No Maps - Google Maps Offline?!

At the moment I am developing a little application that use Google Maps API - today it seems that Google Maps is offline. The Google Maps API don't give back any data. Also services like yourstreet.com that use Google Maps has problems to load the map. Is Google rolling out some new service or is there a problem with the Google Servers after the little San Francisco earth quake?

Update: Seems that my Safari Beta 3 is the problem for the not appearing Google Maps. Safari can't connect to Google Maps Server and also not to Google Maps API. Google Maps Germany and other countries working perfect. 

google+maps maps google api offline earth+quake san+francisco

Like the Leopard Song?

If you like the Leopard tune that runs during the Leopard Setup Process - you can find  the full version by Honeycut on their album "The Day I Turned to Glass" here at iTunes > Exodus Honey

leopard apple tune honeycut exodus+honey quannum+projects

Steve, are you Nervous?

Five hours to go for the official launch day of Apples new OS X 10.5 aka Leopard. What do you think - is Steve Jobs nervous - can he sleep? Perhaps he sits right now in front of his opened fridge in the dark kitchen, drinking a glass of water or perhaps he is  playing PacMan on its iPhone to relax. We don't know but I think it would be interesting to know. I could imagine that he is damn cool and have a good sleep. We will never know...

steve+jobs apple leopard osx 10.5 os+x

2d or 3d Leopard Dock?

You don't like the Leopard new 3d styled dock? No Problem - there are some guys out there who coded a little tool where you can switch between both styles with ease. Read more over here.

leopard dock 3d 2d 2dornot2d

Apple & Google

Last week I bought a fresh new iMac 24" and yes - I really like it - but thats not part of this post. When we first setup the iMac and did the first run - it starts the normal setup process that you all know when you ever bought a Mac. Part of this setup process is, that you can take a snapshot of yourself to feed the Computer Account Icon used in iChat or on the log on screen using the build in iSight Camera. Well, it was fun doing this image of my girlfriend and me - grining into the camera but what we don't know is that Apple is transfering this image into your GMail Account. I don't know why but today I found out - while searching for IMAP settings on my GMail settings - that I have now a Contact Picture in GMail - and what me really surprised - it was the foto taken with the iSight camera during the iMac setup process. Does anybody know how this can happen or if this is a new hidden feature. Does the iMac sends my image to Google? I don't know. I now deleted the image and I will check the next days if this image will return.

UPDATE: I found out that it is iChat - which I use via Jabber and Google Talk - when you start iChat - iChat seems to send the image to Google and it will appear in your Google Settings under Contact Photos. It will then of course used as image when you send emails withing GMail. 

apple google isight contact+picture gmail settings google+mail ichat jabber

I am free!

I dont want to share, I dont want to have friends and I dont want to upload anything! I want my freedom and I dont see any reason to use Facebook. 

facebook freedom free deactivate

Huge Screen - Slow Mouse

When you are using a huge screen on your Mac - ex: a 24" like me - ways from the east to the west of your screen are much larger than on smaller screens. I like a fast mouse because I work fast and I can't stop somewhere in the center to restart moving to one of the edges. So, my first thing was to set the mouse speed as fast as possible in the system settings. Well, as expected it is not fast enough for me and I want it faster. So I searched the web and found something very helpful. MacWorld has some nice tip for fast mouse friends. With a simple call in the terminal - you get a much faster mouse. See the full article over here at MacWorld

mouse apple speed fast mouse+speed os+x osx

Switch to a Smarter Car

Do we really need this car? We like our Jeep Cherokee very much but most of the time we are cruising into the city center with less space and tiny parking lots here in Europe. So why not buy a smaller car to save energy, money and do something green for our planet.

I think we wil buy one of these here - the new Smart Car from Mercedes Benz





smart car mercedes+benz daimler daimlerchrysler fortwo 2008 smartusa

Gmail Notifier Update Not Working

Today I saw a little dialog poped up after starting my Mac. It says that an update for Google Mail Notifier is available and ask me if I want to install it. Well, yes - I want ... after some seconds Safari startsup and shows me a File Not Found Error. 

I tried to reload the page but no luck. Seems that something is going wrong here. To bad the updater stopped my Google Mail Notifier and now I have no Notifier running on my Mac. I hope this is only a temporary problem and that the page with the update is soon available again.

google gmail notifier update