Devir Kahan

The Google Pac-Man Game

// May 21st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Blog, Entertainment, Fun, Google, Internet, Tech

When I first saw that Google had created a Pac-Man game out of their logo for the game’s 30th anniversary I was immediately saddened by the fact that it would only be available for this one day. Well, that’s actually not entirely true. That was probably my second thought. My first was more like “MAN that’s awesome!” followed by my body forcing me to play it for about a half hour. The thought of how the world would be able to play it after today actually came after that.

Addressing that point however, I was super glad when I saw a tweet from @RustyBrick linking to their blog page explaining how one of their engineers created a JavaScript code to embed on any webpage to keep forever. And so naturally, I tried to do that that myself, but after WordPress decided to give me some trouble, I thought it best simply to link to their embed of the game so you can play Google Pac-Man forever-more, here.

Will Google Buzz?

// February 12th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Emails, Google, Information, Internet, Reviews, Tech, TechKnowledgey

A few days ago Google announced  Google Buzz. It’s their take on real time social networking, built right in to Gmail. They seem really confident with this, but will it kill sites like Twitter and Facebook? I don’t think so, and on this episode of TechKnowledgey, I share with you my thoughts on Google’s Buzz.

First off, like Google Wave, I just don’t think this is going to go anywhere. Sure, we are seeing a lot of early adopters, but I can’t see this actually taking off. It’s too tightly integrated into Gmail, and Twitter and Facebook are too far ahead. Now, we may see the nice new features of Buzzs revolutionize email in a few years, but for now, I believe that Buzz will not really go any further. In addition, I am sure that in the mean time, Twitter will just steal the new ideas that Buzz has, and that’ll be that.

On top of all of that, Buzz is off to a bad start. It has had privacy issues since day one, allowing anyone to see the email addresses of people you follow by default – bad move! Plus, Buzz constantly bombards you with emails, even for status updates that you make! What the heck?! I’m pretty sure I know what I just typed! Worst of all, in my opinion, Google Buzz requires you to use your email as your subdomain! I don’t want everyone knowing my Gmail address? What were they thinking?

It seems like Google was upset with the failure that Wave was, and so they rushed out Buzz a little too early. There are to many problems to start out with, and with other sites that are much further ahead, I just can’t see Buzz really going anywhere. But who really knows? It may very well revolutionize the way we communicate in a few years. But for now, it’s just another premature little app from Google, that just doesn’t work the way we would all like.

Make Google Dance

// December 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog, Google, How To, Media Blog, Tech

From Chris Pirillo’s blog write-up on my video:

You use Google all the time, I’m sure. Did you know that there are a ton of neat little Easter Eggs hidden inside? There are so many things you can do to have fun with Google, and most people don’t even know about them. Luckily, Devir has produced this screencast for us, to show us his favorite Google tricks. Some of these are more fun than functional. So – let’s take a look at the functional first!

Google is a calculator. Type your math problem into Google, and it will display your answer. This works for basic math, Algebra and even Geometry!

Google is a dictionary. Type in define: followed by any word you choose… and Google will display any and every dictionary meaning associated with that word! Make sure you put the colon after the word define, then a space, and then your word.

Google is a World clock. Type in time: followed by any major city or country in the World, and Google will tell you the current time in that location. Again, remember the colon and the space!

Google is a Stock checker. Type any stock symbol into Google, and it will display all of the current information about that particular stock.

Google holds the answer to life, the universe and everything! Type in: what is the answer to life the universe and everything. Google will correctly then tell you that the answer is42.

Now, let’s have some fun! Head over to Dark Arts Media. You’ll now see a page that looks very similar to the typical Google search. However, click the two Os in Google, and they’ll disappear. It’s a fun little magic trick to show people. Click it again, and the Os come back. The third time you click them, it takes you back to the normal Google page.

Now, head over to Google, and do an image search of any type. In the url bar, delete everything there, and replace it with the following code:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName(’img’); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position=’absolute’; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+’px’; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+’px’}R++}setInterval(’A()’,5); void(0);

All of the images on the page start flying around in a circle!! How cool is that?

Thanks, Devir, for an excellent screencast.

What’s The Deal With Ads?

// December 9th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog, Emails, Google, Tech

Aleks from Mexico City wrote in asking:

Hey, it’s a cool blog you got here. I’ve seen some blogs that look very alike (is it the theme? WicketPixie or something?) and everyone seems to love it. But I have one complaint: ADS. I just hate it when content is in the freaking middle
of “ads by google”, it looks overloaded and really makes the header look dull. Is
it really that profitable to sacrifice design for some clicks/cents? I hope you
don’t take it bad, I just wanted to give my opinion. I repeat, it’s a cool blog you
got here, the content is pretty good ;)

First off, I absolutely don’t take it badly – I always like to hear all your thoughts and opinions. Also, for someone that mostly speaks Spanish, that’s pretty darned good English. I also just want to take the time to thank you for the comments you’ve made and your participation in this small, but growing, community.

Now, the truth is that yes, ads are indeed very important. At that same time though, I, as much as you, hate going to sites where the ads take over the content. On some sites you can hardly tell the difference between what is actual content, and what are advertisements. So, on my site I really tried, and want, to make the ads as unobtrusive as possible. I have one banner ad on the top of the site, one underneath the posts, and then there is also a little section next to every post that has ads, yes, but also is functional; with a TweetMeme link and related posts. I don’t find those very obtrusive or annoying at all – and trust me, like I said, I hate annoying ads.

You also mentioned that there were Google ads in the middle of content. That is not true – I have those little ad links that appear on keywords in posts, but again, they are not real blinking ads, or even text ads. They just kind of disappear into posts just like any other link. Again, I don’t really find these ads annoying or obtrusive at all, on both my own blog, as well as other people’s sites that I visit and have seen them on.

The truth is that as time goes on, I will probably have to add even more ads to my site, but I will always make sure they are as unobtrusive, not annoying, and discrete, as possible. I will always keep my readers and viewers in mind, and would not do something that I feel would be an inconvenience to you. At that same time though, ads bring in money – money that I need to run everything that I do online. Not having ads at all is not possible and is just out of the question.

Well Aleks, thank you very much for writing in and sharing your thoughts with me. I hope I answered your questions and explained these ads.

I really want to be as open to the community as possible, and you know you can always email me at mail@devirkahan.com. I promise to respond to every email I get (as long as it’s not spam or junk mail, of course) so, if you ever want to contact me for any reason, please do – my inbox is always open.

Screencasting For Lockergnome

// December 7th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog, Google, How To, Life, Media Blog, Tech

As you may have seen over that past week or so, I submitted two screencasts to Chris Pirillo to use on his YouTube channel over at http://youtube.com/lockergnome/. Chris actually had me redo them both a few times before they were up to par. This was actually no big deal to me because I have to do the same thing for all of my own videos. You just have to redo them and record more ‘takes’ until you get it right. And, for whatever reason, it just took me a bit to get these screencasts right.

No matter though, he finally approved them and told me that they were good. Kat (Chris’s assistant) emailed me asking for all the info on the videos, and they both should be going up sometime early this week – if not already. As they are posted on his channel, I will be embedding them here on my blog too, so keep an eye out for that.

I am really excited to be a part of his channel, and of course, am hoping that this will increase my traffic even more to my own YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/thedevirkahan/ and possibly my blog as well. I am glad that I already have two screencasts on his channel, and am look forward to making more soon.

iPhone Glitches

// December 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Apple, Gadgets, Google, Tech

I don’t know what it is, but recently I have been finding a lot of small little bugs and glitches in the iPhone OS, on my iPod Touch (yes – my iPod Touch which runs iPhone OS). Spotlight sometimes does not run correctly – like above. It freezes up sometimes real bad, and it even deleted all my music once. And, worst of all – the YouTube app is totally screwed up for me! At first it wasn’t pulling in my subscriptions,  but now it won’t even let me log in. I’m actually going to be calling Apple to ask them about that one.

All that being said, the iPhone OS is still the best mobile operating system, but with some pretty darn good competition, like Web OS from Palm, and Android from Google, I would like to see a major overhaul in the next version on iPhone OS. Because, if there isn’t, I can’t believe I am saying this, but the iPhone OS is going to start falling behind.

Fun With Google

// November 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Apple, Google, How To, Life, Reviews, Tech

http://geeks.pirillo.com/video/fun-with-google - (I uploaded this to my Geeks profile for now, but I will update this with the actual YouTube embed if and when it is excepted.)

This is a video showing you some of the cool hidden tricks and features of one of the most popular websites on the planet, Google. And, being a website you probably use dozens of times a day, why not know about all those cool “easter eggs” that the clever folks over at Google threw in?

I had a bit of trouble getting the code to work in a WordPress post, so you can find it at the link to video above.

The truth is, there are a ton more cool features of Google that weren’t even covered in this video. These were just a few of my favorites. Search around, and see what you can find!