OldSandBox - A Place for Testing Google Features

Google Maps AutoPrompting

2010-12-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

This image pretty much speaks for itself. I'm not sure exactly what heuristics Google uses to determine ranking in the list, but for some reason an exact match isn't the top find. The list isn't alphabetical, but it also doesn't seem to be by best fit to what the user has typed.

(note: address may also have a problem with the geo-ip database. The location Google maps to isn't even close to the AT&T retail office claiming to have this location. and in fact it maps to an address on Bellevue Way Northeast)

Gmail, Out-of-Beta Nitpick

2009-11-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

Nitpicky:
gmail is out of beta. So, why is the number of invites you can send still limited?

(lower left of standard gmail interface)

I did do a quick check to send an invite, and it dropped from 50 to 49, so the counter at least still appears to be active.

2009-08-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure whether this is a phishing ad in gmail or a courtesy notice which went bad (mousing over the links doesn't let you copy them or see where they go, which breaks expectations for something that looks like text with a hyperlink):

My big complaint (assuming that it's a genuine message) is the conflict with their other UI conventions, notably Google search (paid/ad results in faintly shaded bars at the top, above the "real" results):

(they are shaded in roughly the same color, though the Google search one is quite faint with some monitor settings)

The broken English in the gmail example makes it worse- if this really is from Google it would make sense for me to request that they send password reset info to another private email address I control, but it makes no sense to tell me that "you can send password reset info to..." because if I had the info I wouldn't need to send it to my own email address, and if I didn't then asking myself for help would not be likely to lead to a useful resolution.

Inserting Pictures (Location)

2009-07-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

In BlogSpot, any time you insert a picture, it goes at the top of the current post. You then need to drag it around in the Compose window, or edit the HTML.

Even if it's hard to get the Compose editor talking to the upload tool, it should be possible to allow composition of a single post in multiple sections (sections visible to the blogger but joined in the published post).

(XP, IE8)

Inserting Pictures (Path Name Length)

2009-07-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

Blogspot doesn't give much space for a path name. Even in one of the most common locations for Windows personal stuff (the user's home directory), you often can't see which file you're about to upload (and the text box doesn't resize if you make the window wider).

Oops!

(XP, IE 8, Javascript with high safety)

Inserting Multiple Pictures (Order)

2009-07-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

Often, a blogger will want to upload several pictures and comment on them.

In this case, I'm going to post a series of three pictures. So, off to the upload window.

Note the order I added them in: 1, 2, 3.

Now let's see the order they show up in:

Oops!

It doesn't appear to be a product of the formatting selection (in the Edit HTML window, I see the image tags in reverse order). (screenshot of what the blog looks like at the time of writing is included so the post continues to make sense in the event that they fix the problem)

SideBySide

2009-07-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

This post is a demonstration of an issue with preview vs post in blogspot. I discovered the problem (bug?) while trying to post a couple of images in the same article and organize them more formally than seems easy in the normal compose window.

The following SHOULD be a table with two pictures side by side, each 320x240 pixels.

In fact, here's what the preview looked like:
(IE 8, 8.0.6001.18702). You wouldn't think the browser should matter, since WYSYWIG shouldn't be hard to achieve for HTML in the very browser you're about to compare against for final output...

And here's what the final post looked like after publishing, showing that there was more than enough horizontal space to expand into, so it's not a screen width issue (oops):