webdancers Blog

Using Multiple Accounts in Google

By | July 27th, 2011

Google AccountsThis feature has been available for almost a year but many people still have not enabled it. This is a good time to review its use, for a couple of reasons:

  1. If you are a Google Apps user who wants to experiment with Google Plus, you will need to switch to a personal Gmail account to do so.
  2. Now that most Google Apps accounts can be used to sign in to other Google services, it is no longer possible to keep your Google Apps account and personal Gmail account open at the same time in the same browser.

Using the multiple accounts feature allows you to switch quickly back and forth between accounts. Here’s how to set it up:

  • Sign in using your personal Gmail account and click on your email address (or photo, if you’ve added one) on the right side of the menu bar.
  • Select “Account settings”.

Gmail Account Settings

  • Select the “Edit” link next to “Multiple sign-in”.

Account Multiple Signin

  • On the following screen, select the “Yes” radio button and check all the boxes to indicate that you know what you’re doing.
  • Return to Gmail and reload the page.
  • Click again on your address or photo in the menu bar.
  • Click on “Switch accounts” in the lower right of the pop-up window.
  • Click on “Sign in to another account”.

Gmail Signin

  • Enter the username and password for another Google account. The second account will load in a new tab.
  • To verify that you can switch between accounts, click on your address or photo in the menu bar.
    Click on “Switch accounts”.
    Note that both accounts are now shown, with a green check mark next to the current account.

Verify account switch

I recommend that you keep only one tab open and use “Switch accounts” to move between different Google accounts. Otherwise, it gets confusing as to which account you are currently using.

Now that it’s easy to switch accounts, please come join the conversations in Google Plus. If you need an invitation, let me know in comments (use a Gmail address in your comment) and if you’re already there, please add me to your circles.

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Online Backup Revisited

By | July 20th, 2011
Pod 2.0 Data Center Cabinets

Backblaze Cloud Storage Data Center

As I have written about here and here, a good backup plan must include off-site backup of your files. This backup should be automatic and unattended, so that you can forget about it for weeks at a time. For all practical purposes, this means using a 3rd party service to upload your backups to the cloud. About a year ago, I selected Backblaze to back up my files and I continue to recommend them.

Along with the fact that they are still in business (unlike Iron Mountain) and haven’t raised their prices (unlike Mozy and Carbonite), I am impressed with the openness with which Backblaze operates. They have recently deployed version 2 of the “Storage Pod” that stores their customer data and, as they did with version 1, they have published the design specs on their company blog.

As a customer, this visibility into how my data is stored and protected gives me great confidence in using Backblaze as a backup provider. For example, I now know:

  • Backblaze has over 9,000 drives in use in their data center, storing over 16 petabytes (1 petabyte = 1000 terabytes or 1 quadrillion bytes). They replace about 10 drives per week, for an overall failure rate of about 5%. However, the drives selected for their version 2 pods (Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000) are experiencing a failure rate of less than 1%.
  • Although the internal heat of each pod varies depending on its position in the rack, temperature does not correlate to drive failures (note that all pods maintain a temperature well within the drive’s operating specs).
  • Backblaze is a lean company. They have refined their processes to the point where one employee (Sean) can maintain the hardware on all 201 pods.
  • Their cost to maintain 1 petabyte of data for three years, including hardware, space rental and electricity is $94,563.

BackblazeIf you have any interest in a little DYI project to build a 135 terabyte storage server, this blog post has everything you need to know. If you just need reliable, affordable online backup, visit the Backblaze site and sign up for the service. The company continues to build its reputation through continued openness about their operating procedures and generosity in open-sourcing the hardware on which they have built their business.

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Strawberry Music Festival Video Previews

By | July 10th, 2011
Morning in Music Meadow

Morning in Music Meadow

The Strawberry Music Festival is a Central Sierra tradition that goes back 30 years. The festival takes place twice a year – over Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends – at Camp Mather, just outside of Yosemite National Park. The performers are diverse, the setting spectacular and the festival-goers are now into their 3rd generation.

Over on my personal blog (gregfalken.com), I’m sharing videos for each of the 22 bands that will be playing at the Fall festival. My family and I look forward every year to spending four days immersed in “The Strawberry Way”.

Click to view:

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 1

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 2

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 3

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 4

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The Future of Presentations?

By | June 22nd, 2011

Photo from donahueapp.com

Having just completed an online presentation using the decidedly old-school WebEx and being in discussions about the next Central Sierra social media conference, this prototype presentation app really caught my attention.

Donahue debuted at SXSW this year, creating a lot of buzz. According to the Donahue blog:

Over the past decade, Donahue’s product leads Tim Meaney & Chris Fahey, watched audiences at conferences turn away from the presenters and increasingly inward, or downward, towards their laptops, phones, and tablets. Their insight was that this apparent disengagement was actually a detached kind of engagement—people were interacting with the substance of the presentation, but this interaction was directed out of the presenter-audience loop and into a network of other connectivities. Their idea was to develop an application that rewired that engagement back into the experience of the presentation, transforming detachment into dialogue.

The best way to understand this is to view the demonstration app. If you’re like me, you’ll want to use it too.

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Use private browsing to see the web through fresh eyes

By | June 20th, 2011

PrivateMore and more, the web is adapting to who and where you are. Google tailors its search results when you are logged in and Facebook Connect allows websites to personalize your experience, based on your social graph.

What if you want to see things not as yourself but as an anonymous user? All of the major browsers now support private browsing, allowing you to connect to sites without creating history entries, cached content or cookies. Look for “InPrivate Browsing” (Internet Explorer), “Incognito mode” (Chrome) or “Private Browsing” (Firefox and Safari).

When a website receives a request from one of these private browsers, it returns the most generic webpage it has available. No “welcome back, John” messages and no connection with your friends on Facebook. If you were logged in to a site in your regular browser, you will not be in your private browser.

Here are a few situations that I use private browsing for regularly:

  • Log in to a Google Apps account while remaining logged in to another Google Account.
  • View search results that are not influenced by location or previous searches.
  • View web pages without personalization or administrative tools.
  • View social media profile pages as the general public will see them.

Private browsing also has another purpose, which is to make it difficult for users of the same computer to determine which websites have been visited by the browser (which is why some refer to it as porn mode). This can be a very useful feature of private browsing, although it is not entirely foolproof. According to Ars Technica:

The researchers found that the browsers’ protections were imperfect. Browsers did not properly isolate their private sessions from non-private ones, with the result that suitably crafted sites could trace visitors between private and non-private sessions. Sites could also leave persistent indications that they had been visited, allowing visits to be detected by local users.

Read the entire article if this is of concern to you. For most of us however, the biggest benefit of browsing privately may be the ability to view the web through fresh eyes.

Photo by Andreas Photography.

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Euphonious EULA

By | June 10th, 2011
Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Dreyfuss

Nobody reads End User License Agreements (EULAs), right? The problem is that they’re just too long, dry and boring. Well, I think we’ve found the solution: dramatic readings. Listen to these excerpts from the Apple iTunes EULA performed by Academy Award® winning actor Richard Dreyfuss and you’ll have a whole new perspective on the under-appreciated EULA.

Agreement

Responsibility

Damages

Effective Until

Originally published on CNET Reporters’ Roundtable. Recordings reproduced with permission from Richard Dreyfuss.

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