Did Google forget to renew their certificate? - No

Here's what I get on all my Google accounts. Is this a joke?
Apparently Google did not renew their certificate and I have to define exceptions for all Google properties.

What's the point of having a certificate then?

Turns out (Thanks Ran) - My computer somehow went back several years in the past.
As a result, my date was not correct and Google's certificates were expired.
It's still strange that they were expired but who cares :)

Slideshare adds are evil

I love Slideshare, I think it's a great site to put a slides deck and even a paper to share.
See here my latest:
http://www.slideshare.net/MbayeSmadja/webcentives-smadja-toluna
or
http://www.slideshare.net/MbayeSmadja/webcentives09-smadja (the paper).

However they started putting some really evil ads and I am thinking of stopping to use Slideshare completely. I cannot share a link with people that contains so ugly ads.

See what they gave me when I connected to it from Spain.

Gmail down?

Already more than 15mn that gmail is not responding.

Apparently I'm not the only one: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23gmail+OR+Gmail

Update:

I think that there are many people affected: 

http://digg.com/software/Gmail_Down_12

http://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+down

I am on Reversim.com

Just did a fun podcast on http://reversim.com with my friends Ran Tavori and Ori Lahav.

Check it out (All in Hebrew).

It's about what makes a good engineer.

Frank

Chrome and Youtube issues

We're sorry, this video is no longer available....

Interesting how sometimes even Google can be sloppy.  I am getting a lot of errors on youtube if I use Google Chrome.  The message I get is:

"We're sorry, this video is no longer available...."  

If  I copy the URL and put it in IE or FF then all works well. I think Youtube should put a warning:  "This site is optimized to work with Microsoft IE" :)

Apparently, I am not the only one also: http://antivirus.about.com/b/2008/09/03/googles-chrome-may-need-polishing.htm

Anybody has a workaround for this or should we wait for the next update of Chrome?

Another Gmail issue - Import contacts

Sometimes I am wondering how bugs like that could slip through Google's nets.
While trying to switch gmail accounts, I tried to export my contacts from one account in order to export them onto the other one.

It just doesn't work the message I get is:


Oops. An unknown error occured while importing your contacts.


Come on Google do something here.

I am a PC Weenies guest!!

Hey I finally made it big, I am a PC Weenies guest.
All this thanks to my previous post on slow typers :)

Check this out: http://pcweenies.net/2008/06/04/guest-starring-frank-smadja/

My gmail account is locked down!@!

Google is going crazy on me. While I was normally trying to send an email by clicking on "compose" in gmail, I got locked out of gmail and got this ugly message: "Your account is locked down because of suspected unusual activity"

Google says:
Unusual account activity includes, but is not limited to:

1. Receiving, deleting, or downloading large amounts of mail via POP in a short period of time.
2. Sending a large number of undeliverable messages (messages that bounce back).
3. Using file-sharing or file-storage software, browser extensions, or third party software that automatically logs in to your account.
4. Leaving multiple instances of your Gmail account open.
5. Browser-related issues. Please note that if you find your browser continually reloading while attempting to access your Inbox, it’s probably a browser issue, and it may be necessary to clear your browser’s cache and cookies.

I am sometimes doing number 4 - That is using gmail on several browsers, but I was not doing this this morning.

This is a serious issue as I am incapacitated without my email, docs, address book, etc. Nobody to speak to at Google. Any idea, suggestion?

Luckily my Blogger account is not locked down.

*UPDATE* - Google unlocked my account after a couple of hours. I got scared and started thinking of a plan B. No harm done this time.

Things I don't like and things I like

• I hate it when I am doing a chat session with somebody who is a slow typer
• I love it when code I write runs on the first try
  

Searching attachments in Gmail

I have been wondering this for about a year now, my answer to myself has always been: "They are probably working on it and by the time you blog about it it will be avalaible for all."

Well, it's been over a year now and it still is not available yet; so here it is:

Why can't I search my attachments from withing Gmail??

I mean, if somebody sends me an attachment in an email, there is no way for me to search within this attachment that I know of. The only workaround I found so far is to import the attachment to Google docs and then it becomes searchable from within Google docs. But I mean this is really cumbersome.

Isn't Google supposed to organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful? How about my own information?