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sarahintampa

tampa girl talks tech

OMG! Gmail Just Got ThemesNovember 20

I can’t believe how awesome this is:

For some reason, Google deleted the post. It read:

 

Posted by Annie Chen, Gmail engineer

Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven’t been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers — it’s not exactly practical, but it’s great for testing out your geek cred. We’ve also done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look to make it crisper and cleaner — you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here and there.

As you can see from these photos taken around our office in Zurich, Switzerland, themes ha

Am I A Google Reader Over-Sharer? Are You?November 19

I’ve been taking a closer look at my Google Reader feeds lately, and, as always, I’m trying to stem the tide so the signal can rise above the noise. I’ve done a little spring cleaning, which for me doesn’t mean unsubscribing – I’m always hesitant to do that – but instead, I’ve been re-categorizing.

Is that feed really a “Can’t Miss” read? Shouldn’t that blogger be on my B-List? Doesn’t this feed belong in my “Ideas” folder?

One of the things that made the most difference was the addition of a brand-new folder I’m calling “noisy tech news.” This is now the home to any feed that drives me batty with zillions of posts per day yet doesn’t really provide that much signal. Why keep these feeds you may wonder? Well, for one thing, it’s great to have them in there for searches.

I’ve also put the aggregate feeds in here for sites like CNET and other producers of mass amounts of content. It’s not to say that CNET doesn’t have signal, but when you subscribe to a bunch of their feeds, you’re likely to see duplicate items and a lot of stuff that’s not relevant to you. However, other CNET favs, like

Managing My Hyper-ConnectivityOctober 20

Like most of you, I’d consider myself a technology addict. As Charlie recently noticed, I blog a lot yet somehow find myself immersed in social media a good bit too. Keeping up is a challenge, and I’ll admit that finding balance is a constant challenge. As I wrote today on ReadWriteWeb, technology really is both a blessing and a curse. I love it, but sometimes it steals me away from the other things (and people) I love, too. I’m always having to check and re-check my boundaries and making sure I haven’t become so immersed in the online world that I forget to live in the real one, too.  

In addition to my work in public eye, such as with ReadWriteWeb and Microsoft (a blogger, not an employee for the ongoing record), I always find myself with at least one side project too. Lately, this has involved being a webmaster of sorts for two other websites needing regular updates and reviewing book proposals for a publishing company. I’ve also just been informed…err…asked…by a family member to create yet another si

The Blogosphere is High School?October 14

My knee-jerk reaction to Mike Arrington’s recent post on TechCrunch is that he has lost his mind. His post was about a blogger who accused TechCrunch of spreading the doom and gloom surrounding the financial crisis. The funny thing is that Arrington believes that because this person, some guy named Dare Obasanjo, is employed by Microsoft, this is now somehow a reflection on Microsoft..even though Dare’s site is a personal blog.

As one of the commenters pointed out, the blog even contains a disclaimer that reads:

“Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer’s view in any way.

©

This silly feud seems like backward progress to me. I’m pretty sure that most of us have moved on from the days of Dooce and getting fired for blogging. In fact, most employers are pretty cool about people having personal blogs for their personal opinions…and most people, too, know the difference between a personal blog and the official opinions of one’s employer.

For the record, I’m so completely and totally over this, you have no idea. Are you guys as annoyed as I am that adults are playing out petty personal attacks in your RSS reader?  Is the tech blogosphere is some sort of high school clique? Can’t we all be grownups here?

Does New Media “Journalism” Have Standards?October 3

Opinion: I butted my way into a Twitter exchange today between two respected journalists, Mathew Ingram and Kara Swisher. Apparently Ms. Swisher didn’t think Mathew should have spread the tweet gossip about Steve Jobs’ heart attack considering that he hadn’t fact-checked the story for accuracy.

Mathew, on the other hand, disagreed:

While I have nothing but respect and admiration for the real, j-school trained journalists out there and feel they provide an important service in our society, I think I’m going to have to agree with Mathew on this one.

Let me explain why.

New Media Vs Old Media

This goes back a thought-provoking conversation I had with Mary Fallon at this year’s DEMO conference about the differences between “old school” journalism and “new media.”