On Switching To Android

Christmas went by quickly. Looking back on the year, I often remark that I wish I'd taken more pictures, and captured more of the moments that made for a great 2012. I don't particularly make "new year resolutions" but I will resolve now and going forwards to take more pictures. In fact, I resolve to take one picture a day, every day. And to accomplish this task, I am armed with the Samsung Galaxy S3.

The first in the series is a panorama of our front room on Boxing Day

Friends in the know will recognize the significance of my move to Android. So far I have been a walking talking iAd, and in many ways still am. I love Apple. I love their design, futuristic outlook, attention to detail and super-friendly UIs. But the time has come to go Google.

Why? Working there likely has a big part to play, but moreover, I'm finding recently that I want a little more from my phone. The camera was a big part of the decision (don't take my example above as proof of it's superiority, I'm still learning and practicing!) However, the customization, Google Now, and the general speed with which Google seems to be moving, compared to Apple, pretty much made me feel it was the right time to jump ship. It may not be there right now, but I've high hopes for Android in 2013.

The experience so far has been lackluster. I am struggling to adopt to the new world, but its a challenge I'm being rewarded for. Let me boil down a couple of my highlights so far. 1. The option to choose and buy my own battery cover (I'm in leather now, with Galaxy S3 etched in). 2. The option to custom fit my own launcher, minimizing animations and effects, and gearing my device for function. 3. Significantly better keyboard, also chosen by myself from the Play store. 4. Significantly better voice control, in the form of Google Now. It's still mostly a gimmick, but some functions have become part of my daily life, including checking stocks morning and night, checking what time's Stacey is at work (her rota changes, but I can see calendar entries as they come up), setting alarms and timers on the fly quickly and easily (I turn the boiler on and tell my phone "set alarm, 40 minutes, shower is ready", or I remember I have to make a phone call later, so I tell my phone "set alarm 715 tomorrow call home".

On the other hand, I should really tell you the many things that are pissing me off. There are tiny little details that Apple have paid attention to that I never even noticed until they disappeared on this device. Let's start with the one that is probably least relevant, but the most pertinent and frustrating - the lock screen. The lock screen is slow. I've never noticed how the iPhone lock screen is impressively present, but the Galaxy screen is slow. What I mean is, if I lock the phone and try and get back in, I'm not necessarily seeing the lock screen. I will probably see the screen I was just on, and have to wait a second or two to have the lock screen come up. In the long scheme of things, this is nothing, but it is bloody annoying. The time isn't on the button either. It's always worth giving the phone a couple of seconds in case it is showing you the time from the last time the display was on - this has happened many times. Forget the days of quick checking the time on the iPhone, and pocketing it back in a flash. This one takes time.

Next, the screen is too big! I can't believe I agree with this Apple ad now. I laughed at it when it went up on YouTube. I thought to myself "They are really desperate now, trying to sell on their thumb geometry." But it's a real issue. It's things like propping your phone up with your pinky to get to the home button, or having to conduct a carefully delicate maneuver to reach the top left corner, putting your phone is a dangerous palm balance.

I'll have to round up because this was a long post, and now I want to get dressed and head outside. I've got a picture to take and the weather in Dun Laoghaire is lovely (I didn't ask Google Now, I just looked out the window #oldschool). The roundup is pretty much a 'Watch This Space'. I'm not sure yet if I'm entirely comfortable on Android. While there are definitely gems keeping me interested, such as the prospect of rooting, developing apps for it, customizing, playing Ingress, etc., I'm still missing the simplicity and genius of the iPhone 5. I keep wondering, "Would it have been worth that extra 100 bucks?" The truth is, these are very different devices, believe it or not. The Apple vs. Samsung case while fighting over the hardware design, and some elements of the software, has made it seem like these two are homogenous, but they are not. One thing I have learnt from my time on Android, however, is that there are very few I would recommend it to. At least for the time being, it's definitely a place for the savvy, and the curious. If you want easy-to-use and "magical", just stick with Apple. Since Google Maps came out with an iOS app anyway, what's the problem?

Back to Black

After a year's hiatus, I've finally reinstated by black MacBook. I got this dear old thing back in Berkeley, when my Dell imploded just before a week of tests and coursework deadlines. It's nice to be back on my own computer (i.e. not a work computer), but it is weird having a poorer experience than I do at work. There is still some oddity with the backlight, which just decides to off itself every now and then, about once an hour, so there will be no movies had. Personally, I don't see myself lasting more than a few months before this old pal sees Ebay, but let's see if I can't make something of him yet.

Day 5: Shit work

Day 5 has been a tough one. I started out the morning crafting a new site template. Something a big different i.e. not simple and clean, but loud and outrageous. I decided to build a site for a fictional band, named aptly after my high-school attempt at a music career, Tru Story.

I'm not ready to upload this to the actual Internet yet, so you'll have to satisfy yourself with this drab screenshot. Even though its my work, I find it tasteless and clunky. I'm ashamed, but I'm not disheartened. Had I understood positioning in a more complete way, I'd have banged this out in an hour or so. But going back and correctly myself meant most of my day was spent trial-and-erroring multiple different combinations of absolutes, relatives and fixed. I didn't even spend 10 minutes honing the color scheme, so I've forgiven myself for that. I'm going to call this what it is and move on - a practice session. Perhaps not ready to be portfolio-ed, but something to work with. 

HTML & CSS, Sorted!

It took the best part of the week, but I feel like I've finally got fundamental HTML and CSS cracked. I've just finished up on my first site (all about me, of course) and you can find it at mynameisel.com.

I'm going to go through the steps for you here, because really there isn't any reason we should all know a little bit about putting together a simple website. For me it was an obvious skill I needed - I work daily with online advertisers so having some web design knowledge should help there. It also means I can use my own creativity when it comes to promoting anything I'll need to in the future. So I decided to take 2 weeks off work to focus on me and learning something I wanted to learn. I did not expect to be done by now!

Day 1: On the first day I learnt all the basic HTML stuff. Pretty simple since I was a bit of a MySpaceaholic back in the day. I understand the core concepts, but needed some refreshing on how a website is really meant to be put together, as opposed to how a self-obsessed teenager might do on a broken social network. It led neatly into...

Day 2: Good, solid CSS. I loved this bit. I'm a bit of a minimalist (have you seen my site yet?!) and a perfectionist with stuff like this, so seeing the range of style to use was great fun. I've spent longer than I care to admit getting all the details right, but I've come to see how flexible CSS is, and how important it is to keep it in a separate file. This was a brand new concept to me (tell me about it... and I work at Google... I should know these things right?)

Day 3: Getting in hosted. This was way harder than I expected. A simple, practical and affordable web hosting solution is a big fat gap in the market if I've ever seen one. It took me two hours, a long walk, and a headache to figure out and decide what service provider to go with. All said and done, I put the site online using HostGator, for $8.95/month, plus $15 to register my domain. Their 24/7 chat customer service is pretty stellar, but their UI is total crap. I need to see if this can be done cheaper.

Day 4: Making it better. I spent time today nailing the "hover over" effect that's going on. Codecademy taught me how to change what happens to a certain div when you hover over it, but it took me a darn good while to figure out how to affect another div, and how to do it with correct positioning so that everything didn't shuffle around the page. Today is Day 4.

Next: Well now I need a new project. I've got some tidying up to do on the dashboards I have made for work, but since I am still on vacation, that can probably wait. In the meantime, I think I'll look for another site to start working on.

EDIT: Lot's of credit to Codecademy and the contributors on Stack Overflow btw. Couldn't have done it without them!

My First Dashboard in Google Spreadsheets

SQL update

The progress so far on understanding SQL is unfortunately very early days. Last week however, I caught up with an experienced Business Analyst, who has opened my eyes, as it were, to the world of spreadsheet dashboards. I spent a fair few hours this week scrawling through Internet lessons on how to present data from spreadsheets in a dynamic way, and hopefully I've now arrived somewhere quite interesting. This takes advantage of the QUERY function, practically the same as learning pure SQL, so this is my present diversion.

Google Spreadsheets

The advantage of using Google is two fold. 1) It is far easier to build something I can share with people at work (Google Ireland). After spending time learning this stuff, I want it easily accessible and familiar for everyone, and believe it or not, some people in our office simply don't run Excel on their laptops. Moreover, it just seems un-Googley to not use Spreadsheets! 2) I can keep it updated and current. I did start building in Excel, but the kind of data I want to show need to be updated on a daily basis. Sending out an Excel file every day is impractical, so I'm building my dashboard in Google.

A case for Excel

Just before we leave the point, I have to point out that Excel does seem to be significantly more powerful, so once I start working with much bigger sets of data in more complex ways, I wouldn't be surprised if I swapped, particularly with Office 365 looking much more Internet friendly.

The Dashboard - the good bit!

The way I see it, a dashboard needs to turn a whole shed load of dump data into a report - some kind of presentation that makes it useful. For starters, you need a database:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap52YEdfS7NLdEFyUlR4MzI2S21KaXFyTFZCNUtyWmc#gid=0

I made the mock above about how a fictitious Alice and Bob played a game to win Coins and Stars. It's really simple data. The idea on the dashboard is that you can choose either Alice or Bob, and choose how many Coins they won. The result is how many Stars they got for each time they won this many Coins. While this seems completely useless, you will appreciate that being able to query tables of data like this in a Google Spreadsheet could be kind of handy.

The Query

Just getting the hang of putting this query together took a while. The one I've settled for (for now) is:

"=Query(Database!A1:D200, "select A, B, C, D where C = "&F3&" and B contains """&C3&""" ",1)"

Entered into Dashboard!C9, this returns a table based on the entries above. Now to break it down:

a) =Query(data, query, headers): This is the function. Pretty simple stuff. Enter a 1 for headers when starting out.

b) Database!A1:D200: This is my source, which references the first sheet. You can reference other spreadsheets too using importRange("SPREADSHEET KEY","RANGE"

c) "select A, B, C, D: I started by selecting all the columns. In the same file you use A, B, C etc. but if referring to another file, use Col1, Col2, Col3 etc.

d) where C = "&F3&": Notation for referring to numbers should be in quotes and &s.

e) and B contains """&C3&""": Notation for strings has two more quotes. Not sure why but it took me a lot of faffing to clock this. Also, note the and as opposed to adding another where.

You can find a complete list of syntax on the Query Language Reference page here.

The Chart

So easy, but oh so cool. Just make a chart as you normally would, and as you change the value the chart will move. This will impress your boss, I promise you. For good formatting, you might move your entry fields and charts around so that you have a nice clean page where the user doesn't have to see data at all, but just charts.

Next Step

The plan is to go and apply some of this strategy to relevant data we collect at work, to show some useful things. I've also got some learning to do on how to use dates, hence why in my spreadsheet the dates don't work.

Links/References

A really good video by CrestWebServices that broke it all down for me

Google's Query Language Reference

Using Data Validation for the drop down menu

This is day one of my mission to self learn SQL. Started here:

My Family and Hangouts

My family is a close one. Even though we live across the globe, we do our best to meet frequently, in Hyderabad, Warrington, Chennai or this year even in Cairo. But this is hard - travel is expensive, but it also takes time and planning. So frequently usually means bi-annually, and often just one or two of us can fly over at a time. I'd like to share our story of how over the past few months we've been using Google+ Hangouts to make the world a little bit easier to fly around. Since mid July, me and family have been meeting weekly, every Sunday afternoon, to have a coffee, a biscuit, and to catch up on the "craic" (read: banter, gossip, lols and chit-chat).

The first time my nan video chatted with her grandkids - 12th August '12

The reason for my blog is really to encourage this sort of thing. As new technologies become available, it sometimes take a while before everyone really understands what's possible. I decided in July that a lot was possible, and that we would lead the way. I'm a G+ advocate anyway (see my blog about the end of facebook), but maybe this will give me some ammunition in my argument.

My Family...

...on my Mum's side are in some ways just perfect for Hangouts. We are: my Auntie, Uncle and Grandma in Hyderabad, my eldest cousin and her husband in Warrington, my Mum and Dad, also in Warrington, my other cousin sister in Manipal University in Karnataka, my sister in Keele University, my other Aunty and youngest cousin in Rainhill, my uncle in Chennai, and finally me and my girlfriend in Dublin, Ireland. In case you weren't counting, that's 14 people across 6 different locations.

Troubleshooting

Google+: The first objective was suggesting everyone get a Google account. This part was easier than I thought. Most of us already had one, used for Gmail or YouTube etc, and the rest set one up at the same time as accessing Google+ for the first time. My extensive customer services experience prepared me well for an email with screenshots and step by step instructions, ensuring even my Grandma got an account and was ready to Hangout.

Sound: was an unexpected issue. Early on we noticed that some users' mic pick up volume differently and some laptop settings needed tweaking. Fortunately, this landed with some of the more savvy locations, and doesn't disrupt much at all now.

My Nan mistook FaceTime for Google+...

Tablets: are not going to be ideal. Although I am able to hangout just fine on my iPad, its not the easiest for those unfamiliar with the device and unfamiliar with Hangouts. Beware troubleshooting this one - it's just not worth it. Maybe this will get better, but for the time being, desktops and laptops are easiest. With so many of us, the extra screen space is needed too. No news yet on how Android copes with this, but I'll try it out soon enough.

Timezones: Also solved easier than I thought - we meet at 5pm UK time / 9:30pm India time, which suits everyone.

The Sell

The above issues aside, this has gone brilliantly. Some of the big events we would not have been able to share include seeing my sister move into University, seeing my cousin showing off her first doctor's coat, celebrating Rakhi, seeing my parent's home extension develop, but most of all, seeing my grandma's happiness from being with her global grandchildren every week. I'd say we all feel closer together, much more up-to-date, and really happy my Grandma can spend this time with us, even when she is so far away. Furthermore, with my sister and cousin being in University, living away from home for the first time, I'm really pleased they both have a time of the week where they know at least some of us will be free to spend some time with them, and give them eyes and ears if they need it.

Kala showing off her badge

I'm hoping that by now you are more encouraged to try Hangouts. Just to make my sales pitch here, note that Facebook and Skype don't offer multiple chat at the same time or the same kind of app support available with Google. Beyond our family hangouts, G+ came into it's own when me and my mum sat down together to work on some documents, and when me and my sister spent idle time watching YouTube videos together, as though we were at home, avoiding chores like we do. This truly is the new MSN Messenger in the age of high speed broadband. Don't miss the opportunity to be with people who seem miles away. If you have any questions about how certain things work or need any help getting set up, leave me a comment, give me a ring, or you could even start a Hangout with me.

Hoodie Allen

In the interest of using this blog to store memories of my favorite songs of the day/week/month, I'm leaving this here. Made all the more exciting by collaboration with our buddy Jhameel!

The End of Facebook?

The social networking giant, Facebook, just went public. It's currently trading around $38, although it opened for nice healthy $42. I'm not a stock market pro, but I can tell you this: this most recent week probably marked the beginning of my leaving Facebook.

It will take months probably, since I still need to pop in here every now and again to pick up mail and look at some old pictures. But each time I log on, its usually a boring and annoying experience, littered with ads that are completely irrelevant to me, and a strong feeling that this just isn't as useful as perhaps it once was.

Enter Google+. I have been working at Google for around 9 months now, and since the start it was clear that G+ is really important to the company. They have recognized that social platforms are really engaging for users and that the Google products needed some kind of cohesive front page. Google+ is to be the platform that harnesses all the powerful Google products under a singular account. A social boost to Search. Its not been a hit with the masses yet.

But for the last week or so, I've started leaving Facebook, and found myself more engaged on Google+. I'd like for you to join me. I thought Facebook had it clinched (and I think everyone thinks Facebook has it clinched). Their valuable advantage is in the fact that all your friends are already here, and most of them are not on Google+. I am astonished to find that this actually wasn't a problem over the last week. Until you get down and make some circles you want to follow, its hard to get this. For instance, I've got a "News" circle. I'm effectively treating my stream as an RSS reader, but with the added social benefits: +1s and comments. This is cool, and this is not as great on Facebook. its about social, but social on the broader web.

The biggest reason to start engaging more with Google+ is probably Hangouts. Thing is, there is a social network in there for us to use, and Hangouts are the reason to use it. It's crazy how much we use these at work, and just how brilliant it is. There isn't any other way as accessible to have so many of your friends or coworkers come together at the same time to either have a giggle, some banter, or work on a project together. Hangouts are the real future of VC, and they are the real future of hanging out online.

So yeah, let's leave Facebook guys! You should try Google+ a little more this week. Add some websites you read (Lifehacker is a great one to follow), perhaps some celebrities that you like to follow on Twitter (Richard Branson posts good stuff), and maybe even some companies or sports teams you are into (I have a circle called Ad Agencies that includes companies I have dealt with at work. It's interesting to see what they are working on and what new ideas they are working on with their clients). See if you don't like the simplicity, the Circles, which are much more effective than Groups, and maybe start a Hangout with me.

Glee and Muppets

Saturday night, me and the lady are heading back from a late matinee showing of The Muppets. The film was pretty darn hilarious, taking me by surprise. Taking me even more by surprise was the fact that I didn't enjoy Jason Segel's performance. He was not able to interact with the muppets in a realistic way, and seemed to be aware that he was talking to a hand the whole time. I think these movies call for much more cartoony performances.

Anyway, while strolling down Lower George's Street, quoting the funnies and having the lols, we stumbled upon a simple poster for The Glee Experience. "Why the hell not?" said the little voice in my head.

The show was fun, energetic and a good chance to watch Glee without actually having to watch Glee. There is no way I can commit hours of my life to a teenage soap opera about jocks and geeks and all that farce, but the songs themselves I have enjoyed, and seeing them performed by such talented kids was great fun. Check them out around Dublin over the next couple of months - it's well worth your €15. Ticketmaster is currently showing no dates, but they have some booked in that they plugged at the show, so I would watch this space.

Super Mario 64 DS

I am a winner - I got Mario for Valentine's Day! :D

This game is great. Nintendo have made several changes from the original on N64 (which I never got a chance to complete as a child) including playing as Yoshi from the beginning and some new stars to collect. Only had a change to nab 19 of these fuckers so far, so will shed more light on my progress later, perhaps.



Most of all, I love that I'm still using my DS Lite after all these years. I think the 3DS is the crappest idea Nintendo have ever come up with, and I appreciate that it's priced reasonably low. As a company, I'm sure there is a fair amount of panic going on with the rising popularity of smartphones, and consumers downloading games for their smartphone. Companies have started making fortunes making games that sell for as little as £0.79. On my iPad right now, I'm playing Kingdom Rush - an absolutely wicked tower defence game. It was less that a pound. Not even £1! A bus ride costs more.

I predict that Nintendo can't keep up this farcical strategy of handheld gimmicks for too much longer. The days of the Game Boy have surely started to fade away already. And with their new WiiU project looking equally daft, their presence in the home looks... unpredictable. I'm looking out for the new console, but I'm nervous. I will miss Link, Mario and the rest of the Smash Bros, but might have to let them go if it means buying all that hardware - when my phone and tablet do so much gaming for so much less.

Will Piracy Kill The Music Industry?

My girlfriend wrote a great little piece for tha-one.com called Will Piracy Kill The Music Industry.

I love this debate, and I really wish I had time to investigate it closely and recover the data on this. It's interesting how the Internet affects industries in this way, and the media industry is one of those fighting back hardest. Stacey talks about how the Internet interrupts the workflow for the middle man, and offers power to come straight from artists. Alex Day is her example of this, and his attempted Christmas number one in 2011, where he climbed all the way to number 4 - the first to get so far without a record label.

Training Week

I've had load of training this week, and it was all meant to be stuff I already knew. It has been enlightening, and cleared up so many gaps in my knowledge. I love these moments where you realise that as much as you think you know about something, there are so many better ways to go about it. Well I have already been told - "Don't stop learning." Far too early to be stopping right now.

New AdWords Help Center

This is the latest I have ever been in the office, and it's a quiet place.

I've decided that while I consider the tuna and sweetcorn sandwich next to me, I'd better make today's contribution to this blog. Today I've picked out nothing to share with the world, so thought I'd pull together something simple.

Did you know: Most of the problems you might be experiencing with AdWords (or anything else for that matter), chances are someone else has run into it and has posted something about it on the internet. Honestly, the amount of knowledge hidden somewhere in the webosphere is incredibly close to 100% of all human knowledge. Most of the time, the trick is just knowing where to look, or where to ask.

The AdWords Help Center was just revamped. It now has more easily accessible pages, more explanation of complex problems and navigation is more streamlined. And if not here, there are also frequent posts on Google blogs. Here is a list of challenging questions that really can't be explained in a clearer way:

Linking Analytics to your AdWords account
Segmenting your data, to show specifically what you are looking for
Just about everything on Quality Score
Remarketing: How to do it for beginners and advanced

Just waiting to go home... train is coming in 26 minutes! :D

In my spare free minutes at the end of the business day, I tapped in some Google Maps directions to local DART stations following my trip to see Star Wars 3D tomorrow night. I'm going to have a decision to make - either run and hope I make the last train, or preemptively concede defeat and wait for the bus, a much longer trip home.

Either way though, Star Wars eh? Fucking excited.

Travis' Lucozade thing

I keep losing this great little video. Wakes me right up first thing in the morning! Expect more Travis Barker posts...

Get to draw some pie charts tonight

I have had such a long day. That stuff about this being a popular sick day - I can see why. First Monday of Feb sucks. I've got enough work to last me all week and I didn't get as much as I wanted to done today. I'll be planning a holiday tonight, and doing my money stuff, which I forgot about over the weekend.

I like to take a good half hour tallying the week's spend into a personal budget file to keep track of how much is going out and where. PocketMoney is a dream iPad app for this. I've used this and the iPhone version, both of which can be kept in sync. Managing my money on a tablet keeps it to hand, simple to use and understand. This program, or at least personal finance apps similar to it, are platform sellers as much as social networking, ebook readers and photo apps are. It crushes desktop money management.

I am spending some time today getting more into AdWords for Video. As a campaigner for the death of traditional TV, this is of particular interest to me. I really believe that if we can get media companies to host their programming online in a simple, TV-on-demand format, as well as get users to subscribe to channels and stop watching shit, mass media television, we can all have a better experience with ads and TV content in general. On the internet, TV has the potential to tailor to more niche interests at demand, and advertisers should have more targeting options, reserving their budgets for the audience that relates closest with them.

National Sickie Day!

Today is national sickie day! Hoorah!

Congratulations if you made it in. I have to admit that I felt it this morning; that urge to stay in bed and start planning my holiday was powerful. I made it in however, and we're working hard up here. Besides, with the flu season attacking, I'd hate to ruin my karma for sick days ahead of the time I might need it most.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Green Hill Zone (Jhameel mix)

Just another example of Jhameel's amazing creativity:

Travis Barker Remix Slaughterhouse "The One"

This is going to get me through this last hour.

Just got the ball rolling on trying to organise a recruitment event at Lancaster University for Google. Any interest from undergrads of all disciplines is always taken favorably - get in touch with either myself at stupidpoems@gmail.com, contact your careers person at uni, or look up the info yourself on the Google Student site for all the information on what opportunities are available and how to apply for them.

Ed Sheeran

Can't believe I only just discovered this version of You Need Me! Still my favourite song from 2011, really hope 2012 brings an opportunity to go and see the kid live. Figered crossed for a date in Dublin!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Sheeran
http://www.ticketmaster.ie/Ed-Sheeran-tickets/artist/1560779

I've started that part of my career where every cup of coffee is started by adding an extra shot of espresso.

Screenfilming

I'm doing a project right now for which I am filming my screen activity all day. Back in the day I would have worried for my computer, but I've got to say the MacBook Pro is handling it great. I'm using Camtasia, but I wouldn't know enough about this stuff to give you a real review into how good it is. I'm going to be doing a lot of video editing with it later, so maybe I'll be more insightful then. All I know so far is this is far better kit than iMovie, but then again it's far more expensive too.

Temple Bar Gallery and Studios

Visited the Temple Bar Gallery over the weekend - a mistake. Liam O’Callaghan, an artist who says he set out to make music, has gone and lined up a bunch of old speakers, record players and amplifiers, to make some noise come out at the same tempo. Hoorah. As for how it looks - well I suppose it was lined up all pretty and straight. Its lit by two huge spotlights, the rest of the room being clouded in what sunlight can make it through the full wall tinted glass. The muffled hustle of the tourists just on the other side of the planes makes the room feel isolated and peaceful. I liked being there, as briefly as I could be persuaded to stay. It made me want to listen to some good music. Unfortunately, O'Callaghan makes no effort to make his display sound creative and rhythmic, like those performers that bang garbage around or like the street drummers that you might find on Henry Street. This exhibition is unfortunately boring, and not as entertaining as the multitude of amateur artists that can be found performing in the D2 area all day and night.

1-Up!

You know work is getting really serious when it is too warm to wear your hoody. Good thing I've got my mushroom belt on today. I'm going to need at least three lives to get to the weekend!

Insert Creative Title

I love these days when the DART actually pulls in on time, and I get a nice big breakfast before rushing to my desk. Melon and grapes on the menu today - I've got my health face on. Give it time. Come 10:30, chances are I'll be sucking the teet of the coffee machine, begging for energy hits to be intravenously served to my jugular. There's something nice and graphic for you to spend the morning pondering.

To distract from that image, why don't you check out this beautiful thing: Architect Michael Maltzan’s “Lens” Wins St. Petersburg Pier Competition.

I love green and futuristic architecture. It makes me wish I had a friend like Ted Mosby in real life to push towards my vision of a green city.

Disclaimer!

Until we can have gadgets on the new Dynamic layout, this is my disclaimer. Three cheers for Legal!

This is my personal blog. I am sharing my personal advice, news, tips and thoughts on a bunch of different stuff. But I should make very clear that absolutely nothing on any of my posts here represents the views and opinions of Google Ltd.

Playing With AdWords Editor

Argh, I hate when meetings are cancelled at the last minute. Oh well, guess I'll go and do some real work.

Here's some proactive advertiser support: If you manage many or large accounts, have you considered using AdWords Editor? The tool is incredibly functional, and does tonnes of nifty things. Been playing with uploading mass amounts of location targetting options this morning, something which would be impossibly mind numbing in the AdWords interface.

One Day Left Till Friday

Logging into phones once more - another exciting day ahead! :P

The DART never runs on time anymore. I should really have started getting the earlier one a while ago. Having said that, I should really have topped up my phone a while ago. And I should have started planning my holiday. Yeah, this sounds good. I think I'll action this one as Priority Level 1 today. Not before I scour the pages of Mashable first though. My favourite article for today: Obama Wants to Answer Your Questions In A Google+ Hangout.

I got this stuck in my head all day. #GuiltyPleasure after all those years of teasing my Dad for listening to Abba.

Pay Day

Always a good day. Just realised that the Irish Government took 41% of my bonus! Still, it's nice to be reminded I'm not paying 40% income tax.

Got a couple more hours to spare before I need to make dinner (chicken pasta with my own home made sauce and everything!) so I think I'll whack open CodeAcademy and run through a few more lessons.

Intro

Hi, my name's El. I am currently 23 years old, and work as an Online Media Associate for Google in Dublin, Ireland.