Wyszdom

5:02:32
Girl: Hi!

5:02:33
Me: Hi! What’s up?

5:24:41
Girl is offline.

Sharing
There’s a new Google+ commercial out that shows off a pretty convenient feature of the mobile app. You can turn on a setting that automatically adds photos that you take on your phone to a private album in Google+, so you can easily share the photo later from your computer (or any other device). I use this pretty often; I’ll take some photos on the go, and then share them in a Google+ post later when I have access to a full keyboard. You should try it out if you haven’t already! You’ll probably find yourself sharing more if you have it enabled.

Backup
Since I almost never connect my phone to a computer, I like to store my photos locally, and I’m really into backups, I go a step further with a couple of additional apps: Dropbox and Dropsync. Dropbox, as you probably already know, is a cloud-based storage service. It has a web interface, and also apps that allow you to easily access your documents on your various devices. When I upload my photos to Dropbox from my phone, I can easily transfer them to the local storage on my computer where I store and manage all of my photos. What Dropsync does is keeps any folders you choose automatically in sync with an associated folder on Dropbox. What I do is keep my entire “Camera” folder in sync, which is where the Camera app on Android stores photos and videos. What’s nice about this combination is that Dropsync will upload the full-resolution photos (and videos) to Dropbox (I also bought a Dropsync PRO key for unlimited file size and instant uploads), so it’s a real backup. Google+ is great for sharing, but it limits free photos to 2048 x 2048 pixels. Not a bad deal for unlimited photo uploads, but I use the Dropbox solution in conjunction with Google+ in order to have a complete backup of the original files. So far this has worked out pretty well, though on a recent trip with flaky Internet connections I had a couple of videos that weren’t automatically synced to Dropbox, so it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on things and transfer manually if necessary.

Update on February 24, 2012: Dropbox has just updated their mobile app to allow automatic uploads of photos and videos. It doesn’t have all of the fine-grained controls of Dropsync, but I’m trying it out now without Dropsync disabled as it looks like it does everything I need.

The following is a recent email exchange between me and my manager. He’s so understanding about my interests!

From: Me
I caught a bug this weekend and I’m trying to figure out what it is. I’ll be in late today.

From: Mr. Manager
Don’t worry about coming in! You should see a doctor.

From: Me
Thanks for understanding! I just came back from an entomologist. She says it’s a Lichnanthe albopilosa.

From: Mr. Manager
Oh, wow. How are you feeling?

From: Me
Well, she said it’s pretty rare to find one where I did, so that’s exciting. Should be dead soon. Have  great weekend!

On the day before Halloween, Jason and I hijacked one of Nelson’s Google+ posts with an argument about Tootsie Rolls. On the day after Halloween, I found this at my desk.

Thanks, Jason.

I visited the Tesla Store on Santana Row back in April when they opened and took a ride in the Roadster Sport. I returned to the store yesterday to pick up my order check out the Model S, Tesla’s first sedan. They’re saying that deliveries will begin next summer.

It’s a good-looking car, and more comfortable to sit in (and get in and out of) than the Roadster. The interesting part for me was hearing about the electronics system. Some of my mental notes, which may or may not be accurate:

• 3G provider unannounced, but “probably Verizon or AT&T, because who else is there?”
• You can create a WiFi hotspot from the 3G connection
• Navigation maps are from Google, and the data is live from the Internet
• 4 USB ports for hooking up your various devices
• System is Linux-based, and there will be apps available. One example: Netflix, so you can “watch while the car charges.”
• Remote control/monitoring features will be available via an iPhone app. Other platforms could be supported as well via the API that will be released.

This has been a sad time. Steve Jobs passed away on Wednesday. Tonight, I learned that a friend, also an Apple employee, was killed in an accident a month ago. I was just talking about him at lunch today.

Skip Haughay and I met at the opening of the Apple Store in the Christiana Mall in Delaware in 2004.  In the summer of 2006, Skip and I coincidentally both began contract work at Apple and Google, respectively. He told me about when he first passed Steve Jobs in the hallway. Steve had a tray of food. Skip’s boss noticed that he was in shock from the sighting of his idol, and simply explained, “He needs to eat too.” A few months after Skip started working with Apple on a project basis, I got this email:

Hey Wysz:

Call me.  You need to talk to Apple's newest iPod software engineer.

Skip

We began our full-time positions with the companies on the same day. We didn’t hang out much, but we’d occasionally email each other extremely dorky messages whenever Apple or Google was in the news. He continued to be a complete Apple fan, and would excitedly send me quick notes with pictures from launch parties or even the latest poster in the main lobby. One subject line read, “Look at this new t-shirt! This company rocks!” He hosted me for a couple of lunches at Apple, and I had him over to lunch at Google. He was excited to see the dogs that people brought to work.

He absolutely loved horses and Apple, so I’m pretty sure he was living his dream. I took this picture of Skip and Woz when we went to a Segway Polo match in San Francisco.

If you were close to Skip, feel free to send me an email. I have a couple more pictures I can share.

I’ve never written this down before or even really talked much about it, but I still remember many details from that day. I’m recording them now.

It was a Tuesday. I was a senior in high school, sitting in the Media Lab, since I didn’t have a class during the first period. Another student in the room was on the internet and saw that a news site (I think it was CNN) was reporting a plane crash at the World Trade Center. We went into the next room and turned on the TV. At the time, they were reporting that a small plane had crashed into one of the towers. It sounded like it was an accident.

I had brought my Spanish homework into the room, and was looking down at my book doing work that was due later that day. The news station had live audio from a woman in New York who was describing what she saw via telephone, with a live shot of the towers on the screen. I heard her scream, and looked up at the TV when the second plane, which was a large jet, hit. We instantly knew that it wasn’t an accident.

I called my mom and told her to turn on the TV. She already had it on. She wasn’t sure where my uncle (her brother) worked in New York. I sent him an email to see if he was okay. I felt weird asking him that, so I told him I just wanted to confirm that I had his correct email address.

At 9:15 we had to go to a regularly scheduled assembly. I don’t remember what the topic was. As I walked to the theater, I saw other students making their way over there as well, coming from their first class of the day. I remember thinking, “Do they even know?” I presume most of them didn’t; I didn’t hear anyone talking about the news. The assembly started, and I was surprised that no announcement was made beforehand about what had happened. At the end of the assembly, the principal took the mic and told everyone about the morning’s events. This is when I heard about the plane crash at the Pentagon, which happened during the assembly.

Soon after the assembly, I heard that a fourth plane had crashed “near Pittsburgh.” My grandparents lived near Pittsburgh.

The rest of the day was spent getting updates and information. My uncle emailed back saying that he was okay. The crash near Pittsburgh happened in a field. Many major news websites were slow or inaccessible, and the Ukrainian teacher who ran the computer room was reading less-trafficked Russian news sites and translating for us. My dad could see the smoke rising from New York during his commute home from New Jersey.

Just over two weeks later, I went on my first flight after the attacks. At the airport and on the plane, newspapers prominently displayed daily headlines about the attacks. I noticed that a large knife was left unattended just behind the counter of a post-security restaurant. On the plane, the flight attendant quietly asked the passengers in the front row if they would help him in the case that “something should happen.”

Ten years later, I was again in the airport. There was nobody in front of me at the security line. I wasn’t frisked and there was no full body scan. I read some 9/11-related posts on my phone, mixed in with pictures posted by my friends. After we took off, I read, had some wine and a salad, watched Good Will Hunting, and fell asleep. It was a pleasant flight.

Like many Googlers and Google fans, I’ve acquired drawers full of Google t-shirts. It’s also a normal occurrence around Mountain View to see people protecting themselves from the sun with Google hats and and colored sunglasses. But what you may not expect, is that if you look down at my feet, you’ll often see a little more Googliness. This actually happened to me once on an airplane. The passenger sitting next to me asked, “Do you work for Google?” I looked down, trying to spot which Google sweatshirt I was wearing, but I didn’t see a Google logo. How did he know? I asked him. “You’re wearing Google socks,” he said. Yes, I have Google socks. I have many Google socks. I collect them.

The first Google socks that I collected are these bike socks. They breathe well and come in handy now that I bike to work:

When I saw that the Google Store was offering socks with the logo stitched in colored thread, I couldn’t resist:

Oh, wow, in red now? I need some of those:

When I want to relax at home and watch a movie, that’s a perfect opportunity to bring out the Google TV slipper socks:

Or, if I’m more actively browsing YouTube, I sport the You “Tube” socks:

But what are Google socks without Google shoes? My mom, knowing that I like both Google and colorful shoes,* designed these for me. They have all of the Google colors and say “WYSZ” on the toe.

When I was at a recent Google event in Vermont, someone asked, “Are those Google-issued shoes?” Yes, they are. Google hooked us up with Google-colored Converse shoes. I was representing the green:

Not all of my search engine footwear is Google-branded. I recently started wearing Yahoo! shoes, with Google socks as protective insulation of course.

Why? Because competition keeps us on our toes.

* In fifth grade, I had a teacher who always wore colorful shoes. I decided that when I grew up, I would get colorful shoes too.