Apparently VW surveyed its owners and created a marketing campaign around the results.

One particular sticker (above) grabbed my attention. Some other related "more likely"s:
"72% more likely to chat online" and "102% more likely to have watched video online".

Of course, this is a marketing campaign, so who knows how carefully the survey was conducted. Nevertheless, if you find factoids about VW users interesting, there is a version of the survey on the Web at http://thejettareport.com.

Google Maps adds "Click-to-call"

Now, when you do a search for a business (in the US), the search results display a call link next to the phone number of the business. Clicking this link brings up a field where you can enter in your own phone number. When you click the "Connect for free" button, Google will ring your phone at the number you supplied, and your (free) call will be connected. No microphone, no software needed - it uses your existing phone. Your phone number will also be saved so that you won't need to enter it again the next time.

Here's a search for pizza restaurants in Kirkland... click, click, and order!

For more info, see the announcement on the official Google blog.

orkut + talk

Google's orkut social networking site is now integrated with Google Talk. When you log into orkut, you'll see presence information for each of your orkut friends, and can launch an IM window by clicking on them. You'll also receive notifications when people leave scraps (comments) on your orkut page. And if you choose the "Automatically include all orkut friends" option (the default), your Google Talk friends will be kept in sync with your orkut friends.

Here's my (admittedly boring) orkut page.

Offline messages in Google Talk

Yesterday, the Google Talk team turned on offline messages on the Talk service. It works pretty much how you would expect - if you send a message to someone who is marked as Offline in your Friends list, they will receive that message the next time they log in to Google Talk, or in their Gmail inbox. There is one restriction - in order to receive offline messages, the recipient must have chat history archiving enabled, and not be off-the-record. If this is not the case, you will get the typical error " is offline and can't receive messages right now" when trying to send the message.

For XMPP clients using the Google Talk network, this feature is implemented in accordance with XEP-0160 (Best Practices for Handling Offline Messages).

You can read more about using the offline messaging feature at this help page.

Google in Kirkland

Most people are surprised when I tell them that I'm working out of Google's Kirkland, WA office. Many have no idea that Google has a presence outside of California - even including many residents of Kirkland - and the rest wonder how much interesting stuff is allowed to happen away from Google HQ.

In short, there's a lot happening in the Kirkland office. With 200+ employees, the office is big enough that it's not just a satellite to Mountain View. Here are just some of the projects that are being worked on in Kirkland:

• Google Talk (blog)
  
• Google Video (blog)
  
• Google Maps (blog)
  
• Google Toolbar for Firefox
  
• Google Sitemaps
• Google Pack
• Google Desktop
  
• Google SMS
• and of course, Google Search

Kirkland's got a number of other things going for it as well. Recently the Chicagoist website did an interview with some engineers from Google's Chicago office (yes, there is an office there too), asking them why they chose to remain in Chicago instead of moving to California. Since I had had a similar dilemma in choosing between Kirkland and Mountain View, I read this with great interest. The responses were classic:

"It's much more livable [in Chicago]... I could sell my home right now and buy a shed in Silicon Valley. A small shed."
"I would gladly sit through six or seven months of Chicago winter to experience fall."
"I have a kid and I'd much rather raise him in Chicago. San Francisco has more pets than kids."

Substitute "Kirkland" for "Chicago", and you've captured what I was thinking at the time.

White & Nerdy

While Weird Al Yankovic' "White & Nerdy" resonated with a number of us here at Google, many lamented that it excludes a good part of Google's diverse workforce. When asked whether Weird Al might consider a more inclusive version of the song, his agent was unenthusiastic:

"While Weird Al is willing to poke fun at all races equally, his profession is an artform. We trust that our non-white audience can simply enjoy identification with being 'Nerdy'."