Chris: Geek Guy

GooSync is a service which allows you to synchronise your Google Calendar with your mobile phone or PDA. Unlike Google Calendar, which is only accessible via your mobile device’s web browser, GooSync ties in with the calendar/reminder function provided as part of your PDA or phone. This could potentially save you a lot of money if, like me, you’re on a fairly meagre data plan and like to check your schedule regularly.

GooSync is provided by Wolverhampton-based Toffa International, who specialise in sync software. The basic service is free to use, while power users may benefit from the £19.95/year subscription account which offers additional features such as multiple calendar support.

I signed up for the free service with the intention of writing a review, but to be honest there’s not much to be said. I signed up for the account, clicked the confirmation link sent to my email address, authorised GooSync to access my calendar via Google’s API and requested an auto-configuration message to be sent to my handset (Sony Ericsson W880i) via SMS. Opening the configuration SMS prompted me to install the new sync settings, then it was just a matter of telling the phone to synchronise.

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The latest service to come out of Google’s labs is Google Page Creator, a basic web editor that runs through your browser. I’ve had a play with it here and I like what I see; it’s very simple at the moment but it’s very difficult to create a bad-looking web page, which is more than can be said for similar services.

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Google has been known to roll out new features to a limited audience in order to test the water prior to release. Flickr user Mamster is one of these lucky people, and has posted a screenshot of a new design Google are considering. It’s not drastically different, but I quite like it.

(via digg)

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According to this Ars Technica story, Google is putting together a suite of free Internet-related software to be distributed as a single installer. “Google Pack” is rumoured to include a customised version of Firefox, Adobe Reader, a Symantec antivirus solution, AdAware, Trillian and RealPlayer, along with Google’s own offerings.

This is not something I’d have expected from Google, and if pack.google.com didn’t lead to a Google Accounts login page for beta testers (somebody’s broken their NDA, perhaps?), I’d have dismissed this as a silly rumour.

For one, Firefox is the only open-source title on the list – everything else is free, but only as in beer.

The reasons for including RealPlayer, which is unpopular at best, and the Trillian multi-IM client, when Google have their own chat client, are speculated upon in the article.

I wait with interest for the official release of the big G’s new product, and can only applaud them for at least trying to promote alternatives to the ubiquitious Microsoft offerings. Hopefully they do the “right thing” and give users to option to install only the applications they choose.

(via digg)

Update: Google Pack is now available (public beta). You can customise the pack before downloading – RealPlayer and Trillian are not included by default, and Google Talk is also available as an optional extra.

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After hearing about Google’s new WebAccelerator utility and giving it a spin, I was ready to blog about it today.

The program, which requires Windows 2000 or XP and works with Internet Explorer and Firefox as well as other browsers by manual proxy settings, purports to speed up your browsing by routing Web page access through Google’s servers. The theory is that Google’s servers will usually be faster than whatever site you’re accessing.

However, this means that when WebAccelerator is running, Google can see everything you are browsing. To be fair, the installer does warn you of this, and you can add a list of sites which will bypass Google’s servers, or simply turn off the accelerator when you don’t want to use it.

It gets worse, though – it seems WebAccelerator isn’t smart enough not to cache pages that require a login. That means that you could visit a forum and be automatically logged in as someone else, for example. This has webmasters up in arms, and many sites are scrambling to block WebAccelerator users. Rich Kyanka at SomethingAwful.com is one of those affected.

Personally, I don’t blame Google for releasing WebAccelerator – it’s still in beta, so it’s up to users to decide whether they should take the risk in trying something that may not be quite ready for prime time. I don’t believe that Google have a sinister plan to build a history of user’s Web activity either, as some have suggested.

I have discontinued use of WebAccelerator, though, as I haven’t noticed a dramatic speed improvement. Similar results could be achieved by using the proxy server of your ISP – Google isn’t doing anything particularly new. What I would like to see is something like EarthLink Accelerator which compresses pages before sending them to the user. I would be interested to see how popular Google WebAccelerator becomes in the light of all this bad publicity.

You can read more over at Inside Google or at these digg stories.

Update: Now it seems that GWA is wreaking havoc with web apps.

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